Cornelius Blatchley

name = Cornelius Camden Blatchley image =

caption = birth_date = birth_place = Mendham, New Jersey, U.S. death_date = death_place = New York City, U.S. occupation = Physician, social reformer, writer known_for = New York Society for Promoting Communities; early published critique of the Book of Mormon spouse =

Cornelius Camden Blatchley (January 1, 1773 – December 5, 1831) was an American physician, utopian social reformer, Quaker dissident, and one of the earliest published critics of the Book of Mormon. He helped found the New York Society for Promoting Communities (1820), published the communitarian tract An Essay on Common Wealths (1822), and corresponded with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison about education, poverty, and cooperative Christian commonwealths. In February 1830 he published "Caution Against the Golden Bible" in the New-York Telescope, an article widely noted by historians as the first printed critique of Joseph Smith's claims about the "Gold Bible."

Early life and education Blatchley was born in Mendham, New Jersey, on January 1, 1773, to Ebenezer Blatchley and Mary (Wick). He was raised in the Quaker tradition, which shaped his early ethics and communal ideals. He is descended from the English immigrant Thomas Blatchley, who settled in 17th century New Haven Colony and whose family intermarried with members of the Ball family.

Medical practice and early writings While practicing medicine, Blatchley published Some Causes of Popular Poverty (1817) as an appendix to Thomas Branagan’s The Pleasures of Contemplation, arguing that interest, rent, inheritance laws, and established churches created systemic poverty contrary to Scripture and natural rights. He followed with An Essay on Fasting, and on Abstinence (1818), which combined medical and moral reasoning for periodic abstinence. In the late 1810s he also promoted a women's circulating library in New York as part of broader education reform.

Communitarian activism In 1820 Blatchley helped organize the New York Society for Promoting Communities to advance cooperative Christian commonwealths that would abolish private landholding and share labor and goods in common. The society's major publication, An Essay on Common Wealths (1822), drew from Robert Owen’s A New View of Society and urged congregations to re-form on cooperative principles under Gospel discipline.

Blatchley sent the pamphlet to Thomas Jefferson, who replied from Monticello on October 21, 1822, praising its philanthropy while doubting that communal property could scale to a large nation and instead advocating the diffusion of education. The letter, preserved by Blatchley, was later shared with Robert Owen during Owen's 1824 American tour. Although the society did not found a lasting settlement, historians credit its writings with anticipating elements of later communitarian and labor movements in the United States.

Political and labor reform By the late 1820s Blatchley supported the Working Men's Party in New York City and wrote for the Working Man's Advocate, linking communitarian ideals to contemporary labor and anti-Masonic critiques of elite power. Contemporary reports place him on a Working Men's ticket for the state assembly in 1829, though he was not elected. He is also recorded as secretary to a New York-state Anti-Masonic committee around 1830.

Correspondence with Jefferson and Madison Blatchley entered into polite exchanges with national statesmen. In May 1815 he wrote to James Madison, enclosing a pacifist tract and proposing educational remedies for postwar society; the letter survives in the National Archives.

On February 20, 1830, weeks before the organization of the church, Blatchley's article “Caution Against the Golden Bible” appeared in the New-York Telescope, highlighting repetitive phrasing and grammatical errors in sample pages and warning readers about the new sect. He left no known children. His pamphlets, especially Some Causes of Popular Poverty (1817) and An Essay on Common Wealths (1822), have been discussed by historians of early American socialism and labor democracy for anticipating later Owenite and religious-communitarian experiments in the 1830s–1840s. An Essay on Fasting, and on Abstinence (New York: C. S. Van Winkle, 1818). An Essay on Common Wealths (New-York Society for Promoting Communities, 1822). “The Aim of Antimasons and the Working Man are Similar,” Working Man's Advocate (1829). “Caution Against the Golden Bible,” New-York Telescope (Feb. 20, 1830).