Here it must be remembered that the facilities for travel and transportation were then very different from the present expeditious methods by railway and express. Fifty years ago journeys were slowly and expensively accomplished; and in leaving her effects with a cousin she felt they were safe, and that she would return for them; and she had not the remotest suspicion of the use to be made of one of the manuscripts by fraudulent men almost immediately after her departure from Hartwick.

Soon after Mrs. Davison went to Munson the whole country was filled with an agitation in regard to a new religious faith called Mormonism; and the report that it was founded on Solomon Spaulding's romance, "Manuscript Found," quickly followed, to the immense surprise of Mrs. Davison, Mrs. McKinstry, and every one connected with the author of that remarkable and unfortunate novel. Then a report was directly carried to these ladies, that a great meeting of Mormons had been held at Conneaut, Ohio, and that on one occasion, when the "Book of Mormon" was read before the assemblage, John Spaulding and Mr. Lake, the former partners of Solomon Spaulding, and many other persons who were present, recognized its similarity to the story called "The Manuscript Found," with which they had been so familiar years before (see statements 4th and 5th, Appendix) in that very locality.

She was not a little excited over what she heard of the Mormons, and Mrs. McKinstry says she remembers how her mother talked on the subject, expressing a firm conviction that Sidney Rigdon had copied the manuscript, which had been in Mr. Patterson's office in Pittsburg. She also said at this time that Mr. Spaulding had assured her that he recovered his original manuscript when Mr.

Patterson refused to publish it; and she never wavered or doubted in this belief.

That the Mormons agreed with her in this conviction, and felt that their exposure and ruin were certain if the Spaulding manuscript remained in existence, is proved by the trick which they practised to get it into their possession. Previous to this time, when the Mormon fraud was inaugurated at Palmyra, the report of it naturally reached Hartwick; and some one who was acquainted with the fact that Spaulding's writings were in the hands of Jerome Clark applied to him requesting to see them, and he refused. He probably allowed persons interested, whom he could trust, to look over the contents of the old trunk. A son of this Mr. Clark, now residing in Sonoma, California (see Appendix No. 6), wrote to the author that when he sold his father's farm near Hartwick, in 1864, the old trunk known to the family as having belonged to the Spauldings was still in the garret. Mrs. George Clark also remembers "that Mrs. Davison once while visiting them gave her a manuscript to read written, as she said, by Mr. Spaulding, as a pastime to while away the days of sickness." From these letters of the Clarks it appears that Mrs. Davison spent some time with them at Hartwick "nearly fifty years ago, and went from there direct to Munson, Mass."

Later, she sent word to these relatives to sell the furniture which they had stored for her, but the trunk remained. Mrs. McKinstry states that her mother fully intended to return to Hartwick. Certain events occurred to prevent it, which are not necessary to be related here.

It will be subsequently seen that "The Manuscript Found" was stolen from her.

Onondaga Valley, Hartwick, and Palmyra, being contiguous in central New York, the story of the Spaulding manuscript was familiar to many people, as well as to the residents of Conneaut, where the first great conference of the Mormons was held.

Of the professed converts to Mormonism, so long as it suited a scheme he had to make money out of it, was one Dr. D. P. Hurlburt, a man of good address and fine personal appearance. He was sent by a committee, as he at the time represented the matter, to visit Mrs. Davison at Munson, Mass., and ask permission to carry "The Manuscript Found," written by Solomon Spaulding, to Conneaut, in order to compare it with the " Book of Mormon.”

Further on in these pages there is an account of an interview with this Dr. Hurlburt, who was still living at Gibsonburg, Ohio, in November, 1880.

The perfect familiarity of the Mormon leaders with the history of the Spaulding manuscript at the time is proved by Dr. Hurlburt's method to obtain it. His visit to William H. Sabine, at Ononodaga Valley, to procure a letter of introduction to Mrs. Davison, with a request from him to let Hurlburt have the manuscript, was a subtle and clever contrivance, undoubtedly suggested by Joseph Smith, who was acquainted with his former employer's peculiarities, his probity of character, and unquestionable willingness to assist in proving the "Book of Mormon” to be a plagiarism of Spaulding's romance.

In the year 1834 Dr. Hurlburt, after procuring a letter of introduction to Mrs. Davison from her brother, William H. Sabine, at Onondaga Valley, proceeded in his nefarious scheme for obtaining the original Spaulding "Manuscript Found." When he appeared at Munson, Mass., equipped with this letter and the re

quest it contained, that Mrs. Davison should write an order to Jerome Clark to give him the manuscript, both Mrs. Davison and Mrs. McKinstry distrusted his motives

at once.

With a woman's quick perception of character, they each had an intuition, from something in his personal appearance, that he was deceptive, and that he visited them for no good purpose. He told them that he had been a convert to Mormonism, but was now convinced of its fallacies and plagiarisms, and had come to them to ask their assistance in exposing the shameful imposition to the world.

With all his honeyed words, Mrs. Davison disliked the man. She was careful to have her daughter with her during the interview, and so unwilling was she to yield to her brother's request to loan the manuscript, that she requested Dr. Hurlburt to stay over night that she might reflect thoroughly upon the matter; and it was only after his protracted waiting, and his repeated and apparently sincere assurances that he would in due season return the manuscript, that she at last gave him the order to Jerome Clark, at Hartwick, to deliver it into his temporary keeping.

This unfortunate surrender, Mrs. McKinstry says, her mother regretted to her dying day, since it was entirely against her better judgment, and that she only yielded in deference to her brother's demand, as she had great respect for his opinion.

Very soon after Hurlburt left Munson the ladies heard directly from Mr. Clark, that he had given him "The Manuscript Found," and that he "opened the old trunk for the purpose."

Lieutenant Gunnison, in his "History of Mormonism," says that Clark either by accident or design retained a

part of the manuscript, which accounts for the report that years after a quire of paper was found in the trunk with Spaulding's first attempt at the romance.

So far we have traced "The Manuscript Found" to the care of Hurlburt, who gave his most unqualified and sacred promise to return it to its proper owner; but from the time it was intrusted to his keeping, no member of Mrs. Davison's family has ever seen it.

A few weeks after Jerome Clark placed it in Hurlburt's hands, at Hartwick, Mrs. Davison and her daughter, as well as other members of the family, learned that a manuscript, said to be the one Hurlburt had received, was shown and read at Conneaut; but this report was never completely verified.

Mrs. Davison made repeated requests by letter to Hurlburt to return her property, but he never responded by message or letter to her demands, or noticed her appeals in any manner, and entirely ignored the matter.