DAN VOGEL DISCUSSES THE SPALDING/RIGDON THEORY

[_Fortigurn]

Do you have that right Dale? A 5 mile trip on horseback takes 45-90 minutes? Was it over the Rockies?

[_Uncle Dale]

Do you have that right Dale? A 5 mile trip on horseback takes 45-90 minutes?
Was it over the Rockies?

I was thinking of the worst possible weather conditions -- saddling and unsaddling the horse,
fording Bridge Creek in flood, a tired or lame horse, etc.

Elder Rigdon could have walked over to Albert Harrington's house in about the same time
it used to take me to walk from my house to the Hilo Public Library -- (back in the days
when I could still walk that distance).

Harrington came to Ohio from NY before the Joseph Smith, Sr. family moved from Palmyra
to Manchester, so I do not know for certain that he himself was acquainted with the NY
money-diggers (as closely as his 1827 neighbor in Ohio, Gad Stafford, had been).

I use Harrington as the first example of the Manchester/Farmington/Macedon/Palmyra
emigrants in Auburn, Ohio, that Elder Rigdon would have encountered on a preaching
tour over to "Kirtland hamlet" (Auburn Corners) back in 1826 (not to be confused with
the town up north in the same Geauga Co., then called "Kirtland Mills").

Dencey Thompson Henry (the Rigdon kids' nursemaid during 1826) reported that
Sidney Rigdon compiled the Book of Mormon in cooperation with another visionary
spirit-writer, in an "adjacent" place. I think that all of Rigdon's 1820s NY neighbors ought
to be investigated. A number of them later moved west, to places like Michigan, where
they may have provided recollections of the Staffords' seer-stone, Ohio money-digging,
Amulek's (er, ah... Rigdon's) local missionary activities -- or confirming testimony of the
report from George Wilber (that Rigdon and Joe Smith met in Geauga Co., Ohio c. 1826).

UD

[_Fortigurn]

So this is assuming the horse isn't travelling on a road? This is cross country? I can walk 5 miles an hour on a flat track, so I would think a horse would be capable of a little more than that on a track.

[_Uncle Dale]

So this is assuming the horse isn't travelling on a road?
This is cross country? I can walk 5 miles an hour on a flat track,
so I would think a horse would be capable of a little more than that on a track.

Today the Taylor-May Road, running from Auburn to Bainbridge, Ohio, is a flattened
and paved surface, a dozen yards wide. In 1826 it was a blazed trail through the
wilderness that a horse-drawn wagon could have barely made it across. Not a path
upon which to gallop or trot your Kentucky quarter-horse, I'm afraid.

Also, Rigdon may have simply walked the distance over to Auburn himself -- as his
1826 neighbor, George Wilber, may have walked the same distance from Auburn
over to his employment at the school by Rigdon's cabin in Bainbridge each morning.

When I lived in the mountains of Nepal, my villager's hut was located 7 kilometers
from the local school. I walked that distance, back and forth each day, in a little
over an hour.

At any rate, Rigdon's neighbors, who were moving to Auburn from Stafford Road,
Manchester, Ontario Co., New York, and the region round about, during the 1820s,
were easily within walking distance of his Bainbridge cabin. Rigdon was no stranger
to the area. He preached the funeral sermon for Mr. Butts (about the second death
in Auburn) before he ever moved into his Bainbridge residence -- and according
to the McLellin journal entry, Rigdon was still preaching to the Auburn folks as late
as 1832, when he and Joe Smith were having joint-visions of 3 degrees of glory,
in adjacent Hiram, Ohio. ---- Maybe "joint" visions is a loaded term ---- let's just
say the two visionary Mormon leaders participated in mutual consciousness elevation,
while missionizing their peculiar brand of religion, immediately southeast of Auburn.

My question to my fellow investigators of Mormon origins is:

When did Joe and Sid's first such Ohio mutual religious vision occur?

Perhaps Eliza R. Snow Smith Young could have told us -- according to an 1877 Chicago
newspaper article, she was in about 1826-27 a young resident of Auburn (though her
family lived on both the south and north sides of the Mantua/Auburn township line).
And her sister-in-law was at that time a Rigdon neighbor in adjoining Bainbridge.

UD

[_Fortigurn]

Interesting, thanks.

[_Uncle Dale]

Interesting, thanks.

Just doing my job ---

I think that with a little bit of research we could narrow down the possible former NY neighbors
that Joseph Smith, Jr. might have been inclined to visit, on a spring 1826 journey to Auburn, Ohio.
And I think that we might also be able to narrow down that list to potentially identify the ones
who might have provided a secure location for Rigdon and Smith to work on compiling the
Book of Mormon, in Auburn/Bainbridge, during that same excursion that spring and summer.

The really useful discovery would be to uncover some previously unexamined letter or
journal entry, from one of those families or their nearby associates, identifying Smith as having
actually been so near Rigdon's residence during 1826. That would be "tough work," but I think the
possible outcome would warrant the painstaking investigation.

Of course there are those historians of Mormonism who will advise against any such new research
and reporting --- (as being totally unnecessary and an utter waste of time, now that the Spalding-Rigdon
explanation has been shown to be a "big mistake" and a "fraud" in its own right).

My daily opinion alternates between wanting to pursue these leads and dropping the whole search.
It's practically impossible for me to do much more, given my current situation here in Hawaii.

UD

[_Dan Vogel]

I'm glad to see Dale is healthy enough to post on this thread. My best wishes to him!

I'm presently putting together a post dealing with claims that Rigdon was seen at the Smiths' residence in Manchester in 1827, and hope to post it in a few days.

[_dilettante]

The question you have not answered was: "However, have you considered ways that Joseph Smith's story is closer to treasure-digging lore than it is to Spalding's story?"

My point being that Joseph Smith's story about the plates grew quite naturally out of his own environment. He wasn't following what he supposedly read on the first page of MS Story. The similarities in the two stories are due to the author's similar environments, similar tasks, and the limited ways in which to solve the problem. Joseph Smith's story is similar to MS Story, but also significantly different.

Although you didn't respond to my questions, I will respond to this one again. I do think that the Joseph Smith story was on the money on the treasure-digging lore of the day. Just as the E. T. A. Hoffmann's Golden Pot is similar. It was a very common lore in the day. Was it closer? It was the reality TV of the day. Another question could be if it was the same. They are not the same, but they are all very similar. Popular music and movies today is very similar, but not the exact same. I think you escaped your own questions of whether were close, and whether they were common.

[_dilettante]

My daily opinion alternates between wanting to pursue these leads and dropping the whole search.
It's practically impossible for me to do much more, given my current situation here in Hawaii.

I don't think that you've been alone in your opinion for many years. But if we are indeed all here for the truth, I think something just might get accomplished.

I'm glad to see Dale is healthy enough to post on this thread. My best wishes to him!

I'm presently putting together a post dealing with claims that Rigdon was seen at the Smiths' residence in Manchester in 1827, and hope to post it in a few days.

I'm prepared to read more defense presentations.

[_Uncle Dale]

I'm prepared to read more defense presentations.

I guess my position is that I have made few assertions -- given some possibilities -- and asked many questions.
It is Art Vanick, Ted Chandler and Craig Criddle who have made assertions requiring a "defense."

My continuing question, for many years, has been -- "How much more evidence need I compile, before I am
allowed access to the 'limited-viewing' materials held by the LDS and RLDS Archives, Bethany College, etc." -- ???

Leonard Arrington was very good about making materials available to me in his day -- as was the LDS Archivist,
Jim Kimball. Then, when that Slaughter guy showed up there, I was suddenly cut off from access to apostolic
papers, first presidency papers, etc. I've had similar problems in viewing certain items in Independence and in
Bethany. Without better access to primary documents, it is difficult for me to say what is available to back up
my research agenda, and what is not. For years I tried to get access to the McLellin stuff. Now it is out in two
books, the first of which documents an 1832 Rigdon preaching tour in Auburn, Ohio. I needed that back in 1979.

I'll be happy to try and answer any specific questions requiring a "defense," but most of my answers will not be
conclusions -- they will be suggestions for what I see as probably productive further investigation, in most cases.

One such suggestion: close inspection of the Stephen Post collection:
http://sidneyrigdon.com/Postidx1.htm

Uncle Dale