PREFACE.

THE rapid growth of Mormonism and the grave political aspect it has assumed render it one of the most important topics of current reform.

The time seems ripe for giving to the public its true origin, and for the re-telling of an old story, with the addition of facts and circumstances that have not hitherto been printed.

A deeper interest may be felt in this attempt to cut to the very root of this monstrous parasite upon our American civilization, by my stating here that the Rev. Solomon Spaulding, the author of the romance called "The Manuscript Found," from which the "Book of Mormon" was formulated, was my mother's uncle by marriage; that this romance was for a long time in the house of my grandfather, William Harvey Sabine, near Syracuse, New York, and that it contained no suggestion of polygamy.

With the intention of writing these pages I visited Mrs. McKinstry, the daughter and only child of the Rev. S. Spaulding, in Washington, D. C., in 1880, and she then made a sworn statement as to her father's authorship of the work which has been used with such disastrous effect by crafty men. (Appendix No. 1.)

This venerable lady at the time mentioned was seventyseven years of age, but in sound health and possessed of

excellent memory. She resided for fifty years at Munson, Mass., where she is favorably known, as well as her son, Dr. McKinstry, of Long Meadow, near Springfield, Mass., and her son-in-law, Mr. Seaton, chief clerk of the Census Bureau, Washington, D. C.

With Mrs. McKinstry's full consent to follow up the subject, several localities in Ohio and Central New York were visited by the writer in the autumn of 1881, and with the gleanings thus obtained, the family traditions, the letters written by aged people conversant with the topic and roused into action through the publishing of the statement referred to in the Century Magazine (then Scribner's), the following pages have been written. It is the only attempt of the Rev. S. Spaulding's relatives to set this matter in its proper light, a duty long delayed to the memory of an upright man.

ELLEN E. DICKINSON.