Solomon Spalding (also spelled Spaulding; February 20, 1761 – October 20, 1816) was an American author who wrote two related texts: an unfinished manuscript entitled Manuscript Story – Conneaut Creek, and an unpublished historical romance about the lost civilization of the mound builders of North America called Manuscript Found. Whether these texts are distinct is disputed. As none of his work was ever published, the titles are only working titles and thus not fixed. After Spalding's death, a number of individuals suggested that Spalding's work was used as a source by Joseph Smith Jr for the Book of Mormon, a scripture in the Latter Day Saint movement.
Biography
Spalding was born in Ashford, Connecticut to Josiah Spaulding Sr (1729-1809) and Priscilla Paine Spaulding (1734-1817). He was a member of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. In 1782, he entered Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, graduating with the class of 1785. In October 1787, he became an ordained Congregationalist preacher in Windham, Connecticut.
In 1795, Spalding married Matilda D Sabin (1805-1891) and opened a store with his younger brother Josiah Spaulding Jr (1765-1859) in Cherry Valley, New York. In 1799, they moved the store to Richfield, New York. Around this time, Spalding bought a tract of land in and relocated to Conneaut, Ohio. While in Conneaut, Spalding began writing Manuscript, Found. In 1812, due to the disruptions of the War of 1812, Spalding moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1814, he moved to Amity, Pennsylvania, where he died two years later.
The Oberlin Manuscript
From 1809 to 1812, Spalding worked on a historical fiction about a Roman discovery of the Americas. An unfinished manuscript copy of this work exists, 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". It tells of a Roman ship which discovers America.
The text of the Oberlin Manuscript was published by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church) in 1885, and by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in 1886 and 1910 under the name Manuscript, Found. In Eber D. Howe's anti-Mormon book Mormonism Unvailed, family members and other witnesses claimed that the true title of the Oberlin Manuscript is actually Manuscript Story – Conneaut Creek, and that Spalding penned another manuscript titled Manuscript, Found which bore no resemblance to the Oberlin Manuscript.
Other Manuscript
Around 1812, Spalding allegedly completed a historical romance distinct from the Oberlin Manuscript which "purported to have been a record found buried in the earth".
Unlike the Oberlin Manuscript, there is, to date, no physical evidence of this first manuscript, so the details of this other manuscript are based on testimonies originally published some twenty years later in Mormonism Unvailed.
Alleged contents of second manuscript
; Plot
According to John Spalding, Solomon's brother, the plot of Manuscript, Found told "of the first settlers of America, endeavoring to show that the American Indians are the descendants of the Jews, or the lost tribes. "Spaulding’s fiction is about a group of Romans blown off course on a journey to Britain who arrive instead in America. One of the Romans narrates the adventures of the group and the history and culture of the people they find in America." Cruel and bloody wars ensued, in which great multitudes were slain. They buried their dead in large heaps, which caused the mounds so common in this country." Spalding gave this as an affidavit to be published in Eber D. Howe's anti-Mormon book Mormonism Unvailed.