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Source: Church History Vol. 1 Chapter 8 Page: 144 (~1830-1831)

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144 Then he left Pittsburg in 1814, and, as we have seen, took the manuscript with him. So if Rigdon had access to it, it was before 1814.

But it is claimed that he copied it while at the publishing house of Patterson, in Pittsburg. We think this theory untenable for several reasons:-

First. Sidney Rigdon being born in 1793 was only twenty or twenty one years of age at the time. It is not likely that a boy of that age would conceive of such a scheme; besides, the testimony shows that during this period and for years after he was at home on his father's farm.

Second. It has not been shown that he resided in Pittsburg until 1822, eight years after the manuscript had left there.

Third. It has never been shown that he was associated with Joseph Smith in any way until December, 1830, and the Book of Mormon was delivered to the printer in August, 1829, and the printing all done by March, 1830.

Fourth. This theory assumes without proof that Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery, P. P. Pratt, and others were all guilty of lying, perjury, and deceit; which is not only contemptibly unfair, but has no warrant in law, nor in practice among men of honor, hence should receive no countenance by the historian.

Joseph Smith's version of the matter has already been given.

Sidney Rigdon stated, in a communication to the Boston Journal, from Commerce, Illinois, May 27, 1839:-

"In your paper of the 18th instant, I see a letter signed by somebody calling herself Maltilda Davison, pretending to give the origin of Mormonism, as she is pleased to call it, by relating a moonshine story about a certain Solomon Spalding, a creature with the knowledge of whose earthly existence I am entirely indebted to this production; for surely, until Dr. Philastus Hurlbut informed me that such a being lived, at some former period, I had not the most distant knowledge of his existence. . . It is only necessary to say, in relation to the whole story about Spalding's

(page 144)

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