An obscure person named Richard Brothers who lived in England between 1757 to 1824 is credited with the origination of this farfetched fantasy. He was true to the form of religious fanatics and his movement was strikingly parallel with Joseph Smith and the Mormons. Richards was as eccentric as Smith was ignorant.

There is a distinct similarity in the origination of these episodes, a resemblance in the characters of the men, and in the cues to their religious fictions, particularly in the purported saga of the ten tribes of Israel upon which the respective movements were founded. The religious lunacy of these men was about identical in degree, the difference being in the circumstances of Richard Brothers' commitment to an asylum and Joseph Smith to a jail.