lacks." Mr. Spanieling prepared a " History of the Legal-Tender Paper Money used during the Great Rebellion "' (Buffalo, 1869), which is regarded as standard authority on the subject. He was chosen to deliver the address before the Banking associa- tion at t In- ( Vnfennial exposition, in which he gave a review of -One Hundred Years of Progress in the Businc-- of Banking."
SPAULDING, Levi. missionary, b. in Jaffrey,
X. II.. >.> Aug.. 1791 : d. in Ceylon, 18 June. is?:!.
He was graduated at Dartmouth in 1815, finished
his theological coursr at Andover seminary- three
years later, and soon afterward was ordained at
Salem. Mass. In 1820 he arrived as a missionary
of the American board at Jaffna, Ceylon, where he
labored fifty-four years, making but one visit to
the United States during that period. In addition to
his missionary labors, he superintended the Oodoo-
ville boarding-school for girls and prepared tracts,
hymns, and school-books in the Tamil language,
many of the best lyrics in the vernacular hymn-
book being from his pen. Among his principal
w.irks are a translation of " Pilgrim's Progress," a
" Script nre History," a Tamil dictionary (Madras,
1844), an enlarged edition of an English and Tamil
dictionary, " Notes on the Bible," and a revision
of the Scriptures in Tamil. He was one of the
most aci orate Tamil scholars in southern India,
using the language with great facility and power.
Ten days before his death " Father Spaulding," as
he was called, celebrated the fifty-fourth anniver-
sary <>f his embarkation at Boston for Ceylon, at
which time he was the oldest missionary of the
American board.
SPAULDING, Nathan Weston, inventor, b. in
the town of North Anson, Me., 24 Sept., 1829. At
the age of thirteen he began to learn the trade of a
carpenter and builder under the tuition of his
father, who was both a school-teacher and a prac-
tical mechanic. Afterward learning the trade of
a millwright from an uncle and spending a year in
a saw-factory, he had become at twenty tin- chief
mechanic of his neighborhood. Going to California
in 1851, he went at once to the mines, but did not
succeed, and was employed as superintendent of
the construction of one of the first quartz-mills in
the state. Its success led to the erection of a sec-
ond on the same stream Mokelumne river. In
1859 he opened a saw-manufactory in Sacramento,
where he began to develop an inventive talent in
the line of his business and devised the adjustable
saw-tooth that has made him widely known. The
demand for these teeth became so great that Mr.
Spaulding, finding it difficult to supply them in
sufficient quantities, was compelled to contrive
other devices, and finally brought out the chisel-
bit saw-tooth. He has also completed and pub-
lished a scale for the measurement of logs, which
has been adopted as the legal standard in Califor-
nia and other states, as also in several territories.
It is known as the Spaulding log-scale. In 18G1
he removed his factory to San Francisco, and he
has since taken part in the industrial development
of California. In 1881 he was appointed by Presi-
dent Garfield to be assistant U. S. treasurer at San
Francisco, which office he held until 20 Aug., 1885.
During that period he received and disbursed, or
safely kepi and transferred to'his successor, more
than $320,000,000 without loss. He has twice
served as mayor of Oakland, where he resides, and
had been selected by Leland Stanford as a trustee
of the Leland Stanford, Jr., university.
SPAULDING, Solomon, clergyman, b. in
Ashford, Conn., in 1761; d. in Amity, Washington co.,
Pa., 20 Oct., 1816. After serving in his youth in
the Revolutionary army, and beginning to study
law, he was graduated at Dartmouth in 1785, studied
for the ministry, and preached in New
England. In 1795 he settled in Cherry Valley, N. Y.,
where he entered into business with his brother,
and four years later in Richfield, N. Y. In 1809 he
removed to New Salem (now Conneaut), Ohio, and
established an iron-foundry with Henry Lake. This
enterprise proving unprofitable, on account of the
war with Great Britain, he went to Pittsburg, and
afterward to Amity, Pa., where he died. While
residing at Conneaut, he wrote a romance entitled
“The Manuscript Found,” purporting to be an
account of the original people of this continent, their
customs, and conflicts between the different tribes.
It pretended to be taken from a manuscript that
had been discovered in an ancient mound. Mr.
Spaulding read his manuscript to some of his
friends in 1811-'12, and tried to get it published,
but without success. In 1830 Mormon elders
preached in northeastern Ohio, and their account
of how the golden plates, from which the “Book of
Mormon” was made, had been found, brought to
mind the story written by Spaulding twenty years
before. A suspicion was raised that the “Book of
Mormon” might have been an outgrowth from the
latter. This suspicion ripened into a general
belief, and in time became the accepted theory of the
origin of the “Book of Mormon.” It is alleged that
Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon compiled the
“Book of Mormon” from Spaulding's manuscript
story, Rigdon having stolen it, or a copy of it, from
a printing-office in which he worked in Pittsburg.
In 1834 Dr. P. Hurlbut, who had been expelled
from the Mormon church, obtained from the widow
of Solomon Spaulding, Mrs. Matilda Davison, of
Monson, Mass., what was supposed to be the original
copy of the Spaulding story, and the same year
Eber D. Howe, editor of the Painesville “Telegraph,”
compiled a book entitled “Mormonism Unveiled,”
which was a severe criticism on the “Book of Mormon”
and its believers. This book was reproduced
in 1840. Upon the title-page and in the last chapter
is suggested the “probability that the historical
part of the ‘Golden Bible’ was written by Solomon
Spaulding.” From the time Mr. Hurlbut obtained
the manuscript story in 1834 up to 1884 its
whereabouts was unknown to the world. In 1884 President
James H. Fairchild, of Oberlin college, visited
his old anti-slavery friend, Lewis L. Rice, of Honolulu,
Hawaiian islands. Mr. Rice in 1839-'40
succeeded Mr. Howe in the office of the Painesville
“Telegraph,” and the books and manuscripts came
into his possession. President Fairchild asked Mr.
Rice if he had among his old papers anything relating
to the early anti-slavery movement which he
would contribute to the Oberlin library. When
examining for these he came upon “an old worn and
faded manuscript of about 175 pages of small
quarto,” which proved to be the long-lost
manuscript of Solomon Spaulding. Comparisons were
made with the “Book of Mormon,” and President
Fairchild says: “The manuscript has no
resemblance to the ‘Book of Mormon’ except in some
very general features. There is not a name or an
incident common to the two.” A verbatim copy of
the manuscript has been issued by the Mormons at
Lamoni, Iowa (1885). See “Who wrote the Book
of Mormon,” by Robert Patterson (Pittsburg,
1882); “New Light on Mormonism,” by Ellen E.
Dickinson (New York, 1885); and “Early Days of
Mormonism,” by J. H. Kennedy (New York, 1888).
SPEAR, Charles, philanthropist, b. in Bo-tou, Mii-~.. 1 May. ls(H : d. in Washington. D. '.. I* April, isij:;. " He became a Universalist mim-i.i
