Excerpt from "The Mormon Imposture -- The Mormon Aborigines." by Pomeroy Tucker, published in The Wayne Democratic Press; Lyons, N.Y., Wednesday, June 2, 1858: "The exodus of the Smith family, first to some part of Pennsylvania -- preparatory to taking possession of the "Promise Land" at Kirtland, Ohio -- occurred in 1831 or '32. -- The Prophet went first, with Cowdery and a few other followers, and married a wife in Pennsylvania -- Rigdon having been instrumental in the match-making of this affair and was the officiating 'clergyman' at its celebration." http://sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/NY/miscNYS3.htm

Who the hell cares what that lecherous con artist did? He's a less interesting historical figure than than the guy who invented the toilet.

It’s a fascinating charge—one that, as far as I can tell in my extremely brief research, can neither be proved nor disproved from extant documents. However, as we know from many sources (including the site you referenced) that Rigdon was a Baptist minister in Mentor, Ohio, from 1825-1830. As you rightly point out in your own answer, there is *very* little reason to believe he ever made the trip to South Bainbridge, NY, a distance of about 550 miles. As such, the argument seems *extremely* weak, to me—a classic appeal to probability (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_probability). The other problem with this discussion is that the Spaulding manuscript—which *is* readily available—bears very little resemblance to the Book of Mormon. This is certainly not to discredit Spaulding—he is, after all, my gg-grandmother’s cousin—but rather to point out that it’s been over a century since Yale’s Dr. I. Woodbridge Riley (who was himself very anti-“Mormon”) thoroughly trounced the theory. The *Manuscript Found* theory has ever after been the *Manuscript Lost* theory, based almost entirely on the similarities between the Book of Mormon and a theoretical earlier draft of Spaudling’s work—which work, not surprisingly, has neither been found nor even proven to exist. About the only notable scholar to pursue the original Spaulding theory, since then, is the illustrious Fawn M. Brodie, and the fact that she stands virtually alone on this point forms a credit to her tenacity that I’ll leave the reader to judge. ;-) Back to the original question, though: what I’d be *very* interested to see is if anyone can find Joseph and Emma’s original marriage certificate. Unfortunately, I’m guessing if they could, it would have long since been found, and we’d have no reason to speculate at all. More to the point: following the well-known Mark Hoffman incident, I’m also guessing that whichever way the tree fell, some people would label the document fraudulent—whether it be so, or not—and keep right on thinking whatever they like. Funny, that. :-P HTH! * * * * * ETA: I just found this page, which states that Joseph and Emma “were married by a judge in South Bainbridge.” http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/01-EmmaHale.htm