The Spalding–Rigdon theory of Book of Mormon authorship is the theory that the Book of Mormon was partly plagiarized from an unpublished manuscript by Solomon Spalding. The theory first appeared in print in E. D. Howe's 1834 book Mormonism Unvailed [sic]. The theory is that Spalding's manuscript was stolen by Sidney Rigdon, who used it in collusion with Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to produce the Book of Mormon. Rigdon claimed that he was converted to the Latter Day Saint movement by reading The Book of Mormon, but Howe argued that this story was a later invention to hide the book's true origin. The theory was once extremely popular among critics of The Book of Mormon, but by the 1970s there were scholarly critiques of it.
Spalding's works Around 1812, Spalding completed a historical romance, Manuscript, Found, which "purported to have been a record found buried in the earth". He moved to Pittsburgh and reportedly took Manuscript, Found to the publisher Patterson & Lambdin. Spalding died in 1816, with Manuscript, Found unpublished.
Oberlin manuscript
An unfinished manuscript copy exists of a historical fiction by Spalding, written from 1809 to 1812, about a Roman discovery of the Americas. It is called the Oberlin Manuscript or Honolulu Manuscript. It is a historical romance "purporting to have been translated from the Latin, found on 24 rolls of parchment in a cave, on the banks of the Conneaut Creek". In 1884, this manuscript, known as Manuscript Story – Conneaut Creek, was discovered and published, and it now resides at Oberlin College. Some authors claim it parallels The Book of Mormon in theme and narrative.
Plot Manuscript Story – Conneaut Creek is a fictional story about a group of Romans who, while sailing to England early in the fourth century AD, were blown off course and landed in eastern North America. One of them kept a record of their experiences among eastern and midwestern American Indian tribes.
Full manuscript An 1885 book printed by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now The Community of Christ) said it contained the wording of the original, previously unpublished work, and was a "verbatim copy of the original now in the Library of Oberlin College, Ohio; including correspondence touching the Manuscript, its preservation and transmission until it came into the hands of the publishers."
Hypothetical lost manuscript Though Manuscript Story – Conneaut Creek is not the same story as Manuscript Found, In 1977, nationally known graphology experts Henry Silver, William Kaye, and Howard Doulder wrote in The Los Angeles Times that they noticed similarities between Spalding's handwriting and the writing on some of the original manuscripts of The Book of Mormon. After considerable media attention, Silver and Kaye clarified that they would need to see more original manuscripts of Spalding's work to "definitely come to a conclusion".
Similarity to Book of Mormon In 1832, Latter Day Saint missionaries Samuel H. Smith and Orson Hyde visited Conneaut, Ohio, and preached from the Book of Mormon. Nehemiah King, a Conneaut resident who knew Spalding when he lived there, felt that the Mormon text resembled the story Spalding wrote years earlier. In 1833, Spalding's brother John and seven other Conneaut residents signed affidavits stating that Spalding had written a manuscript, parts of which were identical to The Book of Mormon. Spalding's widow told a similar story, and said, "the names of Nephi and Lehi are yet fresh in my memory, as being the principal heroes of his tale." These statements were published in E. D. Howe's 1834 book Mormonism Unvailed. Historian Fawn Brodie expressed suspicion about these statements, claiming that their style was too similar and displayed too much uniformity. She suggested that the witnesses had a "little judicious prompting". (Despite her suspicions about these claims, Brodie viewed Joseph Smith as a fraud who "improvised" The Book of Mormon in her study No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith.) In an article published in June 1834, the Hudson, Ohio Observer printed interviews with some of the Conneaut witnesses.
Sidney Rigdon
The theory that Sidney Rigdon was The Book of Mormon's true author first appeared in print in a February 15, 1831 article. James Gordon Bennett, who had visited the Palmyra–Manchester area and interviewed several residents, also proposed Rigdon's authorship in an August 1831 article.
Rigdon's denial In 1839, Rigdon published a letter to the editor in which he denied having anything to do with the creation of The Book of Mormon. He acknowledged a "slight acquaintance" with publisher Robert Patterson, but denied any firsthand knowledge of a printing office. He emphatically denied any prior knowledge of Spalding or his manuscripts.
Later statements supporting the theory In January 1841, Adamson Bentley said, "I know that Sydney Rigdon told me there was a book coming out (the manuscript of which had been found engraved on gold plates) as much as two years before the Mormon book made its appearance in this country or had been heard of by me." In 1873, Darwin Atwater said: "That [Rigdon] knew before of the coming of The Book of Mormon is to me certain, from what he said the first of his visits to my father's some years before [at about the close of January 1827] [...] He gave a wonderful description of the mounds and other antiquities found in some parts of America, and said they must have been made by the aborigines. He said there was a book to be published containing an account of those things. In 1879, Rebecca Eichbaum gave a statement connecting Rigdon to the Patterson & Lambdin printing office. An 1816 notice in the Pittsburgh Commonwealth shows mail at the Pittsburgh post office for both Rigdon and Spalding. In 1884, Lorenzo Saunders gave an interview in which he reportedly claimed that Peter Ingersoll introduced him to Sidney Rigdon in 1827. Who Wrote the Book of Mormon? by Robert Patterson, the son of the Patterson of Patterson & Lambdin, contains these statements and others by about 30 witnesses who knew the people involved in these events and said they knew the Spalding story was true. Rigdon's grandson, Walter Sidney Rigdon, said in an interview that the family knew that the "Golden Bible" was a hoax contrived by Rigdon and Joseph Smith Junior to make money and that it was based on the Spalding manuscript.
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