When to this evidence already adduced is added, as will be done, conclusive proof of the identity of the salient features of the Book of Mormon and Spaulding's rewritten "Manuscript Found," it would seem that the case of plagiarism through Rigdon's complicity is established beyond reasonable doubt. The Mormon objector, however, insists that no possible connection between Rigdon and Smith has ever been shown to exist prior to 1830, and that, therefore, even if Rigdon did steal the manuscript, Smith could not have obtained it for use as a help in preparing the Book of Mormon. It would seem as if the facts above recited should, even if unaided by more direct evidence, raise an almost conclusive presumption of the existence of an undiscovered connection between the two. But we are not confined to an inference from such evidence alone. There are still more pointed evidentiary circumstances to which we will now give attention. Parley Parker Pratt was born at Burlington, Otsego County, N.Y., April 12, 1807, of parents who later resided at Canaan, Columbia County, N.Y. [85] During his sixth year (1813) he went to reside with his father's sister, named Van Cott, [86] which name afterward became conspicuous in the early history of Utah. In 1826 Pratt spent a few months with an uncle in Wayne (formerly Ontario) County, N. Y. [87] [Footnote 85: "Autobiography of P.P. Pratt," 17.] [Footnote 86: "Autobiography of P.P. Pratt," 19.] [Footnote 87: "Supplement 14, _Millennial Star_," 1.] This, it will be remembered, is the same county in which Smith was at that time gaining much newspaper notoriety as a "peep-stone" money digger [88] through mention made of him in papers published in several counties in southern New York and northern Pennsylvania. [89] While Smith was thus working the gullible of his neighborhood with his necromancy, Pratt was a peddler, who, it is said, knew almost everybody in western New York. [90] At that time Ontario County took in all the territory of several counties as now bounded, and in 1820 had only a population of 80,267. [91] Pratt, therefore, could hardly have helped knowing Smith's fame, which was such as at once to have suggested him as the star actor in any scheme of fraud requiring a prophet. In view of Pratt's subsequent connection with the Wells family, [92] who were Smith's neighbors and friends, [93] it is more than probable that he knew the Smiths personally in or prior to 1826, although, of course, they would carefully guard the fact of such acquaintance from publicity as a most important secret. [Footnote 88: "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," 27.] [Footnote 89: "Braden-Kelly Debate," 47.] [Footnote 90: "Hand Book of Mormonism," 3.] [Footnote 91: Compendium, 11th Census.] [Footnote 92: "Autobiography of P.P. Pratt," 37.] [Footnote 93: "Joseph Smith, the Prophet," by Lucy Smith, 101-2-3.]