From 1834, when this alleged plagiarism was first publicly charged, until the giving of Mrs. McKinstry's evidence in 1880, it had necessarily been a matter of frequent discussion in the family circle that the Book of Mormon was a plagiarism from her father's "Manuscript Found," and always the identity of names must have been spoken of as the connecting link in the chain of evidence proving the plagiarism, since that identity of names was the principal item of evidence as it was first argued and published in 1834. With like uniformity, it was firmly believed (but as a mere matter of inference, be it remembered) that Hurlburt secured from the trunk that second manuscript, which contained these names. Hence it would be inferred by the Spaulding family that the trunk must have contained the names in question. This association of ideas through an almost infinite number of recurrences in mind became firmly impressed as a fixed fact during these forty-six years of frequent repetition. It is not strange, therefore, if, after these forty-six years, and with the failing memory of the age of seventy-four, Mrs. McKinstry should have forgotten the real origin of this association of ideas, and relate it back to the supposed inspection of the trunk manuscript and the Conneaut readings, honestly believing in her accuracy. In this conclusion Mormon authorities concur. [42] [Footnote 42: "Myth of the Manuscript Found," 29.] The only other statement which has ever been claimed as evidence showing Spaulding's rewritten manuscript to have been in the Sabine trunk is one by his widow, Matilda Spaulding-Davidson. She says that before leaving Pittsburg for Amity, her husband's manuscript was returned by the publishers. She seemingly remembers nothing of its second submission while her husband resided at Amity, or else those who wrote and signed her statement didn't see fit to mention it. "The Manuscript then [after Mr. Spaulding's death in 1816] fell into my hands, and was preserved carefully. It has frequently been _examined by my daughter,_ Mrs. McKinstry of Monson, Mass., with whom I now reside, and by other friends." [43] [Footnote 43: Boston _Daily Advertiser,_ copied in iii. _Millennial Harbinger,_ May, 1839; "Mormons' Own Book," 28; Boston _Recorder,_ May, 1839; "Prophet of Palmyra," 417.]