In connection with the effort made by Bishop Spaulding of Utah about 1912 to obtain confirmation, from various Egyptian scholars of Europe and America, that Joseph Smith's supposed translations of sacred Egyptian texts on which he founded his "Pearl of Great Price" were a fraud, an interesting piece of evidence turned up at the Museum today. A Mrs. Alice C. Heusser, of 221 Ralph Avenue, Brooklyn, brought for our inspection some eight or ten fragments of papyri, all from late funerary papyri with small vignettes interspersed throughout the text. With the fragments she had a letter dated 1856 at Nauvoo City, and signed by three persons (one of them the former wife of Joseph Smith, and another Joseph Smith the son of the older Joseph Smith) vouching for the authenticity of these papyri as original Egyptian documents and as having belonged to the "family of one of the Pharaohs," and which they were selling to a Mr. A. Combs.

Mrs. Heusser's mother was a servant in the Combs family and at his death he left these papyri to her.