New Light on Mormonism

SOLOMON SPAULDING was born at Ashford, Conn., in 1761, of a highly respectable family of English extraction, some of whose members served as officers in the Revolutionary War.

He was educated at the Plainfield, Conn., Academy and at Dartmouth College, where he graduated in 1785, subsequently studying theology, and preached for a few years in some obscure New England town, but retired from the ministry, it is said, in consequence of ill-health. Soon after leaving Dartmouth he married Miss Matilda Sabine, of Pomfret, Conn. Next we hear of Mr. Spaulding at Cherry Valley, N. Y., where he became principal of an academy, and remained until, through the persuasion of his brother, John Spaulding, he removed to a little town in Ohio, west of Buffalo, called at the time Salem, but now known as Conneaut, Ashtabula Co. Here the Spauldings, with Mr. Henry Lake, were owners of an iron foundry, and were engaged in successful business until the War of 1812, which ruined them financially.

Solomon Spaulding, being an invalid, remained much of the time in his own house, reading and writing. He was a peculiar man, of fine education, especially devoted to historical study, the writing of essays and romances, and given to talking to his neighbors of what he had read and written.

He was greatly superior to the people generally with whom he came in contact in that part of the country, both in mental capacity and education, possessed a commanding personal appearance-being over six feet in height-and had a pleasing, intelligent countenance. With all these advantages he was naturally looked upon as a man of consequence, and his opinions and conversation were listened to with earnest consideration by his acquaintances and neighbors.

He was in the habit of frequently reading to them something he had written for their amusement and benefit, and these unique entertainments made a vivid and lasting impression upon those who were so fortunate as to attend them.

In close proximity to the Spaulding residence there were some earth-mounds; they greatly interested him, and in order to have one of them investigated he had a large and vigorous tree cut down, which, on examination, turned out to be one thousand years old. Buried within the mound were various evidences of a prehistoric race, relics of a civilized condition, mingled with human bones, which were portions of gigantic skeletons. This discovery very greatly excited him and fired his imagination. He had been the very first person, it is said, to speculate and write on the origin of the various earth-mounds in the Mississippi Valley and that region, and had long had a theory as to the peopling of this country by a race which had inhabited the whole Continent, possessing the

refinements of civilization, and which had, in some unaccountable manner, perished. The relics secured by his workmen seemed to confirm this idea; here he found tangible proofs that his theories and conversations on the subject were not the mere vagaries of a distorted and fanciful imagination, and he immediately began to write

a new romance.

The extreme antiquity of the relics belonging to the race whose history he professed to give led him to adopt the most antique style of composition, and so he imitated the Scriptures, as the most ancient book in the world; and his knowledge of the classics and histories of the olden times enabled him to introduce the odd names which were noticed by his friends, and which were afterward easily distinguished by them: In common with all antiquarians, Mr. Spaulding was aware that the mound-builders are supposed to have been very religious, as well as superstitious; but as to the nature of their religion and superstitions it is impossible to determine aught, save their striking similiarity to the religion of the modern Indians, and to that of the ancient Magi of Persia, before the days of Zoroaster.

Mr. Spaulding conceived the idea that among the prehistoric mementoes discovered by his workmen some golden plates covered with hieroglyphical writing had been found, and that he merely translated the story of a people whose wanderings and sufferings had been thereon inscribed, and of which he had deciphered the interpretation. He altered the plot of his novel after writing a portion of it. The emigrant Jews, whose story he professed to narrate, were, in the first instance, fitted out at Rome for their travels; but after reflection he started them from Jerusalem, with Levi and his four sons, under divine direction. Years after, when his manuscript ro

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