The Plausible Conspiracy
In this conspiracy, the 116 pages pass from Flanders Dyke to Abner Cole. Cole takes the pages with him when he moves to Rochester, New York in 1832. Coming to the greater Palmyra area in November 1833 is Doctor Hurlbut, a disaffected member from Kirtland, Ohio. Hurlbut gathers affidavits about the character of the Smiths and Martin Harris in Palmyra. Having acquired the Spalding Manuscript on this research trip, in this theory Hurlbut goes to Rochester to meet with Abner Cole. Cole gives the 116 pages to Hurlbut. Hurlbut gives two manuscripts to E. D. Howe. Howe publishes Mormonism Unveiled in 1834. When the Spalding Manuscript is found in the possession of L. L. Rice in 1884, newspaper accounts report that L. L. Rice had two manuscripts—plural—in his possession.
The 116 Pages passes from Dyke to Cole
Flanders Dyke is handed the 116 pages or takes the pages in early July 1828. He passes them off to Abner Cole, his neighbor. By the time Cole receives the pages, he is practicing law on Main Street in Palmyra. He has few clients, having been discredited due to defaulting on a $10,000 federal government loan and his properties sold at a sheriff’s sale to pay his bills. Whatever social status Cole had achieved in years past as a justice of the peace and property entrepreneur is gone.
Seeing a way to regain his status by altering and printing his version of the 116 pages, Cole looks for the right opportunity to gain access to a press. Access to a press comes his way a year later. In August 1829 Cole closes his law practice and accepts employment at the E. B. Grandin print shop as a compositor of the Book of Mormon. The print shop was noisy, crowded, and overall not a good work environment. Yet it provided Cole with the opportunity to learn the business of printing and gain access to a press.
In August 1829 Hyrum Smith began bringing pages of the Book of Mormon manuscript to E. B. Grandin. The first edition of The Reflector with Abner Cole as owner and editor is printed on September 2, 1829 on the Wayne Sentinel press in the E. B. Grandin print shop. In The Reflector, Cole prints part of the Book of Mormon in late December 1829 – 1 Nephi 1:1-3, 1 Nephi 2:4-15, and in January 1830, Alma 43:22-40. Of greater interest to us are Cole’s commentaries on the content of the Book of Mormon. He demonstrates in his commentaries that he has greater understanding of the Book of Mormon than access to the printed pages. For example, as early as September 23, 1829 Cole writes of “New Jerusalem” and describes it as “a gathering place in the last days” an account not printed on Grandin’s press until months later. This may evidence his access to the 116 pages.
The Abner Cole—E. D. Howe Connection
In the very month that Abner Cole begins printing The Reflector—September 1829—E. D. Howe in the Painesville Telegraph printed the article “Golden Bible” from the Palmyra Freeman in his newspaper. Howe then writes to William W. Phelps, a newspaper publisher in Canandaigua, New York, requesting more information about Mormonism. Phelps replies by penning, “We have nothing by which we can positively detect it as an imposition, [but] if it is false, it will fail, and if of God, God will sustain it.” Over a year later on March 12, 1831, E. D. Howe published a letter from persons in Palmyra “on the subject of Bible imposture.” The letter was signed by ten residents of Palmyra. The prevailing theory is that the letter was written by Abner Cole to E. D. Howe one week before Cole shut down The Reflector.
Was the letter more than a response to questions rising about Mormonism? Yes! E. D. Howe had a connection to Palmyra. The Wayne Sentinel of January 9, 1829 carried the following announcement:
Asahel D. Howe of Norwalk, Ohio, formerly of this village (Palmyra) has recently been detected purloining money from the U.S. Mails, while acting as assistant Post Master. He was arrested and held to bail to appear before the U.S. State District Court; after which he left the place. He was again arrested at Euclid [Ohio] a few days after, and conveyed to Columbus, to be tried at the U.S. District Court, then in session. It is said a large amount of bank bills, thus purloined, were found in his possession.
Why is this significant? Asahel Howe was a younger brother of E. D. Howe. He served with E. D. Howe as an editor of the Painesville Telegraph. The placement of his brother Asahel as editor was not pleasing to Sidney Rigdon, who stated that he knew of “scandalous immoralities about the Howe family of so black a character that they had nothing to lose” in persecuting the Mormons. Joseph Smith wrote, “Asahel Howe, one of E. D.’s brothers who was said to be the likeliest of the family, served apprenticeship in the work house in Ohio for robbing the post office.”
Abner Cole passes the 116 Page Manuscript to Doctor Hurlbut
Abner Cole ended his tenure as editor of The Reflector on March 19, 1831, exactly one week after sparing with Thomas Baldwin, a fellow attorney and the man who had a law office in the E. B. Grandin store when the Book of Mormon was being printed.
In February 1832 Cole moved to Rochester, twenty-nine miles from Palmyra. He set up a newspaper office at 24 Reynolds Arcade and started the weekly paper Liberal Advocate. In this paper, Cole made disparaging remarks about Joseph Smith and Mormonism. The paper had a print run from 1832 to November 1834. Cole was forced to close the newspaper due to poor health. He died in 1835.
In 1833 Doctor Hurlbut comes to the greater Palmyra after being hired by an anti-Mormon committee to “collect data that would prove the ‘Book of Mormon’ to be a work of fiction and complete[ly] divest Joseph Smith of all claims to the character of an honest man . . . and to search for the Spalding Manuscript to discredit the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith.”
Before reaching Palmyra, he goes to the home of a cousin of Solomon Spalding in Otsego County, New York. There he took the Spalding Manuscript away from the Spalding family with promises of returning it. This suggests that he would take other documents if presented to him. With the Spalding Manuscript in-hand, Hurlbut comes to Palmyra.
From November to mid-December 1833, he lectured in Palmyra and collected statements from local residents. Palmyra resident Cornelius R. Stafford recalled that Hurlbut spoke at the local schoolhouse and took statements from those in the audience about the flawed character of the Smiths. That Hurlbut had an agenda in Palmyra was obvious to Benjamin Saunders, who said that Hurlbut “came to me but he could not get out of me what he wanted; so he went to others.” The Wayne Sentinel printed on December 6, 1833 reported, “Doct P. Hurlbut was in the community” in “behalf of the people of Kirtland for the purpose of investigating the origin of the Mormon sect.”
The research efforts of Hurlbut in Palmyra were “muck raking.” Every idle story, every dark insinuation was pressed into service to gratify his personal desire for revenge, and to aid the enemies of the Prophet Joseph Smith in destroying his influence and overthrowing the Restoration movement.
As Hurlbut gathered affidavits on his research trip, the theory is that Hurlbut goes to Rochester to meet with Abner Cole. At their meeting Cole, who was struggling greatly with health issues, gave the 116 pages to Hurlbut who he knows is heading back to Kirtland. Hurlbut leaves Western New York with two manuscripts in-hand—the Spalding Manuscript and the 116 page manuscript.
Doctor Hurlbut passes the 116 Page Manuscript to E. D. Howe
When Hurlbut returned to Kirtland in mid-December 1833, he again lectured against Joseph Smith and the Restoration. In December 1833, E. D. Howe wrote, “Hurlbut returned to Ohio and lectured on the Origin of Mormonism and the Book of Mormon. I heard him lecture in Painesville.”
In January 1834 Doctor Hurlbut left affidavits and manuscripts collected on his trip to the east with Howe. There was an understanding reached between Hurlbut and Howe regarding the Spalding Manuscript—“when he had examined [the manuscript], he should return it to the widow” of Solomon Spalding. Howe claimed the manuscript was destroyed by fire, but it was not. The claim of burning the manuscript sounds all too familiar.
After examining the Hurlbut material, Howe agreed to purchase the material from Hurlbut. Howe wrote, “[Hurlbut] came to me to have the evidence he had published. I bargained to pay him in books.” Howe spent the next ten months preparing for publication Mormonism Unvailed. What is most damning to the character of Howe in Mormonism Unvailed is his continual references to the Book of Mormon being a copy of Solomon Spalding’s work yet he has the Spalding manuscript in his possession. If we are looking for a man who created fake news, Howe is the man.
The Whereabouts of the Spalding Manuscript
The Howe printing business was sold to L. L. Rice in 1839 or 1840. Rice sold out and moved to Honolulu. In 1884 L. L. Rice discovered that he had in his possession the Spalding Manuscript that was once in possession of E. D. Howe. L. L. Rice made a copy of the Spalding manuscript with erasing marks, etc. What is interesting is that as newspaper reporters wrote of L. L. Rice finding the Spalding manuscript, they wrote of manuscripts—plural.
The Spalding manuscript is housed in the library at Oberlin College in Ohio. If we choose to follow this plausible conspiracy theory, searching the L. L. Rice collection at the Oberlin College is a must.