Immediately after Solomon Spaulding’s death at Amity, Penn., in 1816, Mrs. Spaulding and her daughter removed to the residence of William H. Sabine at Onondaga Valley (called "Hollow" at the time), N. Y., taking with her all her personal effects. According to the remembrances of certain persons now living, Mrs. Spaulding was greatly esteemed by "Squire Sabine," as he was familiarly known. She was his only sister, and a woman of intelligence, refinement, and many virtues, and he invited her to make a prolonged visit at his house in consequence of her impoverished condition. Mr. Sabine was a lawyer of distinction and wealth, a graduate of Brown University, and known throughout central New York for his legal abilities and probity of character. He was the personal friend of Judge Conkling of Utica (father of Roscoe Conkling), of Judge Strong of Onondaga Oo., and of Judge Miller of Cayuga Co. (the father-in-law of William H. Seward), and of all the leading men of that part of the State, one of the most. prominent of whom was Judge Joshua Forman, his brother-in-law and partner, whose name will always be associated with the history of our country in connection with his instrumentality in the construction. of the Erie Canal and originating the banking system called the "Safety Fund Act,” during the administration of Martin Van Buren as Governor of the State of New York, which subsequently became a law in this State, and in 1860 was adopted by the general government, and is now in general use.

Squire Sabine’s house remains in perfect preservation, is still owned by the family; and Mrs. McKinstry, in talking of it two years since, described its rooms and — surroundings as she saw them in 1816 and 1817, which correspond very closely to their present condition.

Among Mrs. Spaulding’s belongings which she conveyed to the old homestead was a hair-covered trunk, of a kind much used in those days, filled with her deceased husband’s writings, which she had preserved—sermons, essays, novels, and a manuscript, which she and all the family were familiar with, under the title of "The Manuscript Found." Mrs. McKinstry, Mr. Spaulding’s daughter, says that she perfectly remembers this trunk and its contents; that it was in the garret of the house; that she and her cousins (one of them the mother of the writer) had access to it and frequently looked it through. She remembers one set of papers or manuscripts an inch thick, closely written and tied up with some of the stories which she recognized as having been written by her father, and read to her by him at Conneaut. One of these stories was called "The Frogs of Wyndham,” and she repeated it to the writer recently, giving an imitation of her father’s comic recitation of it. One of the manuscripts she distinctly remembers to have seen had the title "The Manuscript Found.”

As she was between eleven and twelve years of age at this time, and precocious, she well understood what she saw and read. The trunk containing the manuscript is ~ understood to have been in Mr. Sabine’s house nearly three years. While it was there Mrs. Anna T. Redfield, still living in Syracuse, N. Y., eighty-three or four years of age, of sound mind and memory, and of high social position (see Appendix N o. 3), was a resident in Mr. Sabine’s family.

She also remembers hearing a great deal of a manuscript which Mrs. Spaulding said was written by her deceased husband, and the comments made upon it by Mr. Sabine and the neighbors, and their all agreeing that it was a wonderful story, both in style and substance. In after years, in seeing the "Book of Mormon,” she found names and incidents in it which she heard in connection with the Spaulding manuscript at Onondaga Valley. The writer has often heard members of her family say that Joe Smith was at one time their servant or hired man. Probably it was while Mrs. Spaulding was at Onondaga Valley.

Smith was in Onondaga sali about the time mentioned, as his name (according to Gunnison) appears in the criminal records of 1817. He was shout eighteen or nineteen years old, possibly twenty, when he was in the Onondaga County Jail for "vagrancy and debt,” and this jail was then at Onondaga Hill, two miles from Mr. Sabine’s house. An old man remembered that Smith about this time employed to "locate" water with sticks of witch-hazel, the "divining-rods” in the vicinity of Syracuse and Onondaga Valley, and there is a local tradition that he was employed to look for gold in what is supposed to be an earth-mound, a conical-shaped hill, between Syracuse and Onondaga Valley, with his "seer-stone.”

There is no reason to doubt that Joe Smith was once in the employ of Mr. Sabine as a teamster and man for out-door work, taking his meals in the kitchen, and hearing the talk of the house.

Some authors on Mormonism have said Smith stole the Spaulding manuscript while at Mr. Sabine’s; this statement is not correct. He heard of it, and from his knowledge of it was afterward prepared to use what he knew of the matter in getting up one of the greatest delusions in the history of modern times.