Living in Kirtland and vicinity, and throughout northeastern Ohio, where the headquarters of the Church were established in 1831-7, there were many and very bitter enemies of the prophet Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon; and also strong antagonism towards the whole Mormon Church, since its doctrines were regarded as a menace to orthodox opinions. Among these enemies of the prophet and the Church none perhaps were more bitter than "Dr." Philastus Hurlburt, E. D. Howe, Adamson Bentley, Onis Clapp (usually called Deacon Clapp) and his two sons, Thomas J. and Mathew S. Clapp, both of whom were Campbellite preachers; Alexander Campbell, Walter Scott, both prominent in founding the sect Of the Disciples; Thomas Campbell, Dr. John Storrs, of Holliston, Mass., Dr. Austin, also of Massachusetts, all sectarian ministers, and many others. Less than fifty miles away from Kirtland, then the centre of Mormon propaganda, was Conneaut, the former home of Solomon Spaulding, and on the direct line of travel between the branches of the Church in Ohio and those in the state of New York and Canada. It is said,--but I shall develop a somewhat different account of the origin of the Spaulding theory near the close of these articles than is here set down--that "a woman preacher" [35] of the Mormon Church, holding a public meeting at Conneaut, read some passages from the Book of Mormon which the old settlers of the vicinity, and former neighbors of Solomon Spaulding, recognized as very nearly identical with a manuscript story he had read to them some twenty-two or three years before; and as he had feigned to derive this story from a certain manuscript which he pretended to have found in a stone box in a cave, which he afterwards translated into English, there was thought to be sufficient similarity between these circumstances and the Book of Mormon to warrant the charge that the latter was a plagiarism of Spaulding's manuscript. This conclusion led to the sending of "Dr. Philastus Hurlburt to the widow of Spaulding to obtain his manuscript and incidentally to visit the former home of the Smiths for the purpose of obtaining affidavits respecting their character, and more especially respecting the character of Joseph Smith the Prophet." [36] Indeed, the whole purpose of the conspirators was to overthrow Mormonism, "to up-root this Mormon fraud." [37] Hurlburt presented himself at the home of the former wife and the daughter of Spaulding, who were then living in Monson, Mass. He obtained an order from the former Mrs. Spaulding upon those with whom she had left the trunk containing the papers of her late husband, directing them to deliver to Hurlburt the "Manuscript Found." Hurlburt obtained the manuscript and returned to those who sent him upon this mission, chief among whom was E. D. Howe of Painesville, Ohio, the editor of the _Painesville Telegraph._ To Mr. Howe Hurlburt delivered the "Manuscript Found," obtained by him from the Spaulding