SOLOMON SPALDING, A. M. was born at Ashford, East Ashford Society, Ct, in 1761, and died at Amity, Washington Co. Pa, in 1816, M. 55. In youth, he was a soldier in the Rev. army, and, leaving it, read law with Judge Zephaniah Swift of Windham, Ct, but on change of religious views sought the ministry and entered the sophomore class at Dart, at the age of 21. Graduating there, he studied divinity and became a licentiate of the Windham, Ct, Cong. Association, Oct. 9, 1787; preached 8 or 10 years and, being in this time ordained an evangelist, received several offers to settle that were declined owing to ill health. In 1795, he was married, and soon after went into business with his brother, Josiah, at Cherry Valley, N. Y. but both removed the store to Richfield, N. Y. in 1799. Here they purchased large tracts of land in Pa and Ohio, to superintend which Solomon moved to Salem, Ohio, but the war of 1812 deranged their plans and caused great losses. Josiah, then visiting his brother, found him in poor health and low spirits, writing a work of fiction, suggested by the opening of a mound, in which were discovered human bones and some relicks indicative of a former civilized race. He entitled his work a "Manuscript Found," and in it imagined the fortunes of the extinct people. Josiah left him thus employed. Not long after, probably in 1814, Solomon went to Pittsburgh, Pa, where he was followed by Sidney Rigdon, then a printer and afterwards a noted Mormon. He told his employer of Spalding's novel, who borrowed the manuscript and offered to print it. This was refused, and the author wandered to Amity, the place of his death. His widow returned to New York with the manuscript, and while absent from home, a stranger called on her and desired to examine it, that he might confirm or refute a report current in the West, that it had become the Mormon bible. She permitted him to visit her house and obtain it from a certain chest. He went and reported that he could not find it. Mrs Spalding never saw it after this. The probability is, that Rigdon copied the work at Pittsburgh and that the stranger purloined the original to avoid a future exposure. The uniform testimony of those who read the work is, that the basis and in great part the form thereof now constitute the Mormon bible. And thus a clergyman was most unwittingly and innocently the medium of a delusion, whose dimensions have become so large and its impostures so monstrous. The above facts are chiefly imbodied from a letter written by the brother in question and dated at Eastford, Jan. 6, 1855. Mr Spalding, though married, had no children.