Sewickley Valley Historical Society will host an illustrated lecture at 7:30 p.m. on March 26 at the Old Sewick-ley Post Office, that discusses Sewickley connections to the early history of Mormonism.

Arthur Vanick of California, co-author of the 2005 book, "Who Really Wrote The Book of Mormon?: The Spalding Enigma" will explore that topic.

In 1827 in Palmyra, N.Y., 21-year-old Joseph Smith Jr., purportedly received an ancient book written in hieroglyphics on sheets of gold from an angel named Moroni.

After Smith had translated these hieroglyphics by miraculous means and recorded them, the angel took the original sheets away.

Smith's translation, which he called "The Book of Mormon," was published in 1830 and became the cornerstone of a new religion with Smith as its prophet.

Some 82 years later, as was reported in a Nov. 23, 1912, article in The Weekly (Sewickley) Herald, Judge William A. Way, while introducing a lecture on Mormonism by a Utah Congressman before the Sewickley Home and School Association, stated: "Few, probably, know that the origin of 'The Book of Mormon' is intimately associated with the history of a family that has resided in this vicinity for two generations." His story, as does Vanick's, in-volves Solomon Spalding, an impoverished ex-clergyman, who wrote a fanciful novel titled "A Manuscript Found"; the Pattersons of Edgeworth and Osborne, who were connected to the Pittsburgh publishing firm R & J Patterson; a renegade Baptist preacher named Sidney Rigdon; and Joseph Smith, himself.

Vanick will share a tale of intrigue and conspiracy that should be of special interest to a Sewickley audience.

The lecture is free and open to the public.