Nov. 12, 1878 Samuel Williams Letter Theodore Albert Schroeder Papers: Box 2, folder 1. Wisconsin State Historical Society Library, Madison, WI
Partial Catalog: Theodore A. Schroeder Papers.
http://solomonspalding.com/docs/Wil1878a.htm
“Parley Pratt was a tin Pedlar who passed from Conn. out to the West who brought about the acquaintance between Rigdon and Smith. And Martin Harris furnished the first money for the publication of the manuscript. Rigdon was naturally an orator but he had not the assurance to set himself up as a miracle worker.”
THE ORIGIN OF MORMONISM by MRS. DR. HORACE EATON, of Palmyra, N. Y. The following account was read by Mrs. Dr. Eaton at the Union Home Missionary Meeting, held at Buffalo, N. Y., May 27th, 1881, over which Mrs. J. L. Graham of New York presided. It is now published by the Woman’s Executive Committee of Home Missions:
“There was a ubiquitous tin peddler in those days by the name of Parley P. Pratt. He knew everybody in Western New York and Northern Ohio. He was a member of Rev. Sidney Rigdon’s church in Mentor, Ohio. Perhaps Pratt was the carrier-vulture who told Rigdon of the money digger, Smith.”
http://sidneyrigdon.com/1881Eatn.htm#pg03a
Pratt spent part of 1826 with an uncle in Wayne (formerly Ontario) County, NY, where Smith was operating as a money digger.