Ethan Smith (December 19, 1762–August 29, 1849)[1] was a New England Congregationalist clergyman in the United States who wrote View of the Hebrews (1823), a book that argued that Native Americans were descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
Historians including Fawn McKay Brodie, a 20th-century biographer of Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, suggest that View influenced the Book of Mormon (1830), because of the strong "parallelisms" found between the two.
So familiar was he with the Bible and Watts, that it was his uniform custom to open the book in the pulpit, and give out the chapter and hymn, and seem to read them; and he very rarely made a mistake, to awaken a suspicion that he was repeating from memory.
[3] The house in which he was born, dated to 1728 in Town records, remains standing immediately southwest of Dwight, in Belchertown, at 84 Old Bay Road.
[5][6] Larry Morris, an LDS scholar, has argued that "the theory of an Ethan Smith-Cowdery association is not supported by the documents and that it is unknown whether Oliver knew of or read View of the Hebrews.