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I have two stories about Andrews and Elizabeth Comins Tyler. They are both here for reference. ANDREWS TYLER & ELIZABETH COMINS TYLER Andrews Tyler, fourth child of Nathaniel arid Abigail Andrews Tyler, was born 17th of November 1779 at Boxford, Essex County, Massachusetts. He married Elizabeth Comins at Hei New York in 1806. She was born 2 June 1779 at Hoosick, Renssalaer Co. New York. They were the parents of eleven sons and one daughter. Joseph C., Nathaniel, Almira, William P., Daniel, Comfort, Ira, Hiram, Urial, John Elam, and Henry B. As Andrews was interested in religion most of this sketch deals with his entrance into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. After his father’s death, he continued his researches of the scriptures, and found that everything he read confirmed with his views. He never allowed a traveling minister to leave the neighborhood without an argument if he could avoid it, and his arguments were in no instance refuted. In the Spring of 1832, Elders Samuel H. Smith and Orson Hyde of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints came to his neighborhood and held a few meetings. At the first meeting Elder Smith read the 29th Chapter of Isaiah and delineated the circumstances of the coming forth of The Book of Mormon, of which he said he was a witness. He knew his brother, the Prophet Joseph, had the plates, for the Prophet had shown them to him, and he had handled them and seen the engravings thereon. His speech was more like a narrative than a sermon. Elder Hyde made a few closing remarks and appointed another meeting. At the close of the first meeting, Andrews as was his custom, sprung his usual question about the spiritual gifts and was quite surprised to hear Elder Smith say: “That is our doctrine, and we have those gifts in our Church.” Before leaving the place the Elders baptized three persons, Andrews soon became a bitter enemy. He admitted that the “Mormon” doctrines were true, but claimed that the members of that Church had adopted them to cover up a fraud. His son Daniel then over fifteen years of age and his Daughter believed the truth from the first, but because of the bitterness of their father, they dared not make the fact known. About December, 1832 Elder Hyrurn Smith came to their neighborhood. When Andrews saw that his daughter was bent on being baptized at the first opportunity, he told her: “If you do join them, you must never darken my door afterwards.” Her older brothers said that they would shoot any Mormon Elder who dared to baptize her. - Elder Smith, after hearing the foregoing statement remarked calmly: “Mr. Tyler, we shall not baptize your Daughter against your will. If our doctrine be true, which we testify it is, if you prevent your daughter from embracing it, the sin will be upon your head, not on ours or your daughter’s.” This remark pricked him to the heart. He began to think that possibly the Mormons were right and he was wrong. He permitted his daughter to exercise her free agency. She felt it her duty to be baptized. He took her on an ox sled to Lake Erie, a distance of two miles, where after a hole was cut through three feet of solid ice, she was baptized and confirmed in to the Church by Elder Hyrum Smith. Soon after, Andrews had a dream in which his father appeared and told him that this was the people he Prophesied of while living. Andrews, his wife and two sons were baptized. On the 12th of September, 1836, Andrews Tyler and his family left for Caldwell County, Missouri, a distance of about 1000 miles. He and his younger son died and were buried by the roadside.(2 May, 1837.) Elizabeth was the daughter of John Comins Jr. and Sarah Sibley. She died about 1840. Andrews and Elizabeth Comins Tyler Andrews ("Father") Tyler was one of the very first Erie Co. Mormons. He was baptized by Orson Hyde and Samuel H. Smith late in Feb. 1832, after attending Mormon meetings at the home of his neighbor, Joseph Hartshorn. Writing in 1883, Daniel Tyler said: "Before leaving the place the elders [Smith and Hyde] baptized three persons. My father soon became a bitter enemy." What Daniel does not say is that his father (along with John, Jr. and Erastus Rudd) was among those converts of Feb. 1832, and that "Father Tyler" probably remained at least a nominal Mormon until after the visit to his house of the "Prophet" Joseph Smith, Jr. in the second week of Oct., 1833.
Writing in 1892, Daniel
Tyler said: "...the Prophet arrived, on his way to Canada... during his short
stay he preached at my father's residence, an humble log cabin." While Andrews
Tyler allowed Joseph Smith to preach at his Springfield residence in October of
1833, by December his views regarding the Mormons had hardened considerably.
Daniel says: "About December, 1832, Elder Hyrum Smith, brother to the prophet,
came to our neighborhood. My father told him that his daughter, who was present,
was bent on being baptized into his church, stating at the same time, that the
elder who baptized her would do so at his peril." Andrews Tyler was
excommunicated on Dec. 5, 1833, probably during the time of this visit from
Hyrum Smith. Andrews Tyler was, however, eventually reinstated in the LDS Church. This happened on April 11, 1834 (almost immediately following the outcome of D. P. Hurlbut trial at Chardon). Andrews Tyler was likely one of the first causalities of the spread of the Spalding authorship allegation, and he was likely one of the first apostates to return to the fold following the Mormons' discrediting of D. P. Hurlbut. Deseret Evening News: T R U T H A N D L I B E R T Y. Vol. XI. Salt Lake City, U. T., Wednesday, January 16, 1878. No. 46. THE SPALDIN' STORY. The Spauldin' story so often exploded and so often revived I am somewhat familiar with and have been since about the year 1824 or 1825. In 1823 my father, with his family, moved from New York State to what is now West Springfield, Erie County, Pennsylvania, about four miles from the village of Salem, now Conneaut, in Ashtabula County, Ohio where "the mound builders" had made their mark. A superannuated Presbyterian preacher, Solomon Spauldin by name, had written a romance on a few mounds at the above named village, pretending that the ten tribes crossed from the eastern hemisphere via the Behring Straits to this continent, and that said mounds were built by a portion of them, to bury the dead after some hard fighting. The novel, as I was told by those who heard it read, referred to them as idolaters and not otherwise religious. I think Spauldin removed to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, prior to my information of his tale on the mounds. In 1832 Elders Orson Hyde and Samuel H. Smith preached a few times in our neighborhood and baptized three persons, among them Erastus Rudd, in whose house much of the romance was formerly written, and from whom I received much of my information. In 1833 a large branch of the Church was raised up in our township, but no talk of the Spauldin romance being connected with the Book of Mormon until about 1834 or 1835, when Henry Lake began to claim that Sidney Rigdon, Joseph Smith's counselor, had made the latter from the former, while it has often been proven that Sidney Rigdon never had any acquaintance with or even knew said Spauldin or even heard of him, and at the time, in public print, averred that until one Doctor Philander Hurlbut, well known to the writer of this article, who had been cut off the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for adultery, published said false statement, he had never heard of the romance of its author, and demanded the proof. To this day it has not been forthcoming. Previous to the publication of E. D. Howe's book (virtually the adulterer Hurlbutt's) which went in his name as everybody understood because of Hurlbutt's reputation, the said Doctor, who was not a doctor or anything else but an ignoramus, but so named by his parents because he was a seventh son, went to Pittsburg with the avowed intention of obtaining the romance to publish in Howe's (Hurlbutt's) book. He returned and the book was published minus the romance. The statement was that the novel could not be found. Thus the story went the rounds until the year 1839 or 1840 when a relative of Mrs. Spauldin, now Mrs. Davidson, wrote her, asking certain questions, among others what became of the "Manuscript Found," this being the title of the tale. Mrs. Davidson, former widow of Solomon Spauldin, wrote for [an] answer, that this same Doctor Hurlbutt came to her house and got it with the promise of publishing it in his book, and of a consideration and the return of the manuscript. Subsequently she said he wrote her that it did not read as they expected and they should not publish it, but never returned it or any consideration. Some day it will probably be found among E. D. Howe's or Hurlbutt's "old letters." Mrs. Davidson's letter will be found in files of Quincy papers and the Times and Seasons published in Nauvoo at the time. DANIEL TYLER. Note 1: Having written (for the weekly Deseret News of Jan. 16th), a resolute rebuttal of the "the original Mormon Bible" articles then circulating in some eastern newspapers, the LDS editors apparently solicited the above letter from Mormon old-timer Daniel Tyler, in order to further discredit what they called "the Spaulding nonsense." Rather than put an end to the origins controversy, the information conveyed in Tyler's letter simply opened new possibilities for further developing the old Spalding authorship claims. Note 2: Daniel Tyler (1816-1906) was baptized a Mormon in Springfield township, Erie Co., PA, on Jan. 16, 1833. He later traveled to Kirtland and was married there in 1836 before moving on to Far West, Missouri and Hancock Co., Illinois. Elder Erastus Rudd (who told Daniel Tyler about Spalding's writings), once lived just east of Spalding's old house on Conneaut Cr. (very near the north end of the OH/PA state line). Erastus was baptized an LDS in 1832-33, in or near western Erie Co., Pennsylvania. He died in Missouri, while a member of the Mormons' Zion's Camp march of 1834. Tyler moved west after the fall of Nauvoo, served in the "Mormon Battalion" during the Mexican War, and later wrote a popular history of that experience. Given his early residence in the Conneaut area and his demonstrated abilities in historical reporting, Tyler was likely a reliable witness in his telling what he knew of Solomon Spalding and Spalding's neighbors. Andrews Tyler, Daniel's father, was excommunicated from the Mormons at the end of 1833, and was probably the first Mormon to become disaffected over D. P. Hurlbut's circulation of the old Spalding authorship claims. However, Andrews rejoined the Saints a few days after D. P. Hurlbut's April, 1834 trial ended in Ohio.
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