The Irrational World of Brian Hales’ Polygamy (Part 3)

Posted on October 2, 2019 by grindael

Part III: Getting to “Snow” You

“Fools learn nothing from wise men, but wise men learn much from fools.” ―Johann Kampar Lavater

“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” ―Paul, Letter to the Romans

“I don’t mind being an apologist because I am a believer that Joseph Smith was a virtuous man and a true prophet of the living God. ―Brian Hales, 2011

Part I may be found here, and Part II here.

Is Jeremy Runnells Research Problematic?

In his rebuttal to FAIRMORMONS’s criticisms of his concerns about polygamy Jeremy Runnells wrote:

Joseph was practicing polygamy before the sealing authority was given. LDS historian, Richard Bushman, said “There is evidence that Joseph was a polygamist by 1835” (Rough Stone Rolling, p.323). Plural marriages are rooted in the notion of “sealing” for both time and eternity. [According to the Mormon Church] The “sealing” power was not restored until April 3, 1836 when Elijah appeared to Joseph in the Kirtland Temple and conferred the sealing keys upon him. So, Joseph’s marriage to Fanny Alger in 1833 was illegal under both the laws of the land and under any theory of divine authority; it was adultery.

FairMormon states the following regarding Joseph’s relationship with Fanny Alger:

There is some historical evidence that Joseph Smith knew as early as 1831 that plural marriage would be restored, so it is perfectly legitimate to argue that Joseph’s relationship with Fanny Alger was such a case….those closest to them saw the marriage as exactly that – a marriage.

Latter-day “prophet, seer, and revelator” Lorenzo Snow strongly disagrees with FairMormon. Snow states:

A man that violated this law in the Doctrine and Covenants, 1835 edition, until the acceptance of that revelation by the church, violated the law of the church if he practiced plural marriage. Yes sir, he would have been cut off from the church, I think I should have been if I had. Before the giving of that revelation in 1843 if a man married more wives than one who were living at the same time, he would have been cut off from the church. It would have been adultery under the laws of the church and under the laws of the state, too. – Temple Lot Case, p.320-322

According to Lorenzo Snow, Joseph had zero business marrying his plural wives before 1843 and he should have been cut off from the Church as it was adultery under the laws of the Church and under the laws of the State. Joseph’s marriage to Fanny Alger in 1833 was illegal under both the laws of the land and under any theory of divine authority; it was adultery.”^[105]

Lorenzo Snow gives his testimony (Temple Lot) by grindael

Lorenzo Snow gives his testimony (Temple Lot) by grindæl

Brian Hales, in his article, “Jeremy Runnells—the New Expert on Joseph Smith’s Polygamy?” objected to Runnells’ use of part of the Lorenzo Snow testimony in the Temple Lot Case as published by the Reorganized Church (Community of Christ)^[106] and wrote:

One example of the weaknesses that are repeated over and over in his essay is illustrated when Runnells allegedly quotes Lorenzo Snow’s 1892 Temple Lot deposition. According to Runnells, Snow gave this testimony:

A man that violated this law in the Doctrine and Covenants, 1835 edition, until the acceptance of that revelation by the church, violated the law of the church if he practiced plural marriage. Yes sir, he would have been cut off from the church, I think I should have been if I had. Before the giving of that revelation in 1843 if a man married more wives than one who were living at the same time, he would have been cut off from the church. It would have been adultery under the laws of the church and under the laws of the state, too. – Temple Lot Case, p.320–322 [Runnell’s originally bolded last sentence]

Then Runnells concludes:

It is obvious Runnells never viewed the actual 1892 Temple Lot deposition transcripts. Curiously, the last sentence in the paragraph above, the one that he emphasized with bold and italics, is incorrectly cited. Importantly, the words “and under the laws of the state too” are fabrication. They are not in the original transcript; that is, Lorenzo Snow did not say them so far as any record is concerned.

Notwithstanding, Runnells confidently asserts: “According to Lorenzo Snow, Joseph had zero business marrying his plural wives before 1843.” If Runnells had actually consulted the depositions, which are available at the Church History Library, he would have learned that later in that same deposition, RLDS attorney [Edmund Levi] Kelley questioned Snow who directly disagreed with Runnells’ conclusion:

Q. Could he [Joseph Smith] receive a revelation and act upon it, that was contrary in its teachings and provisions to the laws of the church to govern the church, without a violation of those laws?

A. Yes sir, I see that distinctly and understand it and I want you to understand it too.

This sort of problematic research and writing is common throughout the remainder of Runnells’ treatment of Joseph Smith’s plural marriages raising important questions regarding the accuracy and credibility of his conclusions.^[107]

So, Hales cites a couple of paragraphs from Jeremy and claims his research and writing is problematic “over and over” in regard to Smith’s polygamy? Hardly. Notice that Hales prefaces his quotation of Lorenzo Snow with an accusation that Jeremy’s essay is full of weaknesses because he quotes Snow’s “alleged” testimony.

First, the way Hales has used the word “allegedly” in connection with Runnells quotation of Snow’s deposition is highly disingenuous and makes it seem as if Snow’s entire testimony from that source is in question. If so, we would ask, where are Hales other examples of fabricated testimony? Nowhere to be found! And it is not “according to Runnels”, it is according to the RLDS Church who published what Jeremy (and FAIRMORMON!) cited.

If one reads the transcript that Hales quotes from (which he provides from the typed transcripts of the Temple Lot Case found at the Church History Library), and the one that Jeremy quotes from (produced by the RLDS or Community of Christ Church) there is no significant difference except for the gloss at the end of the quote.

Second, Hales claims that the last sentence of the Snow quote is “incorrectly cited.” Hales is mistaken; it is not “incorrectly cited” by Jeremy, it is simply a gloss made by the RLDS publishers who Jeremy was citing correctly. One wonders if Hales knows what “incorrectly citing” actually means. How does one correctly cite any “fabrication”? The way that Jeremy did! Where was the additional sentence fragment found? Exactly where Jeremy cited. Jeremy did not add the gloss, the RLDS Church did. (And we don’t know why, or who was consulted in relation to the transcript they produced).

But does Hales mention this? Not at all. He tries to make it appear that it is a fabrication by Jeremy Runnells, because Hales doesn’t bother to tell anyone that yes, that line was actually in the RLDS transcript. Remember, Hales wrote, “According to Runnells, Snow gave this testimony…” No, it was according to the RLDS Transcript! Even in his footnote Hales does not mention the fact that there was a discrepancy in that Transcript, which was the only one easily available to the public for many years.

The first hint that Brian Hales gives about the Snow Testimony is in the comment section on July 15, where he says:

For me it is all about the evidence. Of course I don’t believe that everyone who reviews the evidence will agree with me. However, what do we do with people who portray themselves as experts who haven’t done the research? In this case, Runnells quotes a source with fabricated text and contradictions to his own claims and Runnells is apparently unaware.^[108]

What do we “do” with those people that Hales doesn’t agree with? Did he really say that? What people normally do with them is nothing. One responds to them with accurate evidence. Does Hales do this? Not at all.

And if one is going to judge historians on things they might be unaware of, then everyone might as well pack it in, because everyone is unaware of something at one time or another. I (Johnny) have confronted Hales with many items of evidence that he was completely unaware of, (and there are many more he knows nothing about) and still, Hales refuses to write about them, explain them, or in some cases correct his own published gaffes. Many of these are listed in this essay. This is glass houses stuff folks, but Hales is completely unaware that he has shattered his own credibility by lobbing rocks at everyone who disagrees with him.

It is Hales who called Jeremy an “expert”, by the way. Jeremy never called himself that, it is Hales’ disingenuous invention. But Hales still does not explain why he objects to Snow’s quoted testimony in the RLDS publication, although he does, finally, in this comment clarify that Jeremy is quoting from “a source with fabricated text”. As for the supposed “contradictions” that Hales mentions, well, we shall see about that.

After many comments on the Rational Faiths article, Hales finally comes clean about the Lorenzo Snow Testimony and writes:

There has been some confusion regarding the Lorenzo Snow testimony at the deposition; The Temple Lot legal case transcript covers more than 1,650 pages. The originals are housed at the Eighth District Court in Kansas City, Missouri, with a carbon copy at the Community of Christ Archives. The LDS Church History Library offers both microfilm and digital photographs of the microfilm (unrestricted). A 507-page version has been published and distributed by several booksellers including Herald House and Price Publishing Company; however, heavy editing makes this version of little or no use to polygamy researchers. Apparently parts of the original transcript have been digitally transcribed by Richard D. Ouellette. The statement quoted by Runnells is from one of the edited versions and I’m not surprised that the RLDS editor added some commentary that has been mistaken as have [sic] been stated in the original testimony.^[109]

Now it’s “some commentary”. Why was there the “confusion” that Hales mentions in the comment section? Because Hales shoddy writing skills confused people (though we suspect it was intentional). We see now that the whole tenure of Hales’ original accusation changed. He finally ascribes the blame to the actual source, the RLDS edited Transcript. Why did it take Hales so long to clarify this? Perhaps because after his article was published he was called out on this in a private discussion that involved the authors of this Essay (among others). In that discussion (which took place in our Facebook group Mormon Historians – it was private so we won’t quote from it) someone asked about how Jeremy could have quoted from fabricated testimony since he did quote correctly from a purported copy of the Temple Lot Transcript. It was only then that Hales finally clarified that it was the RLDS publication that had added half a line to Snow’s testimony.

What is interesting is that even in his recently published books on Joseph Smith’s polygamy, Hales doesn’t mention this problem that so concerns him now. He wrote:

A 507-page version [Of the Temple Lot Transcript] has been published and distributed by several booksellers including Herald House and Price Publishing Company, however, heavy editing makes it of little or no use to polygamy researchers.^[110]

Sound familiar? Hales only mentions editing, not any fabrications or “some commentary”. Remember, Hales initially did not accuse Jeremy of using an edited source, but a fabricated one. Why, because it sounds worse. Also, Hales did not provide any of the Snow transcripts from the Church History Library on his website until we demanded it of him. Does Hales’ own “heavy editing” of the original sources in his books and at his website (notice if you will all the ellipses he employs over and over again), make them of little or no use? You must decide for yourself, dear reader.

And what is interesting is that Hales had copies of the testimony and gave us a few pages, but even he was unaware at that time that you could access it at the CHL. We discovered this ourselves and (as we point out below) even FAIRMORMON (who Hales is a big supporter and contributor to) didn’t know this.

Since we do have Brian Hales three volume set of books on polygamy and many other sources (including the original Temple Lot typescript), Jeremy (who is now far more familiar with Hales’ research) and Johnny (who is and has been quite familiar with Hales’ research) would like to analyze the rest of Snow’s testimony that Hales claims Jeremy misinterprets. And as a bonus there are hundreds of pages of footnotes that explain everything in detail and quote extensively from the original documents, along with links and photos of those originals. The main body of this text was (for the most part) written by us five years ago, it is the notes (written by Johnny) that have taken so long for it to be published. They will be well worth the wait, dear reader, we can assure you of that.

To get started, right away we noticed that Hales had to skip to a later part of Snow’s testimony to make his point. There is a reason for this as you will see. We also see that Snow’s testimony sets up Joseph as being above the law of the church so Snow contradicts Snow. This is not what the Church teaches today, nor was this something that Joseph did openly because there would have been consequences. (We actually saw some of the consequences when the Nauvoo Expositor was published). And wouldn’t you know it, Brian Hales never mentions anything about this! Here is how Lorenzo Snow (in private) said that he dealt with the “improper” things that Smith did:

I saw Joseph the Prophet do, and heard him say, things which I never expected to see and hear in a Prophet of God, yet I was always able to throw a mantle of charity over improper things.^[112]

Snow would throw a “cloak of charity” over improper things. What improper things? This is exactly what Smith wanted from his followers, to view some sin as not being sin at all and to throw a “cloak of charity” over those sins. (Joseph’s words) That way, he could do “improper” things, like break the laws of the church or the land, or commit adultery with the assurance that those who believed in him would throw a cloak of charity over those obvious sins. That is why statements like the one that Levi Lewis made in 1834 are so important, because it shows that Smith (via Martin Harris) was claiming that “adultery” was no sin (or crime) very early in his career.^[113]

And it is of interest to show what the definition of “improper” was in the 19th Century:

Not becoming; not decent; not suited to the character, time or place; as improper conduct in church; improper behavior before superiors; an improper speech. (Webster’s 1828 Dictionary)

With that in mind, here is Snow’s testimony from the typed transcript provided by the Church History Library that Hales speaks of:

189 Q. And the man that violated this law in this book [Articles of Marriage in the Doctrine and Covenants, 1835 edition] until the acceptance of that revelation by the church violated the law of the church if he practiced plural marriage? A. Yes Sir. He was cut off from the church. I think I should have been if I had.

190 Q. What would be the condition of the man that would marry more than one person prior to the giving of that revelation in 1843? A. What would be the condition of a man that would do that?

191 Q. Yes sir? A. Why he would be cut off from the Church.

192 Q. Would not it have been adultery under those revelations I have just read? A. Yes sir. I expect it would be. [adultery]^[114]

Here we see at least part of the sentence has been verified. Snow testified that under the laws of the Church, it would indeed be adultery. So what the hell is Hales quibbling about? We are still scratching our heads because Snow called it adultery and it was common knowledge that committing adultery (at that time) was also breaking the laws of the land. That is what the Mormon Apostles wrote in the Times and Seasons shortly after Joseph’s death, which we will explore below.

Granted, Jeremy Runnells did quote Snow’s testimony from a transcript produced by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Church of Christ). But this is a mistake even FAIRMORMON made here.

FAIRMORMON PAGE (July 2014) that Jeremy refers to where they also quote from the RLDS Transcript (Now changed), in an effort to rebut the Tanners who made the same argument

FAIRMORMON has now updated their website with quotes from Hales’ attack on Jeremy Runnells at Rational Faiths, but the screen shot of a previous version of the page (taken in July 2014) shows that they indeed did not mention the discrepancy, and used the RLDS version themselves, which is where Jeremy got that testimony from. He was after all, rebutting FAIRMORMON!

It seems as if FAIRMORMON was unaware of “the latest research” and that Hales (an ongoing contributor to their blog and articles) couldn’t be bothered to inform them.

FAIRMORMON PAGE where they claim the transcript was not online (when it was at the CHL) – this also has been changed

In the hastily corrected article by FAIRMORMON they also claimed that the Temple Lot Transcript cannot be found anywhere online. This is also not true and since they are quoting Brian Hales and the “lastest research”, it seems that they ought to have known this. We found it easily and have provided the link above. (Remember, this was five years ago) It is also curious that the RLDS Church made this addition to the transcript of Snow’s testimony when there are no others apparent. (They mostly combined questions and answers as actual respondent’s testimony).

But the addition of breaking the laws of the land does not really change the meaning of what Lorenzo Snow said. This point is ignored by Brian Hales; instead he calls Jeremy Runnells a liar, and puts the focus on Snow’s justification for why he won’t apply adultery to what Joseph Smith did (which was the same thing). You will see though, that Snow would apply adultery to himself if he did what Smith did. So we must ask ourselves, why the double standard? Is a prophet exempt from the law whenever he wants to be? Or if he persuades enough other “authorities” that he is?

Snow definitely states that according to him, that any man who violated the law as written in the D&C in 1835 before the revelation was given in 1843 (July) would be guilty of adultery. He states this twice in the transcript and doesn’t make any exceptions. These are blanket statements, and it is only when Snow sees that E. L. Kelley also applies it to Joseph Smith that he invents an “exception” for Joseph Smith. Here, Snow is asked again:

217 Q. That is you state that if a person should be married or sealed by this revelation, according to your understanding, –that is, if they should be married according to the provisions of this polygamous revelation prior to the year 1843, that they would be violating the laws of the church and would be guilty of adultery? A. Yes sir.^[115]

According to this testimony from Lorenzo Snow, Joseph Smith should have been guilty of adultery (and he was according to his own June 1842 First Presidency Address). Hales also makes the argument that when Joseph Smith was denying polygamy, he really didn’t mean his own Spiritual Wife System (he was speaking of some kind of Arabic version of polygamy which is ridiculous) and so he really wasn’t lying. But here we see that Snow understood that it was adultery if a person were sealed or married. The terms were interchangeable in Smith’s day, and later in Utah. This was also the law of the Church as taught by Orson Pratt in General Conference. Pratt stated:

In the early rise of this Church, February, 1831, God gave a commandment to its members, recorded in the Book of Covenants, wherein He says, “Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and to none else;” and then He gives a strict law against adultery. This you have, no doubt, all read; but let me ask whether the Lord had the privilege and the right to vary from this law. It was given in 1831, when the one-wife system alone prevailed among this people. I will tell you what the Prophet Joseph said in relation to this matter in 1831, also in 1832, the year in which the law commanding the members of this Church to cleave to one wife only was given. Joseph was then living in Portage County, in the town of Hiram, at the house of Father John Johnson. Joseph was very intimate with that family, and they were good people at that time, and enjoyed much of the Spirit of the Lord. In the forepart of the year 1832, Joseph told individuals, then in the Church, that he had inquired of the Lord concerning the principle of plurality of wives, and he received for answer that the principle of taking more wives than one is a true principle, but the time had not yet come for it to be practiced. That was before the Church was two years old. The Lord has His own time to do all things pertaining to His purposes in the last dispensation; His own time for restoring all things that have been predicted by the ancient prophets. If they have predicted that the day would come when seven women would take hold of one man, saying, “We will eat our own bread and wear our own apparel, only let us be called by thy name to take away our reproach;” and that, in that day the branch of the Lord should be beautiful and glorious and the fruits of the earth should be excellent and comely, the Lord has the right to say when that time shall be.

Now supposing the members of this Church had undertaken to vary from that law given in 1831, to love their one wife with all their hearts and to cleave to none other, they would have come under the curse and condemnation of God’s holy law. Some twelve years after that time the revelation on Celestial Marriage was revealed. This is just republished at the Deseret News office, in a pamphlet entitled, “Answers to Questions,” by President George A. Smith, and heretofore has been published in pamphlet form and in the Millennial Star, and sent throughout the length and breadth of our country, being included in our works and published in the works of our enemies. Then came the Lord’s time for this holy and ennobling principle to be practiced again among His people.^[116]

So we see (according to Orson Pratt) that Joseph Smith violated the laws of the Church and committed adultery every time he was “married/sealed” to a woman (or took her as a “concubine”) before the “revelation” of 1843. This Conference was attended by the entire Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency, with Lorenzo Snow speaking shortly before Orson Pratt at the very same meeting! There were no objections or denunciations of what Orson Pratt proclaimed here by Lorenzo Snow or anyone else as we see from Wilford Woodruff’s own Journal:

Wilford Woodruff (circa 1875) retouch by grindæl, original @ Utah State Historical Society

Oct 6, 1869 The General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Assembled in the New Tabernacle at 10 oclok. A large Assembly of Saints Presidet B Young Presiding. All of the Twelve & Presidency are present Except John Taylor. He had gone East on Business. Orson Hyde Prayed. Presidet D. H. Wells spoke 45 Minuts. G. A. Smith spoke 41. [October] 7 Conference Met at 10 oclok. B Young jr Prayed. L [orenzo] Snow spoke 42 Minuts. G. Q. Cannon read the Names of the Missionaries. W Woodruff spoke 34 m. After noon. S W Richards Prayed. O Pratt spok upon Poligamy one Hour & 32 Minuts.^[117]

Where is the special exception for Joseph Smith? Where is Lorenzo Snow’s objection that Pratt was being too general in his remarks? Nowhere to be found! Perhaps because Smith’s relationship with Fanny Alger was not well known at this time? Ann Eliza Young does not publish her tell all (Wife No. 19) until seven years later (becoming the first to publish about Fanny Alger) and Andrew Jenson’s Historical Record didn’t come out until the 1880’s. In 1869 the public knew very little about Smith’s Spiritual Wives, his nephew Joseph F. Smith was still collecting affidavits – some of which would be used to rebut the last testimony of Emma Smith a decade later. They were being collected for just that purpose, to counter the claims being made by Emma and her sons. What happened in Nauvoo had been cloaked in secrecy up until this time, and it was only starting to come out; and so the hierarchy felt no need to make any special pleadings for Joseph. But does FAIRMORMON give you any of this background? Does Hales? Of course not! When all the information came out about Alger and some of Smith’s other Spiritual Wives, then they had to revise the timeline they had claimed and make up that special exemption for Joseph Smith.

So what is Hales here objecting to? He is straining at gnats while swallowing camels. He claims that Jeremy’s rebuttal of FAIRMORMON is flawed and full of errors, but only makes a weak case about a half sentence gloss – while claiming that he rebuts everything somewhere on his massive website or in his three volume set of books. He doesn’t even do the readers the courtesy of taking Jeremy point by point or directing them with links to where they can find Hales’ responses (or the “evidence”). And instead of giving well rounded answers, Hales simply quotes from his books – which are full of errors and his made up faithful narrative.

Even in 1844 it was realized that the practice of having more than one living wife was against the laws of the Church and the law of the land. This was proclaimed in the Times and Seasons by John Taylor, (who unlike Snow was an actual Apostle at the time) just a few months after the death of Joseph Smith:

The saints of the last days have witnessed the outgoings and incomings of so many apostates that nothing but truth has any effect upon them. In the present instance, after the sham quotations of Sidney [Rigdon] and his clique, from the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants, to skulk off, under the “dreadful splendor” of “spiritual wifery,” which is brought into the account as graciously as if the law of the land allowed a man a plurality of wives, is fiendish, and like the rest of Sidney’s revelation, just because he wanted “to go to Pittsburg [Pittsburgh] and live.” Wo to the man or men who will thus wilfully [willfully] lie to injure an innocent people! The law of the land and the rules of the church do not allow one man to have more than one wife alive at once, but if any man’s wife die, he has a right to marry another, and to be sealed to both for eternity; to the living and the dead! there is no law of God or man against it! This is all the spiritual wife system that ever was tolerated in the church, and they know it.^[118]

What is amusing now is that Taylor and Young and the rest of the Twelve were heavily involved in their own Spiritual Wifery; and trying to blame it on Rigdon who never did ascribe to it. We see now that Lorenzo Snow was also aware that this was and had been the Church’s teaching, and that explains his later testimony as he plays a game of semantics while also working hard to try and justify Smith’s actions by endeavoring to explain why the “prophet” is exempt from keeping the same church laws as everybody else.

Reading Snow’s actual testimony is tedious because it is obvious that he is hostile and untruthful and questions have to be asked over and over again.

Joseph’s Apostles were always making excuses for his bad behavior. Wilford Woodruff recorded these words by Joseph Smith pertaining to the (dare we say “fiendish” as Taylor called them) doctrines he taught:

President Joseph Smith again arose & said In relation to the power over the minds of mankind which I hold, I would say it is in consequence of the power of truth in the doctrins which I have been an instrument in the hands of God of presenting unto them & not because of any compulsion on my part. I will ask if I ever got any of it unfair. If I have not reproved you in the gate. I ask did I ever exercise any compulsion over any man? Did I not give him the liberty of disbelieveing any doctrin I have preached if he saw fit? Why do not my enemies strike a blow at the doctrin? They cannot do it, it is truth. And I am as the voice of one crying in the wilderness repent of your sins & prepare the way for the coming of the son of Man, for the kingdom of God has come unto you and henceforth the ax is laid unto the root of the tree and evry tree that bring-eth not forth good fruit, God Almighty (and not Jo Smith) shall hew down & cast it into the fire.^[119]

What about the compulsion of angels with swords? What is interesting, is that when those that opposed Spiritual Wifeism (not agreeing that it was “truth”) did try and strike a blow at the doctrine a few months later in the Nauvoo Expositor, Smith had their press destroyed and continued to lie that he practiced what they were all calling Spiritual Wifeism.^[120] One can cynically add that it was “Jo Smith” who was “hewn down” only a few months later, and not those who endeavored to strike a blow at the doctrine.

Joseph certainly did use “compulsion” on his followers. (Classic say one thing but do something else) For example, he threatened John Snider with excommunication if he did not obey the “prophet” and go on a mission, (as Joseph was committing adultery with his wife Mary Heron) and threatened men and women that they and their families would be damned if they did not obey him and become his Spiritual Wives or support him in taking their wives and young teenage daughters. In March of 1843 Smith “blesses” Sarah Ann Whitney and claims:

Oh let <it> be Sealed this day on high that She Shall come forth in the first reserrection to recieve the Same and verily it Shall be so Saith the Lord if She remain in the Everlasting covenant to the end as also all her Fathers house Shall be Saved in the Same Eternal glory and if any of them Shall wander from the foald of the Lord they Shall not perish but Shall return Saith the Lord and be Saived (See Note #149 below)

What is important here is that this is not what Lorenzo Snow thought about (only) Joseph Smith. (That he was an adulterer by Church and State Law). Snow never admits that Smith was wrong in anything he did in his Temple Lot testimony. But this is still justification based on evasion of the truth and holding up Joseph Smith to a different standard than everyone else, (creating an exemption for him alone) something the Church never taught. Jeremy’s phrasing “According to Lorenzo Snow” that Joseph would have zero business practicing his Spiritual Wifeism, is not incorrect, unless one believes that a Mormon prophet always gets a get out of jail free card for every sin he might commit and that the church teaches such things. They had to try and explain Smith’s bizarre doctrines and teachings he made up to justify his megalomania and narcissism in his last years in Nauvoo. We could not find any teachings from the Mormon cannon that would back up such an exemption from the law.

Still, Lorenzo Snow did admit that what Joseph did was in violation of the Church policy that Smith himself set up – if it were anyone but Joseph Smith. This is the kind of strange logic that Snow has to use to try and justify Smith’s actions. This is the kind of logic that anyone must use to justify Smith’s Spiritual Wife System.^[121]To liken what Smith was doing in his day to our day, it would be like the current church President claiming that God gave him a revelation that he could ordain women to the priesthood, but he only does so in secret and then denies that he was doing it when it was found out. Then he later says that he did so because he knew that the church wasn’t ready to accept it! And his chosen Apostles all do the same and defend him (and themselves) by claiming he is the “lawgiver” and that gives him the right to do so, and them the right to act on the secret revelation! Can the head of the church do such things? We would love to know where to find any revelation that allows Mormon prophets to do such things. This is the heart of the argument of the RLDS Church, and Snow and Woodruff and others knew it, and simply used special pleading to try and excuse Smith’s behavior.

Even though later in his testimony Snow tries to justify that Smith was allowed to do this as “prophet”, this doesn’t jibe with the actual historical evidence, since Smith told the Relief Society that no one could practice polygamy (Spiritiual Wifeism) in the Church, even a “prophet, seer & revelator”.^[122] He also gave instructions in the fall of 1843 that were copied into his diary that no man in the church shall have more than one wife:

Thursday, October 5[th, 1843] Morning rode out with Esqu[ire] Butterfield to farm &c. P.M. rode on prairie to shew some brethren some land. Eve[ning] at home. Walked up and down St[reet] with Scribe and gave instructions to try those who were preaching, teaching, or practicing the doctrine of plurality of wives on this Law. Joseph forbids it and the practice thereof. No man shall have but one wife. [rest of page blank] {page 116}^[123]

This blatant contradiction did not sit well with later apologists like George Albert Smith and this entry was changed when the History of the Church was published. (They added “unless the Lord commands it” to the last sentence). This is practicing deception folks, something that you think wouldn’t need to be done if Joseph Smith was what he claimed to be, and something that Jeremy Runnells obviously doesn’t need to do but which FAIRMORMON and Hales engage in often.

Yet on November 2, 1843 Joseph had Brigham Young’s sister Fanny sealed to him “for time and eternity”.^[124] It seems that Joseph could not even keep his own word for one month.

Snow’s testimony continues:

218 Q. You state now that Joseph Smith, was sealed or married to your sister [Eliza R. Snow] in April 1843, and this so called revelation was given in July of 1843? A. No sir.^[125]

Snow then quibbles here, and says that he didn’t make the statement that Joseph was sealed to Eliza, rather that Eliza was sealed to Joseph. (The WOMAN is sealed to the MAN! Of course in their chauvinist society that would have to be stressed!) It is important to note that Eliza and Joseph were “sealed” on June 29, 1842, over a year before Joseph produced any “revelation” about polygamy.

223 Q. Well you said that he told you that he had taken your sister? A. Yes Sir.
224 Q. Yes sir, and that is what you said he told you? A. Yes sir, and that is what he did tell me.
225 Q. That he had taken your sister? A. Yes sir.
226 Q. And she was sealed to him? A. Yes sir , that is it exactly, Now you have got it. she was sealed to him.
227. Q. Now then according to your understanding of this new covenant the woman is sealed to the man, and not the man to the woman? A. Yes sir, you are right now…
228. Q. Well, I am glad too that I am right at last, as you put it, so you see our joy is mutual? A. Well yes sir that is right and I am glad of it, but if you think you can get into any of these things now you are mistaken, for you can’t do it. The whole thing has been stopped, and there is no more of it here now, so you can’t find out anything about the operation of this principle in this place, for the whole thing has been stopped.^[126]

So Snow finally admits that Joseph had taken his sister as a Spiritual Wife, and had her sealed to him before July 12, 1843 when the revelation was given. Then Snow goes out of his way to proclaim that you “can’t get into any of these things now” because it was all stopped. (But we all know that it really wasn’t stopped so he was committing perjury) What does this have to do with the historical record? Lorenzo Snow’s testimony is forced, full of contradictions and hostility.

229. Q. Now you have stated that Joseph Smith took your sister for a wife when he had a wife already? A. Yes sir.
230. Q. Prior to the giving of this revelation? A. Yes sir.
231. Q. Well what kind of a position did it put your sister and Joseph Smith in? A. It put them in a first rate, splendid position for time and eternity.
232. Q. Was not that act simply sealing instead of marriage? A. Well, IT WAS ALL THE SAME.
233. Q. Sealing for eternity, and marriage, are they all one and the same thing? A. Well it is getting the female with the male THE SAME as it is in the marriage ceremony.^[127]

This is very interesting because Snow states that sealing and marriage are the same. Sealing is getting the female with the male, the same as in a marriage. And though this puts them in a splendid position in Snow’s mind, it doesn’t really answer the question or deal with the contradiction of why it would be adultery for everyone but Joseph. Snow just doggedly repeats that Joseph could give any “revelation” he felt like giving, and it would have to be immediately obeyed. But this destroys Hales’ claims that there were separate marriages that were sexless eternity-only “sealings”. According to Snow, it was never looked upon that way at that time. We will address this in more detail below.

Snow is then asked about a letter that his sister wrote, but says that he is not familiar with it. The testimony then continues:

Joseph Smith, Jr. by Maudsley

244. Q. Was she [Eliza R. Snow] to your knowledge a wife to him? A. A wife to him? Now,–
245 Q. Yes sir, a wife to him. A. Of course she was a wife to him.
246. Q. In what way? A. Having been sealed to him for time and eternity.
247. Q. How do you know that to be the fact? A. Why I know it because he stated it to me.
248. Q. He stated it to you? A. Yes sir.
249. Q. What was it he stated to you? A. That she had been sealed to him for time and eternity.
250. Q. And he stated that to you before the giving of the revelation? A. Before it was published.
251. Q. Was it not before it was given. A. Yes sir.
252. Q. You stated that he told you that in April 1843? A. Yes sir, but that was not before it was given to him, it was before it was published or made known to any great number though.
253. Q. You stated that he stated that to you in April 1843? A. Yes sir, that is just exactly what I stated.
254. Q. The revelation that I have read to you or the caption of which I have read to you from your own work said it was given July 12 1843, did it not? A. Given to whom?
255. Q. Given to Joseph Smith? A. Read that and see what it says.
256. Q. I have read it once and that is what it says? A. Read it again so that I can see what it says?
257. Q. Revelation on the eternity of the Marriage Covenant, including plurality of wives. Given through Joseph the Seer in Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois, July 27th 1843. That is it? A. Does that say it was not given to him before that time?
258. Q. Do you say it was given to him before that time? A. I say that he explained to me the principle of plural marriage distinctly and clearly, and told me that the Lord had revealed the principle, and had commanded him to enter into that practice, and that he had received a revelation to that effect. He said that he had demurred to doing so as he foresaw the trouble that would ensue, but that an angel of the Lord had appeared before him with a drawn sword commanding him to do so, and he could not go backward. It was in substance that that he told me, but of course I do not pretend to relate the exact language he used.
259. Q. Well now then if it is a fact that he married your sister in April, or had married her at the time he told you this in April, and the date of the revelation is given as July 12th of the same year, the date of the revelation is wrong? A. No sir, not entirely.
260. Q. This is not the time it was given? A. That was the first time it was given to the public, but not the first time it was given to Joseph Smith.
261. Q. What publicity was given to it in July 1843? A. Well I think it was the people in Nauvoo.
262. Q. Was it given to the people of Nauvoo on July 12th 1843? A. I don’t know.
263. Q. Do you, you do not know that it was given to the people of Nauvoo on that date? A. No sir.
264. Q. Do you know that it was not given to them on that date? A. Given to whom?
265. Q. Given to the people of Nauvoo on that date, published to the people there on that date, given to them publicly? A. I do not know for I was not there. I was not there I told you. Well I was,–
266. Q. Have you not already testified that you never saw it until after it was in print? A. Yes sir, that is what I said.
267. Q. You have testified that you never saw it until the time that you saw it in print? A. Yes sir, that is what I said, and I say it again.
268. Q. And that was long after the time that you left Nauvoo? A. Long after I left Nauvoo?
269. Q. Yes sir, and while you were in France?^[128]

Snow tells the questioner that the “revelation” was given to Joseph at an earlier time, but gives no evidence of that. (The evidence is flimsy at best) We wonder that if it was given at an earlier time, then why did it take Joseph Smith many hours to compose the 1843 “revelation” if he could recite it perfectly from “beginning to end”?^[129]

But this is how Snow will justify that Smith had a right to do what no one else could do, commit adultery but not really commit adultery. Even if it were some kind of “revelation” about polygamy given at an earlier time, Smith could still not practice polygamy until the sealing power had been restored.^[130]

Snow then gives objection that he wasn’t in France, but in Europe, and they discuss his Missions and that he was at later time in France.

274. Q. Where you a member of the church at an early date in Kirtland? A. Yes sir.
275. Q. When was that? A. That was in ’36.
276. Q. And that was your first connection with the church? A. Yes sir.
277. Q. Then to your knowledge this purported revelation of 1843 was never brought before the church for acceptance during the life-time of Joseph Smith? A. No sir, it was never brought before the public in a public was by public proclamation or announcement. It was never brought before the public in any other way before the death of Joseph Smith, only as I have stated it there.
278. Q. Only as stated here? A. Yes sir.
279. Q. And that was the only way? A. The only way I know anything about. It was taught privately.
280. Q. Was it ever presented to the church for acceptance? A. I do not know.
281. Q. Do you say that it was? A. No sir.
282. Q. Do you say that it was not? A. No sir.
283. Q. Would a revelation as such, or that which purported to be such, that is to be a revelation, be binding upon the church unless it was accepted? A. Yes sir, it would be to some.
284. Q. I asked you Mr. Snow, if it would be binding upon the church until it had been accepted by the church? A. Yes sir, it would be to those that chose to accept it as binding. The people had the most implicit and perfect confidence in Joseph Smith, and when he gave a revelation, whether it was accepted or not, it didn’t make any difference with some, for they had to most perfect confidence in him, so they would accept it and act upon it whether the church as a church had acted upon it by accepting it did not make any difference.^[131]

Notice how “it didn’t make any difference to some” becomes something that lets Smith off the hook! Snow knew very well that the “revelation” was never presented to the Church in Nauvoo. Now, Snow is being evasive here, it wasn’t about confidence in Smith, it was about Smith teaching one thing (including previous revelations) and doing another. That is why those like William Law of the First Presidency (and many others) objected to the doctrine, and Joseph kept it secret. It did make a difference to them. But Joseph Smith himself contradicts Snow. If you recall, the First Presidency in 1842 wrote this letter to the Relief Society about polygamy, or anything taught that was like it:

The following Epistle was read before the Society, early after its organization – but was not forwarded to be recorded; the Secretary [Eliza Snow] not being present at the time of its reading, else it would have appear’d in its proper place.

To the Hon., the President of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, Greeting: Can the “Female Relief Society of Nauvoo” be trusted with some important matters that ought actually to belong to them – to see to, which men have been under the necessity of seeing to, to their chagrin & mortification, in order to prevent iniquitous characters from carrying their iniquity into effect; such, as for instance, a man who may be aspiring after power and authority, and yet without principle, – regardless of God, man, or the devil, or the interest or welfare of man, or the virtue or innocence of woman?

Shall the credulity, good faith, and stedfast feelings of our sisters, for the cause of God or truth, be impos’d upon by believing such men, because they say they have authority from Joseph, or the First Presidency, or any other Presidency of the Church, and thus, with a lie on their mouth, deceive and debauch the innocent, under the assumption that they are authoriz’d from these sources? May God Forbid!

A knowledge of some such things having come to our ears, we improve this (p. 87) favorable opportunity, wherein so goodly a number of you may be inform’d that no such authority ever has, ever can, or ever will be given to any man, and if any man has been guilty of any such thing, let him be treated with utter contempt, and let the curse of God fall on his head, and let him be turned out of Society as unworthy of a place among men, & denounced as the blackest & the most unprincipled wretch, and finally let him be damned!

We have been informed that some unprincipled men, whose names we will not mention at present, have been guilty of such crimes – We do not mention their names, no knowing but what there may be some among you who are not sufficiently skill’d in Masonry as to keep a secret, therefore, suffice it to say, there are those, and we therefore warn you, & forewarn you, in the name of the Lord, to check & destroy any faith that any innocent person may have in any such character, for we do not want any one to believe any thing as coming from us contrary to the old established morals & virtues & scriptural laws, regulating the habits, customs & conduct of society; and all persons pretending to be authorized by us or having any permit, or sanction from us, are & will be liars & base impostors, & you are authoriz’d on the very first intimation of the kind, to denounce them as such, & shun them as the flying fiery serpent, whether they are prophets, Seers, or revelators: Patriarchs, twelve Apostles, Elders, Priests, Mayors, Generals, City Councillors, Aldermen, Marshalls, Police, Lord Mayors or the Devil, are alike culpable & shall be damned for such evil practices; and if you yourselves adhere to anything (p. 88) of the kind, you also shall be damned.

Now beloved Sisters, do not believe for a moment, that we wish to impose upon you, we actually do know that such things have existed in the church and are sorry to say that we are obliged to make mention of any such thing, and we want a stop put to them; and we desire you to do your part, and we will do ours, for we wish to keep the commandments of God in all things, as given directly from heav’n to us, living by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.

May God add his blessing upon your heads, and lead you in all the paths of virtue, piety & peace, that you may be an ornament unto those to whom you belong, and rise up and crown them with honors, & by so doing, you shall be crown’d with honor in heav’n and shall sit upon thrones, judging those over whom you are plac’d in authority, and shall be judg’d of God for all the responsibilities that we confer’d upon you.

At a more convenient and appropriate season, we will give you further information upon this subject.

Let this Epistle be had as a private matter in your Society, and then we shall learn whether you are good masons.

We are your humble Servants in the Bonds of the New & Everlasting Covenant” Signed by Joseph Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Brigham Young, Prest. of the Quorum of the Twelve

Hyrum Smith
Willard Richards
Heber C. Kimball
Vinson Knight

P. S. If the Lord be God, serve him; but if baal, then serve him.

(p. 89) Copy of a Certificate which was also read before the Society at the same time that the preceding Epistle was presented.

Nauvoo, April 2th 1842^[132]

Emma Smith affirmed in 1844 that this Epistle was about polygamy (or Spiritual Wifeism) being promulgated in Nauvoo. It absolutely was contrary to scriptural law, the Articles on Marriage in the Doctrine and Covenents which became church law in 1835.

In the Epistle above, Joseph Smith specifically tells the Relief Society that they are to shun anyone who teaches anything “contrary to the old established morals & virtues & scriptural laws, regulating the habits, customs & conduct of society.” Notice he also says that we do not want anyone believing anything as coming from us is contrary to the old esablished morals, etc. This would include polygamy, which was not the scriptural law, (the law was Doctrine and Covenants Section 101), and it expressly forbid polygamy:

Inasmuch as this Church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication and polygamy, we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife, and one woman but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.^[133]

This was unanimously voted on by the Church as binding upon them in 1835. This epistle was in part an answer to charges that the Smiths (along with some of his close associates) Spiritual Wifeism (polygamy). On February 7, 1844 a poem called “BUCKEYE’S LAMENTATIONS for the Want of More Wives” was published in the Warsaw Signal:

Buckeye’s Lamentations for the Want of More Wives

1.

I once thought I had knowledge great,
But now I find ’tis small;
I once thought I’d Religion, too,
But I find I’ve none at all.
For I have got but One lone wife,
And can obtain no more;
And the doctrine is, I can’t be saved,
Unless I’ve half a score!

2.

The NARROW GATE that Peter kept,
In ages long ago,
Is locked and barred since he gave up
The keys to BEARDLESS Joe.
And Joe proclaims it is too small,
And causes great delay,
And that he has permission got
To open the BROAD WAY.

3.

The narrow gate did well enough
When Peter, James, and John,
Did lead the saints on Zion-ward,
In SINGLE FILE along:
When bachelors, like good old Paul,
Could win the glorious prize,
And maids, without a MARRIAGE-RITE,
Reach “mansions in the skies.”

4.

But we have other teaching now,
Of greater glories far;
How a SINGLE GLORY’S nothing more
Than some lone twinkling star.
A TWO-FOLD glory’s like the moon,
That shines so sweet at night,
Reflecting from her gracious lord
Whatever he thinks right.

5.

A TENFOLD glory—that’s the prize!
Without it you’re undone!
But with it you will shine as bright
As the bright shining sun.
There you may reign like mighty Gods,
Creating worlds so fair;—
At least a WORLD for every WIFE
That you take with you there.

6.

The man that has got ten fair wives,
Ten worlds he may create;
And he that has got less than this,
Will find a bitter fate.
The one or two that he may have,
He’d be deprived of then;
And they’ll be given as TALENTS were
To him who has got TEN.

7.

And ’tis so here, in this sad life–
Such ills you must endure–
Some priest or king,* may claim your wife
Because that you are poor.
A REVELATION he may get—
Refuse it if you dare!
And you’ll be damned perpetually
By our good Lord the Mayor!

8.

But if that you yield willingly,
Your daughters and your wives,
In spiritual marriage to our Pope,
He’ll bless you all your lives;
He’ll seal you up, be damned you can’t,
No matter what you do—
If that you only stick to him,
He swears HE’LL take you through.

9.

He’ll lead you on through the broad gate,
Which he has opened wide—
In SOLID COLUMNS you shall march,
And enter side by side.
And no delay you’ll meet with there,
But “forward march” you shall:—
For he’s not only our LORD Mayor
But Lord Lieutenant Gene-RAL.

10.

This is the secret doctrine taught
By Joe and the red rams*—
Although in public they deny—
But then ’tis all a sham.
They fear the indignation just,
Of those who have come here,
With hands that’s clean and honest hearts,
To serve the Lord in fear.

11.

Thus, all the TWELVE do slyly teach,
And slyly practice, too;
And even the SAGE PATRIARCH,
Wont have untied his shoe;
For sure, ’twould be quite impolite,
If not a great disgrace,
To have a WIDOW sister fair
Spit in a Prophet’s face!

12

But Joe at snaring beats them all,
And at the rest does laugh;
For widows poor, and orphan girls,
He can ensnare with chaff,
He sets his snares around for all,—
And very seldom fails
To catch some thoughtless PARTRIDGES,
SNOW-birds or KNIGHT-ingales!

12. [sic]

But there are hundred other birds
He never can make sing;
Who wont be driven nor draged to hell,
By prophet, priest nor king.
Whose sires have bled in days gone by,
For their dear country’s cause;
And who will still maintains its rights,
Its liberty and laws!

—————————–
*B.[righam] Y.[oung] & O.[rson] H.[yde]^[134]

Gary James Bergera writes,

By 1844, Bennett’s own extramarital escapades circa 1841-42 had become common knowledge. For Buckeye, Smith’s assertion that he had been protecting Nancy [Rigdon] was a coup de grâce which “burning tears from me have wrung” (86). Still, Buckeye forbore, and only after subsequent slanders did he, like the Scottish patriots, dare to break the “tyrant’s yoke.”

In this second poem, Buckeye shows his hand most clearly to be Nancy Rigdon’s suitor, Francis Higbee. In addition to calling himself Buckeye, signaling his status as Ohio-born, he scatters throughout his verses the following hints regarding his identity:

● He is a “child” living in Nauvoo, who was both a friend and follower of Smith until Smith slandered him;’

● He is familiar with Smith’s teachings on plural marriage and knows some of those who took other wives, including Hyrum Smith, Brigham Young, Orson Hyde, and others of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles; he also knows that Joseph Smith married widows and orphans and the identities of four wives; he knows that some women rejected Smith’s proposals, including women whose fathers are veterans;

● He is well acquainted with Nancy Rigdon. He knows that Smith proposed to her and what arguments Smith used to persuade her; he knows that Nancy rejected the prophet, that Smith and others attempted to discredit her, and that Smith admitted his guilt but explained he had been preparing her for seduction by others;

● He knows about being saved in mortality as a king and priest or queen and priestess.

Of these clues, Francis Higbee seems to satisfy the greatest number. Born in 1820 in Tate, Ohio, to Elias Higbee and Sarah Elizabeth Ward (m. 1818), Francis’s family joined the Mormon Church in Ohio in early 1832. Like other new Latter-day Saints, the Higbees moved to Jackson County, Missouri, the following year but left in 1835 to settle in Kirtland, Ohio, another Mormon stronghold. In 1836 they relocated to Missouri, left again, and by early 1839 had migrated to Illinois and helped establish Nauvoo. Like others, it may have taken the Higbees years to recover from the horrors associated with their experiences in Missouri. Francis’s father, Elias, was a county judge in Missouri, a leading officer in the Church’s Missouri quasi-militia sometimes called the Danites, and accompanied Joseph Smith to Washington, D.C., to plead the Mormons’ case for redress in 1839-40. Elias was Church Recorder from 1838 until June 1843 when he died from cholera. His passing devastated his forty-two-year-old wife and seven or so children, ranging in age from four to twenty-three. Smith had scolded Elias the previous year for not being “as diligent as you ought to have been, … [to] make your children industrious,” but now at his funeral said that in the resurrection Elias would “come forth and strike hands with the faithful, and share the glory of the kingdom of God for ever and ever.”

In 1841, twenty-one-year-old Francis was elected a colonel (“a certain chief”) in the Nauvoo Legion, a county-wide militia, with Smith and John Bennett as his superior officers. About this time, Francis became serious about Nancy Rigdon, whom he had met in Missouri. He apparently began seeing her in early 1842. Nancy had been born in Pennsylvania, but Francis seems to have thought she was from Ohio, probably because her parents had married there in 1820 and Ohio was where several of her siblings were born.

At about the same time as Joseph Smith’s proposal to Nancy in April 1842, allegations erupted that Bennett and others had defiled several young women and said that Smith had sanctioned such behavior. By this time, Smith had been sealed to at least eight women, [all other men’s wives] and for nearly ten months, from September 1840 to July 1841, Bennett had lodged with him and was evidently privy to Smith’s first plural marriage on April 5, 1841. Bennett seems to have felt authorized to initiate others into his version of plural marriage. Smith worried that Bennett was exposing the Church to criticism and decided by mid-May 1842 to rid himself of his counselor. Bennett apparently confessed his guilt prior to resigning the mayorship of Nauvoo and membership in the Church, then left town in June and was succeeded as mayor by Smith. Prior to his departure, Bennett announced under pressure that he had never known Smith “to countenance any improper conduct whatever either in public or private; and that [Smith] never did teach to me in private that an illegal, illicit intercourse with females, was under any circumstance justifiable, and that I never knew him to so teach others.” When Smith became connected to women, it was through a marriage sealing ceremony performed by an authorized priesthood holder, whereas Bennett believed that a marriage ceremony was unnecessary.^[135]

What needs to be brought up here is what a smoking gun this poem is for Spiritual Wifeism (or Plurality of Wives), being a requirement for exaltation (godhood). Notice that Higbee is well aware of the teaching that Joseph was giving to only a select few at that time, about how if one has ten “talents” [wives] they will be exalted, [and get to create and populate many worlds] while those who have only one wife will have that wife given to someone else and they will be single through all eternity. This echos the July “revelation” and the rest of Smith’s teachings which we have covered in this Essay.

On March 16 1844, after having the Relief Society adopt an epistle written by W. Phelps, called “A Voice of Innocence from Nauvoo”, Emma read the 1842 epistle by Joseph to the Society about rejecting the teachings of anyone that taught anything contrary to the established scriptural laws even if it came from a prophet (the Epistle quoted above). The minutes from the March 16, 1844 Relief Society meeting read:

Emma Smith by Maudsley

Mrs Prest— then arose and adress’d the Meeting upon the Nec[e]ssity of being united amoung ourselves and Strenthing [strengthening] each others hands in ordor that we may be able to do much good amoung the poor— [blank] again read the Epistle in Defence of the virtues Female part of the community of Nauvoo exhorted them to cleanse thier hearts and Ears and said the time had come when we must through throw the Mantle of Charity round to shield those who will repent and do so no more Spoke of J. C. Bennets [John C. Bennett’s] Spiritual Wife system, theot some taught it as the Doctrene of B Joseph— She advised all to abide the Book of Mormon— Dr Coven’ts [Doctrine and Covenants] &c then read that Epistle of Presedent J. Smiths; rewritten in this Book of Record— Meeting then closed to reopen— 12 OClock—
[1 line blank]

One OClock Meeting calld to order Pres Emma Smith again adressed. the Society Read Boath the former Epistles;— Desired none shluld [should] lift their hand or voice; to adopt the princples unless they where willing to maintain their integrity through time & Eternity Said thease contain the princples, the Society started upon; but was sorry to have to say [p. 125] all had not adhere’d to them—again exhorted— to follow the teachings of Presedet J Smith— from the stand— said their could not not be stronnger Language used than that just read— and that was these are

words of B. Joseph her Husband— &c Said she wanted to see a reformation in boath men & woman— also exhorted— to look affter the poor— also to examin the conduct of their Leaders of this Society— that you may sit in judgement on their heads— and said if thier ever was any authourity on the Earth she had it— and had yet— Prest. E. S. closed her remarks by say[i]ng she should like to have all the Society present to geather— she said it was her intention to present the Officers of the Society for fellowship— when a place can be obtaind that all can be present— [blank] Meeting ajou [adjourned] until a suitable place can be obtaind—H[annah] M. Ells Secy^[136]

These minutes are remarkable, for Emma explicitly mentions what Smith taught (on the stand) was to be adhered to, implying that the members of the society only follow Joseph’s public teachings. We know that Emma knew something about her husband’s private practice of spiritual wifeism. (How much she knew at this time is unclear). She also claimed that all had not adhered to the established law. (monogamy)

John C. Bennett had left Nauvoo almost two years previous to this address! Who was left in Nauvoo that was teaching something like Bennett’s “spiritual wife system”? The only one teaching spiritual wifeism was her husband Joseph and those he taught it to and Emma knew all about it by this time and was adamantly opposed to it. Yet, she was still trying to deflect it from Joseph in public by bringing up John C. Bennett.

Who were the accusations being made in Nauvoo leveled at? Joseph and Hyrum Smith and those involved in their spiritual wifeism. There was no one else teaching the doctrine of polygamy in Nauvoo. All of Smith’s supposed “enemies” were opposed to it, as were those like his own wife, Emma Hale Smith.

Here is the entire text of A Voice of Innocence in Nauvoo, as published in the Nauvoo Neighbor on March 20, 1844:

The Voice of Innocence from Nauvoo

The corruption of wickedness which manifested itself in such horrible deformity on the trial of Orsemus F. Bostwick last week, for slandering President Hyrum Smith^[137] and the widows of the city of Nauvoo, has awakened all the kindly feelings of female benevolence, compassion and pity, for the softer sex to spread forth the mantle of charity to shield the characters of the virtuous mothers, wives, and daughters of Nauvoo, from the blasting breath and poisonous touch of debauchess, vagabonds, and rakes, who have jammed themselves into our city to offer strange fire at the shrine of infamy, disgrace and degradation; as they and their kindred spirits have done in all the great cities throughout the world, corrupting their ways on the earth and bringing woman, poor defenseless woman, to wretchedness and ruin.

As such ignoble blood now begins to stain the peaceable habiting of the saints, and taint the free air of the only city in the world that pretends to work righteousness in union, as the sine quo non, for happiness, joy, and salvation: and as such ungodly wretches, burning or smarting with the sting of their own shame, have doubtless, transported with them, some of the miserable dupes of their licentiousness, for the purpose of defiling the fame of this goodly city: mildewing the honesty of our mothers; blasting the chastity of widows and wives, and corrupting the virtue of our unsuspecting daughters, it becomes us, in defense of our rights, for the glory of our fathers; for the honor of our mothers; for the happiness of our husbands; and for the welfare of our dear children, to rebuke such an outrage upon the chastity of society: to thwart such a death blow at the hallowed marriage covenant: and to ward off such poisoned daggers from the hearts of our innocent daughters, for the honor of Nauvoo: and write with indellible ink, upon every such villain: Viture perditoris! Beware the wretch! and, so put in every virtuous woman’s hand a rod, to scourge such tormentors of domestic felicity, with vengeance through the world: curse the man that preys upon female virtue! curse the man that slanders a woman: Let the righteous indignation of insulted innocence and virtue, spurn him from society; Let the dignity of the mothers of Israel kick the blood thirsty pimp from the pale of social communion. Let the widows and wives who tread in the footsteps of their queenly mother Eve, drive such fag ends of creation, as was Cain, to the land of Nod, and let the timid daughters of Nauvoo, dread such CANKER WORMS more than the pestilence that walketh in darkness, and shun them as the serpent on the land and shark in the sea. My God! my God! is there not female virtue and valor enough in this city to let such mean men die of the rot: –that the sexton may carry their putrid bodies beyond the limits of the city for food, for vultures, eagles and wolves. Refuse them female courtesy: deny them the pleasure of family correspondence and family intercourse: curse the woman that speaks to such rotten flesh, if she knows who they are: curse the man that will harbor them; and curse the lawyer that will stoop from the dignity of his profession, to plead for them: The apologer is as mean as the murderer!

Female virtue is a pearl of great price, and should glitter in the abodes of men, as in the mansions of bliss, for the glory and honor of him, whose image she bears and whose help meet she is, and every attempt of man to seduce that virtue, is, next to murder, a robbery that cannot be restored.

If woman swerves from the rules of righteousness,

‘Ruin ensues, reproach and shame;
And one false step bedims her fame.
In vain the loss she may deplore,
In vain review her life before’
With tears she must in anguish be
Till God says, ‘set the captive free.’

Many of the distinguished females of Nauvoo, have waded to their present habitations through persecution, sorrow, and death, robed and insulted and bereaved of husbands and children by the combined powers, of priests and spiritual wickedness in high places, but none of these piercing clamities of man touched the heart of woman with such severe poignancy, as the envenomed slander of O.F. Bostwick, that he could take a half bushel of meal, obtain his vile purpose, and get what accommodation he wanted with almost any woman in the city.’

Wo to the wretch that can thus follow the blood stained mobers of Missouri, in their hellish career, and deal his slander about the streets of Nauvoo, as he may imagine with impunity! Wo to the man or lawyer, that filthifies himself by advocating such rotten hearted raven’s rights, or recommends him to the smypathies of any being but satan.

Has any man a mother in this city? honor says, clear such rubbish from her door. Has any man a wife? benevolence whispers, trap such beasts of the field that they may not worry the flock, nor kill the lambs. Has any man a widowed mother? humanity seems to caution him—thy mother is in danger, protect her, from the stench of such carrion! Has any man, daughters? the voice of reason compels him to exclaim: There is a wolf in the path, beware! Has any man, sisters? the blood of his kindred says, evil be to him that evil thinks: and let the whole virtuous female population of the city, with one voice, declare that the seducer of female chastity, the slanderer of female character, or the defamer of the character of the heads of the church, or the canker worms of our husband’s peace: the prostitute, or their pimps, whether in the character of elite, lawyer, doctor, or cicisbeo, shall have no place in our houses, in our affections, or in our society.

Wherefore, Resolved unanimous, That Joseph Smith, the Mayor of the city, be tendered our thanks for the able and manly manner in which he defended injured innocence in the late trial of O.F. Bostwick for slandering President Hyrum Smith, and ‘almost all the women of the city,’

Resolved unanimously, That we view with unqualified disapprobation and scorn the conduct of any man or woman, whether in word or deed, that reflects dishonor upon the poor persecuted mothers, widows, wives and daughters of the saints of Nauvoo: they have borne aspersions, slander and hardships enough: forbearance has ceased to be a virtue, and retaliation, like the ‘dagger or the bowl’ ought to close the lips of such cowardly assassins.

Resolved unanimously, That while we render credence to the doctrines of Paul, that neither the man is without the woman; neither is the woman without the man in the Lord, yet we raise our voices and hands against John C. Bennett’s ‘spiritual wife system,’ as a scheme of profligates to seduce women; and they that harp upon it, wish to make it popular for the convenience of their own cupidity; wherefore, while the marriage bed, undefiled in honorable, let polygamy, bigamy, fornication, adultery, and prostitution, be frowned out of the hearts of honest men to drop in the gulf of fallen nature, ‘where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched!’ and let all the saints say, Amen!

Emma Smith, Prest.
H.M. Ells, Sec. pro tem.^[138]

Who is the “wolf” here, Orsimus F. Bostwick, who accused Hyrum Smith of Spiritual Wifeism; or Hyrum Smith who actually was practicing it and denying that he and his brother were doing so? (See note #112) Bostwick was charged with slander by the Smith’s, found guilty and fined $50 in a Nauvoo Court. Bostwick hired a lawyer, (Francis Higbee) and they took his complaint to Carthage in April. Unfortunately Joseph and Hyrum Smith were murdered before this could come to trial.^[139]

Both Joseph and Hyrum continued to deny the charges of Spiritual Wifeism and blame it on the absent John C. Bennett, when it was Joseph and his “inner circle” that were practicing Spiritual Wifeism, and those like his brother William Smith that were offering food for sexual favors directly as a result of Joseph’s teachings. William continued to abuse women, and Joseph continued to cover up his involvement in his Spiritual Wifeism. Above, Emma Smith directly ties the 1842 Epistle to the practice of polygamy, bigamy, etc., both of which Joseph and his brother William were guilty of. Under the 1833 revised laws of the State of Illinois,

Sec 121. Bigamy consists in the having of two wives or two husbands at one and the same time, knowing that the former husband or wife is still alive.^[140]

This plainly applies to both Joseph, Hyrum and William Smith. Two “wives” or two “husbands” at the same time. Joseph indeed had two “wives” at the same time. He committed bigamy by Illinois law. The Law then describes the penalty:

It shall not be necessary to prove either of the said marriages by the register or certificate threreof, or other record evidence; but the same may be proved by such evidence as is admissible to prove a marriage in other cases. …^[141]

The “other cases” are described here:

…and when such second marriage shall have taken place without this state, cohabitation in this state after such second marriage shall be deemed the commission of the crime of bigamy, and the trial in such case may take place in the county where such cohabitation shall have occurred.^[142] ibid, pp.198-99.

In an effort to deflect this, Mormon apologists will quote an earlier version of the law, from 1827 that does not deal with Bigamy, only adultery:

Any man and woman, who shall live together in an open state of adultery or fornication, or adultery and fornication, (which shall be sufficiently established by circumstances, which raise the presumption of cohabitation and unlawful intimacy;) every such man and woman shall be indicted severally.^[143]

Their logic is that the language requires an “open state,” which they claim wouldn’t apply to any of Joseph’s plural marriages. But the statute also speaks of the “presumption of cohabitation,” which they curiously don’t mention.^[144]

But really, all this is just a diversion. To claim that anyone could “know” if Smith would have been convicted or not after his death is moot. He was breaking the laws of the land, and he did commit bigamy and adultery. We know this. It is obvious from the historical evidence. Having more than one living wife was also described as breaking the laws of the land and the church by the Mormons themselves later that year (November 1844).^[145] Another silly argument used by Mormon apologists is that the case would hinge on the meaning of “marry.” We are not making this up!^[146]

Again, in the earlier version of the law, Illinois state law required: “within 30 days after the ceremony, the officiator is obligated to create “a certificate of the same” and to deliver it “to the clerk of the commissioners’ court, of the county in which such marriage was solemnized.” The certificate thereafter served as an “evidence of the marriage of the parties.” None of the Nauvoo marriages fulfilled this requirement. But that is not what the revised law of 1833 states. It states that it would not be necessary to prove either of the said marriages by the register or certificate thereof, or other record evidence.^[147]

Lorenzo Snow admits that sealings were the same as a marriage, and a ceremony was performed. This constitutes a marriage by Illinois law and therefore Joseph was guilty of adultery and bigamy, whether it could be proven or not makes no difference at all. If there was credible evidence that Smith had committed murder but had covered it up and it did not come out until after he died, would apologists argue that it didn’t matter because he may have somehow been found innocent? Such logic is ridiculous.

Snow’s testimony (and tortured logic) continues:

285. Q. Would it [the polygamy revelation] be a part of the church laws until it had been accepted by the church? A. That would depend on the circumstances.
286. Q. That would depend on the circumstances, you say? A. Yes sir.
287. Q. Well I would like you to explain what you mean by that answer? A. I mean just what I said.
288. Q. Well mention the circumstances, or the circumstance where a revelation would become a part of the church law, without acceptance on the part of the church? A. Well, take myself for example, Joseph might give a revelation on certain important matters, and I not knowing that revelation, or that he had given it, it would not be binding on me even if it had been accepted as you put it by the church; but if he gave a revelation and I knew that he gave it, it would be binding on me even before it was accepted by the church, that is the way I feel about it.
289. Q. Well now if he should have a revelation and it should not be presented to the church, would it be binding on the church, that is the question, not what you consider or feel yourself, but would it be binding upon the church? A. Well it would not be binding upon the church, for the church as a church would not know it if it was not presented formally to the church as a church, but it would be binding upon such as knew of it. Now if you will allow me to explain I would like to do so. If that revelation as presented to me, and there is a half a dozen men and women and it is presented to them, it would be a law to them, and be binding upon them, and any other part of the church that had knowledge, distinct and definite knowledge of it, but I do not think it would be binding upon any other part of the church other than that which had knowledge of its existence. Do you understand that?^[148]

But fellow apologist Michael R. Ash, writing for FAIRMORMON contradicts Snow:

The Prophet can add to the scriptures, but such new additions are presented by the First Presidency to the body of the Church and are accepted by common consent (by sustaining vote) as binding doctrine of the Church (See D&C 26:2; 107:27-31). Until such doctrines or opinions are sustained by vote in conference, however, they are “neither binding nor the official doctrine of the Church.^[149]

Lorenzo Snow was wrong and he knew it. It is amazing how many of these stalwart “apostles” and “prophets” squirmed and hedged under Kelley’s questioning because they knew that what Joseph Smith did was contradictory to the very laws he himself set up in the first place.

Even FAIRMORMON knows that no one was obligated to follow any revelation given by Joseph until it had been sustained as such by a vote in conference; something that Joseph never did with the polygamy revelation, and which Lorenzo Snow affirmed in his testimony. And Joseph had the obligation to present any such “revelation” to the Church, something he did not do. Instead he lied, and broke his “Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood.” The testimony by Snow continued:

290. Q. Well I think I do [understand] clearly too? A. Well I am glad to hear it.
291. Q. Well suppose these half dozen men and women should receive a revelation under the circumstances you have indicated, and it should be contrary to the laws of the church as accepted by the church, what would be the duty of this half dozen men and women in that case? A. Well it would be rather unpleasant to them I think.
292. Q. It would place them in an unpleasant position you say? A. In my opinion it would.
293. Q. Then a revelation must be received by the church before it is the law of the church? A. Not always.
294. Q. do you say that is not always the case? A. Yes sir.
295. Q. Mention an instance where it would not be? A. Well this instance we are talking about now, for there were several in Nauvoo that received that revelation and practiced it before it was ever received at all by the Church.
296. Q. Did not that make them violators of the law of the church? A. No sir.
297. Q. Why? A. Because Joseph had a perfect authority to give revelations and the people were under obligation to receive them.
298. Q. You state that as a fact? A. I state that as my understanding of Joseph’s privilege and the people’s duty.^[150]

Notice that Snow here, parses his words carefully and states they are “under obligation to receive them”. Sure, they were, but that did not mean that they were binding doctrine to the Church, and in fact they should never have been presented to any individual before they were presented to the hierarchy of the Church and then the general membership. And here it comes out again, “Joseph’s privilege”, which Snow felt took precedence over church law. Yet, Wilford Woodruff declared in 1892, while giving his legal deposition before the Western District of the Missouri U.S. Circuit Court (Temple Lot):

The church has a right to reject or approve of revelations and any man independent of the action of the church has a right to accept it or reject it as he sees fit and the church has a right to say whether they will accept it or reject it as a revelation, and before a revelation can be accepted by the church, as a law, it must in some form or other be presented to the church and accepted by the church, and that has been true since the time I first became connected with the church.^[151]

Edmund Levi Kelley

The actual testimony of Wilford Woodruff (not the edit quoted by Van Wagoner above) is more drawn out, but it conveys the same sentiments as the above. When one reads this testimony it is not too hard to understand why the RLDS Church edited it. What they should have done, is explained what they were doing so that the reader could understand. The back and forth between E. L. Kelley and Woodruff is fascinating though:

245. Q. Well you haven’t answered it yet? The question is this,–Has it not been the practice of the church from the time of its organization down to the present time, and practiced by you since you have been president of this church here, to present everything concerning the doctrine of the church to the church for its adoption, before the church would be bound by it? A. Well of course. That is a principle of the church.
246. Q. Well sir, I thought so, and that is the principle you went on when you presented the manifesto here for adoption? A. Yes sir, or course.
247. Q. That is the fact is it not? A. Certainly.^[152]

We see that when Woodruff is asked about this in reference to himself and the Manifesto, that yes, it is a church policy, and he has no qualms about saying so. This agrees with the RLDS edit. But when the questions shift to how law or “revelation” becomes binding on the Church, Woodruff again has to be cornered into answering the question:

248 Q. And that is the principle on or under which the church was governed prior to 1846—that everything was presented in some form or other for adoption? A. Yes sir.
249. Q. Presented to the church for adoption? A. Yes sir.
250. Q. And if not presented to the church for adoption and adopted by the church, the church would not be bound by it, as a church? A. What is that?
251. Q. I say if it is not presented to the church and adopted by the church, the church would not be bound by it as a church? Is that not true? A. Well of course these things depend on circumstances, as I said before. As I said before there has been counsel given and business done, and revelations that have been received, and as a matter of course all the works had to be presented to the church at times.
252. Q. Is counsel the same as Church Law? A. No sir.
253. Q. Well in my questions I am trying to confine you to the church law and nothing else? A. Yes sir, I understand.^[153]

This exchange is interesting, for as soon as E. L. Kelley asks Woodruff about church law being adopted by common consent, Woodruff begins to hedge because he knows where it is going. But then he says that he understands the question. His answers though, are evasive:

254. Q. Well from your answers I would infer that you do not understand. Well now has it not been the practice of the church, universally, before anything was or became church law, that the church could be bound as a church by, that is it must be presented to the church for adoption—to the membership of the church for their acceptance or adoption, in some form or other, and at some time. A. All our business—all our business that comes before us must come up before our conferences that are held twice a year. All the business of the church we present to the church at these times, but of course we transact business between these times.^[154]

Again, Woodruff is not speaking of binding revelations and is desperate to find something that will make it seem as if what Joseph did was legitimate. (Like a “revelation” about having Spiritual Wives is simply “business”) Kelley catches him on this. Woodruff claims that he understood, but he still did not answer the question.

255. Q. You don’t make church law or doctrine between these times do you? A. No sir, I think not.
256. Q. You don’t make church law or doctrine between these dates do you. A. No sir. I think not.
257. Q. Well do you or do you not? A. No sir.
258. Q. Now why wouldn’t you answer my question before this Mr. Woodruff? A. I did answer it as soon as I understood it.
259. Q. Is it not true that before anything can be binding upon the church as church law, it must first be presented to the church for adoption, and has that not been invaribly the rule since the organization of the church? Now please answer that question squarely and plainly. A. Well as I said to you in the first place, a great many things were done years before I was in the church, and all those early revelations were accepted by the people as given before they were ever presented to the church, but as to the matter of dividing these things up perhaps I am not qualified to say. You see in the earliest days I was not a member of the church, and I cannot say just as to how things were done then, but that is my understanding.
260 Q. I don’t care anything about the division. What I am getting at is the fact, and is it not true that before anything can be accepted as church law, it must first be presented to the church, and be accepted by the church? A. The church has accepted at all our conferences everything that has been brought before them—it has accepted all that has been brought before it.^[155]

Now Woodruff claims that perhaps he’s “not qualified” to answer the question! It is obvious that Woodruff does not want to answer these questions under oath, and really, these men were not accustomed to justifying anything they did to anyone. What does it matter if the Church accepts everything? Is it a law or not? We see from FAIRMORMON’s quotes by modern “prophets” that it is a law. And Woodruff joined the Church in 1833 which is only three years after it was organized so his claim that he didn’t know what was going on in the “earliest days” is disingenuous.

Of course, they were not trying to justify Smith’s breaking of church law under oath, it was easier to deflect and be evasive. We must remember here, that Smith was telling those he taught his Spiritual Wifeism to that they would be damned if they did not embrace it. That if they were not sealed to him (as the head of the dispensation) that they would never get into the Celestial Kingdom. What better way to get something passed then to practice it underground for years, get the hierarchy converted, while casting out those that oppose it, and then take it to the body of the Church. What could they then do? The practice was entrenched in the Church. Who was going to gainsay Brigham Young and those that were left of the Twelve in Utah Territory (Deseret)? The pressure to acquiesce was tremendous by then (1852). That is also why they only added members to the Twelve that believed in polygamy. Kelly continues to hammer at Woodruff:

261 Q. And if the church refused to accept what was brought before them—say a revelation, then it would not be binding upon the church as church law? A. Well if the whole church rejected it it wouldn’t.
262 Q. Well if the church to which it was presented at a general conference, that embraced a large part of the church, or a majority of the church, should reject it, in that case it would not be binding upon the church as a law of the church? is that not the fact Mr. Woodruff? A. No of course it would not. If it was rejected it would not be.^[156]

This is the whole reason for common consent. To stop men from promoting spurious “revelations” among the members that violated existing church law. This argument is easy to understand yet Woodruff evades answering until he is cornered into it:

263. Q. Then the church has the right to reject or approve a revelation? That is the fact is it not? A. Yes sir, any man independent of the action of the church has the right to reject or accept it as he sees fit. That is a right that any man has.^[157]

But this still does not answer or even address the question. Did Smith have the right to try and bind individual church members to laws that were not presented to the church first? The answer (as we know from what is taught in the Church today) is no, he did not. But Woodruff won’t admit this. None of these men will. They will admit it generally, but when applied to Smith, they exclude him because they considered him above the law, (which Smith claimed he was) but which no man was according to what Smith had previously revealed. Finally, Woodruff answers the question but only in general terms:

264. Q. And a church has a right to say whether they will or will not be bound by it—that whether they will accept or reject a revelation? A. Yes sir.
265. Q. Can anybody saddle a revelation on the church without its consent? A. No sir.^[158]

If they use the existing Church Law of common consent. But this (saddling the church with a “revelation”) is exactly what Joseph Smith and Brigham Young did with polygamy (until 1852) by violating this law! But Kelly is not ready to let it go, he wants more and he gets it:

266. Q. Then before a revelation can be accepted by the church as a law it must be in some form or other be presented to the church, and accepted by the church—adopted by the church, before it becomes a law binding on the church? Is that not true Mr. Woodruff? A. Yes sir—I guess so.
267. Q. That has been true ever since the time you became connected with the church, so far as you are acquainted? A. Yes sir, so long as I have been with the church, [1833] that is the fact.^[159]

Finally! So, does this accurately reflect Woodruff’s “testimony” as edited by the RLDS Transcript? That reads:

We see that it is, though it had to be almost badgered out of him as Woodruff grudgingly (and we imagine rather petulantly) answers, “I guess so.”

The Problem isn’t Jeremy Runnells’ Research

So, is Jeremy Runnells wrong about what he said in relation to Lorenzo Snow? No, though Snow did not use those exact words. Jeremy wrote:

This made Hales furious, and he lashed out at Jeremy in a totally irrational way. It started his whole crusade against Jeremy and the CES Letter that still goes on to this day). Did Snow believe this about Joseph personally? Of course not. But did he admit this in his testimony? Yes, even though he tried very hard to exempt Smith from his blanket statement that anyone who did so was violating church law and committing adultery. This is an important distinction that Brian Hales does not address because he is so fixated on trying to make Jeremy into a liar. But Hales just kept getting more and more frustrated because he knew that Jeremy was not lying and never did lie about any of it.

The only small problem that we see with Jeremy’s quotation of Lorenzo Snow is that he included the Temple Lot Testimony by the RLDS Editors about the law of the land. This is a minor mistake that Brian Hales tries to blow up into some kind of major gaffe, (something that Hales actually makes many, many times as we have shown) and which FAIRMORMON itself made on its now reworked wiki page where Jeremy learned about the quote in the first place!

We see that Wilford Woodruff’s testimony also affirms that Smith would have violated the law of the Church, even though Woodruff himself won’t clearly admit under oath.

But Woodruff’s testimony above still does not explain how Smith was justified in circumventing the law in regards to his Spiritual Wifeism. It was for exactly this reason, the fear it would be rejected by the Church—that it would not be accepted by them—that it was not submitted to the Church for a vote until 1852 when Brigham Young had the Church isolated in the Utah Territory (Deseret) under his theocratic (dictatorial) rule.

As we turn to Joseph Smith and the law, we see more problems with Woodruff admitting that Joseph Smith was not bound by his own laws. This is from the RLDS edit:

…I cannot give you a revelation permitting or authorizing that practice [washings and anointings]. I just want you to understand one thing, that Joseph Smith was the prophet, seer, and revelator, and whatever he said or counseled in these things was accepted. He was not greater than the law that God had revealed through him, but he was the medium through which the law was revealed.
Q. Well, after the law had been revealed, was he not subject then to the law the same as any other person?
A. I do not understand what you mean. [Really?]
Q. I mean that after the law had been revealed, was he not subject then to the law the same as any other person?
A. He was the law himself, but I suppose he was subject to the law. After a law had been received from God and communicated to the church in that manner through the medium of Joseph Smith as the prophet, seer, and revelator, I do not know that the prophet was higher than that law, but I do say that he was given the control of those things. After the law had been revealed from the Lord, I do not think that it was possible for the Lord to change that law by revealing something that was contrary to the law previously revealed through the prophet. I do not think that he would do that.^[162]

“I suppose he was subject to the law?” Here is the admission that Kelley was looking for, that Snow never makes. This makes little sense. Joseph was in control of these things, but was not to be bound by them until they were changed — by the very law that God gave him in previous “revelations” to operate by? Woodruff “did not think” Joseph would do that, but he knew he did. (Anyone with common sense can see that)

And Woodruff did it himself when he revoked celestial marriage (plurality of wives) in 1890. This was contrary to what “the Lord” had revealed in 1843 and what Smith, Young & Taylor (and even Woodruff himself) had affirmed over and over again until Woodruff saw that he would have to give up all the Church property if they were going to continue to obey the Lord and the law he had previously revealed.

The same testimony of Woodruff from the Temple Lot Transcript as found in the LDS Church History Library reads:

386. Q. Well will you give me the revelation permitting or authorizing that practice? [Washings & Anointings] A. No sir, I couldn’t do it.
387. Q. Can you cite me your authority for that practice? [He can’t and so begins to give his “testimony”] A. I want to understand this one thing—Joseph Smith was a prophet, seer and revelator, and was so acknowledged by the saints, and whatever he said or counseled in these things, or in these matters was accepted.
388. Q. Was he higher than the law? A. Greater than the law that God has revealed through Joseph Smith?
389. Q. Yes sir. A. No sir, but he was the medium through which the law was revealed.
390. Q. How was the prophet to give the word of God? A. How was the prophet to give the word of God. He was the prophet through which the world of God was revealed to all man kind.
391. Q. Well after the law had been revealed to him, them [sic] was he, the prophet, higher and greater than the law so revealed to him? A. I do not understand what you mean.
392. Q. I mean that after the law had been revealed, was he not then subject to the law the same as any other person? A. He was the law giver himself.
393. Q. Well was he not subject to the law he gave himself? A. I suppose he was.
394. Q. You suppose he was—as a matter of fact wasn’t he? A. Yes sir.
395. Q. You do not mean to say that he was the law maker? A. He was the law giver to the church, because he was the prophet, seer and revelator, and all the laws that came to the church came through his mouth, therefore you might call him the law giver—I know I do.
396. Q. That is he received the laws from God and communicated them to you, or rather to the church? A. Yes sir.
397. Q. Now after a law had been received from God and communicated to the church in that manner through the medium of Joseph Smith as the prophet, seer and revelator then do you say that the prophet, seer and revelator was higher than the law—higher than the law he received? In other words could he violate that law unless by direct command of God? [And the common consent of the Church, lest any forget] A. No sir, I do not say that, but I do say that he governed and all these things.
398. Q. After a law had been revealed from the Lord, was it possible in your opinion for the Lord to change that law by revealing something that was contrary to his law previously revealed through the prophet—that is do you think the Lord would reveal a certain and contrary doctrine—would reveal a certain thing to Joseph Smith in 1841, and then reveal a contrary doctrine in 1842? A. No sir I don’t know that I would, but as I say, or have said before with regard to all your questionings on these things—the prophet himself stood at the head, and received counsel from the Lord, and he dictated to the church in regard to these things, and revealed matters and things to the church as he was moved by the power of the Holy Spirit.^[163]

Woodruff’s hedging here is astounding, as is his obvious cognitive dissonance. He doesn’t know what it means to be subject to the law the same as any other person? Who is he kidding here? “I suppose he was subject to the law.” If this were true, (that Smith could do as he pleased as the “lawgiver”) then it would be the same as Woodruff telling everyone in the Church that he could break the Word of Wisdom, or practice polygamy (which had been banned by him – oh, that’s right, they did do that and lied about it) because he was “in control of those things”. What happens then to “my house is a house of order” that Brian Hales claims is so essential to this process?^[164]

Joseph F. Smith was also questioned under oath about these matters and perjured himself again and again. F. Smith’s arrogance at those hearings is mind boggling for someone who claimed to be a follower of Jesus. As Richard Van Wagoner writes:

President Joseph F. Smith stated similarly in his 1904 testimony before the Senate committee investigating the seating of Reed Smoot: “I will say this, Mr. Chairman, that no revelation given through the head of the church ever becomes binding and authoritative upon the members of the church until it has been presented to the church and accepted by them.” Questioned whether “the church in conference may say to you, Joseph F. Smith, the first president [sic] of the church, ‘We deny that God has told you to tell us this?,'” President Smith replied: “They can say that if they choose…. And it is not binding upon them as members of the church until they accept it” (1907, 1:96). It thus appears that at least two Church presidents have verified the principle of common consent in canonizing revelation into the standard works of LDS scripture. There is no mention, however, of a procedure for decanonizing scriptural items such as the Lectures on Faith.^[165]

It is important to note here that F. Smith was so adamant on this point because he had lied about the church continuing to practice plural marriages after 1890 with the permission of Mormon prophets and he was doing damage control. It was not until the private diaries of some of the Mormon “authorities” were published that we could understand the depth of F. Smith’s perjury before the United States Government.

Joseph F. Smith

Therefore, according to what we have just read, Joseph Smith, had no right to practice his Spiritual Wifeism before submitting the “revelation” to a vote of the church. That is why he did so in secret and then lied about it when confronted by those who opposed it (for just such reasons). So, who does not understand Mormon doctrine? (The one with the irrational approach to it).

It is therefore disingenuous of Mr. Hales to claim that Jeremy is neither accurate nor credible. Lorenzo Snow is the one that is inaccurate and not credible as is the sycophantic Brian Hales. (Always defend the “prophets”) Let’s return to that testimony and see if anything Snow says contradicts what Jeremy reported in the CES Letter:

299. Q. When Moses went up on the mount to receive the law in the wilderness, was he not commanded to present it to the church for acceptance, before it was binding upon the people?
300. Q. Was not that the case? A. Yes sir.
301. Q. And the people had to answer? A. Answer what?
302. Q. Answer whether they would accept that law or not? A. Well no, I don’t know as they were forced to do that, I don’t know as they had to do that. Were they?
303. Q. Well, I ask you that question? A. Well, I told you I don’t know.
304. Q. You are a preacher in this church here in Utah? A. Yes sir.
305. Q. And an apostle? A. Yes sir.
306. Q. And you don’t know whether it is a fact or is not a fact that the people were commanded to accept the law that Moses got on the mount, before it would be a law unto them? A. No sir, I do not know.
307. Q. You are a preacher and an apostle in this church, and you do know know that? A. No sir, you are a lawyer and yet you don’t know half as much as you ought to know.
308. Q. Well, I admit that. I do not make any pretensions of knowing any more than I do know. A. You know that what we are having here is tit for tat, but if you want to go on I am willing, although I don’t think it is particularly interesting to the folks here.
309. Q, Well, that is all right, I know I am not here for the purpose of interesting them. Did not the people have to answer as to whether they would accept or not, and was that not the rule in the Bible times? A. Well it was supposed they would answer.^[166]

In fact, Mormonism teaches that the reason for the Law of Moses was that the Children of Israel rejected the Higher Law. They would not live it, therefore, they were given a “lower law”, to which they agreed. For example, Apostle Orson F. Whitney taught:

Then Moses had the Gospel, and sought by means of it and the powers of the Holy Priesthood, to bring his people into a condition where they could look, as he had looked, upon the face of God; but they would not have it. That generation would not accept the Gospel, and it was taken away, as it had been taken many times before, and the powers of the Melchisedek priesthood went back into the heavens, and Israel was left with the Aaronic priesthood and the law of carnal commandments, to whip him as a schoolmaster until the days of Christ.^[167]

We also have Theodore M. Burton confirming that they chose to refuse the “higher law”:

Just as authority in the priesthood had been given to Adam and his sons, the patriarchs; so also were they given the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ and participated in the blessings and ordinances and covenants that pertain to exaltation in the acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and King. Only when the people refused to accept this higher priesthood and higher law at the time of Moses were they given the lesser priesthood and the lesser law which was to be a taskmaster to lead them eventually to accept Jesus Christ and the higher law which he had given to the prophets of old and which he gave again in his earthly ministry.^[168]

B.H. Roberts also gives the correct teaching, that Lorenzo Snow seems to have forgotten:

But one will say, “was not this stern old law set aside–this law demanding an eye for an eye, and tooth for tooth; this law that said thou shalt not foreswear they self, but thou shalt preform unto the Lord all thine oaths. Was not all this set aside by the Christ, saying, ‘swear not at all?’ And does not this indicate that God, though having given a commandment, may change it or modify it?” Bless your heart, the Lord, so far as I am concerned, can and will do as He pleases, and I for one, if I know that will, shall do what I can to carry it out; but, mark you, these examples I cite to you are taken at a time when one law was being displaced by another, when the law of Moses had completed its purpose and was put aside for the law of the gospel. I do not think you can find a place in holy writ where the Savior holds that while the law of Moses was yet in force, you could violate it with impunity. He may displace the law of Moses by the law of the gospel, as He did, but you cannot find Him counseling violation of the law of Moses while that law is in force. The Jehovah of the Jews, who gave the law unto Moses, is the Christ of the New Testament, and you could not imagine such an inconsistency as His giving a law and then permitting violations of it; for God, we have seen, does not walk in crooked paths.^[169]

If this rule applied to the Savior, surely it would apply to Joseph Smith, would it not? These are basic principles that Lorenzo Snow chose not to acknowledge because he understood that Joseph Smith had broken the law and could not reconcile it. God does not walk in crooked paths, claimed Joseph Smith and other Mormon “Authorities”. But Lorenzo Snow doesn’t think so in this deposition, and the two “prophets” that preceded and followed his administration also disagree.

So Joseph Smith could then violate the Marriage Law in the Doctrine and Covenants while it was still in force, according to Snow and Woodruff! Yet according to B.H. Roberts even Jesus did not do what Joseph Smith did, counsel people to violate a law that was going to be (eventually) displaced. But that didn’t happen until 1852.

It seems that these men can pontificate on any subject of the Gospel with relative ease, until it comes to testifying about things in relation to the behavior of Joseph Smith. Then they act like they have forgotten everything they ever knew about the “Gospel” and what is contained in the Bible (that is, their interpretation of it). This irrational approach is fully embraced by Brian Hales. And of course when you quote Mormon “authorities” or the scriptures to apologists like Hales, they object and complain because they have no answers that make any sense. The only reason that these Mormon “authorities” answered these questions is because they were under oath and had to respond.

Lorenzo Snow did give a Conference Address in 1878 and spoke of the “higher law” of “Consecration” and likened it to the Law of Moses:

It is argued by some that when the principle of tithing came in, it superceded the principles of the United Order. The law of Moses was given to be a schoolmaster, to bring the people to a knowledge of the Son of God, and induce them to obey the principles of the fulness of the Gospel. The higher law was given to the children of Israel when they were first delivered from Egyptian bondage, but in consequence of their disobedience, the Gospel in its fulness was withdrawn, and the law of carnal commandments was added. Now, do you imagine that there would have been any wrong if the people wanted to find the principles of the higher law and obey them as near as circumstances would admit? Do you suppose it would have been wrong to search out the fulness of the Gospel while living under the Mosaic law? But, in the Book of Mormon we find this point more fully illustrated. We find that the inhabitants of this continent had a knowledge of the fulness of the everlasting Gospel and were baptized for the remission of sins, many generations before Jesus came into the world. We find that Alma was baptized in the waters of Mormon, and some four hundred and fifty other individuals. Alma, by his energy and perseverance, had discovered the fulness of the Gospel and obtained revelations from the Lord, and the privilege of observing the Gospel in all its fulness and blessings. Do you think the Lord was angry with them? They were under the Mosaic law, and yet considered it a blessing to observe the higher law.^[170]

Yet, Moses first gave the Israelites a choice, a choice that Snow here shows that they could have reversed if they chose to do so, just like the Nephites did. They had the power to choose and they chose to reject the higher law. Did God simply force all of the Children of Israel at the point of a sword to live the higher law? No, so why would he do so with Joseph Smith and his Spiritual Wifeism? Yet this is the story that Lorenzo Snow propagates in his testimony. And the “nonplussed” Hales goes along with all of it, no matter how disingenuous it is.

Snow agrees that the Israelites knew about the higher law, (they knew because it was presented to them) but they rejected it, something that seems to have slipped Snow’s mind at the trial, but that he had taught in a General Conference of the Church. And Snow continues to evade and defend Smith’s bad behavior at all costs:

310. Q. Well is it not a fact that it was a rule in the church that if anybody should undertake to follow a principle that had not been accepted, and was not accepted as a principle and true doctrine of the church that they would be violators of the law of the church. A. Yes, sir.
311. Q. That is a fact? A. Yes sir, but there are exceptions to every law you know.
312. Q. Who constituted the church at Nauvoo, if you know? A. Joseph and the people.
313. Q. Joseph and the people constituted the church while at Nauvoo? A. Yes sir.
314. Q. Well what else, I mean at the time that they were at Nauvoo? A. What else beside Joseph and the people that were there?
315. Q. Yes sir? A. Well, that was it.
316. Q. By “the people” you refer to the members of the church through the world, as constituting the church? A. Yes sir.
317. Q. Then the members through the world and Joseph Smith constituted the church? A. Yes sir.
318. Q. Then could Joseph Smith receive a principle without the knowledge or consent of the body of the church, which was the people through the world, and without submitting it to them, —could he receive and practice it, and be in harmony with the law? A. He couldn’t do it in reference to that in any other way. That is the only way he could do it.
319. Q. Could he practice it without a violation of the law of the church? A. It was just this way, and it seems to me to be a plain common sense proposition, that Joseph Smith could not receive a revelation, or principle as you express it, and the people all understand it at the time he received it. That is a self evident proposition that that could not be done.
320. Q. Well are you through? A. Yes sir.
321. Q. Then I wish you would answer my question. Could he receive a revelation and act upon it, that was contrary in its teachings and provisions to the laws of the church to govern the church, without a violation of those laws? A. Yes sir, I see that distinctly and understand it, and I want you to understand it too.
322. Q. Well, just answer my question, you cannot answer it yes or no? A. What is the question?^[171]

Notice that he understood perfectly when it was not applied to Joseph Smith. At Rational Faiths, Hales writes that if Jeremy “had actually consulted the depositions, which are available at the Church History Library, he would have learned that later in that same deposition, RLDS attorney Edmund Kelley questioned Snow who directly disagreed with Runnells’ conclusion.”^[172] Hales then quotes from the transcript above:

Q. Could he [Joseph Smith] receive a revelation and act upon it, that was contrary in its teachings and provisions to the laws of the church to govern the church, without a violation of those laws?
A. Yes sir, I see that distinctly and understand it and I want you to understand it too.^[173]

Unfortunately, anyone reading Hales quote above would not realize that Snow had not really answered the question. Snow tries to dodge the question by claiming that Joseph Smith could not receive any of his “revelations” that “the people all understand”.

Of course E. L. Kelley sees the dodge and asks him if he is through and if he will just answer the question. Snow then (again) doesn’t answer the question. So Hales quote here is useless, unless one actually reads the entire testimony of Lorenzo Snow, which Hales doesn’t provide at his website, and which FAIRMORMON erroneously claimed was not online.

Snow also (if you notice from the portion of the Transcript that posted above) then asks what the question was! So what did Lorenzo Snow want them to “understand”? His own justification as to why Smith alone did not have to follow the law of the Church. But Mr. Kelley does not fall for that trick.

323. Q. Could Joseph Smith receive a revelation and act upon it that was contrary in its teachings and provisions to the laws of the church as accepted by the church at that time, without being at the same time in violation of the laws of the church? A. Why he might do so. Joseph Smith and [sic] did, but I don’t consider he was a violator of any of the laws of the church, for he was the law of the church. I never knew of the church rejecting a revelation he gave to them.
324. Q. You mean that Joseph Smith might and did receive revelations,—what do you mean by that? A. I mean that he might receive revelations and act on them, and did so receive them and act on them, and so did Moses and Christ and other prophets. They all received revelations, and call it presumption or what you choose they assumed the authority given them, and acted on them forthwith. They were not presumptuous enough to question the voice of the Lord when it came to them in the form of a commandment, neither was Joseph.
325. Q. Well no you have not answered my question yet,—I asked you if Joseph Smith received a revelation that was at variance with the laws of the church as accepted by the church,—what would be his position if he acted upon such a revelation without submitting it to the church? A. Joseph might have received a revelation that was apparently perhaps,—perhaps it might apparently be in contradiction, and yet it does not come to my mind now what circumstances might arise. Now I see what you are after, and I wish to explain it so you may understand what I mean, and know all about it. Joseph Smith received a revelation in reference to plural marriage, and the church he thought in his wisdom was not properly prepared to receive that revelation.^[174]

The church rejected Smith’s law of consecration “revelation”! That is why Snow was going on in the quote above about higher laws and the Israelites! And the binding Article on Marriage was a total rejection of polygamy! They had rejected it even before Smith had proposed it. That was why he went underground with it. That is the source of all the conflict here. Smith could not change the collective mind of the church and he knew it.

You can see from the testimony above the game that Lorenzo Snow was playing. He claims to want them to “understand” but then Mr. Kelley keeps on asking the same question over and over again, but Snow lies and gives various explanations that have nothing to do with the question he is being asked. He finally states in question 325 that he now sees what Mr. Kelley is after, but still doesn’t answer the question. He claims that Joseph Smith received a “revelation” from God and that the Church “he thought in his wisdom was not properly prepared to receive that revelation.” He also states that “Joseph Smith did” receive “revelations” that were in violation of the laws of the church and acted on them, but that Snow didn’t consider Smith a violator of any of the laws that Snow admits he violated. This is exactly what Hales claims that Snow did not say!

This explanation makes little sense and is simply posturing by Snow because we have Lorenzo Snow telling us something different about understanding the “higher law” at that General Conference of 1879 where he said:

The higher law was given to the children of Israel when they were first delivered from Egyptian bondage, but in consequence of their disobedience, the Gospel in its fulness was withdrawn, and the law of carnal commandments was added. Now, do you imagine that there would have been any wrong if the people wanted to find the principles of the higher law and obey them as near as circumstances would admit? Do you suppose it would have been wrong to search out the fulness of the Gospel while living under the Mosaic law?^[175]

God had apparently (according to Snow) determined that the Mormon people were ready to receive the higher marriage law^[176] of polygamy (otherwise, why did he give it to Joseph in the first place!) but unlike Moses, Joseph Smith didn’t present the “higher law” to the church. God supposedly knew that the people of Israel were not ready to receive the “higher law” and yet that did not stop Moses from presenting it to them . He did not go around in secret and teach it to a select few and then lie about it to the rest of the Israelites because he was afraid that some were not “prepared” for it.

According to Lorenzo Snow himself, Smith had ample opportunity to “prepare” the people, since he claimed that Joseph Smith knew about this “higher law” long before the “revelation” he wrote in 1843:

I say that he explained to me the principles of plural marriage distinctly and clearly and told me that the Lord had revealed the principle, and had commanded him to enter into that practice, and that he had received a revelation to that effect. He said that he had demurred to doing so as he foresaw the trouble that would ensue, but that an angel of the Lord had appeared before him with a drawn sword commanding him to do so, and he could not go backward.^[177]

Snow also states, “That [July 1843] was the first time it was given to the public [the people in Nauvoo], but not the first time it was given to Joseph Smith.”^[178]

Notice that Joseph Smith could “distinctly and clearly” explain polygamy to Lorenzo Snow, but that he could not bring it before the Church. How come, if polygamy was so hard to understand, did Lorenzo Snow have no problem understanding the teaching?

This wasn’t about understanding a teaching; it was about those who could accept that Joseph Smith was above the law of the Church, as Lorenzo Snow clearly believed. This was a process that Smith could only undertake in secret and individual by individual because he was taking concubines who were other men’s wives in addition to the “virgins” he was later “sealed” to.

See if you can follow Snow’s tortured logic here. After some diversions about Hyrum Smith and Brigham Young and the succession; and then changes in revelations; they come back to the original question that Snow never answered:

448. Q. Now you were asked on your cross examination, if it was not necessary for a revelation to be presented to the church and be acted on or accepted by the church, before it could become a law to the church. I will ask you to state whether you know that such is the law or was the law at that time? A. It never was the law. As I stated a while ago I can explain that if I am given an opportunity. Well I think I explained that pretty clearly why it could not be.
449. Q. Mr. Snow I will ask you to state to the reporter, the fact as to whether or not a revelation was binding upon the church, just as soon as the church was made acquainted with the contents of what that revelation was? A. Yes sir.
450. Q. That is the fact? A. Yes sir, that is what I have stated before.
451. Q. It was binding on the church just as soon as the church was made acquainted with it? A. Yes sir.
452. Q. I will ask you to state Mr. Snow if you know of any council of the church that has ever passed upon and decided that revelation on plural marriage is an addition and change from the law of marriage as contained in the first edition of the book of doctrine and covenants? A. No sir.^[179]

This testimony by Lorenzo Snow where he claims “it never was the law” that it was necessary for a revelation to be presented to the church before it could become a law to the church [common consent] is simply not true. It has always been a law in the Church that everything be done by common consent of the people. As Robert Herold explained in 1969:

Because the President of the Church is accepted as prophet, seer and revelator, he is solely responsible for imparting new revelations to the general membership. Acceptance of revelation by faith alone is required. But how does the membership recognize a revelation? Obviously, the President does not utter eternal truths each time he speaks. For any pronouncement to be considered as a revelation, the President must so specify. The fact that the President speaks from the pulpit is not alone sufficient to bind the membership. He must make clear his intent to proclaim new doctrine or commandments. Once he has so specified, the membership must decide whether or not to accept the revelation as binding. This is in accordance with the law of common consent found in the Doctrine and Covenants 26:2. It states, “And all things shall be done by common consent in the Church by much prayer and faith….” In 1831 all revelations to date were assembled and compiled into what was called the Book of Commandments. The book was accepted in general Church conference on November 1, 1831. By August, 1835, the collection of commandments had again been brought up to date and presented to the general assembly of the Church as the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. “Subsequent revelations, accepted by the vote of the Church were added to later additions until the book reached its present proportions.” It is important that the Church membership recognize the President as the only official source of revelation in the Church. A most devastating disruption would occur if a part of the membership decided to accept others besides the President as a source of revelation. This would be a breakdown in required acceptance and would cause such instability and uncertainty that the Church as now structured would almost certainly change. On the other hand, a more stable situation exists when a large majority of the Church accepts as required only that which the President has specifically proclaimed as revelation.^[180]

This is nothing new and had been a law in the Church since 1831. As John Taylor explained in 1880:

It requires the Presidency of the Church to seek after God in all of their administrations . . . Now we ought not to allow our feeling to have any place in these matters. No man has a right to use his priesthood to carry on his own peculiar ideas, or to set himself up as a standard, with the exception of the First Presidency, and they have no right to do it unless God be with them, and sustain them, and they are upheld by the people.^[181]

There is a difference between “revelation” in the church, and “binding revelation”. Lorenzo Snow acts here, like there is none. Joseph Smith could have a “revelation” to send a man on a mission, but that still had to be presented to the individual, it had to be brought before the Elders of the Church, the man had to be ordained and set apart and then agree to be sent. In early Mormonism it did not mean that they did not view these things as “revelation”, but there were established patterns that were followed if they were to become binding upon individuals. Even FAIRMORMON today applies this to any “doctrine” that is promulgated in the Church:

How do we know then, what is “doctrine”, and what is not? First it must generally conform to what has already been revealed. “It makes no difference what is written or what anyone has said,” wrote J. Fielding Smith, “if what has been said is in conflict with what the Lord has revealed, we can set it aside.” The standard works, he explains, are the “measuring yardsticks, or balances, by which we measure every man’s doctrine.^[182]

According to what FAIRMORMON writes, Joseph’s Spiritual Wifeism was never doctrine and because it conflicted with what was in the standard works at the time (the 1835 Marriage Law) it had to be set aside. Harold B. Lee expressed similar thoughts when he taught that any doctrine, advanced by anyone—regardless of position—that was not supported by the standard works, then “you may know that his statement is merely his private opinion.” He recognized that the Prophet could bring forth new doctrine, but “when he does, [he] will declare it as revelation from God,” after which it will be sustained by the body of Church.

The Prophet can add to the scriptures, but such new additions are presented by the First Presidency to the body of the Church and are accepted by common consent (by sustaining vote) as binding doctrine of the Church (See D&C 26:2; 107:27-31). Until such doctrines or opinions are sustained by vote in conference, however, they are “neither binding nor the official doctrine of the Church.”^[183]

This is exactly the opposite of what Lorenzo Snow is stating under oath. In 1877 Orson Pratt spoke of the policy in relation to the days in Kirtland:

I wish to state still further in regard to the Priesthood, while upon the subject, that in the Kirtland Temple when the authorities were presented before the people, they were called upon to vote by quorums. Not that it occurred always in that manner. That was the way Joseph ordained in the Temple; each Council voting separately, by standing upon their feet in order that their votes might be better known than they could be by keeping their seats. After one Quorum had voted for the highest authority of the Church, then another Quorum or Council would be called upon to give their vote, and so on, until all had voted for the different

Orson Pratt by grindael

authorities, and then it was presented to all the Church, male and female. Why? It is because God ordained, on the 6th day of April, 1830, as you can read in the Doctrine and Covenants, that all things in this Church should be done by common consent. This is the reason for the voting. Although the Lord may give a revelation upon the subject, although he might say, Let my servant Hyrum Smith be Patriarch; or Let my servant Brigham Young be President of the Twelve Apostles; notwithstanding the Lord may give this by revelation, yet he himself was anxious to carry out the principle he had revealed a long time before that; namely, that all this I have named may be brought before the General Conference to be sanctioned and approved, or not to be sanctioned. What! the people have a right to reject those whom the Lord names? Yes, they have this right, he gave it to them. “Let them be approved of or not approved of;” showing that he had respect to the people themselves, that they should vote and give their general voice to either sustain or not to sustain. I do not know why, only in the latter days the kingdom is in a little different circumstances upon the face of the earth, than it has been in during any former dispensation. We are living in a free Republican Government, wherein the people vote, and the Lord established this great American Government and gave the Constitution, and he wished the people to have a voice in the officers named; he wished the people to exercise their agency; you may call it a democratic principle. Notwithstanding He himself may point out the persons, and call them by name, yet you may approve of them or disapprove of them at my General Conference.^[184]

Todd Compton, a real expert on Joseph Smith’s polygamy writes:

Decisions about church revelation were intended to be consensual. In the Doctrine and Covenants the membership was given responsibility to approve or reject a proposed leader or revelation (20:65; 26:2). Also consensus was to be the operational mode in the quorums. According to one scholar:

The quorum of the anointed or holy order, was comprised of the first group of male and female members who received the endowment or fullness of priesthood. Joseph instructed them that they had the keys to test revelation, and were to test the revelation of anyone claiming to have received one for the Church. . . . [T]he quorum had real, if not supreme priesthood authority in the church. . . . From the time the quorum was first organized until his death, Joseph relied more and more on it to test out his doctrinal innovation and to disclose his most important decisions.^[185]

Did Joseph Smith ever put his Spiritual Wife Doctrine to a vote in any quorum of the Church before he began to practice it and commanded others to do likewise? We have no evidence of this. It was presented to the High Council in Nauvoo in 1843 by Hyrum Smith, but they were divided about it, and it was withdrawn. And the Smith’s lied about it and claimed it was a revelation about “former times” and that one could only be “sealed” to dead spouses and only one living spouse.

There is simply no getting around this law, and no contrived exception can change it. Lorenzo Snow tries to make a case for that, and if one simply compares his testimony with that of Wilford Woodruff (who was President of the Church), one can see that Snow is being untruthful and deceptive.

Is there an exception to every law as Snow claimed? Is there an exception to baptism? Could a woman baptize an individual if the Prophet said so? Could the Prophet secretly ordain women to the Priesthood? And then claim it was a “revelation” and it was ok because he wanted a certain woman to be able to baptize people and was afraid that the people were not “prepared” to receive the new law and therefore he taught and acted on it in secret? Even women missionaries today cannot baptize people . They must find a man who holds the Priesthood. Could Russel Nelson just wave his hand and say “hey, there are exceptions to every law you know?” Would he be truthful if he testified to this in a court of law? And would anyone really believe him if he did such a thing and used such an excuse?

So what are we to make of Lorenzo Snow’s testimony here? And further, what are we to make of Brian Hales who claims to know so much about Joseph Smith’s theology and polygamy? We see that Hales does not extensively quote from Snow’s testimony, so is he really familiar with it or is he only cherry picking? If so, why does he try and perpetuate this obvious deception in connection with Jeremy Runnells?

We see from this exercise that there are all kinds of problems with Lorenzo Snow’s Testimony at the Temple Lot Trial, and that the comments that Jeremy Runnells made are not a misrepresentation of Mormon Doctrine or of Lorenzo Snow’s testimony. We see that Lorenzo Snow was a hostile and purposefully forgetful witness who perjured himself and was out to defend Joseph Smith at any cost, and so colored his testimony to that end.

Finally, boxed in by Kelley, Snow admits that yes, revelations were in fact presented to the Church for approval before they became binding on the Church:

468. Q. You know the revelations contained in the 1835 edition of the book of doctrine and covenants were presented to the church there and accepted? A. Yes sir, and I know that it was also done at other places—at least I have heard that it was done. Now as you mention it I remember hearing of it, but I was not present, and so what I know about this is hearsay.
469. Q. Well was that the rule? A. Yes sir.
470. Q. Now I will read to you from the Times and Seasons a statement made by Orson Hyde to the Quorum of Twelve. It is in the Times and Seasons Vol. 3 page 649, published September 8th 1844.
471. Q. I will read you this and see if you identify it Mr. Snow. “There is a way by which all revelations purporting to be from God through any man can be tested. Brother Joseph gave us the plan[.] Says he, when all the quorums are assembled and organized in order, let the revelation be presented to the quorums[.] If it pass one[,] let it go to another, and if it pass that, to another, and so on until it has passed all the quorums; and if it pass the whole without running against a snag, you may know it is of God. But if it runs against a snag, then says he, it wants enquiring into: you must see to it. It is known to some who are present that there is a quorum organized where revelation can be tested. Brother Joseph said, let no revelation go to the people until it has been tested [t]here “Now I would ask, did Elder Rigdon call the quorum together and there lay his revelation before it, to have it tested? No, he did not wait to call the quorum; neither did he call the authorities together that were here.” Now I will ask you if you recognize that? A. That is very good doctrine.
472. Q. So that was the rule instead of there being no rule, when you come to think about it? A. Well that was the rule but as I told you before there was exceptions to the rule, and you can see the reason of it too. Revelations were often given when the whole of the church were not present, and there is some of the quorums that have to confirm the revelations before it can ever go before the church.
473. Q. Well that was the rule of the church at the time,—always was the rule of the church prior to the death of Joseph Smith wasn’t it? A. Yes sir, with the exception that I speak of,—
474. Q. No you were asked this question,—was a revelation binding upon the church as soon as it was made known to the church? A. Yes sir.
475. Q. That question was asked you,—and you answered it “yes sir.” A. Yes sir.
476. Q. Now is a revelation binding upon the church, before it is made known to the church? A. No sir.
477. Q. It is not binding upon the church then until it is made known to the church? A. Certainly not, but it is binding upon such individuals as to whom it may be made known. If a revelation was made known to an individual it is binding upon him, even if it has not been made known to the church. I have repeated that answer I suppose a dozen times.
478. Q. Well I am just asking the question to have it brought out definitely and beyond mistake. A. Well that is all right. Yes sir, there are circumstances,—there has been times when revelations were revealed to a few persons, and it thereby became a law to them, but not a law to the church until it is revealed to the church.
479. Q. Now suppose that a revelation should be accepted by a few people before it is made known to the church, and that revelation is contrary to the doctrines of the church,—if it is true that it is obligatory on the few people to whom it is made known, and it is contrary to the law of the church as accepted by the church—what position would these few people be in? A. Well in rather an unpleasant position.
480. Q. They would be in a position of violating the law of the church wouldn’t they? A. No sir, no sir, not necessarily.
481. Q. They would not? A. No sir.
482. Q. Would not they be liable to be dealt with,—to be disciplined? A. That would be a bad case.
483. Q. That would be bad you say? A. Yes sir, and I speak thus because of your supposed unbelief in these matters, for I believe that the Lord did reveal it to him, so I think that all who accepted it are in no danger from the wrath of the Lord at all.^[186]

It is obvious that Lorenzo Snow is looking at this from a point of view that anything that Joseph Smith “revealed” was from God and therefore binding on those that heard it immediately. But we already knew that this was Lorenzo Snow’s view. What Mr. Kelley was trying to establish with Snow was if there was a set law in the church for presenting revelation that would become binding on the Church (which is comprised of individuals), and as we see from the comments of Wilford Woodruff above, there was.

The problem with Lorenzo Snow is that he is downplaying (in an effort to defend Joseph Smith) the whole reason for the law, to protect people from blindly following the commandments of one man who may err, despite being called as a “prophet”. This is simply blind fanaticism on the part of Lorenzo Snow, who believed that Joseph Smith could break no laws, or that if he did, he was allowed to get a free pass. He was the inexplicable “exception” to the established rules of God. The question must be asked over and over again before Snow finally admits that yes, it would be bad to blindly accept a “revelation” as binding without it going through the proper channels to confirm it. Yet Snow will not budge when it comes to Joseph Smith. He is simply being irrational.

Since Snow did not view the polygamy revelation as contradictory, he therefore claims that it is an exception to the very law that Wliford Woodfuff describes, which is, “before a revelation can be accepted by the church, as a law, it must in some form or other be presented to the church and accepted by the church.” Smith then, had no authority to present this principle to anyone in the church as a law to be practiced, until he had the approval of the church. Lorenzo Snow is claiming two things here and they contradict each other.

This was simply unacceptable to Lorenzo Snow, because he, like Woodruff felt that Smith was infallible when it came to his “revelations”. Lorenzo Snow also committed blatant perjury on the stand. When asked about the Law of Adoption, the discountinued practice (two years later in 1894) of sealing men to men (other than their family members) Snow lied and claimed he never heard of the practice:

92 Q. Did he [Joseph Smith] tell you whether or not a man could be sealed to another man, and a man’s family? A. No sir, he said nothing about that.
93 Q. Do you know whether or not that was the case from your knowledge? A. This is the first time I ever heard of it.
94. Q. Heard of what? A. Of one man being sealed to another.
95. Q. You never heard of a family being sealed to another family? A. Yes sir, I have heard of it in this way—I have heard of children being sealed to adults.
96. Q. Did you ever hear of a man’s wife being sealed to him? A. Yes sir.
97. Q. You have heard of that? A. Certainly I have hear of women being sealed to men, but of men being sealed to one another, I never heard of that until now.
98. Q. Was it not common to seal a man’s wife to him—that is was not the principle common after Joseph death and was it not practiced in the church at that time? A. Certainly. Now do I understand you to ask me the question about a man being sealed to a man?
99 Q. Yes sir. A. In what way?
100. Q. Sealed to one higher in authority, so the whole family would be his in eternity? A. You ask me if I now know or ever did know anything about a man being sealed to a man, and I say no, I never knew or heard of such a thing as that.^[187]

Of course Snow knew all about the law of adoption (being President of the Salt Lake Temple at the time of his testimony) and the sealing of men to men, which was practiced in the church until discontinued by Wilford Woodruff in 1894 (shortly after Lorenzo Snow lied about it). Here is Brigham Young commenting on the sealing of men to men, from Wilford Woodruff’s journal in 1847:

While treating upon the principle of Adoption He said some men were afraid they would loose some glory if they were sealed to one of the Twelve And did not stand alone And have others sealed to them. President Young said there kingdom consisted of their own posterity And it did not diminish that at all by being sealed to one of the Twelve but ownly [p.118] bound them by that perfect Chain according to the law of God and order of Heaven that will bind the righteous from Adam to the last Saint And Adam will claim us all as members of his kingdom we deing his Children.

He gave some interesting teaching concerning the rights of men & the dealings of men with there wives and children, the raising of posterity, purity, Holiness &c. That if A wise and proper course was taken in the begeting and raising of children that they would soon become pure & Holy And be administered to by Angels &c. And many other things did the Apostle teach.^[188]

Brigham Young, also discussed the Law of Adoption and the sealing of men to men in front of the Church and in private.^[189] The Law of Adoption was also discussed in a meeting that Lorenzo Snow attended in 1884 (almost ten years before the Temple Lot Suit) with President John Taylor:

Thursday May 22, 1884. Prest Taylor Cannon & Smith & the brethren of the Apostles & others met at the Temple at 9.30 am There were present in the Recorders Room as follows – Prest John Taylor, George Q Cannon – Joseph F. Smith, Apostles W. Woodruff, L.[orenzo] Snow, E. Snow, F. D. Richards – M Thatcher – G Teasdale, Coun D H Wells Prests. J. D T McAllister, L. John Nuttall – A. M Cannon, W B Preston C O. Card M. W Merrill – Elders – D H Cannon Samuel Roskelly, T. Morrell & Geo W Thatcher – President John Taylor directed the Temple Recorder to place on the records of the Temple as follows “That the Lord is well pleased and has accepted this House, and our labors in its Dedication, also the labors of the people in its building and beautifying – and whatever (p. 50) the Saints may feel to place into it, to ornament and embellish it, will also be acceptable. I state this as the Word of the Lord. And the Lord will continue to reveal unto us every principle that shall be necessary for our guidance in the future in all matters pertaining to our labors both spiritually and temporaly. Several of the brethren briefly expressed their satisfaction, in conversation, of all that had transpired in the building and in the past days services –

john Taylor c. 1880

When President Taylor afterwards made pertinent remarks on the subject of adoption. said he had been considering this subject and had the matter and the Keys thereof before him, and in a short time he would make it plain to all, [not in attendance] in that there need could (sic) (p. 51) be no misunderstanding. he also referred to Abraham & others – after which He arose to his feet and said “God accepts us and our labors and if we will do His will and Keep His commandments, He will stand by and sustain us, and no power on the earth or in hell shall have power to do us any harm or to injure us in any manner – I feel to bless you my brethren here present in the name of Isreals God. and you and your families shall be blessed, and God will raise you up and lift you on high. I feel like shouting Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Glory to God. For His Kingdom and people shall triumph I say it in the name of the Israels God. Amen – All present responded Amen – Prest. Taylor & Cannon & Elder (p. 52) Nuttall then proceeded up to the sealing room when Prest Taylor explained further in regard to the ordinance of Adoption and concluded to postpone any action on that ordinance for the present and until he shall he shall give further instructions pertaining thereto. Everything now being in working order at the Temple the President & brethren left & prepared for starting to Salt Lake this afternoon – At 130 started by Utah & Northern train for Ogden in a special car provided by Supt Doddridge when on arrival at Ogden changed cars to the Utah Central and arrived at Salt Lake at 730 P M all well and found families all well (p. 53) While on the train a dispatch was received from Elder Geo Reynolds setting forth that it was rumored that Prest Jos F Smith & Coun D H Wells were wanted by the Grand Jury as witnesses in some Polygamy cases before them. Bro Wells stopped at Brigham & Bro Smith at Willard & came down to the City afterwards.^[190]

In 1894 Wilford Woodruff claimed that the law of adoption (including the sealing of men to men) had been being performed incorrectly, and addressed the Church about it:

I want to lay before you what there is for us to do at this present time; and in doing this I desire particularly the attention of President Lorenzo Snow, of the Salt Lake Temple; President M. W. Merrill, of the Logan Temple; President J. D. T. McAllister, of the Manti Temple; and President D. H. Cannon, of the St. George Temple, and those associated with them. You have acted up to all the light and knowledge that you have had; but you have now something more to do than what you have done. We have not fully carried out those principles in fulfillment of the revelations of God to us, in sealing the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers. I have not felt satisfied, neither did President Taylor, neither has any man since the Prophet Joseph who has attended to the ordinance of adoption in the temples of our God. We have felt that there was more to be revealed upon this subject than we had received. Revelations were given to us in the St. George Temple, which President Young presented to the Church of God. Changes were made there, and we still have more changes to make, in order to satisfy our Heavenly Father, satisfy our dead and ourselves. I will tell you what some of them are. I have prayed over this matter, and my brethren have. We have felt, as President Taylor said, that we have got to have more revelation concerning sealing under the law of adoption. Well, what are these changes? One of them is the principle of adoption. In the commencement of adopting men and women in the Temple at Nauvoo, a great many persons were adopted to different men who were not of the lineage of their fathers, and there was a spirit manifested by some in that work that was not of God. Men would go out and electioneer and labor with all their power to get men adopted to them. One instance I will name here: A man went around Nauvoo asking every man he could, saying, “You come and be adopted to me, and I shall stand at the head of the kingdom, and you will be there with me.” Now, what is the truth about this? Those who were adopted to that man, if they go with him, will have to go where he is. He was a participator in that horrible scene—the Mountain Meadow massacre. Men have tried to lay that to President Young. I was with President Young when the massacre was first reported to him. President Young was perfectly horrified at the recital of it, and wept over it. He asked: “Was there any white man had anything to do with that?” The reply was No; and by the representations then made to him he was misinformed concerning the whole transaction. I will say here, and call heaven and earth to witness, that President Young, during his whole life, never was the author of the shedding [p.73] of the blood of any of the human family; and when the books are opened in the day of judgment these things will be proven to heaven and earth. Perhaps I had not ought to enter into these things, but it came to me. Men are in danger sometimes in being adopted to others, until they know who they are and what they will be. Now, what are the feelings of Israel? They have felt that they wanted to be, adopted to somebody. President Young was not satisfied in his mind with regard to the extent of this matter; President Taylor was not. When I went before the Lord to know who I should be adopted to (we were then being adopted to prophets and apostles), the Spirit of God said to me, “Have you not a father, who begot you?” “Yes, I have.” “Then why not honor him? Why not be adopted to him? …. Yes,”says I, “that is right.” I was adopted to my father, and should have had my father sealed to his father, and so on back; and the duty that I want every man who presides over a temple to see performed from this day henceforth and forever, unless the Lord Almighty commands otherwise, is, let every man be adopted to his father. When a man receives the endowments, adopt him to his father; not to Wilford Woodruff, nor to any other man outside the lineage of his fathers. That is the will of God to this people. I want all men who preside over these temples in these mountains of Israel to bear this in mind. What business have I to take away the rights of the lineage of any man? What right has any man to do this? No; I say let every man be adopted to his father; and then you will do exactly what God said when he declared He would send Elijah the prophet in the last days. Elijah the prophet appeared unto Joseph Smith and told him that the day had come when this principle must be carried out. Joseph Smith did not live long enough to enter any further upon these things. His soul was wound up with this work before he was martyred for the word of God and testimony of Jesus Christ. He told us that there must be a welding link of all dispensations and of the work of God from one generation to another. This was upon his mind more than most any other subject that was given to him. In my prayers the Lord revealed to me, that it was my duty to say to all Israel to carry this principle out, and in fulfillment of that revelation I lay it before this people. I say to all men who are laboring in these temples, carry out this principle, and then we will make one step in advance of what we have had before. Myself and counselors conversed upon this and were agreed upon it, and afterwards we laid it before all the Apostles who were here (two were absent—Brothers Thatcher and Lund, the latter being in England), and the Lord revealed to every one of these men—and they would bear testimony to it if they were to speak—that that was the word of the Lord to them. I never met with anything in my life in this Church that there was more unity upon than there was upon that principle. They all feel right about it, and that it is our duty. That is one principle that should be carried out from this time henceforth. “But,” says one, “suppose we come along to a man who perhaps is a murderer.” Well, if he is a murderer, drop him out and connect with the next man beyond him. But the Spirit of God will be with us in this matter. We want the Latter-say Saints from this time to trace their genealogies as far as they can, and to be sealed to their fathers and mothers. Have children sealed to their parents, and run this chain through as far as you can get it. When you get to the end, let the last man be adopted to Joseph Smith, who stands at the bead of the dispensation. This is the will of the Lord to this people, and I think when you come to reflect upon it you will find it to be [p.74] true.^[191]

A month before Woodruff had the Law of Adoption discontinued in the Church he told a group of men in the temple:

Wed., March 28, 1894. … I (Wilford Woodruff) was sealed to my father, and then had him sealed to the Prophet Joseph. Erastus Snow was sealed to his father though the latter was not baptized after having heard the Gospel. He was however, kind to the Prophet, and was a Saint in everything except baptism. The Lord has told me that it is right for children to be sealed to their parents, and they to their parents just as far back as we can possibly obtain the records; and then have the last obtainable member sealed to the Prophet Joseph, who stands at the head of this dispensation. It is also right for wives whose husbands never heard the Gospel to be sealed to those husbands, providing they are will[ing] to run the risk of their receiving the Gospel in the Spirit world. There is yet very much for us to learn concerning the temple ordinances, and God will make it known as we prove ourselves ready to receive it…^[192]

Yet, Brigham Young taught:

…I will answer a question that has been repeatedly asked me…should I have a father dead that has never heard this gospel, would it be required of me to redeem him and then have him adopted into some man’s family and I be adopted to my father? (I ans. no.) … were we to wait to redeem our dead relatives before we could link the chains of the P. H. [priesthood] we would never accomplish it.^[193]

There is no way that Lorenzo Snow could not have known about the sealing of men to men. Woodruff includes Snow in a list of men that preformed these sealings with “all the light and knowledge” they had. Why Snow chose to lie about this doesn’t really matter, but it does go to his credibility as a witness and shows that he would lie rather than reveal some things that might have been viewed as controversial.

Snow also tried to claim that there were “exceptions”—that because the law (of Patriarchal Marriage) could not be presented to the church because it (the Church) wasn’t fully “present”, Joseph was justified in revealing it in secret to individuals.

But that excuse does not apply to Smith’s Spiritual Wifeism Doctrine. Smith started the practice in Nauvoo in 1841 when the entire church was “present.” He had the Quorums in place. The main body of the Church was there. Smith just never presented the polygamy “revelation” to them. He revealed it in secret to a few members and then lied about it. So this excuse by Snow can’t apply to the Spiritual Wife System, or as it was later known Celestial Marriage.

We also know that Smith’s Spiritual Wifeism was in contradiction to the established and accepted (binding) doctrine of the Church’s marriage law, of one man having only one wife and that polygamy was expressly forbidden at that time.^[194] So Joseph Smith did violate the laws of the Church. To prove this, one only has to read the Times and Seasons from November 15, 1844 which states:

The law of the land and the rules of the church do not allow one man to have more than one wife alive at once, but if any man’s wife die, he has a right to marry another, and to be sealed to both for eternity; to the living and the dead! there is no law of God or man against it! This is all the spiritual wife system that ever was tolerated in the church, and they know it.^[195]

In the Church’s official publication they insist that “the law of the LAND and the rules of the CHURCH do not allow one man to have more than one wife ALIVE at once.” They also call polygamy a “spiritual wife system”. So Jeremy could also have written:

According to Brigham Young and the rest of the Quorum of the Twelve in 1844, Joseph had zero business marrying his plural wives before 1843 and he should have been cut off from the Church as it was adultery under the laws of the Church and under the laws of the State. Joseph’s marriage to Fanny Alger in 1833 was illegal under both the laws of the land and under any theory of divine authority; it was adultery.

This (the Times & Seasons denial) was all right to publish when it was in the interest of the parties who were lying about what they were doing, but later, they conveniently forgot about these kinds of statements and claimed that such things were never the law of the Church. Lies are often built upon lies. How does this not apply to Joseph Smith? We have no credible answers from those that he personally taught it to, nor the apologists that still try and defend this irrational reasoning today.^[196]

Notes

[105] Runnells, Debunking, Section on Polyandry, online here, accessed November 5, 2014.

[106] For some background on the Temple Lot Case, See R. Jean Addams, “An Introduction to the Temple Lot Case”, Signature Books Library, Online here, Accessed December 2, 2014.

[107] Hales, “Rational Faiths”, op. cited.

[108] ibid., Comment Section under date cited above. Online here, Accessed December 2, 2014.

[109] ibid.

[110] Brian Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, Vol. II, Appendix C, added emphasis.

To illustrate our point, we have this from wiki, (which we think is a fair definition of the editing process in general):

Editing is the process of selecting and preparing writing, photography, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, and many other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate and complete work. (wiki entry: “Editing”, online here, accessed July 22, 2019, added emphasis).

Hales makes no mention in his book that the editing process used by the RLDS church involved fabricating text. If this was so important we have to ask why Hales never mentioned it?

[111] Lorenzo Snow, Statement, January 29, 1891, as cited in Dennis B. Horne, An Apostle’s Record: The Journals of Abraham H. Cannon (Clearfield, UT: Gnolaum Books, 2004), 175.

[112] See note #71 & #33. (Pt. 2, links provided)

[113] See Note #28. (Pt. 2, link provided)

[114] “Temple Lot Suit,” United States testimony 1892, Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, folder Ms-d 1160, Box 1, fd11, 121, online here, accessed November 5, 2014. Hereafter, “Temple Lot, Lorenzo Snow”.

[115] “Temple Lot, Lorenzo Snow”, op. cited, 122, added emphasis.

[116] Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13, 192-3, October 7, 1869, added emphasis, Online here, Accessed, November 5, 2014.

[117] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 6, 497, October 6-7, 1869.

[118] Times and Seasons, Vol. 5, Nov. 15, 1844, 715, emphasis ours, Online here, Accessed November 14, 2014.

[119] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, 371, March 24, 1844, See also, History of the Church, Vol. 6, 273). Joseph did not give Heber C. Kimball the option of disbelieving in polygamy without consequences for he told him he would lose his apostolic office if he did not obey the command to practice it. This is an important point because it comes directly in conflict with Smith’s revelation on the Priesthood and unrighteous dominion. (D&C Section 121:37)

[120] Smith wrote to Thomas Ford on June 14, 1844 after destroying the Nauvoo Expositor press:

In the investigation it appeared evident to the council that the proprietors were a set of unprincipled men, lawless, debouchees, counterfeiters, Bogus Makers, gamblers, peace disturbers, and that the grand object of said proprietors was to destroy our constitutional rights and chartered privileges; to overthrow all good and wholesome regulations in society; to strengthen themselves against the municipality; to fortify themselves against against the church of which I am a member, and destroy all our religious rights and privileges, by libels, slanders, falsehoods, perjury & sticking at no corruption to accomplish their hellish purposes. and that said paper of itself was libelous of the deepest dye, and very injurious as a vehicle of defamation,—tending to corrupt the morals, and disturb the peace, tranquillity and happiness of the whole community, and especially that of Nauvoo. (Joseph Smith, letter to Thomas Ford, Dean C. Jessee (ed.), The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, Deseret Book Company, 586-587.

Joseph Smith to Thomas Ford, June 14, 1844, (From Page 1, image courtesy Joseph Smith Papers

This was a letter simply filled with lies and Smith didn’t care one whit. Smith claimed that the accusations in the Nauvoo Expositor concerning his Spiritual Wifeism were libels and slanderous. As Richard Van Wagoner writes:

On 7 June the first issue of the Expositor came off the press. “We all verily believe, and many of us know of a surety, that the religion of the Latter Day Saints, as originally taught by Joseph Smith, is verily true,” wrote the publishers. But “we are earnestly seeking to explode the vicious principles of Joseph Smith, and those who practice the same abominations and whoredoms,” for, they claimed, “we verily know [they] are not accordant and consonant with the principles of Jesus Christ and the Apostles.” The essay discussed the “wretched and miserable condition of females in this place,” and related the plight of some of them. New immigrant convert women, they claimed, were taken to secluded spots on arrival and forced to become Smith’s “spiritual wives,” their refusal resulting in “eternal damnation.” The article maintained that “religious despotism” was “incompatible with free institutions.” Additional disclosures in subsequent issues were promised. (Richard S. Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon, op. cited, 335).

There was nothing published in the Expositor that was an intentionally false or misleading, and we have never seen any Mormon apologist prove otherwise, unlike what Joseph wrote to Governor Ford. The difference between Smith and the Laws are shown in sharp contrast in these two documents. FAIRMORMON addresses the Nauvoo Expositor here, (and feel free to analyze their arguments and see if they hold any water) but they don’t mention or discuss Joseph’s crucial letter to Ford, nor what the Law’s published in the paper. We wonder why?

And now, this…

We can’t help ourselves, we have to point out one blatant example of how FAIRMORMON gets things wrong. At the end of the link we posted above, under the subtitle “The Nauvoo Expositor declared that Joseph was ““blood thirsty and murderous…demon…in human shape”, they write:

Shortly afterward, on 7 June 1844, the first (and only) edition of the Nauvoo Expositor was published. It detailed Joseph’s practice of plural marriage, and charged him with various crimes, labeling him a “blood thirsty and murderous…demon…in human shape” and “a syncophant, whose attempt for power find no parallel in history…one of the blackest and basest scoundrels that has appeared upon the stage of human existence since the days of Nero, and Caligula.” (Footnote: Francis M. Higbee, “Citizens of Hancock County,” Nauvoo Expositor (7 June 1844).

Actually, they have it wrong, Francis Higbee does not call Smith anything of the kind. The quote is in a section above the Higbee notice, titled “Joe. Smith – The Presidency” and was in response to what Smith himself wrote about Henry Clay and accusations made by Joseph H. Jackson:

JOE. SMITH — THE PRESIDENCY.

We find in the Nauvoo Neighbor of May 29th, a lengthy letter from Joseph Smith a candidate for the Presidency on his own hook, to Henry Clay, the Whig candidate for the same office. It appears to be a new rule of tactics for two rival candidates to enter into a discussion of their respective claims to that high office, just preceding an election. Smith charges Clay with shrinking from the responsibility of promising to grant whatever the Mormons might ask, if elected to the Presidency. Smith has not been troubled with any inquiries of committees as to what measures he will recommend if elected; nevertheless he has come out boldly and volunteered his views of certain measures which he is in favor of having adopted. One is for the General Government to purchase the slaves of the south and set them free, that we can understand. Another is to pass a general uniform land law, that certainly requires the spirit of interpretation to show its meaning as no explanation accompanies it. Another which no doubt will be very congenial to the candidate’s nervous system, is to open all the prison doors in the country, and set the captive free. These with some other suggestions equally as enlightened, ought to be sufficient to satisfy any man that Joseph Smith is willing that his principles shall be publicly known. If however any individual voter, who has a perfect right to know a candidates principles, should not be satisfied, he may further aid his inquiries, by a reference to the record of the grand inquest of Hancock County.

Martin Van Buren is charged with non-commitalism; Henry Clay has not been the man to answer frankly the question whether he would restore to the Mormons their lands in Missouri. Joseph Smith is the only candidate now before the people whose principles are fully known; let it be remembered there are documents the highest degree of evidence before the people; a committee of twenty-four, under the solemnity of their oaths, have inquired into and reported upon his claims in due form of law. Shades of Washington and Jefferson — Henry Clay the candidate of a powerful party, is now under bonds to keep the peace; Joseph Smith, the candidate of another “powerful” party has two indictments against him, one for fornication and adultery, another for perjury. Our readers can make their own comments.

We have received the last number of the “Warsaw Signal;” it is rich with anti-Mormon matter, both editorial and communicated. Among other things it contains a lengthy letter from J.H. Jackson, giving some items in relation to his connection with the “Mormon Prophet,” as also his reasons for the same. It will be perceived that many of the most dark and damnable crimes that ever darkened human character, which have hitherto been to the public, a matter of rumor and suspicion, are now reduced to indisputable facts. We have reason to believe, from our acquaintance with Mr. Jackson, and our own observation, that the statements he makes are true; and in view of these facts, we ask, in the name of heaven, where is the safety of our lives and liberties, when placed at the disposal of such heaven daring, hell deserving, God forsaken villains. Our blood boils while we refer to these blood thirsty and murderous propensities of men, or rather demons in human shape, who, not satisfied with practising their dupes upon a credulous and superstitious people, must wreak their vengeance upon any who may dare to come in contact with them. We deplore the desperate state of things to which we are necessarily brought, but, we say to our friends, “keep cool,” and the whole tale will be told. We fully believe in bringing these iniquities and enormities to light, and let the majesty of violated law, and the voice of injured innocence and contemned public opinion, speak in tones of thunder to these miscreants; but in behalf of hundreds and thousands of unoffending citizens, whose only fault is religious enthusiasm, and for the honor of our own names and reputation, let us not follow their desperado measures, and thereby dishonor ourselves in revenging our own wrongs. Let our motto be, “Last in attack, but first in defence;” and the result cannot prove otherwise than honorable and satisfactory. (Nauvoo Expositor, page 3, col. B, added emphasis)

Joseph Smith got up on the stand in Nauvoo and threatened to “use up” (kill) any “Judas” who he thought had betrayed him like Jackson, the Laws, etc. And if one reads the letter referred to that Smith wrote about Henry Clay, one finds that Smith wrote this:

For the glory of America has departed, and God will set a flaming sword to guard the tree of liberty, while such mint-tithing Herods as Van Buren, Boggs, Benton, Calhoun, and Clay, are thrust out of the realms of virtue, as fit subjects for the kingdom of fallen greatness; vox reprobi, vox Diaboli! (the voice of the Devil).

So I guess that it’s ok if Smith claims that Henry Clay speaks with the voice of the devil, but not ok that the Expositor calls those who commit the crimes that Smith did, devils in human form? Smith then laments that Clay suggested the Mormons move to Oregon:

Henry Clay, the wise Kentucky lawyer, advises the Latter-day Saints to go to Oregon, to obtain justice, and set up a government of their own. O ye crowned heads among all nations, is not Mr. Clay a wise man, and very patriotic! Why, great God! to transport 200,000 people through a vast prairie, over the Rocky Mountains, to Oregon, a distance of nearly 2,000 miles, would cost more than four millions, or should they go by Cape Horn, in ships to California, the cost would be more than twenty millions!

But lo and behold, Smith was already sending out expeditions (which were reporting to his Council of Fifty) to do just that. And Smith isn’t finished, he also says that Clay is a …

…vessel of dishonor. You may complain that a close examination of your “whole life, character, and conduct” places you, as a Kentuckian would pleasantly term it, “in a bad fix.” But, sir, when the nation has sunk deeper and deeper in the mud at every turn of the great wheels of the Union, while you have acted as one of the principal drivers, it becomes the bounden duty of the whole community, as one man, to whisper you on every point of government, to uncover every act of your life, and inquire what mighty acts you have done to benefit the nation, how much you have tithed the mint [See Luke 11:42] to gratify your lust, and why the fragments of your raiment hang upon the thorns by the path as signals to beware!

And who else was “in a bad fix”? Joseph Smith. Is what they wrote in the Expositor really any different than what Smith wrote about Clay? Here is what Joseph Jackson wrote on June 1, 1844 (published in the Warsaw Signal):

STARTLING DISCLOSURES.

Carthage, June 1, 1844.

Mr. Editor: —

Having been a short time since a rather conspicuous character in this community, on account of my connection with Joseph, I am anxious to convey to the public through your columns, the motives that actuate my conduct, and thus clear away false impressions which my former conduct has tended to produce. In hopes that the following plain statement of facts, which can be substantiated by unquestionable testimony will produce this effect, I submit it for the information of your readers.

In the fall of 1842, I visited Nauvoo and although I have no knowledge of having done any thing which should have aroused suspicion, I was informed that I was regarded with distrust by his holiness and marked down accordingly as a spy. A short time after this, I had proof that this information was authentic; for incontestable evidence was given of the hostile designs of Joe towards me.

One evening after dark, as I was riding in a wagon with a friend, we met another wagon coming from an opposite direction. A voice from the latter cried out as we passed, “Jackson is that you,” I answered in the affirmative. “I wish to see you,” said the stranger. I got out of the wagon, and walked to meet the individual who accosted me, who had also left the wagon in which he road. The wagons passed on and we neared each other, when suddenly the stranger fired a pistol — the ball whizzed by my head, and the assassin fled. I saw no more of him; but the effect of this incident was to make me resolve to be avenged, if the cunning of man could accomplish what I so much desired. I saw plainly from what I had heard, that Joe Smith was the instigator of the villain who attempted to take my life without provocation, and I thought to myself that it should not be my fault, if he were not made to smart for his villainy.

Shortly after this I quit Nauvoo, and spent the winter in Carthage. In the spring of 1843 I told Harmon T. Wilson, that I was determined to head Joe and in order to do so that I would go to Nauvoo, insinuate myself into his favor, win his affection and confidence, and that if he really was a villain I would find it out, and at a proper season I would disclose all to him, that as an officer of the law, he might have an opportunity to bring the scamp to justice. Accordingly I returned to Nauvoo I sought Joe’s favor — he protested he was a man of God: I told him I knew his heart, that his religion was a humbug and I wanted to hear none of it. I represented myself as an outlaw and fugitive from justice — ready to do whatever he commanded. For a long time, he persisted in his professions of holiness, but finally seeing that I was not gullible enough to believe his [sanctified] professions, and having succeeded in making him believe that I was a proper tool for his uses, he gave in, and acknowledged to me his proper character and principles. He admitted himself an atheist, and the. Book of Mormon a humbug;- and that the original was written by Lyman Spalding, whose heirs now have it in their possession.

By degrees, I entwine, myself completely into his confidence. I seemed ready to perform whatever I was commanded, and to the world kept up the appearance that I was in reality what I seemed to be. I succeeded in my object — every plot, every plan, every secret movement of the villainous system by which Joe deludes and strips his followers, was made known to me; and before God I say, that a more detestable miscreant treads not the earth. Steeped in blood and crime, guilty by his own admissions, of almost every act of wickedness, that the machinations of hell can suggest to mortal man, he stands before the Devil, but even as the rival of his Satanic Majesty.

But the limits of this communication will not allow me to particularize; suffice it to say, that Joe disclosed to me while in his confidence, that he did send O. P. Rockwell to Missouri: to assassinate Gov. Boggs. He stated too the particulars. I was sent on the mission to liberate him after he had been taken. I know all the facts in relation to this affair, and will soon disclose them to the world. After Rockwell had returned, Joe offered me $3000; if I would do what Rockwell had failed to do, to wit: take the life of Boggs. I consented; — I visited Missouri, for the purpose of keeping up appearances with him, and on my return excused myself for not having done, what I would have shrunk with horror from doing; by telling him that Boggs was not at home.

This alone brands Joe as an assassin but this is not all I know of his murderous purposes. He attempted to hire myself and others, to take the life of some of our most valuable citizens. I will not at present name them; but I will say from what I know, that his enemies are not safe. He has a ruffian band around him ready to execute whatever he commands and who are only deterred by the fear of detection. The fact that Joe is engaged in counterfeiting, also came to my knowledge while in his confidence; besides this, a baser and more unscrupulous seducer lives not — I could name his victims, but regard for their feelings deter me.

The limits I have prescribed for this communication, compels me to desist from further remarks at this time. I know that my life is sought by Joe; but I also know, that should I be suddenly cut off, my death will be attributed to the proper source, and amply revenged. I have said enough already, to convince the world that while in Nauvoo my motive was not that which was then attributed to me. — The fact that I made known to H. T. Wilson my object in going there will unfold the mystery of my conduct.

Yours Respectfully,

J. H. JACKSON.

In his letter Jackson claims that Smith told him that he was an atheist and that the Book of Mormon was written by Solomon Spaulding. Jackson also claimed in his pamphlet (published later in the year) that Smith bragged about having bedded 400 women, etc. We feel that Smith’s braggadocio was to appear as a master criminal to convince Jackson to do his bidding in relation to Boggs in Missouri, etc. John D. Lee would later write,

“I knew of many men being killed in Nauvoo by the Danites (the assassination squad). It was then the rule that all the enemies of Joseph Smith should be killed, and I know of many a man who was quietly put out of the way by the orders of Joseph and his Apostles while the Church was there. It has always been a well understood doctrine of the church that it was right and praiseworthy to kill every person who spoke evil of the Prophet.” (John D. Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, added emphasis)

Carl Lindquist writes:

Numerous firsthand accounts of the early days of Mormonism amply documented the truth that “holy murder” had indeed been practiced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. These executions, carried out by a private police force known as the “High Police,” took various forms in keeping with the temple oaths. Slitting the throat is the one most commonly mentioned. Presumably once this one has been inflicted, the others are no longer necessary. These ceremonial killings were described euphemistically as “saving” the victim, as in “Where is so and so? We haven’t seen him lately.” “Oh, didn’t you hear? He got ‘saved’ the other night.” “Fed him to the catfish” had its place as did the phrases “used him up,” “slipped his breath,” “put him out of the way,” and “sent him over the rim.” After the migration to Utah, the term “salt him down in the lake” came into vogue.Just as the French have a great variety of terms for describing foods that are lacking in English, the early Mormons had many words for murder, reflecting their peculiar involvement with this craft. Invoking vengeance on the disloyal was known as “praying for our enemies.” Killing them secretly was known as “not letting the right hand know what the left hand is doing.”

Joseph Smith taught his followers that to kill those who violated their covenants was praiseworthy in the eyes of God. The first endowment ceremony, he explained, took place on the Mount of Transfiguration, where Christ instructed Peter, James and John in the secret handshakes and then bound them with oaths of blood should they ever forsake their loyalty to Him. This doctrine appears frequently in Church writings, and is cited in the work Doctrines of Salvation written by Joseph Fielding Smith, Prophet of the Church in the years 1970-72. After coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration, the Apostles bound the other members of the twelve to loyalty on penalty of death as well. When Judas betrayed Christ, they killed him in fulfillment of their endowment oaths. An eyewitness reports that Joseph Smith “talked of dissenters and cited us to the case of Judas, saying that Peter told him in a conversation a few days ago that he himself hung Judas for betraying Christ . . . .” The Reed Peck Manuscript (1839).(added emphasis)

On March 7th, 1844, Smith got into a dispute with Hyrum Kimball (whose wife he tried to seduce) about wharfage rights . Smith ranted that “I despise the man who will betray you with a kiss; and I am determined to use up these men, if they will not stop their operations.” (History of the Church, Vol. 6, 237-238) This included the Laws, Higbees, Joseph Jackson and others who Smith once considered friends and confidants.

When one sees the whole picture, it becomes apparent that FAIRMORMON and their apologists are manipulating sources to paint a far different picture of what was going on in Nauvoo than what was really happening.

[121] For example, on January 15, 2015 Brian Hales published a blog article and quoted Richard Bushman who claims that learning about polygamy “is like learning you have cancer or that your mother died.” Hales also claims that because of “critics and antagonists” who promote “misinformation and half-truths” the Church has been forced to “discuss meaty topics like plural marriage” and that “Unfortunately, some members are struggling and even perishing (spiritually) as a result.”

Yet, this blog article by Hales (since deleted) is about them being “approached directly or indirectly by a few area presidents, stake presidents, and bishops” who desperately need to address the “concerns of Church members that have arisen from the Church’s essays including the one discussing “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo.” (Which we believe that Brian Hales contributed to).

So how is this about the “misinformation” of “critics and antagonists”? The Hales’ claim that they have “witnessed this process many times” where “Church members encounter new information from biased sources…”

But… didn’t they just tell us that they were getting their information from their own church essays!? See our point, folks?

They claim that church leaders have “found it necessary” to openly discuss meaty topics like plural marriage.” The Hales blame this on what they call “the abundance of misinformation and half-truths promoted on the internet by critics and antagonists”. Really? We found that the one who is promoting “misinformation and half-truths” are, in fact, the Hales and we have all the evidence in this essay to back it up.

One has to wonder though, why it took the publication and popularity of the CES Letter for the “authorities” of the Church to finally “openly discuss” these “meaty topics” on their website; and why Hales has to repeat over and over again that he has “never encountered any credible evidence indicating that Joseph Smith was an adulterer or hypocrite.”

This essay is filled with “credible evidence” that Joseph Smith was indeed a hypocrite and an adulterer. That such evidence to Hales is not credible says more about him than perhaps he wants it to.

Joseph Smith was also a complicated individual who many still believe was a bona fide prophet. Though we don’t agree with many of Richard Bushman’s conclusions, we do think that his advice is first rate. We were going to use Hales’ quote of Bushman, but when we compared it to the original podcast, we found that he edited it and changed it around; so here is Bushman, word for word. First, we thought it was interesting what he had to say about Fawn Brodie:

[31:46] But I say this about the book [No Man Knows My History] it’s a book that Mormons have hated and it’s still disliked very much, but it actually is more favorable to Joseph Smith than we sometimes think. My historical colleagues, (not the Mormons) think it’s a great book and it is in this sense: up to that time the biographies of Joseph Smith had been caricatures, he was thought of as either demented or a complete charlatan. And they were sort of flat caricatures of a religious fanatic, unlike any real human being. And it’s out of that background that Fawn Brodie writes her book, and she turns Joseph Smith into a believable character. It’s not from our point of view it’s admirable; but from the point of view of non-Mormons it’s kind of wonderful. He’s raw, he may have been a fake in some ways, but he admits bravado and he had this amazing capacity for charming people and winning them over and building this great church. So I tend to speak rather positively about the book sort of graphically speaking, even though I think Brodie had a deaf ear, she was tone deaf to religious, theological stuff. She was not religious herself really and she just could not appreciate it. She wrote in a period when religion was scoffed at heavily among modern intellectuals. And so that is a great deficiency in the book, but I think it’s still, her finest achievement.

And then we have the part that Hales quoted from in his Blog Article. This was in response to a question by Bill Reel:

[39:31] Q. – Bill Reel—A large chunk of my listeners are people who are currently struggling right now with their faith, who are pondering, exploring and delving into these difficult issues and trying to make heads or tails of them. Any counsel from you to them, to these individuals who are in the midst of their dark night of the soul?

[39:55] A. – Richard Bushman—What I would say is be intellectually courageous and focused. Once you encounter this stuff it can be shocking, terrifying and you just feel frozen and hardly know what to do. And then as the evidence begins to mount up you just say “I gotta get out of here,” just turn away from it. And from then on there’s a tendency to just read more and more things that confirm your decision, there’s more evidence that it’s all phony. And it requires a lot of independence and a certain amount of courage to keep looking at all sides of the issues, to read the apologists as well as the critics and to try and think it through for yourself.

My number one piece of advice is don’t falter, go right to the heart of the problem, try to figure out what is it precisely about this that is disruptive, what is it that troubles me most and state that problem in the most severe form you can. And if you can state that problem as clearly as you can and then try honestly to accumulate information that bears on all sides of the problem that’s the best way I think you’ll arrive at a resolution. If you just read down a list of problems, read twenty things, and all these are difficulties, you won’t get anywhere you’ll just stay stuck where you are, but if you keep looking at things, and take them one by one and say what is it that’s really worse about this, then you’ll be much better off.

Hales then writes:

Bushman seems unaffected by the critics’ allegations and claims. Undoubtedly, he is aware of them all. He reflects a confidence that sincere earnest inquiry can lead the seeker to the same conclusions he has drawn.

Actually, Hales just made that second part up. It is not what Bushman says. He says that it is not good to go from (or be) a dogmatic believer in the Church (as Hales is) to being a dogmatic critic. He then states:

[19:00] …these things are just immensely complicated and there is no way that through thinking it through and looking at you can arrive at certain conclusions. That’s easy for me as a scholar to say because that’s the nature of historical knowledge. Every historian knows the biggest questions are all unanswerable, or you have very restricted answers to most of the big questions. (Bushman, op. cited above, emphasis ours).

Bushman doesn’t prescribe a certain formula for keeping your faith, only that one looks at both sides of the issue and that if one does, there is room to retain your faith. (At least, this worked for him). And he believes that “the biggest questions are all unanswerable … or very restricted”. We disagree but this destroys Hales argument that you can reach a conclusion the same as Bushman. Bushman is actually saying that you can’t and that he hasn’t. Basically he’s put everything on a shelf choosing to retain his faith by not dealing with the questions. We don’t advocate this, but it is what many who stay in the church do.

We do heartily agree with Mr. Bushman that one surely must study all sides of these issues; and if some want to retain their faith in the face of all the evidence, we would wish them well. We (unlike Hales) don’t believe that Satan has control of the internet, or that anyone is a Sock Puppet of Satan simply because they are a critic of Joseph Smith’s Spiritual Wifeism, be they member or no.

And though the CES Letter is in effect a list of problems, (as is FAIRMORMON) we advocate taking them one at a time and investigating them to the best of one’s ability. This means studying (as Bushman advocates) both sides of these issues.

This essay covers many of the issues raised in the CES Letter, and we have provided both sides of the argument, with links to all of Brian Hales arguments, and many from FAIRMORMON and even FARMS.

We also used the “wayback machine” to link to articles and pages that Brian either deleted or changed so that you, the reader, have access to all of the information. We have provided photos of the original documents (where we could); or links to them at the CHL. We have made this essay as interactive as we could, (linking to speeches, articles and books, etc.) so that you, the reader can feel confident that you can do as Mr. Bushman suggests, look at all sides of the issues.

It is our conclusion that Hales is being irrational in his continued defense of Smith’s Spiritual Wifeism doctrine and attacks on those who are critics of it (like Jeremy, John Dehlin, Grant Palmer, etc). After reading through this and investigating and sifting through the evidence you do not come to that conclusion, why, bless your soul that’s ok. We don’t have an agenda in regard to the Mormon church, we are simply ex-Mormons who wanted to find out the truth and have compiled a rather large pile of evidence in pursuit of it. We have analyzed that evidence and compared it with the conclusions of Brian Hales and other Mormon apologists. We simply invite you, dear reader, to do the same. What you then decide is totally up to you. And if you like, you can write up your own analysis of the evidence and if you disagree with our conclusions, feel free to let us know. We welcome any comments or responses and all will be addressed and answered.

And now this…

We thought it interesting that when Hales had a discussion with Dan Vogel on Mormon Discussions, he said this (which we found absolutely astounding):

Do not ignore Joseph’s theology because Nauvoo polygamists were not ignoring it. Writers who dismiss Joseph Smith’s teachings under the notion that the Latter-days Saints were not abiding it create histories that describe people who behave like comic book characters. Fawn Brodie’s Joseph Smith is a caricature and so are most Church members she describes depicting them as so undiscerning that they couldn’t see what Fawn declares so confidently, that polygamy was libido-driven.

This is one of Hales’ favorite diatribes. So much for his support of Bushman! In this Essay, we absolutely do not ignore Joseph’s theology, and the result is, it makes Hales look totally irrational. But again, we want you, dear reader, to decide for yourself

[122] “A Book of Records. Containing the Proceedings of The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo”, 87. (Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 17 Mar. 1842—16 Mar. 1844; handwriting of Eliza R. Snow, Phebe M. Wheeler, Hannah M. Ells, unidentified scribe, 124 pages; CHL. Online here, Accessed November 26, 2016).

[123] Scott H. Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 417. Joseph Smith’s Journals may be viewed here, Accessed November 26, 2016.

[124] Brian Hales claims that “Fanny was then fifty-six years of age. In 1870, one of Brigham’s plural wives, Harriet Cook, affirmed that Fanny Young’s sealing was for “time and eternity.” (Joseph F. Smith Affidavit Books, CHL, 2:14.)

Even in the face of this evidence Hales still claims,

“However, since the context of the sealing was to allow Fanny to have a husband in “the celestial kingdom,” it probably would not have been a great concern to Emma.” (Hales, op. cited, online here, accessed January 15, 2015).

Even with a “marriage” that is supposedly set up to be for the “afterlife”, we still see the ceremony being for time and eternity according to Harriet Cook. Also, we find it curious that only three days after Smith “married” Fanny Young, this happened:

[Joseph] Was taken suddenly sick at the dinner table. Went to the door and vomited /all [his] dinner/. [His] jaws [were] dislocated and raised fresh blood. Every symptom of poison. [several lines left blank]

Prayer Meeting eve at the Hall over the store. <Joseph did not dress [in robes of the priesthood, as customary], nor Emma> [several lines left blank] Gave my clerk, Dr. Richards, to tell Mr. Cole he must find some other room for his school [than the hall over the store]. (Scott H. Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, p.426, November 5, 1843, added emphasis).

Brigham Young and others accused Emma of poisoning her husband, (claiming that even Joseph thought so at the time!) Could it be because she found out about this latest “marriage” and that it actually was of “great concern” to her, especially since she had been promised by Joseph just a few months earlier to give up all his wives for her sake? Now, we don’t believe that Joseph was poisoned by Emma, but he believed it and the evidence indicates that was the last Spiritual Wife that Joseph was sealed to. So why would Joseph believe that Emma was capable of such a thing? Todd Compton writes in his landmark study of the known Spiritual Wives of Joseph Smith:

When she arrived in Illinois, Desdemona [Fullmer] was thirty years old. Of her years there before 1842 we know little. On July 29, 1839, her brother, John Solomon, was baptized in Nauvoo at age thirty-two. David [Fullmer] was a high councilor by May 1842, so had stature equivalent to that of a present-day Mormon general authority. Desdemona would have gained visibility and joined the “female hierarchy” of Nauvoo as a result. This is corroborated by two data concerning her from 1842. In the spring “Desdemonia Fulmer” was living in the Joseph Smith household with Elvira Cowles and the Partridge sisters, so, like many of Smith’s wives, she lived under the same roof with him before the marriage and had the opportunity to become well acquainted with him. She was also present at the first meeting of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo on March 17, and on April 19 contributed $ 1.25 to the society. (Compton, Todd M.. In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, Signature Books, Kindle Edition, 13309-13315, added emphsis).

According to Desdemona Fullmer, Joseph told her that he believed that Emma was totally capable of poisoning her and so she needed to leave Joseph and Emma’s “Homestead” (where she had been living since at least mid-1842 according the Nauvoo Census) and so Desdemona went to live with Hyrum Smith. This posed a dilemma for Fullmer, as she later recalled:

Desdemona Fullmer, c. 1867

After I left brother Joseph’s House Sister Hyrum Smith wanted me to come for the winter with her to work tailoring as that is trade and while I was liveing at their house Hyrum had by some way lernt something about Poligamy So one evening while the family of us ware sitting arround the ire he said to me I will ask you a fair question will you answer me Yes Sir Bro. Hyrum he Said Soposing Bro Joseph would Say to you that he had a revelation from God that it was right for him to have another wife besids Emma would you believe it was of God…[she asks him if he believes JS is a prophet, “Yes,” & she says that as he is a prophet she can’t pick and choose which revelations she will believe]…and our conversation ended for that evening Soon after of a morning he made mention of the subject in the following words Said he if I knew –that any- or tho’t that any women in his house believed in Such doctrine as Polygamy I would kick them 40 Rods from his house and follow them and kick them still further Soon after that I made tracks not feeling it safe to stay thare any longer and went to another place to live and while liveing thar a few weeks afterwards Bros Joseph and Hyrum came a long and call’d thare and Brother Hyrum wanted to talk with me and said do you remember how I talk’d when was at my Home Yes Sir I do he said Now I have come to make it right with you I hurt your feelings I ask your forgiveness and whare I have said anything against the Doc of Poligamy in public or in private I must take it all back for the Lord has shown unto me that I was wrong and that Joseph was right then he (Hyrum) preach’d to me and exorted me much and said that I had done God Servis and for me to hold on to the faith that was taught me by Joseph and much mor he said to me on the subject that I cannot write.(D. Michael Quinn Papers, Addition, MS 244, Box 1, Special Collections, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Ithaca, New York, excerpts here courtesy of Don Bradley, our emphasis)

William Clayton recorded in his Journal that Desdemona came to his house on May 13, 1843 (probably sent by Joseph) and inquired about staying with his family. It was just thirteen days later (about two weeks) that Clayton wrote in his Journal that Hyrum had accepted his brother’s Spiritual Wife doctrine as coming from God. Given this accurate timeline by Fullmer, it is curious that she would claim in her 1869 affidavit that,

…on the [blank] day of July, 1843 at the city of Nauvoo, County of Hancock, state of Illinois she [Desdemona C. Fullmer] was married or sealed to Joseph Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by Brigham Young, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of said church according to the laws of the same, regulating marriage, in the presence of Heber C. Kimball. (Joseph Smith Affidavit Book 1, pg. 32, June 17, 1869, online here, accessed July 24, 2019).

This is very strange indeed, (that she does not recall the day of her marriage and appears to get the year wrong also) for she claimed to be the wife of Joseph Smith when she moved into the home of Hyrum Smith in March, 1843:

…having been convinced of the truth of poligamme I therefore enter’d into the Order but I dared not make it known not even to my parents or I was forbidden by the Prophet for it would endanger the life of Joseph and also many of the Saints…Emma Smith tried upon on[e] occasion to poison me but I dreamt a dream and I told Joseph my dream and he told me that she would do so if she had the opportunity in consequence of which I requested Bro. Joseph to find me a boarding place away from her where I could live in safety which he did and conveyed me in a Buggy to the place. After a while [a year or so later] the news came to me that Joseph himself was poisoned and two or three more were poisoned in the Mansion House… I asked him how he came to be poisoned he said that Emma give it to me in a tea. (Autobiography in Quinn Papers, op. cited above)

Desdemona also reported in an undated statement that, “when the brick store house was finished [Jan. 1, 1842], I was sealed to Broth Joseph by Brigham Young.” (Desdemona Fullmer undated statement, CHD, courtesy of Don Bradley). In another document written by Fullmer in 1868, she claimed that,

…in the rise of poligamy I was warned in a dream that Amy [Emmy?] Smith was a going to poisen me I told my dream to brother Joseph he told me it was true she would do it if she could (Desdemona Smith, “A Short History of my Life”, June 7, 1868, Ms 734, pg. 3, CHL)

According to William Clayton Desdemona Fullmer lived with his family from May, 1843 until the end of January, 1844 when there arose a conflict between Clayton and Fullmer. These are the entries in Clayon’s journal that describe the events surrounding Desdemona Fullmer:

Sis Jane Hardman came to my house. … Sister Desdemona Fullmer came to see if she could board with me. I told her she could on tuesday. [May 13, 1843]

At Prest. J’s in Council with the Twelve on the subject of running J for President of U.S. J. said he would have to send me out on a mission. P.M. at his house. Evening attended Lodge & after had some conversation with Desdemona C. Fullmer. She has treated my family unfeelingly and unkindly in various ways & I requested her to look out for another home. She said she would not untill she had council from J. (January 29, 1844, William Clayton Journal, Ms 0055, CHL, currently restricted to public research)

After I got home Bro. Kimball came to tell me that Desdemona had gone to Brighams & told him that I had turned her out of doors instantly and also shook my fist in her face and threatened to kick her. If she has told him such things my faith and confidence in her as a woman of truth is at an end for she has lied. It shows her mean feelings after I have discommoded my family all the while for her accommodation. I feel indignant at such principles. Bro. Kimball feels bad about it well knowing the intricate situation in which I now stand. (Clayton Journal, January 30, 1844)

A.M. went to see B. Young, he agreed to call at noon and bring D.[esdemona] & H. C. Kimball with him. After I went to Prest Js. P.M. at the Temple Office. After Bros Young and Kimball came & heard both sides of the story. D. has manifested a malicious disposition & has lied in severall instances. After I went to Prest. Js. (Clayton Journal, January 31, 1844)

It appears that (oddly) for some reason Joseph himself wasn’t involved at all in the altercation between Fullmer & Clayton. Clayton only reports that he went to see Joseph, but writes nothing of Smith’s reaction or involvement. It appears that Smith left it up to Young and Kimball to sort it all out. Todd Compton from “In Sacred Loneliness”:

On January 21, 1846, as Mormons prepared to leave Nauvoo, Desdemona, now thirty-six, was endowed in the Nauvoo temple. Then five days later she was sealed to Joseph Smith for eternity, with [Apostle] Ezra Taft Benson standing proxy, and was sealed to Ezra for time. (Compton, Todd M.. In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Signature Books, Kindle Locations 13342-13344).

Hales wants his audience to believe that what Desdemona Fullmer describes was all a by product of decades later “biases of Utah Church leaders against Emma Smith.” This is simply more irrational thinking.

[125]Temple Lot, Lorenzo Snow, op. cited, 122.

[126] ibid., 123.Ms

[127] ibid.

[128] ibid., 124-125.

[129] In a letter written in 1871 Clayton remembered:

“I did write the revelation on Celestial marriage given through the Prophet Joseph Smith on the 12th day of July 1843. When the revelation was written there was no one present except the prophet Joseph, his brother Hyrum and myself. It was written in the small office upstairs in the rear of the brick store which stood on the banks of the Mississippi River. It took some three hours to write it. Joseph dictated sentence by sentence and I wrote it as he dictated. After the whole was written Joseph requested me to read it slowly and carefully which I did, and he then pronounced it correct. The same night a copy was taken by Bishop Whitney which copy is now here and which I know and testify is correct. The original was destroyed by Emma Smith” (Letter to Madison M. Scott, November 11, 1871, William Clayton Letterbooks, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah).

Yet, just a few years later Clayton changed his earlier account and added that Joseph “knew the revelation perfectly from beginning to end”:

Joseph then said, ‘Well, I will write the revelation and we will see.’ He then requested me to get paper and prepare to write. Hyrum very urgently requested Joseph to write the revelation by means of the Urim and Thummim, but Joseph, in reply, said he did not need to, for he knew the revelation perfectly from beginning to end. “Joseph and Hyrum then sat down and Joseph commenced to dictate the revelation on celestial marriage, and I wrote it, sentence by sentence as he dictated. After the whole was written, Joseph asked me to read it through, slowly and carefully, which I did, and he pronounced it correct. He then remarked that there was much more that he could write, on the same subject, but what was written was sufficient for the present. (Andrew Jenson, The Historical Record, Vol. 6, 225-226).

[130] See note [71] & [33] (Notes are linked)

[131] Temple Lot, Lorenzo Snow, op. cited, 125.

[132] Relief Society Minute Book, 86-89, op. cited, emphasis added, online here, accessed July 24, 2019.

[133] Doctrine and Covenants, 1835 edition, Section 101; 1844 edition Section 109. FAIRMORMON writes:

In fact, the statement remained in the D&C until the 1876 edition, even though plural marriage had been taught to specific individuals since at least 1831, practiced in secret since 1836, and practiced openly since 1852. The matter of not removing it in 1852 was simply due to the fact that a new edition of the D&C was not published until 1876. (1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy—D&C 101 (original), online here, Accessed December 31, 2014).

They also claim that Smith supported its inclusion in the Doctrine and Covenants:

While some have suggested that the article was published against Joseph’s wishes or without his knowledge, the available evidence suggests that he supported its publication. It was likely included to counter the perception that the Mormon’s practice of communal property (the “law of consecration”) included a community of wives. (ibid.)

“Community of Wives” was simply wife swapping, which would be adultery (or polygamy as some called it) and fornication if either party was not married to the other. The Mormons did not practice formal polygamy in the 1830’s though there was a “revelation” from Smith that they could marry Lamanites, (Native Americans) but that would involve leaving the current wife (if married) and would still be adultery. (See Ezra Booth, Letters 8 & 9, or Note #30. The purported “revelation” can be found online here, Accessed November 26, 2016).

As Richard S. Van Wagoner writes:

An additional reason the 1835 marriage statement gets little notice despite its status as the present law of the Church is that Joseph Smith was not present during the 17 August general assembly which voted on the measure. Years later, the rumor circulated that Oliver Cowdery had authored the marriage statement against the Prophet’s wishes. If Cowdery, as an Assistant President of the Church, did write the statement, most likely it was to protect the Prophet from the rumors that were spreading against him. For whatever reason, Smith planned a brief missionary venture to Michigan to coincide with the 17 August meeting. Statements he and other Church leaders later made, however, as well as the fact that he performed marriages using the ceremony canonized in that 1835 declaration, argue that he approved of the marriage declaration. Furthermore, Smith could have made changes prior to the 1835 printing. A “Notes to the Reader” addendum, page xxv in the 1835 edition, details a change in the article of marriage after it had been canonized.

The 1835 marriage statement was important in several respects. Not only did it deny the practice of Church-sanctioned polygamy, but it also outlined a marriage ceremony which ended by pronouncing the couple “‘husband and wife’ in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by virtue of the laws of the country and authority vested in him [the person performing the ceremony]: ‘may God add his blessings and keep you to fulfill your covenants from henceforth and forever!'”

This statement, the first referring to eternal marriage, together with the Prophet’s two 1831 revelatory statements, suggests that Church leaders no longer viewed marriage as a strictly civil contract. But the Church did not officially accept responsibility for solemnizing the marriages of its members until after the 1835 “rules for marriage” had been canonized.

Civil authorities in Ohio did not recognize the license of Church leaders. Sidney Rigdon was arrested in 1835 for marrying a couple, then released when he produced his Campbellite license. This refusal to recognize Mormon priesthood authority was a source of irritation to Joseph Smith; and in a bold display of civil disobedience on 24 November 1835, he performed his first marriage. It was initially intended that Seymour Brunson, who held a valid minister’s license, would marry Newel Knight and Lydia Goldthwait Bailey. But as Hyrum Smith began the introductory comments, Joseph stepped forth and declared his intent to officiate. The bride, later noting that “the prevailing law of Ohio did not recognize the Mormon Elders as ministers,” added that Smith said at the time of the wedding:

Our elders have been wronged and prosecuted for marrying without a license. The Lord God of Israel has given me authority to unite the people in the holy bonds of matrimony. And from this time forth I shall use that privilege and marry whomsoever I see fit. And the enemies of the Church shall never have power to use the law against me.

Another interesting aspect of the 1835 marriage statement was a clause which held that “all legal contracts of marriage made before a person is baptized into this church, should be held sacred and fulfilled.” Despite that explicit directive, Lydia Goldthwait Bailey, though abandoned by her legal husband, was not divorced when the Prophet married her to Newel Knight, a fact well known to all involved.

The polyandrous Knight marriage was one of Joseph Smith’s earliest efforts to apply heavenly guidelines on earth despite legal technicalities. Emphasizing the sacramental nature of marriage, he commented at the conclusion of the Knight ceremony “that marriage was an institution of heaven, instituted in the garden; that it was necessary it should be solemnized by the authority of the everlasting Priesthood” (HC 2:320). Viewing temporal and spiritual standards as inextricably intertwined, Joseph Smith began in the fall of 1835 to teach the eternal marriage alluded to in the canonized marriage statement. W. W. Phelps, Smith’s scribe in Kirtland, has provided a commentary on the Prophet’s marriage teachings of that period. Writing to his wife in Missouri 9 September 1835, Phelps explained: “I have it in my heart to give you a little instruction, so that you may know your place, and stand in it, believed, admired, and rewarded, in time and in eternity.” Two weeks later he again wrote:

Br. Joseph has preached some of the greatest sermons on the duty of wives to their husbands and the role of all Women, I ever heard. I would not have you ignorant, Sally, of the mystery of Men and Women, but I cannot write all you must wait till you see me. This much, however, I will say, that you closed your 4th letter to me in a singular manner: really it was done after the manner of the Gentiles: says Sally “I remain yours till death.” But since you have seen my blessing I think you will conclude, “if your life and years are as precious in the sight of God as Mine,” thus you will be mine, in this world and in the world to come; And so long as you can “remain on earth as you desire.” I think you may as well use the word “forever,” as “till death“…. This is the reason why I have called you at the commencement of this letter, My Only One, because I have no right to any other woman in this world nor in the world to come according to the law of the celestial Kingdom. (italics in original, our bold).

Louisa Beaman, circa 1845

Phelps’s understanding of eternal marriage in the “celestial Kingdom’ obviously came from Smith, who preached numerous sermons on marriage during the fall of 1835 while Phelps was living in his home and working with him daily. Despite the implication of eternal marriage in both the 1835 canonized ceremony and Phelps’s statements, the first Mormon eternal marriage did not take place until 6 April 1841, when Smith was sealed to plural wife Louisa Beaman by Joseph B. Noble. The Prophet had apparently come to view all marriages prior to this time, including his own to Emma Hale, as valid for “time” only. As late as 1840 he was occasionally signing his letters to Emma with the benediction “your husband till death” (Jessee 1984, 454). It was not until a 28 May 1843 meeting of the Endowment Council in Nauvoo that Joseph and Emma were sealed for time and eternity through the “new and everlasting covenant of marriage” (Ehat 1982, 2). (Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polyandry in Nauvoo, Dialogue, Vol. 18, No. 3, 70-73, Online here, Accessed December 1, 2014).

We believe that Beaman was sealed to Smith in 1842, not 1841. (More on this at a future time). W. W. Phelps was also instructed by Joseph to teach doctrine and publish it in the Church Newspapers he edited. On January 11, 1833 Smith wrote to Phelps and encouraged him to,

…render the [Evening and Morning] Star as interesting as possable by setting forth the rise progress and faith of the church, as well as the doctrine for if you do not render it more interesting than at present it will fall, and the church suffer a great Loss thereby——(Joseph Smith, Letter to W. W. Phelps, January 11, 1833, Online here, Accessed December 31, 2014, added emphasis).

By this we know that Smith had confidence that Phelps understood and could set forth the doctrines of the Church. But Phelps writes nothing about the concept of “Eternal Marriage” in any of the publications he edited. Some claim that this passage written by W. W. Phelps to his wife speaks of eternal marriage, but it is ambiguous and could be describing something else:

A new idea, sally, If you and I continue faithful to the end, we are certain of being one in the Lord throughout eternity. This is one of the most glorious consolations we can have in the flesh. (W. W. Phelps to Sally Phelps, May 26, 1835)

But take this comment from Phelps written six months earlier and it becomes clear what he meant:

Beloved, there was a time so perfect, and the union so pure, that the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy! and we do beseech you, to purify yourselves that your names may be written in heaven, for the company of angels to look upon, that they may come down and teach us to purify ourselves for the presence of Jesus, that he may dwell with us, while his glory covers the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise, that we may be one with all the redeemed of the Lamb, and them that are changed in the twinkling of an eye as the heaven and the earth are made now, that the tabernacle of God may be with men, and he with them, that we may hear the sons of Zion from all the creations he hath made, shouting glory and power and honor, to God and the Lamb throughout eternity. (The Evening and the Morning Star, Vol.1, No.2, November, 1834, p.25)

A month later, in June, 1835 Phelps wrote:

I am truly glad you have mentioned Michael, the prince, who, I understand, is our great father Adam. New light is occasionally bursting in to our minds, of the sacred scriptures, for which I am truly thankful. We shall by and bye learn that we were with God in another world, before the foundation of the world, and had our agency: that we came into this world and have our agency, in order that we may prepare ourselves for a kingdom of glory; become archangels, even the sons of God where the man is neither without the woman, nor the woman without the man in the Lord: A consummation of glory, and happiness, and perfection so greatly to be wished, that I would not miss of it for the fame of ten worlds….I greatly rejoice at the light of the last days, and sincerely wish all men were fit and willing to receive it, that the glorious day might roll on when we might not only find sacred records by the ministering of angels, but might have the presence of Jesus again on earth; & be living witnesses of that day, when the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the water covers the sea; when all shall know him, from the least even to the greatest; and all the redeemed multitude speak a pure language, according to the promise. Such a glorious prospect of holiness is worth living for, or worth dying for, and I beseech the saints to strive to continue to walk in the way and obtain their crown. (ibid, Vol. 1, No. 9, pg. 130, 131)

The question is, what did Phelps mean by becoming “archangels” and that “the man is neither without the woman…in the Lord”? Phelps reveals what he means in subsequent letters:

I expect an endowment, I labor to forgive and be forgiven. I have said so in my letters to you and I think you have forgotten to mention it in your letters. If you and I tarry together on earth, and to go the Lord together, we “must be one.” (W.W.Phelps to Sally Phelps, September 11, 1835)

There is no mention of “sealing” here. A week later, Phelps clarified what he meant by them being “one” in the world to come:

William Wines Phelps

But I must resume this subject left in my last letter. In that I spoke of men: Now I must hint of women: For the man is not without the woman neither is the woman without the man in the Lord. I wish you to read the seventh of 1st Corinthians and learn for yourself: In Ephesians and Colossians it says—”Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord.” That is keep your husband’s commands in all things as you do the Lord’s. Your husband is your head, and the Lord is his head. Br. Joseph has preached some of his greatest sermons on the duty of wives to their husbands and the rule of all women I ever heard. I would not have you ignorant, Sally, of the mystery of Men and Women, but I can not write all. You must wait till you see me. This much, however, I will say, that you closed your 4th letter to me in a singular manner; really it was done after the manner of the Gentiles: Says Sally “I remain yours till death.” But since you have seen my blessing I think you will conclude “if your life and years are as precious in the sight of God as mine,” thus you will be mine in this world and in the world to come; and so long as you can remain on earth as you desire, I think you may as well use the word “forever,” as “till death.” In this world we have to labor, we have to marry; we have to raise up seed; honor God, &c, but in the world to come, we praise God and the Lamb forever, and ever, and we neither marry, nor are given in marriage—do you now begin to understand: This— is the reason why I have called you at the commencement of this letter, my only one, because I have no right to any other woman in this world nor in the world to come, according to the law of the celestial kingdom. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; And what shall I say of him or her who lives till the Lord comes, and is caught up into the cloud to meet him? O Sally, Sally, be wise I beseech you, for you know not how great things must come to pass after much tribulation! I hope and pray that you give heed to what I write, and I wish you would let me know that you do and mean to: Now what I say unto you, I say unto all: women, or wives must obey their husbands in all things and then they are clear; the husband is responsible, and he being the head, as Christ is the head of the church, must do as much for his wife as Christ did for the church; lay down his life for her, if necessary. This will show that he loves her. If you read the 11th chapter of 1st Corinthians, you may find some good instruction: In old times honest women veiled their faces in public; especially as is mentioned in the 10th verse of this chapter “because of the angels” they probably formed veils then of their hair. I think when I return that my women will generally vail their faces in public and give no one a chance to gaze upon what is not his. This modest way will not lead to temptation, and may be one means of promoting virtue. (W.W.Phelps to Sally Phelps, September 16, 1835, online here, accessed June 21, 2019).

Phelps is claiming that all of the things like marriage and raising up seed, etc. must be done on earth and that even though husbands and wives will be together forever in the Lord, they won’t be doing any of those things but simply singing the praises of “God and the Lamb”. He also clarifies that heaven would only have monogamous relationships. What Phelps is describing here, is nothing like what Smith taught in Nauvoo, for he claims that marriage in heaven is only monogamous couples being “one” in the Lord together.

One thing to note here, Phelps talks of “veiled” women, and so did John C. Bennett. Are we to then assume that Phelps meant it in the same way that Bennett did in Nauvoo? Brian Hales writes, that Bennett spoke of three “orders” of polygamous wives with participants wearing different colored veils (white, green and black)…” So are we to connect what Phelps wrote about veils with what Bennett wrote later in Nauvoo? I’m sure apologist Hales would never do such a thing. Then why connect what Phelps says about being with his wife throughout eternity with Joseph’s Nauvoo doctrines; especially when we see that the context is about being together to praise Jesus throughout eternity. This double standard is employed by many Mormon historians to their detriment.

FAIRMORMON agrees with Van Wagoner that Joseph knew about and did not oppose the inclusion of the Article on Marriage in the 1935 Doctrine and Covenants:

This statement was not a revelation given to Joseph Smith—it was written by Oliver Cowdery and introduced to a conference of the priesthood at Kirtland on 17 August 1835. Cowdery also wrote a statement of belief on government that has been retained in our current edition of the D&C as section 134. Both were sustained at the conference and included in the 1835 D&C, which was already at the press and ready to be published. Joseph Smith was preaching in Michigan at the time Oliver and W.W. Phelps introduced these two articles to the conference; it is not known if he approved of their addition to the D&C at the time, although he did retain them in the 1844 Nauvoo edition, which argues that he was not opposed to them. (Phelps read the article on marriage, while Cowdery read the one on government.)

Some have suggested that the manner in which the conference was called suggests that Joseph was not the instigator of it, since it seems to have been done quite quickly, with relatively few high church leaders in attendance:

The General Assembly, which may have been announced on only twenty-four hours’ notice, was held Monday, August 17[, 1835]. Its spur-of-the-moment nature is demonstrated by observing that a puzzling majority of Church leaders were absent. Missing from the meeting were all of the Twelve Apostles, eight of the twelve Kirtland High Council members nine of the twelve Missouri High Council members, three of the seven Presidents of the Quorum of Seventy, Presiding Bishop Partridge, and…two of the three members of the First Presidency.

However, there is also some evidence that an article on marriage was already anticipated, and cited four times in the new D&C’s index, which was prepared under Joseph’s direction and probably available prior to his departure. Thus, “if a disagreement existed, it was resolved before the Prophet left for Pontiac. (FAIRMORMON, op. cited.)

It is obvious that Smith did approve the Marriage Article, though FAIRMORMON won’t come right out and admit it. This throws serious doubt on the apologist argument that Fanny Alger was one of Smith’s spiritual wives or that he was teaching anything like it in 1835 or earlier. If Smith did marry Alger, it was done by breaking the laws of the land and would have been considered bigamy. But there is no contemporary evidence for any kind of marriage between Smith and Alger; but there is evidence that it was an adulterous affair. (See Note #36 Part 2)

One thing you might notice, dear reader, is that Phelps, who later (1861) gave us the text of the 1831 “revelation” on taking additional (Native American) wives, is that Phelps seems to know nothing about it in his letters to Sally. He emphatically states that he would “have no right to any other woman in this world nor in the world to come, according to the law of the celestial kingdom.” He means that only monogamy was practiced in the Celestial Kingdom, and on earth.

What we provide is the complete picture and allow the reader to evaluate it; while those like Hales and other apologists only provide selective pieces of evidence (often doctored) and irrational conclusions.

[134] Warsaw Message (Signal), February 7, 1844, Online here, Accessed December 31, 2014. During 1843 and part of 1844 the Warsaw Signal was called the Warsaw Message, because it was sold by Thomas Sharp, who then bought it back and changed the name back to the Warsaw Signal.

On April 25, 1844 a second poem was sent to the Warsaw Message, attributed to Buckeye:

The Buckey[e]’s First Epistle to Jo.

Friend Jo, I have been told of late
That you had got in your pate
A certain chief, to vent his hate,
Had learned to sing;
And had turn’d out a poet great,
Or some such thing.

Because the “Warsaw Message” came
With tidings from the state of fame,
Like some great herald to proclaim
Your wicked ways.
Your tyranny, your sin and shame,
In these last days.

With Buckey[e]’s trumpet sounding clear,
That Democrat and Whig might hear,
And Priest-rid Mormons, who in fear
Bow down to thee;
That there is still one child who dare
And will be free.

That Buckeye child lives in Nauvoo,
And some there are, who know how true
A friend, he ever was to you,
In days that’s past,
Till slanders base around you threw,
Fair fame to blast.

Till for himself he’s fairly seen
That you were not what you had been,
But that iniquity you’d screen
In every way;
And from fair virtue’s path did lean
Vile plans to lay.

Have you forgot the snare you laid
For NANCY, (lovely Buckeye maid?)
With all your priestly arts array’d
Her to seduce
Assisted by that wretched bawd
Who kept the house.

But she, in virtues amour steel’d
Was proof against what you reveal’d,
And to your doctrines would not yield
The least belief;
Although the scriptures you did wield
In your relief.

And when you saw, she would detest
Such doctrines, in her noble breast,
And did despise the man, ‘tho priest,
who taught them too,
A sallow, yellow, lustful beast,
Poor Jo, like you.

‘Twas then you chang’d your lovers sighs
And vengeful hate flash’d in your eyes
When you found out she did despise
You as a man;
You took to circulating lies.
Your usual plan.

Just that you might destroy her fame,
And give to her a ruin’d name,
So that if she should ever proclaim
What you had tried;
Your friends might turn on her the shame
And say she lied.

But Joe, in this you fairly tail’d,
Though you her father’s house assail’d
She met you face to face, you quail’d
Before her frown
And like a counterfeit she nail’d
You tightly down —

Although you tried, by priestly power
To make this gentle creature cower
And eat her words, that you might tower
In priestly pride;
But strong in truth, she in that hour
Told you, you lied.

And when you found it would not do,
Then like a coward paltroon, you
Acknowledg’d what she had said was true
Unto her sire;
But then you’d nothing more in view
Then just to try her —

And put on her guard, that she
Might keep her pure and free
From base seducers like to me,
And Joab vile —
For that it was reveal’d to thee
We would beguile.

O Jo! Jo!! thy slanderous tongue
Some burning tears from me have wrung,
And I had thought t’ have held my tongue
And nothing said —
If thou had’st but repentance shown
And shut thy head.

But thy repeated slanders vile
Shall not be borne by this child;
Although by nature he is mild,
And well disposed;
Thy sins from continent to isle
Shall be exposed.

Missouri’s deeds shall come to light
Though perpetrated in the night.
By hirelings who thought it right
To do thy will —
By cabin conflagration bright
to scalp and kill.

Repent, repent, there still is time —
And add no more dark crime to crime,
But think, how mighty and sublime
Thy calling first —
And in black sackcloth bow thee down
Low in the dust —

And put away far from thy heart,
Each wicked sensual sinful art;
And from the truth no more depart
Long as you live —
But stop and make another start,
And I’ll forgive.

If not your dark deeds in Nauvoo,
As well as in Missouri too —
Like Hamlet’s ghost shall rise to view,
With old white hat —
Then tremble tyrant, for but few
Will sanction that.

But I must stop this long epistle.
“My pen is worn down to the gristle,”
And ;tis the poet’s only missell
In truth’s relief —
For, be it known to all, this child
Ain;t yet a chief —

Tho he his lineage can trace
Back to the Bruce and Wallace days,
When they for Liberty did raise
The sword, and broke
(As I intend in these last days)
A tyrant’s yoke.

[135] See the excellent Essay by Gary James Bergera, “Buckeye’s Laments: Two Early Insider Exposes of Mormon Polygamy and their Authorship,” found in Dimensions of Faith, ed. by Gary James Bergera, Signature Books Library, Online here, Accessed June 7, 2019.

Of interest here is the testimony of Sarah Miller and others about what took place between her and Chauncey Higbee, William Smith and others in May of 1842:

[p. 1:]Testimony of Sarah Miller before the High Council of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the City of Nauvoo May 24th 1842.–– Agnst Chauncey Higby [sic].

Some two or three weeks since, in consequence of Bro Joseph Smiths teachings to the singers, I began to be alarmed concerning myself, & certain teachings which I had recevd from Chauncey L. Higby, & questioned him about his teaching, for I was pretty well persuaded from Joseph[’s] public teachings that Chauncy had been telling falsehood.– but Chauncy said that that Joseph Now taught as he did th[r]ough necessity, on acount of the prejudices of the people, & his own family particlarly as they had not become full believers in the doctrine.– I then became satisfied that all of Chauncy’s teaching had been false [erased word], & that he had never been authorized by any one in authority to make any such communication to me. Chauncy L. Higbys teaching & conduct were as follows. When he first came to my house ^soon^ after the spical conferene this spring, darwin chase was with him ^Chauncy^ he comnced joking me about my getting married & & [sic] wanted to know how long it had been for since my husband died – and he soon removed his seat near me & began his seducing insinations by saying it was no harm to have sexual intercourse with women if they would keep it to themselves. & continued to urge me to yield to his desires, & urged me vehemently. & said he & Joseph were Good friends & he teaches me this doctrine. & allows me such privilgs & there is no harm in it & Joseph Smith says so.– I told him I did not believe it, & had heard no such teching frm Joseph. Nor frm the stand but that it was wicked to commit adultry, &c. Chauncy said that did not mean Single women, but Married women: & continued to press his instructions & arguments until after dark, & until I was inclined to believe, for he called God to witness of the truth, & was so solemn and confident, I yielded to his temptations, having received the stronget assure from him that Joseph app[r]ovd it & would uphold me in it. [p. 2:]

He also told me that many others were following the same coure of conduct As I still had some doubts near the close of our interview I <agn> suggested my fear that I had done wrong & should loose the confidence of the brthrn when he assurd me that it was right & he would bringa witness a witness to confirm what he had taught. When he came again William Smith came with him & told me that the doctrine which Chauncy Higby had taught me was true. & that Joseph believd the doctrine. I still had doubts & replied that I had understood that Higby had had [sic] recently been baptized & that Joseph when he confirmd him told him to quit all his iniquitous practices. Chauncy Said it was not for such things things that he was baptized for <Chauncy exited from the room> & William Smith said that he would take all the sin to himself. – for there was no sin in it. before Chauncy left the house he said do you think I would be baptized for such a thing & then go into it so soon again. Chauncy Higby said that it would never be known. I told him that it might be told in bringing forth [pregnancy]. Chauncy said there was no Danger <& that> Dr Bennt understood it & would come & take it away if there was any thing.

Sarah Miller

Hancock Co } To wit – Then appeard Sarah Miller to State of Illinois} sign of the above instrument : & made City of Nauvoo} oath that the above declaration, is true before me. Geo W Harris Ald Nauvoo May 24, 1842 Alderman of Nauvoo City

[Sideways] Sarah Miller Chauncey Higby (Testimonies in Nauvoo High Council Cases, 1842 May, MS 24557, Fd. 1, CHL).

Here is the testimony of Catherine Fuller:

Testimony of Catherine Fuller ^Warren^ before the High Council of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the City of Nauvoo May 25th 1842. Against John C. Bennett & others

Nearly a year ago I became acquainted with John C. Bennett, after visiting twice and on the third time he proposed unlawful intercourse,being about one week after first acquaintance. He said he wished his desires granted I told him it was contrary to my feelings he answered there was others in higher standing than I was who would conduct in that way, and there was not harm in it. He said there should be no sin upon me if there was any sin it should come upon himself. I told him I was not guilty of such conduct and thought it would bring a disgrace[?] on the church If I should become pregnant he said he would attend to that. I understood that he would give medicine to prevent it. Sometime last winter ^I became alarmed at my conduct and told him I did not wish his company any longer^ he told me that the heads of the church were conducting in that manner ^and referenced[?] Joseph’s name^ and he thought as he had no good wife[?] as they had, I think this happened last October, He said that Joseph taught and conducted in the above manner, He also was with Mrs Shindle now living beyond Ramus. and also with the two Miss Nymans Hxxx. I do not know that he kept[?] company with any others neither did I hear him say he had.

I have also had unlawful connexion with Chauney Higbee and George W. [or M.?] Thatcher. C. Higbee taught this same doctrine as was taught by ^J C^ Bennett and that Joseph Smith taught and practised those things, but he stated that he did not have it from Joseph but he had this information from Dr. John C. Bennett. He Chancey L. Higbee has gained his object about 5 or 6 times.

XXXXXXXXXXX [William Smith] has also been to my house on the 27th of last month being the day I was married and proposed unlawful connexion but I refused and told him that it was contrary to the teaching of Joseph on the stand. He answered that Joseph was obliged to teach to the contrary on the stand to keep down prejudice and keep peace at home First W. Smith insisted very much that I should not marry and proposed to supply me with food &c if I should remain unmarried and grant his requests Chaucey Higbee also made propositions to keep me with food if I would submit to his designs[p. 8:]

Darwin Chase has also been at my house – sometime last winter as made propositions for unlawful connexion he did not urge much – I did not yeild to him. Liman O. Littlefield has also been at my house – and made similar propositions and taught the same doctrines as those already referred to – He did not gain his designs – because I saw I was ruining myself and bringing disgrace upon the church This took place about the last of January or first of February. He came several times in the space of a few weeks

Joel S. Miles has also been at my house and made propositions for unlawful intercourse and taught similar doctrine to that taught by Bennett. He accomplished his designs twice. He came several times but has not been lately. The above transactions ^This^ took place sometimes in January.

George W. Thatcher has been at my house twice, sometime in the middle of February but not since that time – he had ^unlawful^ intercourse with me twice he said the heads of the church wear teaching and practising such Black things, and he had as good rights as they had. Sometime about a year ago last ^summer^ as I have been informed ^Mrs Bosworth^ went to the house of Mrs ^Alfred^ Brown but the door was fast – I thought they were not at home but happening to look over the door where a clapboard was off, I saw Dr. J. C. Bennett and Mrs Brown sitting very close together John C. Bennett was the first man that seduced me – no man ever made the attempt before him J. B. Backenstos has also been at my house – was introduced by Chaucy Higby – made request similar as above – gave me two dollars – He accomplished his designs only once – has been there two or three times since. This happened in the fore part of this winter–[p. 9:] (ibid, op. cited above).

These minutes give an amazing picture of what was going on behind the scenes in Nauvoo in the latter half of 1841. Here we see that William Smith, the brother of Joseph Smith was a partner with John C. Bennett and Chauncey Higbee (and others) in teaching women that having sexual intercourse was no sin, because if they had no accuser, there was no sin. (Remember in the Bible that Satan is called “The accuser of the brethren). There was a whole other dimension to what Joseph was doing with other men’s wives and allowed William Smith to get away with his own seductions. Here are the words of Joseph Smith just months earlier:

7th Sunday I first called upon Br Joseph with some of the Twelve. From thence to B. Young. From thence to the meeting ground near the Temple whare I found many hundreds of Saints. Elder Wm. Clark preached about 2 hours when Br Joseph arose & reproved him as pharisaical & hypocritical & not edifying the people.

Br Joseph then deliverd unto us an edifying address showing us what temperance faith, virtue, charity & truth was. He also said if we did not accuse one another God would not accuse us & if we had no accuser we should enter heaven. He would take us there as his backload. If we would not accuse him he would not accuse us & if we would throw a cloak of charity over his sins he would over ours. For charity coverd a multitude of Sins & what many people called sin was not sin & he did many things to break down superstition & he would break it down. He spoke of the curse of Ham for laughing at Noah while in his wine but doing no harm.

After this meeting closed I met with the Twelve & High Priest quorum: the word of wisdom was brought up. B Young says shall I Break the word of wisdom if I go home & drink a cup of tea? No wisdom is justified of her Children. The subject was discused in an interesting manner. All concluded that it was wisdom to deal with all such matters according to the wisdom which God gave. That a forced abstai-nance was not making us free but we should be under bondage with a yoak upon our necks. I walked out & spent the night at Br Allexanders. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, p.137, October 7, 1841).

And what was Joseph getting at with his comment about the “curse of Ham for laughing at Noah while in his wine … but doing no harm?” Remember at this time that Joseph was having affairs with other men’s wives. The account in Genesis 9 reads:

And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. (Genesis 9:20-26)

Noah & Sons

Why would Canaan be the one who was cursed, if it was Ham that had wronged Noah? It states in the account that Ham “saw the nakedness of his father”. And what does the Bible say about that:

The nakedness of your father’s wife you shall not uncover; it is your father’s nakedness (Leviticus 18: 8)
And a man who lies with his father’s wife, who has uncovered the nakedness of his father... (Leviticus 20: 11)
Cursed is he who lies with his father’s wife, because he uncovers his father’s skirt (Deuteronomy 27: 20)

The account also mentions garments and in the Book of Jasher (which Smith had access to) it reads:

And in their going out, Ham stole those garments [the garments of Adam] from Noah his father, and he took them and hid them from his brothers. And when Ham begat his first born Cush, he gave him the garments in secret, and they were with Cush many days. (Jasher, 7:27-8)

After that, the garment was given to Nimrod who becomes a great warrior king. What is interesting is that when the Jaredites supposedly left Babel, their number included some of the descendants of Ham, and when Smith did his initial “translation” of one of the Kinderhook Plates he claimed that it was all about a king who was a descendant of Ham.

Could the Canaanites have been cursed because Canaan was the illicit offspring of a union between Ham and Noah’s wife Naamah? In the following testimony we will see that this idea of some sin not being sin at all had caught on in Nauvoo:

Matilda Nyman testified:

Testimony of Matilda Nyman before the High council of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints in the city of Nauvoo, May the 21. 1842 Against Chancy Higby

During this Spring Chancy L Higby kept company with me from time to time, and as I have since learned Wickedly, deceitfully and with lies in his mouth, urged me vehemently to yeald to [his] desires, that there could be no wrong in having sexual intercourse with any female that would keep the same to herself, Most villianously and lieingly Stating that he had been so instructed by Joseph Smith and that there was [no] sin where there was no accuser -, also vowing he would Marry me. Not succeeding, he on one occasion, brought one in Authority in the Church, [William Smith] who affirmed that such intercourse was tolerated by the heads of the Church, I have since found him also to be a lieing conspirator against female virtue & chastity, having never received such teachings from the heads of the church ; but I was at the time partially influenced to believe in consequence of the source from whom I received it, I yealded and became subject to the will of my seducers[sic] Chancey L. Higby–– And having since found out to my satisfaction that a number of wicked men have conspired to use the Name of Joseph Smith, or the heads of the Church, falsely & wickedly, to enable them to gratify their lusts, thereby destroying female innocence & virtue I repent before god & my brethren and ask forgiveness.

I further testify that I never had any personal acquaintences with Joseph Smith, & never heard him teach any such doctrines as Higby, sta either directly or indirectly ––Matilda J. Nyman

Hancock Co} To wit: Nauvoo city, May 24, 1842. Then personaly appeard State Illinois} Before me, Geo. W. Harris, alderman of said city, Matilda J. Nyman the signer of this instrument & testified under oath that the above decaration[sic] was true. Geo W Harris Ald[p. 14:] (1842 High Council Minutes, op. cited above).

These documents accuse William Smith of being involved with the women who also testified about Chauncey Higbee and John C. Bennett. It brings to mind what Lorenzo Snow once said and Abraham H. Cannon recorded in 1890:

Wednesday, April 9, 1890: Very nice day. From 7 a.m. till 10 o’clock I was busy at the office looking over the mail and attending to other matters of business. At the latter time I went to the Historian’s office where all the brethren met who were present last evening. After the singing of two hymns and prayer Pres. Snow arose and expressed his pleasure at our fasting (which we all did this morning) and our meeting. He said: Everyone of us who has not already had the experience must yet meet it of being tested in every place where we are weak, and even our lives must be laid on the altar. Brigham Young was once tried to the very utmost by the Prophet, and for a moment his standing in the Church seemed to tremble in the balance. Wm. Smith, one of the first quorum of apostles in this age had been guilty of adultery and many other sins. The Prophet Joseph instructed Brigham (then the Pres. of the Twelve) to prefer a charge against the sinner, which was done. Before the time set for the trial, however, Emma Smith talked to Joseph and said the charge preferred against William was with a view to injuring the Smith family. After the trial had begun, Joseph entered the room and was given a seat. The testimony of witnesses concerning the culprit’s sins was then continued. After a short time Joseph arose filled with wrath and said, “Bro. Brigham, I will not listen to this abuse of my family a minute longer. I will wade in blood up to my knees before I will do it.” This was a supreme moment. A rupture between the two greatest men on earth seemed imminent. But Brigham Young was equal to the danger, and he instantly said, “Bro. Joseph, I withdraw the charge.” Thus the angry passions were instantly stilled. (Abraham H. Cannon Diary, April 9, 1890, our emphasis).

So Joseph not charging William is blamed on Emma Smith? In these documents William’s name is scratched out in places; [by order of Emma Smith?] and he was never charged for any crimes as both Higbee and Bennett were. Smith also claimed that he was teaching Joseph’s doctrine. He also claimed that Joseph was obliged to teach “on the stand” things that “were the opposite” of what he was teaching in private, the very things that William Smith was teaching. The only difference in what they were teaching was that in Joseph’s case, it was claimed later that he performed a “marriage” (or sealing) ceremony, while Bennett and William Smith apparently did not. But in some cases that involved Joseph Smith, we know of no marriage/sealing ceremony, such as with the Mary Heron Snider and Fanny Alger. After this, Joseph evolved his doctrine and stopped having relationships with other men’s wives. John Dinger relates the story accepted by many historians:

Beginning in 1842, Joseph Smith experienced a painful falling out with his former confidant, John C. Bennett. On May 17, Bennett resigned as mayor (replaced by Smith), and on May 19 his resignation was accepted by the city council, which resolved to: “tender a Vote of Thanks to Gen[era]l John C. Bennett, for his great Zeal in having good & wholesome Laws adopted for the Government of this City, & for the faithful discharge of his Duty while Mayor of the same.” Apparently, Bennett had secretly taught that worthy couples, married or not, could engage in sexual relations on the condition that they keep their behavior a secret. Rumors circulated that his doctrine had been authorized by Joseph Smith. In fact, Smith by this time had contracted several polygamous marriages and proposed to, and was rejected by, a handful of women. Though some of the gossip regarding Smith was true, Bennett’s teachings had not been sanctioned by Smith, and at his resignation as mayor Bennett signed an affidavit clearing Smith of moral impropriety. Though Bennett said he wanted to regain his Church membership, the situation turned ugly over the next several months. In mid-June 1842, Smith went public with his criticism, and Bennett left Nauvoo a few days later. On June 27, the nearby Sangamo Journal published a Bennett letter vowing to retaliate by exposing every secret he knew about Nauvoo. In fact, in successive letters, he explained what he knew of Smith’s and other leaders’ involvement in polygamy. Smith’s first documented plural marriage occurred in Nauvoo in April 1841. Two years later, on July 12, 1843, Smith recorded a revelation regarding polygamy (D&C 132) and the next month saw his brother Hyrum broaching the topic with the high council. At that meeting, Councilman Dunbar Wilson “made inquiry in relation to the subject of a plurality of wives, as there were rumors about[,] respecting it, and he was satisfied there was something in those remarks, and he wanted to know what it was.” Joseph was home ill, so Hyrum read the July 12 revelation to the group and stated, “Now, you that believe this revelation and go forth and obey the same shall be saved, and you that reject it shall be damned.” Several high councilmen subsequently rejected the revelation, including William Law, William Marks, Leonard Soby, and Austin A. Cowles. Prior to being officially taught the doctrine of plural marriage, the high council had investigated rumors of various Church members accused of entering into multiple marriages. Beginning on May 21, 1842, the high council handled the first of twenty-three cases which arose, in large measure, from the nascent doctrine of plural marriage. (Dinger, John S., The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, Kindle Edition, Signature Books, Locations 520-544).

On January 3, 1844 these High Council Minutes record what Joseph Smith related about those who didn’t keep his “Spiritual Wife System” secret:

[The] Mayor spoke on [the] Spiritual wife system and explained, The man who promises to keep a secret and does not keep it he is a liar and not to be trusted. (ibid, 6346-6347, our emphasis).

Wilford Woodruff recorded these words of Joseph Smith on December 18, 1841:

The reason we do not have the Secrets of the Lord revealed unto us is because we do not keep them but reveal them. We do not keep our own secrets but reveal our difficulties to the world even to our enemies. Then how would we keep the secrets of the Lord? Joseph Says I can keep a secret till dooms day. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, 143).

This is what Brigham Young once said about Oliver Cowdery in relation to Fanny Alger:

Presidet Young staid 3+ hours in Compiling his History. He remarked that the revelation upon a plurality of wives was given to Joseph Smith. He revealed it to Oliver Cowdery alone upon the solem pledge that He would not reveal it or act upon it it but He did act upon it in a secret manner & that was the cause of his overthrow. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 5, p. 84, August 26, 1857).

Of course, all Cowdery did was claim that Smith had committed adultery. That was the secret that Joseph told Cowdery, there is no credible evidence that he spoke to Cowdery about having more than one wife.

Along with John C. Bennett and Chauncey Higbee, there were others who were involved with making proposals to women. They were John Darwin Chase, Joel S. Miles, Lyman O. Littlefield, Justice Morse, J. D. Backenstos and William Smith. Most of these men were friends or bodyguards of Joseph Smith. Both Chase and Miles were Danites and were among the men that Joseph Smith chose to accompany him to Monmouth after he was arrested on charges from Missouri in 1841:

Monday, 7.—I started very early for Monmouth, seventy-five miles distant (taking Mr. [Sheriff Thomas] King along with me and attending him during his sickness), accompanied by Charles C. Rich, Amasa Lyman, Shadrack Roundy, Reynolds Cahoon, Charles Hopkins, Alfred Randall, Elias Higbee, Morris Phelps, John P. Greene, Henry G. Sherwood, Joseph Younger, Darwin Chase, Ira Miles, Joel S. Miles, Lucien Woodworth, Vinson Knight, Robert B. Thompson, George Miller and others. We traveled very late, camping about midnight in the road. (History of the Church, Vol. 4, p.366, June 7, 1841)

These men were all very close to the Mormon Prophet; one of Joseph’s future Spiritual Wives was the daughter of the “Pagan Prophet”, Lucien Woodworth. Some were scribes, some were Danites and all were trusted confidants.

Joel S. Miles was also a County Constable, and in one family history John Darwin Chase was said to be a Bishop in Nauvoo. Lyman O. Littlefield was a typesetter for the Church affiliated with the Nauvoo Neighbor, (edited by John Taylor) and also worked at the Times and Seasons. Darwin Chase also spent time with Joseph Smith in a Missouri jail. Brian Hales writes:

Lyman O. Littlefield, who knew the Prophet in Nauvoo, recalled in 1883:

“I have the best reasons for believing it [celestial and plural marriage] was understood and believed by him (Joseph Smith, the Prophet) away back in the days when he lived in Kirtland . . . he was instructed of the Lord respecting the sacred ordinance of plural marriage; but he was not required to reveal it to the Church until sometime during the residence of the Saints in Nauvoo.” (Hales, op. cited, Online here, Accessed February 12, 2015).

Littlefield’s 1883 “Open letter” to Joseph Smith the III, published in The Millennial Star (which Hales quotes above) is interesting. He writes:

The doctrine of celestial marriage, I have the best reasons for believing , was understood and believed by him away back in the days when he lived in Kirtland, when he and the Saints, in their poverty were toiling to erect that sacred edifice wherein you now falsify him, seeking, by your unsupported declarations, to nullify his most sacred doctrines. Even there, as I believe, he was instructed of the Lord respecting the sacred ordinance of plural marriage; but he was not required to reveal it to the Church until some time during the residence of the Saints at Nauvoo, where he received a revelation from the Lord setting forth in detail the results to be obtained by keeping inviolate all the laws connected with this sacred condition of things. And in consequence of the prejudices of the Saints and the tide of persecution which he well knew he would have to encounter from the outside world, wherein his life would be endangered, he delayed, as long as possible, to make this principle known, except to a few of the most faithful and humble of the Saints. The boy Joseph [III], while playing in the streets and vacant lots of Nauvoo, very likely did not know of these things, nevertheless the writer knew that the elder Joseph then practiced and taught [though not publicly] this doctrine. And further, he then knew some of the women to be his wives who subsequently, in Utah, reported themselves to his sons, Joseph and David, while here, as such wives. (Lyman O. Littlefield, “An Open Letter Addressed to President Joseph Smith, jun., of the Re-organized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Millennial Star 25, June 18, 1883, 387).

Yet the testimony of some of the women that claimed they were taught by John C. Bennett, William Smith, and Chauncey Higbee about Joseph’s spiritual wife doctrine also claimed that Littlefield was among those doing so and proposing to have sexual intercourse with them:

Testimony of Catherine Fuller –

L. [yman] O. Littlefield had been at my house, and made propositions to have unlawful intercourse – he urged hard_ this was about the last of January or first of February – had been 3 or 4 times in course of 2 or 3 weeks_ he urged doctrine such as the following – namely – that there was no harm in having unlawful intercourse – that others conducted in the same way – there there [sic] should be no sin come upon her – if there was any it should come upon himself; that the heads of the church were practising the same things – named Joseph Smith – he urged this doctrine – was there about the first of February about 8 in the evening (1842 High Council Minutes, op. cited above).

Caroline Butler testified:

I have frequently seen Darwin Chase & Chancy Higby go to Widow Fullers frequently – have seen Joel S. Miles go there – have seen L.[yman] C. [sic- O.] Littlefield go in there (ibid, added emphasis).

Catherine Fuller also testified that:

Darwin Chase has also been at my house – sometime last winter has made propositions for unlawful connexion he did not urge much – I did not yeild to him.

Liman O. Littlefield has also been at my house – and made similar propositions and taught the same doctrines as those already referred to – He did not gain his designs – because I saw I was ruining myself and bringing disgrace upon the church This took place about the last of January or first of February. He came several times in the space of a few weeks

Joel S. Miles has also been at my house and made propositions for unlawful intercourse and taught similar doctrine to that taught by Bennett. He accomplished his designs twice. He came several times but has not been lately. The above transactions ^This^ took place sometimes in January. (ibid, added emphasis).

So Littlefield knew all about what Joseph was doing? Why did Joseph’s bodyguards teach and propagate such things? Wilford Woodruff wrote about the proceedings:

The first Presidency The Twelve & High Council & virtuous part of the Church are making an exhertion abo[u]t these days to clense the Church from Adulterors fornicators & evil persons for their are such persons crept into our midst. The high council have held a number of meeting[s] of late & their researches have disclosed much iniquity & a number [have] been Cut off from the church. I met with the High Council to day on the trial of L[yman] O. Littlefield[,] Joel S Miles & Darwin Chase. The two former were cut of[f] for Adultery & the case of D[arwin] Chase was put of[f] till tomorrow” (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 2:177).

The next day Woodruff wrote:

28th The case of D. Chase was tryed & he restored to fellowship by the majority of own[ly?] 1 vote. (ibid, added emphasis).

The one vote was Joseph Smith! (see below) Notice that Littlefield and Miles get “cut off” and Chase did not. Why? Chase kept his secret and did not tell them that Joseph Smith authorized it. The adultery was ok, but not revealing the secret that Joseph was teaching it. Higbee also told them Joseph taught the same, as did Bennett and William Smith. The minutes concerning Chase read:

Catherine Fuller. – States that Darwin Chase has been at her house sometime in winter – made proposals to have unlawful intercourse – said it was no harm_

Melinda Lewis – States that she once saw Darwin Chase and another in Widow Fullers house at night

Caroline Butler – has frequently seen Darwin Chase go to Widow Fullers

Maria Champlin – saw Chase with Littefield one night Xxx last sabbath-came to Kingsleys about 5 o clock – about dusk rode out with one of the Miss Kingsley’s to the prairie- returned about 10 o clock – some time after L. O. Littlefield had returned – tarried about one hour after- said that Joseph tried to persuade men to act wickedly and then exposed them.

Polly Mecham – saw Darwin Chase with L. O. Littlefield, come to Kingsleys last sabbath – on foot- spoke concerning terrible things going on in Nauvoo –

Darwin Chase was rebuked, after he had partially confessed. Moved by the Prest [Joseph Smith] that Bro Chase retain his standing &c.

The High Council Minutes for May 24-28, read:

May 24, 1842; Tuesday. The High Council met according to appointment at the Lodge Room. 1st. The testimony of Mrs Sarah Miller and Miss Margaret [Nyman] and Matilda Neyman were taken relative to the charges of ^against^ Chancy Higbee and others showing the manner of iniquity practised by them upon female virtue & the un-hallowed means by which they accomplished their desires. Adjourned till tomorrow at 12 o’clock. H[osea] Stout.

May 25, 1842; Wednesday. The [High] Council met according to adjournment[.] 1st. [A] charge [was preferred] against John Haddon by H[enry] G. Sherwood for unlawfully detaining from Harriet Parker, her house and premises. Done in her behalf[,] the defendant did not appear. The charge was fully sustained. On motion [it was] resolved that he be disfellowshipped until he make satisfaction to H[enry] G. Sherwood and restore the house to Harriet Parker. 2. [A] Charge [was preferred] against Mrs. Catherine Warren by George Miller for unchaste and unvirtuous conduct with John C. Bennett and others. The defendant confessed to the charge and g[a]ve the names of several other [men] who had been guilty of having unlawful intercourse with her[,] stating that they taught the doctrine that it was right to have free intercourse with women and that the heads of the Church also taught and practised it[,] which things caused her to be led away thinking it to be right but becoming convinced that it was not right[,] and learning that the heads of the church did not believe of [the] practice [of] such things[,] she was willing to confess her sins and did repent before God for what she had done and desired earnestly that the Council would forgive her and covenanted that she would hence forth do so no more. After which she was restored to fellowship by the unanimous vote of the Council. 3. On motion [the] Council ^adjourned^ till tomorrow Friday the 27th ins[tant] at 12 o’clock at this place. Hosea Stout Clerk.

May 27, 1842; Friday. [The High] Council met according to adjournment. 1st. [A] charge [was preferred] against Lyman O Littlefield by Geo[rge] Miller for improper and unvirtuous conduct and for teaching false doctrine. [He] plead not Guilty[.] Two were appointed to speak on each side[,] viz. (1) Sam[ue]l Bent[,] (2) James Allred[,] (3) Lewis D. Wilson[,] and (4) Wilford Woodruff[.] The charge was sustained. On motion [it was] Resolved — That he be disfellowshipped untill he make satisfaction to this Council. 2. [A] charge [was preferred] against Darwin Chase by Geo[rge] Miller for improper and unvirtuous conduct and for teaching false doctrine. Plead not guilty[.] Two were appointed to speak on the case[:] Viz. (5) David Fulmer and George W. Harris. The defendant plead for an adjournment for the want of evidence[.] On motion [it was] resolved — That this case be adjourned till tomorrow at 1 o’clock at this place. 3rd. [A] charge [was preferred] against Joel S. Miles by George Miller for improper and unvirtuous conduct and for teaching false doctrine. [He] plead not guilty. Two were apointed to speak on the case — Viz. (7) Tho[ma]s Grover and (8) Aaron Johnson. The charge was fully sustained[.] On motion [it was] resolved that he be disfellowshiped[.] until Adjourned till tomorrow at 1 o’clock at this place. Hosea Stout Clerk.

May 28, 1842; Saturday. [The High] Council met according to adjournment. 1st. [A] charge [was preferred] against Justis Morse by George Miller for unchaste and unvirtuous conduct with the daughter of the Widow Neyman &c &c Charge was sustained The defendant did not apear before the Council but upon being cited to apear before the Council he ordered his name to be struck off of the Church Book as he did not wish to stand a trial Two were appointed to speak on the case[,] viz — (9) Newel Knight and (10) William Huntington. [The] charge was sustained On Motion of President Austin Cowles — Resolved — That he (the defendant) be disfellowshiped. 2nd. The Charge against Darwin Chace (of the 27th inst[ant]) was taken up according to adjournment. [The] charge [was] not sustained[.] The President decided that he should be restored to full fellowship which was carried by a majority of 8 to 4. After which the case spoken on by different ones of the Council to show further light on the subject and showing reasons why they did not secede to the Presidents decisions. The President again called on the council to sanction his decision which was done unanimously ^which was carried unanimously^. On motion adjourned till Saturday the 4th of June at [blank] o’clock at Hiram Smith’s office. Hosea Stout Clerk. (Dinger, John S., op. cited above, Locations 11332-11377).

These minutes are amazing in that they show that Joseph was unjustly using his position as President of the Church to overturn the High Council’s decision to cut off Darwin Chase (the Danite). Lyman O. Littlefield would later write:

During the period of which I am now writing (1843-4) a subtle and malicious undercurrent was silently and stealthily running and spreading through the circles that composed the society of Nauvoo. As well as the glorious doctrines of baptism for the dead, there were many other truths of vital moment which were revealed to the members of the Church through the agency of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Some of the doctrines were construed by evil disposed persons in a way to place them in a false light before the people by placing upon them interpretations different from what their real import would justify. There were those ready and willing to embrace the opportunity of fabricating false deductions for the purpose of counteracting or lessening the great influence which Joseph wielded against all who practiced any species of evil in society. Among these were disaffected persons, some of whom possessed ability, cunning and a degree of influence. Some of them were persons who were ambitious for promotion and advancement into public favor, a portion seeking social, political or religious advancement, according to their taste. But Joseph was the man who stood boldly in the Thermopylae to defend the innocent and unsuspecting and direct their minds in the true channel that pointed the way to eternal blessings. (Lyman Omer Littlefield, Reminiscences of Latter-day Saints, 156-157).

The Temple Lot testimony of Littlefield sheds more light on what he actually did know about what was going on in Nauvoo:

16. Q—State to the reporter Mr. Littlefield, what you know in regard to the doctrine of plurality of wives, or as it is commonly called, polygamy, being taught in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Nauvoo before the death of Joseph Smith? A—Well I can tell what I know about it, what I know about that doctrine being taught. Do you want to know?

17. Q—Just answer the question? A—Well I was cognizant of the fact that that doctrine was taught there, and it was understood by a great many people that it was taught, and not only taught but practiced. I knew it was known by a great many people I understood that matter perfectly but it was not taught to the whole church generally, but it was taught privately so that a great many people understood it and knew it was practiced, too up to that date.

18. Q—Mr Hall, Up to that date? A—Up to that time previous to the death of Joseph Smith, senior, Now what I mean by that is that it was not taught publicly from the stand, but it was so taught that the people, or a great many of them understood that doctrine, and some of them practiced it, at least if it was taught from the stand I didn’t know it, for I never heard it taught from the stand but I know it was taught and practiced secretly, and was not given to the whole church as a principle according to the best of my knowledge in the days of Joseph.

19. Q—I would like to ask you Mr Littlefield if you were taught that principle? A—Yes sir, I was taught that doctrine or principle, and conversed upon it with different parties but I never was taught that doctrine from Joseph Smith himself, personally, but the doctrine was talked of between myself, and a great many other parties, and always with the understanding that it had its origin, with Joseph Smith the prophet, himself. (Lyman O. Littlefield, Temple Lot Testimony, Msd 1160, Box 1, fd 12, CHL, p. 148-149)

Yet, in Nauvoo, the women claimed that Littlefield told them he got what he was teaching directly from Joseph Smith. He claimed to know what Joseph taught and practiced, and who Joseph was involved with.

Why then, was Littlefield teaching the same doctrines as John C. Bennett and William Smith? Littlefield did appear to be in Smith’s good graces, and then was not. Just three months before the women began to testify about Bennett, William Smith and Littlefield, a curious (and ribald) marriage notice appeared in the February 15, 1842 issue of the Times and Seasons (which Joseph Smith was the Editor of):

Married-In this city on the 6th inst. by the Rev. Erastus H. Derby, Mr. Gilbert H, Rolfe, to Miss Eliza Jane Bates, all of this city.

On receipt of the above notice, we were favored with a rich and delightful loaf of cake by no means below the medium size; which makes us anxious that all their acts through life may be justified; and when life wanes and they find a peaceful abode in the “narrow house,” may the many outs and ins they have made, leave to the world an abundant posterity to celebrate their glorious example.

Married-In this city by Pres’t. Hyrum Smith, Mr. J. W. Johnson to Miss Elizabeth Knight, all of this city.

The above notice was accompanied with the usual Printer’s fee, (a nice piece of bridal cake,) for which we tender our sincere thanks, and our best wishes for the future prosperity of the happy pair. Ed.

Notice that Smith’s Editor identification appears after the notices. What he perhaps did not foresee was the blowback from the risqué nature of the first notice which made a joke about the “ins and outs” of intercourse. The avowed enemy of the Mormons, Thomas Sharp in his Warsaw Signal, had a field day with the ribald notice.

In order to extricate himself from this inauspicious beginning of his editorial career, Smith had Ebeneezer Robinson make up an obvious lie that Smith wasn’t the editor, even though he had printed a notice in that issue that he (Robinson) had taken “leave of the editorial department of the Times and Seasons, having disposed of my entire interest in the printing establishment, book-bindery, and stereotype foundery [foundry], and they are transferred into other hands. The Editorial chair will be filled by our esteemed brother, President Joseph Smith, assisted by Elder John Taylor, of the Quorum of the Twelve…”

Here is Robinson’s March 15, notice:

TO THE PUBLIC.

Lest wrong impressions should obtain abroad, detrimental to the interest and influence of President Joseph Smith, respecting a marriage notice, which appeared in the Times and Seasons, of the 15th of February ult. I deem it a privilege to make a short statement of facts concerning the matter, which, I am confident, will entirely exonerate that gentleman from all blame or censure, which may have been put upon him on account of the publication of said notice.

On the 6th of Feb. I gave possession of the establishment, to Willard Richards the purchaser on the behalf of the Twelve; at which time my responsibility ceased as editor. On the 7th this marriage took place, and the notice was written by one of the hands in the office, and put in type by one of the boys, without, undoubtedly, any expectation of its being printed. At this time it was not fully decided whether President Smith should take the responsibility of editor, or not, therefore that paper went to press without his personal inspection; and as this article was standing in type with the other matter, it found its way into the paper unnoticed, as both the person who wrote it, and the boy, together with either journeymen, had been discharged by the purchasers, also, the proof reader did not observe it, as the words used were printer’s phrases and he was not looking for any thing indecorous or unbecoming. The first time Pres’t Smith or myself saw the article, was after the papers had been struck off, when it was too late to remedy the evil. We both felt very sorely mortified, at the time; but I am fully persuaded that the kind readers of the Times will cheerfully overlook whatever fault there may be, as that was the first time any such thing ever appeared in the columns of this paper, and not attribute any blame to Pres’t Smith, as he is not guilty in the least, and had no knowledge of the thing until it was too late.

I will here take the liberty to state that from an intimate acquaintance of near seven years with Pres’t. Joseph Smith, I never yet have seen a single indecent or unbecoming word or sentence, from his pen, but to the reverse; therefore I can with all confidence, assure the patrons of this paper, that they have nothing to fear, but every thing to hope for, in the exchange of editors.

E. ROBINSON.

So, the type setters had been disharged, but had set the type before they left? And no one checked it? The proof reader wasn’t looking for anything indecorous? The editor (Joseph Smith) wasn’t really the editor? Unfortunately, this didn’t suffice as Smith had his name attached to that very issue as its Editor:

Nauvoo, Feb. 15, 1842.

TO SUBSCRIBERS.

It will be noticed in the above communication of our much respected friend, E. Robinson, Esq. that the paper is no longer printed, and published by that gentleman; but that it has fallen to our lot to issue this valuable and interesting periodical, and to take the Editorial chair.

We esteem our predecessor for the honorable course that he has taken in the defence of righteousness, and in the support of truth. He has done honor to the cause he espoused; he has stood firm in the day of adversity; and when foes frowned, and persecution raged, in the midst of pecuniary embarassments, (growing our to our persecutions in Missouri,) he hss boldly, nobly, stood in the cause of freedom, of liberty, and of God; he has gone forward with a steady course; he has stemmed every torrent, braved every danger, and borne down all opposition: and amidst accumulated difficulties, truth has triumphed, error and misrepresentation has been frowned down; and bigotry, superstition, and ignorance have hid their hoary heads in shame.

The “Times and Seasons” is now read with interest in almost every city throughout the length, and breadth of this vast republic, -it has crossed the great Atlantic; and through it multitudes of the inhabitants of England are made acquainted with what is transpiring in the far famed “West.”

We siucerely give Mr. Robinson this meed of praise and as he is now retiring from the field, crown him with those laurels which under God he has fairly, and honorably won.

As it regards ourselves we have very little to say, but shall leave it for the future to unfold; and for a discerning public to judge. The important events that are daily transpiring around us; the rapid advance of truth; the many communications that we are receiving, daily, from elders abroad; both in this country, in England, from the continent of Europe, and other parts of the world; the convulsed state of the nations; the epistles and teachings of the Twelve; and the revelations which we are receiving from the most High, will no doubt furnish us with material to make this paper interesting to all who read it, and whilst we solicit the patronage, and support of our friends, we pray that the God of Israel may inspire our hearts with understanding and direct our pen in truth. Ed. (Joseph Smith)

If this is how Smith treated his editing duties, having notices printed in the paper that were false, then it really was an ignoble beginning to his editorial career. In the same March 15th issue that the Robinson apology appears in, this letter also appeared written by Littlefield (who was a type setter, or compositor for the paper):

For the Times and Seasons.
Nauvoo, March 14, 1842.
President Joseph Smith:—
Dear Sir: I see, in the last ‘Warsaw Signal,’ a very wanton and ungentlemanly attack upon yourself, made by the editor of that paper. The editor’s article, however, is in perfect keeping with his fell and natural spirit for calumniating the innocent and oppressed. I have, for some time past, been a constant reader of that paper, and feel myself perfectly safe in saying, that scarcely a single number of it has ever been issued, that was not surcharged with epithets of the foulest and basest character, perpetrated against a high-minded and intelligent portion of community, and fabricated by himself—or some individual equally as corrupt—to answer his own wicked and nefarious purposes.
What I allude to, more particularly, is his remarks relative to a marriage notice which appeared in a former number of the Times and Seasons, charging you with being its author. I should have remained silent upon this subject, had he made the attack upon any individual but yourself. But justice to your character renders it an imperious duty for me to speak and exonerate you from the false imputations of the editor. Therefore, be it known to that gentleman—if his heart is not wholly impervious to declarations of truth—that the little notice that has so much ruffled his very chaste and moral feelings, emenated from the pen of no individual other than—myself (!) “Urekah! Urekah!!” Then I would say to the sagacious editor of the Signal—
“Hush, babe, lay still and slumber!”
I speak knowingly when I say, that notice went in the Times and Seasons entirely without your sanction, and you knew nothing of its existence until that edition had been ‘worked off’ and circulated—the proof sheet not being examined by you.
After this declaration, I hope the editor of the Signal will do you the justice to exculpate you from the wholesale charges which I have been, in some degree, the means of calling upon your head; and, if he must blame any person for the notice, let his anathemas, like an avalanche, flow upon me—I will bear the burthen of my own foibles.
With sentiments of respect,
I remain, Sir, your ob’t serv’t,
L[yman] O. LITTLEFIELD.

Littlefield had fallen upon his sword for the Mormon prophet. But then, two months later Smith learns that Lyman had been going around telling women about his secret teachings, something that irked the prophet to no end.

Nauvoo, Ill.,)
Feb. 16, 1844.)
President Joseph Smith:—
Dear Sir: Permit me to address you a few lines. I have not, heretofore, obtruded a communication upon you, or troubled you relative to my cause. It would be supurfluous to enter into preliminaries. It is as well known to yourself as to me that there has a difference existed between us, for sometime. At least, I have had good reasons to believe that your feelings were somewhat insenced at me. My object in penning this letter is to have this matter honorably and amicably adjusted. Am I to be disappointed? On my part, be assured, there shall be nothing lacking. May I hope for the like reciprocal feelings in you? All I shall require is for you to say that you will forgive me my past foibles. Will you do it? A request of this nature would once have been looked upon by me as the greatest humiliation. I could not have humbled myself so much, in my own estimation at least, as to ask forgiveness of mortal man, and more particularly of one elevated so far above me, by a boundless popularity. To have asked it of an equal, or an inferior, would have been deemed a far less condescension. This was my nature— this was according to my notions of honor. This may account for my long silence upon this subject. I have been graciously informed by friends that to first approach you on this subject would partake too much of the character of a sycophant. (!) But I am willing to leave you to judge whether this course is more sycophantic than the acts of <, probably,> the very <~~probably~~> individuals whose enlarged views upon rules of ettiquett caused them to make this remark. It is not so,— I am acting honorably. I take this course because I have learned that to Joseph Smith have been committed the keys of the Kingdon of Heaven which are not to be taken away in this world or in the world to come. Then there is no sacrifice too great for me to lay at your feet. All I possess, all I am, all I expect to be, is dedicated to the cause of God. I conjure you, by my hope of salvation, by all I hold most dear in life, to accept the offering,— though poor and useless it may be to you. Brother Joseph, my very soul is bound up in the cause of Jesus Christ,— my highest ambition is to do the will of my Heavenly Father. May I hope for the seal of your approbation that I may be accounted worthy of bearing a humble part in the great work of the last days. If you have anything against me I wish you to forgive me and let th[e] past be forgotten. I know I have act rong; but I am not as guilty as I believe you have deemed me. My errors have principally been errors of the head and not of the heart. I have, at times, been very weak in the faith; but I thank my God that I have never lifted my voice or pen in ~~denoun~~ denunciations of Mormonism. <That> ~~May this~~ <it may> ever be the case that I shall not fight against the cause of Christ is the desire of my heart, that I may at last obtain a rest in the Celestial Kingdom. I close by saying, it is human to err, but magnanimous to forgive.
Withe sentiments of respect,
L. O. Littlefield
To President Joseph Smith,)
Nauvoo, Illinois.) [p. [3]]
P.S. I would be pleased to hear from President Smith, personally or in some other way, when convenient to himself.
L. O. L.

Gary James Bergera writes that:

John C. Bennett, the prophet’s talented, egotistical ally, had lodged with the Smiths from September 1840 to July 1841. [This is when the Goddards claimed that he was having an affair with Sarah Pratt and was with her for nearly the whole month of October, 1840] In fact, the thirty-seven-year-old Bennett had been privy to Smith’s April 1841 plural marriage and was conversant with his controversial teachings. Consequently, he believed he too was authorized, whether or not Smith conveyed such an impression, to initiate himself and others into the prophet’s new order. Smith worried that the enthusiasm with which Bennett embraced the celestial doctrine, and especially his introduction of it to others without Smith’s permission, failed to emphasize sufficiently the religious aspects of his revelation and thus exposed the church to the condemnation of nonbelievers. (Smith required a marriage/sealing ceremony be performed with his permission by an authorized priesthood holder prior to sexual contact; Bennett believed that worthy couples, married or not, could engage freely in sexual activity provided they keep their conduct a secret.) By the spring of 1842, Bennett’s sexual escapades had made him a liability, especially when rumor connected his and the prophet’s names. “We have been informed,” Smith and other ranking church leaders (including some already officially introduced to the prophet’s teachings) wrote to the Relief Society in late March,

that some unprincipled men, whose names we will not mention at present, have been guilty of such crimes [i.e., debauching the innocent]–We do not mention their names, not knowing but what there may be some among you who are not sufficiently skill’d in Masonry as to keep a secret, therefore, suffice it to say, there are those, and we therefore warn you, & forewarn you, in the name of the Lord, to check & destroy any faith that any innocent person may have in any such character, for we do not want any one to believe any thing as coming from us contrary to the old established morals & virtues & scriptural laws, regulating the habits, customs & conduct of society; and all persons pretending to be authorized by us or having any pennit, or sanction from us, are & will be liars & base impostors, & you are authoriz’d on the very first intimation of the kind, to denounce them as such, & shun them as the flying fiery serpent, whether they are prophets, Seers, or revelators: Patriarchs, twelve Apostles, Elders, Priests, Mayors, Generals, City Councillors, Aldermen, Marshalls, Police, Lord Mayors or the Devil, are alike culpable & shall be damned for such evil practices; and if you yourselves adhere to anything of the kind, you also shall be damned.

Less than two weeks later, Smith angrily “pronounced a curse upon all adulterers, and fornicators, and unvirtuous persons, and those who have made use of my name to carry on their iniquitous designs,” By the end of the month, [April 29] as word broke of his attempted liaison-which he denied-with his counselor’s daughter, Smith complained of a “conspiracy against the peace of my household was made manifest and it gave me some trouble to counteract the design of certain base individuals, and restore peace. The Lord makes manifest to me many things, which it is not wisdom for me to make public, until others can witness the proof of them.” When Smith shortly afterward threatened to publicize Bennett’s libertinism, Bennett first signed into law (at Smith’s request and with the city council’s approval) a law banning brothels and “adultery, or fornication,” then resigned as mayor, withdrew (or was expelled, accounts vary) from the church, and left town by the end of June. Shortly afterward, he began publicly exposing Smith’s own secrets, including his letter to his counselor’s daughter. It was against this backdrop of clandestine plural marriages that the Nauvoo High Council convened in mid-May 1842. (Bergera, “Illicit Intercourse,” op. cited, pages 65-67).

The entry in Smith’s journal (BOTLOTL) read originally read, “was made manifest a conspiracy against the peace of his household J.C.B.” (Written by Willard Richards) The rest about trouble to counteract the design of certain base individuals and restore peace, and how the Lord makes manifest to Smith many things which it was wisdom for him not to make public was a later gloss by George Albert Smith & Co., who later crafted Smith’s history. We feel that it was at this time that it was made painfully obvious to Emma that Joseph was still having relationships with other women (as he did with Fanny Alger in Kirtland). Since the initials J.C.B. appear to have been written in later (also by Richards) it may have been a few weeks or months later that they figured out who had alerted Emma about Joseph’s activities in April, 1842. But at this time, Joseph was still trying to contain the fallout from Bennett and his brother William and some of his bodyguards and friends and so had Bennett (who was still Mayor) pass an ordinance against Brothels in the City:

An Ordinance concerning Brothels and disorderly Characters.

Ordinance concerning brothels in Nauvoo (The Wasp, May 14, 1842)

Sec. 1. Be it Ordained by the City Council of the City of Nauvoo, that all Brothels or Houses of ill Fame, erected or being in the City of Nauvoo, be, and the same hereby are henceforth prohibited, and by Law declared public nuisances, and that the owner or keepers of such Houses, be fined in a Sum of not less than five Hundred, nor more than fifty Thousand Dollars, and imprisoned for Six Months for each offence of one Days continuance of such establishment; and that any Person frequenting such establishment (except on lawful business) shall be fined in the Sum of five hundred Dollars, and Six Months imprisonment for each Offence: and further, that for every Act of Adultery, or Fornication, which can be proved, the Parties shall be imprisoned Six Months, and fined, each, in the Sum of from five hundred to fifty thousand Dollars, and that the individual’s own acknowledgment shall be considered sufficient Evidence in the case.

Approved May 14th 1842.

John C. Bennett, Mayor. James Sloan, Recorder.

John Taylor would later give a speech on the anniversary of the Smith’s murders and claim:

In relation to some of these events, [that led to Joseph Smith’s death] I can relate some of the outlines of these things. There was a time, some time, little time before these persecutions commenced; there was a time that was particularly trying to the people—new doctrine of what is called what used to be called then “spiritual wifery” (and the doctrine was first introduced of men having more wives than one). It was a thing new to the whole of us. Yet it was a thing that was substantiated by scripture and made manifest also by revelation, and it only needed men to have the spirit of God or women to know and to understand the principles that Joseph communicated unto them. I remember being with President Young and Kimball and I think one or two others with Brother Joseph soon after we had returned from England. He talked with us on these principles and laid them before us. It tried our minds and feelings. We saw it was something going to be heavy upon us. It was not that very nice, pleasing thing some people thought about it. It is something that harried up our feelings. Did we believe it? Yes, we did. I did. The whole rest of the brethren did. But still we should have been glad to push it off a little further.

We [would have] been glad if it hadn’t come in our day; but that somebody else had something to do with it instead of us. But then at the same time, if we was called upon we felt to do what God required of us. I know what my feelings were and thought thought I understand what some of the rest of the brethren’s feelings were.

About this time John C. Bennett commenced some of his operations. He made use of some of those principles to corrupt to destroy not only himself but others. And as it was impossible almost together to come out and teach correct principles before the public in those days, some of those men got an inkling of these things and corrupted themselves—were full of <lasciviousness> and abomination, and corrupted their own bodies—and sought to destroy others. And they succeeded in great measure with many.

I could name the names of many: John C. Bennett, the two Higbees, and some others I could name [but] do not feel disposed [to do so]. But they had to be handled and brought before the high council and the council had to sit with closed doors because of the corruptions there manifested. It was pretty generally known the course that was pursued. Joseph came out strongly against John C. Bennett. He was naturally a corrupt man and given to it. The first trouble that ever we met with was in the city council. I was present [in] the city council of Nauvoo and Joseph wished an ordinances ordinance to be introduced there upon adulterous practices. This militated so much against John C. Bennett, he began to go away from that time and to be Joseph’s enemy. and He then began to publish and circulate. (John Taylor, June 27, 1854, unpublished discourse transcribed by LaJean Purcell Carruth, PhD, BYU Studies 50, no. 3 (2011), 43-44).

Taylor is mistaken for Francis Higbee was never involved in Smith’s Spiritual Wifeism. And it wasn’t the brothel ordinance that turned Bennett away from Smith, for Smith initially defended Bennett and tried to cover up the Spiritual Wifeism they were practicing. If it was an “inkling” that those men got, then how in the world did Bennett know the names of half a dozen or so of Smith’s concubines? He wrote,

I will semi-state two or more cases, among the vast number, where Joe Smith was privately married to his spiritual wives – in the case of Mrs. A**** S****, [Agnes Smith] by Apostle Brigham Young; and in that of Miss L***** B*****, [Louisa Beaman] by Elder Joseph Bates Noble. Then there are the cases of Mrs. B****[Buell], Mrs. D*****[Durfee], Mrs. S*******, [Sessions] Mrs. G*****, Miss B***** [Bapson] etc., etc. (Bennett, History of the Saints, 256)

During these High Council proceedings Joseph Smith instigated a lawsuit on May 24, against Chauncey Higbee for slander and defamation:

State of Illinois

County of Hancock, ss

Before me, Ebenezer Robinson, one of the Justices of the Peace for said county personally came Joseph Smith, who, being duly sworn according to law, deposeth and saith, that at sundry times, in the City of Nauvoo, county aforesaid, one Chancy L. Higbee has slandered and defamed the character of the said Joseph Smith, and also the character of Emma Smith, his wife, in using their names, the more readily to accomplish his purpose in seducing certain females, and further this deponent saith not.

Sworn to, and subscribed before me, in the county aforesaid, this 24th day of May A.D. 1842. E. Robinson J. P.

[Signed] Joseph Smith

On another sheet inside the jacket which contained the case was written:

BRV. Smith’s Affidavit Filed September 14th, 1842…. Davis Clerke

STATE OF ILLINOIS,

HANCOCK COUNTY, Sct.

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS To Margaret J. Nyman, Matilda Nyman, Sarah Miller,

You are hereby commanded to appear before me at my office in Nauvoo, forthwith then and there to testify the truth, in a matter in suit, wherein The State of Illinois is plaintiff and Chancy L. Higbee defendant and this you are not to omit under the penalty of the law. Given under my hand and seal, this 24th day of May, 1842.

A. Robinson J. P. [Seal]

The following is written in longhand on this page:

Names of Witnesses in case of State of Illinois vs. Chancy L. Higbee

Margaret J. Nyman

Matilda Nyman

Sarah Miller &

Alexander McRae

Issued

The following information is written on the back of the subpoena:

Subpoena

State of Illinois

         vs

Chancy L. Higbee

costs .25 [cents]

          50

          31

Served on the witnesses named May 24th 1842 Fees 50 [cents]

Lewis Robison Constable (Joseph Fought Polygamy, Chapter 13, Online here, Accessed March 20, 2015).

As far as we have been able to determine, Higbeef never mentioned Emma’s name to any of the women that claimed he seduced them in 1842. Notice that Smith’s subpoenaed witnesses include three of the women who testified against Higbee and also list as a witness one Alexander McRae. In 1839 Reed Peck wrote about the Danites, and mentions Alexander McRae, who was a member of that band:

I was appointed Adjutant of the [Danite] band in consequence I suppose of my holding that office in the 59th Reg Missouri Militia I did not think it policy to negect the appointment though I declared to my society friends that I would never act in the office — All the principles of the Society tended to give the presidency unlimited power over the property, persons and I might say with propriety lives of the members of the church as physical force was to be resorted to if necessary to accomplish their designs The blood of my best best friend must flow by my own hands if I would be a faithful Danite should the prophet command it Said A[lexander] McRae in my hearing “If Joseph should tell me to kill Vanburen in his presidential chain I would immediately start and do my best to assassinate him let the consequences be as they would–Having been taught to believe themselves invincible in the defence of their cause though the combined power of the world were in array against them, and the purposes of God were to be accomplished through their instrumentality, the wicked destroyed, by force of arms the “nations subdued,” and the Kingdom of Christ established on the Earth, they consider themselves accountable only at the bar of God for their conduct, and consequently acknowlegded no law superior to the “word of the Lord through the prophet” Do you suppose said a Zealous Danite at a time when the Sheriff of Daviess county held a State’s warrant against Joseph Smith that the prophet will condescend to be tried before a judge? I answered that Smith would in all probability submit Knowing that in case resistance was made the officers would call in the strength of other counties to enforce the law “What, said he, do we care for other counties or for the state or whole United States.” The independence of the church was to be supported it laws and the behests of the presidency enforced by means of this loyal band of Danites, under command of Jared Carter, the terrible brother of Gideon became the additional title of “Captain Genl of the Lords hosts” His subalterns were Maj Genl Sampson Avard Brigd Genl C. P. [-] Coln Geo W. Robinson also a Lieut Coln Maj. Secretary of War an Adjutant, Captains of fifties & captains of tens and all these officers with the privates were to be under the administration of the presidency of the church and wholly subject to their control At a meeting for the organisation of the Danites Sampson Avard presented the society to the presidency who blessed them and accepted their Services as though they were soon to be employed in executing some great design They also made speeches to the Society in which great military glory and conquest were represented as awaiting them, victories in which one should chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight, were portrayed in the most lively manner, the assistance of Angels promised and in fine every thing was said to inspire them with Zeal and courage and to make them believe that God was soon to “bring to pass his act, his strange act” or by them as instruments to perform a marvelous work on the Earth In the fore part of July the “brother of Gideon” or Jared Carter Capt Genl of the Danites having complained to Joseph Smith of some observations made by Sidney Rigdon in a Sermon, was tried for finding fault with one of the presidency and deprived of his station and Elias Higbee was appointed in his stead (Reed Peck Manuscript, 41-47, added emphasis).

Alexander McRae was not at the High Council Trial in May and it is unclear why Joseph would call him as a witness in the slander suit against Higbee. But as is evident from this letter, these men were willing to do anything to support Joseph Smith:

Dear Brethren I am at your service and I wait your Council at Quincy and shall be happy to grant you the desires of your hearts; I am ready to act. Please to give me all the intelli gence that is in your power. If you take a change of venue please to let me know what county you will come to and when as near as possible and what road you will come, for I shall be an Adder in the path. Yes My Dear Brethren God Almighty will deliver you, fear not, for your redemption draweth near, the day of your deliverance is at hand. Dear Brethren I have it in my heart to lay my body in the sand or deliver you from your bonds, and my mind is intensely fixed on the latter. Dear Brethren, you will be able to judge of the Spirit that actuates my breast, for when I realise your sufferings my heart is like wax before the fire, but when I reflect upon the cause of your afflictions it is like fire in my bones, and burns against your enemies to the bare hilt, and I never can be satisfied while there is one of them to piss against a wall, or draw a sword or spring a trigger, for my sword never has been sheathed in peace; for the blood of D[avid] W. Patten and those who were butchered at Hawn’s Mill crieth for vengeance from the ground therefore hear it, Oh ye Heavens, and record it, Oh! ye recording angels, bear the tidings ye flaming seraphs, that I from this day declare myself the avenger of the blood of those innocent men, and of the innocent cause of Zion and of her prisoners, and I will not rest untill they are as free who are in prison as I am.

Your families are all well and in good spirits. May the Lord bless you all, Amen. Brs A Lyman & W Barlow join in saying our hearts are as thy heart. Br Joseph if my Spirit is wrong, for God’s Sake Correct it.

Brethren be of good cheer, for we are determined as God liveth to rescue you from that hellish crowd or die in the attempt furrow. We shall come face foremost.

A Ripley.

B.B. Crockett,

(I have been once driven but not whipped) Br B[righam] Young sends his best compliments respects to you all. A.R.

J— S— Jr [Joseph Smith, Jr.]

H— S— [Hyrum Smith]

C— B [Caleb Baldwin]

A— McR [Alexander McRae]

L— W. [Lyman Wight] (ibid, added emphasis)

What these men (many of which had close ties to Joseph Smith) were teaching was perhaps based upon doctrines that Smith incorporated into his teachings from others:

In the early 1830s, another group of “saints” also emerged from the New York social chaos. Disciples of revivalist preachers Erasmus Stone, Hiram Sheldon, and Jarvis Rider claimed they were perfect and could no longer sin. They became known as “Perfectionists.” As part of their doctrine, they advocated “spiritual wifery,” a concept nearly identical to Mormon eternal marriage. John B. Ellis’s 1870 description of perfectionist theology assured that “all arrangements for a life in heaven may be made on earth; that spiritual friendships may be formed, and spiritual bonds contracted, valid for eternity.” Mormon missionary Orson Hyde, a former member of Rigdon’s “family,” visited a similar group he referred to as “Cochranites” in 1832 and worried about their “wonderful lustful spirit, because they believe in a ‘plurality of wives’ which they call spiritual wives, knowing them not after the flesh but after the spirit, but by the appearance they know one another after the flesh” (Hyde, 11 Oct. 1832; emphasis in original).

The frontier teemed with other practitioners of that “wonderful lustful spirit,” such as the notorious Robert Matthews, alias “Matthias the Prophet.” This self-styled “Prophet of the God of the Jews” announced that “all marriages not made by himself, and according to his doctrine, were of the devil, and that he had come to establish a community of property, and of wives” (“Memoirs” in Ivins 7: 15). Matthews practiced what he preached, contracting an unusual marriage with the wife of one of his followers in 1833. Convincing the couple that, as sinners, they were not properly united in wedlock, he claimed power to dissolve the marriage and prophesied that the woman was to “become the mother of a spiritual generation” while he Matthews, would father her first spiritual child. Charges of swindling and murder were brought against him in 1835 by a group of his followers. Though legally acquitted of murder, he served a brief sentence on a minor charge. Three months after his release from prison, he turned up on Joseph Smith’s doorstep in Kirtland using the alias “Joshua the Jewish Minister.” After two days of mutually discussing their religious beliefs, they disagreed on the “transmigration of souls,” and Joseph told him his “doctrine was of the Devil . . . and I could not keep him any longer, and he must depart” (Jessee 1984, 74-79).

Linked as the Prophet was with such contemporary religionists as Matthias, Shaking Quakers, Harmonists, Perfectionists, Rapphites, and Cochranites, it is little wonder that many outsiders viewed him with a jaded perspective. Ironically, however, the real problems for Smith in Kirtland were caused by insiders. He had given a revelation 9 February 1831 which reaffirmed New Testament monogamy. “Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shall cleave unto her and none else,” he said (D&C 42:22). In March 1831 he added, “It is lawful that [a man] should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh” (D&C 49: 16). Within the Prophet’s own congregation, rumors floated that he was violating these directives.

Benjamin Winchester, once a close friend of Smith’s and leader of Philadelphia Mormons in the early 1840s, recalled in 1889 the situation in Kirtland during the mid-1830s: “There was a good deal of scandal prevalent among a number of the Saints concerning Joseph’s licentious conduct, this more especially among the women. Joseph’s name was connected with scandalous relations with two or three families” (Salt Lake Tribune, 22 Sept. 1889). Benjamin F. Johnson, another of Smith’s confidants, added late in life that this was “one of the Causes of Apostacy & disruption at Kirtland altho at the time there was little Said publickly upon the subject” (Zimmerman 1976, 39). (Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polyandry in Nauvoo, Dialogue, Vol.18, No.3, p.70).

Like Darwin Chase, Alexander McRae was also arrested with Joseph in Missouri and spent time with him in jail. Justus Morse was also a Danite and would later be called to serve a mission to help with Smith’s Presidential Campaign.

Joseph would ultimately drop his suit against Chauncey Higbee that he filed on May 24, 1842, afraid perhaps of what the blowback would be since there were many who were close to him (including his brother William) involved in these incidents. One must ask why? Why was an Apostle of the Church involved in this Spiritual Wifery? Why was he claiming that Joseph was teaching and doing exactly what Bennett and he (William Smith) were doing? You will find no answers from Brian Hales. He doesn’t address Joseph’s cover up of his brother’s involvement in any of his books, his website, nor in his lengthy article on John C. Bennett. Hales silence on this is deafening.

Another reason that Joseph may have dropped his suit is that one of his witnesses, Sarah Miller married a man (John Thorpe) who was already legally married. They were both excommunicated on January 1, 1843. (Bergera, op. cited, 79-80). As Bergera concludes in his “Illicit Intercourse” Essay:

Not all cases brought before the Nauvoo Stake high council during the years 1840 to Joseph and Hyrum Smiths’ deaths on 27 June 1844 involved accusations of sexual misconduct. In fact, during the peak year of the council’s tribunals, 1843, only slightly more than a third of all cases centered on such behavior. What is instructive is not the number of men and women called to account for their illicit actions, but the range of prohibited behaviors and the responses to them of the church’s leaders. For even at the fringe of American religious (and in some ways sexual) expression, Mormons confronted deviance in an assortment of manifestations and guises, some more easily .addressed than others. As a divinely sanctioned component of the church’s erotic economy, plural marriage not only impacted many Saints’ moral identities, but challenged their own leaders’ ability to superintend the sexual lives of a growing congregation. That some men and women followed unholy paths speaks not so much to their gullibility, rebellion, or lust, or even to others’ self-serving presumption to speak in the prophet’s behalf, as it does to Joseph Smith’s calculated decision to adopt a variety of sometimes questionable measures in promulgating and practicing his celestial doctrine of”priesthood privileges. (ibid., 90).

Two years later, Chauncey’s brother Francis would file a slander case against Joseph Smith and sought $5000 in damages. (See Note #212) This case went before the court in Nauvoo on May 8, 1844 without Francis making an appearance, and Joseph had (among others) Joel S. Miles testify against Francis Higbee. Miles never mentions that he was complicit with Higbee in the 1842 scandal. He testified that,

“I think he [Francis Higbee] has done that which is not right. I should judge from conversation that that was the case.” (pg. 8, online here at the Church History Library, accessed June 24, 2019).

He also said that he saw him go into rooms with females but what he did, he did not know. Smith also had Henry G. Sherwood testify, who said:

I hav had several times had talk with H[igbee], it is near two years – there was a fuss abt J. Bennetts wifes sister before the H Council – there was a Fren W [French Woman] from Warsaw that he had medical asst for the clap – there had been some ire when he smelled bad Dr Bennett attended him J[oseph] S[mith] administered to him but it was irksome – H[igbee] assd that it was so – he did not contradict it – it was expressive to me that he assented to it – signs speak a deal to me – he promised to reform he wod do better – he wod do so no more. (p. 8)

There is no testimony from 1842 about anyone having the clap or that Francis Higbee was involved with any of the women who testified before the High Council. What they are doing here, is repeating Joseph Smith’s lies. In the Manuscript History compiled in the 1850’s by George A. Smith, they omitted some of Sherwood’s testimony:

“Henry G. Sherwood sworn:

‘I have several times had conversations with Francis Higbee; I recollect that near two years ago there was a fuss about John C. Bennett’s spiritual wife system before the High Council. I recollect a French woman coming up from Warsaw, and that Francis M. Higbee had medical assistance x x x x x x x x Dr. Bennett attended him. Joseph Smith administered unto him, but it was irksome; Higbee assented that it was so; he did not contradict it; he promised to reform— he would do better— he would do so no more.’ (Joseph Smith Papers, online here, accessed June 23, 2019)

Notice in the Manuscript History that they leave out the part where Sherwood (one of Smith’s Danite bodyguards) says that he knew that Francis was guilty because he “did not contradict it” and he admitted that he knew this by Higbee’s expressions! Curiously, it does not say Bennett’s Spiritual Wife System, it says Wife’s sister:

It appears that even the person taking minutes was confused by the testimony. All of this is supposed admissions after the fact, two years later. There are no court records that back up any of Smith’s or his Danite/bodyguard’s testimony concerning Francis Higbee’s having any social disease or being involved in any Spiritual Wifeism (as Joseph was), even though Smith claims that there is.

We think that it would be instructive to reiterate what D. Michael Quinn wrote in his epic book The Mormon Hierarchy, Origins of Power:

In Illinois, Joseph Smith reorganized his bodyguards as the first extension of Danite influence outside Missouri. Former Danite Albert P. Rockwood became “commander of my life guards,” and the prophet’s bodyguards included such well-known Missouri Danites as John L. Butler, Reynolds Cahoon, Elias Higbee, Vinson Knight, Orrin Porter Rockwell, and Samuel H. Smith. The others with Missouri experience were probably lesser-known Danites. Based on the list of Smith’s personal staff and “guards” in the Nauvoo Legion as of February 1841 (History of the Church, 4:296), Hartley, My Best for the Kingdom, 120, lists as Smith’s twelve bodyguards the following men: John L. Butler, Thomas Grover, Christian M. Kremeyer, John Snyder, Alpheus Cutler, Reynolds Cahoon, Henry G. Sherwood, Shadrach Roundy, Vinson Knight, James Allred, Elias Higbee, and Samuel H. Smith. A problem with this list is that it omits Orrin Porter Rockwell, widely known as one of Smith’s bodyguards. Hartley also omits Albert P. Rockwood, the actual commander of the “lifeguards,” because the 1841 entry in History of the Church listed Rockwood only as a “drill master” with the Nauvoo Legion. Apparently, Smith’s “lifeguards” in the Nauvoo Legion were for ceremonial purposes and overlapped with his actual bodyguards who were “ordained” to protect his life. For the Danite affiliation of the above men, see appendix, “Danites in 1838: A Partial List.”…The Danite organization ceased to exist at the end of 1838, but former Danites were the backbone of Mormon security forces for decades to come. (D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, p.102).

Among the others that testified for Joseph were Heber C. Kimball, Brigham Young, (who also recounted alleged conversations with Higbee), Cyrus Wheelock (who admitted knowing nothing about the case), Porter Rockwell (more alleged admissions by Higbee after the fact), and Sidney Rigdon (who claimed to be sick at the time, and Hyrum Smith (of course, who also heard Higbee “confess”).

When Joseph testified, he said he wanted to,

…testify to this court of what occurred a long time before John C. Bennett left this city I was called to visit F. M Higbee. I saw him on the floor he smelled very bad – I took Dr. Bennett out of Doors and asked Dr. Bennett what was the matter with him when he told me that he was nearly dead with the Pox he said on the 4th of July it was before Dr. Bennett left – [1841?] a French lady came in from Warsaw a very pretty lady Francis M. Higbee got in came with this room & got this dis: I after talked with him and he acknowleded that he got the Pox – he got better – but shortly after was down again. Dr. Bennett could not keep him away from women until he could get him well and he would die of it. Bennett said Higbee pointed out a spot where he had seduced a girl – and that he had seduced another – I do not believe it. I felt hurt about it and labored with Higbee about it but he swore to me with uplifted hands that he had lied about the matter I told the girls — and Higbee – Dr. Bennett [and Higbee?] both perjured themselves and swore false so as to blind the family and me and if the facts had been known there would be none I brought Francis M. Higbee before Young, Hyrum Smith – Bennett was present when they both acknowledged that they had done these things and asked us to forgive them – I got vexed after my feelings had been hurt – Higbee was guilty of adulterous – perjury, etc. and which I am able to prove by men who he and them confess it I also preferred charges against Bennett the same charges that I am now telling and he got up and told them it was the truth – when he plead for his life this was his own statement before 60 or 70 that the charges were true – against him and Higbee I have been endeavoring to throw out shafts to defend myself because they were corrupt – he was determined to ruin me – and tell to the public that he was determined to prosecute me because I slandered him – although I tell nothing but the truth since the settlement. I have not mentioned his name since – he wants to bind up my hands in the County Court and make me pay heavy damages for telling the truth – in rel he constrd I never heard Francis Higbee say he would take away my life – Chauncey and Charles Foster and D F said they would shoot me – and the only offense against me I did say that Dr Foster stole a raw hide I have seen him steal a number of things these are the truths that they want to ruin me – for telling the truth I have seen Dr. Foster steal a many times – I have seen him feel a womans bosom and lift up her clothes – I knew that they are wicked malicious adulterous bad characters I say it under oath – I can tell all the particulars from first to last (p. 3-5, online here, at the Church History Library, accessed June 24, 2019).

It appears Smith is simply making all that up about Higbee and the clap. When did Higbee and Bennett “perjure themselves?” There is no High Council trial or court record of any incident such as what Smith describes above. So, Joseph witnessed a woman being assaulted by Dr. Foster, and what did he do? Well, Joseph himself told us when he got up to testify again. He said,

I never said any thing about F[oster] Law, etc., etc., [Bennett, Higbees] but what is strictly true – I have been placed in – the only sin I ever committed was in covering up their iniquities – and that I am ashamed of and will never do it again – (pg. 13)

This was also changed for the Manuscript History:

I never said anything about the Higbees, or the Laws, or the Fosters, but what is strictly true. I have been placed in peculiar circumstances.

“The only sin I ever committed was in exercising sympathy, and covering up their iniquities, on their solemn promises to reform; and of this I am ashamed, and never will do so again.’

Notice that they add that Joseph only “covered up their iniquities” when they solemnly promised to reform. He also never claimed that he exercised any “sympathy” in the original minutes.

So why would Joseph be a witness to all this “wicked malicious adulterous” behavior? Why would he allow it to go on and then cover it up? Because his brother William was involved, and claimed that Joseph was doing the same? Because it all sprang from similar practices by Joseph himself and he was trying to protect himself? And what about Francis Higbee? Here is what Joseph had written in his Journal in 1842 (there is nothing about Francis before this):

13 May 1842 • Friday
Friday 13 Received answer from S[idney] Rigdon after. a variety of current business. having been in his garden & with his family much of the day. walked in the evening to the P[ost] office with the Recorder. & had a private interview with Prest Rigdon with much apparent satisfaction to all parties. concerning certain evil reports put in circulation by F. M. [illegible, last name erased]—about Prest Rigdons family & others after which the Recorder waited on him to his gate.

This, of course has to do with the Nancy Rigdon scandal. Funny that Joseph didn’t bring up at this time all the “dirt” he supposedly had on Higbee! But what we see is the brother of Francis being involved in the scandal:

24 May 1842 • Tuesday
Tuesday 24 while the High council were taking depositions of Sarah Miller. Sister Nyman’s [Margaret and Matilda Nyman] & again[s]t Chauncey Higby [Higbee] & others for illicit conduct. &c a prosecution was pending betwe[e]n Joseph & Chauncy before E[benezer] Robinson. in which Chauncey was bound over in $200 Bonds
25 May 1842 • Wednesday
Wednesday 25 Councilling the Bishops &c. in ferretting out iniquity & much of this week was spent in session by the High Council of Nauvoo—[p. 123]
26 May 1842 • Thursday
Thursday 26 Masonic Lodge in the A.M. Dr John C. Bennet[t] confessed the charges preferred again[s]t him concerning. females in Nauvoo. & was forgiven Joseph plead in his behalf.— Dr Bennet was notified the day previous that the first Presidency. Twelve & Bishops had withdrawn fellowship from him & were about to publish him. but on his humbling himself & requesting it the withdrawal was withheld from the paper. P.M. Female Releif Soceity.— so full that many could get no admittance.

Notice that Bennett is forgiven by Joseph and he defends him initially! Nothing at all on Francis Higbee, until a month later:

29 June 1842 • Wednesday
Wednesday 28 29 Held a long conversation with Francis Higby [Higbee]. Francis found fault with being exposed. but Joseph told him he spoke of him in self defence. Francis was or appeard humble & promisd to reform.
Heard the Recorder Read in the Law of the Lord. paid taxes Rode out in the city on business with Brigham young. The Recorder being about to start east on a Journy. commited the Law of the Lord To Wm Clayton to continue this Journal in &c in his absence. & the Keys &c to the president. & claytn

This had nothing to do with immoral conduct, but what he had done in relation to Nancy Rigdon and the accusations that he had made about Joseph Smith. Francis had been given the “Happiness Letter” by Nancy (who he was dating) and he then gave it to Bennett who published it. Joseph “outed” Higbee and he was ostracized because of it and Higbee was hurt that he was “exposed” by Joseph who claimed he did it in self defense. Francis did not have the “pox” or any social disease nor was he keeping company with prostitutes. All of that was later made up by Joseph.

Speaking of “priesthood privileges”, this seems to be the case for William Smith and why he was not brought to trial by Joseph Smith. According to these minutes recorded in 1845 of a trial attended by many including Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and George Adams, who was a member of the City Council, was one of the original members of the Council of Fifty and ordained a “special apostle” by Joseph Smith:

Present, Samuel Bent, Charles C. Rich, Albert P. Rockwood, David Fulmer, Thomas Grover, Newel Knight, Phineas Richards, W[illia]m Huntington, Aaron Johnson, George W. Harris, Alpheus Cutler, James Allred and W[illia]m Snow. Also President Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Pratt, John Taylor, George A. Smith & John E. Page of the Quorum of the Twelve. N[ewel] K. Whitney and George Miller Presiding Bishops, and W[illia]m Clayton and Daniel Carn. Pres[iden]t Bent called upon W[illia]m Clayton to act as clerk pro tem, inasmuch as the regular clerk was sick. Council opened by prayer from Elder O[rson] Pratt.

Pres[iden]t B[righam] Young then said we want to take into consideration the case of Brother George J. Adams who is now present. I have objections to brother Adams’ conduct, and to the course he has taken and shall tell them here. First when brother Adams came home last last fall, I asked him if he had any money for the Temple; he said no, he handed every thing to W[illia]m Smith. Since then W[illia]m Smith has wrote and said he sent some money and some cloth by brother Adams for the Temple; we have not got it. I have also been told that brother Adams has frequently read some kind of a note before the people, which represents him as having some great authority over everybody else, and also that he was appointed Joseph [Smith]’s Spokesman.

I have been told that brother Adams says the Church owes him something from six hundred to one thousand dollars in money. Now I want to know if brother Adams can explain these things, and whether he is satisfied to have the matter investigated before this council. Brother Adams then went on to explain to the Council, relative to the above charges. He denied having said that he was /appointed/ Joseph’s spokesman. He explained about the Temple money, and said he was willing to meet any committee. this council might appoint, and settle the whole account with them. He also explained how the church owed him money.

Pres[iden]t Young then prefered some other charges relative to his conduct in the East, to which, after many remarks on both sides, Adams plead guilty and begged for mercy.

Many remarks were then made by sundry individuals, substantiating the charges, prefered by Pres[iden]t Young, each one expressing a strong desire for brother Adams’ salvation. After spending much time in investigation, the Pres[iden]t S[amuel] Bent, arose to give his mind on the case, but a motion being made that Pres[iden]t Young give the decision, Pres[iden]t Bent gave way.

Meeting adjourned, to meet in the Seventie’s Hall on Saturday next at one o’clock P.M.

… H[eber] C. K[imball] Said pertaining to many things mentioned he is knowing to himself. He was present when br[other] [Brigham] Young gave him [i.e., George J. Adams] council in Boston. His advice was that he should leave Boston, and he promised he would. But they held conferences then & there was a [illegible] differently–& there would have been no d[ifficulty] if he had come home. A[dams] says he has always been subject to council but if he had listened to c[ouncil] at that time it would have saved him a great deal of trouble & us & the church. Lowel [Massachusetts] and a great many other places are lower than they ever were–He has [been] acquainted from br[other] A[dam’s] course with others. He says he has always sustained the twelve. I don’t know but he has, but has the course they have taken sustain[ed] us. no. there is no safety for the twelve only in Nauvoo because of the course they have taken. If they would not destroy the works of any other men but their own I would not care.

B[righam] Young said to bro[ther] A[dams] he wanted to save him. I asked when you came home if there had been any women sealed to W[illiam] S[mith]. you denied it. And I can prove that that there has scores been sealed to both you & him or you have gone to bed with them–I know you have done it by revelation. You have lied to us to day and I will not bear it. and I want you to confess it today or if you dont we will have to prove it before the world and cut you off. I am all the time receiving letters from the East giving account of your prostituting young women and ruining the churches.

A.[dams] In regard to women–himself & W[illia]m [Smith]–what W[illiam] had done he made him promise not to tell. He is glad to have them talk all thats in them for he wants to be saved. He wants you to be as merciful as you can. In regard to what bro[ther] [Heber C.] K[imball] [said] I staid behind because W[illia]m said so. He said he would make it all right, and I know I have done wrong. I have not got nite bed to women. In regard to the financial concerns he is willing to turn over every thing he has got on the earth till they are satisfied. He knows he has done wrong. but he dont want to be guilty of betraying any one but he wants them to look at his situation & the council he had.

B[righam] Young said who wants to follow W[illia]m Smith. There is but one principle that can save William. He has a brother who is a prophet in the church. W[illia]m has not power to down the Twelve. There was something between you and W[illia]m made him want us to ordain you. he wanted to make a tool [fool?] of you. You have been gathering money for him and you ought to have known better. Has he got the Keys of this Kingdom–no nor is he the Pres[ident] of this Kingdom. if he was, farewel to our salvation. There is no man knows Joseph Smith better than I do. I have sacrificied every thing for the knowledge of God. Now be with us and operate with us and you will be saved & if you dont you will go down to hell.

A[dams] says whatever he has done wrong he is willing to do right. He did know much about W[illia]m S[mith’s] past conduct. He could tell a good many things about W[illia]m which have revol[t]ed his feelings. Since what you said to me I have never written a word to W[illia]m S[mith] nor never intend to. He wants to be saved by those who have the power & authority to do it. I would have been there when I was told to but he told me in the name of the Lord to stay. Had many contentions about being any right to do such things.

B[righam] Y[oung] we dont want you to say a word against W[illia]m because is bound to be saved. Joseph [Smith] got a promise of it.

G[eorge] W. Harris has some feelings for br[other] A[dams] and hopes it will never be dissolved. He believes & can satisfy this council about his course in the East by his making a full statement of all to this c[ouncil]–Let every thing come out here and you will be saved.

A[dams] asked for council–If he has been taken by one of the twelve and told not to say any thing–shall he do it–B[righam] Young said he did not want him to say any thing about W[illia]m. I dont want W[illia]m exposed but you ought to have come here and denied it to me. I want you should from this time take our council and be still. He then went on to relate about a delaying when he was sent by the church after the twelve preaching on the way.

P[hineas] Richards thought bro[ther] A[dams] could say whether he was guilty of what brother Young has said without criminating W[illia]m. He dont seem willing to come to the point but plays words.

T[homas] Grover saw a letter from Boston a while ago giving a relation of the way brother [Wilford] Woodruff had to raise means to go across the water. This letter stated that there had been so much money collected and the churches be[e]n so teazed that had not bro[ther] [Jedediah M.] Grant borrowed $50 it would [have] been hardly possible for W[illiam] to go away. There is a pamphlet in this place of a trial in Boston, [Amanda Cobb – Brigham Young’s Spiritual Wife’s adultery trial] br[other] A[dam’]s name is frequently called there & I would rather meet all Rigdonism than that pamphlet. Father Nickerson is in Boston & I believe will tell the truth. He never has said a word to any one about what was said in letters from Boston.

J[ohn] Taylor–said he had seen letters from individuals which could be depended on and he believes E[lde]r Youngs statements are correct. His heart has been grieved. Young women ruined & families broken up. It is no excuse for a man to say any one told him. We know what is right or we are not fit to go from home without a guardian. and for this church to be ruined by two or three individuals it is to[o] bad. If any others, the twelve go abroad, we dont have any trouble of them. This impression has been for a long while back that he has done more injury to this church than ten men could do good. He wants E[lde]r Adams to get up and confess his sins like a man. He has said he was willing this council should do with him as seemeth them good but he seems to want to keep behind the screen.

A[dams] said he did not deny what he was accused with. he knows he has done wrong. He dont deny what pres[ident] Young has said. He is willing to go home for years & [illegible] at his business, but he wants to be saved.

G[eorge] W. Harris said the council cant judge the case unless he will tell the whole circumstances. He would advise him to state all that transpired from the time he started on his mission pertaining to himself.

A[lpheus] Cutler has had great feelings for bro[ther] A[dams] and has now. He thinks A[dams] is not aware of the number of charges which can be substantiated against him. I want he should be saved and let him come right out & tell the whole story.

W[illard] Richards bore testimony that what pres[ident] Young has said in relation to brother A[dams] or Josephs feelings is true. The brethren dont want to hear any thing about W[illia]m Smith but they want you to tell what you have done yourself.

S[amuel] Bent said that was his feelings.

A[dams] said he cant relate the things which took place without relating the whole circumstances. If he is to unfold any thing he wants to unfole the whole. In St Louis–Cincinatti he walked as pure as an Angel. never said a word to a woman. Pittsburgh–Philladelphia & New York same. but in Lowel it was not so. He has done wrong and is willing to be scourged

P[hineas] Richards made some remarks about A[dam]’s preaching, discussions, pamphlets &c but he has said an empty vessel sounds the loudest. He seems to be opposed to coming to the point we wish him. The spirit testifies to me that all is not right.

C[harles] C. Rich said there seems to [be] something in the dark with him. He desires to save br[other] A[dams] & would do all he could to [illegible]. If he has been correctly informed A[dams] has taken liberties with females for which he had been cut off from the Church. Pres[ident] Y[oung] has receivd information that he has done the same again. He has not told how it has been done and this is something he wants him to come at. If A[dams] has done it a second time he is not so easily excused as if he had only done it once. If a man has transcended his bounds once and been forgiven and then does it again where will it end.

A[lpheus] Cutler explained further as to what he said previously. He can prove that A[dam]’s conduct has been such as to through [throw] the blaime on the twelve and carry the idea that they supported him it it & he wants the twelve cleared.

A[dams] said he was willing to write as strong a document as they can wish. He has in three instances been sealed by an apostle to females & cohabited with two of them but this is all. B[righam] Y[oung] wants bro[ther] A[dams] to explain how the church owes him $600. He has acknowledged that he told bro[ther] Heber [C. Kimball] & I a falshood. He will say what he pleases about W[illia]m but he dont want any one else to say anything against him. There is no trouble to sustain the twelve, a feather will to it, because he never did any thing wrong. He will defy this church to find a case that there is not a law to save a man except the sin against the H[oly] G[host]. He wants A[dams] to bring the names of those who donated money & the money. and if I has had $600 of him I want him to have his right. He want on to show how some had gone before and after them getting money by hundreds of dollars when he could not get money to bear their expenses. A[dams] has stated that he lost $200 coming but he dont belive it. He told us in the fall it was $150 now it is $200. He then went on to explain some things about what is called the Spiritual wife doctrine.

H[eber] C. K[imball] went to show that E[lde]r Adams had done more hurt than good, more hurt than the Twelve can do good in one year. The characters of the Twelve will sustain them. He dont want any writing from G[eorge]. A[dams]. to sustain them. When A[dams] has had council it has not had depth enough in him. We are willing to cover all things up if he will go and do right and stop his boasting. He gave some very good advice to brother A[dams].

O[rson] Pratt said some things in confirmation of the charges preferred by Br[other] Young. Adams said in regard to what he had said against one of the Twelve he takes it all back. He spoke inadvisedly.

W[illard] Richards called a question in regard to the documents from J[oseph] Smith. He replied he had six or seven documents from under J[oseph]’s hands pertaining to the Russia Mission. Some remarks were here made concerning being Josephs spokesman.

N[ewel] K. Whitney related the circumstances of an interview with A[dams] a few days ago– He said to me that he possessed powers & authority which no other man had & which had never come to light. & he wants A[dams] to explain what those authorities are.

A[dams] explained.

B[righam] Young explained some things concerning what bro[ther] Parley did in the East a year ago last spring.

S[amuel] Bent said if bro[ther] A[dams] offer his confession & expression was willing to continue the hand of fellowship.

H[eber] C. K[imball] moved that it be left to Pres[ident] Y[oung] to give the decision

B[righam] Y[oung]. wanted bro[ther] A[dams]. to sit down and write. I am here. I have done wrong. I ask forgiveness and am willing to do right without criminating any one else and that the proper authority is here. and that he is with the twelve and will be with them to bear off this Kingdom A mans confession never will do him hurt unless he afterwards turns around and does wrong again.

The question was put & carried.

B[righam] Y[oung] then asked if all were willing to keep all that has been said here to themselves–their wives not excepted–unanimous.

J[ohn] E Page explained the reason why he was not here in season. and said he wanted to be present in all councils but he had not been notified.

B[righam] Y[oung] explained. He then stated that they had had a council today concerning turning the labors on the dam to the Temple and Nauvoo House. The damn will bring difficulty. Will it not be better to drop it & put all forces on the gardens and the Temple &c.

G[eorge] A. Smith moved that the council recommend this course.

J[ohn] Taylor said he had heard that some had fears the people would be dissatisifed but he did not think they would.

B[righam] Young proposed that they call the men together and let what they had done remain & lay it over till we can get a charter from the U[nited]. S[tates].

The vote was put & passed.

B[righam] Young recommended J[ohn] Taylor & J[ohn] E. Page to call a meeting of the stockholders and lay the thing before them & take an expression from them.

Adjourned till next Saturday at 1. [Source: Minutes, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1910-1951, Privately Published, Salt Lake City, Utah 2010]

Like Joseph, the Apostles were willing to “cover all things up” as long as Adams confessed and did not “criminate” anyone else (like William Smith). John S. Dinger writes about the above minutes:

Nearly everyone spoke: all seven apostles in attendance, six high councilmen, and one of the presiding bishopric. Brigham Young said he knew through personal revelation that Adams and William Smith had both married “scores” of women back east, adding that he was also “all the time receiving letters from the East giving account of your prostituting young women and ruining the churches.” Adams said he had “promise[d] not to tell” about their misadventures, to which Young said he was “willing to cover all things up if [William] will go and do right and stop his boasting.” Young “asked if all [in attendance] were willing to keep all that has been said here to themselves — their wives not excepted — unanimous.(Dinger, John S. (2013-11-26). The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes (Kindle Locations 14806-14816). Signature Books. Kindle Edition).

Dinger also writes that:

Pres[iden]t Young then arose and said he wanted Brother Adams to sit down and write that he had done wrong, that he asks forgiveness, and is willing henceforth to listen to council, and do right without incriminating any one else; also that the proper authorities of this Church are here, and that he is with the Twelve and will be with them to bear off this Kingdom. I want brother Adams to write this freely and confess his iniquities; a mans confession will never do him hurt unless he turns round and does wrong again. Meeting adjourned, to meet in the Seventie’s Hall on Saturday next at one o’clock P.M. (Dinger, John S. (2013-11-26). The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes (Kindle Locations 14569-14574). Signature Books. Kindle Edition, emphasis ours).

William Clayton wrote this summary of the trial in his diary:

Saturday 15th [April, 1845]. … P.M. at the High Council taking minutes. G. J. Adams had his trial. Presidents Young and H.C. Kimball were witnesses against him. Many hard things were proven against him which he confessed and begged for mercy It was decided that he write a confession of his wickedness, and agree to be one with the Twelve and do right here after, which he agreed to. The property in his hands belonging to the Temple he promised to bring and have a settlement. It was a good and interesting season and will do Adams much good. (George D. Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1991], 160).

Nothing at all about William Smith! Here is a summary of the George Adams Minutes…

In summary, the testimony of the women before the High Council in May of 1842 reveals that in addition to John C. Bennett and Chauncey Higbee, there were others involved with asking these women for sexual favors.

One of those involved was the brother of the Prophet Joseph (William Smith), who Brigham Young later claimed was “bound to be saved” because he was the brother of Joseph and therefore free from recrimination by the “authorities” of the Church.
If Joseph did not specifically sanction William’s actions, he still allowed them, (along with George Adams who he made a “special Apostle”) and these two men operated (by “revelation” according to Brigham Young) without fear of being disciplined during the life of Joseph Smith.
Among those who were involved with these women, many were Joseph’s bodyguards and friends, spent time with him in jail, and were members of the Danite order and were familiar with the teachings and actions of Joseph Smith.
Joseph Smith seemed more concerned with keeping his teachings secret than publicly exposing some of these men, at least for two years.
Smith initially defended and forgave John C. Bennett until he was again betrayed by Bennett.
There is evidence that Joseph did not perform a “marriage ceremony” with some of the women he was involved with sexually and this might have been known to some who emulated that behavior. We have no idea if (prior to his writing the ceremony for Sarah Ann Whitney in August, 1842) Joseph ever performed a ceremony when he “married” other men’s wives, though some said he did later, but that could have been to protect themselves. There is absolutely no evidence for any ceremony or that anything was ever recorded about Joseph’s “marriages” to other men’s wives, (except some later (in most cases) vague recollections, and none could recall the “ceremony” they claimed was used) even though it was essential to the “sealing” process that such things be not only witnessed but documented in writing. And it is important to note that Joseph did not finish the instructions for how to document sealings to make them “binding on earth and in heaven” until September, 1842 – D&C 128).
Joseph Smith initially filed a slander suit against Chauncey Higbee but did not pursue it.
Joseph Smith admitted to covering up the 1842 “iniquities” in 1844.
Brigham Young was also willing to cover up William Smith’s behavior because of promises Joseph Smith made about him. They also gave George Adams a free pass on his transgressions. (As Joseph had previously done on at least two occasions).

In these minutes from a few months later, Brigham Young and the Twelve discuss William Smith and Samuel Brannan:

[p. 1:] Nauvoo May 24 1845 at 6 oclock A.M. The Twelve, in presence of a great multitude. laid the southeast corner capstone of the Temple.

At 10- Bro[ther] Wm Smith buri[e]d his wife. [Caroline Amanda Grant] preaching at the stand by Elder Orson Pratt.

3. P.M. The Twelve. to wit Brigham Young Orson Hyde. Orson Pratt. Wm Smith, Amasa Lyman. John Taylor John E. page. Geo A. Smith & Willard Richards. assembl[e]d at John Taylor[‘]s. in co[mpany] with Samuel S. Brannon. & [blank space] assembled in council [added between the lines:] Prest Young Said Philo Dibble wanted 4 oxen from the old font to exhibit with his paintings. W. Richards moved that the oxen be left to the disposal of the present [president]. – 2 by 2 or three. [end of two line addition]

Bro. Wallace.[:] said. his sister came to his house in New Bedford, told him Bro Brannan had waited on her some. one Sunday she staid at home. Bro Brannan staid at home. on the edge of the. Brannan accomplished his desire, & went into the kitchen. Messeur came in & after reported. she was dis[s]atisfied.

Wm Smith sealed them up. it worried her to think she must be Brannans, Bro [Parley P.] Pratt told her the sealing was not according to the Law of God. went into consumption & died.- Wallace wrote Br Pratt, about Brannan.- that unless he repented he could not be crowned in the celestial kingdom. She said her sickness was occasioned by what had passed.=

Wm Smith,[:] acquainted with Sis Wallace at Lowel[l], of poor health, Brannan asked Smith if he had any objection to mar[r]y them.- She manifested strong attachment for Brannan. I married. them did not consider he had was under any obligation to any one else. Married them by all the authority he possess[e]d for time & Eternity, and had a right &c to do as an apostle of J christ.

Father Nickerson preached that if any one should get hold of his skirts or any else, on the spiritual wife system. they would go to hell. & she believed it.- Sis Wallace wrote Brannan upbraiding him with the humbug & charging me with assisting Brannan.

Prest Young.[:] said since Sis Wallace had gone home. we could throw the mantle over the whole. & shut[t]er the subject.

[p. 2:] Wm. Smith said[:] he felt interested[?] in the Subject & wished the council if they chose to say whether he had a right so to do.- whether he a right to mar[r]y Brannan. & do what he had done. or whether was to be rode on a rail, & put down, or not. – – – – – – – quite a time for him.

Prest Young.- [:] said he was satisfied with what Wm Smith did in the case of Brannan in mar[r]ying him to Sis Wallace. did not couple any other of Wms acts,- in this decision.- Wm Supposed that P. P. Pratt supposed that Brannan was married to two, at once.

Brannan,[:] walked with Sis Wallace in public &c she had discovered that the time would come when men would have more wives than one.= made arrangements to take her to N. York in the spring.- told her I should be master.- would correspond with her. but did not write for fear some one would get the Letter. Father Nickerson went to Lowell, & disaffected the minds of the sisters.

Wallace[:] was in N. York when Brannan received his sister[‘]s letter. but did not talk with him about it as freely as with other women.

many spoke-

Elder Hyde proposed exchange of farms= Clerk Read Letters from Robert H. Morris of N. York & Van Ness to Gov. Ford. for S. Brannan,

[p. 3:]Nauvoo May 24 1845

To whom it may concern,

In a Council of the Twelve this day assembled in this city, Elder Samuel Brannan of New York being present, his case receiv[e]d a re-hearing both from written & oral testimony and upon a full investigation of the whole matter, the council restored elder Brannan to the fellowship of the church, in good standing, and call on the saints to sustain elder Brannan in his office. & his publishing depa[r]tment, & bless him with their faith & prayers

Brigham Young Prst

Willard Richards, clerk of the Quorum.

The President [illegible] Wm Smith [illegible] & told him what he wanted.

[bottom of page:] to which Wm [illegible].- as agreed [p. 4:]

Sister Young came in & brought a bottle of wine from Sister Clark The president gave a toast.- and all responded.-

Wm Smith asked the views of the council about his patriarchal office.- Prest Young said it was his right.-

Wm Smith received his patriarchal blessing by Prest Young.-

[sheet when turned sideways:]

Minutes of a Council of the Twelve. = May 24./45. on Samuel Brannan

[on bottom of sheet:]

Lewis Robbins as present in this council –

All concerning William Smith and George Adams was (for a time) ignored. William Smith was ordained the Patriarch to the Church. But this would not last, and both Smith and Adams would soon find themselves at odds with the Twelve once again, and both would ultimately sever their connections with them for good.

We cannot find anything about the above court case of the Twelve’s dealings with William Smith that Brian Hales has addressed. We have invited him to comment about them, but he never has. We challenge him to explain why Smith would cover up Bennett and William Smith’s shenanigans, and why he allowed William and George Adams to continue to abuse women. We are confident he cannot, and will not address these problematic minutes and court testimony. In fact, Hales continues to misquote the testimony of Joseph Smith from May 8, 1844. (Online here).

Hales has also totally omitted any involvement by William Smith from the above proceedings. In Hales’ trilogy he mentions Bennett, and the others, but does not mention William Smith being involved at all. We find this very dishonest. Hales also published a long article on John C. Bennett in 2014 and again did not mention William Smith’s involvement in the 1842 scandal.

In 2013 D. Michael Quinn published a critique of Hales “Emperor’s New Clothes” FAIRMORMON presentation and wrote:

Despite this apology in Times and Seasons, Joseph Smith’s brother William published a sexual double entendre six weeks later. After announcing the marriage of “Mr. Wm. Warren, to Mrs. Catharine Fuller, both ofthis city,” Nauvoo’s Wasp next quoted these lines of poetry:

Till Hymen brought his life delighted hour,
There dwelt no peace in Eaden’s [Eden’s] rosy bower.

Nauvoo’s adults knew that the Wasp’s editor intended this as wedding-poetry with mildly sexual overtones, but only those acquainted with Thomas Campbell’s poem recognized that the original stated “love-delighted hour” and “dwelt no joy.” Aside fromthose changes, poetry-aficionados knew that the original poem’s stanza just before the quoted lines declared: “No pledge is sacred, and no home is sweet!”

However, only a few recognized that those somber words and Apostle Smith’s substitution of “dwelt no peace in … [her] rosy bower” were his cruel joke on newly wedded Catherine Fuller Warren.

Those few were the men who had been participating for a year with the First Presidency’s assistant counselor John C. Bennett in persuading Catherine and other women to have sexual intercourse with anyone Bennett sent to them. For example, Sarah Miller later told Nauvoo’s high council that Chauncey Higbee (also spelled “Chancy Higby”) visited her “soon after the special conference” in April 1842, and “began his seducing insinuations by saying it was no harm to have sexual intercourse with women if they would keep it to themselves.” She added that “when he come again, William Smith come with him & told me that the doctrine which Chancy Higby had taught me was true.” Apostle Smith’s double entendre in Nauvoo’s second newspaper was publicly exploiting his knowledge of Mrs. Warren’s similar activities. In May 1842 she told the high council that “nearly a year ago” (i.e., in the summer of 1841, almost a year before Sarah Miller’s seduction), Catherine Fuller began having sexual intercourse with Bennett, and “not only with him[,] but with Chauncy Higbee and the prophet’s younger brother, Apostle William Smith.”

Someone tried to eradicate William’s name from the manuscript of testimony that he also visited these two women for sexual intercourse during 1841-42.

His first cousin, Apostle George A. Smith, later complained about “Wm. Smith Commit[t]ing iniquity & we have to sustain him against our feelings.” (Quinn, The Sexual Side of Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, PDF, 31 Dec 2012, 48).

It is very important to mention here, that Joseph did not develop the “sealing power” and apply it to baptism for the dead until 1842. Therefore he could not have been sealed for eternity to any of the other men’s wives that he supposedly married. Hales complains that critics don’t understand Joseph’s theology, but it is Hales that does not. Let us explain.

William Smith told those women who testified above (and was that all of them?) that his brother sanctioned what he was doing for he was doing something like it himself. As so many testified later (like Lorenzo Snow) Joseph was the “lawgiver” and when he said jump they said “how high?” They gave him pass after pass on bad behavior and his chosen brother also because the lawgiver said so. This is the reality of where the evidence leads. And then we have the apologists that want us to believe that all this was on the up and up, but can’t explain why Joseph did not do what he outlined in the following letters, to make those sealings valid (note that this was not written until September 1, 1842:

That is, it was declared in my former letter that there should be a recorder, [a week earlier] who should be eye-witness, and also to hear with his ears, that he might make a record of a truth before the Lord. Now, in relation to this matter, it would be very difficult for one recorder to be present at all times, and to do all the business. To obviate this difficulty, there can be a recorder appointed in each ward of the city, who is well qualified for taking accurate minutes; and let him be very particular and precise in taking the whole proceedings, certifying in his record that he saw with his eyes, and heard with his ears, giving the date, and names, and so forth, and the history of the whole transaction; naming also some three individuals that are present, if there be any present, who can at any time when called upon certify to the same, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. …Nevertheless, in all ages of the world, whenever the Lord has given a dispensation of the priesthood to any man by actual revelation, or any set of men, this power has always been given. Hence, whatsoever those men did in authority, in the name of the Lord, and did it truly and faithfully, and kept a proper and faithful record of the same, it became a law on earth and in heaven, and could not be annulled, according to the decrees of the great Jehovah.(D&C 128)

And the other letter he wrote? Not from years ago, but from a week earlier on September 1, 1842:

Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you concerning your dead: When any of you are baptized for your dead, let there be a recorder, and let him be eye-witness of your baptisms; let him hear with his ears, that he may testify of a truth, saith the Lord; That in all your recordings it may be recorded in heaven; whatsoever you bind on earth, may be bound in heaven; whatsoever you loose on earth, may be loosed in heaven; For I am about to restore many things to the earth, pertaining to the priesthood, saith the Lord of Hosts.

Joseph had ok’d baptisms since 1840, and women were doing baptisms also. It didn’t take priesthood to do those baptisms. But that evolved. Now by 1842, it does and Smith lays out instructions on what must be done to make them valid. This is the same way that marriages for eternity become valid. This was not even thought up until this time in Smith’s life. He says so:

I wrote a few words of revelation to you concerning a recorder. (September 1, letter) I have had a few additional views in relation to this matter, which I now certify. (September 6th, letter)

We defy anyone to show us any evidence that Joseph even hinted at this before this time. (Recorders to ratify sealings, etc) But let’s get back to September 1:

And again, let all the records be had in order, that they may be put in the archives of my holy temple, to be held in remembrance from generation to generation, saith the Lord of Hosts. I will say to all the saints, that I desired, with exceedingly great desire, to have addressed them from the stand on the subject of baptism for the dead, on the following Sabbath. But inasmuch as it is out of my power to do so, I will write the word of the Lord from time to time, on that subject, and send it to you by mail, as well as many other things.

Why would God work this way? Let them do all those baptisms for two years and then tell them all that nope, they are no good because they weren’t recorded! Ridiculous. Smith is just coming up with this. In relation to marriage, how can any of those marriages to other men’s wives be sealings, when he did not even have the mechanics of how to ratify a sealing? And did all those marriages to other men’s wives have two or three witnesses? (That would be in addition to those being married)? No, they did not. (according to later testimony). This shows that Joseph didn’t do what he later said was necessary to make the sealings valid. Why then, jump the gun as he did? Makes no sense. Joseph kept no “proper record” of his fly by night marriages to other men’s wives. This is very troubling if one wants to believe he was a bona fide prophet who spoke for God and was authorized to give his laws and see that they were carried out properly.

And really, wouldn’t the angel who had supposedly appeared to him to put his Spiritual Wifeism into practice, have given him the necessary instructions on what to do to ratify the sealings? Shouldn’t he have appeared at the first one and said, wait, you are doing this all wrong? But no, nothing of the kind happened, he only appeared with a sword and apparently wanted Joseph to start marrying other men’s wives so badly that he threatened him with destruction but didn’t bother giving any instructions. And Joseph continued to “marry” woman after woman without taking the necessary steps to make those “marriages” binding. We find this whole scenario quite baffling.

In Sexual Side, Quinn writes (to get around this conundrum):

…the revelation [Section 132] also repeatedly conferred divine immunity upon Joseph Smith for any “sin” or “transgression” he had committed in the past regarding other women.

[Quinn’s Note]

The document simply mentioned them as “all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph” (D&C 132: 52), but repeatedly introduced these unnamed women within the context of “wives and concubines” (D&C 132: 1, 37, 38, 39)

Charles Buck, A Theological Dictionary, Containing Definitions of All Religious Terms …, 2 vols. (London: J. Haddon, 1811), 1: 166:

(“CONCUBINAGE, the act of living with a woman to whom the man is not legally married. It is also used for a marriage with a woman of inferior condition [i.e., social rank] (performed with less solemnity than the formal marriage,) and to whom the husband does not convey his rank. As polygamy was sometimes practised by the patriarchs, it was a common thing to see one, two, or many wives in a family, and [–] besides these [–] several concubines.” This applied to faithful Abraham’s servant-concubines Hagar and Keturah, as well as to God-blessed Jacob’s servant-concubines Bilhah and Zilpah. (Genesis 16: 3; Genesis 25: 1, 6; Genesis 30: 3, 9; I Chronicles 1: 32; also Galatians 3: 9 for faithful Abraham, and Genesis 35: 9 for God-blessed Jacob)

Buck was the most likely source for Joseph Smith’s understanding of the Biblical word “concubines” during the 1840s. As editor of Nauvoo’s Times and Seasons, he recommended that his Mormon readers “see Buck’s Theological Dictionary” in his editorial “TRY THE SPIRITS,” Times and Seasons 3 (1 April 1842): 745-46, also 750 (for Joseph Smith as its editor).

On the other hand, Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language gave the negative view of the 1820s (“a woman kept for lewd purposes”) as his first definition for “CONCUBINE,” and he secondarily listed the word’s ancient meaning (“2. A wife of inferior condition [i.e., social rank]; a lawful wife, but not united to the man by the usual ceremonies, and of inferior condition [i.e., social rank]. Such were Hagar and Keturah, the concubines of Abraham …”).

The July 1843 revelation indicated that Joseph Smith regarded “concubines” as a latter-day reality that God sanctioned, not as an ancient practice that was no longer applicable, nor as American society’s negative view. Moreover, if Joseph understood “concubine” literally in its Biblical context (a polygamous wife who had previously been a servant to the man or to the man’s legal wife), then the July 1843 revelation was applying that term to the Prophet’s housegirls Fanny Alger, Desdemona W. Fullmer, Elvira A. Cowles, Emily D. Partridge, Eliza M. Partridge, Lucy Walker, and Melissa Lott, all of whom were united to him in a ceremony performed by a trusted associate.

Fanny Alger is missing from “Table 1.2: House Girls Who Married Joseph Smith,” in George D. Smith, “Nauvoo’s Inner Circle of Thirty-Two Men Who Accepted `Celestial Marriage,'” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 32 (Spring/Summer 2012): 4. He regards her as an extramarital “affair” in Kirtland, not a marriage, despite the narrative of her first cousin (Mosiah L. Hancock) that his father Levi W. Hancock performed their polygamous ceremony in exchange for Smith’s performing Levi’s monogamous marriage in 1833 to another of Joseph’s house-girls.

For Hancock’s detailed narrative, see Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 29-33, 36. Contrast with Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy, 39n81 (“regarding Joseph and Fanny’s relationship … I hesitate to concur with Compton’s interpretation of their relationship as a marriage”), 42 (“an affair”), 222 (“affair,” quoting Oliver Cowdery), 237 (“the prolonged dalliance with Fanny Alger”), 691 (“affair”); also my Note 199.

Dismissing all claims of a marital ceremony for Joseph and Fanny as “the assumption of a marriage” (40), Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy, 41n90, noted that “Compton, Sacred Loneliness, 33, 646, draws from a late reminiscence by Mosiah Hancock to suggest that Smith married Alger in early 1833.” Nonetheless, George Smith obviously agreed with the earlier assessment by Gary James Bergera, whom Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy cited more often than Compton (compare its index-pages 692, 694). Bergera, “Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists,” 75n30, stated:

“I do not believe that Fanny Alger, whom Compton counts as Smith’s first plural wife, satisfies the criteria to be considered a `wife.’ Briefly, the sources for such a `marriage’ are all retrospective and presented from a point of view favoring plural marriage, rather than, say an extramarital liaison, which seems clearly to be Oliver Cowdery’s [1837-38] interpretation of the relationship.”

However, Bergera’s logic can also legitimately be applied in reverse to Cowdery, who assessed the Alger-Smith relationship froma point of view favoring an extramarital liaison, rather than, say a polygamous marriage.

There is no evidence (either contemporary or retrospective) that Cowdery had any knowledge of Levi W. Hancock’s claim that he performed a marital ceremony for Fanny Alger and Joseph Smith in the early 1830s. Gary Bergera and George Smith regard that fact as proof that there was no polygamous wedding, but I see Cowdery’s ignorance as the reason he condemned it as an “affair.” Also my Note 295 (2nd para.).

Moreover, Bergera and George Smith have not acknowledged that Mosiah Hancock did not write his narrative as a defense of Joseph Smith, but instead intended his reminiscence to explain to his descendants the unusual circumstances by which his father married his mother. The family emphasis of his narrative increases the believability of its by-the-way account of the Smith-Alger ceremony of marriage. (Quinn, The Sexual Side of Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, PDF, 31 Dec 2012, 121-122).

There is a lot to unpack here, but we have covered most of it previously. We agree with George Smith that the “girl business” was indeed an affair as testified to in the 1838 High Council Trial. (See Note #36 Part 2) We are somewhat baffled by Quinn’s argument that,

“Bergera and George Smith have not acknowledged that Mosiah Hancock did not write his narrative as a defense of Joseph Smith, but instead intended his reminiscence to explain to his descendants the unusual circumstances by which his father married his mother.”

We disagree that Hancock did not write his narrative as a defense of Joseph Smith, it is simply full of it. See Johnny’s analysis (on his Missouri material, here), As for Hancock writing his autobiography for his family, of course he wanted to keep them all in the church and says so right in the introduction:

Therefore, if through my humble endeavors to place the truth before them I can persuade some to tread the path that leads to the tree of life and enter into the tent of the Lord, I shall be grateful to God for the privilege of so doing. (The Life Story of Mosiah Lyman Hancock, 1).

Hancock makes it clear that this was going to be an apologetic to “persuade” some to “enter the tent of the Lord”. In describing the Christians of the day, Hancock wrote,

Once I was permitted to go to a Methodist Camp Meeting, and I used to think it funny to see them pass the hat to get money. I could not help contrasting the way they had of conducting their meeting to that of the Latter-day Saints. While our meetings are conducted with singing and prayer and intellectual talks, theirs were conducted, “Come to the Anxious Seat,” “Come to Jesus.” I would like to have seen which of the howlers was supposed to be Jesus. I, being young, could not understand, but being of an inquisitive mind, I desired to know, for it was told to me by one of the greatest shouters that if my parent’s would come to that meeting and join them, they would not be killed! My parents told me that if I liked, I could go again to their meetings. I never knew why I went, but I did go four nights in succession. I used to think that if the Saints ranted and howled like these people, what a host of people we might have in our Church someday. I decided not to go any more, but I changed my mind when a man told me that Jesus would be there tomorrow night, sure! I decided to go and see if he looked like the same one I had seen there before, and oh! the groaning, shouting, and hollering of “Amen”! One man said that Jesus would not fail to come this time. At last a woman came to the anxious seat and shouted “Glory”, and the congregation said “Amen”. Then the woman said she had the power, and a man grabbed her in his arms and said, “I’ve got him”. The woman fell to the floor as limp as a dish-rag, then a man with a cloak on kicked the candled over. . . . I went home wondering if those good religious people would kill us all. The noted, Sam Bogart, seemed to be the chief howler and cloak carrier in the whole congregation.

Mosiah Hancock here, is barely four years old and his parents are letting him go to meetings with people that were threatening to kill them? There are even more fantastical claims in this autobiography.

“The Missourian generally lived in a house of unhewed logs with no roof to speak of and no yard for his stock. He seemed to have no education, and it made him jealous of the Saints because of the superior excellence of their minds.”

Yes, the Mormons were just so much more intelligent than those damn Christian Gentiles! And where he can be tested, Hancock’s stories come up wanting, like this tale about Joseph Holbrook:

Brother Joseph Holbrack was literally hacked to pieces, [at Crooked River] and he was brought to our home about the first of April. My mother nursed him for about three months. He had to remain in the hay loft all the time until he was able to get out of the state. One evening, old Sam Bogart and two other men came hunting him. He was hid in the hay loft covered with flax. The men were heavily armed, and they searched the premises around before they came up to the house late at night. I would have all who read this to understand that my parents were not people of blood; yet there had been so much murder, rapine, and crimes perpetrated by the mob, that my father did not know how to treat the “Christians” of Missouri. Father got his broad axe and the “women’s” axe for mother, and said, “We will set the bench before the fireplace for them to get warm—then if they start any trouble, I will grab the broad axe and you take the other axe and we will sell our lives as dearly as possible. We have Brother Holbreck and the three children to defend!” The axes were placed behind the door, then father stood in the door way, and mother stood with rifle in hand…..the bandits made their approach on the outside. Said Sam Bogart, “I have a search warrant for Joseph Holbreck”. Father asked them to come in, but Bogart said he didn’t believe Holbreck was there. So they went away.

I cannot attempt to describe my feelings as I stood on the floor in front of the fire while those three dark figures stood outside our door. I felt sure my mother would get one of them even if they killed my father. I shudder to think of those dark times. I wish all to understand that these things did happen in mobocratic Missouri—-in that Christian land close to where the so-called Christians held their Christian meetings….right here in the land of the brave and the free! I am a witness of these things, and no one can deny them!

Actually, the Battle of Crooked River took place in the fall, and Holbrook left this account of what happened with the correct date of the battle:

As we still wished if possible to learn their object in coming into Caldwell County in the form of a mob to disturb the quiet citizens and disarming them, etc. The first we knew they commenced a brisk fire upon our whole body, shooting down many of our best brethren all around us and hollering so that we had no other course to take but to defend ourselves the best way we could, which soon gave us the grounds with the spoils of the camp. Among the dead and wounded was David W. Patten, one of the Twelve, shot through the chest. He died about 4:00 o’clock that day. [Patrick] O. Bennion was shot through the chest and died about the same time and Gideon Carter was left dead on the ground through a mistake, and [Drusilla] Hendricks who was shot through the cords of the neck and was entirely helpless. [William] Seeley, one of the young men they took prisoner at Brother Pinkham’s the evening before, was shot through the shoulder and one Lilburn Hodges was shot in the hip and one Eli Chase was shot in the knee with a number more slightly wounded. I was wounded in my left elbow with a sword after cutting through five thicknesses of cloth. [It] so fractured the bone that after the doctor had placed back the bones, it was very lame for some four months and so stiff that I could not feed myself with that hand. The battle of Crooked River began October 25, about daybreak, 1838.

Holbrook was hardly “hacked to pieces”. And he did not stay with the Hancock family for three months. He wrote:

November 4, 1838, [we had] a severe snowstorm and some very cold weather for some three weeks, which drove the troops out of the county except some few companies who said they were left to see that the Mormons left the state and also to continue to take the brethren prisoners. Thus my freedom and my life for three months were in constant danger as one old resident by the name of “Snodgrass” came with eight soldiers at one time to the house where I had been stopping a few days and made diligent search for me in every house in the neighborhood from top to bottom and swore they would take me to the battleground on Crooked River and there shoot me because I was unable to defend myself at the battle against my foes.

My wife had very poor health during the fall and winter by being exposed much to the inclement weather by having to remove from place to place as our house had been burned and we were yet left to seek a home wherever our friends could accommodate us and for my safety but as I cannot write one hundredth part of the suffering and destruction of this people who were in a flourishing condition a few months before but were now destitute. I could have commanded some $2,000.00 but now I had only one yoke of oxen and two cows left.

As we found that there was no more peace or safety for the Saints in the state of Missouri, and that if the Church would make haste and move as fast as possible it would do much to relieve our brethren who were now in jail as our enemies were determined to hold them as hostages until the Church left the state so that every exertion was made in the dead of the winter to remove as fast as possible and for those whom they, our enemies, held the greatest spite, to leave their families, go without them, as I left my family with only 50 cents in cash for their comfort with three small children, viz, Sarah Lucretia Holbrook, Charlotte Holbrook, and Joseph Lamoni Holbrook. My wife was confined just one week from my departure from home and had a daughter and she was named Nancy Jane Holbrook, born January 27, 1839. On the 20th day of January 1839, I left home in the evening with Brother Nathan Tanner and Ethan Barrus [?]. We traveled that night so that the next day we were away…

According to Holbrook he didn’t stay in anyone’s barn for three months until he left Missouri. He did travel around, but he was taking care of his family and a pregnant wife. Hancock just seems to have a very bad memory or has a penchant for exaggerating and making things up.

When Mosiah wrote his father’s autobiography in 1896 all he had were some journals his father kept in 1846. He added the material about the Kirtland period and explained:

Farmington Davis Co Co 1896

I am Mosiah Lyman Reed Hancock the son of Levi Ward Hancock and Clarissa Reed Hancock – there being a gap? apparently in my Father’s History from the time he made the journey so far in the realms of Missouri in the summer of 1838 I shall write 1st – from and by the command of my Father to me – And 2nd My own recollection of many things which transpired according to my knowledge And I do not talk or write of what might or ought in justice to be written for the benefit of the present generation what I do write shall be the truth such as what I am willing to meet at the bar of the Great Eternal!

As early as the Spring of 1832 Bro Joseph said “Brother Levi, The Lord has revealed to me that it is his will that righteous men shall take Righteous women even a plurality of Wives that a Righteous race may be sent forth Uppon [sic] the Earth preparatory to the ushering in of the [page 62] Millennial Reign of our Redeemer For the Lord has such a high respect for the nobles of his king-dom that he is not willing for them to come throu-gh the Loins of a careles [sic] People—Therefore; it behoves [sic] those who embrace that Principle to pay strict attention to even the least requirement of our Heavenly Father”—I wish the People to un-derstand that Satan in those days sought to kill the influence of of the Noble Prophet! And men whos [sic] whole being was not wrapt up in the work of the Lord! often were overpowered by the adversary to [sic] frequently—I wish to be understood by those who may suppose that I was to [sic] young to understand or remember that I have a right to remember for as for tea, coffee Whiskey and Tobacco are concerned I have kept the word of wisdom in that respect to be sure [… about once tasting pork]

When my Father had started on his first mission to preach this Gospel He felt that perhaps he had done wrong in not telling the Prophet that he had made arrangements to marry Temperance Jane Miller of New Lyme—When Father returned from his miss-ion he spoke to the Prophet concerning the matter The Prophet said – “Never mind Brother Levi about that for the Lord has one prepared for you that will [page 63] be a Blessing to you forever!”—. At that time Clarissa Reed was working at the Prophet’s She told the Prophet She loved brother Levi Hancock The Prophet had the highest respect for her feelings She had thought that perhaps she might be one of the Prophet’s wives as herself and Sister Emma were on the best of terms My Father and Mother understanding each other were inspired by the spirit of the Lord to respect His word through the Prophet—Therefore Brother Joseph said “Brother Levi I want to make a bargain with you—If you will get Fanny Alger for me for a wife you may have Clarissa Reed [Hancock and Reed married March 29, 1833]. I love Fanny” “I will” Said Father — “Go brother Levi and the Lord will prosper you” Said Joseph–Father goes to the Father Samuel Alger—his Father’s Brother in Law and “Samuel the Prophet Joseph loves your Daughter Fanny and wishes her for a wife what say you”—Uncle Sam Says—“Go and talk to the old woman about it twi’ll be as She says” Father goes to his Sister and said “Clarissy, Brother Joseph the Prophet of the most high God loves Fanny and wishes her for a wife what say you” Said She “go and talk to Fanny it will be all right with me”—Father goes to Fanny and said “Fanny Brother Joseph the Prophet loves you and wishes you for a wife will you be his wife”? “I will Levi” Said She. Father takes Fanny to Joseph and said “Brother Joseph I have been successful in my mission”—Father gave her to Joseph repeating the Ceremony as Joseph repeated to him [page 64] Clarissa Reed being in poor health Father takes her to his folks in Rome—The reason of mother’s poor health was this She worked hard at the Prophets—He had many visitors at that time and it used to be frequently the Case that many of those worthies ? Chewed tobacco to that extent that it would seem that where they had been sitting in a Room for a little while that a flock of geese had been waddling about the floor the filth was so great and Mother being of a refined nature could not stand such nonsense —Not far from this time Joseph received the Revelation on the word [received February 27, 1833] of wisdom—As time progressed the Apostates thought they had a good hold on Joseph because of Fanny and some of the smart ? ones confined her in an upper room of the Temple [completed April 1836] determined that the Prophet should be settled according to their notions Brother Joseph came to Father and said “Brother Levi what can be done”?—There being a wagon and a dry goods Box close by and Joseph being strong and Father active Father soon gained the window Sill and Fanny was soon on the ground Father mounts his horse with Fanny behind him and altho dark they were in New Lyme forty five miles distant—And when the worthies ? sent Fannys dinner the next day they were astonished not to be able to find her—Father by that time had returned and his animal was in the Stable …On the 14th of June [over-writing May] 1835 my little sister Sariah was born She lived only a few days On the 14th of May 1836 my Sister Amy was born in Kirtland—

There are a few things that make it difficult not to believe that this was simply Mosiah Hancock repeating “faithful” stories and simply making things up as he went along. First, he claims that he remembers the events in Kirtland, even though he wasn’t even born when this all took place. (1832-33) He claims that Joseph “married” Fanny and everyone (even Emma it seems) simply said, ok. That Clarissa Reed thought she was going to be Smith’s plural wife, but then simply goes along with being married off to Levi Hancock. The idea of Joseph putting up Reed as a wife for Hancock in return for him persuading Fanny Alger to “marry” Joseph, makes little sense. Why would Joseph need to? All he had to do (since he was “the prophet” and according to Mosiah they believed everything Joseph told them) was ask Levi Hancock to speak with Fanny. But how could Smith explain replacing Clarissa with Fanny in his home to Emma?

What we suspect is that Smith was involved with Clarissa Reed (it was his M.O. to be involved with the young women living in his home) until he saw Fanny Alger. He needed a way to get her into the home and so proposed that Clarissa marry Hancock and that Fanny move into the Smith home to replace her.

[136] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, Minutes of Preceedings of Second Meeting of the Society 1844, Room over Brick Store March 16th, 10 oclock A.M, 125-126, Online here, Accessed December 31, 2014). William Wines Phelps was a prolific ghostwriter for Smith. This was evident to the folks in Nauvoo from this letter, sent to Thomas Sharp and the Warsaw Signal in April, 1844:

For the Warsaw Signal.

Nauvoo, Ill., April 13, 1844.
Mr. Editor: —

Sir, as Gen. Joseph Smith is before the people as a candidate for the first office within their gift, we think it a privilege we have, (as is the case with every other candidate for so responsible an office) to examine his claims and qualifications for the same.

The readers of the “Nauvoo Neighbor” would suppose, from the articles which appear in that paper, that Joe was one of the greatest statesmen and scholars of the age. We do not know but such in the fact; but if men want evidence in regard to his statesmanship, let them but refer to the manner in which he conducts the affairs of the Holy City, as Mayor, and we think the public will be satisfied at once. I speak from personal knowledge, as I have been a citizen of the City of the Saints for several years past, and here stake my reputation as a writer, that there never was as much tyranny practised in any city or country since the days of Caligula and Nero.

For several months past; there has not been a criminal prosecution within the city, instituted before a Justice of the peace, but what, as soon as the accused was arrested by the constable a writ of Habeas Corpus has been granted by the Municipal Court of said City, and the prisoner arrested from the hands of the officer, and taken before that court for trial. We need hardly state here the prisoner is there disposed of, as it is a notorious fact, that there never has been a case of the kind before the Municipal Court, but what the prisoner has been discharged, and judgment rendered against the prosecution for costs — no matter what the crime may be — thus rendering it impossible for any man to be bound over from this place to stand a trial before a jury of his county. Joe himself says he will spill the last drop of blood in his veins before he will go to Carthage among the Carthagenian Mob (as he terms them,) for trial, and advises all his followers to do the same — saying that they have all power to try every offence committed within the limits of the city, and it is unnecessary for any one to go to the Circuit Court, among a set of Jack Asses (to use his own language, for trial. This is true Statesmanship, in the opinion of Joe’s followers.

In relation to Joe[‘s] Scholarship, we have only to Joe’s he is one of the greatest ignoramuses of this age; and has not even had the advantages of a common country schooling, as his time, in early life, was spent in money digging; and in more mature years, occupied principally in lying, blackguarding, swindling, and many other kinds of rascality, too numerous to mention.

All the articles to which Joe’s name has appeared of late, as well as his Statesman-like “Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States,” were written by the Immaculate William W. Phelps, Esq., the City Attorney for the Holy City, and Private secretary to his Holiness Joe, &c., &c., It will be noticed that this Phelps is the man whom Joe charged with having turned traitor, and sworn false, a few years since in Missouri.

We do not know whether Joe’s charge against Phelps is true or not. This much however, we do know — that Phelps did swear that Joe was guilty of some of the most diabolical crimes known to our laws. How is it, Joe? Did he swear false? or are you guilty? More anon.

Yours, &c.,
SKINIWAY.

[137] Gary James Bergera writes:

Before the end of the month, on February 26, 1844, Higbee again crossed paths with Smith. By now a practicing attorney, as was his brother Chauncey, Francis represented Orsimus F. Bostwick, whom Hyrum Smith had charged with slandering him in connection with “certain females of Nauvoo.” The mayor’s court found Bostwick guilty, and Francis informed the tribunal that he would appeal the decision to the circuit court, which he felt would be less biased, knowing the influence Joseph Smith wielded over the city’s legal system. Smith countered: “I told Higbee what I thought of him for trying to carry such a suit to Carthage [the county seat]—it was to stir up the mob and bring them upon us. (Bergera, op. cited above)

Bergera’s note reads:

Smith, History of the Church, 6:225. Bostwick’s allegations, although not specified in the official history, had to do with Hyrum’s and others’ polygamy. Bostwick allegedly bragged that he could “take a half bushel of meal, obtain his vile purpose, and get what accommodation he wanted with almost any woman in the city” ( in “Virtue Will Triumph,” Nauvoo Neighbor, Mar. 20, 1844, 2) (ibid.)

There is no credible evidence that Bostick did anything other than accuse Hyrum Smith of practicing Joseph’s spiritual wife doctrine. (See Note #137) As for trading sexual favors for food, William Smith made this proposal to some in 1842, but it was covered up by his brothers (See Note #135). A little more than a week later, Joseph Smith claimed that,

Those who complain of our rights and charters are wicked and corrupt, and the devil is in them.

The reason I called up this subject is, we have a gang of simple fellows here who do not know where their elbows or heads are. If you preach virtue to them, they will oppose that; or if you preach a Methodist God to them, they will oppose that; and the same if you preach anything else; and if there is any case tried by the authorities of Nauvoo, they want it appealed to Carthage to the circuit court. Mr. Orsimus F. Bostwick’s case had to go to Carthage. Our lawyers will appeal anything to the circuit court.

[p.238] I want the people to speak out and say whether such men should be tolerated and supported in our midst; and I want to know if the citizens will sustain me when my hands are raised to heaven for and in behalf of the people.

From this time I design to bring such characters who act against the interests of the city before a committee of the whole; and I will have the voice of the people, which is republican, and is likely to be the voice of God; and as long as I have a tongue to speak, I will expose the iniquity of the lawyers and wicked men.

I fear not their boiling over nor the boiling over of hell, their thunders, nor the lightning of their forked tongues.

If these things cannot be put a stop to, I will give such men into the hands of the Missouri mob. The hands of the officers of the city falter and are palsied by their conduct.

There is another person I will speak about. He is a Mormon—a certain man who lived here before we came here; the two first letters of his name are Hiram Kimball. When a man is baptized and becomes a member of the Church, I have a right to talk about him, and reprove him in public or private, whenever it is necessary, or he deserves it.

When the city passed an ordinance to collect wharfage from steamboats, he goes and tells the captains of the steamboats that he owned the landing, and that they need not pay wharfage.

I despise the man who will betray you with a kiss; and I am determined to use up these men, if they will not stop their operations. If this is not true, let him come forward and throw off the imputation.

When they appeal to Carthage, I will appeal to this people, which is the highest court. I despise the lawyers who haggle on lawsuits, and I would rather die a thousand deaths than appeal to Carthage,

Kimball and Morrison say they own the wharves; but the fact is, the city owns them, sixty-four feet from high water mark. From the printing office to the north limits of the city is public ground, as Water street runs along the beach, and the beach belongs to the city and not to individuals.

Another thing: I want to speak about the lawyers of this city. I have good feelings towards them; nevertheless I will reprove the lawyers and doctors anyhow. Jesus did, and every prophet has; and if I am a prophet, I shall do it: at any rate, I shall do it, for I profess to be a prophet.

The maritime laws of the United States have ceded up the right to regulate all tolls, wharfage, &c., to the respective corporations who have jurisdiction, and not to individuals.

Our lawyers have read so little that they are ignorant of this: they [p.239] have never stuck their roses into a book on maritime law in their lives, and, as Pope says:—

Shallow draughts intoxicate the brain;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring.

Our city lawyers are fools to undertake to practice law when they know nothing about it.

I want from this time forth every fool to stay at home and let the steamboats and captains alone. No vessel could land anywhere, if subject to individual laws.

The corporation owns the streets of the city, and has as much right to tax the boats to make wharves as to tax citizens to make roads. Let every man in this city stay at home, and let the boat-captains, peace-officers and everybody alone.

How are we to keep peace in the city, defend ourselves against mobs, and keep innocent blood from being shed? By striking a blow at everything that rises up in disorder.

I will wage an eternal warfare with those that oppose me while I am laboring in behalf of the city. I will disgrace every man by publishing him on the house top, who will not be still and mind his own business. (History of the Church, Vol. 6, 237-238)

To “use up” means to kill someone. Joseph was serious about trying to “disgrace” anyone who opposed him, as they tried to do with Bostwick and later with other polygamy dissenters. Since Joseph had every reason to lie (since he was practicing his Spiritual Wife System in secret and denying it in public) it throws doubt on the truthfulness of any affidavits that were produced by Smith and those who he recruited to defend him.

[137] The Nauvoo Neighbor, Wednesday, March 20, 1844, Online here, Accessed November 15, 2014).

[138] Gary James Bergera, op. cited.

[139] The Boswick Trial held by Joseph Smith was a farce. Boswick did not testify. One of Smith’s Policemen & Danite, John Scott, (See Quinn, Origins of Power, page 180, and Appendix 3, Danites in 1838: A Partial List) supposedly was sworn by Willard Richards who wrote out a statement, but conveniently was “sick” and could not sign his name. Two months later, Scott would again be a “witness” at the illegal trial of William and Jane Law who also were not present and could not defend themselves. (See Note #212) Mayor Joseph Smith, based his decision on the testimony below:

John Scot sworn saith one day last week in co with defendants. Defendants said he was at the prophets, last week & the prophet asked him if he thought he had any spiritual wives? Defendant told no! did not know if he had any. but I know by God that your Brother Hyrum has. witness then turned to him not knowing his name & said do you believe that Hyrum has got any of these spiritual wives? Defendant said yes, by God I believe he has, and can sleep with three or four every night. witness insisted to know who they were as he could not fellowship such work. Said Defendant they are all over the city by God. Witness said he did not believe it. Defendant said he could take half a bushel of meat, and get what accommodation he wanted with almost any woman in the city. I know of one, a widow woman who had got her living that way for one or two years and had had no other way of getting her living. that there were a number of English women in the city beyond the temple who got their living in that way, and women of good standing in the church too. Witness invited to have him tell him where the women lived & said he would soon tell whether they were in good standing in the church or not. Defendant refused to tell the names of any woman but went on to tell of a young woman he knew in the east who joined the church and came on here, and was taken sick last summer or winter & Hyrum was sent for to lay hands on her. and since that time she was a damn whore that any man who would go there could be accommodated with whatever he wanted. that defendant had known her from a child and that she was a virtuous woman at the time that Hyrum administered to here and further saith not.

I hereby certify that John Scot was sworn by me that the foregoing testimony was written by myself in purvue of Council for both parties the 26 day of February, 1844 and that the witness is sick and unable to sign his name Willard Richards Recorder of the City of Nauvoo (City of Nauvoo vs O. J. Bostwick Deposition, MS 16800, Box 4, Folder 41, CHL, Online here, Accessed November 25, 2016).

He could not sign his name? Really? When Bostwick complained and got a lawyer to refute the Mayor’s ruling, (Francis Higbee), and had the appeal set to take place in Carthage, Smith complained that it was only to bring a mob down on him, something he also said of Sidney Rigdon, William Law and others.

Joseph and Hyrum were assassinated before this could go to trial in Carthage. Gary Bergera writes:

Unlike other municipal courts in Illinois, Nauvoo’s mayor automatically served as chief justice, the city’s aldermen as associate justices. “Thus,” write legal historians Edwin Brown Firmage and Richard Collin Mangrum, “the lawmaker was also the law interpreter, creating a concentration of power that was absent in the other cities [of Illinois].” Zion in the Courts: A Legal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 86-7; see also 92-105, added emphasis. (Bergera, op. cited above).

[140] The Revised Laws of Illinois, 1833, Greiner and Sherman, p. 198, online here, accessed November 5, 2014.

[141] ibid., emphasis added.

[142] ibid., 198-99.

[143] The Revised Code of Laws of Illinois: Enacted by the Fifth General Assembly, State of Illinois: Robert Blackwell, 1827, Online here, Accessed November 20, 2014.

[144] See Note #147.

[145] Times and Seasons, Nov. 15, 1844, Vol. 5, No. 21, 715, Online here, Accessed November 5, 2014.

[146] Again, whether or not Joseph Smith could have been “proven” to have lived in an “open state” of adultery can never be answered. To speculate that perhaps he could not have been convicted because of a lack of evidence or some loophole in the law, is simply a feeble attempt to bolster Smith’s already damaged reputation.

It is ultimately an exercise in futility because we know that Smith was committing Bigamy under Illinois Law, and we have documented evidence from many sources. Whether or not he (or his faithful followers) acknowledged it, or called it something else, or did so in earnest, is beside the point.

Eliza Partridge

It is clear that what Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and many others committed was Bigamy and Adultery. For example, Emily Partridge’s claim that she and her sister Eliza simply “shook hands” with Joseph and their marriage was over because of Emma’s objections places little weight on the marriages, if this really happened. (See H. Michael Marquardt’s “Emily Dow Partridge Smith Young on the Witness Stand: Recollections of a Plural Wife,” 2001, Online here, Accessed December 5. 2014).

Emily claimed that one day (no date or timeframe was given by Emily, but this would have to have been in the Fall of 1843) Emma requested both Partridge sisters to come to her room and (as Emily later recollected):

When we went in Joseph was there, his countenance was the perfect picture of despair. I cannot remember all that passed at that time but [but] she insisted that we should promise to break our covenants, that we had made before God. Joseph asked her if we made her the promises she required, if she would cease to trouble us, and not persist in our marrying someone else. She made the promise. Joseph came to us and shook hands with us and the understanding was that all was ended between us. I for one meant to keep the promise I was forced to make. (Marquardt, 24, our emphasis).

Yet on August 13, 1843 Joseph told William Clayton that even though Emma had “resisted the P[riesthood] in toto & he had to tell her he would relinquish all for her sake” Smith still affirmed to Clayon that he “should not relinquish anything.” (Clayton Journal, 16 August, 1843)

Emily Partridge

Even though Marquardt speculates that this may have been said before Smith relinquished the Partridge sisters in front of Emma, this contradicts what Joseph told Clayton. And if it did happen the way that Emily Partridge states, what does that say about Joseph Smith?

It means that Joseph took the girls for wives, had sex with them for a few months and then cut them loose. Did the angel that supposedly appeared to him on multiple occasions command Joseph to practice this kind of polygamy? This is not any kind of a real marriage by any stretch of the imagination, so what was it? Adultery, (or nest-hiding as it was called) even if Emma gave her consent, which we feel is not supported by the evidence. (See Notes #45 & #53).

Erastus Snow declared in 1880:

We know full well that the old Puritan States of New England and the other commonwealths of America grew up under the monogamic system, and that their hearts have not become sufficiently enlarged to comprehend the final result of this tree of liberty which they planted in the land, they consequently retained in their new colonies and the States formed out of them, the old Roman system of monogamy that made laws against bigamy. But the bigamy which their laws contemplated and which the laws of England contemplated, after which they patterned, was not the plural marriage of the Latter-day Saints, regulated as it is under the sanction of religion, its duties and obligations, and religiously observed by the people. But their laws against bigamy were based upon the principle of fraud, fraud practised by a man or woman, who, believing in monogamy, enter into that relationship and then secretly violate the sacred covenants entered into with each other, and unbeknown to each other, contract a marriage with another and clandestinely carry it on. The crime in this instance was not in the religious doctrine of plural marriage, but in the fraudulent manner in which it is contracted and carried on and the violation of their covenants and the law of the land. (Erastus Snow, Conference Report, April 6, 1880, 60, Online here, Accessed November 20, 2014).

Yet Joseph kept the marriages secret from his first wife (like bigamy), did not announce this doctrine to the Church and have it approved by that law of “common consent” as he should have.

In 1830, when Hiram Page claimed to have “revelations” through a peep stone just as Joseph did, he was told by Smith that his revelations were to be rejected because they were “contrary to church covenants” and had not been “done by common consent in the church, by the prayer of faith, therefore they were “of Satan.” (See Doctrine and Covenants, Section 28). This is exactly what the Reorganized Church lawyers were claiming at the Temple Lot Trial, and what the Utah Mormons tried to avoid answering, or applying to Joseph Smith. Smith had entered into over two dozen bigamous marriages before he produced a “revelation”, and never presented that “revelation” to the church for a sustaining vote.

What Erastus Snow describes is exactly what Joseph Smith did with the Partridge sisters and others behind Emma’s back. (Secretly violate sacred monogamous covenants and unbeknown to Emma, contract multiple other marriages with others and clandestinely carry them on).

The reason that it was so important for the Utah Mormons to have had Emma consent to those “marriages” and provide some of her husband’s “wives” becomes quite apparent after reading this.

[147] Revised Law of Illinois, 1833, op. cited, Online here, Accessed November 5, 2014. In a new book titled, Sustaining the Law: Joseph Smith’s Legal Encounters, M. Scott Bradshaw writes,

Joseph Smith could not have been properly convicted of adultery under the law of Illinois in 1844. Illinois law only criminalized adultery or fornication if it was “open”. Had Joseph lived to face trial on this charge, he would have had good reason to expect acquittal because his relationships with his plural wives were not open, but were kept confidential and known by a relative few. Given a fair trial on this indictment, Joseph could have relied on several legal defenses.

The term “open” in [the Illinois Criminal Code of the day] is a key element of this crime. The meaning of this term was then and still today is generally understood in law to cover conduct that is “notorious,” “exposed to public view,” or “visible,” and which is “not clandestine.” Joseph’s relationships with his plural wives did not meet this definition. (M. Scott Bradshaw, “Defining Adultery under Illinois and Nauvoo Law,” in Sustaining the Law: Joseph Smith’s Legal Encounters, edited by Gordon A. Madsen, Jeffrey N. Walker, and John W. Welch (Provo, Utah: BYU Studies, 2014), 401–426).

Of course they are looking at this issue retrospectively and therefore this is simply speculation on their part. Adam Delderfield, an Assistant State’s Attorney at Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in Illinois writes:

If you are reading this, then you likely have some notion of what “sexual intercourse” involves. However, the phrase “open and notorious” is not so clear. To begin with, it is important to stress that the behaviour must be both “open” and “notorious”. Courts have interpreted the “open” to refer to the actions of the offender, and the “notorious” to refer to the subsequent public knowledge. Importantly, that means it is not sufficient that the public merely know about the illicit relationship; rather, it must be shown that the offender flaunted the relationship (open), thus creating public knowledge (notorious).

In terms of applying the law to specific fact patterns, one can imagine countless ways in which an offender might carry out an open and notorious relationship. The Illinois Appellate Court has published a handful of opinions on the matter, but it will suffice for this article to examine the 1975 case of People v. Cessna. This case is instructive because it was decided under a statute closely resembling the current version, and it specifically involved the definition of “open and notorious”.

In Cessna, the defendant was charged with adultery, fornication, and contributing to the sexual delinquency of a child. The fornication charge was apparently dismissed short of trial, but defendant was convicted of the remaining two crimes. On appeal, defendant challenged in part whether the People had proven that his illicit relationship was “open and notorious”; the facts are as follows.

Defendant was a married 23 year old who separated from his wife. Defendant moved in with his mother in Illinois. During the month of October, 1974, a 17 year old woman met defendant, and on several occasions spent the night at his house. The 17 year old was between homes, variously living at her sister’s house, her aunt’s house, and a foster home. Defendant and the woman had sexual intercourse on several occasions, and the woman’s family saw the two of them in each other’s company. Defendant gave the woman an engagement ring, and the woman’s father heard from an attorney that defendant had discussed divorcing his wife and marrying the woman. The woman was apparently also pregnant.

According to the defendant and his family, the woman only slept over twice. Furthermore, they indicated that the defendant slept in a separate bedroom from the woman. The defendant denied having sexual intercourse with her. The court, however, found the woman’s testimony regarding the sexual intercourse to be “clear and convincing”.

The Illinois Appellate Court found that the above behavior was not open and notorious, because there was no showing that defendant’s behavior had created a public scandal. The evidence did not show that people outside of the two families knew about the relationship. While it was indeed a “situation of serious family concern”, the court stated that without the community being “debased or demoralized” there could be no conviction.

In rendering its decision, the court held that “[t]he prohibition of open and notorious adultery is meant to protect the public from conduct which disturbs the peace, tends to promote breaches of the peace, and openly flouts accepted standards of morality in the community. What is of marked interest is the scandalous effect of the behavior and its affront to public decency and the marital institution.” Had there been evidence of people outside the family circle being aware of this behaviour, the result may well have been different. (“Adultery and Fornication Laws in Illinois,” Adam Delderfield, Assistant State’s Attorney at Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, online here, Accessed January 5, 2015, added emphasis).

Unlike the example above, in Joseph Smith’s case his polygamy was known and published by many newspapers during 1843 and 1844 therefore creating a public scandal. Many people outside of Smith’s family knew of his behavior. This was one reason why Joseph wanted the Expositor destroyed, he knew the ramifications of the paper publishing details of his Spiritual Wifeism.

Notice what Smith claims are the reasons for the destruction of the Expositor:

In the investigation it appeared evident to the council that the proprietors were a set of unprincipled men, lawless, debouchees, counterfeiters, Bogus Makers, gamblers, peace disturbers, and that the grand object of said proprietors was to destroy our constitutional rights and chartered privileges; to overthrow all good and wholesome regulations in society; to strengthen themselves against the municipality; to fortify themselves against the church of which I am a member, and destroy all our religious rights and privileges, by libels, slanders, falsehoods, perjury & sticking at no corruption to accomplish their hellish purposes. and that said paper of itself was libelous of the deepest dye, and very injurious as a vehicle of defamation,—tending to corrupt the morals, and disturb the peace, tranquillity and happiness of the whole community, and especially that of Nauvoo. (Letter from Joseph Smith to Thomas Ford (14 June 1844, added emphasis).

In that issue were the accusations that Joseph Smith was committing adultery.

Smith’s adultery was linked to his practice of polygamy, which clearly would have been an “affront to public decency and the marital institution”. Also, Smith’s practice of polygamy was rather well known in Nauvoo by then (1844), with accusations being made against Smith since 1842 by John C. Bennett and others. Smith’s polygamy by that time (June 1844) had become a “public scandal”. And there were many in the community who claimed they were “debased and demoralized” by Smith’s actions. Smith was also guilty of the crime of bigamy under Illinois law:

“Sec 121. Bigamy consists in the having of two wives or two husbands at one and the same time, knowing that the former husband or wife is still alive. If any person or persons within this State, being married, or who shall hereafter marry, do at any time marry any person or persons, the former husband or wife being alive, the person so offending shall, on conviction thereof, be punished by a fine, not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisoned in the penitentiary, not exceeding two years. It shall not be necessary to prove either of the said marriages by the register or certificate thereof, or other record evidence; but the same may be proved by such evidence as is admissible to prove a marriage in other cases, and when such second marriage shall have taken place without this state, cohabitation in this state after such second marriage shall be deemed the commission of the crime of bigamy, and the trial in such case may take place in the county where such cohabitation shall have occurred.” (Revised Laws of Illinois, 1833, 198-99).

Melissa Lott, the Lawrence sisters and others “co-habited” with Smith in the Nauvoo House. It was also known that Smith had some of his wives secreted in the Times and Seasons offices.

Nothing about Smith’s adultery could be considered normal as he was practicing a form of Spiritual Wifeism that would not have gone over well in the courts. (It did not for Jacob Cochran in the earlier part of the century who was also guilty of practicing Spiritual Wifery). Michael Quinn writes,

23 May. William Law files a formal complaint with the Hancock County circuit court charging Smith was living “in an open state of adultery” with Maria Lawrence, Smith’s foster daughter and polygamous wife. (D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, 645).

According to George D. Smith:

Maria Lawrence was a teenaged orphan who was living in the Smith household. In fact, Smith had secretly married both Maria, age 19 and her sister Sarah, age 17 on 11 May 1843 and was serving as executor of their $8,000 estate. William Law apparently hoped that disclosing Smith’s relationship with the young girls might lead him to abandon polygamy, but Smith immediately excommunicated Law, had himself appointed the girls’ legal guardian, and rejected the charge in front of a church congregation on 26 May 1844, denying that he had more than one wife.

Another indictment has been got up against me. . . I had not been married scarcely five minutes, and made one proclamation of the Gospel, before it was reported that I had seven wives . . . This new holy prophet [William Law] has gone to Carthage [county courthouse] and swore that I had told him that I was guilty of adultery . . . What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one.

The following month Law and other Mormon dissidents published the inaugural issue of the Nauvoo Expositor to reveal Smith’s “mormon seraglio, or Nauvoo harem; and his unparalled and unheard of attempts at seduction.” Declaring the Expositor a public nuisance, the Nauvoo City Council, led by Mayor Joseph Smith, ordered all copies of the paper to be burned and its printing press destroyed. These actions created an uproar throughout the state, where Smith’s growing political power–as well as his alleged immorality–were both feared and resented. When Governor Thomas Ford ordered Smith arrested, Joseph and his brother Hyrum were jailed at Carthage. On June 27, a large mob overpowered the guards and shot the brothers to death. (George D. Smith, Nauvoo Roots of Mormon Polygamy, op. cited, 7).

Smith himself made the case notorious with his own public denials. The worth of the Lawrence Estate has been contested as being substantially less than $8,000. (And we know where Law got that figure from, see below)

Still, Smith was on record for having denied that he was practicing polygamy. If no one was accusing him, why would he have to deny it? Smith gave gifts to his Spiritual Wives, like gold watches. Whether Law could have had the Lawrence sisters or any of his other “wives” subpoenaed is a matter of speculation, but was in the realm of possibility. Also, the “revelation” on polygamy, dictated by Joseph in 1843 had been shown to the Nauvoo High Council, and some of them, like Austin Cowles had rejected it. They also, would probably have been called as witnesses. We are also troubled by the May 11th “marriage” date for the Lawrence sisters, since there is absolutely no credible evidence to show that this happened then or that Emma was involved.

The public scandal was already in place by the time Law brought charges against Smith. To claim that “he would have had good reason to expect acquittal” is simply ignoring the evidence and what constituted “open and notorious”.

Another apologist argument that we ran across recently was this strange attempt by FAIRMORMON to try and claim that because Joseph carefully chose the words of his polygamy denials, he was actually innocent of committing adultery and that it could not be proven by William Law. They write,

The Laws sought to have Joseph indicted for adultery and perjury

This statement refers to Joseph’s well-known declaration on 26 May 1844 in his “Address of the Prophet—His Testimony Against the Dissenters at Nauvoo”. Significantly, this address was given the day after the Laws sought to have Joseph indicted for adultery in the case of Maria Lawrence. (They also sought to indict him on a charge of perjury.)

Many have criticized or been concerned by the secrecy with which Joseph instituted plural marriage without appreciating the realities of the dangers involved. Illinois law only criminalized adultery or fornication if it was “open”. Since Joseph was sealed to his plural wives for either eternity, or for time and eternity, he did not view these relationships as constituting adultery or fornication. Therefore, under Illinois law, as long as Joseph and his plural wives did not live in an “open,” or “public,” manner, they were not guilty of breaking any civil law then in force in Illinois. Furthermore, this reality explains some of Joseph’s public denials, since he could be truthfully said to not be guilty of the charges leveled against him: he was not committing adultery or fornication.

Joseph was refuting the charge of adultery, not the fact that he had “seven wives”

History of The Church Vol. 6, 410-411:

I had not been married scarcely five minutes, and made one proclamation of the Gospel, before it was reported that I had seven wives. I mean to live and proclaim the truth as long as I can.

This new holy prophet [William Law] has gone to Carthage and swore that I had told him that I was guilty of adultery. This spiritual wifeism! Why, a man dares not speak or wink, for fear of being accused of this. …

William Law testified before forty policemen, and the assembly room full of witnesses, that he testified under oath that he never had heard or seen or knew anything immoral or criminal against me. He testified under oath that he was my friend, and not the “Brutus.” There was a cogitation who was the “Brutus.” I had not prophesied against William Law. He swore under oath that he was satisfied that he was ready to lay down his life for me, and he swears that I have committed adultery. [This paragraph omitted by FAIRMORMON]

A man asked me whether the commandment was given that a man may have seven wives; and now the new prophet has charged me with adultery. I never had any fuss with these men until that Female Relief Society brought out the paper against adulterers and adulteresses.

Dr. Goforth was invited into the Laws’ clique, and Dr. Foster and the clique were dissatisfied with that document, and they rush away and leave the Church, and conspire to take away my life; and because I will not countenance such wickedness, they proclaim that I have been a true prophet, but that I am now a fallen prophet.

[Joseph H.] Jackson has committed murder, robbery, and perjury; and I can prove it by half-a-dozen witnesses. Jackson got up and said—”By God, he is innocent,” and now swears that I am guilty. He threatened my life.

There is another Law, not the prophet, who was cashiered for dishonesty and robbing the government. Wilson Law also swears that I told him I was guilty of adultery. Brother Jonathan Dunham can swear to the contrary. I have been chained. I have rattled chains before in a dungeon for the truth’s sake. I am innocent of all these charges, and you can bear witness of my innocence, for you know me yourselves.

When I love the poor, I ask no favors of the rich. I can go to the cross—I can lay down my life; but don’t forsake me. I want the friendship of my brethren.—Let us teach the things of Jesus Christ. Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a downfall.

Be meek and lowly, upright and pure; render good for evil. If you bring on yourselves your own destruction, I will complain. It is not right for a man to bare down his neck to the oppressor always. Be humble and patient in all circumstances of life; we shall then triumph more gloriously. What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one.

I am the same man, and as innocent as I was fourteen years ago; and I can prove them all perjurers. I labored with these apostates myself until I was out of all manner of patience; and then I sent my brother Hyrum, whom they virtually kicked out of doors.

I then sent Mr. Backenstos, when they declared that they were my enemies. I told Mr. Backenstos that he might tell the Laws, if they had any cause against me I would go before the Church, and confess it to the world. He [Wm. Law] was summoned time and again, but refused to come. Dr. Bernhisel and Elder Rigdon know that I speak the truth. I cite you to Captain Dunham, Esquires Johnson and Wells, Brother Hatfield and others, for the truth of what I have said. I have said this to let my friends know that I am right. [This paragraph omitted by FAIRMORMON], History of the Church, 6:410-12, May 26, 1844, Color emphasis by FAIRMORMON]

FAIRMORMON continues,

Note the rejection of the term “spiritual wifeism”. Note that “spiritual wifeism” likely refers to John C. Bennett’s pattern of seduction and sexual license, which the Saints were always at pains to deny.

Joseph was not merely bluffing, nor was he lying—he literally could prove that the Laws were perjuring themselves on this point

In light of the circumstances under which they were spoken, Joseph’s words were carefully chosen. Joseph was not merely bluffing, nor was he lying—he literally could prove that the Laws were perjuring themselves on this point in the charges brought only the day before.

Bradshaw cites a portion of Joseph’s above statement, and then concludes:

A review of Joseph’s remarks in light of the circumstances under which they were spoken shows that Joseph’s words were carefully chosen. In this speech, Joseph was specifically reacting to the indictments for perjury and adultery that were presented by the grand jury the day earlier. Thus, when Joseph affirmed during the same speech: “I am innocent of all these charges,” he was in particular refuting a claim that he and Maria [Lawrence] had openly and notoriously cohabitated, thus committing the statutory offense of adultery. He was also refuting the perjury charge. While the overall tone of Joseph’s remarks may seem misleading, it is understandable that Joseph would have taken pains to dodge the plural marriage issue. By keeping his plural marriages in Nauvoo secret, Joseph effectively kept them legal, at least under the Illinois adultery statute. (FAIRMORMON, “Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Illegal/Illegal in Nauvoo”, Online here, Accessed January 5, 2015).

FAIRMORMON is claiming that the above (with the color coded sentences for emphasis) was Joseph refuting adultery, not polygamy! But Joseph complains right in the middle of the speech that it was about Spiritual Wifeism! The contention was that since it was illegal (polygamy/bigamy) then it was adultery! We are simply baffled at what FAIRMORMON’s point could be.

Joseph Smith claimed that his life was in danger, over polygamy. If Smith could have gotten off, (as FAIRMORMON claims) then why was he worried about danger? Either he was committing adultery and was afraid, or he was not and was innocent and could prove it. FAIRMORMON wants to have it both ways here (as we shall see below).

Smith here, claims that he sent J. Backenstos to visit Law, but that is not what happened. He sent Hyrum Smith, Sidney Ridgon and Almon Babbit to visit Law and sue for “peace”. William Law did reject these offers, only because he was told that Joseph would not own up to his “revelation” on polygamy (in public) and denounce the practice. Joseph never offered Law the chance to “go before the Church”. He was not summoned at all, he was asked to drop all hostilities against Joseph (Law’s opposition to Joseph’s Spiritual Wifeism), but Law refused to do so because Joseph would not admit they did have cause against him for practicing polygamy in secret. Joseph never confessed it “to the world”. So right here, we have Joseph lying and if he did so in court would have perjured himself or sworn a false affidavit. Hyrum himself admitted on the stand a month before this that there would be no “investigation before Conference”. They did not even inform Law of his excommunication trial which would have been the perfect opportunity to “summon him”. (See Note #212)

Joseph also claims that William Law was “satisfied” with Smith. Yes, he was satisfied at the time that Smith hadn’t been referring to Law when he told the police force of Nauvoo in December of 1843 that there were two traitors. (Dough Heads as Smith called them). The Police accused William Law and William Marks of being those traitors. Law did not tell Joseph at that time that he was satisfied with Smith’s adulterous actions. So Smith is again twisting the truth. (See Note #212)

There was absolutely no evidence that Joseph could prove that Joseph H. Jackson was a murderer or that he had committed robbery or perjury. Joseph never produced any witnesses to that effect. All he had to go on were second hand reports by questionable sources.

Foster himself refuted that he never spoke to Dr. Goforth, so it is his word against Foster’s and of course Joseph believed Goforth. This is not credible evidence of anything.

Actually, Joseph had all kinds of “fuss” with these men before A Voice of Innocence was published by the Relief Society. The record speaks for itself. (See Note #212)

FAIRMORMON then makes this fantastic claim, quoting Mormon Apologist M. Scott Bradshaw:

Although under law, Joseph Smith and Maria Lawrence were not guilty of adultery, this does not mean that they had not consummated their plural marriage

A side issue raised by some relates to what the legal strategy can tell us about the status of Joseph and Maria’s sealing. Under law, Joseph and Maria were clearly not guilty of adultery. This does not mean, however, that they had not consummated their plural marriage.

Most authors have concluded that their marriage was one which was consummated. This is due to relatively late, second-hand testimony, which Brian Hales has explored in detail.

Bradshaw suggests:

Joseph instructed John Taylor on June 4, [1844] to initiate legal action against the Laws and Foster for perjury and slander against Maria [for charging her and Joseph with adultery]. No such suit is known to have been filed, since Joseph was killed three weeks later; however, the mere fact that Joseph planned to bring such a suit suggests that, in Joseph’s mind, there was nothing to hide in his relationship with Maria. If there had been a sexual dimension to this particular plural marriage, it is almost unimaginable that Joseph would have wanted to file a lawsuit, knowing that Maria might be put on the witness stand—or even subjected to a gynecological examination [to determine whether or not she was a virgin]. The possibility that Joseph’s relationship with Maria Lawrence did not involve intimacy is also plausible given his comments regarding the publication of the Expositor: “They make it a criminality for a man to have one wife on earth while he has one wife in heaven.” Since the only specific allegation of “criminality” (the adultery indictment) with respect to Joseph’s plural marriages concerned Maria Lawrence, this statement by Joseph could be understood as a reference to his spiritual connection, or sealing, with Maria, but perhaps no more.

In the same vein, Madsen argues:

The consequences of such an indictment [for adultery with Maria] were both legally and socially scandalous. Maria Lawrence’s reputation would have been publicly damaged, independent of what the reputational consequences might have been to Joseph. She and her sister had been sealed to Joseph on May 11, 1843…with Emma’s initial consent but later repudiation. Even if this celestial marriage could have been made [publicly] known, it would not have alleviated the scandal—it would have just turned it to another, even more flamboyant, direction….

This plan to counter-sue against the Laws and others has some interesting legal aspects. William Law had supplied testimony under oath that led to Joseph’s indictment. If the adultery case had gone to trial and the jury had found Joseph not guilty, then Law would have been liable to a criminal charge of perjury and civil liability for slander. Possibly Joseph planned to prove his innocence, not only by his and Maria’s denial of sexual intercourse but also by the testimony of a reputable physician who had conducted a physical examination and found that Maria was still a virgin. It would have been both foolhardy and fruitless for Joseph to have even imagined countersuing without something of such weight to present at trial.

Hales, however, feels that the scenario offered by Madsen and Bradshaw is less likely:

This speculation is problematic because, since Maria was sealed to Joseph in a “time and eternity” sealing, then sexual relations would be permitted. In addition, virginity cannot always be proven by physical exam even if the woman has never experienced intercourse. (Brian Hales, “Maria Lawrence—Evidence of Sexuality,” Online here, Accessed December 5, 2014).

First of all, Madsen is simply making things up. (Hales rightly calls it speculating). He does not know when the Lawrence Sisters were sealed to Joseph, no one does. Notice that Hales also, without any evidence whatsoever, claims it is a “time and eternity” sealing. (They were all that, so Hales own speculation here is simply amusing).

If this is a lawyerly approach, then they desperately need another one. There is only the testimony of three people that claim that the Lawrence Sisters were married to Joseph with Emma’s consent, and these are all from 1869 affidavits that are full of problems. And even those affidavits do not give any date for the Lawrence sealings. (See Note #53) These are the kinds of weak arguments we have been witnessing for far too long in relation to the information provided by those suspect affidavits. This information is provided by Madsen apparently without equivocation, (if one trusts the FAIRMORMON quote which has multiple ellipses).

Heber C. Kimball’s house, Nauvoo, Illinois

We simply do not know that Emma “facilitated those marriages” and there is good evidence that she did not which we discuss above. Benjamin Johnson’s recollection about Emma giving her consent was made in the 1880’s, long after these affidavits had been in circulation and he has been shown by us to have embellished his own history.

So Joseph was going to have women’s vagina’s examined by Doctors? This kind of speculation seems to be born out of desperation to vindicate Joseph at any cost. Madsen claims that it would have been “foolhardy and fruitless” for Joseph to countersue Law, but then this would not be the first time Joseph had done something foolhardy and fruitless. (Zion’s Camp and attacking State Militia comes to mind here, among other things, along with his suit against Chauncey Higbee in 1842 which he subsequently dropped). Was Smith being foolhardy and foolish to think that he would have been given authority to raise up 100,000 men and arm them by the U.S. Government? Win the Presidential election of 1844 as a polygamist? We think so. Also, in the same month Joseph “prophecied the entire overthrow of this nation in a few years.” (George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, 129, April 13, 1844) In 1843 he proclaimed:

I prophecy in the name of the Lord God [that] anguish and wrath and trembulity [trembling] and tribulation and the withdrawing of the spirit of God await this generation until they are visited with utter destruction. This generation is as corrupt as the generation of the Jews that crucified Christ and if he were here to day and should preach the same doctrine he did then, why they would crucify him. I defy all the world and I prophecy they will never overthrow me till I get ready. (Scott H. Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 421, October 15, 1843).

Two more foolish prophecies. Unless Joseph Smith was just going through the motions in 1844 of being elected President of the United States and filing lawsuits he wasn’t going to win because he was going to be “overthrown” in June of 1844. Also, if he was “ready” in June, 1844, why did he try to flee to the west, shortly before being talked into surrendering himself to the authorities?

FAIRMORMON makes one other fantastical claim via M. Scott Bradshaw:

Illinois law only criminalized adultery or fornication if it was “open”

It is vital to understand, however, that:

Joseph’s relationships with his plural wives did not meet this definition

The same author emphasized:

Brigham Young’s house, Nauvoo, Illinois.

On the contrary, we think his relationships were “open and notorious”, which we have already discussed. By June, many were talking about this and writing letters to relatives living in the Eastern States. For example Sarah and Isaac Scott wrote on June 16, 1844:

But because of the things that are and have been taught in the Church of Latter Day Saints for two years past which now assume a portentous aspect, I say because of these things we are in trouble. And were it not that we wish to give you a fair unbiased statement of facts as they really exist, we perhaps would not have written you so soon. But we feel it to be our duty to let you know how things are going on in this land of boasted liberty, this Sanctum-Sanctorum of all the Earth, the City of Nauvoo. The elders will likely tell you a different tale from what I shall as they are positively instructed to deny these things abroad. But it matters not to us what they say; our object is to state to you the truth, for we do not want to be guilty of deceiving any one. We will now give you a correct statement of the doctrines that are taught and practised in the Church according to our own knowledge. We will mention three in particular.

A plurality of Gods. A plurality of living wives. And unconditional sealing up to eternal life against all sins save the shedding of innocent blood or consenting thereunto. These with many other things are taught by Joseph, which we consider are odious and doctrines of devils. Joseph says there are Gods above the God of this universe as far as he is above us, and if He should transgress the laws given to Him by those above Him, He would be hurled from his Throne to hell, as was Lucifer and all his creations with him. But God says there is no other God but himself. Moses says he is the Almighty God, and there is none other. David says he knows of no other God. The Apostles and Prophets almost all testify the same thing.

Joseph had a revelation last summer purporting to be from the Lord, allowing the saints the privilege of having ten living wives at one time, I mean certain conspicuous characters among them. They do not content themselves with young women, but have seduced married women. I believe hundreds have been deceived. Now should I yield up your daughter to such wretches?

Mr. Haven [Scott’s brother-in-law] knows these statements are correct, for they have been taught in the quorum to which he belongs by the highest authority in the Church. He has told me that he does not believe in these teachings but he does not come out and oppose them; he thinks that it will all come out right. But we think God never has nor never will sanction such proceedings, for we believe he has not changed; he says “I am God I change not.” These things we can not believe, and it is by Sarah’s repeated request thatI write this letter.

Those who can not swallow down these things and came out and opposed the doctrine publicly, have been cut off from the Church without any lawful process whatever. They were not notified to trial neither were they allowed the privilege of being present to defend themselves; neither was any one permitted to speak on their behalf. They did not know who was their judge or jury until it was all over and they delivered over to all the buffetings of Satan; although they lived only a few rods from the council room. These are some of their names: William Law, one of the first Presidency; Wilson Law, brigadier general; Austin Coles, president of the High Council; and Elder Blakesly, who has been the means of bringing upwards of one thousand members into the Church. He has been through nearly all the states in the Union, the Canadas, and England preaching the Gospel. Now look at the great sins they have committed, the Laws’ un-Christian-like conduct—Blakesly and others, Apostasy. If it is apostasy to oppose such doctrines and proceedings as I have just mentioned (which are only a few of the enormities taught and practised here), then we hope and pray that all the Church may apostatize.

After they had been thus shamefully treated and published to the world they went and bought a printing press determined to defend themselves against such unhallowed abuse. It cost them six hundred dollars. [They] commenced their paper, but Joseph and his clan could not bear the truth to come out; so after the first number came out Joseph called his Sanhedrin together; tried the press; condemned it as a nuisance and ordered the city marshal to take three hundred armed men and go and burn the press, and if any offered resistance, to rip them from the guts to the gizzard. These are his own words. They went and burnt the press, papers, and household furniture. The Laws, Fosters, Coles, Hickbies [Higbees], and others have had to leave the place to save their lives. Those who have been thus unlawfully cut off have called a conference; protested against these things; and reorganized the Church. William Law is chosen President; Charles Ivans [Ivins], bishop, with the other necessary officers. The Reformed Church believed that Joseph has transgressed in his priestly capacity and has given himself over to serve the devil, and his own lusts.

We will endeavor to send you a paper and you can then judge for yourselves. They had only commenced publishing the dark deeds of Nauvoo. A hundredth part has not been told yet. The people of the state will not suffer such things any longer. But I am sorry that the innocent must suffer with the guilty. I believe there are hundreds of honest hearted souls in Nauvoo, but none of them I think have forgotten what they were once taught: that cursed is he that putteth his trust in man. It would offend some of them more to speak irreverently of Joseph, than it would of God himself. Joseph says that he is a God to this generation, and I suppose they believe it. Any one needs a throat like an open sepulchre to swallow down all that is taught here. There was an elder once wrote in confidence to a friend in England; told him the state of the Church here, and they showed it to some of the elders there, and they wrote back to the heads of the Church, and it caused him a great deal of trouble. I think if you would once come here, you would not put so much confidence in all who go by the name of Mormons. ( Letter of Sarah and Isaac Scott to Sarah’s parents Jacob and Sarah Warnock, June 16, 1844, quoted in The Jacob and Sarah Warnock Scott Family, 1779-1910, by James Wesley Scott, June 2002, 59-60, Online here, Accessed January 15, 2015, emphasis ours).

FAIRMORMON also claims, via Madsen:

It was later realized that Illinois law would probably support the practice of Latter-day Saint plural marriage, so they changed the wording of the law

Even Joseph’s near-contemporaries would later realize that Illinois law would probably support the practice of Latter-day Saint plural marriage, perhaps even if done so openly.

Recognizing the breadth of [the] state constitutional provision [for religious freedom] as it stood in 1844, Illinois adopted a new constitution in 1869 that introduced a number of changes in the clause governing religious liberty, including wording specifically intended to give the state authority to prohibit Mormon polygamy or other religiously-based practices that might be deemed offensive. Comments by certain delegates to the 1869 Illinois Constitutional Convention show that [sic] there was a concern that the Mormon practice of plural marriage could be protected under the state constitution….

Severeal [sic] delegates expressed support for changes in the wording of the Illinois constitution in order to protect the state from what they viewed as extreme forms of worship, including Mormon polygamy. These delegates feared that the more liberal wording of the earlier constitution (in force in Joseph’s day) might actually protected practices such as polygamy. One such delegate was Thomas J. Turner…[who] stated:”…Mormonism is a form of religion ‘grant it, a false religion’ nevertheless, it claims to be the true Christian religion…[d]o we desire that the Mormons shall return to our State, and bring with them polygamy?” (FAIRMORMON, op. cited).

We find this claim very disingenuous. Turner’s complete testimony reads,

Mr. TURNER. Mr. President: This section secures the people of the State, in the free exercise of their religious professions and worship, without discrimination. It also provides that liberty of conscience shall not excuse acts of licentiousness or practices inconsistent with the peace, safety and morality of the State. The Pagan world is full of religion. There is the religion of Buddha, for instance, and there are various other forms of religion in the world, besides Christianity, which is the religion of the people of the United States. Mormonism is a form of religion—grant it, a false religion—nevertheless, it claims to be the true Christian religion.

Religion, true or false, has existed in the world ever since the dawn of history. And, sir, the Mormon sect is today a religious sect. A Christian sect we do not believe it to be, but a religious sect. Do we desire that the Mormons shall return to our State, and bring with them polygamy?

It is but a short time since a fanatical sect sprung up in New Jersey, claiming that they were sanctified—that men and women had become purified to such an extent that they could walk the streets naked, in open day. They claimed to be so pure, that to them all things were pure. Would we permit such exhibitions as these in the name of religion? And yet this was a religion, and claimed to be the true Christian religion.

I am very much gratified, indeed, that the committee has incorporated into this article this clause. Men assume all kinds of belief, and adopt all kinds of practices, in the name of religion, and we should, by all means, provide in this Constitution that men and women shall not, in the name of religion, rush into licentiousness, which will deprave and corrupt the morale of the community.

Our institutions and Constitutions are based upon and grow out of the pure principles of the Christian religion, and it is our duty to protect the purity and stability of our Christian liberty against Pagan idolatry and irreligious licentionsness. (Debates and Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Illinois, Convened at the City of Springfield, Tuesday, December 13, 1869, Vol. II, Springfield, E. L. Merritt & Brothers, 1870, 1560, Online here, Accessed November 20, 2014, added emphasis).

Professor Michael P. Seng writes,

Supporters of the limitation on freedom of conscience argued that groups like the Mormons should not be permitted to come to Illinois to practice polygamy and other licentiousness. Delegates debated at length whether religion meant only the “Christian” religion and whether non-Christian religions were to be included and, if so, how the term “religion” was to be defined. The convention defeated a proposal to protect all opinion, not merely “religious” opinion. (Freedom of Speech, Press and Assembly, and Freedom of Religion Under the Illinois Constitution, Loyola University Chicago Law Journal, Vol. 21, Issue 1, Fall 1989, 100).

The statutes read,

1818: Article VIII:3. That all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; that no man can of right be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry against his consent; that no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience; and that no preference shall ever be given by law to any religious establishments or modes of worship. (Online here, Accessed November 20, 2014).

1870: Article I:3. The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination shall for-ever be guaranteed; and no person shall be denied any civil or political right, privilege or capacity on account of his religious opinions; but the liberty of conscience hereby secured shall not be construed to dispense with oaths or affirmations, excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify practices inconsistent with the peace or safety of the State. No person shall be required to attend or support any ministry or place of worship against his consent, nor shall any preference be given by law to any religious denomination or mode of worship.(Online here, Accessed November 20, 2014).

Notice that they did not put the word “polygamy” after the word “licentiousness” as Mr. Mcdowell wanted done. They also did not strike the word “religious” before the word “opinion”. Even Turner voted not to do this. Though Mormon polygamy was used as an example, it does not mean that anyone could have gotten away with practicing it prior to the 1870 constitution. If an objection was made by Smith on the grounds of conscience, it would have gone to the Supreme Court of Illinois and Smith would have been charged under the Bigamy Laws as in the Reynolds case which the New York Times observed in 1879 “merely extended over the Territories the common law in relation to bigamy which exists in every State of the Union”. (New York Times, January 8, 1879, 4).

It eventually went to the Supreme Court and polygamy was banned by the Federal Government. Not one other State (except Utah for a time) allowed the practice of polygamy or bigamy under Constitutions similar to the one from 1818 Illinois. Though polygamy was used as an example by Turner, so were other religious practices that were deemed outlandish or licentious. (Like running around naked) To claim that Illinois would have “probably” supported the practice of polygamy under the 1818 Illinois Constitution is simply wishful thinking, not to mention foolish and disingenuous.

And now this… (preview)

Joseph Smith & The Lawrence Estate

Much ado has been made by FAIRMORMON (including Brian Hales) about how Joseph Smith didn’t mismanage the Lawrence Estate as he was accused of doing by William Law. Hales writes:

A second criticism regarding Joseph Smith and the Lawrence sisters stems from his purported mismanagement of the estate with accusations that he stole money from it. These allegations arise from an 1887 statement made by William Law when interviewed by exposé author Wilhelm Wyl:

Soon after my arrival in Nauvoo the two Lawrence girls came to the holy city, two very young girls, 15 to 17 years of age. They had been converted in Canada, were orphans and worth about $8000 in English gold. Joseph got to be appointed their guardian, probably with the help of Dr. Bennett. He naturally put the gold in his pocket and had the girls sealed to him. … After Joseph’s death, A. W. Babbitt became guardian of the two girls. He asked Emma for a settlement about the $8000. Emma said she had nothing to do with her husband’s debts. Now Babbitt asked for the books and she gave them to him. Babbitt found that Joseph had counted an expense of about $3000 for board and clothing of the girls. Now Babbitt wanted the $5000 that was to be paid Babbitt, who was a straight, good, honest, sincere man, set about to find out property to pay the $5000 with. He could find none.

LDS attorney and researcher Gordon Madsen reviewed surrounding documents and concluded that most of Law’s claims are “one-hundred eighty degrees off.”

Further research demonstrates the propriety of the Prophet’s financial decisions as guardian. The inheritance was not “$8000 in English gold,” but a farm in Lima, Illinois, possibly worth $1000, and a promissory note for $3000, if repaid in full.

Even at its most generous valuation, it was half of Law’s claimed value. Neither did the Prophet enrich himself by taking money from the estate. Gordon Madsen wrote: “Unlike Josiah Butterfield, who billed the [Lawrence] estate for boarding Edward’s [Lawrence] three youngest children, Joseph made no claim against the estate for boarding or supporting Sarah and Maria. . . . Furthermore, Joseph was entitled by statute to make a claim of 6 percent as compensation for acting as the children’s guardian, but he never did.”

Madsen concludes: “Contrary to the negative picture painted by the [William] Law-Wyl interview, the record shows that he [Joseph Smith] performed his duty honorably.”

Madsen and Hales could not be more wrong. (Imagine that!) When I (Johnny) researched this, I was astounded that a lawyer would make the gaffes that Madsen did in reaching his conclusion. And yes, William Law did make a mistake (forty years later) recalling the value of the estate. He was most likely recalling the amount of the surety bond, which was about double the value of the estate, and they (Law and Hyrum Smith, had to sign an affidavit that they were worth more than $8000).

Madsen claims that Smith did not “enrich himself” directly from the Estate, but my research indicates that he did, by using it as collateral for multiple investments, and selling off assets and using the money to purchase land, a newspaper and a steamboat. Thing is, it dissolved the estate, and it became tied up in Smith’s purchase of the Times and Seasons. And Smith never reported to Justice of the Peace Miller or the probate court that he had invested the entire estate (what was left of it) in his church newspaper.

But Smith didn’t stop there and also used it as collateral for the purchase of the steamboat, “Maid of Iowa”. Madsen’s conclusions reek of a predetermined outcome in Smith’s favor. Unfortunately this will only be one example, as I am submitting this research to a historical journal for publication.

In the article by Gordon Madsen that Hales quotes from he states:

Photo 4 lists, among the [Lawrence] estate’s assets, “house in Lima & a Farm” valued at $1,000. On April 1, 1842, Joseph sold the farm, but not the home to William Marks for $1,150, a profit to the estate. The deed was signed and acknowledged on April 1, 1842, but was not filed with the county recorder until October 17, 1853—eleven years later. This transaction is not listed in Photos 5–6. The reconstituted Butterfield household lived in the home until sometime in 1842, when they moved to Nauvoo. There is no record that Joseph sold, rented or otherwise disposed of the Lima home.

The deed was never filed in Smith’s lifetime? Why not? Perhaps because it was not a profit to the estate, because Smith doesn’t list it in his 1843 accounting. So what happened? One only has to read Smith’s 1842 journal to figure it out. The day after Smith sold the Lima Farm he made a payment on another farm, his own! Here is the entry from Smith’s journal:

1 April 1842 • Friday
April1 Friday 1 at the General Business office
2 April 1842 • Saturday
Saturday 2 Paid Hugh Rhodes $1150. for a Farm
3 April 1842 • Sunday
Sunday 3 [2 lines blank]
4 April 1842 • Monday
Monday 4 Transacted business at his house with Josiah Butterfie[l]d concerning the Lawrence estates. & closed a Settlement with Wm Marks in the counting Room.

At the Joseph Smith Papers they note concerning the payment to Hugh Rhodes:

Possibly the final payment for 153½ acres of land in the northeast quarter of Section 8 and northwest quarter of Section 9 within Township 6 North, Range 8 West, that JS contracted to buy from Erie Rhodes on 16 September 1841 for $3,000. Hugh Rhodes was the administrator for the estate of Erie Rhodes, who died October 1841. (Hancock Co., IL, Bonds and Mortgages, vol. 1, pp. 228–229, microfilm 954,776, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL; Hancock Co., IL, Probate Record, vol. A, p. 119, microfilm 954,481, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL.)

So Joseph Smith sold the Lima farmland for $1150 and made a payment on his own farm with the money. He did not report the transaction (the selling of the farm) to the Justice, nor did he even bother to record the deed (the selling of the property). At the Church History Library there is a document titled “Erie Rhodes Bond to Joseph Smith, 1841 September 16”. The description reads:

Bond for sale of land in Hancock County. Verso includes signature of Joseph Smith and assignments of the bond to the trustee in trust of the Church and then to William Clayton. Court file date of 19 October 1843.

Here is the verso of the document:

Erie Rhodes bond to Joseph Smith, 1841, September 16

The circled text reads:

Received Nauvoo April 2, 1842

on the within bond eleven hundred & twelve dollars & fifteen cents in full for said bond Last note mentioned within not being given up but paid,

HJ Rhodes

I am incredulous that Madsen would write that Smith’s selling of the Lima farmland was a profit to the Lawrence estate when there is no documentation that Smith ever reported the sale to Justice Miller. As Madsen notes, Smith wrote down that there was a farm and the value of it:

But when Joseph voluntarily submitted an accounting of the Lawrence Estate and it’s assets for Judge there was nothing mentioned about selling the farm, or buying the Times and Seasons, using the estate for collateral. Madsen writes,

Without being ordered to do so, Joseph rendered an accounting to the court on June 3, 1843, which showed receipts, expenses, and status of the estate to that date. Photo 5 shows a list of expenses for June 1841-June 1842. The first three items show efforts to collect the Canadian notes. The first item establishes that “W.& W. Law” collected a note for $705, for which they received a fee of $14.00. “W. & W. Law” were William Law and his brother Wilson. The second item is a note from a J. Campbell for $500.00 on which no interest could be collected for one year. Joseph therefore took an expense of $30.00. A corroborating receipt reads: “Rec’d. of Joseph Smith a note on J. Campbell of upper Canada for five hundred dollars payable next July, without interest, which when collected we promise to pay to said Joseph Smith or order Nauvoo Ill. Jan. 24th, 1842. W & W. Law.”

The third item is a $597.50 note also collected by the Laws (Photo 5). A second receipt likewise confirms that the Law brothers were assigned to collect this note: “Received of Wilson Law Four Hundred and fifty Dollars in part payment of monies collected by said Wilson Law in Canada for which I have claim on said Law. Joseph Smith.”

This particular receipt apparently refers to item 3, since items 1 through 3 are the only debts in Photo 5 connected to “W & W Law,” and would suggest that, of the original $597.50, $450.00 had been collected and paid to Joseph, leaving $147.50 still due. Those entries also indicate that Edward Lawrence’s brother John did not act as collector in Canada after all. As discussed below, the remaining $147.50 of this debt was likely never collected in full. The document trail concerning the Canadian collections stops with this itemized list in Photo 5.

However, as Photo 6 shows, Joseph increased the value of the estate annually at the statutorily required rate of 6 percent and paid Margaret Lawrence Butterfield her share as though he had possession and use of all the Lawrence assets.

The fourth item in Photo 5 shows that Joseph paid a fee pursuant to an order of Judge Miller, and item 5 is the payment of Josiah Butterfield’s bill. The next item documents Joseph’s payment to Margaret of her annual statutory interest. The remaining entries are for items of clothing from Joseph’s Nauvoo store for all of the Law rence children except daughter Margaret, who was three in 1843.

Because Nelson appears on this list, he was presumably living in or near Nauvoo. Photo 6 further details Joseph’s expenses in behalf of the Lawrence children, as well as his summary of the fluctuations in the estate for the previous two years (1841–43). The sum of $3,831.54 was the estate’s value when Joseph Smith was appointed guardian. Those entries read:

1841 To Recei[p]t filed in the papers to this amount $3,831.54
To the interest for one year 229.89

$4,061.43

As by Guardian acct. for 1841 404.62

In the hands of the Guardian $3,656.81

June 3 Interest for 1842 to 18 June 1843 219.40¾

1843 In the hands of the Guardian $3,876.21¾

1843
June 3 By Guardians account herein in 85.32

In the hands of the Guardian $3,790.89¾

These numbers show how a guardian rendered an accounting to the probate court. The estate is enlarged by 6 percent (the legal rate of interest) at the beginning of each year ($229.89 is 6 percent of $3,831.54; $219.40¾ is 6 percent of $3,656.81). The expenses (the sums underlined) are then deducted, and the net remaining value of the estate is then used to compute the chargeable interest or enlargement for the following year. Joseph charged himself 6 percent of the full stated value of the estate, even though its assets (the Canadian notes, originally totaling $1,784) had not been fully collected and likely never were.

With this document, which was endorsed by Justice Miller, Joseph could claim that he had control of a 4,000 estate. In the 1843 accounting, Smith doesn’t itemize the assets of the estate, we see no sale of land or that the estate was used to buy a newspaper, the Times and Seasons. Madsen writes:

The Times and Seasons, the Church’s official newspaper in Nauvoo, was initially a monthly periodical. It first appeared in November 1839 published by Don Carlos Smith, Joseph’s youngest brother, and Ebenezer Robinson, both of whom had learned the printing business under Oliver Cowdery in the Church’s printing office at Kirtland. Don Carlos died August 7, 1841, at age twenty-five, and Robinson continued printing until February 4, 1842. In addition to the Times and Seasons Robinson also produced the Nauvoo edition of the Book of Mormon. Then Willard Richards, acting as Joseph’s agent, contracted to purchase the printing establishment from Robinson for $6,600. John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff were appointed the new editors, under Joseph’s supervision; and over the ensuing months, or perhaps years, Smith paid Robinson in full.

While the paper trail is incomplete, Smith invested whatever Lawrence estate funds he ultimately obtained, together with some of his own capital, to finally pay the $6,600.00 as discussed below. He treated the printing operation as the corpus (body) of the Lawrence estate. By December of 1842, Smith signed a formal five-year lease with Taylor and Woodruff for the printing establishment including the building in which it was housed. Since the estate’s value was $3,790 in June 1843, the difference of $2,810 to make up the $6,600 purchase price of the print shop came from Joseph’s personal assets.

There simply is no paper trail. There is no accounting to the court of this transaction, or that the corpus of the Lawrence Estate was used to purchase Joseph’s newspaper! It seems that Madsen simply ignored the implications of all this evidence. He even writes:

James Kent’s influential Commentaries on American Law (1844 edition), notes:

The guardian’s trust is one of obligation and duty, and not of speculation and profit. He cannot reap any benefit from the use of the ward’s money. He cannot act for his own benefit in any contract, or purchase, or sale, as to the subject of the trust. If he settles a debt upon beneficial terms, or purchases it at a discount, the advantage is to accrue entirely to the infant’s benefit. He is liable to an action of account at common law, by the infant, after he comes of age; and the infant, while under age, may, by his next friend [a relative who is of legal age], call the guardian to account by a bill in chancery. . . . Every general guardian, whether testamentary or appointed, is bound to keep safely the real and personal estate of his ward, and to account for the personal estate, and the issues and profits of the real estate, and if he make or suffers any waste, sale, or destruction of the inheritance, he is liable to be removed, and to answer in treble damages.

Kent then treats the general statutory prohibition against selling any of the ward’s real property, unless authorized by the court and concludes:

And if the guardian puts the ward’s money in trade, the ward will be equally entitled to elect to take the profits of the trade, or the principal, with compound interest, to meet those profits when the guardian will not disclose them. So, if he neglects to put the ward’s money at interest, but negligently, and for an unreasonable time, suffers it to lie idle, or mingles it with his own, the court will charge him with simple interest, and in cases of gross delinquency, with compound interest.

These principles are understood to be well established in the English equity system, and they apply to trustees of every kind; and the principal authorities upon which they rest were collected and reviewed in the chancery decisions of New York, to which it will be sufficient to refer, as they have recognized the same doctrine. Those doctrines, with some exceptions, pervade the jurisprudence of the United States.

In short, guardians were prohibited from profiting from the wards’ estates and could be removed and/or slapped with treble damages if they did. They were also enjoined from leaving the estate idle or intermingling it with their own unproductive assets, a lack of action for which they would also be charged with simple or compound interest or the profits attributable to the estate assets. In other words, the sanctions against guardians’ self-enrichment or idleness were removal and/or imposition of interest—simple, compound, or treble— depending on the severity of the misconduct or neglect. Those sums would be collected from the bonds posted by the guardians and their sureties at the times of their appointment to serve. (added emphasis)

There is no evidence that Smith had permission of the court to sell the Lawrence farm, or to invest in a newspaper that was worth about half of what he paid for it. There is much more to this story, and it was the Lawrence children (and Margaret Lawrence) who suffered because of Smith’s mismanagement of their estate.

[148] Temple Lot, Lorenzo Snow, op. cited, 126.

[149] “What is Mormon Doctrine?”, FAIRMORMON, PDF, online here, accessed November 5, 2014. Ash references J. Reuben Clark, Jr., “When are the Writings or Sermons of Church Leaders Entitled to the Claim of Scripture?” speech given at BYU, July 7, 1954, published in the Church News, July 31, 1954; reprinted in Dialogue, 12:2, p. 68–69; Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1955), 3:203; John A. Tvedtnes, “The Nature of Prophets and Prophecy.” (Unpublished, 1999); Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christian? (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1992), 15.

We must emphasize here that for Hales’ interpretation of Joseph Smith’s theology to work, it must be consistent with itself. Claiming “line upon line” does not work if later “revelations” contradict former ones. This was David Whitmer’s assertion in the 1880’s, for which he makes a good case in “An Address To All Believers In Christ,” Online here, Accessed December 5, 2014. As Michael R. Ash has written for FAIRMORMON in the Essay cited above:

…the Prophet could bring forth new doctrine, but “when he does, [he] will declare it as revelation from God,” after which it will be sustained by the body of Church. … Until such doctrines or opinions are sustained by vote in conference, however, they are “neither binding nor the official doctrine of the Church.(op. cited, emphasis ours)

Critics have always affirmed that doctrines like Adam-God, though not brought before the body of the Church for a vote, were indeed “revelations” as they were proclaimed so by Mormon “prophets”. The same is true with polygamy. Though it might have been declared a “revelation” by Joseph in private, he did not have the right to claim it was binding upon individuals without going through the proper steps revealed in Mormon scripture and as was done by Joseph over and over again.

This is the problem that Lorenzo Snow had, and that he would not admit under oath. He [Joseph] claimed that it was binding upon individuals immediately (as they heard it) and even threatened some with church discipline if they did not obey him. As Apologist Ash writes:

How can we know if teachings, which have not been voted upon, are true? J. Reuben Clark explains that when “we, ourselves, are ‘moved by the Holy Ghost,’” then we know that the speakers are teaching true doctrine. “In a way, this completely shifts the responsibility from them to us to determine when they so speak.” It is likely that the Lord has allowed (and will continue to allow) his servants to make mistakes—it’s all part of progression and the growing process. We are not forced to accept teachings with which we disagree. We’re supposed to receive confirmation from the spirit if what is taught is the doctrine of God, and of course we’re the one who put ourselves in jeopardy if we fail to accept things which will bless us. (ibid.)

With polygamy, some claimed to have received confirmation from the “Holy Ghost”, and some did not. The same is true with doctrines like Adam-God. Even though a “prophet” may claim that it is a “revelation” from God, according to Mormon “Authorities” above, it cannot be binding upon anyone until they present it to the Church. If this truly was a revelation from God, Joseph should have obeyed Church Law in how he presented it. The fact that he had to lie about it to so many and command many to break already binding scripture to obey him throws doubt on Smith’s motives.

John Taylor’s house, Nauvoo, Illinois.

Why have safeguards in place if they can be ignored at will by the “prophet” who put them there—or subsequent “prophets”? Just like with Lorenzo Snow’s Testimony, Mormon Apologists like Brian Hales and those at FAIRMORMON have not satisfactorily addressed this question. For example, FAIRMORMON writes in defense of Joseph’s constant lying about polygamy:

This is simply silly stuff, dear reader. It’s a fantasy. What is the difference between a carefully crafted lie from a lie? So, because Joseph broke the law in secret, he is innocent and that is legal to do? If someone commits murder, they are also innocent until proven guilty. But what if they actually committed the murder, but there was not enough evidence to convict them? Are they still “innocent”? What if they had really good lawyers like O. J. Simpson, who was convicted in a Civil Court? Would OJ be lying when he said before he was convicted in Civil Court that he was not guilty of murder? He could simply carefully craft his answer and say he was not guilty of being convicted of murder. Is that ok? Not according to Mormon Scriptures and the teachings of its “prophets”.

Are we speaking of some Joe-schmoe who has no reason to care if he is truly guilty or innocent, or are we speaking of a supposed prophet of God?

Joseph Smith was committing adultery with all of his wives (except Emma) according to Illinois State Law because bigamy and polygamy were illegal. Joseph was also committing bigamy, which had a much lower standard of proof. The statute reads:

If any person or persons within this State, being married, or who shall hereafter marry, do at any time marry any person or persons, the former husband or wife being alive, the person so offending shall, on conviction thereof, be punished by a fine, not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisoned in the penitentiary, not exceeding two years. It shall not be necessary to prove either of the said marriages by the register or certificate threreof, or other record evidence; but the same may be proved by such evidence as is admissible to prove a marriage in other cases… (Revised Laws of the State of Illinois, op. cited.)

See if you can follow Hales logic here. He writes:

Despite criticisms charging that Joseph lied when denying polygamy, the fact is that under Illinois statute, he could truthfully answer negatively because state laws prevented any person from entering into more than one marriage. A second (or third or forth) marriage could not be certified with any legal document. Hence practicing legal polygamy was an impossibility. The historical record supports that Joseph Smith sought to keep the commandments including “Thou shalt not lie” (D&C 42:21). Antagonists have exaggerated and embellished the denials of polygamy issued by Joseph Smith in order to disparage him. However, their extreme interpretations do not adequately portray the challenges facing the Nauvoo Saints, the Prophet’s revelations, or the behaviors of Church members.

The 1827 Illinois State anti-bigamy law reads: “All marriages, where either of the parties had a former husband or wife living at the time of solemnizing the last marriage, shall be void”[.]

In other words, any person with a legal spouse could not be married to another according to state statute. Any subsequent ceremonies would be “void” from a civil perspective. A man or woman could never be legally married to two spouses. Consequently, legally speaking it was impossible for Joseph Smith or any other Nauvoo pluralist to truthfully answer “yes” to the question: “Do you have more than one wife?” (Hales, “Joseph Smith’s Polygamy Denials,” Online here, Accessed December 1, 2014).

This argument by Hales doesn’t really make much sense. He is quoting from the Divorce act, not the anti-bigamy law. This argument is based upon semantics or word play, not on whether by the evidence we have, whether Joseph Smith was truly guilty of the charges or not. The argument is basically—just because he didn’t get caught, he wasn’t really committing adultery. We find such arguments truly offensive and disingenuous.

Hales also claims,

One of the more bothersome aspects of Joseph Smith’s polygamy are the public denials that seem to contradict private practices. In reality, Joseph Smith could truthfully deny John C. Bennett’s debaucheries because Bennett was simply continuing his pre-Nauvoo adulterous behavior when he arrive [sic] with the Saints. Evidence show [sic] he was never a polygamy insider and only heard rumors he recruited in his seductions.

Still, later denials were couched in language that tried to avoid overt lying (see D&C 42:21 [“Thou shalt not lie; he that lieth and will not repent shall be cast out.”]). Danel Bachman observed: ‘Most of these denials stressed semantical and theological technicalities. That is, the language of the defense was carefully chosen to disavow practices that did not accurately represent Church doctrines.” Todd Compton concurred: “Faced with the necessity of keeping polygamy secret, the Mormon authorities generally chose to disavow the practice, sometimes using language with coded double meanings.” Lawrence Foster wrote: “Smith himself most characteristically made indirect denials of polygamy in which he said simply that such statements were too ridiculous to be believed. But he always carefully refrained from saying that such statements weren’t true.” Fawn Brodie agreed: “The denials of polygamy uttered by the Mormon leaders between 1835 and 1852, when it was finally admitted, are a remarkable series of evasions and circumlocutions involving all sorts of verbal gymnastics.”

Many of the disavowals of the practice of polygamy were sometimes based upon doctrinal hair-splitting that contrasted gentile “polygamy” with celestial plural marriage. John L. Brook concluded: “A deceptive code developed, allowing the leadership to condemn ‘polygamy, in the ordinary and Asiatic sense of the term,’ while defending ‘the Holy order of celestial marriage,’ ‘the true and divine order,’ and the ‘new and everlasting covenant,’” Others were carefully worded statements like the Prophet’s comments in May of 1844: “What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one.”

Scriptural examples exist where deception was permitted or required in order to serve God’s purposes. Abraham introduced his wife Sarah as his “sister” to King Abimelech, not disclosing she was his wife (Genesis 20:1-7), a tactic he had implemented earlier in Egypt:

And it came to pass when I was come near to enter into Egypt, the Lord said unto me: Behold, Sarai, thy wife, is a very fair woman to look upon; Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see her, they will say–She is his wife; and they will kill you, but they will save her alive; therefore see that ye do on this wise: Let her say unto the Egyptians, she is thy sister, and thy soul shall live. And it came to pass that I, Abraham, told Sarai, my wife, all that the Lord had said unto me–Therefore say unto them, I pray thee, thou art my sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake, and my soul shall live because of thee. (Abr. 2:22-25; see also Genesis 12:10-20.)

LDS polygamists who used subterfuge to hide compliance with divine mandates undoubtedly felt inner conflict that was not completely assuaged by the belief that their deceptions were designed to allow them to obey God’s laws. Despite their periodic successes to secretly comply with the need for plurality, few participants and onlookers would argue that the strategy was very effective. However, the alternatives for the Nauvoo polygamists were probably worse. Open admission would have brought an onslaught of prosecutions and perhaps even military intervention to quell resistance to court actions, if such were required. (ibid.)

Yet Hales’ source (Brook) does not quote Joseph Smith in full context. Smith said:

What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one. I am the same man, and as innocent as I was fourteen years ago; and I can prove them all perjurers. (Joseph Smith, History of the Church, Vol. 6, 411, added emphasis)

Wilford Woodruff’s house, Nauvoo, Illinois.

Joseph absolutely was not “innocent”. How could Joseph Smith prove William Law a perjurer, when Law was telling the truth that Smith had more than one wife and was committing adultery under Illinois law? And how does committing sin to avoid the penalties of it, justify it? This is simply an apologist tactic to try and justify lying to cover up what was a clear violation of church law and binding scripture. It is hard to even fathom how Brian Hales can justify this argument given Mormonism’s clear official teachings on lying. As we read in Gospel Principles:

Lying is intentionally deceiving others. Bearing false witness is one form of lying. The Lord gave this commandment to the children of Israel: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” (Exodus 20:16). Jesus also taught this when He was on earth (see Matthew 19:18). There are many other forms of lying. When we speak untruths, we are guilty of lying. We can also intentionally deceive others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest.

The Lord is not pleased with such dishonesty, and we will have to account for our lies. Satan would have us believe it is all right to lie. He says, “Yea, lie a little; … there is no harm in this” (2 Nephi 28:8). Satan encourages us to justify our lies to ourselves. Honest people will recognize Satan’s temptations and will speak the whole truth, even if it seems to be to their disadvantage.

………

People use many excuses for being dishonest. People lie to protect themselves and to have others think well of them. Some excuse themselves for stealing, thinking they deserve what they took, intend to return it, or need it more than the owner. Some cheat to get better grades in school or because “everyone else does it” or to get even.

These excuses and many more are given as reasons for dishonesty. To the Lord, there are no acceptable reasons. When we excuse ourselves, we cheat ourselves and the Spirit of God ceases to be with us. We become more and more unrighteous. (Gospel Principles, (2011), 179–83, added emphasis).

Hales argument throws out the “spirit” of the law, and contradicts established Mormon teachings. Why would he do that? The answer is obvious. What did Jesus and his Apostles say about that? This is all about intent. Joseph’s intent was to purposefully violate the law that stated he could not be married to more than one wife at the same time. He then purposefully lied about it to protect himself and cover up what others like his brother William were doing. Hales claims that because he may have found a loophole in the law that Joseph was innocent of doing what he was in reality doing! This is simply disingenuous, irrational apologetics. What does it say about Brian Hales that he would also lie about this (that God justifies it)? What does it say about Mr. Hales that in all his volumes about Joseph Smith’s Polygamy and his many, many articles he never reveals to his readers William Smith the Apostle (and brother of the prophet’s) own practice of Spiritual Wifeism!

But what did Joseph Smith say in his denial? He said that,

This new holy prophet [William Law] has gone to Carthage and swore that I had told him that I was guilty of adultery. This spiritual wifeism! Why, a man dares not speak or wink, for fear of being accused of this.

Smith was denying he told Law he was practicing “spiritual wifeism” and therefore committing adultery. Yet, we know that Smith made a proposal to Law’s wife. He was practicing this very thing, as admitted by Emily Partridge:

Mrs. Durfee invited my sister Eliza and I to her house, to spend the afternoon. She introduced the subject of spiritual wives as they called it in those days. She wondered if there was any truth in the report we heard. I thought I could tell her something that would make her open her eyes if I chose, but I did not choose to, so I kept my own council and said nothing, but going home I felt impressed to tell Eliza. I knew she would not betray me. She felt very bad indeed for a short time, but it served to prepare her to receive the principles that were revealed to her

soon after….. I learned afterward that Mrs. D. was a friend to plurality and knew all about it…“ (Emily Partridge, Undated Statement, Ms d 2845 fd 1, CHL, added emphasis).

Durfee called it Spiritual Wifeism, which meant the same thing as “plurality”, or polygamy. They all called it that, and that is where Bennett got the term from. He also was a polygamy insider. He did not know about Joseph’s “eternal marriage” doctrine because Joseph did not begin teaching this until right about the time that Bennett left Nauvoo. (1842)

When Brian Hales mentions at various times that a source is questionable because they would not call it this, (Spiritual Wifeism) he is wrong every time. For example Hales claims:

[Alex] Beam quotes Don Carlos Smith as saying: “Any man who will teach and practice the doctrine of spiritual wifery will go to hell: I don’t care if it is my brother Joseph” (89). The quote is from a 1890 recollection from apostate Ebenezer Robinson and contradicts an account from Mary Ann West, who lived with Don Carlos’ wife Agnes after his August 7, 1841, death in Nauvoo. West recalled in 1892: “She [Agnes] told me herself she was [married to Joseph Smith]. . . . She said it was the wish of her husband Don Carlos that she should marry him [Joseph].” Either Beam’s research was inadequate to uncover this additional credible and pertinent evidence, or he knew of it and his biases prompted him to not include it. Regardless, “spiritual wifery” was not a term Joseph used to refer to plural marriage. (Hales, op. cited).

Yes it is a term that Joseph used, because we see above that he did so. So did Emily Partridge and Mrs. Durfee according to Partridge. She claimed that is what they called it in those days. Joseph Smith also spoke on his own “spiritual wife system” at a City Council meeting in Nauvoo where many referred to it in those terms. (See Note #212 and #46) So did John Taylor and Brigham Young and Joseph’s other apostles. So did Helen Kimball and the rest of the women and girls that Smith was involved with. The evidence that they all did so is overwhelming, yet Hales continues to irrationally deny it.

Hales claims to be familiar with all of these documents which is odd, because he claims that Joseph would not use the term. In the first few years after Joseph’s death, Brigham Young used this term to describe what subsequently became known as “plural” or “celestial” marriage. In 1845 Young addressed the “Saints” on Joseph’s “spiritual wife system” as he called it:

I would now call your attention to some of the saying[s] of the apostle Paul. I hope you will not stumble at them. Paul says, “nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman. neither the woman without the man, in the Lord, for as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the women, but all things of God.” The same Apostle also says, “The woman is the glory of the man.” Now brethren, these are Paul’s sayings, not Joseph Smith’s spiritual wife system sayings. And I would say, as no man can be perfect without the woman, so no woman can be perfect without a man to lead her, I tell you the truth as it is in the bosom of eternity; and I say so to every man upon the face of the earth; if he wishes to be saved he cannot be saved without a woman by his side. This is spiritual wifeism, that is, the doctrine of spiritual wives. (Richard S. Van Wagoner, Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, 78, April 6, 1845, added emphasis)

It was simply a ploy in 1842 to attribute the term to John C. Bennett, one that was used over and over again, even after Joseph’s death. In 1847 Young was still referring to Plurality of Wives as the “Spiritual Wife Doctrine”:

There is a general feeling in this church with regard to the doctrine called spiritual wife doctrine. The Lord is [-] in the last struggle between [-]. God the Father will put forth his hand and conquer a [-] of [-] a godly people. The wicked and rebellious will be swallowed by the earth and the substance will be given to the [-] the [-] of staying at home will carry thousands to the devil. I’ve done as I was told, there is not a man have twenty to twenty-five but I can get five wives to his one, who gave me that power, I got it by being faithful, there is not a girl[,] etc[.] [T]ake all you can get and see what you can do go a preach[ing]? that I may gather thousands they want to give? that [-] of [-] they must take what’s behind because they have gone? [-] have brought? it in when my train and his train filled the temple, they want to drive and command and tell me its the duty to be sealed to me and then they can come trailing behind you, its your works will follow you to glory or misery – let the word come now, I never was more willing to go than tonight. I’m going right into the world and deal unrightly. I cant do this because I have a wife the Lord will raise up a hold seed. is it right? wait, that’s enough for me when a man has proved himself. I say go it, the young elders out to preach 10 or 15 years. Erastus Snow you go strait ahead – he’s preached about sixteen years – every man ought to do that to receive confidence – a man who will believe that he will give wrong council – we have confidence if you do the best you can – and all [-] that sin will be washed out. I’m just a man to give council – I am as up and down as any man but don’t want to hurt any mans feelings, men forget God what they have denied what they have seen and heard and feel and now to be truth – he’ll never be [- -] the spirit of God, I could have told a company many things but they did not thing of it, I think of enough but don’t want to talk much – we’ll have a hall where we can receive and bestow the ordinances – this church has no business to do heal nor do anything of the kind – men go and do what they think I forget, but I don’t [-] judgment is mine etc and he’ll take his time for it – when the prophet says go and heal then its right – I never [- -] from my birth to this time but when the time comes I shall be on hand if we take a judicious course and be ready for judgment hell cant prevail against us, some would chastise worse, are self righteous, I believe the tares and wheat ought to grow together. I thank the Lord there is a devil, we cannot get on without one. (ibid., 230 18 June, 1847, Greasewood Creek, Wyoming).

In 1849 Young reminisced about when he first learned of the Spiritual Wife Doctrine, as it was then called:

Brother Lorenzo Snow made some remarks on the character of Jesus Christ, and asked for light. I replied: While on a mission to England, the following came forcibly to my mind—“As God was, so are we now; as he now is, so we shall be.” Our Father was once born of parents, having a father and mother the same as we have. He is the very eternal Father, because of the creation of God. He is the Savior of the world, the root of spirit and the offspring of flesh, the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh. The Father came down and begat him, the same as we do now, and Jesus was the only one. Moses was as God to the children of Israel, so was Joseph to us, and no man could love God without loving Joseph. In him centered the revelations of God. The Spirit went right to him and told him. The spiritual wife doctrine came upon me while abroad, in such a manner that I never forget. Particular things belong to one blood, but, after all, we are of one blood and one flesh, all the nations of the earth. Joseph said to me—“I command you to go and get another wife.” I felt as if the grave was better for me than anything, but I was filled with the Holy Ghost, so that my wife and Brother Kimball’s wife would upbraid me for lightness in those days. I could jump up and hollow. [holler] My blood was as clear as West India rum, and my flesh was clear. I said to Joseph, “Suppose I should apostatize, after taking another wife, would not my family be worse off?” Joseph answered—“There are certain bounds set to men, and if a man is faithful and pure to these bounds, God will take him out of the world; if he sees him falter, he will take him to himself. You are past these bounds, Brigham, and you have this consolation.” But I never had any fears of not being saved. Then I said to Joseph, I was ready to go ahead. He passed certain bounds before certain revelations were given. (Richard S. VanWagoner, The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, 321, February 16, 1849).

Notice that it is from Joseph that the teaching about infallibility of prophets first comes, that God would take such men to himself instead of allowing them to fall.

The comments about Spiritual Wives show that Joseph’s doctrine was referred to in the same way that John C. Bennett’s system was. It was not until much later that the appellation “Spiritual Wife Doctrine” fell out of favor with the “Saints”. This is what Smith was denying in public, [Spiritual Wifeism/Plurality of Wives] because he had gone to Law and admitted practicing it and tried to convert him to it as he did with his brother Hyrum. So saying that Joseph wasn’t lying about it in public is simply an irrational response. John Taylor also claimed the same thing, that it was Spiritual Wifeism in a speech he gave on June 27, 1854 (the ten year anniversary of Smith’s murder):

About this time John C. Bennett commenced some of his operations. He made use of some of those principles to corrupt to destroy not only himself but others. And as it was impossible almost together to come out and teach correct principles before the public in those days, some of those men got an inkling of these things and corrupted themselves—were full of <lasciviousness> and abomination, and corrupted their own bodies—and sought to destroy others. And they succeeded in great measure with many.

I could name the names of many: John C. Bennett, the two Higbees, and some others I could name [but] do not feel disposed [to do so]. But they had to be handled and brought before the high council and the council had to sit with closed doors because of the corruptions there manifested. It was pretty generally known the course that was pursued. Joseph came out strongly against John C. Bennett. He was naturally a corrupt man and given to it. The first trouble that ever we met with was in the city council. I was present [in] the city council of Nauvoo and Joseph wished an ordinances ordinance to be introduced there upon adulterous practices. This militated so much against John C. Bennett, he began to go away from that time and to be Joseph’s enemy. and He then began to publish and circulate. And finally those other men associated with them—there were [a] number of them, and some perhaps who didn’t know the iniquity of the parties. They asserted, “We believe Bennett’s stories about the ladies, that white veil, black veil story.” They joined with him and purchased a press; called it the Nauvoo Expositor

This press went to work to defame the character of the sisters of Nauvoo and of the brethren. And there were some of the most scandalous things published in it that was ever published in any paper, having a tendency to abominably defame, and destroy the character of the females of [the] City of Nauvoo. And at the same time there was not a more Zion, pure, and honorable community in the world, with some few exceptions, of course. There were some exceptions, but those were not the exceptions they made; they were the things they called honorable, that is, they loved corruption and hated correct principles. And that when they found they could not carry out their design, which was tending to destroy and contaminate society, then they went to work with all the power and venom of the devil to suffocate and berate and destroy and truly to obliterate, if possible, the Latter-day Saints. The thing was brought before the a city council.

Some people thought that that council acted improperly, that they did that which they had no right to do, namely, to pass a law to destroy the press—that is this Expositor. It may be well here perhaps for me to give an explanation of some matters in relation to that matter. It may be of use to elders abroad, as I was on that council and I believe made perhaps the first move towards the destruction of it. It may be well to give [the] reasons why here. But as it regards the legality of things is a question some people may not fully understand. We possessed in the city of Nauvoo a city charter, and there was embedded in it an article like this—it gave us power to declare what is a nuisance and to remove that nuisance. (John Taylor, June 27, 1854, unpublished discourse transcribed by LaJean Purcell Carruth, PhD, BYU Studies 50, no. 3 (2011), 43-44).

Taylor also added:

You recollect, many of you, that the brethren would complain of Joseph that he was rude, wild; he was not as sober, gracious, so dead-long-faced, and religious as he ought to be. [A] great many used to complain of him because he was cheerful. Yet Joseph took his own course. You recollect what he used to tell the people once? “Why,” says he, “brethren and sisters if I was as pure, as holy, and sanctified as you wish me to be (have you not got light enough in you to see?), I could not be in your society. The Lord would not let me stay here. If I was as pure and holy as you demand at my hands (do not you see?), I must be one with you. And, if you can produce a man or woman that has got more righteousness than I, that is [as] sanctified as you wish me to be, let me have that person here before you to show up his iniquity. (ibid, 39)

Joseph’s Spiritual Wifery marriages were considered illegal marriages under the law. If one commits bigamy, are they going to do so and then claim in defense to the Court that because the subsequent marriage is automatically voided by the State that one is not really committing bigamy? How silly this argument is. The bigamy law states (again):

If any person or persons within this State, being married, or who shall hereafter marry, do at any time marry any person or persons, the former husband or wife being alive, the person so offending shall, on conviction thereof, be punished by a fine, not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisoned in the penitentiary, not exceeding two years. It shall not be necessary to prove either of the said marriages by the register or certificate threreof, or other record evidence; but the same may be proved by such evidence as is admissible to prove a marriage in other cases. (Revised Laws of the State of Illinois, op. cited, added emphasis).

Just because the State does not recognize the subsequent “marriages” as legal ones, does not mean that Smith was not breaking the law and therefore lying. Bigamy is committed when a second marriage is performed and the first marriage is not terminated. We know that Smith was still having sex with Emma and that he did not consider that marriage terminated up to the time of his death. The statute was written in a way that it was discretionary as to what evidence would be admitted to prove a second marriage, which meant that although a lawful canonical marriage need not be proved, yet a marriage in fact, whether regular or not must be shown. Whether William Law could prove this or not we will never know. Thing is, it doesn’t matter.

It is claimed that Smith “solemnized” all his subsequent “marriages” after Emma, by the power of the Priesthood and performed a “marriage” ceremony for each one of them. If Hales wants to claim that this doesn’t count as solemnizing the marriages, then he must also claim this for the Fanny Alger marriage and therefore admit that Smith committed adultery with her. Either way, Joseph Smith is guilty of adultery, and this was admitted by John Taylor in 1845:

The law of the land and the rules of the church do not allow one man to have more than one wife alive at once, but if any man’s wife die, he has a right to marry another, and to be sealed to both for eternity; to the living and the dead! there is no law of God or man against it! This is all the spiritual wife system that ever was tolerated in the church, and they know it. (Times and Seasons, op. cited above).

This is the same line that Joseph told Hyrum in 1843, and then subsequently revealed to him that yes they were also practicing said “sealings” on earth. Notice though, that ten years later Taylor has proved himself to be a liar. Smith had more than one “wife”, because he declared in a “revelation” the words of the ceremony that was to be performed at those “marriages”:

Verily, thus saith the Lord unto my servant N. K. Whitney, the thing that my servant Joseph Smith has made known unto you and your family and which you have agreed upon is right in mine eyes and shall be rewarded upon your heads with honor and immortality and eternal life to all your house, both old and young because of the lineage of my Priesthood, saith the Lord, it shall be upon you and upon your children after you from generation to generation, by virtue of the holy promise which I now make unto you, saith the Lord.

These are the words which you shall pronounce upon my servant Joseph and your daughter S. A. Whitney. They shall take each other by the hand and you shall say,

You both mutually agree, calling them by name, to be each other’s companion so long as you both shall live, preserving yourselves for each other and from all others and also throughout eternity, reserving only those rights which have been given to my servant Joseph by revelation and commandment and by legal authority in times passed. If you both agree to covenant and do this, I then give you, S.[arah] A.[nn] Whitney, my daughter, to Joseph Smith, to be his wife, to observe all the rights between you both that belong to that condition. I do it in my own name and in the name of my wife, your mother, and in the name of my holy progenitors, by the right of birth which is of priesthood, vested in me by revelation and commandment and promise of the living God, obtained by the Holy Melchisedeck Gethrow [Jethro] and others of the Holy Fathers, commanding in the name of the Lord all those powers to concentrate in you and through you to your posterity forever. All these things I do in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that through this order he may be glorified and that through the power of anointing David may reign King over Israel, which shall hereafter be revealed. Let immortality and eternal life hereafter be sealed upon your heads forever and ever. (“Revelation” to Newel K. Whitney, July 27, 1842. The complete document with footnotes can be found in H. Michael Marquardt, The Joseph Smith Revelations: Text and Commentary (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1999), 315-16).

This blessing was given to Sarah Ann Whitney by Joseph Smith on March 23, 1843:

Oh Lord my God thou that dwellest on high bless I beseach of thee the one into whose hands this may fall and crown her with a diadem of glory in the Eternal worlds. Oh let it be sealed this day on high that she shall come forth in the first reserrection to recieve the same and verily it shall be so saith the Lord if she remain in the Everlasting covenant to the end as also all her Fathers house shall be saved in the same Eternal glory and if any of them shall wander from the foald of the Lord they shall not perish but shall return saith the Lord and be saived in and by repentance be crowned with all the fullness of the glory of the Everlasting Gospel. These promises I seal upon all of their heads in the name of Jesus Christ by the Law of the Holy Priesthood even so Amen. (“Blessing Given to Sarah Ann Whitney by Joseph Smith. Nauvoo City, March 23, 1843,” typescript of holograph, LDS CHL. See also “Illicit Intercourse,” Plural Marriage, and the Nauvoo Stake High Council, 1840—1844, by Gary James Bergera, The John Whitmer Historical Journal, Vol. 23, (2003): 60-61, added emphasis).

Sarah Ann Whitmey Blessing, March 23, 1843 (Courtesy of the Joseph Smith Papers)

The bottom line is, If Smith was guilty of bigamy, he was guilty of adultery. Unfortunately we will never know if William Law could have proved in court that Joseph was specifically guilty of adultery, because Smith was murdered before it could come to trial, and therefore Hales argument is a red herring. But this is what Mormon Apologists must resort to, to try and defend Smith’s adultery. As for Hales claiming that Smith was somehow innocent because of religious grounds, that is also a problem because in the Times and Seasons they declare that the rules of the Church did not allow it.

Yet this will not stop Hales from irrationally claiming that what Smith did was somehow legal under church law. It absolutely was not, so do not allow yourself to be snowed by his fallacious arguments.

[150] Temple Lot, Lorenzo Snow, op. cited, 126-27.

[151] Richard S. Van Wagoner, The Lectures on Faith: A Case Study in De-canonization, Dialogue, 1987, vol. 20, no. 3, 74.

[152]Wilford Woodruff, Temple Lot Suit, Ms d 1160, Box 1, fd 10, 24.

[153] ibid.

[154] ibid.

[155] ibid., 24-25.

[156] ibid., 25.

[157] ibid.

[158] ibid.

[159] ibid.

[160] Richard S. Van Wagoner et al, The Lectures on Faith: A Case Study in De-canonization, Dialogue, 1987, vol. 20, no. 3, 74.

[161] Runnells, Debunking Fair, op. cited.

[162] Temple Lot Case, 298-299 (RLDS Transcript). Christ gave this advice about those who don’t obey their own laws, and preach one thing but do something else:

Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law are experts in the Law of Moses. So obey everything they teach you, but don’t do as they do. After all, they say one thing and do something else. (Matthew 23:1-3)

[163] Wilford Woodruff, Temple Lot Case Transcript, op. cited, 44.

[164] It was chaos under Smith. The lying shows it, the problems with Emma show it, and the fact that Smith’s behavior inspired those like John C. Bennett and others to also be a law unto themselves shows it. This is not how the Church was to operate and Smith lost his life because of it, and even that was blamed on innocent men like William Law and William Marks.

[165] Van Wagoner, option cited, pg.

[166] Lorenzo Snow, Temple Lot Case Transcript, op. cited, 127.

[167] Orson F. Whitney, Conference Report, October 1906, 73, Online here, Accessed November 22, 2014).

[168] Theodore M. Burton, Conference Report, October 1964, 34, Online here, Accessed November 22, 2014).

[169] Brigham Henry Roberts, Conference Report, October 1909, 108, Online here, Accessed November 22, 2014.

[170] Lorenzo Snow , Journal of Discourses, Vol. 19, 345-46, April 21, 1878 Online here, Accessed November 30, 2014.

[171] Lorenzo Snow, Temple Lot Case Transcript, 127-128.

[172] Hales, “Rational Faiths”, op. cited.

[173] ibid.

[174] Lorenzo Snow, Temple Lot Case Transcript, 128.

[175] Lorenzo Snow, Journal of Discourses, op. cited, 345.

[176] In 1875 Wilford Woodruff declared to the Church in a General Conference Address:

I see in my mind’s eye forty thousand men in these mountains bearing the Holy Priesthood, foreordained to come forth in this dispensation. Then I see in the vision of my mind’s eye forty million devils gathered to make war against these forty thousand priests of the Lord. We have many Bishops and Elders who have but one wife. They are abundantly qualified to enter the higher law and take more, but their wives will not let them. Any man who will permit a woman to lead him and bind him down is but little account in the Church and Kingdom of God. The law of Patriarchal marriage and plurality of wives is a revelation and commandment of God to us, and we should obey it; but one says, ‘If you do, Judge McKean will be after you.’ What has given us a future in these Valleys of the Mountains? it is because we have obeyed this part of the Celestial Law of God. (Wilford Woodruff, Fourth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, History of His Life and Labors as Recorded in his Daily Journals, 489-490, Online here, Accessed December 2, 2014, added emphasis).

Yet only 15 years later Woodruff would be singing another tune, that Spiritual Wifeism was toxic to the Church and must be put aside.

This also clearly shows that the Patriararchal Order of Marriage is the “higher law” of Marriage, not Monogamous “time and all eternity sealings”. Hales claims that Monogamy is God’s true pattern, (The “zenith doctrine” restored through Joseph Smith was eternal marriage, not plural marriage.) but that is not what these men taught. Woodruff even calls it (taking more wives) “the higher law”. What does “zenith” mean? It means “high point”. Once again, Hales is mistaken.

Hales then tries to employ quotes by Brigham Young to support this. Hales writes:

President Brigham Young acknowledged that monogamy could be the only acceptable practice: “If it is wrong for a man to have more than one wife at a time, the Lord will reveal it by and by, and he will put it away that it will not be known in the Church.”

“If it is necessary to have two wives, take them. If it is right, reasonable and proper and the Lord permits a man to take half a dozen wives, take them; but if the Lord says let them alone, let them alone. How long? Until we go down to the grave, if the Lord demand it.”

“If we could make every man upon the earth get him a wife, live righteously and serve God, we would not be under the necessity, perhaps, of taking more than one wife. But they will not do this; the people of God, therefore, have been commanded to take more wives.” (Brian Hales, “Did Joseph Smith Teach Exaltation Requires Plural Marriage?”, Online here, Accessed December 2, 2014).

Of course Hales cites a hypothetical by Young. This is all he can find to cite. Gee, if men were righteous, then perhaps, perhaps, we might all only have one wife! But they will not do this!!! So, of course, Young knew it was never going to be like that. Gee, if everyone would just accept the gospel, we wouldn’t need missionaries! Gee, if everyone would live the law of consecration, we wouldn’t need to pay tithing!

The first quote that Hales employs above is from a discourse by Young titled “Beneficial Effects of Polygamy”. Hales rips this quote right out of its context to make it appear that Monogamy would be acceptable to God over polygamy. What Young really meant is something quite different:

It is not polygamy that men fight against when they persecute this people; but, still, if we continue to be faithful to our God, he will defend us in doing what is right. If it is wrong for a man to have more than one wife at a time, the Lord will reveal it by and by, and he will put it away that it will not be known in the Church. I did not ask Him for the revelation upon this subject. When that revelation was first read to me by Joseph Smith, I plainly saw the great trials and the abuse of it that would be made by many of the Elders, and the trouble and the persecution that it would bring upon this whole people. But the Lord revealed it, and it was my business to accept it.

Now, we as Christians desire to be saved in the kingdom of God. We desire to attain to the possession of all the blessings there are for the most faithful man or people that ever lived upon the face of the earth, even him who is said to be the father of the faithful, Abraham of old. We wish to obtain all that father Abraham obtained. I wish here to say to the Elders of Israel, and to all the members of this Church and kingdom, that it is in the hearts of many of them to wish that the doctrine of polygamy was not taught and practiced by us. It may be hard for many, and especially for the ladies, yet it is no harder for them than it is for the gentlemen. It is the word of the Lord, and I wish to say to you, and all the world, that if you desire with all your hearts to obtain the blessings which Abraham obtained, you will be polygamists at least in your faith, or you will come short of enjoying the salvation and the glory which Abraham has obtained. This is as true as that God lives. You who wish that there were no such thing in existence, if you have in your hearts to say: “We will pass along in the Church without obeying or submitting to it in our faith or believing this order, because, for aught that we know, this community may be broken up yet, and we may have lucrative offices offered to us; we will not, therefore, be polygamists lest we should fail in obtaining some earthly honor, character, and office, etc.” The man that has that in his heart, and will continue to persist in pursuing that policy, will come short of dwelling in the presence of the Father and the Son, in celestial glory. The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy. Others attain unto a glory and may even be permitted to come into the presence of the Father and the Son; but they cannot reign as kings in glory, because they had blessings offered unto them, and they refused to accept them. (Brigham Young, Journal Of Discourses, Vol. 11, 268-69, August 19, 1866, Online here, Accessed November 22, 2014, added emphasis).

Young was claiming that if the Mormons were wrong in practicing polygamy God would let it be known, he was not saying that “monogamy could be the only acceptable practice”. Young says exactly the opposite by claiming that the only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy. How Hales can justify his interpretation is baffling. Hales keeps up the disingenuous quoting with his next example by giving (again) just a small sample of what Young was trying to convey. In this instance Young was speaking about Gentiles prying into his personal affairs, like how many wives he had instead of asking legitimate questions about the Gospel. He was being extremely sarcastic here. Young states:

My objection to their creeds and systems was that they talked about things they did not understand and could not tell a word about; consequently I was called an infidel. We say, give us the truth; but when strangers come to see me their first reflection is, “I would like to ask him a question if I dare.” What is it? It is all about wives. My conscience! What a generation of gentlemen and ladies we have! Their thoughts and reflections are continually about wives and husbands. Why the mind of a pure Saint and Christian is above such things. If it is necessary to take a wife, take one; if it is necessary to have a husband, have one. If it is necessary to have two wives, take them. If it is right, reasonable and proper and the Lord permits a man to take half a dozen wives, take them; but if the Lord says let them alone, let them alone. How long? Until we go down to the grave, if the Lord demand it. If he require an Elder or Elders to take their valise and travel and preach the Gospel until the day of their death, they should do it; and if they are not happy in so doing, it would prove that they do not possess the spirit of their religion. (ibid.)

To make his point Young also gives the analogy of having an Elder preach the Gospel until he drops dead. Young was making the point that whatever God requires, do it, if he commands polygamy, live it. If he tells you no, you can’t do that, you don’t. This is not about Young claiming that God would command Monogamy and discontinue polygamy in the Last Dispensation. Young’s first quote above makes that clear. Young also adds:

But, instead of such principles as these occupying people’s minds now-a-days, it is, “How many wives have you, Mr. Young? Oh, I do want to ask Mr. Young how many wives he has.” Ladies who come into my office very frequently say, “I wonder if it would hurt his feelings if I were to ask him how many wives he has?” Let me say to all creation that I would as lief they should ask me that question as any other; but I would rather see them anxious to learn about the Gospel. Having wives is a secondary consideration; it is within the pale of duty, and consequently, it is all right. But to preach the Gospel, save the children of men, build up the kingdom of God, produce righteousness in the midst of the people; govern and control ourselves and our families and all we have influence over; make us of one heart and one mind; to clear the world from wickedness—this fighting and slaying, this mischievous spirit now so general, and to subdue and drive it from the face of the earth, and to usher in and establish the reign of universal peace, is our business, no matter how many wives a man has got, that makes no difference here or there. I want to say, and I wish you to publish it, that I would as soon be asked how many wives I have got as any other question, just as soon; but I would rather see something else in their minds, instead of all the time thinking “How many wives have you; or I wonder whom he slept with last night.” (ibid., 161-2).

The point Young was trying to make that if God gives you a wife, be thankful for her and live right. Hales is simply picking out sentences that seem to support his narrative and being highly disingenuous to boot.

To take a sentence from this sarcastic rambling of Young and try and apply it as a doctrinal teaching reeks of desperation. For the last quote we have Young saying that if things were perfect, no one would have to take a second wife here on earth. Right. But did he expect that to ever happen? No. This is a ridiculous attempt by Hales to try and make Young say something he did not say. Here is the quote in context:

After this doctrine was received, Joseph received a revelation on celestial marriage. You will recollect, brethren and sisters, that it was in July, 1843, that he received this revelation concerning celestial marriage. This doctrine was explained and many received it as far as they could understand it. Some apostatized on account of it; but others did not, and received it in their faith. This, also, is a great and noble doctrine. I have not time to give you many items upon the subject, but there are a few hints that I can throw in here that perhaps may be interesting. As far as this pertains to our natural lives here, there are some who say it is very hard. They say, “This is rather a hard business; I don’t like my husband to take a plurality of wives in the flesh.” Just a few words upon this. We would believe this doctrine entirely different from what it is presented to us, if we could do so. If we could make every man upon the earth get him a wife, live righteously and serve God, we would not be under the necessity, perhaps, of taking more than one wife. But they will not do this; the people of God, therefore, have been commanded to take more wives. The women are entitled to salvation if they live according to the word that is given to them; and if their husbands are good men, and they are obedient to them, they are entitled to certain blessings, and they will have the privilege of receiving certain blessings that they cannot receive unless they are sealed to men who will be exalted. Now, where a man in this Church says, “I don’t want but one wife, I will live my religion with one,” he will perhaps be saved in the celestial kingdom; but when he gets there he will not find himself in possession of any wife at all. He has had a talent that he has hid up. He will come forward and say, “Here is that which thou gavest me, I have not wasted it, and here is the one talent,” [Monogamy] and he will not enjoy it, but it will be taken and given to those who have improved the talents they received, and he will find himself without any wife, and he will remain single forever and ever. But if the woman is determined not to enter into a plural-marriage, that woman when she comes forth will have the privilege of living in single blessedness through all eternity.

Well, that is very good, a very nice place to be a minister to the wants of others. I recollect a sister conversing with Joseph Smith on this subject. She told him: “Now, don’t talk to me; when I get into the celestial kingdom, if I ever do get there, I shall request the privilege of being a ministering angel; that is the labor that I wish to perform. I don’t want any companion in that world; and if the Lord will make me a ministering angel, it is all I want.” Joseph said, “Sister, you talk very foolishly, you do not know what you will want.” He then said to me: “Here, brother Brigham, you seal this lady to me.” I sealed her to him. This was my own sister according to the flesh. Now, sisters, do not say, “I do not want a husband when I get up in the resurrection.” You do not know what you will want. I tell this so that you can get the idea. If in the resurrection you really want to be single and alone, and live so forever and ever, and be made servants, while others receive the highest order of intelligence and are bringing worlds into existence, you can have the privilege. They who will be exalted cannot perform all the labor, they must have servants and you can be servants to them. (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 16, 166-167, Online here, Accessed November 30, 2014, added emphasis).

Young is simply providing a scenario that perhaps could happen, but the likelihood is that this is never going to happen. Taking this and trying to make it seem as if it were a serious option is ridiculous. Young actually says that “where a man in this Church says, “I don’t want but one wife, I will live my religion with one,” he will perhaps be saved in the celestial kingdom; but when he gets there he will not find himself in possession of any wife at all. He has had a talent that he has hid up.” This is a far cry from acknowledging monogamy could be an acceptable practice. That was never the point that Young was trying to make, not in any of these discourses.

Some maintain that because Mormons were law abiding they gave up plural marriage after the Supreme Court declared the anti-polygamy acts constitutional. But long after the 1879 Reynolds decision, Church members brought to the bar for sentencing told federal judges that the law of God was higher than the law of the land and deserved prior obedience. The Manifesto officially ending polygamy as Church practice was not issued until 1890, and excommunication for practicing plural marriage did not come until 1904. After 1891, however, the Church did cease to demand adherence to the political policy announced by Church leaders and, as a sign of good faith, broke up the People’s Party and adopted the two-party system.

As an historian, I see the problems of the 1870’s and 1880’s as a conflict of two systems of law, tradition, and morality, which, because they were mutually incompatible, had to be reconciled in some way. As a devoted member of the Church, however, I see in the action of the federal government a manifestation of God’s will. The Constitution, which the Church holds to be divinely inspired, demands the separation of church and state. The power exercised before 1890 to compel adherence to the Church’s political and economical policies infringed upon that separation. The two principles, which were self-contradictory, could not both stand; and the Lord chose to have the Church abide by the Constitution. (Thomas G. Alexander, “The Church and the Law”, Dialogue, Vol.1, No.2, 128, Summer 1966, added emphasis).

It would be like someone saying you must accept the new and everlasting covenant of baptism at least in your faith or you cannot enter the Celestial Kingdom. What Young meant was if you accept it (at least in your faith), then you will obey the commandment and be baptized. It’s as simple as that. If you accept polygamy at least in your faith, you will then practice it. Why would Young say this if it was ok to only accept polygamy, but only be married to just one wife:

“Now, where a man in this Church says, “I don’t want but one wife, I will live my religion with one,” he will perhaps be saved in the celestial kingdom; but when he gets there he will not find himself in possession of any wife at all.”

It makes no sense for Young to tell his audience that those who want to live monogamously will not inherit the blessings of Abraham. Why, they could simply say that they believe in polygamy but don’t want to practice it. This just would not work, according to Young.

Again, Young stresses: “The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy. Others attain unto a glory and may even be permitted to come into the presence of the Father and the Son; but they cannot reign as kings in glory, because they had blessings offered unto them, and they refused to accept them.”

So, if you believe in Baptism (by priesthood authority) in your faith and you are offered that blessing, is it enough to simply claim you believe in it? Would you would get entrance to the Celestial Kingdom along with all the others who actually submitted and went into the water? No, not at all! This was Young’s point with polygamy. The “Hales interpretation” of Young’s remarks is (as usual) simply irrational.

[177] Lorenzo Snow, Temple Lot Case Transcript, 124, Question 258.

[178] ibid., Question 260.

[179] Lorenzo Snow, Temple Lot Case Transcript, 136.

[180] Robert Herold, “Mormonism and Required Acceptance”, Dialogue, Vol.4, No.2, 127, Online here, Accessed December 2, 2014).

[181] John Taylor, Journal of Discourses Vol. 22, 201-202, July 18, 1880, Online here, Accessed December 5, 2014).

[182] Of course, this quote was given at a time when Smith was trying to downplay many “revelations” and theological teachings that were seemingly contradictory to established scripture, like Brigham Young’s Adam God teachings. In relation to this, Young once told this story:

President Young said I will tell you how I got along with Joseph. I found out that God Called Joseph to be a Prophet. I did not do it. I then said I will leave the Prophet in the hands of that God who called and ordained him to be a Prophet. He is not responsible to me and it is none of my business what He does. It is for me to follow & obey him.

I once was ashamed of one thing which I did while in Missouri in Zions Camp. I got a revelation that God excepted our offering. I had the same thing revealed to me twice & that we should not go into Jackson Co. I named this to some of the Brethren a day or two before Joseph got a Revelation upon the same subject. I felt ashamed that I named it first. I knew whare we were going and I now know that when we go to Jackson County we shall go from the west. And I will now tell you all and you may right it down that all my preaching by the Holy Ghost is revelation.

I told Brother Joseph that he had given us revelation enough to last us 20 years. When that time is out I can give as good revelation as their is in the Doctrine & Covenants.

“Elder Taylor said in one of his sermons that if we walk in the light of the Lord we should have revelations all the time.” It is the light that is within you. No man Can live his religion without living in Revelation but I would never tell a revelation to the Church untill Joseph told it first.

Joseph Once told me to go to his own house to attend a meeting with him. He said that He would not go without me. I went and Hiram Preached upon the Bible Book of Mormon & Covenants and said we must take them as our guide alone. He preached vary lengthy untill he nearly wearied the people out. When he Closed Joseph told me to get up. I did so. I took the Books and piled them all up on top of Each other. I then said that I would not give the ashes of a rye straw for all those books for my salvation without the living oracles. I should follow and obey the living oracles for my salvation instead of any thing Els. When I got through Hyrum got up and made a Confession for not including the living Oracles. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 5, p. 429, January 27, 1860).

This meeting was attended by almost all of the Quorum of the Twelve, and much of the rest of the Hierarchy of the Church and was called to deal with Orson Pratt’s refusal to accept Young’s Adam God teachings and his stance on the progression of God (after he became a god). Wilford Woodruff stated in that meeting:

Brother Orson Pratt I wish to ask you one or two questions. You see that the spirit and doctrin which you possess is entirely in a oposition to the First Presidency The Quorum of the Twelve, and all who are present this evening and it Chills the Blood in our veins to hear your words & feel your spirit. Should not this be an Evidence to you that you are wrong? What would become of the Quorum of the Twelve if we all felt as you do? We should all go to Hell in a pile to gether.

You say you are honest in the Course you are pursueing. I wish to ask you if you was honest when you said that if you had known that President Young worshiped a God without life or Attributes that you would not have written what you did. (O Pratt said I will recall that.) It was an insult to President Young and the Holy Priesthood which he holds. Evry man in this room who has a particle of the spirit of God knows that President Young is a Prophet of God and that God sustains him and He has the Holy Spirit and his doctrins are true. and that he is qualifyed to lead the people and he has explained evry thing so plain this evening that a Child Can understand [p.428] it and yet it is no evidence to you. Nothing Can make an impression upon you. No argument can reach your understanding.

But Brother Orson I have seen the day when you was in sorrow. It was when you was Cast out of your Quorum and out of the Church and that to in Consequence of pursueing the Same Course you are this evening. Then you Could both see feel & understand. Then argument Could reach you when you saw your glory and Crown departing from you. I beg of you to reflect and not let your will Carry you to Far in these things.

It would be better for us not to be able to Cast up a single sum in adition and be humble before the Lord than to have ever so much knowledge & permit that knowledge to lead us to destruction. There are but few men upon Earth upon whom God has bestowed such gifts, qualifications and reasoning powers as he has upon you, and he will hold you responsible for the use you make of them, and you should not make a wreck of your salvation for Contending for things which you do not understand. And I do feel at this advanced state of the Church and late day and with the information which you possess that neither you nor your Brethren ought to be troubled with Fals doctrin. Neither should you Cause your Brethren to listen to such a scene of things as we have herd to night or to insult the presidet of this church as you have done. Although you are unbending in your will to night the day is not far distant when you will be glad to bend to the presidet of this Church and make reconciliation. (ibid, 427, added emphasis).

Who was present and affirmed Young and his Adam God doctrine? Woodruff claims that “There were Present President Young President Kimball (D H Wells sick) All of the Twelve except A. Lyman & G. A. Smith who was sick. The Presidency of the Seventies Bishop Hunter & many others.” (ibid., 426)

Two days later, Orson Pratt affirmed before the entire Church that,

There is one thing I will assure you of—God will never reveal anything to me, or to any other man, which will come in contact with the views and revelations which he gives to the man who holds the keys. We never need expect such a thing.

“But,” inquires one, “have you not felt anxious that the Church should follow your ideas as laid down in the Seer?” I have not. If I had, I should have preached them; I should have tried to reason with you to convince you of their apparent truth.

I have always been anxious the Church should be governed by him who has the right to govern it, to receive revelations, and to give counsel for its guidance, through whom correct doctrine comes and is unfolded to the children of men. (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 7, 375, Online here, Accessed December 2, 2014).

[183] “What is Official Doctrine”, PDF, FAIRMORMON, online here, Accessed December 2, 2014.

[184] Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses Vol. 19, 118-119, October 5, 1877, Online here, Accessed December 2, 2014.

[185] Todd Compton, “Non-Hierarchical Revelation,” in Maxine Hanks, Women and Authority, Ch.7, 190.

[186] Lorenzo Snow, Temple Lot Case Transcript, 139-40.

[187] ibid., 114. Concerning Lorenzo Snow’s knowledge about the Law of Adoption, Jonathan Stapley wrote:

[President John]Taylor consciously limited the number of recommends for adoptions at the Logan Temple. This shift in policy had a dramatic effect on adoption rates, which did not rise with the Logan Temple dedication. (See Figures 2 and 4.) For the next decade, the Logan Temple maintained a lowrelative rate of adoptions performed for the living and the dead compared to the number of rituals in other temples.

Still, after laboring for several years in the Logan Temple, Zina D. H. Young wrote: “I have stood for the dead in sealing and adoption for many[,] these are blessings that no value of earth can compare.”

The period after Taylor’s death in July 1887 appears to have been one of continued confusion regarding the law of adoption. Two months later in September 1887, John M. Whitaker, John Taylor’s son-in-law, wrote:

I went back to the office where I found [Apostle] Brother Lorenzo Snow and [First Council of the Seventy member] Jacob Gates. They conversed a long time. He finally entered into a deep subject on “The Law of Adoption.” Brother Gates said he didn’t believe in it as did also Brother Snow. He [?] referenced back to the time that Brigham Young was in Kirtland[;] he had a person asked him about it and he said “I know nothing about it.” President Taylor on one different occasion had a letter written to him for the following reason: it was [two undecipherable words] of Prophet J Smith or rather Sister Eliza R. Snow Smith (Brother Gates didn’t know which)[;] a about [sic] 70 persons were adopted into President J Smith’s [family;] Sister Snow Smith said “she didn’t understand the law” but had no objections to them being sealed to her husband. And this led Brother Gates to write to President Taylor asking him if he knew anything about it.He never answered the letter. But on another occasion Brother Gates saw him and asked him plainly. President Taylor said he knew nothing about it. And also just lately when asked by Brother Snow, President WilfordWoodruff knew nothing about it. [“]It hadn’t been revealed to him.” I know this at this time to say [or show] a prevailing feeling among the Twelve that they don’t understand it.George [undecipherable]Cannon also said he didn’t understand it.

Whitaker’s experience with Church leaders is not completely consistent with other documentation, and this diary entry includes some historical errata. Still, it is clear that many Church leaders and those close to them struggled to understand adoption. (Jonathan A. Stapley, Adoptive Sealing Ritual in Mormonism, The Journal of Mormon History, Volume 37, No. 3, Summer 2011, 101-102, added emphasis).

Regardless of whether or not Snow believed in the doctrine or not, it is obvious that he knew all about it and was talking about it only five years earlier, and so perjured himself at the Temple Lot Trial. Joseph F. Smith would do the same at the Reed Smoot hearings a decade later.

[188] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 3, 117-118, Jan. 16, 1847.

[189] See Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 16, 187, Online here, Accessed December 2, 2014. After 1893: Wilford Woodruff, Collected Discourses Vol. 4, 67; George Q. Cannon, Collected Discourses Vol. 4, 76. As Todd Compton explained:

The importance of the size of one’s eternal family, and the necessity of building it up on this earth, is shown by the custom of adoption practiced in the late Nauvoo period by Brigham Young and other Mormon leaders, who would have grown men, with their families, sealed to them as “sons”; these sons would even sign their name with their “father’s” last name. In the late Nauvoo period, among the elite Mormon leadership, there reportedly was competition to add new members, “sons,” to their adoptive families. Young had a number of “children” in his adoptive family; one of his adoptive sons, John D. Lee, in turn, had his own sizeable adoptive family. This is explainable in light of the principle of degree of one’s salvation according to the size of one’s earthly “kingdom.” Marrying plural wives was a comparable method of extending one’s family in this life so as to increase one’s power, dominion, exaltation in the next. Marriage, sealing, and adoption, in fact, were nearly interchangeable concepts. When John D. Lee married two women in 1845, he wrote in his diary, “About this time my family began to increase by the Law of Adoption. Feb 5, 1844 [1845] Nancy Bean was adopted into my family April 19, 1845 Louisa Free was also admitted—taking upon her my name.”

In Helen Mar Kimball’s marriage to Joseph Smith, Joseph and Heber C. Kimball, Helen’s father, desired the marriage so that Heber’s family would be linked eternally to Joseph, thus assuring their salvation. Michael Quinn, with his interest in prosopography, emphasizes the fact that Joseph’s plural marriages linked him with important men in the church. This would have given the two connected parties both earthly and eschatological advantages.

When Jedediah Grant preached on the subject of Joseph’s plural marriages, he referred to them in terms of Joseph “adding to his family”: “When the family organization was revealed from heaven—the patriarchal order of God, and Joseph began, on the right and the left, to add to his family, what a quaking there was in Israel. (Todd Compton, “A Trajectory of Plurality”, op. cited above, Dialogue, Vol.29, No.2, 14, Online here, (PDF) Accessed December 2, 2014, added emphasis).

Notice that Grant affirms that the “family organization” is the “Patriarchal Order of God”, or polygamy. Claiming that monogamous marriage for time and eternity is the main focus of D&C 132 is a modern interpretation of that “revelation”, because the sealing power was already in place and the concepts spoken of in Section 132 had already been revealed in public by Joseph in relation to Baptism for the Dead. In its totality, Joseph’s evolved theology from the Nauvoo period centered on the enlargement of family, with those sealing to themselves the largest number having the greatest “kingdom”. The way to do this was by having many wives. This was the Patriarchal Order Marriage that was practiced in the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom by all the gods, according to Joseph Smith and his chosen apostles. In 1884 Abraham H. Cannon wrote these two entries in his diary:

Sunday, April 6th, 1884–Last day of Gen. Conf. “At a Priesthood meeting held in the evening (after the Hall was cleared of all those who were not worthy of being present by arranging the brethren according to wards and stakes) the strongest language in regard to Plural Marriage was used that I ever heard, and among other things it was stated that all men in positions who would not observe and fulfill that law should be removed from their places. The Spirit of the Lord rested powerfully upon the First Presidency each of whom addressed the meeting. All present felt the force of the remarks made.”

Mon. April 7th, 1884–At Social Hall, a mtg. of all Stake Presidents. “The revelation on Celestial Marriage was read and explained by Pres. Taylor in a clear and forcible manner, so that none could mistake its meaning. All were enjoined to observe this law.” (Abraham H. Cannon Diary, under dates listed, Online here, Accessed December 2, 2014, our emphasis).

Taylor wasn’t advocating for them to go and be sealed to only one women and practice monogamy in time and eternity. And why in the world would Taylor have to forcibly explain simple monogamous marriage for eternity?

[190] Diary of L. John Nuttall, May 22, 1884.

[191] Wilford Woodruff, Brain Stuy, Collected Discourses Vol. 4, p.74. April 8, 1894. Sealing men to men was a natural progression of the Patriarchal Order of God. Though Woodruff claimed that Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and John Taylor “were not satisfied” with what had been revealed about the “Law of Adoption”, Taylor specifically said in 1874 that he “had the matter and the Keys thereof before him” and that he would “make it plain to all” so there could be no misunderstanding. Taylor did not say that there were any problems or that he “was not satisfied” with the doctrine itself. What is very interesting is that Woodruff decided to discontinue the sealing of men to men who were not directly related after the Temple Lot Suit and the questions it obviously raised. This was also done in relation to Re-baptism and later; Polygamy and the Adam-God Doctrine; all points of doctrine that those from the Reorganized Church used in their attacks on the validity of the Utah Branch of the Mormon Church.

What Woodruff doesn’t mention here, is that Lee was adopted to Brigham Young, and therefore according to Joseph Smith, his salvation was assured. Remember, Joseph claimed that one could,

“…use a little Craftiness & seal all you can & when you get to heaven tell your father that what you seal on earth should be sealed in heaven. I will walk through the gate of heaven and Claim what I seal & those that follow me & my Council. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, p.365, March 10, 1844, added emphasis. See Note #32).

Woodruff knew this and hence his warning :

You come and be adopted to me, and I shall stand at the head of the kingdom, and you will be there with me.” Now, what is the truth about this? Those who were adopted to that man, [John D. Lee] if they go with him, will have to go where he is. (Woodruff, op. cited above).

But since Lee was adopted to Young, he would (and everyone adopted to him) go where Young went. It is interesting that Brigham Young paid for John D. Lee’s defense at the first Mountain Meadows Massacre trial, but when that ended in a hung jury and the Federal Government needed a scapegoat Young withdrew his support. As Lee’s lawyer put it:

I claim that Brigham Young is the real criminal, and that John D. Lee was an instrument in his hands. That Brigham Young used John Lee, as the assassin uses the dagger to strike down his unsuspecting victim; as as the assassin throws away the dagger, to avoid the bloody blade leading to his detection, so Brigham Young used John Lee to do his horrid work; and when the discovery becomes unavoidable, he hurls Lee from him, cuts him away from the Church, and casts him far out into the whirlpool of destruction. (William Bishop, May 17, 1877, from the “Introductory”, in Mormonism Unveiled: Including the Life and Confessions of the Late Mormon Bishop, John D. Lee, Sun Publishing Company, 1882, 19).

Lee was shot by a firing squad on March 23, 1877, and therefore “blood atoned” for any sins he may have committed. John D. Lee was posthumously reinstated to membership and all former blessings restored according to Juanita Brooks:

Through all the eighty-four years which have elapsed since the execution of John D. Lee, the dearest hope of his many descendants has been that his name should some day be cleared. An action taken on Thursday, April 20, 1961, has made that hope a reality for them.

On that day the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve of the Mormon Church met in a joint session and “It was the action of the Council after considering all the facts available that authorization be given for the re-instatement to membership and former blessings to John D. Lee.”

On May 8 and 9 following, the necessary ordinances were performed in the Salt Lake Temple. (The Mountain Meadows Massacre, 376, Juanita Brooks).

[192] Woodruff proclaimed to the “saints” in 1894:

When you get to the last man in the lineage, as I said before, we will adopt: that man to the Prophet Joseph, and then the Prophet Joseph will take care of himself with regard to where he goes. A man may say, “I am an Apostle, or I am a High Priest, or I am an Elder in Israel, and if I am adopted to my father, will it take any honor from me?” I would say not. If Joseph Smith was sealed to his father, with whom many of you were acquainted, what effect will that have upon his exaltation and glory? None at all. Joseph Smith will hold the keys of this dispensation to the endless ages of eternity. It is the greatest dispensation God ever gave to man, and he was ordained before the world was to stand in the flesh and organize this work. He was martyred for the word of God and testimony of Jesus, and when he comes in the clouds of heaven he will wear a martyr’s crown. Those of you who stand here—I do not care whether you are Apostles or what you are—by honoring your fathers you will not take any honor from your heads; you will hold the keys of the salvation of your father’s house, as Joseph Smith does. You will lose nothing by honoring your fathers and redeeming your dead. It is a glorious work. When I returned from England in 1841 and heard Joseph Smith give this revelation, that we had power to redeem our dead, one of the first things I thought was, “I have a mother in the spirit world.” My father was in the flesh. I baptized and ordained him and brought him up to Zion where he is buried. But I never saw my mother to know her. She died when I was an infant. I had power to seal my mother to my father. Was not that a satisfaction? It was to me. I have gone to work with the assistance of my friends and redeemed my father’s and my mother’s house. When I inquired of the Lord how I could redeem my dead, while I was in St. George, not having any of my family there, the Lord told me to call upon the Saints in St. George and let them officiate for me in that temple, and it should be acceptable unto Him. Brother McAllister and the brethren and sisters there have assisted me in this work, and I felt to bless them with every feeling of my heart. This is a revelation to us. We can help one another in these matters, if we have not relatives sufficient to carry this on, and it will be acceptable unto the Lord. (Brain Stuy, Collected Discourses Vol. 4, 75, April 8, 1894, added emphasis).

And yet a month before this Abraham H. Cannon writes that,

I (Pres. Woodruff) was sealed to my father, and then had him sealed to the Prophet Joseph. Erastus Snow was sealed to his father though the latter was not baptized after having heard the Gospel. He was, however, kind to the Prophet, and was a Saint in everything except baptism. The Lord has told me that it is right for children to be sealed to their parents, and they to their parents just as far back as we can possibly obtain the records; and then have the last obtainable member sealed to the Prophet Joseph, who stands at the head of this dispensation. It is also right for wives whose husbands never heard the Gospel to be sealed to those husbands, providing they are will to run the risk of their receiving the Gospel in the Spirit world. There is yet very much for us to learn concerning the temple ordinances, and God will make it known as we prove ourselves ready to receive it. In searching out my genealogy I found about four hundred of my female kindred who were never married. I asked Pres. Young what I should do with them. He said for me to have them sealed to me unless there were more than 999 of them. The doctrine startled me, but I had it done. (Diary of Abraham H. Cannon, March 28, 1894, added emphasis).

Why didn’t Woodruff try to “get to the last man in the lineage”? Woodruff wrote in July, 1838:

My father Aphek Woodruff, the Son of Eldad Woodruff, which was the Son of Josiah Woodruff, is a man that hath been seeking religion & the favor of God & light & truth for many years at times, & for more than 20 years have a numerous Circle of friends made his Case a subject of Prayer & pied with God in his behalf. But as oft as my father hath strugled for a victory over sin & its influence heretofore Satan hath tempted him & hindered him from gaining the victory. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 1, 1833–1840, 264, added emphasis).

John Taylor, it seems did not view things the same way that Woodruff did. As Abraham Cannon also wrote:

Thursday, Dec. 18th, 1890: . . .Father [George Q. Cannon] holds that we who live on the earth now and are faithful, will stand at the head of our lineage and will thus become Saviors as has been promised us. Pres. John Taylor was not sealed to his parents though they died in the Church, as he felt that it was rather lowering himself to be thus sealed when he was an apostle and his father was a high priest; but this is rather a questionable proceeding. (Diary of Abraham H. Cannon, December 18, 1890).

Yet, Taylor “had the keys” and said that he understood the law of adoption. John Taylor also received a “revelation” in 1886 that God would never revoke polygamy:

John Taylor, 26-27 September 1886

“My Son John: You have asked me concerning the New and Everlasting Covenant and how far it is binding upon my people; thus saith the Lord: All commandments that I give must be obeyed by those calling themselves by my name, unless they are revoked by me or by my authority, and how can I revoke an everlasting covenant; for I the Lord am everlasting and my everlasting covenants cannot be abrogated nor done away with, but they stand forever.

Have I not given my word in great plainness on this subject? Yet have not great numbers of my people been negligent in the observance of my laws and the keeping of my commandments, and yet have I borne with them these many years; and this because of their weakness, because of the perilous times, and furthermore, it is more pleasing to me that men should use their free agency in regards to these matters. Nevertheless, I the Lord do not change and my word and my covenants and my law do not.

And as I have heretofore said by my servant Joseph: All those who would enter into my glory must and shall obey my law. And have I not commanded men that if they were Abraham’s seed and would enter into my glory, they must do the works of Abraham?

I have not revoked this law, nor will I, for it is everlasting, and those who will enter into my glory must obey the conditions thereof; Even so Amen.” (Unpublished Revelations, 1:88. Musser, Four Hidden Revelations, 15, online here, PDF, Accessed December 2, 2014; For more background and the connection to Lorin Wolly, see also Fred W. Collier, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 13, No. 1, 16ff, Online here, Accessed December 2, 2014).

Apostle John W. Taylor knew his father had penned this “revelation”, and so would not give up the practice and was excommunicated for it in 1911. As Abraham H. Cannon wrote on March 29, 1892:

We continued our meeting. Pres. Snow said he felt that when any question came up among us on which the majority were clear, should there be one who did not see as the others, that one should be willing to yield his views to those of the majority, and leave the responsibility of the course pursued with them. –John W. Taylor spoke in relation to the Manifesto: “I do not know that that thing was right, though I voted to sustain it, and will assist to maintain it; but among my father’s papers I found a revelation given him of the Lord, and which is now in my possession, in which the Lord told him that the principle of plural marriage would never be overcome. Pres. Taylor desired to have it suspended, but the Lord would not permit it to be done. At the close of John W.’s remarks our meeting adjourned till tomorrow at 10 o’clock. I closed with prayer. (Diary of Abraham H. Cannon, March 29, 1892, added emphasis).

[193] Diaries of John D. Lee, 89, as quoted in Gerald & Sandra Tanner, “Sealing of Men to Men: and Early Mormon Doctrine,” SLC Messenger, Issue No. 92, April, 1997, online here, Accessed December 5, 2014.

[194] The entry reads:

Thursday, October 5[th] Morning rode out with Esqu[ire] Butterfield to farm &c. P.M. rode on prairie to shew some brethren some land. Eve[ning] at home. Walked up and down St[reet] with Scribe and gave instructions to try those who were preaching, teaching, or practicing the doctrine of plurality of wives on this Law. Joseph forbids it and the practice thereof. No man shall have but one wife. (Scott H. Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 417, October 5, 1843, added emphasis).

[195] Times and Seasons, Nov. 15, 1844, Vol. 5, 715, Online here, Accessed December 5, 2014.

[196] This is evident in the testimony of Lorenzo Snow and Wilford Woodruff during the Temple Lot case and of Joseph F. Smith during the Reed Smoot Hearings. See the Essay, “Mormon Secrets and Perjuring Prophets”, online here, accessed December 31, 2014). What trouble could be caused by writing down what transpired in Church Council meetings that would engender this discussion and admonition?

Pres. [Joseph F.] Smith said that he wanted to refer to a matter that had given him much concern—namely, the private journals of the brethren of the council. Many things were written in them which, if they were to fall into the hands of the enemy, might bring trouble upon the church. After the death of the brethren, you cannot tell what may become of their journals, and even now the brethren felt an anxiety in relation to Pres. Geo. Q. Cannon’s journal, who made a pretty full account of everything that transpired in the councils of the brethren; the same with Abram Cannon and others. Elder Jno. H. Smith said that he was very much concerned about this matter and had been for a long time and felt ‘that some action should be taken in the premises. Pres. Winder said that it was very unsafe and risky for the brethren to write down that which occurred in these meetings. This duty belonged to the clerk of the council and nobody else. Pres. Winder moved that it be the sense and feeling of the council that the brethren should not write in their journals that which took place in the council meetings. Carried by unanimous vote. Meeting adjourned. Benediction by Elder Jno. H. Smith. (Stan Larson, A Ministry of Meetings, The Apostolic Diaries of Rudger Clawson, October 5, 1904, Signature Books, 777-778, emphasis ours).

End of Pt. III

The Early Histories of Joseph Smith, Pt II: “Work to the Money…”

Posted on April 9, 2019 by grindael

“The Palmyra Peeker” by grindael

by Johnny Stephenson

Pt I (Ghosts & Angels) may be found here.

Part II: “Work to the Money…”

His story about the discovery of the plates sounded like the German legends of the demons of the Harz Mountains, … Brigham Young [said] the people knew there was treasure in the Hill Cumorah. It seems that the time was one of great mental disturbance in that region. There was much religious excitement; chiefly among the Methodists. People felt free to do very queer things in the new country…~Elizabeth Kane

Introduction

“A new portrait of Joseph and his work…”

This series of articles was conceived (at first) as simply a couple of parts about the early histories of Joseph Smith, sort of a before (the events as they transpired) and an after (how they were reported by Cowdery and Smith).

But as I started studying all of the material that has been written about the early history of Joseph Smith since the mid 1980’s, I soon realized that I was going to have to expand my original idea. The reason for all the material (mostly from Mormon apologists) was because of the Mark Hofmann forgeries. When the “Salamander Letter” and other documents appeared, the Mormon community was rocked to its core. They scrambled to try and explain what others knew about for a long time but which the apologists and the church had been obfuscating and denying for years: the occult practices and money-digging obsession of the Smith family in Palmyra and Manchester New York that was going on when the young Joseph Smith, Jr., was supposedly seeing visions of Jesus and heavenly angels and learning how to run “God’s Kingdom”. (See an official church version of his history here and see if anything has really changed, pg. 37ff)

Mark Hofmann with Mormon First Presidency

In the wake of the Hofmann forgeries a few stepped up to try and come to grips with the letters. No one knew if they were real, but many were fooled though some were not. Ronald Walker explains how he and the church dealt with them:

At 9:00 A.M. on 18 January 1984, I arrived at the home of Leonard Arrington, director of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute of Church History and, more to the point, my supervisor. He had telephoned the day before and asked that I come by. As I entered his living room, Leonard showed me rather matter-of-factly a copy of a recently found document, which I found unsettling. “At face value,” I wrote that evening in my journal “it is explosive. It is a letter from Martin Harris to W. W. Phelps [written in] 1830 describing the early origins of the Church in spiritualistic or cabalistic terms. It confirms several other documents that have been recently found, indicating the ‘treasure-hunting’ activity of Joseph Smith prior to the organization of the Church. These finds I wrote will require a re-examination and rewriting of our origins.

As the Tanners were to explain, those who knew and understood the early history of the Smith’s would be suspicious of what Hofmann produced (as they were). Here is the text of The Salamander Letter [by Mark Hofmann]:

Your letter of yesterday is received & I hasten to answer as fully as I can–Joseph Smith Jr first come to my notice in the year 1824 in the summer of that year I contracted with his father to build a fence on my property in the corse of that work I aproach Joseph & ask how it is in a half day you put up what requires your father & 2 brothers a full day working together he says I have not been with out assistance but can not say more only you better find out the next day I take the older Smith by the arm & he says Joseph can see any thing he wishes by looking at a stone Joseph often sees Spirits here with great kettles of coin money it was Spirits who brought up rock because Joseph made no attempt on their money I latter dream I converse with spirits which let me count their money when I awake I have in my hand a dollar coin which I take for a sign Joseph describes what I seen in every particular says he the spirits are grieved so I through back the dollar in the fall of the year 1827 I hear Joseph found a gold bible I take Joseph aside & he says it is true I found it 4 years ago with my stone but only just got it because of the enchantment the old spirit come to me 3 times in the same dream & says dig up the gold but when I take it up the next morning the spirit transfigured himself from a white salamander in the bottom of the hole & struck me 3 times & held the treasure & would not let me have it because I lay it down to cover over the hole when the spirit says do not lay it down Joseph says when can I have it the spirit says one year from to day if you obay me look to the stone after a few days he looks the spirit says bring your brother Alvin Joseph says he is dead shall I bring what remains but the spirit is gone Joseph goes to get the gold bible but the spirit says you did not bring your brother you can not have it look to the stone Joseph looks but can not see who to bring the spirit says I tricked you again look to the stone Joseph looks & sees his wife on the 22d day of Sept 1827 they get the gold bible–I give Joseph $50 to move him down to Pa Joseph says when you visit me I will give you a sign he gives me some hiroglyphics I take then to Utica Albany & New York in the last place Dr Mitchel gives me a introduction to Professor Anthon says he they are short hand Egyption the same what was used in ancent times bring me the old book & I will translate says I it is made of precious gold & is sealed from view says he I can not read a sealed book–Joseph found some giant silver specticles with the plates he puts them in a old hat & in the darkness reads the words & in this way it is all translated & written down–about the middle of June 1829 Joesph takes me together with Oliver Cowdery & David Whitmer to have a view of the plates our names are appended to the book of Mormon which I had printed with my own money–space and time both prevent me from writing more at presant if there is any thing further you wish to inquire I shall attend to it

Yours Respectfully
Martin Harris

The Tanners saw plagiarism in the letters. It’s not really hard to see if you know the material. For example, David Whitmer once claimed he got help plowing his fields from supernatural beings. Lucy Smith claimed that it was Whitmer given supernatural power to do so. Compare with Hofmann’s story above:

[David] …asked the Lord for a testimony of the fact if it was his will that he should go [help Joseph] he was told by the voice of the spirit to (sow) <(har) inn his wheat> his wheat and then go straightway to Penn In the morning he went to the field and found that he had 2 heavy days work before him He then asked the lord to enable him to do this work sooner than the same work had ever been done on the farm before and he would receive it as an evidence that it was the will of God for him to engage in forwarding the work which was begun by Joseph Smith. he then fastened his horses to the harrow and drove round the whole field he continued on till noon driving all the way round at every circuit but when it came to be time to eat dinner he discov ered to his surprize that he had harrowed in full half the wheat. after dinner he again went on as before and by evening he finnished the whole 2 days work (for both Whitmer and Lucy Smith’s accounts see here, note 284).

Also compare this account from Palmyra neighbor William Stafford in 1833:

I first became acquainted with Joseph, Sen., and his family in the year 1820. They lived, at that time, in Palmyra, about one mile and a half from my residence. A great part of their time was devoted to digging for money: especially in the night time, when they said the money could be most easily obtained. I have heard them tell marvellous tales, respecting the discoveries they had made in their peculiar occupation of money digging. They would say, for instance, that in such a place, in such a hill, on a certain man’s farm, there were deposited keys, barrels and hogsheads of coined silver and gold — bars of gold, golden images, brass kettles filled with gold and silver — gold candlesticks, swords, &c. &c. They would say, also, that nearly all the hills in this part of New York, were thrown up by human hands, and in them were large caves, which Joseph, Jr., could see, by placing a stone of singular appearance in his hat, in such a manner as to exclude all light; at which time they pretended he could see all things within and under the earth, — that he could see within the above mentioned caves, large gold bars and silver plates — that he could also discover the spirits in whose charge these treasures were, clothed in ancient dress. At certain times, these treasures could be obtained very easily; at others, the obtaining of them was difficult. The facility of approaching them, depended in a great measure on the state of the moon. New moon and good Friday, I believe, were regarded as the most favorable times for obtaining these treasures. (Mormonism Unvailed, 237-8)

Instead of an evil omen toad, (as reported by Willard Chase and another neighbor) Hofmann wrote that it was (according to Quinn) a more beneficial “white salamander”. Changing what Joseph saw in the stone box from a toad to a white salamander was an ingenious idea.

The point is, most of what Hofmann wrote in his forgeries was gleaned from already existing accounts, which Mormon apologists like Hugh Nibley and others refused to believe and claimed were simply made up by the Smith’s neighbors. The quandary faced by the apologists and their desperation to come up with some kind of explanation is what set this whole “folk magic was really lost Apostolic Christianity” farce in motion.

Ronald Walker continues:

During my interview [with Arrington], I learned that Steven F. Christensen, a Salt Lake City businessman, had quietly purchased the letter and was now asking for my help to prepare the document for publication. … I told him I would take part in the project. …Thus began my intellectual and spiritual journey with Joseph Smith, the Palmyra Seer. Of course, I had known him before. He had been woven in the warp and woof of my Cedar Rapids, Iowa, childhood, when Sunday School lessons and “testimonies” in our small branch declared his ministry. Later while serving a Southern States mission I had acquired my own fervor which my subsequent church service matured and increased. But never previously had I scrutinized the Prophet. I had never submitted him to that careful microscopic autopsy that historians must practice on their subjects.

Actually, it would only have taken picking up a few books, like Fawn Brodie’s biography of Joseph Smith, or Mormonism Unvailed, or something by Dale Morgan or Richard Van Wagoner, or Michael Marquardt or perhaps reading the original documents that were being churned out by Jerald and Sandra Tanner. It would also take an open mind and not giving undue credence to those like Hugh Nibley and others who were claiming that the money-digging accounts were all made up or coerced by Hurlbut and Howe. But the Church discouraged people from reading books like that (labeling them “anti-Mormon”, encouraging them to stay with those who wrote “faithful” histories. But I can’t fault Walker, when I was a member I stayed away from all those “evil anti-Mormons” too. It wasn’t anti-Mormons who opened my eyes to the real history of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, it was the Fundamental Mormons who lived in southern Utah. They gave me a list of material and I went right to B.Y.U and started looking things up. The way things were back then, you could “scrutinize’ the life of Joseph Smith and never know about the money-digging. Walker continues:

While first holding the Harris letter in my hands in Mr Christensen’s office I sensed such a detailed study would be required. If the letter were authentic I believed it would require all the old Joseph smith sources to be re-read. New sources I thought, should be searched for. Perhaps innovative methods of analysis would be required.

Except the apologists (and many other historians of Mormonism) believed at the time they were authentic letters and acted as if they were. What new sources could Walker be talking about? Simply reading the old ones, like the account of Joseph Knight, Sr., or Lucy Smith’s original manuscript (which he gets around to mentioning below) would certainly be in order. But here we have a key, that it would take “innovative methods of analysis” to try and explain what was there all along but only sensationalized by Hofmann’s putting the evidence in first person accounts. Walker then recalls the dilemma he found himself in:

My journey with Joseph has now taken two years. Perhaps it is time to pause and search for meanings and suggest possible new directions. Were my first excited feelings about historical revisionism justified? How do some of our recently found or refound sources fit into the larger body of evidence, and what are some of their implications? Needless to say answers to these ambitious questions will be partial and tentative and I offer nothing here but a private view. At the outset I admit our task has not been easy. At first there were angry and sometimes petulant letters and phone calls that severely reminded me of my human frailty. Well-meaning friends and relatives conveyed a similar message. …Through all this I confess to having deeply troubled feelings added to the tragic loss of a friend, there was the need to ask hard questions of my personal faith. The Martin Harris letter and its companion piece Joseph Smith’s 1825 letter to Josiah Stowell, speak of a strange world of guardian spirits, magical hazel rods, thrice occurring dreams, seer stones, and even a white salamander. This is not the stereotypical fare of an average Salt Lake City testimony meeting.

Thing is, it was by design that all the occult practices of the Smith family were not the “stereotypical fare” of the average Mormon meeting. The real story was seldom discussed, except perhaps by Quinn writing as Dr. Clandestine to attack the Tanners; or Nibley issuing reprints that scoffed at the 1833 affidavits in his arrogant and sarcastic manner; or an occasional mention in a church magazine. And after learning that Quinn authored the pamphlet about them, here is what the Tanners wrote:

Although Dr. Quinn has almost nothing good to say about us, we will not repay in kind. We feel that he is probably one of the best historians in the Mormon Church. His dissertation written for Yale University is a masterpiece. He has written excellent articles in BYU Studies, the Journal of Mormon History and the Utah Historical Quarterly. It is hard, however, to equate these works with the booklet Jerald and Sandra Tanner’s Distorted View of Mormonism.

And Leonard Arrington in his diary was so sure they were going to go all “ad hominem” and attack them personally over it. And this world was strange to the apologists, but not to those who knew about the contemporary news reports and the other accounts the apologists were finally claiming to take seriously. For example, here is Dale Morgan from the 1940’s:

I do not see things in black and white; rather, I am sensitive to the shades of gray. I am not one of those who think that Joseph Smith must be accounted either the blackest villain or the purest-hearted saint who ever lived, depending on whether Mormonism was or was not an ‘imposture.’ I don’t think he was either. I think he was a man subjected to a singular environmental pressure, and that his behavior must be interpreted as the effect of this pressure upon distinctive psycho-physiological components of his character. It seems to me a fundamental weakness of most Mormon thinking, in any broad sense, that it tends to exhibit this either-or attitude, which really reflects a viewpoint of theoretical ethics, not of personal and social psychology. —26 April 1943

Mormonism proceeded out of American life, from millennialism to the evangelical communisms, with religious, political, social, and economic ideas indiscriminately sucked into the vortex to be digested or spewed out, with the central energies and structure of the church always different because of what it experienced or took to itself. I don’t say that Mormonism was at best an aberration of the principal energies involved; I do say that it is an interesting vehicle for some of the social energies of its time, and that something can be learned about the nature of American society from a critical scrutiny of the Mormon phenomenon. —2 January 1946

In 1943 Morgan wrote this to Juanita Brooks:

Yesterday at the Library of Congress I had a look at a new book by Paul Bailey called Sam Brannan and California Mormons. It gave me a more discouraged feeling about Mormon scholarship than I’ve had for a long time. For hell’s sake, Juanita, what is the matter with these young Mormon scholars? Are they all imbeciles, or just what is wrong? I made only an incidental investigation into Brannan’s life for my own book, but even so I learned enough to know that Bailey bowdlerized some original sources, misquoted others, badly misinterpreted others, didn’t even trouble himself about others, and emerged with a pseudo-documented rehash that was a disgrace even to the pages of the Improvement Era, where the piece seems to have been originally serialized. Books like this are assuming a regular pattern; there are a quantity of them being turned out, also, in the U of Chicago’s Divinity School, as masters’ theses. They have the forewords by [LDS apostle John A.] Widtsoe, who doesn’t know what he’s talking about but unfortunately thinks he does; they have the professional form; they deal in more or less unused materials. But third-rate merchandise is what is being produced. It would be in the interests of the Mormon Church to train a consultant who would bring to bear upon such manuscripts the most rigorous critical standards. The literature that would result would be less extensive in dimensions, and less eulogistic in purpose, and the church would not always appear as a shimmeringly holy thing; but it would be literature having a chance of enduring, and it would establish a confidence in the integrity and honesty of the church such as will never result from a thousand tons of this Bailey bilge.

This was a full forty years before the Hofmann affair, and church’s scramble to try and come to grips with Smith’s early history. But again, Morgan had no such problems:

Lucy said of him [Joseph Smith Sr.] that “he would not subscribe to any particular system of faith, but contended for the ancient order, as established by our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ and his Apostles.”Joseph’s daily life was more vividly colored, however, by that common heritage of his society, the [p.221] tenuous but ineluctable realities of magic, witchcraft, and demonology the Mayflower and the Arbella had disgorged so long ago into the gray mists of Massachusetts shore. Good fortune or bad, as Joseph well understood, was not an affair of Providence only; man had to contend with the dark world of the supernatural, penetrable or governable only by the most potent of ritual and incantation. …

In taking up the quest for buried treasure, which was to give him a first gratifying and then perilous celebrity, and bring him out [p.229] finally upon a high plateau of eminence as prophet, seer, and revelator to a new religion, Joseph Smith displayed not originality so much as a striking ability to compel belief. Desultory digging had been carried on in western New York for a half-generation or more, and the urge to dig in the earth in search of treasure was of greater antiquity still, as old and as widespread as the human race. The feverish digging that distinguished the early twenties in and around Palmyra was, moreover, only a local form taken by a contagion that broke out epidemically across hundreds of miles of country, from the valley of the Connecticut to that of the Susquehanna.

Though the evidence is too slender to justify a firm conclusion, Vermont appears to have been the place of prime infection, the lore of the money-digger and the rural diviner carried from its rocky hills west and south wherever emigrating Vermonters settled-in the Susquehanna Valley, about the Finger Lakes, in the Genesee country, in the Western Reserve of Ohio. The infertile mountain farms held insufficient of wealth to recompense the grueling labor they never ceased to demand. Not honest effort but miracle was the best hope of the farmer; and it is the authentic tones of the Vermonter one hears when the elder Joseph Smith pointed out to one of his neighbors at Palmyra the large stones embedded in the ground of his farm-rocks in appearance, but only in appearance; in reality nothing less than chests of money raised to the surface of the earth by the heat of the sun.

It may be that the elder Joseph had done some treasure-hunting before leaving Vermont; as to this, a Palmyra editor in 1831 was unable to say, but did print it as “a well authenticated fact that soon after his arrival here, he evinced a firm belief in the existence of hidden treasures, and that this section of the country abounded in them. He also revived, or in other words propagated the vulgar, yet popular belief that these treasures were held in charge by some evil spirit, which was supposed to be either the DEVIL himself, or some one of his most trusty favorites.” That the senior Joseph did much to launch his son upon his troubled career as a diviner and peepstone seer, that his unbounded extravagance of statement as to the wonders his son could see contributed largely to his celebrity, is clear from all accounts; the more fantastic stories of Joseph’s early powers and the marvels he discerned are to be traced back to the wagging tongue of his father.

All the influences that worked upon Joseph Smith to make him what he became are difficult now to separate out of the matrix of his history. The social environment was favorable, the whole climate of opinion and belief in which so much more was possible of growth than in another time and place. There was some compulsion working upon him from within the family, the rich lore they had carried with them out of Vermont, and the pressure of their continuing poverty, the more irksome because of their conviction that their rightful state in life was above the common level. Lacking in education and opportunity, which might have afforded him some conventional [p.230] outlet for the energies that drove him, Joseph was all the more reclined to reach out for the rewards that the career of the diviner promised him. (Dale Morgan on Early Mormonism)

You would think, from reading those like Walker, and Ashurst-McGee and Morris that there never was anyone like Dale Morgan or the Tanners or Brodie or the many others who had been writing about the early history of the Smith family for years and understood very well the occult context. The apologists will mention the famous Fawn Brodie, but wave her off as only a hack who caricatures Smith in the worst way. They are all mistaken. But vilifying Brodie and the Tanners has always been the goal of the Mormon apologist. Nibley’s “No Ma’am That’s Not History” is simply his own wishful thinking. I’ll defend Brodie in any debate with anyone, anywhere, and they can try and defend Nibley’s claim that the 1833 affidavits were all coerced. It’s obvious who has withstood the test of time and it is not Hugh Nibley. Here is more of what Walker wrote in 1986:

The letters [forgeries] have stirred excited comment. Some have asked if we have at last the key for understanding Joseph Smith. Will Christian magic and the occult unravel the man who has been described as an “enigma wrapped within an enigma” and who claimed shortly before his death that “no man knows my history”? Some privately have gone further they speak of the old intellectual moorings of Mormonism being adrift. Are not the new findings they ask, the opposite of our old way of understanding Mormon things?

See how it is “Christian magic”? As if there really is such a thing! People believe in Santa Claus and Leprechauns, Bigfoot, the abominable Yeti and in Alien abductions too. (More on that below) There is nothing Christian about money-digging, except some of the diggers who happened to be Christians. What happened to “money is the root of all evil”? Or how hard it is for the rich to get into heaven? It is simply ridiculous to make the claim for “holy treasure hunting”. About as ridiculous as the tales about the “Holy Grail”.

No one knows what every person who dug for treasure believed, if they were active Christians, lapsed Christians, or former Christians. Joseph Smith was not an “enigma”, though how he came up with the Book of Mormon is shrouded somewhat in mystery. But that was by design. We have the testimony of friend and foe, of believers and apostates; neighbors and journalists; speeches and diaries and court records. There is a very extensive record of the life of Joseph Smith. That is why those like the Tanner’s warned about Hofmann and that he might be perpetuating a hoax on everyone.

Here is the Stowell Letter [by Mark Hofmann]

Canandagua June 18^th 1825

Dear Sir

My father has shown me your letter informing him and me of your Success in locating the mine as you Suppose but we are of the oppinion that since you cannot asertain any particulars you Should not dig more untill you first discover if any valluables remain you know the treasure must be guarded by some clever spirit and if such is discovered so also is the treasure so do this take a hasel stick one yard long being new Cut and cleave it Just in the middle and lay it asunder on the mine so that both inner parts of the stick may look one right against the other one inch distant and if there is treasure after a while you shall see them draw and Join together again of themselves let me know how it is Since you were here I have almost decided to accept your offer and if you can make it convenient to come this way I shall be ready to accompany you if nothing happens more than I know of I am very respectfully

Joseph Smith Jr

Again, it wasn’t a surprise that Joseph Smith was using dowsing rods to those like Dale Morgan and Fawn Brodie. Now read Walker’s rationalizations as he tries to find a way to save his version of Joseph:

While pursuing my study I have often reminded myself that religious truths do not change. Our interpretation of them may change or our understanding of how they have been wrought in [463] time and space may change. But truth is constant, and my faith is that Mormonism is its repository. However my caution regarding the documents springs from something more than personal belief in matters like this, there is always a second step. As quieter perspectives inevitably settle in the breathless antithesis gives way to a more sedate synthesis during this second phase what once seemed so revolutionary is reconciled and merged with the still valid legacies of the past. To illustrate our understanding of Joseph Smith’s encounters with Moroni will not be insightful if we focus narrowly on Martin Harris’s trickster spirit and forget the several contemporaneous statements including Harris’s own that speak of Cumorah’s angel. These apparent conflicts must be weighed, somehow harmonized and molded into a new, more complex understanding.

Except religious truths in Mormonism have changed constantly. Do I really need to go into that here? Mormonism went from monotheism to polytheism in a decade. There is no denying this. Concerning the Book of Mormon Greg Prince characterizes it this way:

I don’t see it [The Book of Mormon] as an ancient history. I just don’t see that it has a leg to stand on as being history. I’ve heard of hybrid explanations. None of them carry any water with me. I’m content to go with what Denise Hopkins the Professor of Hebrew Bible told me. It’s a book length midrash on the Bible. And I’m fine with that.

It certainly would solve a lot of problems if all Mormons accepted the Book of Mormon for what it is, a midrash or pseudepigrapha. Prince accepts what it is and still has kept his faith in the church, and everyone should be able to make such an informed choice. It is important to realize that the so called servants of God that comprise the leadership of the church (past and present) lied on a regular basis about its history.

Prince is also truthful about the Mormon Priesthood and the development of its theology. He wrote a simply stellar article in 2015 published in the Journal of Mormon History on the First Vision, and chronicles the changes to Smith’s theology:

Smith’s earliest understanding of Deity is contained in the Book of Mormon. If one reads the 1830 edition of the book, instead of the current edition, several verses stand out as differing from current LDS orthodoxy:

- “Behold, the virgin which thou seest, is the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh” (p. 25, line 3). Th e 1830 edition was not divided into verses at all, nor do the chapter divisions correspond completely to the current (2013) edition.
- “And the Angel said unto me, behold the Lamb of God yea, even the Eternal Father!” (p. 25, line 10).
- “Yea, the Everlasting God, was judged of the world” (p. 26, line 9).
- “The Lamb of God is the Eternal Father and the Saviour of the world” (p. 32, line 9).

Such a view of Deity is termed modalism, or the belief that there is “one God, in one part or person at a time, performing various offices, but not simultaneously.” It is consistent with 1832, wherein only one personage was described. It is also consistent with a verse in the “Articles and Covenants” (the source of 1831): “ . . . which Father & Son & Holy Ghost is one God.” This wording was preserved in the first published version of the revelation in 1832 and in the 1833 Book of Commandments 24:18.

In 1835, however, a shift in theology occurred, moving the Church to binitarianism, which took the position of “one God only (the Father), with a god-like, literal Son created in premortal existence, and fully divine through that inheritance. Only the Son (as Jesus) had a physical body. The Holy Spirit was an influence rather than a being, operating from the Father through the Son.” That same year, the Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, was published, superseding the Book of Commandments. The Preface, signed by Joseph Smith Jr., Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, and Frederick G. Williams, was dated February 17, 1835. Its first part, “Theology,” consisted of what became known as the “Lectures on Faith,” and the second, titled “Covenants and Commandments,” consisted of a collection of revelations to Joseph Smith. The fifth lecture reflected the shift:

We shall, in this lecture speak of the Godhead: we mean the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There are two personages who constitute the great, matchless, governing and supreme power over all things. . . . They are the Father and the Son: The Father being a personage of spirit, glory and power: possessing all perfection and fulness [sic]: The Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, a personage of tabernacle, made, or fashioned like unto man . . . possessing the same mind with the Father, which mind is the Holy Spirit . . . How many personages are there in the Godhead? Two: the Father and the Son. (1835 D&C pp. 52–53, 55).

Several weeks after the publication of Doctrine and Covenants, Smith met with Robert Matthews and related the account of the First Vision contained in 1835a, an account that described the appearance of one personage, who did not speak, followed by the appearance of a second personage, who said, “Thy sins are forgiven thee”—in contrast to 1832, which described only one personage. The sequential, rather than simultaneous appearance of the two personages is consistent with their different natures—the Father being a personage of spirit, and the Son being a personage of tabernacle (flesh)—albeit not proof.

The shift to binitarian theology was further signaled when the second edition of the Book of Mormon was published in 1837. The four previously cited verses from the book of 1 Nephi, which had reflected a modalistic theology, were changed to reflect a binitarian understanding (changes in italics):

- “Behold, the virgin whom thou seest, is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh” (p. 27).
- “And the angel said unto me, behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father!” (p. 27).
- “Yea, the Son of the Everlasting God was judged of the world” (p. 29).
- “Th e Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father, and the Savior of the world” (p. 35).

Other verses in the 1837 Book of Mormon were not similarly revised, leaving the careful reader of the current edition with a confusing, patchwork theology of Deity that incorporates both modalism and binitarianism.

The final step in Smith’s evolving doctrine of Deity was tritheism, a belief in three separate personages comprising the Godhead. 1839 [History] describes two personages who appear simultaneously, both of whom speak to Smith. Since 1839 was not published for years thereafter and since there is no record that Smith spoke of it publicly, word of a shifting theology was slow to spread. In the first issue of the Gospel Reflector, the LDS newspaper published in Philadelphia beginning in 1841, Benjamin Winchester, “Presiding Elder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Philadelphia,” restated the binitarian doctrine from the “Lectures on Faith”:

As this is the first number of the Gospel Reflector, it will not be amiss to give a few outlines of some of the leading principles of our faith, which will all be treated upon in their proper time, and scripture and reason be adduced to authenticate them.

First, the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, believe that the scriptures contain the words of God, and that they are true and faithful.

Second, the Godhead, i.e., The Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father being a personage of spirit, glory and power; possessing all perfection and fullness; The Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, personage of tabernacle, made, or fashioned like unto man, or, rather, man was framed after his likeness, and in his image;—he also possesses all the fullness with the Father, possessing the same mind with the Father, which mind is the Holy Spirit, that bears record of the Father and the Son, these three are one, or in other words, these three constitute the godhead.

The following year, perhaps in response to diverse teachings on the subject, the Church newspaper in Nauvoo clarified that the Father and the Son are separate persons and also that both have physical bodies. This statement contradicts the 1835 “Lectures on Faith” that described the Father as having a spiritual, but not a physical, body. Although the author of this article is not identified, the fact that Smith is listed in the quoted issue of the newspaper as editor, printer, and publisher makes it likely that he wrote it. This theological statement declares defensively: “The idea that Joseph Smith adapts his conversation to the company, is an error. Joseph Smith opposes vice and error, and supports his positions from revelation: no odds whether there be two, three, or ‘Gods many.’ The Father, and the Son are persons of Tabernacle; and the Holy Ghost a spirit.”

A similar statement the following year (1843) became part of the Doctrine and Covenants, thus canonizing the LDS doctrine of Deity: “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man[’]s. The Son also, but the Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit and a person cannot have the personage of the H G in his heart. He may receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. It may descend upon him but not to tarry with him.”

***References (all links current to the articles Gregory Prince references ~grindael) that are helpful in understanding the complex development of the contemporary LDS doctrine of Deity include Dan Vogel, “The Earliest Mormon Concept of God,” in Gary James Bergera, ed., Line upon Line: Essays on Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City, Signature Books, 1989), 17–34; Melodie Moench Charles, “Book of Mormon Christology,” in Brent Lee Metcalf, ed., New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology (Salt Lake City, Signature Books, 1993), 81–114; and Rick Grunder, “Statement on Deity,” in Grunder, Mormon Parallels, 1929–62.(Journal of Mormon History, Fall 2015, 89-91, See also, What Happened to the Trinity in Mormonism, by grindael)

We see that Smith’s theology contradicts itself many times over. Prince characterizes this as “line upon line” learning and teaching, but that doesn’t make much sense at all given that Smith claimed to have seen the Father and the Son in physical bodies long before he ever taught the concept of them having such bodies. I will address this in Part V.

Joseph was then lying in his 1839 History, because he never saw what he claimed to in 1820, and made this false statement in 1844:

I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and that the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods. (Joseph Smith, June 16, 1844)

This is a questionable statement as Joseph prior to the late 1830’s simply had not conceived of God that way. This same concept (changing teachings about their nature) is true about angels, as I will explore below.

And remember, those who did take the obsession with money-digging and their practice of magic seriously, (like Brodie and Morgan), were rejected by the Church and derided for what they wrote because it seriously challenges the motives of Joseph Smith and his credibility. But the cat was now out of the bag, and the church was inviting the scrutiny it had feared for so long. Somehow, it all must be “harmonized and molded into a new, more complex understanding.” An “understanding” to reconcile the occult with Christianity or the invention of a new fairy tale. As Walker explains:

Because of new documents and similarly minded sources which our traditional histories have ignored we shall eventually draw a new portrait of Joseph and his work. Such a view will doubtless preserve the integrity of Mormonism. It will draw insights from both untraditional and traditional sources. And the result will be fresh.

But why would we need a “new portrait” of Smith, when he was (according to himself and others) a true blue prophet of God who gave us his history; which was canonized by those who claimed to have the Holy Spirit of God, making Smith’s 1839 History the actual Word of God! And yet, as we have seen it is full of falsehoods. Did God sanction these falsehoods as scripture? It appears in Mormonism that he did. It begs the question, What kind of integrity is that?

The approach of Dale Morgan was “fresh” when he started writing his history in the 1930’s. It was when Brodie published No Man Knows My History in 1945. Brodie’s history is not a caricature, it is an insightful and dynamic magnum opus that has withstood the test of time, and would have been greater than it is, if the church had not rejected and closed its archives to her. And Walker wants to chide everyone it seems as he tries to come up with a suitable fairy tale:

Those who assert that we do not need to rethink some elements of our past are wrong. Equally true, those who claim that the new documents bring intellectual chaos and require radical changes are also certainly mistaken. We need to pursue the commonsense middle ground. While it is too early to suggest precisely what the new Joseph Smith synthesis will be, there are four dimensions or insights that now seem compelling. First Mormon scholarship will come to terms with the folk culture of the time. The question before scholars is no longer if Joseph and his family participated in the cunning arts but the degree and meaning of their activity.

Making a whole “new portrait” of Smith is not radical? And the “new documents” did bring “intellectual chaos and requir[ed] radical changes”, and it still took until 2013 to get anything close to an “official” acknowledgement about the extent of Smith’s practice of magic in Palmyra and Manchester.

And then it was the fairy tales thought up in the 1980’s that they put forth (anonymously) not the fresh work of Dale Morgan, H. Michael Marquardt, Dan Vogel, Richard Van Wagoner, Fawn Brodie and others far more credible (as I will show in this series). I’ll have more on the fairy tale that apologists (with the help of some really great non-Mormon historians) concocted in Pt. III.

Bushman to the Rescue?

Walker continues:

Richard Bushman’s fine new survey of the period Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism has already tacitly made this point but if the new documents prove to be authentic they will probably take us further than even Bushman’s study suggests. The Joseph Smith letter to Josiah Stowell places the Smith family in the money digging business and this in the words and handwriting of Joseph Smith himself. The Martin Harris letter in turn is as suggestive Harris places the founding events of Mormonism in a folk religious context and claims Joseph Smith as his source.

Did Bushman “come to grips” with the “folk culture” of the time in a reasonable and adequate way? That’s debatable. The 1825 money-digging agreement with Josiah Stowell placed the Smith’s firmly in that business, and it was signed by both father and son, who went on that wild goose-chase as their farm was foreclosed on. And looking back at what Bushman wrote in 1984 is as confused as he claimed Smith was:

[W]hen [Joseph] told his family and friends about Moroni and the gold plates [,] [t]he reaction was quite confused. The price Christianity had paid for assimilating the Enlightenment was to forgo belief in all supernatural happenings except the well-attested events of the Bible. Witchcraft, dreams, revelations, even healings were thrown indiscriminately on the scrapheap of superstition. While in 1692 Cotton Mather, the leading intellectual of his day, could discourse learnedly on the manifestation of witchcraft, no leading divine fifty years later would countenance such talk. The Enlightenment drained Christianity of its belief in the miraculous, except for Bible miracles. Everything else was attributed to ignorant credulity. Joseph Smith’s story when it became known was immediately identified as one more example.

A movement among the intellectual elite, of course, could not entirely suppress popular belief in divine and satanic forces affecting everyday life. Common people, surreptitiously to some extent, still entertained traditional beliefs in water-witching and in spells to locate hidden treasure. Many more yearned for a return of the miraculous powers of the original Christian church. A group of practitioners of traditional magic in Palmyra thus reacted quite differently from the newspaper editors to Joseph’s story of the golden plates and a protecting angel. They saw Joseph Smith as one of them, tried to absorb him into their company, and grew angry when he drew back.

Joseph was assaulted from two sides in the struggle between modern rationalism and traditional supernaturalism. He had to answer to demands for proof from the newspaper editors and ministers, on the one hand, and extricate himself from the schemes of the Palmyra magicians and money diggers, on the other. At times his closest followers and his own family were confused. One of Joseph Smith’s tasks in the years before 1830 was to define his calling and mission so as not to be misunderstood, and to set his own course, apart from rationalism or superstition.

The perspective of this work is that Joseph Smith is best understood as a person who outgrew his culture… (Joseph Smith and The Beginnings of Mormonism, 6-7)

He outgrew his culture? The phony one that Bushman makes up? Because Bushman is wrong that all sects completely discarded belief in all supernatural happenings. He tries to paint an either/or picture here, which was not the case. Jane Shaw has written a fascinating book called “Miracles in Enlightenment England”, and shows how ordinary Christians looked to the miraculous in their lives and attributed such miracles to God, not ghosts and goblins and treasure guardian spirits that take rods and stones to commune with. She writes:

First, it was a commonplace notion that miracles had ceased with biblical times. This was an idea inherited from sixteenth – and early seventeenth-century Protestants who, when confronted by Roman Catholic claims that their ongoing miracles were signs that they were still the true church, turned their back on miracles and came to regard scripture as the only trustworthy foundation for faith, all that was needed for belief in Jesus Christ. Those Protestant thinkers argued that God no longer needed to work miracles to convince people of the truth of the gospel. They did not question that God might be able to work miracles if he wished; nor did they question the validity of the biblical miracles as revelations that supported Christian doctrines, especially the incarnation and the resurrection of Christ. In that sense, they were not questioning the role of God as miracle-worker, as a God who could intervene – and had intervened – in human affairs, whether in the universe or the human body, to demonstrate his nature, power and existence. They simply suggested that there had been a limited age of miracles. However, they opened the way for more radical thinkers in the Enlightenment, most notably the deists, to ask questions about the very nature of God and whether God had indeed ever been a miracle-worker. (pg. 2)

These were the true elites, but they were not persuasive to most Christians. Shaw quotes John Wesley (fifty years after Cotton Mather):

And I acknowledge that I have seen with my eyes and hear with my ears several things, to the best of my judgment, cannot be accounted for by the ordinary sense of natural causes, and which I therefore believe ought to be ascribed to the extraordinary interposition of God. If any man choose to study these miracles, I reclaim not. I could not without doing violence to my own reason. Not to go far back, I am clearly persuaded, that the sudden deliverance of John Haydon was one instance of this kind; and my own recovery, on May 10th, another. I cannot account for either of these in a natural way. Therefore I believe they were both supernatural. I must observe that the truth of these facts is supposed by the same kind of proof as that of all other facts is wont to be – namely, the testimony of competent witnesses; and that testimony here is n as high a degree as any reasonable man can desire. Those witnesses were many in number: they could not be deceived themselves; for the facts in question they saw with their own eyes and heard with their own ears, nor is it credible that so man of them would combine together with a view of deceiving others. (John Wesley, Letter to Thomas Church, 1746).

Jane adds:

Perhaps the main conclusion to be drawn from all this is not so much that there was a distinct elite–popular split, but rather that a range of views on and attitudes towards the miraculous – and all the related questions that had been thrown up by the debates about miracles — co-existed by the middle of the eighteenth century. Susan Juster in her work on prophets in the late eighteenth century has argued that the Age of Reason was oxymoronic; it was a time when prophets tried to make sense of religious beliefs and experiences in the light of rational philosophy. The same might well be said of miracles and those who tried to make sense of them. Through a wide range of religious practices and experiences, the responses to them, and the writings of philosophers and theologians, the Enlightenment opened up a series of questions about experience, reason, the miraculous and the nature of God, which were not resolved in the eighteenth century. Both intellectual debate and lived religion led to a questioning of the category of experience, for example – the French Prophets through their activities, the deists and Hume in their argument that experience and testimony were unreliable. Hume himself, by the very nature of his skeptical argument, suggested that these matters might not be resolved.

The Enlightenment can, then, be described as a watershed with regard to these questions. But the Enlightenment did not provide closure; it did not solve the problem of how the relationship between reason and revelation might be negotiated. It did, however, set the terms for how people thought about that problem in the future. This book has explored three steams of thought and practice within Protestantism, with regard to miracles, first, the doctrine of the cessation of miracles; secondly, the miracle claims that occurred within various Protestant groups and churches, and the responses to them; and thirdly, the attempt to negotiate a middle way between an excessive rationalism or a too-ready “enthusiasm’, by using the experimental method to investigate the evidence for contemporary miracle claims, and appealing to probability rather than certainty. While all three of these “streams” were attacked and challenged by the deists and sceptics in the philosophical debate of the first half of the eighteenth century, all three remained key ingredients in the lively debates about miracles which ensued in the nineteenth century, as theologians and philosophers returned to those seventeenth- and eighteenth-century themes and arguments and reworked them, and new generations of Christians claimed that they too had experienced miracles.(179-80)

It was not this false dilemma fallacy as Bushman and other apologists try to make it out to be; Protestant Christians still believed in miracles (as they called them – not magic) as coming from God, though there were many that did participate in many occult practices which were also attributed to God by many who identified as Christians. But as we see, Christians did not simply turn to the occult/magic because they could not get the satisfaction of the supernatural from their religious experience, or that it was the only option left for them. That is a gross oversimplification of the argument and disingenuous.

This was a complex time in America, and creating a false alternative as these apologists have done, does nothing but create a fairy-tale used for the purpose of trying to Christianize a practice that very few looked upon as legitimate or religious. (Money-digging, scrying with peepstones, juggling). Some even believed that they could use what they thought were God given powers for sinful purposes such as searching for (as Smith put it) “filthy lucre”. There is absolutely no evidence that money-diggers were some kind of lost souls searching for Christian fulfillment with shovel and peep-stone. I have heard some really wacky things from Mormon apologists but this one is right up there at the top. And some very good Mormon historians have fed into this fairy-tale.

Walker continues to elaborate about the Smith’s magical money-digging:

However the question of whether the Smith family participated in money digging and magic does not rely on the recently found letters. The weight of evidence with or without them falls on the affirmative side of the question. For instance we have the Hurlbut-Howe affidavits which since 1834 have asserted that the Smiths were involved with money digging. The same story also emerges from other eyewitnesses including the less negatively biased interviews gathered by RLDS churchman William H. Kelley. Nor are these collections our only affidavits. The anti-Mormon and non-Mormon witnesses represent too many viewpoints and their accounts were given in too many circumstances to be dismissed merely as trumped up misrepresentations designed to discredit Joseph Smith and Mormonism.

This was the big goodbye to Hugh Nibley and his “they made it all up”, shtick. (Good riddance, too). I do have to say, that I’m reminded of part of a speech I once read by Bushman about Nibley, given at the Maxwell Institute in 2010:

Nibley portrays Joseph as the simple innocent, assaulted by scornful, arrogant, and ultimately unknowing critics. Joseph Smith did not lay claim to high intellect or worldly might, Nibley reminds us. He simply reported what had happened to him. “He spoke only of what he had seen with his eyes, heard with his ears, and felt with his hands.” Nibley loved for the simple and plain to outfox the clever and wise. He spent his life showing how the ploughboy surpassed them all. He loved it too that the simple prophet was neither pompous or self-aggrandizing about his powers. As he said, “this is a man who was not going to get a big head.” The epitome of humility and plain living himself, Nibley celebrated Joseph’s openhandedness in granting his followers powers like his own. “The Prophet’s advantage over the world lay of course in revelation,” Nibley noted, “but in the Church, every follower has an equal right to revelation.” “Search the scriptures,” he quotes Joseph as saying, “and ask your Heavenly Father, in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, to manifest the truth unto you; . . . you will then know for yourselves and not for another. You will not then be dependent on man for the knowledge of God; nor will there be any room for speculation.” (Richard Bushman, “Hugh Nibley and Joseph Smith,”)

They could throw him and his “mythmakes” BS under the bus, but just couldn’t really let him go, even though his work on the Book of Mormon and Abraham are just as dismal. As the work of Dan Vogel, Mike Marquardt, Quinn and others have shown, Nibley was wrong about everything. Everyone had an equal right to revelation as long as you kept your own to yourself. We see what happened to Hiram Page and the Brewsters.

And what Bushman and Nibley are/were trying to sell (about the character of Smith), is simply another fantasy. This caused me to think about how I could convey what a fantasy it is with an example from Joseph Smith’s life. And I think I can. Bushman should be familiar with what I’m going to relate here, as it appears in the 1842 Journal of Joseph Smith called “The Book of the Law of the Lord,” since Bushman was co-general editor for the Joseph Smith Papers. Here is the entry from Thursday, May 19, 1842:

Thursday 19 [May, 1842] Rain. At home during A.M. 1 oclock P.M. City Council. The Mayor John C. Bennett having resigned his office. Joseph was Elected Mayor & Hyrum Smith Vice Mayor of Nauvoo. While the election was going forward in the council Joseph received and wrote the following Rev—& threw it across the room to Hiram Kimball one of the councillors.

“Verily thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph by the voice of my Spirit, Hiram Kimball has been insinuating evil & forming evil opinions against you with others & if he continue in them he & they shall be accursed for I am the Lord thy God & will stand by thee & bless thee, Amen.”

After the election Joseph spoke at some length concerning the evil reports which were abroad in the city concerning himself—& the necessity of counteracting the designs of our enemies establishing a night watch, &c. whereupon the Mayor was authorized to establish a night watch by city ordinance,

Dr. John C. Bennet, ExMayor was then called upon by the Mayor [Joseph Smith] to state if he knew ought against him.—When Dr. Bennet replied “I know what I am about & the heads of the church know what they are about, I expect. I have no difficulty with the heads of the church. I publicly avow that anyone who has said that I have stated that General Joseph Smith has given me authority to hold illicit intercourse with women is a liar in the face of God. Those who have said it are damned liars: they are infernal liars. He neither in public or private gave me any such authority or license, & any person who states it is a scoundrel & a liar. I have heard it said that I should become a second [Sampson] Avard by withdrawing from the church & that I was at variance with the heads & should act an influence against them because I resigned the office of Mayor. (The Book of the Law of the Lord, pgs. 122-123)

And what happened to provoke this? Hiram Kimball was a non-Mormon from Illinois and was a very rich merchant. He had married a Mormon girl, Sarah Granger, in 1840. Granger loved the Church, and her husband, and was influential in converting him about a year after this incident. Here is Granger in 1883:

Early in the year 1842, Joseph Smith taught me the principle of marriage for eternity, and the doctrine of plural marriage. He said that in teaching this he realized that he jeopardized his life; but God had revealed it to him many years before as a privilege with blessings, now God had revealed it again and instructed him to teach it with commandment, as the Church could travel (progress) no further without the introduction of this principle. I asked him to teach it to some one else. He looked at me reprovingly, and said “Will you tell me who to teach it to? God required me to teach it to you, and leave you with the responsibility of believing or disbelieving.” He said, “I will not cease to pray for you, and if you will seek unto God in prayer you will not be led into temptation. (Sarah Kimball, “Auto-Biography,” Woman’s Exponent 12, no. 7 (September 1, 1883): 51.

Joseph Smith wanted Sarah to become one of his Spiritual Wives. Of course, when Hiram Kimball found out, he was upset and began making inquiries that led to some hard truths about what Joseph was doing. Those were the “evil reports” going around about Smith, his Spiritual Wifeism and his affairs with other men’s wives.

Smith pens the threatening “revelation” in front of Kimball and throws it at him. I don’t find that a humble act at all. Yet, Joseph is, according to Nibley the “simple innocent, assaulted by scornful, arrogant, and ultimately unknowing critics.” This is Nibley’s “humble servant of God?” Humility wasn’t Smith’s strong suit. Anyone who has seriously studied Smith’s life knows this.

Walker in 1986 is going on like this was some kind of new idea that had to be addressed, this money-digging obsession of the Smith family. Joseph Smith could have done so a hundred and fifty years earlier, but he didn’t.

Walker then brings up some of the evidence that others knew all about:

Certain pieces of evidence are especially telling there is for example “Uncle” Jesse Smith’s acrid-spirited 1829 letter to Hyrum Smith. The letter suggests that Joseph Sr., possessed a magical rod left the land of Vermont to pursue golden gods and most significantly practiced “necromancy.” Chapter VII of the book of commandments in turn promises Oliver Cowdery a revelatory rod of nature perhaps similar to the Vermont divining rods that once may have attracted his father William. Joseph Knight one of the Church’s first converts told a stylized story of Mormon origins similar in spirit and often similar in detail to Martin Harris’s [Salamander] letter. Finally there are the statements of the Smiths themselves. Lucy Mack Smith’s honest narrative insists that the family never halted their grinding labor simply to “win the faculty of Abrac,” draw “magic circles [or] pursue sooth saying.” Lucy claimed the Smiths “never during our lives suffered one important interest to swallow up every other obligation.” The father did more than hint about the family’s interest in the magical arts at young Joseph’s 1826 money-digging trial. Joseph Sr., insisted that both he and his son were mortified that this wonderful power which God had so miraculously given [Joseph Jr.] should be used only in search of filthy lucre, or its equivalent in earthly treasures.

Except the two Joseph’s did allow the pursuit of buried treasure get in the way of honest work that could have paid off their mortgage. Instead, they lost their house in the fall of 1826. Compare what Walker writes with Morris who wrote that Jesse’s objections had nothing to do with treasure seeking, he was angry because their claims were all religious! And there is no mention of any visit of an angel, or of God to the peep stone prophet in 1826. It’s like those things never happened, because God had yet to “illumine” the heart of the boy. And then, of course there is the usual dismissal of Brodie:

Of course, we will not learn too much about Joseph by merely documenting his money digging or by treating it as an epithet. That was the mistake of several post-World War II scholars. Fawn M. Brodie’s No Man Knows My History, for instance, produced a portrait of many hues, but her “Joseph Smith” was ultimately a caricature. One of Brodie’s troubles was that she did not try to understand the culture from which Joseph and the early Mormon converts came a failing, unhappily, that several of her Mormon detractors shared. As a result she saw the Smiths as a neighborhood peculiarity and transformed their religious fervor and folk customs into chicanery Joseph smith the Palmyra seer 465 and fraud in her interpretation Joseph became a skilled confidence man who stumbled onto religion.

Brodie absolutely understood the culture that Smith was raised in. The apologists just don’t like where that evidence leads, somewhere Brodie wasn’t afraid to go. In review after review it is claimed that Brodie’s work is shortsighted because she believed Smith was a fraud. This, to me, is the great strength of her work. The critics of her work are frustrated because No Man Knows My History is vouchsafed by its skilled and accurate use of primary sources and her stellar prose, not to mention her psycho-analysis of Smith. What Prince calls learning line upon line, Brodie calls invention. Smith fails as a prophet because he wasn’t a prophet, or a linguist/translator of ancient languages, his primary claim to fame. He was a fraud in every instance. And even when he does accomplish something marvelous, like writing the Book of Mormon (no matter what you think of the religious material in it) he mars it with his silly magic tricks and constant lies. What Brodie wrote about Joseph and his practice of Spiritual Wifeism wasn’t even close to how bad it actually was.

We live in the age of Donald Trump and seeing how his followers stick to him like glue no matter what he does (committing adultery, paying off women, along with his racism and xenophobia, to name a few) should give us a clue about how Smith’s relationship to his “saints” worked in the same kind of way. Like Trump, Smith filled a perceived void in people’s lives and came along at just the right time to make the most of it. This is, after all, America.

And while the Mormon apologists were struggling to rewrite Mormon history, the Tanners, who actually knew it, were warning people about Mark Hofmann. Here is the late Jerald Tanner:

Our organization, Utah Lighthouse Ministry (ULM) has printed a great deal of material questioning both Hofmann’s documents and his honesty. Beginning as early as 1984, we suggested that the Salamander Letter might be “a forgery” and noted that if this were the case, “it needs to be exposed.” By August 1984, we had printed the first part of the booklet, The Money-Digging Letters, in which Hofmann’s major discoveries were questioned and his document dealings condemned. One of the editors of this paper, Sandra Tanner, distributed copies of this material at the Sunstone Theological Symposium. Hofmann attended this symposium and appeared upset to learn that his integrity was being questioned. The day following the publication of this material (August 23, 1984) Mark Hofmann came to our home and had a long talk with Sandra. He seemed very distressed and hurt that we, of all people, would question his discoveries. He had expected that opposition might come from those in the Mormon Church, but he was amazed that ULM had taken a position critical of him. Hofmann seemed to be almost at the point of tears as he pled his case as to why we should trust him.

We, of course, knew that it was risky business to publicly question any forger, but we had no idea he was capable of murder. In retrospect, we were very fortunate that Hofmann arrived at our house armed only with arguments as to why we should trust his documents rather than a pipe bomb surrounded with nails.

Both the Los Angeles Times and the Deseret News printed that we were questioning the Salamander Letter. Hofmann grew concerned about our investigation and told an associate he was planning another visit to our house to try to make us believe him. We wonder now if we would have been so bold as to call for the public to send any information to us that they had concerning Hofmann’s activities if we had known that he was willing to murder to protect his document-forging operation. When we located him at the August 1985 Sunstone Symposium and began to ask probing questions about the Salamander Letter, he wore a sad and fearful expression — as if he were trying to say, “Please believe what I am telling you.”

At first, the Mormon bishop Steven Christensen trusted Mark Hofmann, and he bought the Salamander Letter. When we published excerpts in the March 1984 issue of the Messenger and indicated the possibility of plagiarism, citing Mormonism Unveiled and Joseph Knight’s account of the discovery of the Book of Mormon plates, Hofmann rejected our suggestion. He even tried to testify in federal court that we had violated his manuscript rights by printing excerpts from the Letter. Although we were all in the courtroom waiting for Christensen to step to the witness stand, the judge made it clear that such testimony was irrelevant to the case at hand and Christensen was not allowed the opportunity of testifying against us.

Christensen continued to believe Mark Hofmann and his stories concerning the discovery of important Mormon documents for more than a year. Although he eventually came to the conclusion that Hofmann was a “crook,” it was too late. When Christensen threatened to expose him, Hofmann retaliated by killing him. It’s a strange twist of fate that the man who tried to defend the Salamander Letter and testify against us in court was the one who later tried to blow the whistle on Hofmann and ended up losing his life. It may very well be that the thing that saved our lives was simply that few people believed what we were publishing.

The folklore fairy tale would not be complete without the help of a non-Mormon folklorist, and the apologists had someone in mind, which I’ll discuss in Pt. III’s Introduction. For now, let’s get back to the Manchester ghosts and how the Smith’s would work to the money…

The Last Shall be First…

And why would the angel stories come first in 1828-9, and the stories about the ghost and Captain Kidd come later? This is simple, folks. Very simple. Because when Joseph began searching for a printer for his religious manuscript in 1829, people began asking him, and Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and others close to Joseph questions about it, and they began telling the story that supported the “religious” Golden Bible, the post 1827 story that Joseph had been developing for years.

As this story got out, others who remembered the events from 1823 and earlier began to speak out about them. And of course Martin Harris and Smith Sr. and Lucy Smith had trouble weeding out the original magical elements of the story that they knew. And Joseph, like his father would get intoxicated and so these earlier magical elements would creep into the narrative, even after the story’s focus became strictly religious.

Who was going to report to the papers the backyard digging escapades of the local money-diggers in Palmyra, New York, and who would publish such yarns? The only mention of such things was if something sensational happened like the murder of Oliver Harper. (See the Josiah Stowell “Agreement” in Pt. I, for more info see Walters & Marquardt here).

Asa Wild claimed in 1823 that he had a religious vision (much like Smith’s later claims) and he had it published in the Wayne Sentinel, and even though E. Grandin was skeptical about it, there is no evidence that the local clergy took notice and went out of their way to persecute him for it as they supposedly did with Smith. So why would Smith have been criticized in 1824? Perhaps for claiming that the ghostly ancestor of one of the native tribes had revealed to him the location of a great treasure which would reveal what happened to the “Lost Ten Tribes”?

Part Time Peeker?

And if Joseph was actually a real “seer” as he claimed to be, why, he would have been finding things for people all the time! A Peeker who actually can find lost items every time? That would have generated some interest in the press I’m sure. But like all the rest, Joseph complained about “slippery treasures” and circumstances that stopped him from being able to perform the tasks he was hired to do, like interrupting his spells with an untimely spoken word. Looking in his stone and then weeping in frustration because “the enchantment was too strong” for him to find what he was paid to find. In relation to money-digging Joseph was nothing special, he was a flamboyant con artist who was bilking people of their money just like one of his former compatriots, Luman Walters.

Josiah Stowell was simply another willing victim of a juggler. Because Stowell wanted Smith to look in his stone for treasures was not an excuse for Smith to break the law and do so. Stowell’s son Simpson lived near the Smith’s in Manchester, and I’m sure Joseph and his father arranged to speak with Simpson after hearing about the silver mine. Dan Vogel breaks it down:

That Smith was summoned by the Stowells to Simpson’s house or appeared there by prearrangement implies that his meeting was not entirely cold and that he had a prior acquaintance with Simpson. The younger Stowell may have, at some point, described his family’s comfortable home, barn, and other buildings to someone in Palmyra or Manchester. Maybe a friend accompanied him on a visit to South Bainbridge and then unwittingly passed on information to Smith. A conversation may have been overheard. One could position oneself outside a window and hear Josiah telling his son about various changes made to the farm. If Smith used a form of “hot reading” with Stowell, he would not be the first, nor would he be the last, psychic to do so. This technique was used by spirit mediums in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and continues to be employed today. Regardless of the mechanism, it impressed Stowell and he hired Joseph on the spot. (Joseph Smith: Making of a Prophet, 70)

In fact, Smith Sr. seemed to be an expert in the art of eavesdropping, as Lucy Smith recorded in her history:

Mr Smith went over a hill that <lay> east of <us> to see what he could discover among the neighbors there there at the first house he came to he found the conjuror [Luman Walters, and] Willard chase and the company all together this was the house of one Mr Laurence he made an errand and went in and sat down near the door leaving the door ajar for the men were so near that he could hear their conversation… (Lucy’s Book, 381)

(And it is worth noting that Joseph found nothing in Harmony, as usual). I mean, wouldn’t an honest religious Joseph, (since he had such a great ability to see hidden things), simply have told Stowell that there was no silver anywhere in the area? His peep-stone was an all seeing eye, was it not? So why did Smith continue with the obvious charade? To bilk Stowell out of his money? Was he even making any money if he wasn’t digging? Was that an honest use of the God given talent that young Joseph was supposedly given? Joseph not only searched for “filthy lucre”, he also never found any! If Joseph was some kind of prophet-in-training, then why was it so easy for the “spirits” to defeat his “all-seeing-eye” with their “enchantments”? If the Joseph’s were going out every day for Stowell, that would mean they (since Smith Sr. was an expert with the rod) tried over thirty times to find the lost silver mine and could not. Joseph Knight later wrote that,

joseph then went to mr stowels whare he had lived sometime before but mr stowel could not pay him money for his work very well and he came to me perhaps in November and worked for me until about the time that he was married which I think was in February and I paid him the money and I furnished him with a horse and cutter to go and see his girl down to mr hails and soon after this he was married and mr stowel moved him and his wife to his fathers in Palmyra Ontario County

It seems that Stowell wasn’t made of money, so it probably wasn’t Joseph who persuaded Stowell to quit looking for the mine, Joseph just couldn’t find it and he couldn’t pay them anymore so he went to work for Knight. And there is no indication that the Smith’s returned to Palmyra with any amount of money at all. After all, they could not pay off their mortgage and had to indenture Harrison to Lemuel Durfee as a condition to continue to live in the Manchester house. (More on this below)

I was amazed by this FAIRMORMON presentation from 2002 about Smith’s money-digging. Here is the apologist Russell Anderson with what he claims is evidence of how successful young Jo was at peeking:

But what if you weren’t pretending to discover lost goods. What if you actually had a gift where you “could discern things invisible to the natural eye” Could you then be judged guilty of this statute? …Martin Harris tells us, “I…was picking my teeth with a pin while sitting on the bars. The pin caught in my teeth and dropped from my fingers into shavings and straw… We could not find it. I then took Joseph on surprise, and said to him–I said, ‘Take your stone.’ … He took it and placed it in his hat–the old white hat–and place his face in his hat. I watched him closely to see that he did not look to one side; he reached out his hand beyond me on the right, and moved a little stick and there I saw the pin, which he picked up and gave to me. I know he did not look out of the hat until after he had picked up the pin.

Martin Harris also tells us that Joseph used the seer stone to find the gold plates. “In this stone he could see many things to my certain knowledge. It was by means of this stone he first discovered these plates.”

Henry Harris says, “He [Joseph Smith] said he had a revelation from God that told him they [the Book of Mormon plates] were hid in a certain hill and he looked in his stone and saw them in the place of deposit.”

A Mr. Wanderhoof reports that Joseph used his seer stone to find a stolen mare for his grandfather.

The “trial” also provides evidences of Joseph’s abilities. Purple tells us that, “Josiah Stowell provides several examples and has absolute faith in his ability.” Now Purple didn’t give us those examples, but he records that Josiah Stowell provided them. (Russell Anderson)

A “Mr. Wanderhoof”? Really? Is he kidding? Well, Perhaps not, he seems to have gotten that name from a paper by Ronald Walker found here, which has as a reference, E. W. Wanderhoof, Historical Sketches of Western New York, (Buffalo N.Y.: Matthews-Northrup Works 1907), 138-39. (The name should be “E. W. Vanderhoof”, so one wonders if Anderson ever saw the original source, but finding a stolen horse for a “Mr. WANDERhoof” – hilarious!). I would have proof read this account, (by his grandson) it is filled with many inaccuracies and obvious embellishments. And yeah, I have to go with Vanderhoof who said that Smith claimed it would be in this vague area to the north and of course it was found by Lake Erie, a natural barrier for all animals that would wander from home.

And as a bookend to this, here is what Mormon apologist Brant Gardner wants us to believe about those who claim to have these kinds of supernatural powers:

… it isn’t the effectiveness that is important—it is the nature of the consultation.

Really? The only accounts in which Smith appears to be accurate are those in which it is an obvious parlor trick, or from vague accounts handed down well after the fact. There is not one credible account of Smith ever finding anything like a silver mine, chest of money or coins, or anything of that nature. And the story of the gold plates is so fraught with contradiction that it is useless as evidence of anything, except that Smith had quite an imagination.

Unlike the dowsers that came before and after him, Smith’s successes fail to fall into the law of averages, even though a broken clock is right twice a day. It was worth it to the rodsmen to often be wrong because if they could be right even once, it would bolster their reputation with the superstitious, and they would get them (and others) to come back for more. Even those that doubted Smith were sometimes desperate enough to consult him again.

Still, the apologists try and try to transform Joseph from a lawless juggler to a “village seer” or “cunning man” or some other obscure title that has nothing to do with what Smith was actually doing, first, being manipulated by his father to scry for imaginary treasure and then conning people of his own volition. Luman Walters was a true “village seer” in the sense that he lived in the same place for a long time and practiced a form of medicine and had clients and would consult or “divine” for them. (More on this in Pt. III) Joseph was truly nothing like Luman Walters.

So why would Joseph change his story that he found the plates using the peep-stone to being shown their location by the angel? These are all parlour tricks not worth bragging about. Smith knew this and knew what the eventual impact of such a story would be.

And at the 1826 Examination, Stowell did provide an example of finding a feather that was supposed to be buried with some lost money that Joseph scryed the location of, but he only found the feather, not the money. (Imagine that! I can picture the young Peeker with his mark, “You almost got the money Josiah! Next time you will, I’m sure of it!”) And Stowell became an ardent believer, even though Smith never found anything of value for him.

And then there were the Stowell boys who were not as credulous as their father, who tested Joseph by asking him to find a lost bag of grain, and when Joseph could not find it (as usual) he tried to pay off one of the brothers (not knowing they were working together) to tell him where it was hidden so he could tell the other he found it with his peep-stone. (More on this later) So how many did Joseph pay off I wonder?

The Willard Chase peep-stone

This is all that FAIRMORMON can come up with and it’s pretty pathetic. Martin Harris also told a story that he replaced Smith’s stone with a fake and that he was so clever that Smith didn’t know the difference and even tried to “translate” with it. Joseph’s unique stone (with those exact markings and length and width and shape), was replaced by Harris with one he found by a lake? Like the Chase stone was that common? And Joseph would never know? Joseph surely turned that to his advantage when he supposedly tried to “translate” with the bogus stone and cried out “Martin, that did you do? All is dark as Egypt”. Oh that’s right, Smith the “prophet” knew it was Martin that did something, but didn’t know he had switched out the peep-stone. Magic! (Deseret News, 30 November 1881).

The Last Shall be First (Continued)

As Joseph’s neighbors learned that the Smith’s were now claiming that an angel appeared to young Joseph and that he was “translating” gold plates, they naturally inquired of the family what was going on. All they knew about was Joseph and his father’s treasure digging; and that some of the family were Presbyterians. Lucy Smith writes that in 1824 after Joseph prayed to know which church was right and told the story about the “treasure” in the hill, he cautioned them not to speak of it:

...by sunset [we] were ready to be seated and give our ~~att~~ undivided attention to Josephs recitals ~~and this pre~~ before he began to explain to us the instructions which he had received he ~~told~~ charged us to not to mention what he told us out of the family as the world was so wicked that ~~if they~~ when they did come to a knoweledge of these things they would try to take our lives and we must be careful not to proclaim these things… that when we get the plates they will want to kill us for the sake of the gold...(pg. 343)

By 1829 the public were getting the mixed responses of Smith Sr. and others, who were incorporating the new religious narrative into the earlier treasure digging stories. Neighbor Lorenzo Saunders answered some questions about the Smiths, and his recollection mixes the two narratives:

I saw them dig in a [Miner’s] hill, said to be for that purpose; that young Joe could look in his peep stone and see a man sitting in a gold chair. Old Joe said he was king i.e. the man in the chair; a king of one of the tribes who was shut in there in the time of one of their big battles. This digging was a mile from Smiths. Don’t know as there was ever anything in the cave. The cave was on our place. This was in 1826. The cave had a door to it. We tore it off and sunk it in a pit of water where they got dirt to cover a cole pit. …[Joseph Smith, Jr.,] made the statement and gave the account in my father’s house. He said he was in the woods at prayer and the angel touched him on the shoulders and he arose, and the angel told him where the plates were and he could take his oldest Brother with him in a year from that time and go and get them. But his oldest Brother died before the year was out. At the end of the time he went to the place to get the plates the angel asked where his Brother was. I told him he was dead. The angel told him there would be an other appointed. Joseph chose Samuel Lawrence. But he did not go. (William H. Kelley Interview, 17 September 1884)

At the time of them digging the cave on Miner’s hill they had procured the services of Luman Walters. And where did they get the idea that there was a king of one of the tribes buried under a hill by their home? From their son, of course. (Joseph would later tell the story of another king like person “Onandagus”, when he spoke of Zelph, years later)

Joseph didn’t give out the location of the buried plates, and he and his son were both engaged in trying to find any treasure that might have been buried with them. Smith even writes in his history that he was tempted to find more when he supposedly dug up the stone box.

Joseph Sr. must have been ecstatic that God had finally illumined the heart of his son Joseph Jr., and that he had actually found a golden treasure (as Smith Jr. claimed). The Sr. Smith was vindicated, there actually was treasure to be found in the place where they lived! He just had to write to his brother Jesse and tell him about how rich he was going to be!

And why would Joseph tell his family not to mention that there were gold plates buried under the Manchester Hill, and then afterwards tell a group of money-diggers all about it? And go out searching for treasure with his father over and over again? Joseph was, after all a part of their “company”.

It is likely that those like Joseph Knight, Sr. and others got information from both Joseph Jr. & Sr., as those stories incorporate elements of both men. Also, the two Joseph’s would drink… and talk about religion and how the hills surrounding Palmyra were filled with treasure. Oliver Cowdery, who spent many years as Joseph’s bosom companion, told others about a cavern under the hill in Manchester that opened up and was filled with treasure. In 1877, Edward Stevenson wrote:

It was likewise stated to me by David Whitmer in the year 1877 that Oliver Cowdery told him that the Prophet Joseph and himself had seen his room and that it was filled with treasure, and on a table therein were the breastplate and the sword of Laban, as well as the portion of gold plates not yet translated, and that these plates were bound by three small gold rings, and would also be translated, as was the first portion in the days of Joseph. When they are translated much useful information will be brought to light. But till that day arrives, no Rochester adventurers shall ever see them or the treasures, although science and mineral rods testify that they are there. (Edward Stevenson, Reminiscences of Joseph, the Prophet, and the Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon)

The Guardian of the Treasure Cave (1829)

This is simply an elaboration of the Miner’s Hill story told by Smith, Sr. Brigham Young related a variation of this same story, here. This brings to mind what Abigail Harris was told by Lucy Smith and other accounts (about many treasures under the Manchester hill) which will be explored below. Long after the younger Joseph changed the story, the older Joseph would still speak about digging for treasure and his exploits in the Manchester hills. This went on almost to the end of his life; as we have seen above he would later tell some of the “Saints” in Kirtland that he had been digging for over thirty years, and knew what he was doing. Perhaps he thought with the help of some temple consecrated items, he would do better than any Rochester adventurer, and could unearth what so many others had failed to. And we know how that turned out, don’t we?

It is also important to note that what Brewster wrote was never responded to by Joseph Smith or anyone else (that his father was involved in money-digging in Kirtland). Not one peep.

Post Master Rumors?

In March 1831, David Staats Burnet the editor of the Evangelical Enquirer of Dayton, Ohio (and Baptist Pastor) wrote an article on the new Mormonite Sect which had recently made its appearance in his state. Having learned that the founder of the new sect was from Palmyra, Burnet wrote to the “intelligent Post Master at Palmyra,” and received a letter from him.

According to Richard Troll, Samuel T. Lawrence was an “agent” who collected fees on subscriptions, and these agents were mostly postmasters. Troll writes, “Post master “M.[artin] W. Wilcox” [August 1829 – April 1839] was one agent for Palmyra, the other was “S. T. Lawrence.” It is therefore likely that Burnet received his information about the Smith’s in 1831 from Wilcox or Lawrence or both. Burnet initially hears a religious tale, but upon inquiry learns further details from the Palmyra Post Master:

For a long time in the vicinity of Palmyra, there has existed an impression, especially among certain loose classes of society, that treasures of great amount were concealed near the surface of the earth, probably by the Indians, whom they were taught to consider the descendants of the ten lost Israelitish tribes, by the celebrated Jew who a few years since promised to gather Abraham’s sons on Grand Island, thus to be made a Paradise. The ignorance and superstition of these fanatics soon conjured up a ghost, who they said was often seen and to whom was committed the care of the precious deposit. This tradition made money diggers of many who had neither intelligence nor industry sufficient to obtain a more reputable livelihood. But they did not succeed and as the money was not dug up, something must be dug up to make money. The plan was laid, doubtless, by some person behind the curtain, who selected suitable tools. One Joseph Smith, a perfect ignoramus, is to be a great prophet of the Lord, the fabled ghost the angel of his presence, a few of the accomplices the apostles or witnesses of the imposition, and, to fill up the measure of their wickedness and the absurdity of their proceedings, the hidden golden treasure, is to be a gold bible and a new revelation. This golden bible consisted of metallic plates six or seven inches square, of the thickness of tin and resembling gold, the surface of which was covered with hieroglyphic characters, unintelligible to Smith, the finder, who could not read English. However, the angel (ghost!) that discovered the plates to him, likewise informed him that he would be inspired to translate the inscriptions without looking at the plates, while an amanuensis would record his infallible reading; all which was accordingly done. But now the book must be published, the translation of the inscriptions which Smith was authorized to show to no man save a few accomplices, who subscribe a certificate of these pretended facts at the end of the volume. Truly a wise arrangement! Among the gang none had real estate save one, who mortgaged his property to secure the printer and binder in Palmyra, but who was so unfortunate as not to be able to convert his wife to the new faith, though he flogged her roundly for that purpose several times. The book, an octavo of from 500 to 1000 pages (for when I saw it I did not notice the number) did not meet ready sale and consequently about 500 copies were sent to the eastern part of this state, which was considered a better market. Though at home it had little success, the subjoined pieces will show that in the Western Reserve it found better.

The Palmyra Reflector

The Post Master who wrote to Burnet was well aware that it was a treasure digging ghost who was later transformed into an angel. The pushback by the Mormon apologists is almost comical. For example, Mark Ashurst-McGee makes much ado about how Palmyra resident Abner Cole was only printing vague rumors (actually “falsehoods”) in his paper (The Reflector) about the Smiths:

Did Joseph Smith’s successive narratives eventually transform a treasure guardian into an angel, or did his antagonists’ successive narratives eventually transform an angel into a treasure guardian? …According to the 1834–35 history, which Oliver Cowdery composed with Joseph Smith’s assistance, Moroni had given Joseph a warning: “When it is known that the Lord has shown you these things…they will circulate falsehoods to destroy your reputation.” … Some of these tales found their way to Abner Cole, the editor of the local tabloid. Cole explained his historical methodology on more than one occasion. Cole concluded the article with the offer, “Postmasters and others, who can furnish us with interesting notices on any of the above subjects, shall receive a copy of our paper gratis.” Later, Cole specified the origins of his description of Moroni as a treasure guardian: “This tale in substance, was told at the time the event was said to have happened by both father and son, and is well recollected by many of our citizens.” Tales told by local residents amount to no more than neighborhood gossip. … Philastus Hurlbut collected Willard Chase’s description of Moroni as a treasure guardian in 1833. However, at the same time, Hurlbut collected Abigail Harris’s statement describing Moroni as “the spirit of one of the Saints that was upon this continent” as well as Henry Harris’s statement identifying Moroni as an “angel.” Although the Chase account predates the official history of the Church, it does not predate Joseph Smith’s 1832 history, which describes Moroni as “an angel of the Lord.” (pg. 51)

So Ashurst-McGee is going to quibble about two accounts that are less than a year apart? An observation without a point, to be sure. (I’ll have more on Abigail’s account below). Cole’s newspaper was more than a tabloid, but his cryptic admission here about postmasters is most enlightening, if one knows that his brother-in-law Samuel T. Lawrence was an agent for the post office and was involved in going house to house to collect fees. This is the same Lawrence who was so intimate with Joseph Smith (who Smith chose to properly introduce him to Emma) and knew the real story about the “record” (having been considered to accompany Smith to retrieve it from the hill). Lawrence would have known who was involved in the Smith family treasure hunts, and would then relate the stories to Cole, who published them. I’ll have more on Abner Cole and Samuel T. Lawrence below but first, let’s talk about angels, spirits and ghosts.

Angels and Spirits of the Dead

Did Joseph Smith and others from his family consider dead people (ghosts or spirits) as angels in 1823? Unlikely for many reasons.

In 1823 Joseph was partial to the Methodist faith, and was a part time Exhorter. What did the Methodist’s (and the other churches of the day) teach about angels? Angels were considered to be God’s special messengers, winged creatures created by God, and though they were spiritual beings, they were not considered to be deceased, resurrected or “preexistant” humans.

In the Book of Mormon angels are mentioned 145 times, but not one of them is given a name and none of them are identified as dead or resurrected humans. In the Bible this too is the case for most of the appearances of angels, with only a few very important angels being named.

Angels were looked upon as a creation of God different from human beings:

The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls ‘angels’ is a truth of faith. The witness of Scripture is as clear as the unanimity of Tradition” (#328). Given that we do believe in angels, we define them as pure spirits and personal beings with intelligence and free will. They are immortal beings. As the Bible attests, they appear to humans as apparitions with a human form.

Angels then, would never identify themselves as a former inhabitant of this earth, even though they would appear in human form. In Psalms we read:

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. (Psalms 8:3-5)

This was quoted again in the Book of Hebrews. After quoting the Psalms the author then writes,

…we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. (Hebrews 2)

There were all kinds of angels in the Bible, angels with wings, angels that looked like men, destroying angels, flying angels, messenger angels, helpful angels, they were everywhere. But there is nothing which claimed that angels were men. John even mistook an angel for God:

I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. But he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your fellow prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God! (Revelation 22:8-9)

When Joseph Smith initially went through the New Testament and changed many verses, he passed by this one and left it as it reads in the King James Version. The Manuscript (New Testament Revision 2) has no change for this verse in the Book of Revelation. But he did change it (probably by 1835 or later) to read,

And I, John, saw these things and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See that thou do it not; for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book. Worship God.

The angel does not claim that he is one of the former prophets of the Bible, as some have attested. The angel claimed that he was a “fellow servant” of God, as were those “brethren the prophets”. Other translations besides the KJV make this clear:

But he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your fellow prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God!” (NIV)

Matthew Gill writes that the angels were only brethren in a spiritual sense:

…if this was one of the ministering spirits, he was a servant of the same Lord as John; and if he was a minister of the Gospel, he was still more literally a fellow servant of his, and of the apostles, and preachers of the Gospel; which is meant by the testimony of Jesus, that bearing testimony to the person, office, grace, obedience, sufferings, and death of Christ, and the glory following; and therefore being but a servant, and a servant in common with John and his brethren, was by no means to be worshipped; not the servant, but master; not the creature, but the Creator (Commentary on Revelation 19:10)

Translated Men

It might be a good time to speak about Translated Men and how they fit into the early theology of Mormonism.

In the Book of Mormon there were three Nephites who were “translated”, as John the Disciple of Jesus would be. In the account given in 3rd Nephi it reads,

And behold, they were encircled about as if it were fire; and it came down from heaven, and the multitude did witness it, and do bear record; and angels did come down out of heaven, and did minister unto them. And it came to pass that while the angels were ministering unto the disciples, behold, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and ministered unto them. (pg. 493)

What is meant by “ministering”? In what way were they attended to? Were they all dancing in the fire? Why wasn’t the “multitude” encircled too? Anyway, three of these “disciples” choose to stay on earth. Jesus tells them:

…ye have desired the thing which John, my beloved, which was with me in my ministry, before that I was lifted up by the Jews, desired of me; therefore more blessed are ye, for ye shall never taste of death, but ye shall live to behold all the doings of the Father, unto the children of men, even until all things shall be fulfilled, according to the will of the Father, when I shall come in my glory, with the power of heaven; and ye shall never endure the pains of death; but when I shall come in my glory, ye shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye, from mortality to immortality… (1830 Book of Mormon, p. 509)

There was also another character from the Book of Mormon (Ether) who may have been “translated”:

Now the last words which are written by Ether, are these: Whether the Lord will that I be translated, or that I suffer the will of the Lord in the flesh: It mattereth not, if it so be that I am saved in the kingdom of God. Amen (p. 573).

These “translated beings” are not angels, but they are like angels according to the Book of Mormon:

And behold, the heavens were opened, and they were caught up into heaven, and saw and heard unspeakable things. And it was forbidden them that they should utter…and whether they were in the body or out of the body, they could not tell: for it did seem unto them like a transfiguration of them, that they were changed from this body of flesh, into an immortal state, that they could behold the things of God. But it came to pass that they did again minister upon the face of the earth… And now whether they were mortal or immortal, from the day of their transfiguration, I know not; but… they did go forth upon the face of the land, and did minister unto all the people, uniting as many to the church as would believe in their preaching; baptizing them… and they were cast into prison… And the prisons could not hold them, for they were rent in twain, and they were cast down into the earth. But they did smite the earth with the word of God, insomuch that by his power they were delivered out of the depths of the earth; and therefore they could not dig pits sufficiently to hold them. And thrice they were cast into a furnace, and received no harm. And twice were they cast into a den of wild beasts; and behold they did play with the beasts, as a child with a suckling lamb, and received no harm. And it came to pass that thus they did go forth among all the people of Nephi, and did preach the gospel of Christ unto all people upon the face of the land… And now I, Mormon, make an end of speaking concerning these things, for a time. …But behold I have seen them, and they have ministered unto me; and behold they will be among the Gentiles, and the Gentiles knoweth them not. They will also be among the Jews, and the Jews shall know them not… they shall minister unto all the scattered tribes of Israel, and unto all nations, kindred, tongues and people, and shall bring out of them unto Jesus many souls, that their desire may be fulfilled, and also because of the convincing power of God which is in them; and they are as the angels of God and if they shall pray unto the Father in the name of Jesus they can shew themselves unto whatsoever man it seemeth them good; therefore great and marvellous works shall be wrought by them, before the great and coming day… (p. 509-511)

Here we see that translated beings (in 1829) were not angels but men, and they were like angels in that they could do things angels could do. There is no evidence that Moroni or Nephi were translated beings, but later (1835) Smith declared “Moroni” to be a resurrected man. They were actually former human beings who had died. They were spirits, then later became angels.

It appears that due to all these “translated” men, Oliver Cowdery had some question about John from the Bible, and Joseph settled it by looking in his seeing-stone. (He was “translated” and still alive like the “three Nephites”).

“The Spirit of the Lord & Satan”

In the Book of Mormon Smith also wrote about many angels though none had names, and also what he called “the Spirit of the Lord’ which could sometimes appear as a man. In the Book of Nephi it is written that:

I [Nephi] was caught away in the spirit of the Lord, yea, into an exceeding high mountain … I said unto the spirit, I behold thou hast shewn unto me the tree which is precious above all. And he saith unto me, What desirest thou? And I said unto him, to know the interpretation thereof; for I spake unto him as a man speaketh; for I beheld that he was in the form of a man; yet, nevertheless, I knew that it was the spirit of the Lord; and he spake unto me as a man speaketh with another. (p. 23)

This “spirit of the Lord” was not an angel or a man, it was described as “the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, (p. 165) or “the spirit of the Lord, which is in me” (p. 151) “in our fathers”, (p. 35) and “the spirit of the Lord which was in him” (p. 65)

There is also “the spirit of the devil” which has “power to captivate, to bring you down to hell, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom.” (p. 64), makes people angry (p. 121), and it can “enter into them, and take possession of their house” (p. 333).

The “Devil and his angels” are evil spirits that shall “go away into everlasting fire”. (p. 79) They are never described as men or the spirit children of God.

“The Order”

When Smith was “translating” (a different kind) the Bible, he claims that Adam

…heard a voice out of heaven, saying, thou art baptized with fire & with the Holy Ghost; this is the Record of the Father & the Son, from hence forth & forever; & thou art after the order of him who was without begining of days or end of years, from all eternity to all eternity. Behold, thou art one in me, a Son of God; & thus may <all> become my Sons: Amen. (Genesis 6)

This “order” Smith associates with Enoch and Melchizedek in his “translation” of Genesis 14:

Now Melchizedeck was a man of faith, who wrought righteousness; & when a child he feared God, And stop[p]ed the Mouths of lyons, & quenched the violence of fire. And thus, having been approved of God, he was ordained a high Priest, after the order of the covenant which God made with Enoch; it being after the order of the son of God; which order came, not by man, nor the will of man, Neither by Father nor mother; Neither by begining of days, or <nor> end of years; but of <God.> And it was delivered unto men by the calling of his own voice, according to his own will; unto as many as believed on his name; for God having sworn unto Enoch, And unto his seed, with an oath, by himself; that every one being ordained after <this> order & calling, should have power, by faith, to break Mountains, to divide the Seas, to dry up waters, to turn them out of their course, to put at defiance the armies of Nations, to divide the Earth, to break evry band, to stand in the presence of God; to do all things according to his will, according to his command; subdue principalities & powers, & this by the will of the Son of God, which <was from before the foundation of the world.> And men having this faith, coming up unto this order of God, were translated; And taken up into Heaven.

This is a description of what the early Mormon “priesthood” was. The “ordination” was given to men by the calling of his [God’s] own voice. No need for the laying on of hands, nor for men to ordain men. After this, we then we run into the account in Genesis about Lot and his family. In the Bible it is two angels who appear to Lot, and they act and talk like men. So Smith changes the account to read:

And the Angels, which were holy men, & were sent forth after the order of God, turned their faces from thence & went toward Sodom. (Old Testament Revision 2, pg. 45)

Smith makes the angels into “holy men” (since they were described as men in the KJV account), but according to Smith they were actually not angels, but translated “holy men” of the “order or God”. It would be anachronistic to claim that angels are “holy men” and use this as evidence, as they do at lds.org.

“Awman’s Anglo-men”

Another document which lends credence that angels were not men in early Mormonism was the “Pure Language Revelation” from March, 1832, which Orson Pratt copied and later spoke about:

Orson Pratt, notebook (circa 1834–36), penultimate leaf (verso), circa 1832–34, MS 4812, Church History Library. (I’m grateful to Brent Metcalfe for help with this, even though he feels this evidence is ambiguous)

The relevant passages read:

What are the Angels called?
Ans. Awman’s Anglo-men.
What are the meaning of these words?
Ans. Awman’s ministering servants sanctified who are sent from heaven to minister for or to Sons-Awmen the greatest parts of Awman save Sons-Awman, Son-Awman, Awman.

In 1855 Pratt explained the above “revelation”:

There is one revelation that this people are not generally acquainted with. I think it has never been published, but probably it will be in the Church History. It is given in questions and answers. The first question is, “What is the name of God in the pure language?” The answer says, “Ahman.” “What is the name of the Son of God?” Answer, “Son Ahman—the greatest of the parts of God excepting Ahman.” “What is the name of men?” “Sons Ahman,” is the answer. What is the name of angels in the pure language?” “Anglo-man.”

This revelation goes on to say that Sons Ahman are the greatest of all the parts of God excepting Son Ahman and Ahman, and that Anglo-man are the greatest of all the parts of God excepting Sons Ahman, Son Ahman, and Ahman, showing that the angels are a little lower than man. What is the conclusion to be drawn from this? It is, that these intelligent beings are all parts of God, and that those who have the most of the parts of God are the greatest, or next to God, and those who have the next greatest portions of the parts of God, are the next greatest, or nearest to the fulness of God; and so we might go on to trace the scale of intelligences from the highest to the lowest, tracing the parts and portions of God so far as we are made acquainted with them. Hence we see that wherever a great amount of this in(telligent Spirit exists, there is a great amount or proportion of God, which may grow and increase until there is a fulness of the Spirit, and then there is a fulness of God. Orson Pratt, who was there and made his own copy of the “revelation”. (Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses 2:342-3).

We see that Pratt claims (per the “revelation”) that the angels are a little lower than man. Brent Metcalfe, who directed me to this version of the “revelation”, found it ambiguous evidence, but I think that taking it with the rest of what I present here, shows that at that time they were not conceived of angels as being men. Pratt mentions “intelligences” in 1855, but those teachings came later and would not apply to an 1832 theological setting.

One has to wonder why Smith would not just have had one of the three Nephites deliver the plates, since those kind of “holy men” performed such tasks as they did with Lot’s family in Sodom. Perhaps because they were invented during the actual “translation”?

Thus when the Book of Mormon was first introduced to the public, it was a generic angel who appeared to Smith, “the spirit of the almighty”. Even in his 1832 History, Smith does not name the angel:

when I was seventeen years of age I called again upon the Lord and he shewed unto me a heavenly vision for behold

an angel of the Lord came and stood before me and it was by night

and he [the angel] called me by name

and he [the angel] said the Lord had forgiven me my sins

and he [the angel] revealed unto me that in the Town of Manchester Ontario County N.Y. there was plates of gold upon which there was engravings which was engraven by Maroni & his fathers the servants of the living God in ancient days and deposited by th[e] commandments of God and kept by the power thereof and that I should go and get them

and he [the angel] revealed unto me many things concerning the inhabitents of of the earth which since have been revealed in commandments & revelations and it was on the 22d day of Sept. AD 1822

and thus he [the angel] appeared unto me three times in one night and once on the next day and then I immediately went to the place and found where the plates was deposited as the angel of the Lord had commanded me and straightway made three attempts to get them and then being excedingly frightened I supposed it had been a dreem of Vision but when I considred I knew that it was not therefore I cried unto the Lord in the agony of my soul why can I not obtain them

behold the angel appeared unto me again and said unto me you have not kept the commandments of the Lord which I gave unto you therefore you cannot now obtain them for the time is not yet fulfilled therefore thou wast left unto temptation that thou mightest be made accquainted of with the power of the advisary therefore repent and call on the Lord thou shalt be forgiven and in his own due time thou shalt obtain them (pg. 4, paragraph breaks mine)

Smith speaks of “Maroni”, but only as one of many engravers of the plates. The angel is not identified as none of the angels in the Book of Mormon were. There is no teaching from Smith or anyone else at this time that angels were resurrected humans or pre-mortal spirit children of God. Those teachings came later, most likely borrowed from those of Emanuel Swedenborg and others. (See, A Treatise Concerning Heaven and Hell, and of the Wonderful Things Therein, as Heard and Seen by the Honourable and Learned Emanuel Swedenborg (Baltimore: Miltenberger, 1812, 87-90), also, Benjamin E. Park, “A Uniformity So Complete”: Early Mormon Angelology, (Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2010, 1-37).

So when those like Abigail Harris speak about “the spirit of one of the Saints that was upon this continent”, she was describing a ghost, not an angel. Ashurst-McGee claims that she is describing an angel, but Harris goes on to describe the clothes the ghost was wearing: “Old Mrs. Smith observed that she thought he must be a Quaker, as he was dressed very plain.” They were describing what they thought was the ghost of a Quaker, not “the spirit of the Almighty” or an angel. Harris then reveals that Lucy told her that,

In the early part of the winter in 1828, I made a visit to Martin Harris and was joined in company by Jos. Smith, sen. and his wife. The Gold Bible business, so called, was the topic of conversation, to which I paid particular attention that I might learn the truth of the whole matter.–They told me that the report that Joseph, jun. had found golden plates, was true, and that he was in Harmony, Pa. translating them–that such plates were in existence, and that Joseph, jun. was to obtain them, was revealed to him by the spirit of one or the Saints that was on this continent, previous to its being discovered by Columbus. Old Mrs. Smith observed that she thought he must be a Quaker, as he was dressed very plain. They said that the plates he then had in possession were but an introduction to the Gold Bible–that all of them upon which the bible was written, were so heavy that it would take four stout men to load them into a cart–that Joseph had also discovered by looking through his stone, the vessel in which the gold was melted from which the plates were made, and also the machine with which they were rolled; he also discovered in the bottom of the vessel three balls of gold, each as large as his fist. The old lady said also, that after the book was translated, the plates were to be publicly exhibited–admittance 0-5 cents. She calculated it would bring in annually an enormous sum of money–that money would then be very plenty, and the book would also sell for a great price, as it was something entirely new–that they had been commanded to obtain all the money they could borrow for present necessity, and to repay with gold. The remainder was to be kept in store for the benefit of their family and children. This and the like conversation detained me until about 11 o’clock. Early the next morning, the mystery of the Spirit being like myself (one of the order called Friends) was revealed by the following circumstance: The old lady took me into another room, and after closing the door, she said, “have you four or five dollars in money that you can lend until our business is brought to a close? the spirit has said you shall receive four fold.” I told her that when I gave, I did it not expecting to receive again–as for money I had none to lend. I then asked her what her particular want of money was; to which she replied “Joseph wants to take the stage and come home from Pennsylvania to see what we are all about.” To which I replied, he might look in his stone and save his time and money. The old lady seemed confused, and left the room, and thus ended the visit. (November 28, 1833, Mormonism Unvailed, 253)

Yet Ashurst-McGee claims that Abigail Harris is describing an angel! Lucy Smith would ultimately carry out her money making plans by exhibiting not the “gold plates” but the “curiosities”, the mummies and papyri purchased in Kirtland a few years later… (Due to inflation, she would charge 25 cents).

And of course, the Book of Mormon tells us that some claimed that “… the Devil hath deceived me; for he appeared unto me in the form of an angel.“ (p. 308)

“NONE doeth good…”

All this apologist blather about folk magic and how it was tied to Christianity is just a smoke screen. Why?

Because of what Joseph himself claimed when he wrote up his histories. In the first claimed vision, (written up in 1838) he stated that God told him that all the churches were wrong, all religion was wrong, and that he was not to “go after” any of it. Smith wrote in 1832:

…<behold> the world lieth in sin and at this time and none doeth good no not one they have turned asside from the gospel and keep not <my> commandments they draw near to me with their lips while their hearts are far from me and mine anger is kindling against the inhabitants of the earth to visit them acording to thir ungodliness and to bring to pass that which <hath> been spoken by the mouth of the prophets and Ap[o]stles behold and lo I come quickly as it [is?] written of me in the cloud <clothed> in the glory of my Father (History, 1832)

There were none that did good. That includes the “folk” or “cunning men” or “cunning women”, or “village seers” that the Mormon Apologists are fixated on. In 1842 Joseph added this:

[God] told me that all religious denominations were believing in incorrect doctrines and that none of them was acknowledged of God as his church and kingdom. And I was expressly commanded to “go not after them,” at the same time receiving a promise that the fulness of the gospel should at some future time be made known unto me. (Wentworth Letter)

So if we embrace the apologist argument about folk magic, (that it is a Christian subgroup) whether it was the Methodists or Methodist “folk”, the Presbyterians or Presbyterian “folk”, the Universalists or Universalist “folk”, (those who may have believed in magic folklore, peepstones, necromancy or diving rods) – any and all of them were wrong and Joseph was commanded to go not after them.

This was in 1820; then Joseph claims he strayed and repents and is put back on track by an angel in 1823. In 1845 Apostle John Taylor wrote this interesting bit for the Times and Seasons,

For once let us say, that Cain, who went to Nod and taught the doctrine of a “plurality of wives” and the giants who practiced the same iniquity; and Nimrod, who practiced the common stock system, and the Jews, who commenced crossing sea and land to make proselytes without revelation; and the christian sects, who have went all lengths in building up churches and multiplying systems without authority from God,-are all co-workers on the same plan:-when the reward for every man’s work is given-this will be the everlasting answer to all sects, sorts, and conditions, from Cain down to Christian Israelites, I NEVER KNEW YOU! (Times & Seasons, “Who are the Christian Israelites?,” May 1, 1845, 888, my emphasis, caps in original).

The above could just as well be titled, “Who are the Cunning Men”? Or “Who are the Village Seers”? Or “Who are the Practitioners of Folk Magic”?

“What Manner His Kingdom was to be Conducted”

Yet, that’s not what happened. Joseph did “go after them”. In a big way. This is why the apologists are so flustered. Joseph borrows a peep-stone from Willard Chase in 1822 and returns it, (after previously going on a hunt for his own white stone) but goes back to the money-digging in 1825 for Josiah Stowell and others, using the “borrowed” (stolen now) peep stone to search for buried treasure and “lost items”, after he was told twice to stop: once by God himself and once by an angel. And then he refuses to return the stone. So he “translates” the entire Book of Mormon with a stolen peep-stone! (Chase had asked him to return it but he refused). What kind of prophet-in-training does that? How does that work, exactly? Why don’t we have any explanations about this from the apologists?

And what about his report to the angel in 1824, 25 & 26, since Joseph claimed that he met with the angel three more times on each successive September 22nd? What did he tell the angel? Joseph writes about those four years after the 1823 visit:

I found the same messenger there and received instruction and intelligence from him at each of our interviews respecting what the Lord was going to do, and how and in what manner his kingdom was to be conducted in the last days. . . . (Joseph Smith, History-1)

Joseph is meeting with the angel and talking about “what manner his kingdom was to be conducted” while at the same time dabbling with a peep stone to search for lost objects and find buried treasure and scry ghosts/treasure guardians? Why is there no mention by Joseph of his return to treasure hunting and his arrest for glass-looking!

Moses vs. Joseph

In the Bible (since the apologists love to make Old Testament comparisons) there is the account of Moses being raised by Egyptians and being called the Pharaoh’s son. This is not hidden or downplayed. It even has an account of Moses murdering an Egyptian! Moses then contrasts his use of “magic” with that of the Pharaoh’s wizards by having his brother Aaron’s staff gobble up theirs. Moses also had the power to make his hand leprous, and call down all kinds of plagues on Egypt. All this is written in the Bible.

Yet, where is any of Joseph’s “restored” power that seriously compares to Moses? Before or after he started up his church. When Joseph had his chance during “Zion’s Camp”, he failed miserably. How would Joshua have fared with the Missourians? (Just sayin’)

And instead of being able to heal the cholera that was running rampant through the camp, Joseph himself contracted it! Joseph only has a couple of little peep-stones? He saw God and an angel and wasn’t given all the awesome tools that Moses got? Why not? He was doing the things that Moses did, right? Or are they only cherry picking the rod of Aaron? (Where is Cowdery’s budding rod of Aaron?)

Think of it, if someone tried to take away the plates from Joseph, he could just strike them down with leprosy! (That would teach them!) And Moses had thousands of grumbling Israelites, and he still parted the Red Sea, and fed them all with manna. Did their unbelief affect what Moses could do?Joseph had a few hundred Mormons who grumbled and he blamed his failure on them. It was their unbelief that ruined the “redemption of Zion”! Why didn’t God “restore” the power of Moses to Joseph? As Ashurst-McGee wrote,

Unlike Alexander Campbell and the other restorationists of his day, Joseph moved beyond the reestablishment of New Testament Christianity to “the restoration of all things”-including Old Testament elements of patriarchy, polygyny, the declaration of Israelite lineage, a divinely sanctioned kingdom, a temple with ancient ritual, and a prophet. (p. 340)

A prophet with no power, it seems. A big talking prophet to be sure, who Wilford Woodruff found practicing with a gun when he first met him and quipped that he wanted to be sure he could hit something when he went to Missouri. But that too, never happened. Why would a prophet would should be able to call down lightening from heaven like Elijah, even need a gun? It seemed to be all just “run away, run away!” with Smith.Again, where was that prophetic power of Enoch, Elijah, or Moses or even Nephi & Lehi for that matter? In for a penny, in for a pound? Not in this case. So why would Joseph then, feel the need to hide his own dabbling in the occult? He had all those nifty 20th century apologist arguments to use. He should have been bragging about it! Apologists are not shy about citing these fantastical Biblical stories about the use of “occult” objects or idols (and how they were “restored”), but the Church either denies them, considers them archaic curiosities (like seeing stones), or is silent about them except as “Bible stories” from the distant past. (But they will brag about the second hand stories of Joseph’s day of healing in Commerce, or his being able to understand the Lamanite/Indians when a real translator was supposedly messing with him, or his 1842 prophecy of the Rocky Mountains that was cobbled together after his death.

What is the purpose of restoring something, if it is almost immediately cast aside? Just to claim that hey, I restored that? It is beyond silly. It seems that all of the things mentioned by Ashurst-McGee have pretty much gone by the wayside… polygamy, Israelite lineage (the lost ten tribes are meaningless now), a divinely sanctioned kingdom where the faithful would “gather”, temple rituals gutted and changed, and yes a token prophet who doesn’t prophesy or have any real power except that he’s old and rich and white and can buy a lot of stuff.

Larry Morris also brings up these Biblical stories and then tries to persuade us that because Joseph claimed to have gotten the plates on September 22, 1827 and that was the Jewish holiday of Rosh Shahanah, that this has some kind of significance. He writes:

Joseph obtained the plates on Rosh ha-Shanah, the Jewish New Year (which had begun at sundown on 21 September 1827). At Rosh ha-Shanah the faithful were commanded to set a day aside as “a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation” (Leviticus 23:24).

This works both ways, for Quinn as well as the apologists. One would be hard pressed to not find some kind of holiday or celebration on any of the Equinox days. And if it was so important for the angel to appear on the Jewish New Year, why did he not do so for the first appearance, and every year — because he did not appear on the Jewish New Year in 1823 (September 6), 1824 (September 23), 1825 (September 13) or 1826 (October 2nd). September 22 is a lot closer to the fall equinox than the other dates are to the Jewish New Year. Still Morris claims:

…the details of the plates’ disappearance and the shock, which Joseph acknowledges by describing three unsuccessful attempts to get the plates and the intense fright that followed, appear to have been part of a money-digging tale…

Of course they were and Morris and Ashurst McGee can’t really explain them. And,

As for “treasure-seeking” details, Joseph has surely de-emphasized these…

Of course he did. As he did the original treasure guardian who was a ghost/spirit (according to some of the Smiths), not an angel. And,

In producing the history of the church, Joseph was addressing a generation (and future generations) not well equipped to understand what a divining rod or a seer stone meant to people like the Smiths.

This is simply ad hoc presentism. How would they know this unless there were already problems mixing magic and religion? And aren’t they the ones claiming that religion and magic were so intertwined? If so, why would Smith have any difficulty explaining it? He could simply have used Moses as an example as Morris does! But Smith didn’t even try, not once, he simply denied it all and gave the story that he was a paid laborer. Morris and others try to tell us that we can understand it all, if we have all of this information about “religious treasure digging”. Then why was it so hard for the church to explain it for so many years? And when they try, they come up with this:

Some people have balked at this claim of physical instruments used in the divine translation process, but such aids to facilitate the communication of God’s power and inspiration are consistent with accounts in scripture. In addition to the Urim and Thummim, the Bible mentions other physical instruments used to access God’s power: the rod of Aaron, a brass serpent, holy anointing oils, the Ark of the Covenant, and even dirt from the ground mixed with saliva to heal the eyes of a blind man.

I’ve discussed most of the Old Testament examples, but what about the one from the New Testament, the spit and dirt that Jesus made and used when he healed a blind man. Actually the New Testament gives us the answer:

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see. Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” (John 9:13-16)

It was against the Law of Moses to make “clay” on the Sabbath and that is what the Pharisees accused Jesus of doing, breaking the Sabbath by mixing the spit with dirt to make “clay”. Jesus didn’t need to use spit and dirt, he did so to make a point to the Pharisees about what should be considered work. Let’s throw this apologist example in the trash bin with the others, where it belongs, and let’s think about how this could be applied to what Smith was doing with his peep stone.

Now, if there was some lesson to be learned, then it might be appropriate to use the clay/spit analogy. But Joseph didn’t “translate” with a peep-stone and then announce it, and show the world what he was doing as Jesus did, he kept it all hidden. Joseph could have made the case for using such implements as an example of faith, etc., to teach the “gentiles” about God’s power, but he did not. It appears he actually tried to with the “spectacles” but abandoned that early on and then went with the invented “urim and thummim” fantasy. (Remember if the “interpreters” were a urim and thummim, that is not mentioned in the Book of Mormon).

There is only a decade between when Joseph first started telling the story of the angel to the press, and his writing the history he published a few years later. Morris and the other apologists want to claim that this is so simple once we are educated about folk magic, but that it was so hard for Smith and those who were in his own generation to understand and explain it. It is obvious that those like Brigham Young, Artemisia Beaman and Porter Rockwell had no such problems, they knew all about Captain Kidd and Luman Walters and Samuel Lawrence and the Smith’s money-digging past. But they too, were reluctant to elaborate on such matters in publications although every now and then we find a brief mention in the discourses of Young. They certainly had no compunction about telling treasure digging stories to selective private audiences. Which brings us back to Jesse Smith and why the Smith’s had such problems.

The Necromancy of Infidelity

Everything I’ve discussed so far begs the question, Why should we trust any of Smith’s accounts about what happened in relation to the gold plates? And how are we to believe Morris when he claims that,

The initial references to the recovery of the Book of Mormon saw it in religious terms, emphasizing the appearance of an angel, a translation accomplished through inspiration, and a divine purpose surrounding the ancient record. In the very first written reference to the Book of Mormon (penned on 17 June 1829, nine days before the Wayne Sentinel article was published), Joseph Smith’s uncle Jesse Smith vehemently objected to Joseph’s claims, protesting precisely because they were so thoroughly religious—and in his mind, so blasphemous. …Almost two years after Jesse Smith wrote [his] letter, individuals such as David Burnett and James Gordon Bennett began to associate the plates with treasure seeking, a ghost, and a vanishing chest.

Individuals were associating “the plates” with treasure seeking, a ghost and a vanishing chest precisely because men like James Gordon Bennett were investigative reporters. It is simply good reporting to go to the place (Palmyra/Manchester) where the events were said to transpire and test the veracity of the story that was being told. (As we noted above, Burnet wrote to the postmaster of Palmyra). The problem with Bennett’s report though, is that he did rely on local rumor (especially about Sidney Rigdon) and did not do a thorough investigation, unlike local resident Abner Cole. That is why Bennett’s article “The Mormonites”, has limited historical value.

Morris claims that Jesse Smith was not associating the plates with treasure seeking, yet here is what Jesse Smith wrote in 1829 (a part of the letter Morris doesn’t quote or comment about, but is in the appendix with the rest):

…if it be a gold book discovered by the necromancy of infidelity, & dug from the mines of atheism, … and then has the audacity to say they are; and the angel of the Lord (Devil it should be) has put me in possession of great wealth, gold & silver and precious stones so that I shall have the dominion in all the land of Palmyra. …he says your father has a wand or rod like Jannes & Jambres who withstood Moses in Egypt— that he can tell the distance from India to Ethiopia or another fool story, many other things alike ridiculous.

Ronald Walker, as we have seen, does mention this. Morris claims that, “Joseph Smith’s uncle Jesse Smith vehemently objected to Joseph’s claims, protesting precisely because they were so thoroughly religious,” but Jesse didn’t think their claims were religious at all! Think about this for a moment. He claims they were “dug from the mines of atheism” and uses the word “necromancy”, which is associated with money-digging and evil spirits. Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines necromancy thusly:

NECROMANCY, noun [Gr. Dead, and divination.]

1. The art of revealing future events by means of a pretended communication with the dead. This imposture is prohibited. Deuteronomy 18:1.

2. Enchantment; conjuration

Divination. Pretended communication. Pretended. With the dead. Conjuring bloody ghosts and enchantments. Jesse scoffs at the religiosity that he knows his brother and nephews are trying to cloak their necromancy and treasure digging yarn in. He could not be more clear here that he thinks they are lying, and trying to turn a money-digging yarn into a religious tale and that (to Jesse) would all have come from the trickster Devil. Only an apologist would try to argue that when someone uses the word necromancy and atheism (in the same sentence!) they are describing something religious. It wasn’t religious to seek to get rich from money digging and divining rods, if was sin at the heart of it: greed. Not according to Jesse Smith and most Americans from that period. It was simply wishful thinking.

Dan Vogel, in his landmark biography of Joseph Smith wrote that,

The earliest Smith family treasure quests probably occurred on their newly acquired Manchester land. In 1822 Joseph Sr. told Peter Ingersoll that he saw treasures in a hill behind his house. However, digging did not occur until Joseph Jr. could divine the locations. Despite Joseph Sr.’s invitation to join his money-digging company, Ingersoll resisted until Joseph Jr. became its leading seer. Ingersoll was only too happy to describe in detail his amusement and “disgust” when Joseph Sr. and Alvin demonstrated their scrying technique, but he was completely silent about Joseph Jr. This silence may be due to his belief in the scryer’s gift. According to Pomeroy Tucker, Ingersoll “had believingly taken part in Smith’s money-digging operations, and was at first inclined to put faith in his ‘Golden Bible’ pretension.” (pg. 39-40)

Dan then describes the Smith’s necromantic techniques when they persuaded William Stafford to join them in a midnight dig:

One night William Stafford, who lived about a mile south of the Smiths on Stafford Road, [and who rented part of their land to Porter Rockwell’s family] was visited by Joseph Sr., who invited him to participate in a treasure dig. He informed Stafford that Joseph Jr. had seen in his stone “two or three kegs of gold and silver” located “not many rods from [the Smiths’] house” and that he and Stafford were the only two men who could get the treasure. Making their way through the dark, they arrived at the place of deposit which, from the context of Stafford’s statement, was the same hill previously referred to by Ingersoll. Stafford probably held the lantern as Joseph Sr. drew a circle in the dirt “twelve or fourteen feet in diameter” and then explained that the treasure was located in the center. Joseph Sr. took some witch hazel stakes and drove them into the ground at regular intervals around the circle for “keeping off the evil spirits.” Within this barrier, he drew another inner circle “about eight or ten feet in diameter,” then “walked around three times on the periphery of this last circle, muttering to himself something which I could not understand,” Stafford recalled. Next, Joseph Sr. drove a steel rod into the center of the circles in order to prevent the treasure from moving. (On such occasions, if the rod hit something, usually a large stone, the seekers generally interpreted this to be the lid of a treasure chest or some other valuable object.) Smith ordered silence “lest we should arouse the evil spirit who had the charge of these treasures” and then the two men began digging. They continued until they “dug a trench about five feet in depth around the rod.” Believing they had isolated the treasure in a cone of earth, they tore into the mound hoping to be faster than the treasure guardian. But the treasure was gone. Puzzled, Joseph Sr. went to the house to ask young Joseph why they had failed. He soon returned, explaining that “Joseph had remained all this time in the house, looking in his stone and watching the motions of the evil spirit—that he saw the spirit come up to the ring and as soon as it beheld the cone which we had formed around the rod, it caused the money to sink.” When the two men returned to the house together, father Smith observed that “we had made a mistake in the commencement of the operation; if it had not been for that, said he, we should have got the money.(pg. 40)

Joseph Smith Sr. claimed to be an expert at dowsing for treasure and claimed in the mid 1830’s that he had been so for thirty years. His brother Jesse was well aware of what Joseph Sr. was up to, and so scoffed at the religiosity their money digging yarn was cloaked in. Only four years earlier Smith Sr. was lamenting the fact that his son Joseph was using his gift of peeping only to search for “filthy lucre” but as we have seen, those brief regrets didn’t change much with the Smith family and their obsession with buried treasure.

“It was treasure…”

And how does Morris and the other apologists account for the same stories of treasure guardians and Captain Kidd being told by Brigham Young, Porter Rockwell and others? I can’t find anything about this from Morris or others, though Ashurst-Mcgee mentions the Harz Mountains, but only as a historical reference and Brigham Young’s account not at all. Elizabeth Kane, the wife of Thomas Kane visited Utah Territory in the 1870’s and had many conversations with Brigham Young and others which she recorded in her diary. One night, they were speaking of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and this is what she recorded:

Mrs. Artemisia [Beaman] Snow and I [Elizabeth Kane] were accompanied to the parlour by the gentlemen. The lamp on the mantlepiece shed but a faint light compared to the vivid changeful glow of the blazing pine logs on the hearth, and some allusion to the solidity with which the fireplace was built, led to the remark that it was under the hearth at the Beaman [Smith] farm [in New York State] that the [Golden] “Plates” of the Book of Mormon were hidden.

Mrs. Snow was a daughter of Mr. [Alva] Beaman, a wealthy farmer of Livingston Livonia County, New York. She was only a girl when the plates were brought there, but remembered perfectly the anxiety they all felt after the plates were buried, and a fire kindled on the hearth above them, round which the family sat as usual. I asked “Who were searching for the plates?”

She answered “The people of the neighborhood. They did not know what Joseph Smith had found, but that it was treasure, and they wanted to get it away. This was long before there was any dream of religious persecution.”

Mrs. Snow sat knitting a stocking as she talked, like any other homely elderly woman. She certainly seemed to think she had actually gone through the scene she narrated. I know so little of the history of the Mormons that the stories that now followed by the flickering firelight were full of interest to me. I shall write down as much as I can remember, though there must be gaps where allusions were made to things I had never heard of and did not understand enough to remember accurately. The most curious thing was the air of perfect sincerity of all the speakers. I cannot feel doubtful that they believed what they said. …

I forget what came next, but after Mrs. Snow had been mentioned as being Beaman’s daughter, I asked some question respecting the original discovery of the plates which was answered as nearly as I can remember.

A man named [Luman] Walters son of a rich man living on the Hudson South of Albany, received a scientific education, was even sent to Paris. After he came home he lived like a misanthrope, he had come back an infidel, believing neither in man nor God. He used to dress in a fine broadcloth overcoat, but no other coat nor vest, his trousers all slitted up and patched, and sunburnt boots–filthy! He was a sort of fortune teller, though he never stirred off the old place.

For instance, a man I knew rode up, and before he spoke, the fortune teller said, “You needn’t get off your horse, I know what you want. Your mare ain’t stolen.” Says the man “How do you know what I want? Says he, “I’ll give you a sign. You’ve got a respectable wife, and so many children. At this minute your wife has just drawn a bucket of water at the well to wash her dishes. Look at your watch and find out if it ain’t so when you get home. As to your mare, she’s not a dozen miles from home. She strayed into such neighborhood, and as they didn’t know whose she was they put her up till she should be claimed. My fee’s a dollar. Be off!”

This man was sent for three times to go to the hill Cumorah to dig for treasure. People knew there was treasure there. Beman was one of those who sent for him. He came. Each time he said there was treasure there, but that he couldn’t get it; though there was one that could. The last time he came he pointed out Joseph Smith, who was sitting quietly among a group of men in the tavern, and said There was the young man that could find it, and cursed and swore about him in a scientific manner: awful!

I asked where Cumorah was. “In Manchester Township Ontario County New York.” I think this is near Rochester.

I have heard Porter Rockwell, a bronzed seafaring looking man, with long hair tucked behind his ears, in which he wears little gold rings, tell of Joseph Smith’s failures and final success in finding the plates. Rockwell was a schoolmate and friend of Smith’s, and in spite of his intimate knowledge of the humble Yankee settler’s life, the log-house, lit up at night by pine chips because they were too poor to burn candles, the daily trudge to the rude schoolhouse and the association with him when they were “hired men” together, evidently believes in his Prophet and hero, falsifying the proverb about “No man being a hero to his valet de chambre.” His story about the discovery of the plates sounded like the German legends of the demons of the Harz Mountains, but his description of the life of his neighborhood made me understand what Brigham Young meant by saying the people knew there was treasure in the Hill Cumorah. It seems that the time was one of great mental disturbance in that region. There was much religious excitement; chiefly among the Methodists. People felt free to do very queer things in the new country, which the lapse of a single generation has made us consider Old New England…

Not only was there religious excitement, but the phantom treasures of Captain Kidd were sought for far and near, and even in places like Cumorah where the primeval forest still grew undisturbed the gold finders sought for treasure without any traditionary rumor even to guide them. Rockwell said his mother and Mrs. [Lucy] Smith used to spend their Saturday evenings together telling their dreams, and that he was always glad to spend his afternoon holiday gathering pine knots for the evening blaze on the chance that his mother would forget to send him to bed, and that he might listen unnoticed to their talk. The most sober settlers of the district he said were “gropers” though they were ashamed to own it; and stole out to dig of moonlight nights carefully effacing the traces of their ineffectual work before creeping home to bed. He often heard his mother and Mrs. Smith comparing notes, and telling how Such an one’s dream, and Such another’s pointed to the same lucky spot; how the spades often struck the iron sides of the treasure chest, and how it was charmed away, now six inches this side, now four feet deeper, and again completely out of reach. Joseph Smith was no gold seeker by trade; he only did openly what all were doing privately; but he was considered to be “lucky”. (A Gentile Account of Life in Utah’s Dixie, 1872–73: Elizabeth Kane’s St. George Journal, 69-74, For more on the Harz Mountains, go here).

Notice how many times the word “treasure” is linked to the word “Cumorah” above. Interesting that Kane likens the stories about Cumorah to the legends of the Harz Mountains in Germany which abound with tales of magic, demons, treasure, guardian spirits and other creatures. Porter Rockwell still remembers how the phantom treasures of Kidd were being sought for far and near in the area of Cumorah. No “traditionary rumors” to guide them, he claims, the Smith’s didn’t need them. And it wasn’t only Joseph Sr., but from Lucy also. Ashurst-McGee mentions Porter Rockwell and Lucy Smith a couple of times in relation to Catherine Kane, but doesn’t quote her much, only a few excerpts.

Larry Morris claimed in his article critical of Ron Huggins that he was neither a thorough or systematic investigator, but I can’t find this important account in Morris’ article or new book. He arbitrarily cuts off any accounts after 1850 for some unknown reason even though they are credible and relevant. What disturbs me is that Morris doesn’t seem to understand that Huggins focuses on Captain Kidd precisely because of accounts which claim that Joseph did. And so he makes this bizarre statement in his FARMS review:

Focusing on Captain Kidd allows Huggins to ignore the larger context of American treasure seeking and to skew the entire debate. He does this by casting American folk beliefs in a negative light and then linking Joseph Smith to those beliefs. We see this when we contrast Walker’s approach with Huggins’s. For example, Walker points out that “the cutting ritual [of divining rods] was filled with religious imagery” and that a person as prominent as future Massachusetts chief justice Peter Oliver claimed the rod “‘exceeded what I had heard’” and could “locate a single Dollar under ground, at 60 or 70 feet Distance.” Huggins, on the other hand, characterizes the folk culture of the period by telling us of a spirit nicknamed “Mr. Splitfoot” that “began rapping out answers to questions on the farm of John and Margaret Fox in the little village of Hydesville, New York.” As it turned out, two of the Fox daughters admitted forty years later that “they had made the rappings themselves by cracking their toes” (p. 31). This story, of course, has nothing to do with Joseph Smith, but Huggins implies guilt by association by mentioning Joseph Smith in the same paragraph as the Fox daughters. (pg. 15-16)

I wonder about the comprehension skills of Morris, since what he claims, that Ron mentions Joseph Smith and the Fox daughters in the same paragraph is totally false. Fox appears four times in Huggins’ article, in this paragraph:

The conventional wisdom on ghosts is and has for a long time been that they became what they are by coming to a bad end, by being murdered, or by suffering some other sudden traumatic death. This very kind of story played into the founding of Spiritualism, a movement which, like Mormonism, came to birth in the “burned-over district” of western New York during the first half of the nineteenth century. On the evening of March 31, 1848, a spirit nicknamed “Mr. Splitfoot” began rapping out answers to questions on the farm of John and Margaret Fox in the little village of Hydesville, New York. Mr. Splitfoot revealed that he was the spirit of a man who had been murdered and buried in the Fox’s cellar before they had moved in. Mr. Splitfoot and other spirits like him would only rap, however, when two of the Fox’s daughters, Katie and Margaretta, were present. In 1888 the sisters admitted they had made the rappings themselves by cracking their toes. Nevertheless, the story of Mr. Splitfoot’s untimely end, born in Mrs. Fox’s imagination and confirmed by her children’s cracking toe joints, reflected perfectly conventional ideas about the origin of ghosts. We are all too familiar with this explanation of ghosthood even today.

Joseph Smith’s name is no where to be found. Did he mean Mormonism and the Fox sisters in the same paragraph? And why would Morris be perturbed by that association, if Ron Huggins had made it? It was all about restoring apostolic Christianity, wasn’t it? I’m sure if he tried real hard he could figure out a way to show that Mr. Splitfoot was some lost Apostle of Christianity. And here is Ronald Walker doing the same thing that Huggins did:

A fourth dimension of our study involves the historical setting of early Mormonism. During the first decades of the nineteenth century, upstate New York was to borrow Carl Carmer’s phrase, “a broad psychic highway, a thoroughfare of the occult.” Rachel Baker amazed neighbors by preaching in her sleep. Jemima Wilkinson announced herself as the reincarnated “Publick Universal Friend.” The rappings of the Fox sisters whose home was less than thirty miles from Palmyra provided the impetus for American spiritualism. The area was known for its “isms.” (pg. 469)

This is exactly the point that Ron Huggins was making! Where is Morris’ ire about that? Mormonism and the Fox sisters in the same paragraph, oh my! Even Porter Rockwell knew that they didn’t need that larger context; if folk magic wasn’t looked upon in a negative light why did Rockwell claim that Smith’s neighbors were trying to hide the fact that they too, had their nocturnal excursions but wouldn’t admit it? They were deflecting their own involvement from the minute they started reporting about the Smith family. It wasn’t religious, it was superstitious.

These superstitious “gropers” as Rockwell calls them, (focused on Captain Kidd!) were ashamed to own up to what they were doing, and yet, Morris and others would have us believe that all of this was looked at in a positive light by everyone. It’s simply more of Quinn’s revisionist history that ignores the evidence while cherry picking various authors to make it seem as if they know what they are talking about.

The Oliver Twist

Since Morris is asking what has one thing to do with the other, we can ask just what has Peter Oliver to do with Joseph Smith? Let’s investigate that because it may shed some light on how this is all just an apologist diversion and another claim of falsely trying to tie Christianity to the magic folklore culture in some kind of substantial way. The story of Peter Oliver comes to us by way of Benjamin Franklin, who wrote under the pen name “The Busy-body“. Franklin gets a letter from one “Titan Pleiades”, who writes about divining rods:

I have read over Scot, Albertus Magnus, and Cornelius Agrippa, above three hundred times; and was in hopes, by my knowledge and industry, to gain enough to have recompensed me for my money expended and time lost in the pursuit of this learning. …there are large sums of money hidden underground in divers places about this town, and in many parts of the country… I have used all the means laid down in the immortal authors before mentioned, and when they failed, the ingenious Mr. P-d-l, with his mercurial wand and magnet, I have still failed in my purpose. (The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Volume, II, pg. 40-41)

He then proposes an alliance with Franklin to find this treasure. In answering this letter, Franklin makes the observation that Pleiades wasn’t “the only man in the colonies who had faith in the virtues of the Divining Rod,” and gives us this letter from his friend Peter Oliver, for many years the Chief Justice of Massachusetts:

For the present I desist from experiments in natural philosophy and perhaps shall not displease you by relating an experiment in what I call Preternatural Philosophy. It is by what is called the Virgula Divinatoria, long since exploded. Two or three persons have lately been found in Middleborough, and, I suppose, may be found elsewhere, who, by holding a twig of a tree (with some prepared matters in it) in their hands, can find copper, silver, or gold, either in the mine or in substance. When I first heard the fact I disbelieved it … but at last I was induced to make the experiment critically, which exceeded what I had heard. The person holds the twig by its two branches in both hands, and grasps them close, with the upper part erect. If any metal or mine is nigh, its fibres, though never so fast held in the hand, will twist till it points to the object … I have seen it point to a single dollar under ground, at sixty or seventy feet distance; and to a quantity of silver at a mile distance; and, what is more remarkable, when it is in motion to its object, upon the person’s closing his eyes, it will make a full stop, but, if the eyes are turned from the twig and open, it will continue its motion. It is owning to what I call the idiosyncrasy of the person’s body, who holds the twig, for I believe there is not one in five hundred in whose hands it will move. I am apt to think it will occasion as much speculation as electricity, and I believe will tend to public benefit. ~Middleborough, March 31st, 1756. (pg 41-42).

Of course Oliver doesn’t ascribe anything here to God, but to the individual’s idiosyncratic movements of the body, and that not everyone could make it work. What this has to do with Joseph Smith or religion is baffling. Of course Oliver was duped, but then so is everyone who believes in such nonsense (as Franklin points out in his sarcastic reply as the Busy-body).

Ronald Walker makes the observation (pg. 443) that for all of Franklin’s poo-pooing of money-digging he still published a popular almanac for years (Poor Richards). But as Franklin explained in the first issue, it was all to make money, and he constantly poked fun at people, joked about things and once even predicted a man’s death to the day and hour, (in mockery of Astrologists), and when the man lived, refused to acknowledge he was still alive! Walker’s comment is strange, because Franklin took none of it seriously. And it made him a lot of money. He knew it was all a humbug but knew how to cash in on it.

A Common Spiritual Gift?

There have been a plethora of Mormon authors who, in the last decade or so have been publishing on “folk magic”, in an effort to reconcile the Smith family’s practice of “the Black Art” with more legitimate religious practices. Over and over I read their admonitions about how us moderns just don’t comprehend what it was like in nineteenth century America and how hard it is to understand the “folk” and their magical ways. In a desperate attempt to try and legitimize dowsing, Eric A Eliason writes:

The presumption that the difference between magic and proper belief is something intrinsic rather than relational to the definer is still very much alive. But on close analysis, complex definitions distinguishing “magical” from “modern” thinking rarely amount to more than “What you do is superstition, while what I do is science or true religion.” One of the biggest surprises rural students have in American university folklore courses, including at B.Y.U., is discovering their suburban peers need to be taught what divining rods are and how to use them. Today, regardless of class, race, education, wealth, region, or religion, rural students tend to know of holding a forked stick gently in one’s hand to feel for the downward tug that points to underground water and a good spot for a well. Dowsing seems not only understandable, but essential, in rural areas where families are on their own to secure water, and where hired well drillers make no guarantees and charge by the foot. City kids are shocked that their country classmates could be such shameless occult dabblers in a modern age where you don’t have to think about where water comes from. You just turn on the tap and out it comes–like magic. My rural LDS students don’t understand why their suburban counterparts have so little respect for or belief in a common spiritual gift often displayed by their educated and reasonable Bishops and Stake Presidents. It is simply wrong to assume that divining practices are some long-abandoned exotic aspect of America’s frontier past rather than a continuing worldwide phenomenon, used not only by rural Americans, but by soldiers in Vietnam to find enemy tunnels, by oil and precious metal prospecting companies, and even by contemporary salvage professionals to recover, yes, lost treasure. But none of this means that there are not bogus scams, such as the well-developed industry of luring American investors to fund “sure fire” efforts to recover caches of loot hidden by Japanese soldiers retreating from the Philippines at the end of World War II. These always seem to need a little more financing and never seem to produce for investors. (Seer Stones, Salamanders and Early Mormon “Folk Magic”. (BYU Studies Quarterly, 4-5-2016, pg. 82)

Everyone defends their own beliefs. Tell us something we don’t know. But dowsing a common spiritual gift? As proven by scientific experiments it is all bogus and subjective! It is like believing in the power of prayer and trying to claim that it will work for everyone in the same way every time, because the dowsers claim if there is water they will find it with their rods and God promised that if you ask he will answer. But no matter what the promise is, subjective spiritual claims never live up to the hype. Would there be any difference in praying to Jesus or to Beelzebub? Only in the mind of the individual. Another person would never know to who or what anyone prays to if they didn’t tell them or pray out loud. I was truly amused by this effort from Ashurst-McGee to redefine terms in his Pathway to Prophethood thesis:

By the end of his life, Emanuel Swedenborg developed the ability to voluntarily enter and exit an ecstatic divinatory state whenever he wished to. His visions stand as an example of divination initiated by the diviner, which I term “ascensional divination.” In contrast, while on the road to Damascus the Pharisee Saul was confronted by the risen Christ, commanded to cease his persecutions against the Christians, given an apostolic commission, and renamed Paul. This is an example of divination initiated by God, which I call “descensional divination” or “revelation.”

In other words he calls Swedenborg’s trances “ascensional divination” and when God appears to someone “descensional divination”. These are just gobbledygook terms made up by Ashurst-McGee so he can repeat the word “divination” over and over again in some kind of way to try and associate it with Christianity.

First of all, he has no idea what was going on with Swedenborg, and we can include Edgar Cayce (the “sleeping prophet”) or anyone else who went into trances to commune with what they claimed were superior beings or the supernatural. No one does. Brigham Young once taught (as did Swedenborg) that the “Spirit World” is right here with us so claiming that revelation comes from up or down is pretty much a rhetorical device and rather silly. And what is “divination”? What did it mean those who lived in the time of Joseph Smith? That’s the key here. The entry in the 1828 Webster’s gives us the meaning:

DIVINATION, noun [Latin , to foretell. See Divine.]

1. The act of divining; a foretelling future events, or discovering things secret or obscure, by the aid of superior beings, or by other than human means. The ancient heathen philosophers divided divination into two kinds, natural and artificial. Natural divination was supposed to be effected by a kind of inspiration or divine afflatus; artificial divination was effected by certain rites, experiments or observations, as by sacrifices, cakes, flour, wine, observation of entrails, flight of birds, lots, verses, omens, position of the stars, etc.

This word was then associated with the occult and heathens, not the Christian God. If one then looks up “divine” in the 1828 Websters, we see these entries which correspond to the entry above:

DIVINE, verb transitive [Latin]
1. To foreknow; to foretell; to presage.
Darst thou divine his downfall?
2. To deify. [Not in use.]
DIVINE, verb intransitive
1. To use or practice divination.
2. To utter presages or prognostications.
The prophets thereof divine for money. Micah 3:6.
3. To have presages or forebodings.
Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts–
4. To guess or conjecture.

DIVINER, noun
1. One who professes divination; one who pretends to predict events, or to reveal occult things, by the aid of superior beings, or of supernatural means.
These nations hearkened to diviners. Deuteronomy 18:14.
2. One who guesses; a conjecturer.

The Micah 3 cross is very interesting. It is a rebuking of Israel’s prophets and leaders for divining for money:

And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment? Who hate the good, and love the evil… Then shall they cry unto the Lord, but he will not hear them: he will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings. Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him. Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them. Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded: yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God. But truly I am full of power by the spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin. Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity. They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us. Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.

Prophets divining for money? Oh my! And Deuteronomy 18:14:

For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.

Joseph was condemning the clergy of his day of being corrupt, but his practice of divining for money was also corrupt and condemned by God according to the Old Testament that Mormon apologists love to quote. That is why this occult “prophet-in-training” shtick doesn’t make much sense and is a twentieth-century apologist invention.

And in analyzing the vision of Paul, it really wasn’t Paul trying to divine anything (let alone Jesus); it was Jesus appearing to Paul and complaining because he (and his people) were being persecuted by the obsessive Pharisee. I suggest that a more correct term would be an “arbitrarial non-divination appearance” or better yet an “angry god manifestation”.

And Swedenborg? He didn’t begin with trances, he was sitting in a tavern in 1745 and he saw a personage sitting in the corner of the room who told him not to eat too much. Alarmed, he went home and the same personage again appeared to him and told him he was going to expound on the meaning of the Bible and other things. Swedenborg claimed that this was “the Lord”.

Since “the Lord” supposedly appeared to Swedenborg first, (in a tavern no less) was this an ascentional or a descentional? I’ll let the Mormon apologists sort that out. I’m going for arbitrarial non-divination appearance.

And of course there are those many Bible Dictionaries like this one from Charles Buck published in 1826 that give us a good idea of what people thought about divining and other magical practices at that time:

Is a conjecture or surmise formed concerning some future event from something which is supposed to be a presage of it; but between which there is no real connection, only what the imagination of the diviner is pleased to assign in order to deceive. Divination of all kinds being the offspring of credulity, nursed by imposture, and strengthened by superstition, was necessarily an occult science, retained in the hands of the priests and priestesses, the magi, the soothsayers, the augurs, the visionaries, the priests of the oracles, the false prophets, and other like professors, till the coming of Jesus Christ, when the light of the Gospel dissipated much of this darkness. The vogue for these pretended sciences and arts is nearly past, at least in the enlightened parts of the world. There are nine different kinds of divination mentioned in Scripture. These are,

1. Those whom Moses calls Meonen of Anan, a cloud, Deuteronomy 18:10 .
2. Those whom the prophet calls, in the same place, Menachesch, which the Vulgate and generality of interpreters render Augur.
3. Those who in the same place are called Mecasheph, which the Septuagint and Vulgate translate “a man given to ill practices.”
4. Those whom in the same chapter, ver.11. he calls Hhober.
5. Those who consult the spirits, called Python.
6. Witches, or magicians, called Judeoni.
7. Necromancers, who consult the dead.
8. Such as consult staves, Hosea 4:12 . called by some Rhabdomancy.
9. Hepatoscopy, or the consideration of the liver.

Different kinds of divination which have passed for sciences, we have had:

1. Aeromancy, divining by the air.
2. Astrology, by the heavens.
3. Augury, by the flight and singing of birds, &c.
4. Chiromancy by inspecting the hand.
5. Geomancy, by observing of cracks or clefts in the earth.
6. Haruspicy, by inspecting the bowels of animals.
7. Horoscopy, a branch of astrology, marking the position of the heavens when a man is born.
8. Hydromancy, by water.
9. Physiognomy, by the countenance. (This, however, is considered by some as of a different nature, and worthy of being rescued from the rubbish of superstition, and placed among the useful sciences. Lavater has written a celebrated treatise on it.).
10. Pyromancy, a divination made by fire. Thus we see what arts have been practised to deceive, and how designing men have made use of all the four elements to impose upon weak minds. (Charles Buck’s theological Dictionary (1826), Thanks to Ron Huggins for the reference).

Thus we see what arts have been practiced to deceive, and how designing men have made use of all the four elements to impose upon weak minds.

I could not find any Mormon apologists who have cited this entry or any like it. Interesting that Physiognomy and Phrenology was all the rage with Smith and others in Nauvoo.

“A decisive failure”

Did dowsing work every time? We know it does not. No more than randomly pointing at the ground and saying “there be water here”. Again, a broken clock is right twice a day. And one other observation, why would dowsing work with a tree branch for some and metal rods for others? Why wouldn’t the metal rods be pulled down as the branch is? Why do they cross each other instead? Dowsers can’t tell you, or if they do, each one has his own explanation. Oliver had it right long ago that it is due to idiosyncratic movements of the body and nothing more. (Watch some youtube videos and you will see what I mean, especially James Randi’s).

And one more thing before moving on from modern dowsing. This quote (or words like it) is basically all over the internet, and of course it is used to sell Almanacs:

…one study, conducted by the German government in the 1990s, that perplexed the scientific community. During this study’s 10-year research period, researchers paired up experienced geologists and dowsers, sending them to dry regions like Sri Lanka, Kenya and Yemen. Scientists were surprised to find that many of the dowsers were spot-on. In Sri Lanka alone, drill teams drilled 691 wells under the supervision of dowsers and found water 96% of the time. (Farmers Almanac)

Basically, the scientist (Betz) who conducted the experiment referred to above, manipulated the data to favor dowsing as this analysis of the data proves. And his (Enright’s) conclusion?

The Munich dowsing experiments represent the most extensive test ever conducted of the hypothesis that a genuine mysterious ability permits dowsers to detect hidden water sources. The research was conducted in a sympathetic atmosphere, on a highly selected group of candidates, with careful control of many relevant variables. The researchers themselves concluded that the outcome unquestionably demonstrated successful dowsing abilities, but a thoughtful re-examination of the data indicates that such an interpretation can only be regarded as the result of wishful thinking. In fact, it is difficult to imagine a set of experimental results that would represent a more persuasive disproof of the ability of dowsers to do what they claim. The experiments thus can and should be considered a decisive failure by the dowsers.

Are today’s dowsers any different than the Peekers of the 19th century? I would argue they are not and that any religiosity associated with it differs with each person and is based on each person’s personal religious beliefs. But there were clergy who taught the tenets of their respective faiths, and Joseph Smith and his father rejected them all for a mixture of occult and unorthodox Christian beliefs that supported their own private agendas.

In other words, God (or “revelation”) doesn’t make dowsing work any more than magnetic fields does or psychic ability does or the plethora of reasons given by those who advocate it — but if people want to pray to God and then claim that he had something to do with it and … if by the law of averages they find water, they have the law of averages to thank for their success. And just for fun google “Is water everywhere underground?” and you will get this answer:

In fact, there is a hundred times more water in the ground than is in all the world’s rivers and lakes. Some water underlies the Earth’s surface almost everywhere, beneath hills, mountains, plains, and deserts. … Groundwater is a part of the water cycle.

This clock might be right more than two times a day! Because under the Earth’s surface it’s pretty much always water time. It’s really not too hard to stumble on to something that is pretty much literally everywhere, is it?

“Work to the Money”

And yet, here is how one of Smith’s neighbors (Peter Ingersol) described Joseph Sr.’s use of a divining rod:

The general employment of the family, was digging for money. I had frequent invitations to join the company, but always declined being one of their number. They used various arguments to induce me to accept of their invitations. I was once ploughing near the house of Joseph Smith, Sen. about noon, he requested me to walk with him a short distance from his house, for the purpose of seeing whether a mineral rod would work in my hand, saying at the same time he was confident it would. As my oxen were eating, and being myself at leisure, I accepted the invitation. — When we arrived near the place at which he thought there was money, he cut a small witch hazle bush and gave me direction how to hold it. He then went off some rods, and told me to say to the rod, “work to the money,” which I did, in an audible voice. He rebuked me severely for speaking it loud, and said it must be spoken in a whisper. This was rare sport for me. While the old man was standing off some rods, throwing himself into various shapes, I told him the rod did not work. He seemed much surprised at this, and said he thought he saw it move in my hand. It was now time for me to return to my labor. On my return, I picked up a small stone and was carelessly tossing it from one hand to the other. Said he, (looking very earnestly) what are you going to do with that stone? Throw it at the birds, I replied. No, said the old man, it is of great worth; and upon this I gave it to him. Now, says he, if you only knew the value there is back of my house (and pointing to a place near) — there, exclaimed he, is one chest of gold and another of silver. He then put the stone which I had given him, into his hat, and stooping forward, he bowed and made sundry maneuvers, quite similar to those of a stool pigeon. At length he took down his hat, and being very much exhausted, said, in a faint voice, “if you knew what I had seen, you would believe.” To see the old man thus try to impose upon me, I confess, rather had a tendency to excite contempt than pity. Yet I thought it best to conceal my feelings, preferring to appear the dupe of my credulity, than to expose myself to his resentment. His son Alvin then went through with the same performance, which was equally disgusting. Another time, the said Joseph, Sen. told me that the best time for digging money, was, in the heat of summer, when the heat of the sun caused the chests of money to rise near the top of the ground. You notice, said he, the large stones on the top of the ground — we call them rocks, and they truly appear so, but they are, in fact, most of them chests of money raised by the heat of the sun. (Mormonism Unvailed, 236).

I grew up in Oregon, and was around farmers all the time; I worked on farms in the summers, drove tractors and combines with my friends every summer, and never heard of one farmer who used divining rods for anything, though I’m sure there must have been some as it is still a part of our culture. This was in the 1970’s. Perhaps in rural Utah it is more prevalent.

It has to be remembered that the apologists are claiming that all these neighbors of the Smith’s are making things up. Ingersol’s account isn’t neighborhood gossip. And if Ingersol is lying, why would he? The Smith’s were long gone by 1833 and there wasn’t any point to lying or making things up about them. Those farmers just didn’t care. And what about the faithful Mormons that tell similar accounts? This is why many have changed their tune by changing the station from the Hugh Nibley channel.

This video is instructive, as Richard Dawkins invites some Dowsers to prove their ability, and it is amazing what he uncovers. Not that it doesn’t work, we all know it doesn’t, but that those who failed cannot believe it. One man even said that God (who he claims to get the power from) was pulling a joke on him by not allowing him to find the water. This kind of thing was way more prevalent in Colonial America, because people are superstitious and always will be. To me, it really illustrates what Peter Ingersol must have seen in Joseph Smith, Sr.:

Work To The Money (Modern Style)

Is there a modern day equivalent to the treasure hunting that went on in the 18th & 19th centuries? I had to think about that and yes, I think there is one and its called The Lottery. It has all the get rich quick aspects of treasure digging, and people even pray to God to bless them to “win”. At this website, are some of the prayers that they use. As the article explains,

Then there’s this message board poster, who said there’s a “special prayer” that “always works,” and it not only won him $31 million, it won somebody in New Jersey $300 million. But, sorry, nope, can’t share it, “because then you all will be millionaires.” As if that’s a bad thing? He signs off with two tips: “You, have to make sacrifices to the Lord. You must have Faith and have it in your heart. God Bless.”

Kind of like seeing in a peep-stone? It always worked, didn’t it? They just couldn’t get the treasure cause it slipped away. And why share the “special prayer” since everyone would win? Joseph wasn’t teaching people to use peep-stones. Should we now believe that playing the Lottery is a part of lost Apostolic Christianity because so many Christians believe in it? The true way to pay tithing perhaps? Have things really changed that much?

“That money ….is here, now, every dollar of it.”

It was all treasure to the Smith’s, it was all a money making venture. Lucy Smith claimed that she was handed a “breastplate” which was wrapped in cloth, and she later described the experience:

It was wrapped in a thin muslin handkerchief, so thin that I could see the glistening metal, and ascertain its proportions without any difficulty. It was concave on one side and convex on the other, and extended from the neck downwards, as far as the centre of the stomach of a man of extraordinary size. It had four straps of the same material, for the purpose of fastening it to the breast, two of which ran back to go over the shoulders, and the other two were designed to fasten to the hips. They were just the width of two of my fingers, (for I measured them,) and they had holes in the ends of them, to be convenient in fastening. The whole plate was worth at least five hundred dollars; after I had examined it, Joseph placed it in the chest with the Urim and Thummim (p. 390)

Irene Bates note to Lucy’s estimate of the worth of the breastplate:

Coray: “The whole plate was worth at least five hundred dollars; which plate, together with the Urim and Thummim Joseph placed in the chest after I examined it”; GAS on Coray, IE, and Nibley: “~~The whole plate was worth at least five hundred dollars~~; he Joseph placed the Urim and Thummim in the chest after I examined it.”

In other words, the later editions edited this out. Gee, I wonder why?

It seems that Lucy was thinking in terms of monetary gain from the artifacts that her son claimed to have discovered. She was to claim also that the “spectacles” included two “diamonds” that were wrapped in silver wire:

[I] … took the article in my hands and upon after examining it <found> * [* with no covering but a silk handkerchief] that it consisted of 2 smott<ooth> 3 cornered diamonds set in glass and the glass was set in silver bows stones conected with each other in the same way that old fashioned spectacles are made He took them again and left me but did not tell me anything of the record (p. 379)

It begs the question of why these artifacts had to be wrapped up at all. Because it was “instant death” to look at them? Really? What if someone happened to get a glimpse of on of them as Josiah Stowell claimed he did? (More on that below)

And yet there was this breastplate and the “spectacles” were supposed to be attached to it which would enable someone to read the engravings on the plates and “translate” them. But how could they do so if they needed to put the spectacles in a hat? It all makes little sense. Even inthe lost Book of Lehi, a part of which was related to Fayette Lapham by Joseph Smith Sr., it claimed that one must use an animal skin to use the “interpreters”:

After sailing a long time, they [Lehi & Co.] came to land, went on shore, and thence they traveled through boundless forests, until, at length, they came to a country where there were a great many lakes; which country had once been settled by a very large race of men, who were very rich, having a great deal of money. From some unknown cause, this nation had become extinct; “but that money,” said Smith, “is here, now, every dollar of it.” When they, the Jews, first beheld this country, they sent out spies to see what manner of country it was, who reported that the country appeared to have been settled by a very large race of men, and had been, to all appearances, a very rich agricultural and manufacturing nation. They also found something of which they did not know the use, but when they went into the tabernacle, a voice said, “What have you got in your hand, there?” They replied that they did not know, but had come to inquire; when the voice said, “Put it on your face, and put your face in a skin, and you will see what it is.” They did so, and could see everything of the past, present, and future; and it was the same spectacles that Joseph found with the gold plates.

The money was still buried in the Manchester hills, Smith Sr. was sure of it and he was going to get it. The “spectacles” just so happened to have directions for use on the gold plates and it was exactly the same way that Joseph used his peep-stone? Except that was not put back into the Book of Mormon. The account from the Book of Lehi about being able to “see everything of the past, present, and future” is interesting. I had always wondered about why Joseph had dictated the “revelation” on John early in his career as a “seer”, and what better way to show off the power of his stone and to calm those who might have associated it with magic:

A Revelation given to Joseph and Oliver [Cowdery], in Harmony, Pennsylvania, April, 1829, when they desired to know whether John, the beloved disciple, tarried on earth. Translated from parchment, written and hid up by himself.

Joseph could supposedly “see” into the past and view the parchment that John wrote on. What a neat trick. Notice that Joseph reveals nothing about when it was written or where John hid it.

“Smith’s 1838-39 manuscript history mentioned “two stones in silver bows and these put into a breast plate which constituted what is called the Urim and Thummim deposited with the plates … to prepare them for the purpose of translating the book.” (Marquardt, 2016)

We know that “the Urim and Thummim” is just something that was made up later to make Smith’s peep-stone sound more legitimate. The “ancients” never called such a thing a urim and thummim and the fact is that no one knows what the urim and thummim was. (More on his below) But this was really all about money…

“Addison Austin (1796-1872) testified that Joseph Smith told him he could not see with the stone. At a time when Josiah Stowell Sr. “was digging for money, he, Austin, was in company with said Smith alone, and asked him to tell him honestly whether he could see this money or not. Smith hesitated some time, but finally replied, ‘to be candid, between you and me, I cannot, any more than you or any body else; but any way to get a living.‘” (Marquardt, 2016)

Fayette Lapham would later recall:

This Joseph Smith, Senior, we soon learned, from his own lips, was a firm believer in witchcraft and other supernatural things; and had brought up his family in the same belief. He also believed that there was a vast amount of money buried somewhere in the country; that it would some day be found; that he himself had spent both time and money searching for it, with divining rods, but had not succeeded in finding any, though sure that he eventually would. (pg. 306)

Lucy Harris left an affidavit which explained how her husband Martin joined the Smith “Gold Bible Company” to make money:

Whether the Mormon religion be true or false, I leave the world to judge, for its effects upon Martin Harris have been to make him more cross, turbulent and abusive to me. His whole object was to make money by it. I will give one circumstance in proof of it. One day, while at Peter Harris’ house, I told him he had better leave the company of the Smiths, as their religion was false; to which he replied, if you would let me alone, I could make money by it… (Lucy Harris, 29 November, 1833)

And by 1829 Joseph was penning “revelations” to pressure others into giving their money for his new venture:

And again: I command you, that thou shalt not covet thine own property, but impart it freely to the printing of the book of Mormon, which contains the truth and the word of God (“Revelation” to Martin Harris, 1829)

Martin Harris did just that, signed over his farm. But he would make no profit from book sales, as this agreement Joseph Smith signed in January, 1830 attests:

I hereby agree that Martin Harris shall have an equal privilege with me & my friends of selling the Book of Mormon of the Edition now printing by Egbert B Grandin until enough of them shall be sold to pay for the printing of the same or moruntil such times as the said Grandin shall be paid for the printing the aforesaid Books or copies ~Joseph Smith Jr., Witness: Oliver H.P. Cowdery

Dan Vogel:

If Harris had in fact held some kind of speculative expectation from the Book of Mormon, the 16 January agreement made it clear to him that he would not reap any profits from the sales; rather, he would only be repaid his $3,000. The profits would go to Joseph Sr. and “friends.” Moreover, the agreement outlined a method of payment requiring that the entire run of 5,000 copies would have to be sold before 25 February 1831 to prevent foreclosure on Harris’s farm.

There is no evidence that Harris ever recouped the money for the initial printing costs of the Book of Mormon.

“He will get the treasure”

Brigham Young would claim that the “treasure” located in the Hill Cumorah, was visible to Luman Walters, but he could not get it, only Joseph Smith could:

I well knew a man who, to get the plates, rode over sixty miles [it was 16 miles] three times the same season they were obtained by Joseph Smith. About the time of their being delivered to Joseph by the angel, the friends of this man sent for him, and informed him that they were going to lose that treasure, though they did not know what it was. The man I refer to was a fortune-teller, necromancer, an astrologer, a soothsayer and possessed as much talent as any man that walked on the American soil, and was one of the wickedest men I ever saw. The last time he went to obtain the treasure he knew sure where it was, but did not know its value. Allow me to tell you that a Baptist deacon and others of Joseph’s neighbors were the very men who sent for this necromancer the last time he went for the treasure. I never heard a man who could swear like that astrologer; he swore scientifically, by rule, by note. To those who love swearing, it was musical to hear him, but not so for me, for I would leave his presence. He would call Joseph everything that was bad and say “I believe he will get the treasure after all”. He did get it and the war commenced directly. When Joseph obtained the treasure, the priests the deacons and religionists of every grade, went hand in hand with the fortune-teller, and with every wicked person, to get it out of his hand, and to accomplish this, a part of them came out and persecuted him. (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 2, 180-1, 18 February, 1855).

How is it that Brigham Young recounts so vividly these stories about Luman Walters? Perhaps because of his close association with the Beamans and what they told him about those times? Young does not appear to doubt the stories about treasure digging at all.I also can’t find this account in either of Morris’ publications or in Ashurst-McGee’s thesis, he only mentions Walters a few times and dismisses his connection to the Smith’s as an invention of Abner Cole. I will have more on Luman Walters and Saumel T. Lawrence in the next installment.

“trying to win the faculty of Abrac …”

Before I finish Part II, I would like to address the account of Lucy Smith taken from her Biographical Sketches manuscript. Here is what she wrote about the events leading up to Joseph claiming to see an angel in 1823/24:

We still continued felling timber and clearing land and about this time [Spring, 1823] we began to make preparations for building a house—

In the spring after we moved onto the farm we commenced making Maple sugar of which we averaged each season 1000 lbs per year

we then began to make preparations for building a house as the Land Agent of whom we [p.323] purchased our farm was dead and we could not make the last payment

we also planted a large orchard and made every possible preparation for ease as when advanced age should deprive us of the ability to make those physical exertions which we were then capable of

Now I shall change my theme for the present but let not my reader suppose that because I shall pursue another topic for a season that we stopt our labor [to build the house] and went <at> trying to win the faculty of Abrac drawing Magic circles or sooth saying ==>> to the neglect of all kinds of buisness <== we never during our lives suffered one important interest to swallow up every other obligation but whilst we worked with our hands we endeavored to remmember the service of & the welfare of our souls.

[Which would have been by trying to win the faculty of Abrac, drawing Magic circled and sooth saying, as they were not Presbyterians yet, and Joseph had had no visions of God or angels]

About this The 3 harvest time had now arrived [circa fall 1823] since we opened our new farm and all the our sons were actively employed in assisting their Father to cut down the grain and storing it away in order, for winter

One evening we were sitting till quite late conversing upon the subject of the diversity of churches that had risen up in the world and the many thousand opinions in existence as to the truths contained in scripture.

Joseph who never said many words upon any subject but always seemed to reflect more deeply than common persons of his age upon everything of a religious nature.

This After we ceased conversation he went to bed <and was pondering in his mind which of the churches were the true one> an but he had not laid there long till <he saw> a bright <light> entered the room where he lay he looked up and saw an angel of the Lord stood <standing> by him

The angel spoke I perceive that you are enquiring in your mind which is the true church there is not a true church on Earth

[anachronistic] No not one Nor <and> has not been since Peter took the Keys <of the Melchesidec priesthood after the order of God> into the Kingdom of Heaven The churches that are now upon the Earth are all man made churches

[There was no talk of “Melchizedek Priesthood” until the early 1830’s ]

Joseph there is a record for you and you must get it one day get it

[anachroistic] There is a record for you and Joseph when you have learned to keep the commandments of God but you cannot get it untill you learn to keep the commandments of God <For it is not to get gain>

[If Joseph wasn’t keeping the commandments why did the angel tell him to go and get the record?]

But it is [p.336] to bring forth that light and intelligence which has been long lost in the Earth

[anachronistic] Now Joseph <or> beware <or> when you go to get the plates your mind will be filld with darkness and all maner of evil will rush into your mind To keep <prevent> you from keeping the commandments of God <that you may not succed in doing his work>

and you must tell your father of this for he will believe every word you say the record is on a side hill on the Hill of Cumorah 3 miles from this place remove the Grass and moss and you will find a large flat stone pry that up and you will find the record under it laying on 4 pillars—<of cement> then the angel left him

[This is not the story Joseph originally told about finding the treasure hill, he claimed to find the hill with the Chase peep-stone]

The argument, originally made by William Hamblin goes like this (FAIRMORMON)

Critics generally neglect to provide the entire quote from Lucy. Dr. William J. Hamblin notes that there is “an ambiguously phrased statement of Lucy Mack Smith in which she denied that her family was involved in drawing “Magic circles.”

They then quote Hamblin:

Although the phrasing is a bit ambiguous, the matter can easily be resolved by reference to the rest of Lucy’s narrative. Contra Quinn, Lucy Smith’s text provides no other mention of the supposedly “important interest” of magical activities but does deal prominently with their religious and business concerns. If magic activities were such an important part of Joseph Smith’s life and Lucy was speaking of them in a positive sense as “important interests,” why did she not talk about them further in any unambiguous passage?

So, because Lucy doesn’t mention any more magical activities, that is a good reason to just omit her plain statement about the faculty of Abrac? How ridiculous and desperate! But Hamblin is wrong … she does mention other magical activities! FAIRMORMON claims that,

Joseph’s mother also indicated that Joseph was sought out by some, including Josiah Stoal, to use the stone to find hidden valuables. He came for Joseph on account of having heard that he possessed certain keys by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye

This is obviously important magic activity that Joseph was involved with, (scrying) and she speaks of it in a positive sense. Joseph had not gotten the “spectacles” yet. The “key” would be his peep stone operated by the use of magic.

Joseph & Lucy Mack Smith (circa 1825)

Lucy is relating that the family was clearing timber and planting orchards, and beginning to make preparations to build a house. Then she claims that she was going to change the subject and speak about matters other than manual labor. She begins by asking the “reader” that because she is going to talk about “another topic for a season” that they stopped with the manual labor and started doing other non manual/business things like “trying to win the faculty of Abrac, drawing magic circles or soothsaying” and therefore neglecting business. She assures her “reader” that the family never let one important interest (Abrac, magic circles, soothsaying) “swallow up every other obligation” but while they were performing the manual labors the family “endeavored to remember the service of and welfare of our souls.”

It appears that Lucy was setting the stage for what happened in 1826 with Josiah Stoal and the two Joseph’s, but obviously Lucy did not want to put that incident in her history, the Stoal insert that FAIRMORMON writes about above was a later emendation to the original manuscript. Why would Lucy want to claim that soothsaying and pursuing other occult activities did not stop them from taking care of business? Perhaps because that is what happened when the two Joseph’s went to Pennsylvania and did not return with the money to pay the mortgage and their land was taken from them. This was obviously a painful incident to Lucy, so she simply skipped over it. Why?

Leading up to this part of her history, Lucy tells a story about going to have tea with some neighbors who mentioned to her that she should have a nice house to live in. Lucy replied,

I have never prayed for riches <of this world> as perhaps you have but I have always desired that God would enable me to use enough wisdom and forbearance in my family to set good precepts [p. [8], bk. 3] & examples before my children …

She then adds,

there is none present who have this kind of wea[l]th that have not lately met with a loss of chidren or othe[r] friends (which really was the case) and now as for Mr Mrs. the minister’s lady I ask you how many nights of the week you are kept awake with anxiety about your Sons who are in habitual attendance on the Grog Shop & gambling house— they all said with a melancholly look that showed conviction Mrs. S. you have established the fact <>reader> I merely relate this that you may draw a moral therefrom that may be useful to you…

In leading up to the soothsaying comments, Lucy claims that she never wanted the “riches of this world”. But her husband did, and encouraged their fourth child to follow in his footsteps. Then she makes the comment that the family never let their occult practices get in the way of doing business. It wasn’t a denial, it was trying to downplay its importance in their lives, exactly as it is written by Lucy. She then leaves out the arrest of her son on charges of glass looking. Lucy had gone on and on about how her children were so righteous, so how would it look to be recounting that Joseph had gotten arrested for juggling? This was an aside by Lucy, to claim that the entire family wasn’t doing what the two Joseph’s were doing – not taking care of business. Lucy, who knew that Smith Sr., had accompanied his son to Pennsylvania to dig for treasure, wrote,

Having just made the acquaintance of a couple of gentlemen from Pensylvania who were desirous of purchasing a quantity of wheat which we had Sown on the place this We agreed with them that if they would furnish us with the sum of money requisite for the liquidation of this debt that the wheat should be carried to them the ensueing season in flour Mr <Smith> having made this arrangement sent Hyrum to the new Agent at Canandaguia to inform him that the money should be forthcoming as soon as the 25th of Septem Decber which the Agent said would answer every purpose and agreed to wi retain the land untill that time thus assured that all was safe we gave ourselves no <further> uneasiness about the matter

There was no Alvin to bail out his father with the mortgage as he had been. Smith Sr., had over a year to get up the required funds, yet failed to do so, instead going off on a lark and taking young Jo with him to go money-digging. There was no wheat deal. Lucy then writes,

When the time <had nearly> come that rendered it necessary for my Husband to set out for Pensylvania to get the money Joseph one day called Mr Smith and myself aside and told us that he had felt so lonely ever since Alvin’s death that he had come to the conclusion of getting married…

Except that Smith Sr., was already in Pennsylvania with young Jo! And while they were gone the house was sold to someone that wanted to evict the family out into the cold. (It was winter). If not for their kind Quaker neighbors and most likely the local Presbyterian church they would have had to go back to the small log cabin.

So what do we have here? Lucy having tea with the neighbor ladies and claiming that her children are better than theirs. And what happens? Alvin dies, and her husband continues to obsess over buried treasure and drags his son into it with him. Smith Sr., doesn’t come back with any money, as when Lemuel Durfee bought the farm and let the Smith’s stay they had nothing to pay him with and had to indenture their son Harrison for six months to the new landlord. Lucy chooses to exclude her husband from all his money-digging fanaticism, and downplay their involvement with the occult, claiming that it never got in the way of business when obviously it did.

The Bushman Balderdash

By 1988 Richard Bushman had published a streamlined version of the new invented folk magic narrative:

In the first draft of her autobiographical sketches, Lucy recounted a tea party at which one of the women made a slightly disparaging reference to their log cabin. Though not intended to hurt, the comment stung, and Lucy lashed back in defense of her family’s honor. She claimed they lived more happily in their cabin than others did in their grand houses. Nonetheless, Lucy’s very next entry in the diary was the observation that they soon began work on a frame house. …

Joseph Sr., had declared his independence of conventional religion without having lost the urge to make contact with the divine. In that position he was open to forms of religion that the educated Protestant clergy considered outlandish or heretical. Many of the Smith neighbors, along with countless others in early America, believed in various forms of occult lore, such as astrology and treasure-seeking, which they thought could possibly both enrich them and invest them with supernatural power. The neighbors, after they had turned hostile to the Smiths, accused Joseph, Sr., of being one of the ringleaders of these money digging ventures. Just how much he was involved is difficult to determine now amid the conflicting evidence, but it is probable that like many others of his time, Joseph, Sr., attempted to enlist the aid of supernatural powers in a quest for hidden treasures. The people who did such things were most often devout Christians who believed they needed the help of the God of heaven in their undertakings. They sensed no sharp division between religion and magic. We know from his dreams how strongly Joseph Sr., wanted salvation; it is even possible that along with the hope for riches, treasure-seeking was part of his religious quest.

Joseph Jr., was a natural ally of his father in these ventures. In 1822 he came across an unusual stone while digging a well for a neighbor and identified it as a seerstone. With it, because of his gifts, he was able to find lost objects. The gift and the stone naturally fit in with his father’s treasure-seeking. His mother said that Josiah Stowell came to Joseph Jr., for help in search for the Spanish mine “on account of having heard that he possessed certain keys, by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye.” The offer came in the summer of 1825 when the Smiths were recovering from Alvin’s death and needed money for the last payment on their farm.Joseph, Jr., was obligated to help in the interests of saving the family’s property. It is not entirely clear that he favored treasure-seeking. Lucy, in reporting the episode with Stowell,said that “Joseph endeavored to divert him from his vain pursuit. A few months after the money-digging episode with Stowell, a nephew of Josiah accused Joseph, Jr., of trying to swindle his uncle and pulled him into court. On that occasion Joseph said he “had been in the habit of looking through this stone to find lost property for three years, but of late had pretty much given it up on account of its injuring his health, especially his eyes–made them sore; that he did not solicit business of this kind, and had always rather declined having anything to do with this business.”

By 1826 Joseph may have been an unwilling participant in his father’s treasure-seeking enterprises. At the same trial, Joseph Sr., expressed his own hopes that something more than money would come from the quest. Considering his financial trials, Joseph, Sr., could not have been heedless of the hope for treasure, but he sought for something more. According to the hostile reporter at the trial, Joseph, Sr., “swore that both he and his son were mortified that this wonderful power which God had so miraculously given him should be used only in search of filthy lucre, or its equivalent in earthly treasures. His constant prayer to his Heavenly Father was to manifest His will concerning this marvelous power. He trusted that the Son of Righteousness would some day illumine the heart of the boy and enable him to see His will concerning him.” Joseph Sr., seemed to believe that through his son’s gifts a connection with the heavens could be achieved that had not been attained through mere money-digging. Since this trial took place in 1826, the hopes of Joseph, Sr., for his son may have been influenced by the angelic visions Joseph, Jr. had begun to receive in 1823. In those visions was the beginning of a true reconciliation of the father’s frustrated quest for visionary truth and the mother’s desire for a Christian church. On the one hand, the vision of Moroni told Joseph, Jr., of buried golden plates on which could be found the true religion. That part of the vision was consistent with the treasure-seeking of Joseph, Sr. The outlines of the story accorded with common lore about buried wealth. Moroni was the guardian of the golden plates, the treasure-seekers thought a spirit often protected buried boxes of money. Besides that, Moroni offered a connection with the heavens made independently, without going through minister and church, which were always obstacles to Joseph, Sr. On the other hand, the messenger told Joseph, Jr., that the plates contained “the fulness of the everlasting Gospel … as delivered by the Savior” to the keepers of the record. (Joseph Smith-History 1:34)

That was a Christian message that Lucy could appreciate. Probably never sympathetic to her husband’s money-digging practices, she was a little apprehensive about the appearance of treasure-seeking when she wrote the story of the plates in her autobiography. When she began, she told her readers not to think “that we stopt our labor and went at trying to win the faculty of Abrac drawing Magic circles or sooth saying to the neglect of all kinds of business.” A book about the gospel was much more to her liking. For his part, Joseph, Jr., had to purge the old money-digging impulses when he went for the plates. Moroni warned him that “Satan would try to tempt me (in consequence of the indigent circumstances of my gather’s family), to get the plates for the purpose of getting rich.” There was one purpose alone for this quest for treasure: “to glorify God.” (Joseph Smith-History 1:46.) Many of their old ideas had to be sloughed off or modified, but the golden plates at last provided a central meeting point in which all of the family could join. As Lucy put it, the golden plates gave them “something upon which we could stay our minds.” She obviously took great happiness in telling how after the visit to the hill, Joseph told them what had happened, and they gathered to listen, “all seated in a circle, father, mother, sons and daughters,” all “giving the most profound attention to a boy, eighteen years of age; who had never read the Bible through in his life.” This son of hers, who had resisted her Presbyterianism and taken his own course, had provided at last a religious purpose that brought her family together. After decades of disagreement, during these evening discussions of the golden plates, “the sweetest union and happiness pervaded our house no jar nor discord disturbed our peace and tranquility reigned in our midst.”

All their troubles did not end at that point. This was 1823, and the loss of the farm still lay ahead. In 1824 another religious revival came to the region, and Lucy’s search for a church was renewed, no more successfully than before. Joseph, Sr., went on with his search for lost treasure, still hoping, as he said in the 1826 trial, that God would reveal the true mission of Joseph, Jr. Not until that mission unfolded further did the family achieve the religious unity and stability they had long sought. (Richard L. Bushman, “Joseph Smith’s Family Background”, The Prophet Joseph, Esays on the Life and Mission of Joseph Smith, Deseret Book, 1988).

What is interesting is that Bushman doesn’t come to the same conclusion as Hamblin or Brown in relation to the Smith’s involvement with the occult, and as we can see, Bushman thought the tea party story important enough to include in his narrative.

Some apologists seem to have come full circle now, getting back to peddling the same “faithful” nonsense that men like Widtsoe, Nibley & Joseph Fielding Smith had in their day. The damage done by those early manipulators of Smith’s history (in the tradition of Joseph Smith himself) was so great that a great majority of members never knew Joseph even possessed a peep-stone, let alone used one to translate the Book of Mormon. Many were simply incredulous when they read the essays from 2013 and many left the church in disgust. In the wake of Jeremy Runnells CES Letter, and the shakeup from the church affirming that the critics were right all along the apologists again went into overdrive and “shaken faith syndrome” was at the top of the apologists lexicon. The Jessee/Bushman/Taylor narrative was now more important than ever.

But the 1980’s fairytale that Bushman lays out above (and coached Alan Taylor on) is a confusing mess. Some things that are important to note:

01. he was open to forms of religion that the educated Protestant clergy considered outlandish or heretical…”

Using peepstones and money-digging/treasure hunting are not “forms of religion”. This insidious inclusion of such nonsense is simply an apologetic ploy.

02. believed in various forms of occult lore, such as astrology and treasure-seeking, which they thought could possibly both enrich them and invest them with supernatural power.

Yes, and these things are not forms of religion no matter how much the apologists want them to be.

03. The neighbors, after they had turned hostile to the Smiths, accused Joseph, Sr., of being one of the ringleaders of these money digging ventures.

Actually, Smith was up to his neck with the neighbors before they turned hostile. They only turned hostile because (as Martin Harris attested) they felt the Smith’s had betrayed their Company of money-diggers.

04. Joseph, Sr., attempted to enlist the aid of supernatural powers in a quest for hidden treasures.

And completely failed, time after time as did his son, Joseph, Jr.

05. The people who did such things were most often devout Christians who believed they needed the help of the God of heaven in their undertakings.

This is rank speculation which I’ve addressed above.

06. They sensed no sharp division between religion and magic.

Actually there was, which I have pointed out above.

07. along with the hope for riches, treasure-seeking was part of his religious quest.

No, it wasn’t and he said so calling it a search for “filthy lucre”. This is a made up apologist fairy tale that Bushman was instrumental in inventing.

08. Joseph Jr., was a natural ally of his father in these ventures.

Could not agree more.

09. In 1822 he [Smith Jr,] came across an unusual stone while digging a well for a neighbor and identified it as a seerstone.

Actually Willard Chase did, and Joseph borrowed it, returned it, and then stole it.

10. With it, because of his gifts, he was able to find lost objects.

There is no credible evidence that he ever did find any lost objects or treasure. That he found “golden plates” is debatable.

11. The gift and the stone naturally fit in with his father’s treasure-seeking.

Rather, his father’s delusion.

12. Josiah Stowell came to Joseph Jr., for help in search for the Spanish mine “on account of having heard that he possessed certain keys, by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye.”

And the ‘certain keys” was the stolen Chase peep-stone. That was made clear by Lucy Smith:

Joseph saw this and followed me Mother said he do not be uneasy all is right see here said he I have got the key I knew not what he meant but took the article in my hands and upon after examining it <found> * [* with no covering but a silk handkerchief] that it consisted of 2 smott<ooth> 3 cornered diamonds set in glass and the glass was set in silver bows stones conected with each other in the same way that old fashioned spectacles are made He took them again and left me but did not tell me anything of the recordThe boy who tells the tale that he traveled over 150 miles from home to find a peep-stone didn’t favor treasure-seeking?

Lucy claims that she had no idea what the “key” was in 1827! So her description in 1825 was anachronistic and meant the stolen Chase peep-stone.

13. It is not entirely clear that he [Smith Jr.] favored treasure-seeking.

This is almost laughable. He had been at he (so he claimed) for three years when he was arrested, and his dissembling in court was for obvious reasons, to try and convince the Judge to go easy on him. (Which he did). But Smith was right back at it, as soon as he was free. And he continued to hunt for treasure even into the Kirtland Era, as I’ve documented above.

14. By 1826 Joseph may have been an unwilling participant in his father’s treasure-seeking enterprises.

Again, almost laughable.

15. Joseph Sr., seemed to believe that through his son’s gifts a connection with the heavens could be achieved that had not been attained through mere money-digging.

Smith Sr. (groveling before a Judge) claims that perhaps someday God will illumine the heart of his son and make his will known to him, and that he will use his “gift” to do something besides search for “filthy lucre”. This was of course simply posturing.

16. Since this trial took place in 1826, the hopes of Joseph, Sr., for his son may have been influenced by the angelic visions Joseph, Jr. had begun to receive in 1823.

This is simply ridiculous. Smith Sr. would not have said that perhaps someday God would “illumine” the heart of his son, if he had already done so numerous times. This is solid evidence that it was a ghost story that Joseph first told in 1823 that morphed into a religious narrative with an angel because in 1826 Smith Sr. is telling a Judge that he son had never been directed by God, but had only been a money-digger who peeped for “filthy lucre.”

17. Probably never sympathetic to her husband’s money-digging practices, she was a little apprehensive about the appearance of treasure-seeking when she wrote the story of the plates in her autobiography.

This again, is simply ignoring other evidence, like what Porter Rockwell recalled about his mother and Lucy Smith:

Rockwell said his mother and Mrs. [Lucy] Smith used to spend their Saturday evenings together telling their dreams, and that he was always glad to spend his afternoon holiday gathering pine knots for the evening blaze on the chance that his mother would forget to send him to bed, and that he might listen unnoticed to their talk. The most sober settlers of the district he said were “gropers” though they were ashamed to own it; and stole out to dig of moonlight nights carefully effacing the traces of their ineffectual work before creeping home to bed. He often heard his mother and Mrs. Smith comparing notes, and telling how Such an one’s dream, and Such another’s pointed to the same lucky spot; how the spades often struck the iron sides of the treasure chest, and how it was charmed away, now six inches this side, now four feet deeper, and again completely out of reach. Joseph Smith was no gold seeker by trade; he only did openly what all were doing privately; but he was considered to be “lucky”. (A Gentile Account of Life in Utah’s Dixie, 1872–73: Elizabeth Kane’s St. George Journal, 69-74, For more on the Harz Mountains, go here).

This is strong evidence that Lucy Smith was an enthusiastic participant in the money-digging activities of the family. At best, Lucy was religious and superstitious, believed in orthodox religion and the “faculty of Abrac”. Of course, those like Hamblin would never include such an account in their arguments because it destroys it. (So does logic and common sense for that matter).

18. she told her readers not to think “that we stopt our labor and went at trying to win the faculty of Abrac drawing Magic circles or sooth saying to the neglect of all kinds of business.”

Exactly. And kudos to Bushman for not taking the low apologetic road here and trying to explain this away with ridiculous apologetic nonsense.

19. Joseph, Jr., had to purge the old money-digging impulses when he went for the plates.

Did he? (I will explore this in Part V).

20. Moroni warned him that “Satan would try to tempt me (in consequence of the indigent circumstances of my gather’s family), to get the plates for the purpose of getting rich.”

If the young Smith was such a “triumphant village seer”, he sure had nothing to show for it. Why wouldn’t God bless him and his family with at least some wealth? And if he could find lost items, why couldn’t he at least find a silver bar, or one of those chests of coins his father continually blathered on about? This whole apologetic side show (that he was a triumphant village seer) is ridiculous.

21. the golden plates at last provided a central meeting point in which all of the family could join

Yes, because they thought it would make the family money. Lucy thought she could charge admissions (as she did with the mummies later in Nauvoo), and thought the breastplate worth at least $500, and the spectacles were silver and diamonds. Surely they would finally be able to cash in on something.

22. Lucy’s search for a church was renewed, no more successfully than before.

It was successful, until sabotaged by her son Joseph, who lied about the clergy of the day and did everything he could to turn them into villains.

23. Joseph, Sr., went on with his search for lost treasure, still hoping, as he said in the 1826 trial, that God would reveal the true mission of Joseph, Jr.

But … didn’t he do that already? According to Joseph Jr., himself, Jesus appeared to him when he was 16 and a year later an angel, who then was supposedly schooling him every year in September, on how to run God’s kingdom. Smith later claims that “Moroni” was quoting him scripture, speaking about the restoration of the “priesthood” and all kinds of other things. Yet Smith is still running around with a peep-stone looking for buried treasure and lost items and not finding anything! This whole article by Bushman is simply an apologetic fairy-tale. Unfortunately, it has been the template for other apologists like Morris, Ashurst-McGee, Walker and others. The simple fact is that this fairy tale of Bushman’s makes no sense because Smith’s story makes no sense.

Back to Abrac

This idea that Lucy is not saying what she is in reality saying has been making inroads in the Mormon apologist community, because it is obvious how dubious the Bushman fairy tale is. Apologist Samuel M. Brown writes,

Lucy sparred with the family’s critics in her brief aside about three “magical” practices. Though she was attempting to deny her family’s involvement in such activities, Lucy’s list of three sample practices provides useful insights into the nature of folk esotericism and its intersections with established religion. That hers was an attempted denial is clear from both close attention to the text and to the third of the practices she listed. The third activity to which Lucy alludes makes quite clear that she was disclaiming involvement in folk rites. “Soothsaying,” a pejorative term for predicting the future or certain forms of supernatural sight, is not a word that a Protestant (or sectarian ex-Protestant) would use to describe her own or her family’s activities. (Samuel M. Brown, Reconsidering Lucy Mack Smith’s Folk Magic Confession)

This is simply wishful thinking. The only thing clear here is how desperate Brown is to return to the old debunked “faithful” church history narrative. It is easy to understand Lucy’s text and there are other reasons why she would have mentioned their involvement in the occult only briefly and in the way that she did, as I documented above. Some observations:

The word “soothsayer” is pretty much synonymous with “astrologer”. In their book Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore, by Jane Garry and Hasan El-Shamy they write:

In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, soothsayers like astrologers and alchemists were considered scientists, relying on visions and movements of the stars to make their predictions. Paracelsus and his teacher Tritemius were examples of this type of soothsayer (D1712.01, “Astrologer-Magician“). Also at this time, chapbooks and almanacs provided popular prophecies and astrological readings. For example, the prophecies of Nostradamus remain widely known even today. … The so called Warlock of the Glen, for example, divined by peering through a hole in a round white stone (Motif D1712.1, “Soothsayer at work by various means of divination”).

In 1840 Charles Pickering wrote that “It appears further, that the profession of “astrology and soothsaying” had likewise reached the Hawaiian Islands.” (United States Exploring Expedition During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, Volume 9, 93)

Brown’s argument is strange and bizarre. He writes,

In a Bible-drenched culture like that of early America, soothsaying recalled capital crimes within the Hebrew Bible. Soothsayers included the much-maligned Balaam (Josh. 13:22), so obtuse that he was outclassed (and reprimanded) by his famously garrulous ass; the Philistines (Isa. 2:6), whose mighty giant the mythically powerful first king of united Israel slew with a sling; the courtiers of the Babylonian king whom Daniel put to shame (Dan. 2:27; 4:7; 5:7; 11); or the corrupted state of Israel whom Micah (Micah 5:12) denounced. In the sole explicit New Testament reference, soothsaying was a lucrative sequela of demonic possession (Acts 16:16). Joseph Jr.’s scripture employed biblical citations to confirm the rejection of soothsaying (2 Ne. 12:6 and 3 Ne. 21:16). Simply put, soothsaying is not a category that exists other than as a denunciatory epithet. Even people who might accept “magic” as a self-reference would not accept “soothsaying.” (Brown, op. cited, )

Except, as I mentioned above, astrology and soothsaying went hand in hand and people had no problems buying almanacs and believing in astrological prognostications. And yet, the Book of Daniel condemns the Astrologers along with the Soothsayers as do other prophets in the Bible:

Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king; But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latterdays. (Daniel 2:27-28)

So I guess they should be looked upon as murderer’s too! But did that stop people from buying almanacs? Nope. Brown’s presentism here, (along with his anachronistic insertions) doesn’t serve him or his argument well. (The Book of Mormon didn’t come along until almost seven years after the period Lucy describes, and astrology is condemned far more often than the word “soothsayer” in the Bible. Keith A. Cerniglia documents that:

Ames’ almanac series, firmly rooted in judicial astrology, sold between 50,000 and 60,000 copies annually. A careful review of the sources indicates the scholars have been too hasty to write an obituary for the application of astrology, irrespective of its natural or judicial disposition. Late in the eighteenth century — during which the researchers have sounded the death knell for astrology — women, blacks and foreign-born printers had already made their incursions into the world of almanacs and astrology. This appears to reflect even further diversity in, at the very least, basic exposure of astrology. To use another example, Stephen Row Bradley’s Astronomical Diary of 1775 almost outsold (2,000 copies) the second-largest circulating colonial newspaper of 1770, William Goddard’s Pennsylvania Chronicle (which had 2,500 subscribers).(The American Almanac and the Astrology Factor)

Yes, the Christian churches were denouncing Astrology and Soothsaying, but that did not have as much of an impact as Brown would lead one to believe. The lower classes and superstitious and many of the upper echelon were interested in astrology and those who claimed to be able to foretell the future. (Just as they were interested in divining rods and folk remedies).

Like with many other things those who were practicing and believed in astrology and soothsaying often denounced others who did. (This is especially true of Christians) As we have learned so far, the folk magic culture was pervasive in 18th and 19th century America even though it wasn’t part of Christianity though there were many Christians who dabbled in different aspects of it. They were not inseparable – and so among the faithful, Bushman’s fairy tale – like Tinkerbell from Peter Pan, will come to an inglorious end. It seems that it has already begun.

End of Pt. 2

The Early Histories of Joseph Smith, Part I: Ghosts & Angels

Posted on March 11, 2019 by grindael

“The Moneydiggers” by John Quidor

by Johnny Stephenson

PART I: Of Ghosts & Angels

“[A] gold book discovered by … necromancy … & dug from the mines of atheism” or “the angel of the Lord has revealed to him … divine revelation”? ~Jesse Smith

Introduction

When the “Gold Bible” stories began being noised about in August 1829, an interesting story was being relayed by the principle players in the drama which was then unfolding about a mysterious record that some Jo from Palmyra, New York had reportedly unearthed. One of the first accounts about what they were calling The Book of Mormon appeared in the Palmyra Freeman:

In the fall of 1827, a person by the name of Joseph Smith, of Manchester, Ontario county, reported that he had been visited in a dream by the spirit of the Almighty, and informed that in a certain hill in that town, was deposited this Golden Bible, containing an ancient record of a divine nature and origin. After having been thrice thus visited, as he states, he proceeded to the spot, and after having penetrating “mother earth” a short distance, the Bible was found, together with a huge pair of spectacles! He had directed, however, not to let any mortal being examine them, “under no less penalty” than instant death! They were therefore nicely wrapped up, and excluded from the vulgar gaze of poor wicked mortals!” It was said that the leaves of the Bible were plates, of gold about eight inches long, six wide, and one eighth of an inch thick, on which were engraved characters or hieroglyphics. By placing the spectacles in a hat, and looking into it, Smith could (he said so, at least) interpret these characters. (The Palmyra Freeman, August 11, 1829).

This was the story as told by Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery and others, throughout the early years of the new Mormonite religion (and they were totally serious about the “instant death” part). In November of 1830, the Ohio Observer & Telegraph published another detail that was also being told along with the story above:

These men [Oliver Cowdery & Co.] have brought with them copies of a Book, known in this region by the name of the “Golden Bible,” or, as it is learned on its title-page, “The Book of Mormon.” They solemnly affirm, that its contents were given by Divine inspiration; was written by prophets of the Most High from a period of 600 years before, to that of some hundred years after our blessed Saviour’s advent; was deposited by Divine command below the surface of the ground, in or near the township of Palmyra, Ontario Co., N. Y., that an Angel appeared to a certain Joseph Smith residing in that place, who, they say, was a poor, ignorant, illiterate man, and made no pretensions to religion of any kind; — … [section of text illegible] … of this sacred deposit, and directed him forthwith to dig up and bring to light this precious record and prophecy. They affirm that the said Smith obeyed the heavenly messenger, when lo! a new Revelation — the Golden Bible was discovered!

In this account we learn that before Joseph prayed and was answered by the angel, he “made no pretensions to religion of any kind.” This is a detail that the early missionaries were repeating, the same one that Lucy Smith, William Smith, Samuel H. Smith and others recalled: that Joseph was caught up in the religious excitement in Manchester/Palmyra in the fall of 1823 and prayed for an answer to the question of “which church is right” and was answered by an angel, who told him about a “record” -which Joseph failed to acquire because he had selfish thoughts. He then repents, and gets the record four years later, after reporting to the angel every year to receive instructions on how to “restore” God’s kingdom. In August, 1832 William McLellin wrote to relatives about the new religion:

Some time in July 1831, two men [Elders Samuel H. Smith and Reynolds Cahoon] … said that in September 1827 an angel appeared to Joseph Smith (in Ontario Co., New York) and showed to him the confusion on the earth respecting true religion. It also told him to go a few miles distant to a certain hill and there he should find some plates with engravings, which (if he was faithful) he should be enabled to translate. He went as directed and found plates (which had the appearance of fine gold) about 8 inches long, 5 or 6 wide and altogether about 6 inches thick; each one about as thick as thin pasteboard, fastened together and opened in the form of a book containing engravings of reformed Egyptian hieroglyphical characters which he was inspired to translate and the record was published in 1830 and is called the Book of Mormon. It is a record which was kept on this continent by the ancient inhabitants. Those men had this book with them and they told us about it, and also of the rise of the church (which is now called Mormonites from their faith in this book etc…. (William McLellin, Letter to Relatives, August 4, 1832, The Ensign of Liberty, of the Church of Christ . . . Kirtland, Lake County, Ohio 1 (January 1848):60-61)

Painting by Ramsey

Notice that McLellin refers to the unnamed angel as “it”, not “he”. William McLellin had met Joseph in October of 1831 and stayed with him for three weeks. His story didn’t change. If Joseph was telling a different story, McLellin surely would have known and informed his relatives. But this is the account they were giving then. Lyman E. Johnson and Orson Pratt told a similar story almost a year later:

In 1827 a young man called Joseph Smith of the state of New York, of no denomination, but under conviction, [guilt & sorrow leading to repentance] inquired of the Lord what he should do to be saved-he went to bed without any reply, but in the night was awakened by an angel, whiter and shining in greater splendour than the sun at noonday, who gave information where the plates were deposited… (Catholic Telegraph 1 (April 14, 1832):204-205).

In 1830 Peter Bauder had visited with Joseph Smith for a whole day and left this account:

… I was favored with in an interview with Joseph Smith, Jr. at the house of Peter Whitmer, in the town of Fayette, Seneca County, state of New York, in October, 1830. I called at P[eter]. Whitmer’s house, for the purpose of seeing Smith, and searching into the mystery of his system of religion, and had the privilege of conversing with him alone, several hours, and of investigating his writings, church records, &c. I improved near four and twenty hours in close application with Smith and his followers: he could give me no christian experience, but told me that an angel told him he must go to a certain place in the town of Manchester, Ontario County, where was a secret treasure concealed, which he must reveal to the human family. He went, and after the third or fourth time, which was repeated once a year, he obtained a parcel of plate resembling gold, on which were engraved what he did not understand, only by the aid of a glass which he also obtained with the plate, by which means he was enabled to translate the characters on the plate into English. (Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, Vol. 1, p. 16-18).

“A secret treasure” is what he called it, and Joseph’s religious questions were answered by an unnamed angel, not by Jesus. Smith’s followers and family were testifying that Joseph did not make pretensions to religion of any kind, before encountering this angel in the mid 1820’s.

And what about those other stories, the ones also being told by Joseph and his family between 1823-1827? Was the account that Joseph would give later in 1832, that there was a Christian framework (not magical) surrounding his claimed visions the true one? That the only involvement that he had with money-digging was being hired for wages to literally dig for a silver mine? That his involvement with money-digging was only for “nearly a month”?

Why then, did Joseph’s family, neighbors and yes, some early Mormon “saints” claim that he was heavily involved with treasure digging and magical practices for many years, and that the story of the angel and the plates being told in 1828-29 was closely intertwined with those earlier experiences? Why are the plates referred to by those closest to Joseph as “treasure” over and over again? Were the stories about a ghost and buried treasure in the “Mormon Hill” and the Smith’s pursuit of it simply lies made up after the fact by those like Abner Cole, Willard Chase, Peter Ingersol, Martin Harris and dozens of others as some apologists claim?

And then we have the Mormon apologists who argue that one must agree with their view that Christianity and folk magic were inseparable or one cannot grasp what the evidence means and how Smith’s story developed. This is ridiculous for a number of reasons, which I will explore below, along with their other wild speculations about Folk Magic. What was normal or not normal during the Great Awakenings, was subjective and constantly changing and so trying to broad brush the folk magic aspect for all Americans and make the claim that treasure digging was simply an effort to restore primitive Christianity is disingenuous.

When one takes the time to analyze the evidence surrounding the claims made by Joseph of having those two visions (in 1820 & 1823), many problems arise, especially concerning the claimed 1820 “first vision”. I will address those problems below and in a follow up article address the apologist arguments that attempt to explain the inconsistencies, contradictions and conundrums of his first two written histories (1832 & 1834/5); but first let’s address the historical evidence surrounding those early years (1820-1830) and the historical narrative that can be pieced together from the evidence.

Camp Meetings & Revivals

In Joseph’s later narrative, he claims to have been prompted to seek an answer because of a great revival which had swept through the place where he lived in the spring of 1820. It is therefore extremely important to note something here. In 1967 Wesley Walters wrote,

“… the contemporary records [show] that the revival which Smith claimed occurred in 1820 did not really take place until the fall of 1824.” (pg. 61)

Strangely, the anonymously authored essay from 2013 published by the church references a camp-meeting which took place in mid-July of 1820, and they also don’t inform their readers that it was more than 25 miles from Palmyra. They reference the diary of Benajah Williams but don’t quote it:

The journals of an itinerant Methodist preacher document much religious excitement in Joseph’s geographic area in 1819 and 1820. They report that Reverend George Lane, a revivalist Methodist minister, was in that region in both years, speaking “on Gods method in bringing about Reformations.” This historical evidence is consistent with Joseph’s description.

No, the evidence is not consistent. “The place where we lived” is certainly not 25 miles away. Williams wrote:

“Sat. 15th Had a two Days meeting at Sq Bakers in Richmond. Br. Wright being gone to campmeeting on Ridgeway circuit I expected to find Br. J. Hayes at the Meeting & calculated to get him to take the lead of the meeting but when on my way to meeting met him going to conference & tried to get him to return but he thout[sic] not best as his horse was young, he said he could not ride through by conference by the time it commenced Then I thout what shall I do I shall have to take the lead at the meeting & do the p- (preaching) but the Lord prepaired him self a preacher it rained powerfully until 11 o’clock so that I was verry wet I called with some of the Brtheren at Br. Eldredges and took dinner then rode to the place appointed for meeting. & found Br. Lane a Presiding Elder from Susquehanna District with five more preachers. Br. Warner p. on Sat. Br. Griffing exhorted. We had a good prayer meeting at six in the evening.”

“Sab. 16th Our Lovefeast began at 9 & the Lord was present to bless & we had a shout in the camp. Br E Bibbins p- at 11 from…the lord attended the word & the people were satisfied with the Sermons. Br. Lane exhorted and spoke on Gods method in bringing about Reffermations [sic] his word was with as from the authority of God. & not as the Areons. After him Br. Griffin with life & energy & Br. Vose closed the Meeting after with some of the Brethren dined with Br. W. E….” (Diary of Benajah Williams, 15-16 July, 1820).

The story that Joseph told had a revival taking place “in his fifteenth year” in “the place where we lived”, before his claimed vision in the “early spring” and that the whole district of the country was affected also. And the Methodists were not the only ones affected, but the Presbyterians and Baptists were also. The Williams Camp Meeting was a 9 hour walk from the Smith farm. It was not a revival and it doesn’t fit the evidence at all. Here is the footnote from the anonymous essay:

Benajah Williams diary, July 15, 1820, copy in Church History Library, Salt Lake City; spelling regularized.

What they don’t mention in the body of the essay is that this camp meeting took place in the middle of July not the “early Spring”. Mike Quinn, in a bizarre effort to question the character of Wesley Walters, wrote a paper in 2006 titled, “Joseph Smith’s Experience of a Methodist ‘Camp Meeting’ in 1820”, and for all the attacks on Walters had to admit, according to Dan Vogel that “the First Vision story contains elements from the 1824–25 Palmyra revival,” and so Walter’s “observation about the text and its relationship to verifiable historical facts remains essentially legitimate.”

Quinn calls what he is doing in his paper “conservative revisionism”, and this includes throwing out what Smith himself wrote, that his vision took place in the early spring of 1820. Quinn claims that this is wrong, that it took place in the early summer because of a cold spring… that Joseph essentially mistook the month of July for the month of March. This kind of tortured ad hoc “revisionism” is simply baffling. Quinn also touts this newspaper article as strong evidence that Walter’s was wrong:

Effects of Drunkenness. — DIED at the house of Mr. Robert M’Collum, in this town, on the 26th inst., James Couser, aged about forty years. The deceased, we are informed, arrived at Mr. M’Collum’s house the evening preceding, from a camp-meeting which was held in this vicinity, in a state of intoxication. He, with his companion who was also in the same debasing condition, called for supper, which was granted. Both stayed all night — called for breakfast next morning — when notified that it was ready, the deceased was found wrestling with his companion, whom he flung down with the greatest ease, — he suddenly sunk down upon a bench, — was taken with an epileptic fit, and immediately expired. — It is supposed he obtained his liquor, which was no doubt the cause of his death, at the Camp-ground, where, it is a notorious fact, the intemperate, the lewd and dissolute part of the community too frequently resort for no better objewct, than to gratify their base propensities. The deceased, who was an Irishman, we understand has left a family, living at Catskill, this state. (Palmyra Register, June 28, 1820)

Again, a camp-meeting months after the claimed “early Spring” vision. So where is the reference to the claimed 1819 “revival”? The anonymous authors don’t provide any. But there is another Methodist preacher the Apologists mention, Aurora Seager, who was in the area in 1818 and this is from his diary:

I received, on the 18th of June, a letter from Brother Hibbard, informing me that I had been received by the New York Conference, and, at my request, had been transferred to the Genesee Conference. On the 19th I attended a camp-meeting at Palmyra. The arrival of Bishop Roberts, who seems to be a man of God, and is apostolic in his appearance, gave a deeper interest to the meeting until it closed. On Monday the sacrament was administered, about twenty were baptized; forty united with the Church, and the meeting closed. I accompanied the Bishop to Brother Hawks, at Phelps, and on the 14th of July I set out with Brother Paddock for the Genesee conference, which was to hold its session at Lansing, N.Y. (Diary of Aurora Seager, 1818, The Three Brothers: Sketches of the Lives of Rev. Aurora Seager, Rev. Micah Seager, Rev. Schuyler Seager, D. D. (New York, 1880), pgs 21-22).

Mormon Apologists love to tout this as evidence of “an unusual excitement .. among all the sects … [with] great multitudes”, but this was two years before the claimed 1820 vision and only speaks of Methodists. There is no mention of George Lane either (this is important). Here is the story the way Smith later crafted it:

Some time in the second year after our removal to Manchester, [1820 according to Smith] there was in the place where we lived an unusual excitement on the subject of religion. It commenced with the Methodists, but soon became general among all the sects in that region of country. Indeed, the whole district of country seemed affected by it, and great multitudes united themselves to the different religious parties, which created no small stir and division amongst the people, some crying, a“Lo, here!” and others, “Lo, there!” Some were contending for the Methodist faith, some for the Presbyterian, and some for the Baptist. … I was at this time in my fifteenth year. My father’s family was proselyted to the Presbyterian faith, and four of them joined that church, namely, my mother, Lucy; my brothers Hyrum and Samuel Harrison; and my sister Sophronia. (Joseph Smith, History)

It commenced with the Methodists “in the place where we lived” then expanded (according to Smith) to “all the sects” in “that region of the country”. It wasn’t an isolated camp meeting 25 miles from the place where he lived (Palmyra). It wasn’t a camp meeting in the summer, or two years earlier, it was a great multitudes uniting themselves to the different religious parties, and this did not happen as Joseph describes until 1824. Walters was right, and still is.

The Manchester Mess

The Smith family’s Palmyra residences (approximate locations, top left, bottom left)

Joseph claimed the whole family moved to Manchester in 1820. But this isn’t true, they didn’t all move to Manchester until 1822 after they built a cabin which they completed before starting on a “frame house” the next year. The evidence for this is incontrovertible.

As Walters and Marquardt document in “Inventing Mormonism” the Smith’s moved to Palmyra in 1816-1817 and rented a house on West Main Street. (see map above top left) They lived there for about two years and then moved out to a small log cabin on some land that Samuel Jennings owned just at the southern edge of the Palmyra Township line. (see map above bottom left) This was not Manchester. Walters & Marquardt explain:

Joseph Sr. is first found in Palmyra on the road tax list for April 1817 as a resident on Main Street…. Joseph Sr.’s name occurs again at the same location in District 26 in 1818 and 1819. In April 1820 Alvin Smith’s name appears for the first time on the road tax list among the merchants on Main Street. Alvin had turned twenty-one in February 1819 and his absence from the 1819 road list may indicate he had been hired out. Residing on Main Street may represent the cake and beer shop the Smiths reportedly operated in town. However, Joseph Sr.’s name appears at the end of the list, showing he was now living outside the business district and near the Palmyra-Farmington town line, where the road district ended. The Smith family’s cabin would be mentioned two months later in the “Palmyra Town Book” as “Joseph Smiths dwelling house,” located about fifty feet north of the line dividing Palmyra from Farmington. It stood about two miles south of Main Street on property owned by Samuel Jennings, a merchant with whom the Smiths did business. When the road survey crew on 13 June 1820 laid out the extension of Stafford Road to join Main Street to the north, they used the cabin as a reference point. The survey reads: “Minutes of the survey of a public Highway beginning on the south line … in the town of Palmyra three rods fourteen links southeas[t] of Joseph Smiths dwelling house.” The Smith cabin location is further supported by Orsamus Turner, who in 1818 began work as a young apprentice printer at the office of the local Palmyra Register. He recalled that he first saw the Smith family in the winter of 1819-20 living “in a rude log house, with but a small spot underbrushed around it” near the town line. (pg. 3-4)

Approximate location of Smith frame house & log cabin

The fact that the Smith’s were still living in Palmyra in 1821 is supplemented by the birth of Lucy Smith in Palmyra: “Genealogy,” Manuscript History, A-1: 10 [separate section], reads, “Lucy Smith, born in Palmyra, Ontario Co. N.Y. July 18, 1821.” (Walters & Marquardt, pg. 12), and the road tax records.

The Smith’s did not article for the Manchester Farm until 1821, as Walters & Marquardt clearly show:

Lucy subsequently reported that the family contracted for 100 acres of “Everson” (Evertson) land held by the estate of Nicholas Evertson, an attorney in New York City who had acquired considerable land holdings in western New York before his death in 1807. It was June 1820 before Evertson’s executors conveyed to Caspar W. Eddy, a New York City physician, power of attorney to sell his holdings. Eddy traveled to Canandaigua, New York, the seat of Ontario County, and on 14 July 1820 transferred his power of attorney to his friend Zachariah Seymour. Seymour had long been a land agent in the area and was a close associate of Oliver Phelps, who with his partner Nathaniel Gorham had opened a land office in Canandaigua and had instituted the practice of “articling” for real estate. …Joseph Sr. and Alvin would have had to “article” for their land shortly after July 1820. Joseph Sr. is listed in the Farmington (Manchester) 1820 census (which was enrolled between 7 August 1820 and 5 February 1821), suggesting that the articling was completed no later than February 1821. The ages of the male family members were: under 10, 2 (William and Don Carlos); 16-26, 2 (Alvin and Hyrum); and over 45, 1 (Joseph Sr.). Female members were: under 10, 1 (Catherine); 16-26, 1 (Sophronia); and 26-45, 1 (Lucy Mack Smith). Both Joseph Jr. (age fourteen) and his younger brother Samuel Harrison (age twelve) were missing from the census. The new Smith farm encompassed approximately one hundred acres, one third of the original Lot No. 1 in that township. According to the assessment roll for 22 June 1820, the entire three hundred acres of Lot 1 were taxed to the heirs of Nicholas Evertson at that time. In the following year’s assessment (7 July 1821) only two hundred acres were taxed to the Evertson heirs, while the balance was assessed to Joseph Smith. …

Lucy mentions that “in one year’s time” after they contracted for the property, the land agent told them they should build a cabin on their land, which “we did.” However, it cannot be precisely determined from her account when this log house was built. That this refers to their Farmington farm and not the Palmyra property is clear from several key facts. First, the Smiths were living in the Palmyra cabin when the road supervisors mentioned it in June 1820 before the Smiths could have contracted for the Farmington land. In addition, William Smith, Joseph Jr.’s younger brother, declared concerning the Farmington/Manchester property, “The improvements made on this farm was first commenced by building a log house at no small expense, and at a later date a frame house at a cost of several hundred dollars.” William would hardly call a cabin built on Samuel Jennings’s land in Palmyra an improvement on their own farm across the line in Manchester. From the Palmyra road tax list it is clear that at least Joseph Sr. and Alvin were still living in Palmyra as late as April 1822. It is probable that the Smiths did not move to the Manchester farm until after the summer of 1822. It could not be earlier than July 1821 because Smith family genealogy mentions the birth of a daughter named Lucy, the youngest child of the family. The genealogy specifically states that Lucy was “born in Palmyra.” (pgs. 4-7)

There is even more evidence to show that the Smith’s did not move to Manchester until 1822, as Walters & Marquardt document:

When the one hundred acres first went on the assessment roll in July 1821, taxed to Joseph Sr., the parcel was valued at $700, $7 an acre. This was approximately what uncleared land in the area was selling for at the time. The remaining two hundred acres of Lot No. 1 were taxed to the Evertson heirs at a value of $1,400. The same value appeared in the 29 June 1822 assessment. However, by 24 July 1823 the value of the Smith property had jumped to $1,000. This is an increase of over 40 percent, yet the average property value for the whole township rose only 4 percent that year. This indicates that for the first time a cabin had been built and sufficient land had been cleared so that under New York law the assessed value had to be raised. (pg. 7)

So two years from the time they moved to Manchester would be 1824, when the great revival with George Lane took place. We know that Joseph Smith is conflating events, but is it due to memory problems as some suggest? That will be addressed in Pt. II.

Further evidence that Joseph’s timeline is wrong is that members of the Smith family did not join the Presbyterian Church until after the fall/winter of 1824 when George Lane was in the area:

With inexpressible gratitude to the great Head of the church, I am enabled to inform you that the work of the Lord is prospering gloriously on Ontario district…
From Catharine I went to Ontario circuit, where the Lord had already begun a gracious work in Palmyra. This is a pleasant village, situate on the great western canal, about twenty-two miles east of Rochester, and is now in a flourishing condition. In this place the work commenced in the spring, and progressed moderately until the time of the quarterly meeting, which was held on the 25th and 26th of September. About this time it appeared to break out afresh. Monday evening, after the quarterly meeting, there were four converted, and on the following evening, at a prayer meeting at Dr. [Clark] Chase’s, there were seven. Among these was a young woman by the name of Lucy Stoddard… [Was this the Smith’s also? They lived very close to the Chase family & Sophronia married Calvin Stoddard]
December 11th and 12th our quarterly meeting for Ontario circuit was held in Ontario. It was attended with showers of blessings, and we have reason to believe that much good was done. Here I found that the work, which had for some time been going on in Palmyra, had broken out from the village like a mighty flame, and was spreading in every direction. When I left the place, December 22d, there had, in the village and its vicinity, upward of one hundred and fifty joined the society, besides a number that had joined other churches, and many that had joined no church. (Letter of George Lane, The Methodist Magazine, “Revival of Religion on Ontario District”, pg 158-60).

The Smith family joined the Presbyterians during the tenure of Reverand Benjamin Stockton (who was the reason why Joseph Smith Sr. did not join, because of his comments about Alvin):

The installation of the Rev. BENJAMIN B. STOCKTON will take place this day at the Presbyterian Meeting-House in this village. — The exercises to commence at 11 o’clock A.M. (Wayne Sentinel, February 18, 1824).

The local papers proclaimed the revival and the large numbers of people who converted:

Religious.–An article in the Religious Advocate gives the pleasing fact that a revival of religion had taken place in the town of Palmyra, Macedon, Manchester, Phelps, Lyons and Ontario, and that more than 200 souls had become hopeful subjects of Divine Grace, &c. It may be added, that in Palmyra and Macedon, including Methodist, Presbyterian and Baptist Churches, more than 400 have already testified that the Lord is good. The work is still progressing. In the neighboring towns, the number is great and fast increasing. Glory be to God on high; and on earth, peace and good will to all men. (Wayne Sentinel, 2 March, 1825)

The large numbers of people converting and joining to the various sects became so commonplace after this that the Sentinel stopped reporting about them. D. Michael Quinn writes,

…even though New York’s Methodist Magazine reported that “not less than ten thousand people” attended the Sunday session (11 June 1826) of Palmyra’s several day camp-meeting, the village newspaper ignored this revival in its limited reporting of local events. Titled the Wayne Sentinel at that time, the newspaper’s co-editors Pomeroy Tucker and John H. Gilbert obviously saw no point in telling residents…(pg. 31)

Then, on September 25, 1824 we have this peculiar notice in the Wayne Sentinel by Joseph Smith Sr. (a few days after the Autumn Equinox) and the date Joseph Jr. was supposed to bring his brother Alvin to the hill at the bequest of the Angel/Ghost:

WHEREAS, reports have been industriously put in circulation, that my son Alvin had been removed from the place of his interment and dissected, which reports, every person possessed of human sensibility must know, are peculiarly calculated to harrow up the mind of a parent and deeply wound the feelings of relations — therefore, for the purpose of ascertaining the truth of such reports, I, with some of my neighbors, this morning, repaired to the grave, and removing the earth, found the body which had not been disturbed.

This method is taken for the purpose of satisfying the minds of those who may have heard the report, and of informing those who have put it in circulation, that it is earnestly requested they would desist therefrom; and that it is believed by some, that they have been stimulated more by a desire to injure [the] reputation of certain persons than a philanthropy for the peace and welfare of myself and friends. JOSEPH SMITH. Palmyra, Sept. 25th, 1824. (Wayne Sentinel, September 29, 1824)

Whose “reputations” would this injure? Why did this happen to the Smith family? There is no evidence that this happened to any other families in Palmyra.

I’ll explore that below. Joseph was “glass looking” in 1826, and there were no revivals in the Palmyra area as described by him in 1820, (with “great multitudes” of many different sects) and the major players in the Smith family narrative like Benjamin Stockton and George Lane were there in 1824, not before the Spring of 1820. Those like Mike Quinn and others want to claim conflation of events (1824 with 1820) but this isn’t reasonable for a number of reasons which will be discussed in Pt. II. Using that excuse is pretty much having your cake and eating it too, as is portraying Joseph as a pious magic using, money-digging prophet-in-training.

Having It Both Ways?

Mormon Apologist Larry E. Morris, in a forthcoming book informs us:

There are no substitutes for the primary documents, but in the case of the Book of Mormon, the “earliest sources” are not nearly as early as one would hope. … a host of crucial Book of Mormon events took place between September of 1823 and the end of 1827, but not a single document–no letter, diary entry, legal record, newspaper article, or anything else–mentioning the Book of Mormon has survived. Even for the crucial year of 1828, only two documents, neither the original, are extant. It is not until 1829 that contemporaneous documents are plentiful, with the June 26 Wayne Sentinel article having the distinction of sending out the first public notice of the Book of Mormon. (pg. 3)

Morris is right above, and yet, he (as others have before him) tries to make the argument that “treasure seeking was part of an attempt to recapture the simplicity and magical power associated with apostolic Christianity.” (pg. 10) This is simply ridiculous, people were treasure seeking because they thought they could get rich quick by doing so.

Morris calls magic and Christianity “inseparable and natural allies.” Morris quotes Alan Taylor over and over again, who claims that “treasure seekers were neither fools nor deceivers”, as if every single treasure seeker was an upstanding Christian who had pure motives for going after the treasure. But those who hired themselves out as “Peekers”, they were the deceivers, and why there were laws passed to stop them from doing so. It is certainly debatable that Joseph Smith Sr. and his namesake was foolish and a deceiver.

Morris also quotes Ronald Walker but leaves out that even Walker knows that the Smith’s were after treasure for their own personal greed and that in 1826 the Sr. Smith called it “filthy lucre”, and hoped that someday God would “illumine” the heart of his son Joseph! This was long after he supposedly had his two religious visions.

It is more like this “attempt” to “recapture … apostolic Christianity” was just an excuse to justify what they were doing, which even Jesse Smith (Joseph Jr’s uncle) scoffed at. And those court documents which accused Joseph of being a “glass looker” in 1826, are the earliest records that have to do with Joseph Smith, Jr. and his treasure digging ever found. These records predate any that mention of the Book of Mormon by at least two years.

The “record” or “gold plates” was called a “treasure” by Lucy Mack and Joseph Smith, Sr., Joseph Knight Sr., Martin Harris, Porter Rockwell, Brigham Young, and others. David Whitmer later claimed that the angel was “the guardian of the plates“. Joseph Jr., was said to have found the plates by looking in a “seeing” or peep-stone. (See Martin Harris interview with Joel Tiffany – “In this stone he could see many things to my certain knowledge. It was by means of this stone he first discovered these plates.”)

The Stone or the Angel?

Joseph’s first written history (the religious story) claimed that it was an unnamed angel (not Moroni) who told him about the plates – and where they were:

when I was seventeen years of age I called again upon the Lord and he shewed unto me a heavenly vision for behold

an angel of the Lord came and stood before me and it was by night

and he [the angel] called me by name

and he [the angel] said the Lord had forgiven me my sins

and he [the angel] revealed unto me many things concerning the inhabitents of of the earth which since have been revealed in commandments & revelations and it was on the 22d day of Sept. AD 1822

and thus he [the angel] appeared unto me three times in one night and once on the next day and then I immediately went to the place and found where the plates was deposited as the angel of the Lord had commanded me and straightway made three attempts to get them and then being excedingly frightened I supposed it had been a dreem of Vision but when I considred I knew that it was not therefore I cried unto the Lord in the agony of my soul why can I not obtain them

behold the angel appeared unto me again and said unto me you have not kept the commandments of the Lord which I gave unto you therefore you cannot now obtain them for the time is not yet fulfilled therefore thou wast left unto temptation that thou mightest be ~~made~~ accquainted of with the power of the advisary therefore repent and call on the Lord thou shalt be forgiven and in his own due time thou shalt obtain them (pg. 4, paragraph breaks mine)

One thing stands out in this 1832 History that bears mentioning. In the earlier vision that he claimed to have in his 16th year, Smith doesn’t mention any “adversary” or Satan’s power. It is probably because in the later vision that he claimed to have in his 17th year he is told by the anonymous angel that he couldn’t get the plates because he needed to “be ~~made~~ accquainted of with the power of the advisary”. Later, Smith reverses this and has Satan appear prior to the appearance of the deity in the earlier vision.

Lest there be any doubt, six years later Smith wrote this:

I … went to the place where the messenger had told me the plates were deposited, and owing to the distinctness of the vision which I had had concerning it, I knew the place the instant that I arrived there. (pg. 7)

And yet Martin Harris had certain knowledge that Joseph found the gold plates using his peep-stone before the mention of any angel. This was the man who was with Joseph from the beginning of the venture, who helped him with the “translation”, gave him money and sold his farm to pay for the printing of the Book of Mormon. It is doubtful that Harris would get this detail wrong. So Joseph is not being truthful in the later versions of his history. And since magical folklore was so Christian according to Morris and other apologists, why would Joseph want to change his story and claim that an angel told him where the plates were? Why would it matter? Henry Harris recorded what Joseph Smith told him about how he discovered the gold plates:

The character of Joseph Smith, Jr. for truth and veracity was such, that I would not believe him under oath. I was once on a jury before a Justice’s Court and the Jury could not, and did not, believe his testimony to be true. After he pretended to have found the gold plates, I had a conversation with him, and asked him where he found them and how he come to know where they were. He said he had a revelation from God that told him they were hid in a certain hill and he looked in his stone and saw them in the place of deposit; that an angel appeared, and told him he could not get the plates until he was married, and that when he saw the woman that was to he his wife, he should know her; and she would know him. He then went to Pennsylvania, got his wife, and they both went together and got the gold plates… (Henry Harris, Mormonism Unvailed, 1833, 252.)

Having a “revelation”, and then looking in a peep-stone is not the same as having an angel show you where they were. Astoundingly, FAIRMORMON calls this (angel vs. stone) a “false dichotomy” because,

Moroni could easily have told Joseph about the plates and interpreters. The vision to Joseph may well have then come through the seer stone, as some of the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants (e.g., Section X) would later be revealed. One account from Henry Harris in Eber D. Howe’s anti-Mormon book Mormonism Unvailed matches this theory well:

I had a conversation with [Joseph], and asked him where he found them [the plates] and how he come to know where they were. he said he had a revelation from God that told him they were hid in a certain hill and he looked in his [seer] stone and saw them in the place of deposit.

But Joseph later says that the information came from the angel, (not a “revelation”) and never mentions finding them with a peep-stone. FAIRMORMON has it backwards, and so doesn’t quote the full Harris statement where the angel only appears after Joseph looks in his stone. Harris doesn’t claim that the angel told him about the plates at all; Joseph was claiming that his peep-stones were like the “all seeing eye” of God, cloaking his magical practices in religious terminology as so many others did. What is rather hilarious is that Harris says that he would not believe Smith under oath! But this still doesn’t give them pause in using him to bolster their erroneous claim.

And yet, in 1832, Samuel H. Smith & Orson Hyde answered the question this way:

Q.-By what means did he discover the golden plates and who was with him when he made the discovery.
A.-The golden plates were discovered through the ministration of an angel of the Lord, by Joseph Smith-no one else was with him at the time of the discovery. (Boston Investigator 2 (Aug. 10, 1832).

And in their 1834/35 History Cowdery & Smith wrote,

An Angel appeared before me; his hands and feet were, naked, pure and white; he stood betwen the floors of the room, clothed with purity inexpressible. He said unto me I am a Messenger sent from God, be faithful and keep his commandments in all things. He told me also of a sacred record which was written on plates of gold. I saw in the vision the place where they were deposited. He said to me the Indians were the literal decendants of Abraham.

And finally, in 1838 Joseph Smith himself answered this:

How, and where did you obtain the book of Mormon?…Moroni, the person who deposited the plates, from whence the book of Mormon was translated, in a hill in Manchester, Ontario County, New York, being dead, and raised again therefrom, appeared unto me and told me where they were and gave me directions how to obtain them. I obtained them and the Urim and Thummim with them, by the means of which I translated the plates and thus came the book of Mormon ( Joseph Smith, Jr., Elders’ Journal 1:3 (July 1838): 42–43.)

It is perfectly clear that Smith was later claiming that the angel showed him “in the vision” where they were. Why? Because he was trying to hide the fact that he used a peep-stone and with it claimed to have found the plates and later used it to “translate” them.

So by 1832 Smith’s story had completely changed. This is important to note going forward: Smith’s constantly changing narrative to eliminate or downplay as many treasure-digging/folk magic elements from his later angel narrative as he could. Once again, it begs the question, Why? if folk magic and Christianity were so complimentary and intertwined as the apologists claim. Smith wasn’t “restoring” Christianity for who he deemed the corrupt elites, but for the “folk” who supposedly believed in all that magical stuff. So why would he run away from it? The apologist arguments can’t explain it.

It is also very important to note that Joseph locating the “gold plates” with his stone, is at its heart a treasure digging yarn, and those elements were still being related to Harris and others before he finally changed it to the wholly religious narrative we have today. (The angel told him – there was no peep-stone, only “interpreters’)

Having It Both Ways (Continued)

It seems that the apologists feel making the above argument (treasure seeking = Christianity) clears Joseph and his family of any shenanigans in relation to peep-stones, divining rods, money-digging, magic circles and parchments, incantations, rituals, necromancy and the like. It was all simply a part of their Christian folk lore beliefs and, of course, everybody else was doing it so how bad could it be? And way, way back in Old Testament days (thousands of years ago) they were using strange objects to do things with too! Problem solved!

They even claim that all these occult practices helped prepare the family to accept seeing angels sent from God, and accepting his message to young Joseph!

What it sounds like though, is simply whataboutism run amok: “What about this good Christian fellow/Preacher who used a divining rod” or “they prayed before they tried to contact the spirits of the dead”.. so all such practices were acceptable and promoted by Christians and hence were a normal part of apostolic Christianity! What about those ancient Old Testament Bible stories from thousands of years ago that mention divining cups and rods that turn into snakes, etc.? Problem solved! (They even had talking donkeys back then!)

In a paper Morris wrote, “I Should Have An Eye Single to the Glory of God”, which is critical of Ron Huggins’ Dialogue article, “From Captain Kidd’s Treasure Ghost to the Angel Moroni: Changing Dramatis Personae in Early Mormonism”, (which he expanded into his new book) Morris goes on and on about sources and then tells his audience that “…since we have no such sources, we have to do the best we can with what we have.” That’s exactly what Ron did. Still, Morris’s biggest criticism of Ron Huggins is that he did not answer point by point all the apologist offerings about folk magic. For example, Morris claims that,

Huggins should have drawn upon relevant scholarship, particularly Ronald W. Walker’s claim that “Mormonism was . . . born within an upstate New York matrix that combined New England folk culture with traditional religion.” And although Huggins is aware of this paper (pp. 27, 33), he fails to respond to Walker’s view that “magical treasure hunting was . . . part of the culture and religion of the folk . . . , a blend of humankind’s deep myths and Christian ideas.” Instead, Huggins narrows his discussion of treasure seeking to tales of Captain Kidd, introducing and concluding his article with mentions of the notorious pirate and his legendary plunder.

In other words, Ron should have presented all the Mormon apologist offerings in his paper, and downplayed any connection to Captain Kidd, the very subject that the paper was all about? Really? Write a Larry E. Morris approved article with sources he thinks are relevant? But hold on… Walker’s full quote reads:

Mormonism was also born within an Upstate New York matrix that combined New England folk culture with traditional religion. Joseph Smith’s family and many of his early New York converts were both treasure diggers and fervent religionists. But there is evidence that the Smiths were not always comfortable mixing the two. At young Joseph’s 1826 money digging trial his father was reported to have claimed that both he and his son “were mortified that this wonderful [seeric] power which God had so miraculously given to the boy should be used only in search of filthy lucre, or its equivalent in earthly treasures.” Joseph Smith Sr “trusted that the Son of Righteousness would some day illumine the heart of the boy and enable him to see his will concerning him.” (Page 450)

Notice that Walker separates the two, (treasure digging and religionists) and it is the Smith’s who combine them (as do others in that sub culture) and are conflicted about doing so! And if you read Morris’ quote, so full of ellipses, you would never know that Walker believes that even the Smith’s were not comfortable mixing them. So why would Ron Huggins even need to include any of Walker’s opinions in his paper? To support apologist speculations? Is that really relevant scholarship? Let’s see.

Walker quotes Joseph Smith, Sr. giving testimony at his sons 1826 Examination. This was six years after Joseph supposedly saw God and three years after he claimed the angel he later identified as Moroni/Nephi visited him. And then, of course there were the two visits in 1824 and 1825 at the Hill Cumorah. So when was the “Son of Righteousness” going to “illumine the heart of the boy”? And even after this, Joseph went back to looking for treasure! It was like those religious visions never really happened!

Morris wants to have it both ways as do all the apologists who try to justify the Smith’s practicing and believing in magic rituals and practices, the supernatural spirits that supposedly guarded buried treasure, and being able to locate such treasure using various instruments like dowsing rods and peep-stones as somehow being more than a subculture (even a widespread one at times) and therefore acceptable as legitimate Christian practices. (Christianity is not Old Testament Judaism). Didn’t Christ claim he had “fulfilled” the old laws and after the “gift of the Holy Spirit” none of that was necessary any more? That it would be a much simpler gospel, like love your neighbor as yourself? But I digress. Another time perhaps.

Where is it listed in any of the many Church tenets of the Universalists, or Baptists, or Methodists, or Presbyterians, or other Christian churches of the day, the instructions about divining, or peeping with stones, or necromancy, or other “folk magic” practices?

Even though some individuals might practice such things, there is no evidence that any of the Christian Churches in America were promoting such things in a widespread manner as the apologists want you to believe. It was a subculture that was widespread among all Americans, both religious and non-religious, and as we shall see below, even the Mormons turned against it and claimed such things were ‘not of God’.

And if one wants to call “folk magic” a religion, well, there is the problem that God supposedly told Joseph in 1820 that all the different religions were false and to “go not after them”. And remember, after his claimed 1820 vision Joseph “…frequently fell into many foolish errors, and displayed the weakness of youth, and the foibles of human nature; which, I am sorry to say, led me into divers temptations, offensive in the sight of God.” He claims that stuff (the money-digging) was offensive in the sight of God. Ah, but having it both ways allows Joseph to do all this offensive stuff and still be a legitimate, bona fide occult dabbling prophet-in-training, right? Because he claimed to “repent” then continued to do it. And continued to do it. But now… the apologists are claiming there was nothing wrong with any of it because so many other Christians were doing their own dabbling.

In this tortured paragraph, Eric A. Eliason touts a folklorist to try and show how magic and religion are really just the same thing and that you can demystify it all by realizing that it’s all culture clashes:

Folklorist David Allred reminds scholars how folklorists helped de-exoticize the common magic/religion distinction by showing them to be functionally and structurally very similar concepts whose differences have more to do with culturally constructed notions emerging from relationships of group identity, prestige, and power than they do from any intrinsic qualities of magic or religion. (pg. 80)

But what was Joseph himself saying when he put these words in the mouth of God to him in 1820:

[God said] all their Creeds were an abomination in his sight, that those professors were all corrupt, that “they draw near to me to with their lips but their hearts are far from me, They teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of Godliness but they deny the power thereof.” He again forbade me to join with any of them and many other thing[s] did he say unto me which I cannot write at this time. (p. 2)

Since magic and religion are not different from one another (according to the apologists), Joseph then continued to ignore the heavenly visitors he claimed he was continually seeing right up until he came to possess the gold plates in 1827. Surely this instruction from God includes Professors of Methodist/magic folklore or Universalist/magic folklore or Presbyterian/magic folklore, etc. Surely it includes practitioners of folk magic who were not affiliated with any of the sects of the day and all the magical “creeds”. If one wants to claim that Smith was commanded to “go not after” only organized religions, what is the reason why God would leave out folk religion/magic? And that begs the question why would God use the abominable “Christian” folk magic to train his prophet? Was the angel directing the young prophet-in-training to go out and peep for treasure? Does that somehow make one more prolific at “translating” ancient languages? Joseph never finds anything with his occult peep-stone but when it becomes a religious “seeing stone” he can “translate” whole books of scripture! Just call it urim and thuimmim and it’s all good. Just picture the angel: Joseph you’re too greedy, go out and work on the treasure hunting some more so you can hone those peep-stone skills and “translate” these gold plates that you won’t really need to have to do the “translating”. Really?

In the claimed vision though, Joseph’s God makes no distinctions. All were wrong according to Joseph though he only mentions three of the most “popular” denominations in his account.

It is certainly of interest to mention that in 1830, when Oliver Cowdery and a few others went to Ohio, Abner Cole published these statements they made to those they were trying to proselyte to the new Mormonite faith:

Our Painesville correspondent informs us, that about the first of Nov. last, Oliver Cowdery, (we shall notice this character in the course of our labors,) and three others arrived at that village with the “New Bible,” on a mission to the notorious Sidney Rigdon, who resides in the adjoining town. Rigdon received them graciously — took the book under advisement, and in a few days declared it to be of “Heavenly origin.” Rigdon, with about 20 of his flock, were dipt immediately. They then proclaimed that there had been no religion in the world for 1500 years, — that no one had been authorised to preach &c. for that period, — that Joe Smith had now received a commission from God for that purpose, and that all such as did not submit to his authority would speedily be destroyed. The world (except the New Jerusalem) would come to an end in two or three years. The state of New York would (probably) be sunk. Smith (they affirmed) had seen God frequently and personally — Cowdery and his friends had frequent interviews with angels, and had been directed to locate the site for the New Jerusalem, which they should know, the moment they should “step their feet” upon it. They pretend to heal the sick and work miracles, and had made a number of unsuccessful attempts to do so. The Indians were the ten lost tribes — some of them had already been dipt. From 1 to 200 (whites) had already been in the water, and showed great zeal in this new religion — many were converted before they saw the book. Smith was continually receiving new revelations, and it would probably take him 1000 years to complete them — commissions and papers were exhibited, said to be signed by Christ himself!!! Cowdery authorised three persons to preach, &c. and descended the Ohio River. The converts are forming “common stock” families, as most pleasing in the sight of God. They pretend to give the “Holy Spirit” and under its operations they fall upon the floor — see visions, &c. Indians followed Cowdery daily, and finally saw him enter the promised land, where he placed a pole in the ground, with a light on its top, to designate the site of the New Jerusalem. (The Palmyra Reflector, February 14, 1831, See also issues of the Painesville Telegraph for this period).

Notice they were preaching that there was no religion on the earth for 1500 years. As we know, Joseph was to later declare that without the proper “authority” anything done in God’s name was invalid and an affront to him. But the Apologists would have you believe that there was an exception for their “Christian” folk magic and the shenanigans of Palmyra’s prophet-in-training.

Magic or Religion?

Joseph’s “official” story about seeing God and then an angel in 1820 and 1823 isn’t based on some magic subculture, because Joseph later denied that he was involved in it; (he was only a paid laborer) but since he was involved (as the evidence shows) he literally was ignoring the commands of both God and the angel according to his own “official” narrative. Three years after he first claimed to see an angel of God, Joseph Jr. testified in a court of law that,

…he had a certain stone, which he had occasionally looked at to determine where hidden treasures in the bowels of the earth were; that he professed to tell in this manner where gold-mines were a distance under ground, and had looked for Mr. Stowel several times, and informed him where he could find those treasures, and Mr. Stowel had been engaged in digging for them; that at Palmyra he pretended to tell, by looking at this stone, where coined money was buried in Pennsylvania, and while at Palmyra he had frequently ascertained in that way where lost property was, of various kinds; that he had occasionally been in the habit of looking through this stone to find lost property for three years, but of late had pretty much given it up on account its injuring his health, especially his eyes – made them sore; that he did not solicit business of this kind, and had always rather declined having any thing to do with this business.

According to this, Joseph is simply a reluctant Peeker who began his peeking right about the time he claimed that an angel visited him! His mother bragging about how her son “was in possession of certain means, by which he could discern things that could not be seen by the natural eye” was in relation to his use of a peep stone and perhaps a divining rod.

Joseph would later spend many months using that “means”, (his dark stone), to “translate” the Book of Mormon and continued to use it to receive “revelations”, which he claimed came from God — without complaining about it hurting his eyes. Joseph also told this to others (that the stone hurt his eyes):

McMaster sworn: says he went with Arad Stowel, and likewise came away disgusted. Prisoner pretended to him that he could discover objects at a distance by holding this white stone to the sun or candle; that prisoner rather declined looking into a hat at his dark coloured stone, as he said that it hurt his eyes.

He “rather declined looking into a hat” but then “translates” the entire Book of Mormon that way. It doesn’t make much sense that God would use a training method that hurt his eyes and then require him to “translate” that way does it? And then have the young Peeker turned Prophet continue to have to use the stone to get more revelations? Why wouldn’t God just send an angel with the messages? After all, they are messengers and God had to have a lot of those on hand, right? In one of the many versions of his claimed 1820 vision, Smith related that he saw “many angels” at that time. But when he needs one to help him, or protect him they can’t seem to be found.

Joseph also claimed that the “spectacles” or as they are described in the Book of Mormon “interpreters” were even harder to use than his peep-stone! This also confirms Joseph had two stones that he used for such purposes. Yet as Mormonism teaches, the Bible condemns such practices.

“There is no light in them”

In Isaiah we read,

And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. (added emphasis)

I bring this up because the Mormon Church today (and in Joseph Smith’s day), separates them and condemns such magical practices, and uses the same verses to justify their condemnation:

This is not a revival of the spirituality characteristic of the ancient patriarchs and prophets of Israel, but is a type of magic and spiritualistic wizardry that the true prophets vigorously opposed. …It is clearly seen from the foregoing passages [in Isaiah] that belief in astrology, spirit mediums, etc., did not constitute the true religion taught by the prophets and patriarchs, but was characteristic of the false religions practiced by the surrounding nations that had departed from the Lord.

The above Bible verses contrast seeking out God with those who entertain “familiar spirits” the Peekers who “peep” and “mutter”. Is using the name of God (in folk magic spells and incantations, etc.) an affirmation that something is approved by God? Basically, “it is because we said so”? Even Christ spoke of the difference when he said:

Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly I never knew you… (Matthew 7:22-23)

How many times have you heard Mormons quoting that scripture in relation to “priesthood authority”? And the Mormons aren’t the only Christians who do so. One Bible scholar recommended by Mormon apologists (Cornelius Van Dam) claims that, “there is no convincing evidence that the Urim and Thummim were used after the time of David.” It seems that the prophets of ancient Israel had turned away from such objects and warning others that God no longer sanctioned those practices. (Some claim that it was in anticipation of the Messiah… those pesky other Christians, the “whore” and her “children”) I’ll have more of Van Dam and the “whore” below.

A Counterfeit Prophet?

As I mentioned, Joseph was told in 1820 and in 1823 to go not after them (any religion). Yet he continued to do so for years if, as the apologists inform us, folk magic is actually Christianity. And if it wasn’t, was that any better? As for Joseph’s use of “folk magic”, apostle/prophet Gordon B. Hinckley wrote,

I have no doubt there was folk magic practiced in those days. [of Joseph Smith] Without question there were superstitions and the superstitious. I suppose there was some of this in the days when the Savior walked the earth. There is even some in this age of so-called enlightenment. For instance, some hotels and business buildings skip the numbering of floor thirteen. Does this mean there is something wrong with the building? Of course not. Or with the builders? No.

Similarly, the fact that there were superstitions among the people in the days of Joseph Smith is no evidence whatever that the Church came of such superstition. (Gordon B. Hinckley, “Lord, Increase Our Faith,” Ensign, November 1987, 52-53).

Why do those who are said to have actual authority teach that such things were not of God, and that it is mistake to claim that they are? Apologists are actually going against what church “authorities” claim by promoting what they do about the Smith’s continued practice of magic. Here is how Richard Bushman describes how “magic” was instrumental in getting the Smith family to believe in the angel Moroni:

Traces of a treasure-seeking mentality still appeared in the family’s reactions to the angel. His parents admonished Joseph to be rigorously obedient to the messenger’s instructions, just as exact compliance with prescribed rituals was required for successful money-digging. …When he married Emma Hale in 1827, Joseph was on the eve of realizing himself as a prophet. He may still have been involved in magic, but he was sincere when he told Emma’s father that his treasure-seeking days were over. Magic had served its purpose in his life. In a sense, it was a preparatory gospel … After 1828, Joseph could no longer see that magic might have prepared him to believe in a revelation of gold plates and translation with a stone. It did not occur to him that without magic his family might have scoffed at his story of Moroni, as did the minister who rejected the First Vision. Magic had played its part and now could be cast aside. Magic and religion melded in the Smith family culture. …It may have taken four years for Joseph to purge himself of his treasure-seeking greed. Joseph Jr. never repudiated the stones or denied their power to find treasure. Remnants of the magical culture stayed with him to the end. (Excerpts from Bushman, Richard L., Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, 51, 53-54, 69,)

Now it seems, the narrative is that folk magic prepared Joseph to become a Christian prophet. And it is important to note that Joseph did not identify the angel who supposedly told him about the gold plates as Moroni until about 1835, so he will be referred to as “the angel” when discussing any earlier accounts.

Larry Morris claims that “Joseph … acknowledges that implements used for supposedly “magical” purposes can also be used for what we call religious purposes—or perhaps it is the other way around.” (pg. 36) Yet, Apostle Dallin Oaks has stated:

Those who define folk magic to include any use of tangible objects to aid in obtaining spiritual guidance confound the real with the counterfeit. They mislead themselves and their readers. (Dallin H. Oaks, “Recent Events Involving Church History and Forged Documents,” Ensign (October 1987), 63.)

These church members do not agree with either Bushman or Morris in claiming that the Smith’s use of magic was in any way sanctioned by God, or that Joseph would have used such practices to “prepare” himself for his encounters with God and reject the notion that “treasure seeking was part of an attempt to recapture the simplicity and magical power associated with apostolic Christianity.” Yet, it seems that the Church is kind of? sanctioning such use of magic by bringing it in the back door, with the series of Essays that were written to counter the claims of the CES Letter in 2013. The Anonymous Authors write that,

As a young man during the 1820s, Joseph Smith, like others in his day, used a seer stone to look for lost objects and buried treasure. As Joseph grew to understand his prophetic calling, he learned that he could use this stone for the higher purpose of translating scripture. In a footnote, it says,

According to Martin Harris, an angel commanded Joseph Smith to stop these activities, which he did by 1826.

No, he didn’t stop by then. They get this wrong. Joseph claimed to speak with the angel every year for four years every September. Joseph was arrested in March, 1826. So when did the angel tell him to stop, in September, 1826 after he was arrested? If so, then why did Joseph Smith tell Samuel Lawrence there was a silver mine in Pennsylvania and entice him to go after it in the late fall/winter of 1826? Joseph returned to Palmyra, but soon returned to Pennsylvania and stayed at the farm of Joseph Knight, Sr. Dan Vogel writes,

While on the Knight farm, [November/December 1826] Joseph participated in at least one extended treasure hunt. Emily Colburn Austin, sister of Newel Knight’s wife, Sally, reported seeing “places where they had dug for money” on the Knight farm. Austin was told that a dog had been sacrificed in the hope of breaking the charm that held “pots of money.” Joel K. Noble, the Colesville justice before whom Smith appeared in July 1830, said that “Jo. and others were digging for a chest of money in [the] night [but] could not obtain it. They procured one thing and another, together with [a] black bitch. The bitch was offered a … sacrifice, [blo]od sprinkled, prayer made at the time. [But] (no money obtained). The above sworn to on trial.” (pg. 89)

No money obtained. You will find that this is always the result of the Smith treasure hunts, except of course for the gold plates that mysteriously disappeared into the hands of an angel. If it was that easy, why didn’t God just have an angel get them from Moroni and then give them to Smith? Really! When Smith lost the Harris transcript an angel appeared and took the plates and “interpreters” from Smith. He then supposedly gave them back and then Smith gave them to him again after that.

It appears that if the angel did tell Joseph to quit money-digging, he didn’t listen. Even after marrying Emma in January, 1827 Joseph continued with his money-digging. Here is Dan Vogel once again describing the events as they transpired the year Joseph claims to have been worthy enough to get the plates:

Within days, [Josiah] Stowell transported the newlyweds to Manchester to board with Joseph’s parents in their frame house. How well Lucy and Emma got along is unknown, but the two undoubtedly shared some of the same attitudes toward their husbands’ drinking and money digging, both of which would become more prominent attributes of the Smith men during Emma’s brief stay in Manchester.

Joseph worked on his father’s farm and hired out as a laborer on other farms during the ensuing year. While he was working for William Stafford, he got into another drunken fight. Barton Stafford, son of William, remembered that on one occasion while working in his father’s field, Joseph “got quite drunk on a composition of cider, molasses and water.” In fact, Stafford said, he was so intoxicated he could barely stand and found it necessary to hold on to a nearby fence. After a while, “he fell to scuffling with one of the workmen, who tore his shirt nearly off from him.” Emma, who was in the house visiting, came out and “appeared very much grieved at his conduct, and to protect his back from the rays of the sun, and conceal his nakedness, threw her shawl over his shoulders and in that plight escorted the Prophet home.”

Gordon T. Smith, Lemuel Durfee’s adopted son, related a story about Joseph’s drinking while the latter was working for the senior Durfee. Joseph’s presence at the Durfee farm on at least two unspecified occasions in August 1827 is confirmed in the employer’s account book. When Durfee’s wife discovered that Joseph had been sneaking drinks from the whiskey bottle in her pantry each morning before work, she switched the bottle for one containing pepper-sauce, which caused Joseph considerable discomfort.

There was no shortage of alcoholic drink at the Smith home during Joseph’s and Emma’s tenancy. One of Lemuel Durfee’s account books records the purchase of large quantities of “liquor cider” by the family during the spring and summer of 1827.

Alcohol elicited more than Joseph’s anger, for Stafford reported that “when intoxicated, he frequently made his religion the topic of conversation.” When inebriated, anything Joseph had tried to repress seemed to bellow up like steam rising from a doused fire.

By the fall of 1827, the Smith men had resumed their treasure-seeking activities in Manchester in company with like-minded neighbors. While little is known about these activities, both Martin Harris and Lorenzo Saunders said that Joseph Jr. directed a treasure-digging company until he received custody of the gold plates Joseph Capron, who lived on the farm immediately south of the Smiths, reported that in 1827 Joseph put a stone in his hat and located “a chest of gold watches … north west of my house.” After performing various magical ceremonies, a company of money diggers, including Samuel Lawrence, attempted to unearth a treasure, but the “evil spirit” guarding the chest succeeded in carrying it off.

These treasure hunts may have been financially supported by Abraham Fish, a neighbor with whom the Smiths had other financial dealings. In a letter dated January 1832, six leading citizens of Canandaigua, some of whom were familiar with Martin Harris, reported having heard that Joseph’s money-digging company in Manchester was “for a time … supported by a Mr. Fish” and that when the gentleman “turned them off,” this was when Joseph turned his attention to finding “a box … containing some gold plates.“

Amid her husband’s drinking, fighting, and money digging, Emma may have begun to have second thoughts about their marriage. Lorenzo Saunders, whose sister had become close friends with Emma, said that Emma was “disappointed and used to come down to our house and sit down and cry. Said she was deceived and got into a hard place.” Perhaps Emma was beginning to fear that her parents’ assessment of Joseph had been correct. She may not have been happy having to live with her in-laws and worried that Joseph was doing little to remedy the situation. (ibid, 90-91)

Are these the actions of a person who is supposedly meeting with an angel every year to discuss how to run the kingdom of God? That’s debatable. The Anonymous Church Essay authors also write:

Joseph did not hide his well-known early involvement in treasure seeking. In 1838, he published responses to questions frequently asked of him. “Was not Jo Smith a money digger,” one question read. “Yes,” Joseph answered, “but it was never a very profitable job to him, as he only got fourteen dollars a month for it.” (Selections from Elders’ Journal, July 1838, 43).

Of course he hid it. These anonymous authors can’t get anything right. Joseph claimed (over and over again) that he was only hired to dig, (as he does in his official History) he never mentions using a peep-stone, necromancy and other occult practices to locate the treasure and lost items in any history he was involved with. Smith never admitted any of this except at his Examination under oath and perhaps privately to those who knew about his past when he was drinking.

The Church Essay on “translating” the Book of Mormon is filled with apologist speculations, including footnotes and references to their speculative articles. Is “Gee, I got 14 bucks a month employed as a shovel technician for a silver mine, therefore I was labeled as a money-digger” a real answer? Not by a long shot.

This is how the church is “officially” dealing with this issue. Where is their official declaration or instructions in the priesthood manuals about the use of seeing stones and divining rods (No one would know by simply reading D&C 7 that it was originally about using one) and how to practice necromancy to contact the dead in search of lost treasure? Instructions on how to keep the treasure from slipping back in to the earth after you locate it and “bind” the spirit that is guarding it? How many times do we have to hear that it was OK for Joseph, but for no one else? And yet, this is how it was. And of course there are those who found veins of gold and sliver in Utah and attributed it all to the “priesthood” and to God.

Those who knew Joseph best made the most excuses for his behavior:

I saw Joseph the Prophet do, and heard him say, things which I never expected to see and hear in a Prophet of God, yet I was always able to throw a mantle of charity over improper things. (Lorenzo Snow, Statement, January 29, 1891, as cited in Dennis B. Horne, An Apostle’s Record: The Journals of Abraham H. Cannon (Clearfield, UT: Gnolaum Books, 2004), 175).

But some did not. Ezra Booth wrote to Edward Partridge in 1831:

Some suppose his [Joseph’s] weakness, nay, his wickedness, can form no reasonable objection to his revelations; and ‘were he to get another man’s wife, and seek to kill her husband, it could be no reason why we should not believe revelations through him, for David did the same.’ So Sidney asserted, and many others concurred with him in sentiment. (Letter of Ezra Booth to Edward Partridge, September 20, 1831).

When is the next Elder, ~~or Seventy~~, or High Priest going to get up in Sacrament Meeting and explain how to use divining rods and seeing stones and how to contact the dead to find lost items and buried treasure and see who you are going to marry? It was all “Apostolic Christianity” right?

The First Cowdery Conundrum

Early on, Joseph attempted to legitimize the divining rod of Oliver Cowdery by including something in a “revelation”, but it seems that didn’t go over very well. In 1829 Joseph penned this to Cowdery:

A Revelation to Oliver [Cowdery] he being desirous to know whether the Lord would grant him the gift of ~~Revelation & th~~ …Translation given in Harmony Susquehannah Pennsylvania now …this is not all for thou hast another gift which is the gift of working with the sprout Behold it hath told you things Behold there is no other power save God that can cause this thing of Nature to work in your hands for it is the work of God & therefore whatsoever ye shall ask to tell you by that means that will he grant unto you that ye shall know remember that without faith ye can do nothing trifle not with these things do not ask for that which ye had not ought ask that ye may know the mysteries of God & that ye may Translate all those ancient Records which have been hid up which are Sacred & according to your faith shall it be done unto you Behold it is I that have spoken it & I am the same which spake unto you from the begining amen

The Folk Magic Red Herring

At the Joseph Smith papers, they write:

This affirmation of Cowdery’s use of a “rod” as a divine gift illustrates the compatibility some early Americans perceived between biblical religion and popular supernaturalism. “From the outset,” according to historian Robert Fuller, “Americans have had a persistent interest in religious ideas that fall well outside the parameters of Bible-centered theology. . . . In order to meet their spiritual needs . . . [they] switched back and forth between magical and Christian beliefs without any sense of guilt or intellectual inconsistency.” (Robert C. Fuller, Spiritual, but Not Religious, Oxford University Press, 2001,15).

C. George Fitzgerald of Stanford made these comments when he reviewed Fuller’s work:

The combination of individualism and rationality leads to a third component which is a common factor in each of the spirituality movements: the recurring rejection of established religion for being too doctrinaire and restrictive. His survey is quite comprehensive and includes just about every movement and its seminal founders… My appreciation for this fascinating chronicle of the development of spirituality within the US soured somewhat in the final chapter… Within every category, however, organized religion receives a lower score than spirituality. It felt like, mirabile dictu—Fuller the engrossing historian, morphed into an evangelist for spirituality. Even so, it is one of the best evangelical pamphlets (200 pages) I have seen on spirituality.

It appears that the Joseph Smith Papers editors cherry picked Fuller because he’s an advocate of “folk magic”, or Spiritualism. The very thing that made Spiritualism appealing to Colonial Americans was that they were not confined by “organized religion” and its rules, but this is where Smith went with his own religion.

But, whenever anyone used a peep-stone on their own, (as Hiram Page did) it was from “Satan” and not from God. Only Smith could tap into the divine for the church, all others were pushed aside or failed because they just weren’t Joseph Smith. He did not want to share power with anyone. He would delegate, but always had the final word. He claimed in Nauvoo that Hyrum would be the new “prophet” of the Church, but there is no evidence that Hyrum ever was, or that Smith was going to turn things over to him or anyone else. (See Council of Fifty Minutes of April 1844 where Smith bragged he was a “Committee of Myself“). Here is what Smith said on April 5th 1844:

I dont want to be ranked with that committee I am a committee of myself, and cannot mingle with any committee in such matters. The station which I hold is an independant one and ought not to be mingled with any thing else. Let the Committee get all the droppings they can from the presence of God and bring it to me, and if it needs correction or enlargement I am ready to give it. The principles by which the world can be governed is the principle of two or three being united. Faith cannot exist without a concentration of two or three. The sun, moon and planets roll on that principle. If God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost were to disagree, the worlds would clash together in an instant. He referred to brother Lot [Cornelius P. Lott] and his farming & said God would prosper him because he gets his mind right. When I get any thing from God I shall be alone. I understand the principles of liberty we want. I have had the instructions It is necessary that this council should abide by their instructions. From henceforth let it be understood that I shall not associate with any committee I want every man to get knowledge, search the laws of nations and get all the information they can. There can be no exceptions taken to any thing that any man can say in this council. I dont want any man ever to assent to any thing in this council and then find fault with it. (Added emphasis)

Fuller claims that:

“most people saw magic and Christianity as distinct, but complimentary. Most were aware that Christian clergy urged them to stay clear of unbiblical beliefs about the supernatural. Yet in order to meet their spiritual needs the laity sometimes turned to magic and sometimes to Christian ritual.“ (Why did the JSP edit this out of their quote?)

This was anathema in the church that Smith set up. And does this still go on even today? Sure, as we will explore below. But it is not as rampant as it was before the Second Great Awakening and the rise of the Age of Reason. (c. 1790) According to Fuller, this coincided with the decline of folk magic practices among the Christians. It is important to note that Smith hid and rejected his folk magic roots as he organized his church and developed his theology. The period of time between his two visions he characterized as a time of folly and mistakes, which he claimed to have repented of before the second vision of the angel.

And of course if you study what Fuller says, it is obvious that the Mormons are trying to create a red herring here. He writes:

Churched and unchurched religiosity have factored about equally in American’s understanding of the supernatural since the nation’s beginnings. The exact relationship between the two varied person by person. It seems that on the whole most people saw magic and Christianity as distinct, but complimentary.

This is footnoted by Fuller, and in the footnote he writes, “There is considerable scholarly debate about the exact relationship between the churched and unchurched elements of colonial religiosity.”

Of course there is considerable scholarly debate. So claiming that Ron Huggins didn’t use “relevant scholarship” was in the eye of the beholder, or simply Morris’ opinion and irrelevant to what Ron wrote. It would be including speculation that can never be tied to the Smith’s because no one knows exactly how Joseph himself viewed folk magic in relation to Christianity. But what we see in the evidence is that he continued to lie about his youthful involvement in it. And when he was a Methodist Exhorter, was he telling them all about his peep-stone, or when he tried to join the Methodists in Harmony, did he brag about his treasure digging past? – as it should not have been a problem according to Mormon apologists. According to the Lewis brothers, when confronted about his involvement in the occult, Smith walked away from the Methodists.

So really, what the Mormons need to say, (that they won’t say), is treasure digging was, perhaps, in the minds of some individuals (how many we will never know, but there is no evidence it was widespread) an effort to recapture the power of apostolic Christianity. And even this is debatable among historians. So is all this relevant to Smith’s treasure digging? No, because there is absolutely no evidence that the Smith’s connected the two in any meaningful way, and there is actual evidence that Smith rejected all religion (including folk magic) except what he would later “restore”. And precious little of what he was doing in the 1820’s became widespread approved practices in his church.

Treasure digging may have been a widespread subculture in early colonial America, but there is no way to know what the motivation of most individuals was except the obvious (to get rich), and there was so much fraud and conning going on in relation to it that laws were passed making what Smith was doing (“Juggling” or pretending to peep for treasure) illegal.

The Gift of What?

If there was any mixing of folk magic in Mormonism, it was systematically stamped out, changed and downplayed, like the “revelation” to Cowdery in 1829 who was initially told that:

“Shuredly as the Lord liveth which is your God & your Redeemer even so shure shall ye receive a knowledge of whatsoever things ye shall ask with an honest heart believeing that ye Shall receive, a knowledge concerning the engraveings of old Records which are ancient which contain those parts of my Scriptures of which hath been spoken by the manifestation of my Spirit yea Behold I will tell you in your mind & in your heart by the Holy Ghost which Shall come upon you & which shall dwell in your heart now Behold this is the spirit of Revelation … whatsoever ye shall ask to tell you by that means [the “sprout”] that will he grant unto you that ye shall know remember that without faith ye can do nothing…

Smith informs Cowdery that all he needs to do is ask with faith and God will “grant unto you”. Just ask, buddy. Just ask. Didn’t Jesus also say that? Smith divined to Cowdery that the “Holy Ghost” would come upon him and “dwell in his heart”. And yet, when Cowdery tried, he failed because he had “not understood”, he actually “supposed that I [God] would give it unto you, when you took no thought, save it was to ask me…”

And yet, that is what Joseph said God would do, he would give it to Cowdery if he simply asked in faith! This shell game by Smith was played with anyone who he deemed was a challenge to his authority or primacy. And we see here Joseph telling Cowdery that the Holy Ghost will come and “dwell in your heart”, but later, in Nauvoo, he contradicted this and said the opposite (correcting Orson Hyde) in 1843:

The Holy Ghost is a personage, and a person cannot have the personage of the Holy Ghost in his heart. A man receive the gifts of the H. G., and the H. G. may descend upon a man but not to tarry with him.

That is because Mormonism agreed with the doctrine of the Trinity in those early days. Today, the “revelation” to Cowdery reads like this:

Now this is not all thy gift for you have another gift, which is the gift of Aaron; behold, it has told you many things; Behold, there is no other power, save the power of God, that can cause this gift of Aaron to be with you. (Doctrine & Covenants, Section 8, 2013)

This is so obscured that no one would ever know what the original was all about. And when was this begun? First, in Missouri with the Book of Commandments:

Now this is not all, for you have another gift, which is the gift of working with the rod: behold it has told you things: behold there is no other power save God, that can cause this rod of nature, to work in your hands, for it is the work of God; and therefore whatsoever you shall ask me to tell you by that means, that will I grant unto you, that you shall know. (Book of Commandments, Chapter VII, 1833)

Then later, in Kirtland under Joseph Smith’s supervision it was radically changed:

Now this is not all thy gift; for you have another gift, which is the gift of Aaron: behold it has told you many things: behold there is no other power save the power of God that can cause this gift of Aaron to be with you; therefore, doubt not, for it is the gift of God, and you shall hold it in your hands, and do marvelous works; and no power shall be able to take it away out of your hands; for it is the work of God. And therefore, whatsoever you shall ask me to tell you by that means, that will I grant unto you and you shall have knowledge concerning it (1835 Doctrine and Covenants, Section XXXIV)

How does the “power of God” cause a sprout “to be with you”? Because that is not what it says in the original. (The “sprout” was already with him) It says that God was the only one who could make this “thing of Nature to work in your hands.” Calling it the “gift of Aaron” is ridiculous.

No one would have any idea what this “revelation” is now talking about. If they were so proud of folk magic and using the implements of it, why was this changed so soon after it was originally given? This is “restoring” Apostolic Christianity?

And today, they do not have the original “revelation” in the current Doctrine and Covenants, (only a note that Sidney Rigdon changed the word “sprout” to “rod”) but instead have a changed, obscure “revelation” in its place.

In no way do they give an adequate explanation for why this “revelation” was changed, (they tell you to go to Fuller’s Book and to Ashurst-Mcgee’s article!) and they have a link to an article that has some of the text of the original “revelation” and pretty much gives the same information that the JSP give (the changes to it, not the reason why it was changed).

The Stone or The Holy Ghost?

In June of 1829 Joseph was calling himself a prophet and giving revelations through his peep-stone. In a revelation given that month Smith wrote,

And I Jesus Christ, your Lord and your God, have spoken it. These words are not of men, nor of man, but of me: Wherefore you shall testify they are of me, and not of man; for it is my voice which speaketh them unto you: For they are given by my Spirit unto you: And by my power you can read them one to another; and save it were by my power, you could not have them: Wherefore you can testify that you have heard my voice, and know my words (Revelation, June 1829)

Remember though, that in April of 1829 Joseph wrote this revelation to Oliver Cowdery and received it through his stone:

Shuredly as the Lord liveth which is your God & your Redeemer even so shure shall ye receive a knowledge of whatsoever things ye shall ask with an honest heart believeing that ye Shall receive, a knowledge concerning the engraveings of old Records which are ancient which contain those parts of my Scriptures of which hath been spoken by the manifestation of my Spirit yea Behold I will tell you in your mind & in your heart by the Holy Ghost which Shall come upon you & which shall dwell in your heart now Behold this is the spirit of Revelation (Revelation Book 1, 11-12)

As David Whitmer explained,

The revelations in the Book of Commandments up to June, 1829, were given through the “stone,” through which the Book of Mormon was translated. …After the translation of the Book of Mormon was finished, early in the spring of 1830, before April 6th, Joseph gave the stone to Oliver Cowdery and told me as well as the rest that he was through with it, and he did not use the stone any more. (David Whitmer, Address, 32, 53).

This begs the question if Joseph/God was instructing others what the “spirit of Revelation” was, (which was being told “in your mind & in your heart by the Holy Ghost,”) then why was Joseph getting revelations by way of his seeing stone and why did he continue to do so and not follow his own instructions? It seems that as soon as someone else had “revelations” through a peep-stone that rivaled Smith’s, he decided that divining rods and peep-stones needn’t be the subject of any “revelations”.

Magic Is “Not of God”

That’s right, (according to Mormon “authorities”) and perhaps a few examples may be enlightening. First, here are Mormon apologists Terryl L. Givens & Phillip L. Barlow:

From a biblical perspective, determining whether Joseph Smith’s treasure seeking, seer-stone gazing, blessing of “magic” handkerchiefs and the like, were proper or not, should not be based on whether moderns see them as weird or similar to pagan practices, but whether or not Joseph Smith was an authorized prophet of God. Presumably, since Joseph Smith claimed to be God’s instrument for restoring biblical priesthood authority, he would have welcomed this basis for determination. …In … Mormondom, the seeming disappearance of “folk magic” either by abandonment or normalization into official practice is partly the result of Max Weber’s routinization of charisma process and partly the result of developing methods of exercising divine authority. What today might be regarded as mixing folk and official practices were seen in the past as an unproblematic unified whole. (The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism, by Terryl L. Givens & Phillip L. Barlow, p. 465)

In Mormonism folk magic and the priesthood was never “an umproblematic unified whole.” As for other so called Christians, I’ve seen those like Peter Popoff hawking his “Miracle Spring Water” which has the power to erase debt on television. So, I guess it doesn’t matter as long as Popoff is God’s spokesman, messenger, or prophet? Using objects to scam people is nothing new with Christians, it is still going on today, as John Oliver exposed a few years ago:

[John] Oliver and Last Week Tonight claimed to have corresponded with televangelist Robert Tilton’s Word of Faith Worldwide Church for seven months, first mailing him $20 in January along with a kindly-worded request to be added to his mailing list.“Within two weeks, he sent me a letter back thanking me for my donation, and claiming, ‘I believe that God has supernaturally brought us together.’” A couple of weeks after that, Oliver received an envelope with a $1 bill in it and a message that read, “Send it back to me with your best Prove God tithes or offering.”“That’s right,” Oliver said, “I had to send the $1 back with an additional recommended offering of $37, which I did. So at this point, we’re just two letters in and it’s like having a pen pal who’s in deep with some loan sharks.”Oliver claims that in March, he was sent three packets of colored oil that he was instructed to pour on letters and send back to Tilton by specific dates, accompanied with more money. He did it. Then in April, Oliver was sent a manila envelope with a check enclosed—only the check was for $5 from Oliver made out to Pastor Tilton’s church. Seven letters later, he received pieces of fabric and was told to mail them back to Tilton with more money, which he did. Oliver later received a letter with a single $1 bill inside, requesting that he place the bill in his Bible overnight, then send it back the next day with $49. In return, he’d receive a $1 bill that had been blessed. “That did not stop him,” Oliver said. “The letters kept coming. I received another oil packet, more prayer cloths, and even—and this is true—an outline of his foot which I was asked to trace my foot on and mail back to him with more money. So, as of tonight, I’ve sent him $319 and received 26 letters—that’s almost one a week. And again, this is all hilarious until you imagine these letters being sent to someone who cannot afford what he’s asking for.”

What was done about these occult practices in the Mormon church was all… arbitrary. If Joseph did it, it was all right. But let others practice “folk magic” and it was very problematic. We all know about Hiram Page, but what about the case of James Brewster, a young boy who claimed he was given a patriarchal blessing that he would be a “Seer, Revelator and Translator” by Joseph Smith, Sr., in the Kirtland Era?

He and his family were condemned by Joseph Smith for using a seeing stone and producing what Brewster called “An Abridgment of the Ninth Book of Esdras”, in the which he claims that the Church needed to remove to California to escape the judgments of God.

The Mormon side of the story was published in the Times and Seasons in December, 1842:

We have lately seen a pamphlet, written, and published by James C. Brewster; purporting to be one of the lost books of Esdras; and to be written by the gift and power of God. We consider it a perfect humbug, and should not have noticed it, had it not been assiduously circulated, in several branches of the church.

This said Brewster is a minor; but has professed for several years to have the gift of seeing and looking through or into a a stone; and has thought that he has discovered money hid in the ground in Kirtland, Ohio. His father and some of our weak brethren who perhaps have had some confidence in the ridiculous stories that are propagated concerning Joseph Smith, about money digging, have assisted him in his foolish plans, for which they were dealt with by the church. They were at that time suspended, and would have been cut off from the church if they had not promised to desist from their ridiculous and pernicious ways. Since which time the family removed to Springfield, in this state; and contrary to their engagement have been seeing, and writing, and prophecying, &c. for which they have been dealt with by the Springfield church. The father of the boy has very frequently requested an ordination; but has been as frequently denied the privilege, as not being considered a proper person to hold the priesthood.

We have written the above for the information of the brethren, and lest there should be any so weak minded as to believe in it, we insert the following from the Book of Doctrine and Covenants,

“But behold, verily, verily I say unto thee, no one shall be appointed to receive commandments and revelations in this church, excepting my servant Joseph Smith, Jr. for he receiveth them even as Moses and thou shalt be obedient unto the things which I shall give unto him., even as Aaron, to declare faithfully the commandments and the revelations, with power and authority unto the church.”

“And again, thou shalt take thy brother Hiram Page between him and thee alone, and tell him that those things which he hath written from that stone are not of me, and that satan deceiveth him: for behold these things have not been appointed unto any of this church contrary to the church covenants, for all things must be done in order and by common consent in the church, by the prayer of faith.” (Times & Seasons, Dec 1, 1842, 32)

According to the Times & Seasons notice, the moneydigging stories in relation to Joseph Smith and his family were classed as “ridiculous”, and what the Brewesters were doing was “pernicious”. This is integrating folk magic practices into the church? Hardly. And once again, condemnation of “seeing stones”. And we know that Joseph had a number of stones and that it was claimed that he used one to “translate” the Book of Abraham. Where is the “common consent” in accepting that as a “revelation” from God? When did the church members in Nauvoo ever vote on the Book of Abraham? Why didn’t Joseph present the Book of Esdras to the Church for a vote? Instead, it was immediately dismissed by the prophet and the article in the Times & Seasons ridicules it in the worst way as something beneath notice while the Book of Abraham was touted as a bona fide revelation and printed in the Times & Seasons.

On March 20,1843, James Brewster published a second pamphlet which answered the charges of him getting “revelations” from a seeing stone, and what he reveals about events in Kirtland certainly is very interesting:

As the writer of this notice did not favor the public directly with his name, I shall not pretend to say who it was, although I have good reason to believe it was written by Joseph Smith, or at least by his direction.

Firstly. The writer says he considers it a perfect humbug; but before the pamphlet was printed the manuscript was taken to Joseph Smith; he had it in his possession six days; and, at that time, he stated that he enquired of the Lord concerning it and could not obtain an answer. Since then, he told certain individuals that he did receive an answer that it was not of God.

Secondly. He says Brewster is a minor, but has professed for several years to have the gift of seeing and looking through or into a stone. Now, as for my “seeing and looking through or into a stone,” it is a perfect falsehood, and Joseph Smith and many of the first presidents of the church know it to be false, and at the same time knowing that they could not bring any thing against our moral character have endeavored to injure us by publishing these falsehoods.

Thirdly. And he has thought that he has discovered money hid in the ground in Kirtland, his father and some of our weak brethren who perhaps have had some confidence in the ridiculous stories that are propagated concerning Joseph Smith about money digging, have assisted him in his foolish plans. This is a little nearer the truth than the second statement. The fact IS that my father ever regarded money diggers with the utmost contempt, but believing in the Gospel as preached by the Mormons, and, becoming a member of that church, removed to Kirtland, Ohio, While residing at that place Joseph Smith Sen’ the Prophet’s father, with others of high standing in the church, came to see us, and stated that they knew there was money hid in the earth, that it was our duty to assist in obtaining it, and if we did not the curse of God would rest upon us. We were foolish enough to believe them, not knowing at that time the weakness and folly of those men.

They also told us concerning their digging for money in the state of N. Y., and that the places where the treasures were deposited were discovered by means of the mineral rods and a seeing stone; likewise to prevent the Devil deceiving them they anointed the mineral rods and seeing stones with consecrated oil, and prayed over them in the house of the Lord in Kirtland, and then sent a man into the state of N. Y. to obtain the money that was supposed the mineral rods pointed out, but they found no treasure and returned empty.

Soon after this interview, I and my father were requested by J. Smith, Sen’r and Eld. Beaman to come to the house of the Lord. We went in and the door was locked; — after some conversation with J. Smith Sen’r, Beaman and Holeman. Eld. Beaman called upon the Lord — they then proceeded to lay their hands upon my head and pronounced a blessing upon me, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and sealed it up on me by the power of the Holy Priesthood, which they held, J. Smith Sen’r then acting as first President of the Church in Kirtland. The prophetic blessing was that I should be a Prophet, a Seer, a Revelator and Translator, and that I should have power given me of God to discover and obtain the treasures which are hid in the earth.

The men above mentioned, went with me and my father several times in pursuit of the money, but it was not obtained. Joseph Smith Sen’r and Beaman, being old and feeble, thought best to remain in the Temple, while the remainder of the party went to dig. John and Asel Smith joined with those who remained in the Temple to pray and continue their supplications until a very late hour; this was repeated several times, and at length afraid of being discovered in the Temple they retired to a barn in a remote part of the town, and continued there the most part of the night, still no treasure was obtained. By this time my father was convinced that we should not succeed, and then gave up the business entirely. All this was carried on privately, being understood only by those concerned. Soon after this my father and his family, Kid. Norris and his family, in company with several others, members of the church, who were knowing to what had transpired, were dealt with by the High Council and Church in Kirtland— Joseph Smith Sen’r then acting as First President of the Church, and his brother John Smith First President of the High Council in Kirtland.

The Brewsterites, as we were called by the Church, were all condemned, although many of the Counselors by whom they were condemned, had been engaged with us in the money digging business. The writer in the “Times and Seasons” now says that “my father was assisted” by some of ”our weak brethren.” This is true, but he must remember that the names of those weak brethren are as follows: — Joseph Smith sen’r, John and Asel Smith, Eldr Beaman, then President of the Elders’ Quorum, Joshua Holeman, and many others, of high standing in the Mormon Church whose names we can produce if occasion requires. He also says it was those who had “some confidence in the ridiculous stories that are propagated concerning Joseph Smith about money digging.” The following are the reasons we had for believing the stories. In Kirtland, Joseph Smith sen’r, the Prophet’s father, said in Council: I know more about money digging, than any man in this generation, for I have been in the business more than thirty years.” Father Smith, in private conversation with my father, told many particulars, which happened in N. Y. where the money digging business was carried on to a great extent by the Smith family. The writer of the article in the “Times and Seasons’- calls it a ridiculous and pernicious practice. I would ask him who was the author of this practice among the Mormons? If he has a good memory, he will remember the house that was Tented in the city of Boston, [Salem] with the expectation of find ing a ‘large sum of money buried in or near the cellar. If he has forgotten these things, I have not. And, if he is not satisfied with what I have written, he can have the remainder shortly.

Fourthly. The writer of the article says, that contrary to their engagements they have been seeing, writing, and prophecying, for which they have been dealt with by the Springfield church. The father of the boy has frequently requested an ordination, but has as frequently been denied the privilege, as not being considered a proper person to hold the priest-hood. We were dealt with by the Springfield church. But the only thing found against us was that we had not joined that branch of the church, and supposed we had not acted wisely in all things. As for the ordination, my father has been ordained by the order of JOSEPH SMITH, without his requesting It, under the hands of J[ames]. Adams, High Priest and Patriarch; Elder Mariam, President — both of the Springfield church.

Fifthly. To close the notice the writer adds “we have written the above for the information of the brethren.'” I would only say that the information it contains is very incorrect, and I would advise the Editors of the “Times and Seasons” not to publish any more information concerning us except it is written by one who regards the truth.

I have written the above that the people may know who the ”weak brethren” are that assisted us in the money digging business. The Mormons may deny it, but every word it contains is true; and I might have written much more, but I think it unnecessary. But if the Mormons publish another line of falsehood concerning us, they shall have the history of the money diggers from the beginning.

Below will be found my father”s certificate, which goes to corroborate the statements I have given.

JAMES COLIN BREWSTER

T, Z. H. Brewster, do hereby certify, that the above account of the money digging business is true. In the year 1837, in the month of May or June, we commenced the money digging under the kind care and protection of Joseph Smith sen’r, then first President of the church of Latter Day Saints. and, according to my best recollection, the foregoing statements are strictly true. I also believe the Gospel that is attended with the power and gifts revealed in the New Testament, and Book of Mormon. I also believe that God works by whomsoever he will, and reveals himself to all who faithfully serve him. I have no reason to believe that Nauvoo is a place of safety, but have every reason to believe that California is. I also believe that the pure in heart, and those who are desirous to serve God, will soon leave Nauvoo, that God may destroy the wicked and ungodly inhabitants thereof. I believe that Joseph Smith was called and chosen of God to bring forth the Book of Mormon, and to establish the church of Latter Day Saints. But I do not believe that the spirit of God will remain with him since he has forsaken the ways of truth and righteousness, and is now preaching and practicing those things which he in the beginning taught to be the works and inventions and secret combinations of the Devil, (see Book of Mormon, 3rd Edition — pages 320 and 538.) I also believe that ail liars, adulterers, fornicators, and whore-mongers shall have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the anger of the Lord.

Z. H. BREWSTER. (Added emphasis)

Now they are praying over the rods and stones and anointing them with oil and taking them to the temple to help make them work. This (of course) was common to many money-diggers: to claim that their “gifts” were sanctioned by God, and to use some kind of religious ritual or prayer in their incantations or peeping. I found it interesting that Joseph Smith (if he was the one that wrote about the Brewster’s in the Times & Seasons), assumes that James used a seeing stone to get “revelations” or locate treasure, but James denied that he did. It seems that Brewster got his “revelations” through the Holy Ghost.

A mark is a mark and there were many Christians who desired money or were in debt, as well as others. These kinds of “magical” and pseudo Christian practices are still going on even today. (See below about the lottery and the modern use of divining rods).

Treasure Obsession

In 1837, Joseph Smith Sr. gave Wilford Woodruff a patriarchal blessing which stated:

Thou shalt have access to the treasure hid in the sand to assist thy necessities. An angel of God shall show thee the treasures of the earth that thou mayest have riches to assist thee in gathering many orphan Children to Zion. Thou art one of the horns of Joseph to push the people together to the ends of the earth. No power shall stay thee. At thy word the winds shall be stayed. Thou shalt walk upon the waters. At thy command the waters shall be divided. Prisons, chains, and vaults shall not hold thee /for thou shalt rend them in twain. (Wilford Woodruff Journal, April 15, 1837)

It is obvious during the Kirtland Era that Smith Sr. was still thinking about treasures in the earth and even blessing people that they would have access to them! And in Nauvoo, Smith Jr. was urging the “saints” to scout out locations in the far west, (even California) to look for a new place to settle. (Just in case) Some of Smith Sr.’s blessings are quite fantastical, as was this promise of being able to teleport to William Harris in 1836:

…thou shalt have all power, even to translate thyself and change into a shadow; so that if any shall smite at thee they shall only hit thy shadow, and thou shalt be in another place… (William Harris, 2 May 1836)

Sounds like an episode from the X-Files or Fringe. In a blessing given on December 9, 1834, Smith Sr. promised the recipient that they would be alive for the Second Coming of Jesus:

…thou shalt stand on Mount Zion when the tribes of Jacob come shouting from the north, and with thy brethren, the sons of Ephraim, crown them in the name of Jesus Christ: Thou shalt see thy Redeemer come in the clouds of heaven…

The “Saints” at the time were led to believe that these things would actually happen if they were “faithful” and that they were indeed within the realm of possibility. We all know that is was simply invention and false hope, as neither Smith Jr. nor Sr. were actual prophets, which is easily proven by their own pronouncements. (No one can turn into a shadow, or “translate” themselves to other planets and no Latter Day Saint who was promised they would live to see the Second Coming ever did. There are dozens of other examples of these failed prophecies and blessings.

There certainly is no crime in proclaiming to be a prophet or in spouting all the prophecies you can think up, nor in believing in those who claim to be.

A Farm for Revelations

But what about if you are commanded to give up your farm so that it can be given to the prophet’s father and his family? Lucy Smith writes that when they moved to Kirtland:

Mr. Morely gave me the use of a room which we occupied but 2 weeks when we moved onto a farm which was purchased by Joseph and the Church for ~~the~~ on this farm my family were all established…

An unpublished “revelation” dated May 15, 1831 contains (according to Joseph Smith) Jesus instructions that the Smith family should take over the Williams farm:

...let my Servent Joseph [Smith Sr.] & his family go into the House after thine advisary is gone & let my Servent Ezra board with him & let all the Brethren immediately assemble together & put up an house for my Servent Ezra & let my Servents Frederick [G. Williams]’s family remain & let the house be repaired & their wants be supplied & when my Servent Frederick returns from the west Behold he taketh his family to the west Let that which belongeth to my Servent Frederick be secured unto him by deed or bond & thus he willeth that the Brethren reap the good thereof let my Servent Joseph [Smith Sr.] govern the things of the farm & provide for the families & let him have help in as much as he standeth in need let my servent Ezra humble himself & at the conference meeting he shall be ordained unto power from on high & he shall go from thence (if he be obedient unto my commandments) & proclaim my Gospel unto the western regions with my Servents that must go forth even unto the borders of the Lamanit[e]s for Behold I have a great work for them to do & it shall be given unto you to know what ye shall do at the conferenc[e] meeting even so Amen——
What shall the Brethren do with their money——
Ye shall go forth & seek dilligently among the Brethren & obtain lands & save the money that it may be consecrated to purcchase lands in the west for an everlasting enheritance even So Amen

On September 11, 1831 Smith penned another “revelation” from Jesus:

…I say unto you that my servent Isaac [Morley] may not be tempted above that which he is able to bear & council wrongfully to your hurt I gave commandment that this farm should be sold I willeth not that my Servent Frederick should sell his farm for I the Lord willeth to retain a Strong hold in the Land of Kirtland for the space of five years in the which I will not overthrow the wicked that thereby I may save some & after that day I thee [the] Lord will not hold any Guilty that shall go with open hearts up to the Land of Zion for I the Lord requireth the hearts of the Children of men

This “revelation” commands Isaac Morley to sell his farm and turn over the money to the church. Joseph would set the date for the “Redemption of Zion” (according to the Spirit) as September 11, 1836 (after his “Saints” were driven out of Jackson County, Missouri), exactly five years after the 1831 “revelation” was given which claimed that was when time ran out for the “wicked”. Joseph would prophecy “by the authority of Jesus Christ” in 1833 that the only place that would be safe was Zion: which was in Jackson County, Missouri. He claimed that the letter was written by the commandment of God, and that “I declare unto you the warning which the lord has commanded me to declare unto this generation, rembring that the eyes of my maker are upon me and that to him I am accountabl for evry word I say … imbrace the everlasting Covenant and flee to Zion before the overflowing scourge overtake you, For there are those now living upon the earth whose eyes shall not be closed in death until they see all these things which I have spoken fulfilled.”

What Smith prophesied was that in “not many years” the “United States shall present such a scene of bloodshed as has not a parallel in the hystory of our nation pestalence hail famine and earthquake will sweep the wicked of this generation from off the face of this Land to open and prepare the way for the return of the lost tribes of Israel from the north country—” Of course, this never happened in Smith’s generation nor any generation since then. Zion was never redeemed and the Mormons blamed the people of Missouri, and also the United States Government.

So when a group of immigrants (who were thought to be from Missouri) were making their was through Utah Territory to California were ambushed at Mountain Meadows by Mormons and Indians, they picked September 11, 1857 to murder them.

In that same year 1833, Jesus speaks again about the Williams farm:

Behold I Say unto you my Servent Frederick G. Williams, Listen to the word of Jesu Chrit your Lord and your Redeemer thou hast desired of me to know which would be the most worth unto you, behold blessed art tho[u] for this thing. now I say unto you, my Servant Joseph is called to do a great work and hath need that he may do the work of translation for the salvation of souls— Verily verily I say unto you thou art calld to be a Councillor & scribe unto my servant Joseph Let thy farm be consecrated fr bringing forth of the revelations and tho shalt be blessed and lifted up at the last day even so Amen

The 144 acre farm was deeded over to Joseph Smith in 1834. Most of the “revelations” and “commandments” above were never canonized like a lot of other instructions and mundane items from the same period.

Official Practice?

Joseph Smith Jr. condemns the use of a seeing stone, something he was doing himself and showing to others in private. One must ask, why all the secrecy surrounding the use of such magical practices since they were supposedly absorbed into “official practice”? Why didn’t Joseph publish how he “translated” the Book of Abraham in 1842, and that he used a seeing stone (Urim and Thummim) as Wilford Woodruff claimed?

Truly the Lord has raised up Joseph the Seer of the Seed of Abraham out of the loins of ancient Joseph, & is now clothing him with mighty power & wisdom & knowledge which is more clearly manifest & felt in the midst of his intimate friends than any other class of mankind. The Lord is Blessing Joseph with Power to reveal the mysteries of the kingdom of God; to translate through the Urim and Thummim Ancient Records & Hyeroglyphics as old as Abraham or Adam. which causes our hearts to burn within us while we behold their glorious truths opened unto us. Joseph the Seer has presented us some of the Book of Abraham which was written by his own hand but hid from the knowledge of man for the last four thousand years but has now come to light through the mercy of God. Joseph has had these records in his possession for several years but has never presented them before the world in the english language untill now. But he is now about to publish it to the world or parts of it by publishing it in the Times & Seasons, for Joseph the Seer is not the Editor of that paper & Elder Taylor assists him in writing while it has fallen to my lot to take charge of the Business part of the establishment. I have had the privilege this day of assisting in setting the TIPE for printing the first peace of the BOOK OF ABRAHAM that is to be presented to the inhabitants of the EARTH in the LAST DAYS … (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:155-6, 19 February,1842)

The “official” Urim and Thummim (the spectacles) were supposedly given back to the angel. There are no accounts of Joseph teaching others to use the Urim and Thummim (the “interpreters”) or that it was a sanctioned practice in the church. No one but Smith ever claimed to have used the “interpreters” for anything, and it seems that for all of God’s elaborate preparations, Smith really didn’t need them. It”s almost as if they never existed at all, though he did continue to dabble with peep-stones, but only Joseph could use them to get “revelations” as we shall see even though he said everyone should have one.

We don’t see such practices absorbed into the Mormon Church of Joseph’s day, and when others “peeped” in the Utah Territory, they too, were discouraged, or ostracized or condemned by the “Priesthood”.

The Treasure Hunting Revelation

What are we to make of Joseph’s own treasure hunting side trip to Salem a year before he fled Kirtland, where he believed there was treasure to be found in the basement of a house there? Ebenezer Robinson wrote:

A brother in the Church, by the name of Burgess, had come to Kirtland and stated that a large amount of money had been secreted in the cellar of a certain house in Salem, Massachusetts, which had belonged to a widow, and he thought he was the only person now living, who had knowledge of it, or to the location of the house. We saw the brother Burgess, but Don Carlos Smith told us with regard to the hidden treasure. His statement was credited by the brethren, and steps were taken to try and secure the treasure… (Robinson, The Return, pg 106)

Joseph Smith, along with his brother Hyrum, Sidney Rigdon and Oliver Cowdery left for Salem on July 25, 1836. Joseph’s Manuscript History reads:

From New York we continued our journey to Providence on board a Steamer, from thence to Boston by steam <At Salem.> cars, and arrived in Salem, Massachusetts, early in August, where we hired a house and occupied the same during the month, teaching the people from house to house, and preaching publicly as opportunity presented, visiting occasionally, sections of the surrounding cities and Country, which are rich in the history of the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, in Indian warfare, Religious Superstition, Bigotry, Persecution, and learned ignorance. The early settlers of Boston, who had fled from their mother Country to avoid persecution and death, soon became so lost to principles of justice and religious liberty as to whip & hang the Baptist and the Quaker, who, like themselves, had fled from tyranny to a land of freedom; and the Fathers of Salem, from 1691 to 1693, whipped, imprisoned, tortured and hung many of their citizens for supposed witchcraft. and quite recently, while boasting of her light and knowledge, of her laws and religion, as surpassed by none on earth, has New England been guilty of burning a Catholic Convent, in the vicinity of Charleston, and of scattering the inmates to the four winds. Yes, in sight of the very spot where the fire of the American Independence was first kindled, where a monument is now erecting in Memory of the Battle of Bunkers Hill, and the fate of the immortal Warren, who bled, who died on those sacred heights to purchase religious liberty for his country, in sight of this very spot, have the religionists of the 19th. century demolished a noble brick edifice, and hurling its inhabitants forth upon a cold unfeeling world for protection and subsistence. Well did the Savior say concerning such “by their fruits you shall know them,” and if the wicked mob who destroyed the Charleston Convent, and the cool calculating, religious, lookers on, who inspired their hearts with deeds of infamy do not arise, and redress the wrong, and restore the injured four fold, they in turn will receive of the measure they have meted out, till the just indignation of a righteous God is satisfied. When will <August 6> man cease to war with man, and <wrest> from him his sacred right, of worshipping his God according as his conscience dictates? Holy Father, hasten the day… (Manuscript History Book B-1, pg. 749)

In the midst of all their sightseeing, Joseph pens this “revelation” about the treasure to be found in Salem:

I the Lord your God am not displeased with your coming this Journey, notwithstandig your follies. I have much treasure in this city for you, for the benefit of Zion; and many people in this city whom I will gather out in due time for the benefit of Zion, through your instrumentality: Therefore it is expedient that you should form acquaintance with men in this city, as you shall be lead, and as it shall be be given you. And it shall come to pass, in due time, that I will give this city into your hands, that you shall have power over it, insomuch that they shall not discover your secret parts; and its wealth, pertaining to gold and silver, shall be yours. Concern not yourselves about your debts, for I will give you power to pay them. Concern not yourselves about Zion, for I will deal merciful with her. Tarry in this place and in the regions round about, and the place where it is my will that you should tarry, for the main, shall be signalized unto you by the peace and power of the my Spirit, that shall flow unto you. This place you may obtain by hire, &c . . . And inquire diligently concerning the more ancient inhabitants and founders of this city, for there are more treasures than one for you, in this city: Therefore be ye as wise as serpents and yet without sin, and I will order all things for your good as fast as ye are able to receive them. Amen. (Revelation, August 6, 1836)

This claims that they are to be given “much treasure” and that there was more treasure than the one they anticipated retrieving from the basement of the house they claimed to have found. God claimed he was going to give them the wealth of the city, all the gold and silver. Robinson continues his narrative:

We were informed that Brother Burgess met them in Salem, evidently according to appointment, but time had wrought such a change that he could not for a certainty point out the house, and soon left. They however, found a house which they felt was the right one, and hired it. It is needless to say they failed to find that treasure, or the other gold and silver spoken of in the revelation.

On August 19, Joseph wrote these words to Emma:

...with regard to the graat [great] object of our mishion you will be anxtiou [anxious] to know, we have found the house since Brother Burjece left us, very luckily and providentialy, as we had one spell been most discouraged, but the house is ocupied and it will require much care and patience to rent or b[u]y it, we think we shall be able to effect it if not now within the course of a few months, we think we shall be at home about the midle of septtember (Letter to Emma Smith, August 19, 1836)

Burgess could not tell them what house it was, but they still found it? How did Joseph find the house? An interesting question. Some have speculated he used his peep-stone, which is possible. And they did rent a house (as Robinson reported) but they never did have the city given into their hands, or it’s wealth of gold and silver. And out of all the things he could have said to Emma about Salem, Joseph mentions to her the “great object of our mission” which was finding buried treasure. And even if they did not rent the house they thought the treasure was in as Robinson thought, they never went back for the treasure. I mean, God promised them this treasure so why not return in a few months and obtain it? It almost sounds like another peep-stone adventure, with the promised treasure slip, slip, slipping away.

An apt bookend to the Salem venture, is a “Prospectus” about the trip written and published by Oliver Cowdery just a few months later in the Latter Day Saints Messenger and Advocate. (Where they glean some of the information written in the Manuscript History).

Cowdery begins by telling his readers that, “the end draws near, and that the time is not far distant when a breaking up of corrupt systems will commence, and discordant factions [of religions], at present so mysteriously interwoven, will be severed, preparatory to the universal deluge of misery which must envelop the wicked.”

Cowdery then writes about their journey through New York City (where they absolutely do not consult about their debts in Kirtland) and on to Providence and then Boston and Salem. He then copies and pastes long sections of the Salem Witch Trial accounts and gushes about their sightseeing trip about the town. Cowdery seemed especially perturbed by the ruins of a burned down Catholic Convent, and he laments that,

…our country has come to this, that the weak must be trodden down by the strong, and disorder, confusion and terror, must distract our land and sow the discordant seeds of party strife and party animosity in the hearts of ignorant men, led on by infatuated priests, to overwhelm the continent with blood, and spread destruction and devastation throughout our happy asylum, and expose us to the fire, the sword, the rack and to death! I confess I retired from this scene of mobbery with a heavier heart than from the far-famed Bunker hill, rendered doubly so, by the patriotism, virtue, integrity, connected with the righteousness of the cause in which our fathers died! (pg. 392)

But later in the “Prospectus” Cowdery published this:

This man turns away from the only church upon earth which was founded upon and is governed by revelation (the rock upon which Christ said he would found it) and says he has no need of it. But perhaps he means that the church which is not founded upon that rock has no need of it, in which I concur. For the Mother of harlots [The Catholic Church] with all her daughters of harlotry, [The Protestant Churches] will never obtain revelations, though they will obtain power of the Devil to work miracles.“ (p. 398)

Lest there be any doubt about what they were talking about, here is Apostle John Taylor in 1845:

The present Christian world exists and continues by division. The MYSTERY of Babylon the great, is mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, and it needs no prophetic vision, to unravel such mysteries. The old church [Catholic] is the mother, and the protestants are the lewd daughters. Alas! alas! what doctrine, what principle, or what scheme, in all. What prayers, what devotion, or what faith, `since the fathers have fallen asleep,’ has opened the heavens; has brought men into the presence of God; and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to an innumerable company of angels? The answer is, not any: `There is none in all christendom that doeth good; no, not one. (Times and Seasons, Vol.6, No.1, p.811)

“Party strife and party animosity” to be sure. I admit, the hypocrisy is truly stunning. And as for the great object of their mission to Salem that Smith spoke of to Emma? Cowdery doesn’t mention it at all. If this were all about other treasures besides gold and silver as the apologists claim, why not mention the “revelation”? And of course this important “revelation” about Salem and its treasures was never canonized.

Magic Is Still Not of God? Not Even A Little?

In 1859 Heber C. Kimball recounted a story about how when he returned from England in 1838 that Joseph and the presidency of the Seventies were fooling around with a seeing stone:

Following a meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve, at a quarter to 12 o’clock H. C. Kimball and D. H. Wells called. H. C. Kimball said this made me think of the time when I returned from England. [1838] Joseph was present and the presidency of the Seventies. They had met with a seer stone to see what they could see when I went in. Z. Pulsipher said, don’t be excited; Brother Kimball is nothing but a man. They treated me very cooly and I went home and wept and the Twelve all rose up and shook hands with them and received them joyfully.

0. Hyde explained to Brother Kimball and Wells what we had done, and would like to hear from them. Brother Kimball said, I consider every ruling man in the Church that has the Holy Ghost as a prophet, seer and revelator, and he should have the spirit of that office.

February 23, 1859: Same meeting, Brother Kimball said Joseph nominated G. A. Smith to take the place of Thomas B. Marsh, and Lyman Sherman was appointed to take the place of Orson Hyde; but Brother Sherman was very sick and died shortly after. Brother G. A. Smith said when he heard of Brother Sherman’s death, he thought his time would soon come. Brother Kimball said it was not the will of God for a man to take Brother Hyde’s place. The Twelve can ordain men to the apostleship and give them all the power you have and you have all that we have got, but you cannot make a prophet only the natural way and a man cannot be a patriarch and not a prophet, for a man must have the spirit of a prophet before he can bless and prophesy. The gifts and callings of God are without repentance. There are thousands of prophets among the gentiles and spiritualists that have not repented or obeyed the gospel. There are natural gifts to man. If they would receive the gospel, their gifts would be made more manifest. G. A. Smith read some in the Doctrine and Covenants. H. C. Kimball said, “I always believed that Lyman Wight would be saved. I never had any but good feelings towards him.” (Wilford Woodruff Journal, February 23, 1859)

Of course they would believe that there were “natural” prophets, else how could Joseph Smith have found the treasure of Cumorah with his peep-stone? It appears that when they were trying to “see what they could see”, Kimball interrupted them and Zera Pulsipher had to proclaim that he was only a man, implying that they were trying to contact the dead through the stone. It appears that Kimball wasn’t too thrilled with this story as he told his audience that he considered “every ruling man in the Church that has the Holy Ghost a prophet, seer and revelator and he should have the spirit of that office.” Not a ringing endorsement of peep-stones and perhaps one reason why neither he nor Brigham Young used them.

A few years after the incident in Missouri, Woodruff writes that,

The Twelve or a part of them spent the day with Joseph the Seer and he unfolded unto them many glorious things of the kingdom of God, the privileges and blessings of the priesthood, etc. I had the privilege of seeing for the first time in my day the Urim and Thummim. (Wilford Woodruff Journal, Dec. 27, 1841)

This was nothing more than one of Joseph’s seeing stones, which he supposedly used to “translate” the Book of Abraham. Brigham Young described the above meeting in his Manuscript History:

I met with the Twelve at Brother Joseph’s. He conversed with us in a familiar manner on a variety of subjects, and explained to us the Urim and Thummim which he found with the plates, called in the Book of Mormon the Interpreters. He said that every man who lived on the earth was entitled to a seerstone, and should have one, but they are kept from them in consequence of their wickedness, and most of those who do find one make an evil use of it; he showed us his seerstone. (Brigham Young, Manuscript History of Brigham Young, 1801-1844, ed. Elden Jay Watson).

Yet, while Woodruff was in England, he called such practices “not of God”. This is from the journal of Alfred Rolland Cordon:

“Saturday Evening 27th Mar 1841 I attended A council Meeting Elders G. A. Smith and W. Woodruff and a good number of Officers. a charge was brought against bro W Mountford for using Magic, The case was as follows, This bro Mountford had in his posession several Glasses or Chrystals as he called them. they are about the size of a Gooses Egg made flat at each end. he also had a long list of prayers wrote down which he used. The prayer was unto certain Spirits which he said was in the Air which says he when I pray to them in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Ghost, any thing that I want will come into the Glass. for instance if A Young woman had a desire to know who she would have for an Husband, she came to him and made the case known, and he brought out his Chrystals and prayed unto a certain Spirit then she must peep into the Chrystal and in it she would see the Young man that would become her husband Elder Woodruff made some observations on the subject. when it was moved and Unanimously carried that no such Magic work be allowed in the Church.” (Journal of Alfred Rolland Cordon)

The next day,

Meeting was Opened by Prayer by the President. It was Unanimoulsy carried that no such thing as Magic, Fortunetelling, Witchcraft or any such devices should be allowed in the Church. And that fellowship would be withdrawn from any who used or caused to be used any of the aforesaid things. It was also moved and carried that a letter of recomendation be presented to Elders, W. Woodruff and G. A. Smith. (Sunday, March 28, 1841).

So, where are the guidelines in discerning which peep-stones are a “urim and thummim” and therefore sanctioned by God? Nowhere to be found. What Woodruff and the Council here condemned are the same practices of the Smith family in Palmyra, and which Joseph continued to use throughout his life. Woodruff wrote up the incident this way:

I walked with several Brethren to Hanley & Sat in Council with many of the Officers. Among other business that was brought up was the case of a Brother Mumford who was ingaged in the Magic or Blackart fortune telling &c which prevails to a great extent in this Country. [England] But as he persisted in his course after being laboured with the Council Withdrew fellowship from him. He was holding the office of a Priest & one thing is worthy of notice that while the Priesthood was upon him, he could not see his majic glasses as before untill after he ceased to fill the Priest office & rejected our council. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, p.74)

The President then brought up the case of a Br Moumford, who was holding the office of a Priest, from whome fellowship had been withdrawn by the council of officers in consequence of his practizing fortune Telling, Magic, Black art &c & called upon Elders Woodruff & Cordon to express their feelings upon the subject when Elder Woodruff arose, & spoke Briefly upon the subject, & informed the assembly that we had no such custom or practice in the Church, & that we should not fellowship any individual who Practiced Magic fortune Telling, Black art &c for it was not of God. When It was moved & carried by the whole church that fellowship be withdrawn from Br Moumford. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, p.75)

He calls what Monford did, “Black Art” which included fortune telling, finding lost things, treasure hunting, etc., He is basically saying that using the peepstone did not work when “the Priesthood was upon him.” Interesting he calls them “magic glasses“. Monford claimed that, “anything that I want will come into the glass.”

Note that Joseph Smith had claimed, “…but he seamed to think more of the glasses or the urim a and thummem then than he did of the plates for says he I CAN SEE ANYTHING they are Marvelus” (Joseph Knight Recollection)

What are we to make of this? Why is what Mountford did “the Black Art”? Is it the same as with “revelations’, they can only come through the leader of the church? Then why did Smith claim that everyone has a right to a seeing stone and to use one? Was Mountford claiming to speak for the church anywhere? I don’t see that. And really, if his “black art” didn’t work because he had the “priesthood” (as Woodruff claimed) why take it away from him? Why even worry about it? It seems to me that that would be a safeguard against him practicing fortune-telling or the “black art”. He couldn’t do it while he was a “Priest”.

If Woodruff means that Mountford could not scry when he was performing Priestly functions, well, that is only common sense because he would have to stop them to do something else, (like use his glass) unless he could scry while in the normal course of daily life. Did people scry and ride horses at the same time, or while plowing fields, or cooking food, or feeding animals, etc? Woodruff’s comment about the Priesthood doesn’t make much sense applied that way.

So where are the church instructions on “seeing” or peep-stones? Nowhere to be found, although there is some mention of “white stones” that will be given to people after they are resurrected. (See D&C 130:10). There isn’t anything though, about how they will function or what they will really do for the person. But here on earth, the church made its position clear at a Conference in 1902, in an address by Apostle John W. Taylor:

I want to advise the young ladies, while upon this subject, not to follow after peep-stone women, fortune-tellers, or those claiming to have a familiar spirit, to get them to tell you the kind of a husband you will marry, or you young men the kind of a wife you will get. (Conference Report, Sunday, April 6, 1902).

Taylor continues by quoting the very passage in Isaiah that I quoted above, but adds a bit more:

And they shall pass through it hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that, when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves and curse their king and their God, and look upward. And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness. (Isaiah 8:21-22, KJV)

Practitioners of Folk Magic will be “driven to darkness”. Taylor then tells the “Saints”,

Now my brethren and sisters, this has been literally fulfilled upon the idolatrous nations of the earth. Let us not be deceived, my brethren and sisters, or lead astray by those who are muttering and seeking to give the people a little temporal satisfaction, for it will result in incurring the displeasure of God upon us. (ibid)

He calls it idolatry and claims that the “nations of the earth” were also “driven to darkness” by such occult practices. Taylor actually tells the “Saints” to go to their Patriarch to get such information, but when has a church patriarch ever told anyone which husband or wife they were going to marry? My own patriarchal blessing simply said that I would “leave seed in the earth”, but I never had any children, much to my relief. No wonder people sought out the Peekers. They probably made things much more interesting. But… here’s an interesting response from “Ask Gramps” about this very subject. As you might suspect, he’s not down with the idea that patriarchs do any such thing and advises the young woman who asked to “change your approach”.

And yet, the Apologists go on and on about how we modern folk are getting it all wrong by not accepting “the Black Art” (That evil fortune telling) as part of Christianity and perfectly fine with the “folk” of the 19th century. It seems that as soon as Joseph and his chosen apostles and others got a little power, they also threw magic under the bus. (Unless they were doing it themselves or trying to justify the Smith’s use of it). Their condemnations are as arbitrary as the Apologists wanting to lump it all as lost Christianity. More from the apologists:

Today’s notions of which practices seem magical and which don’t can confuse our understanding of the past more than clarify it. Nineteenth century American aspirants to socially respectable circles might have denigrated glass-looking for lost objects and treasure digging as uneducated superstition. But the same people might have regarded the medicinal balancing of the four humors through blood-letting or timing crop planting by auspicious astrological signs listed in a farmer’s almanac as commonsensical and scientific. Joseph himself, as he moved from being a canny country boy to a cultured urbanite, reported giving up treasure seeking as youthful folly unworthy of his religious calling. Indeed, in court in 1830 it was testified and judicially accepted that Joseph Smith “had not looked in the glass for two years to find money, &c. (Early Mormon Folk Magic, 81)

And did Joseph give up his treasure digging in New York because he felt it was more “cultured”, or because he kept getting hauled before courts of law for doing it? And notice that they also show that the Church Essay is wrong, he didn’t quit doing it in 1826, this has him quitting in 1828! But we know that he didn’t stop looking in his stone, (per multiple accounts) or looking for lost treasure ten years later as the Salem “revelation” shows.

Woodruff was all about using home remedies, which many were in his day, but he wasn’t down with peep-stones and fortune telling; (unless it was Joseph) and Mountford used Christian prayers in the name of the Christian God as he summoned the Spirits of the Almighty with his stones. This shows that the home remedies and other mundane practices some call folk magic were not considered so by Woodruff.

Still Woodruff claimed it was all “not of God”. I suppose poor Wilford was simply confused also and his authority as an Apostle meant nothing (even though he had the ultimate authority overseas). It’s kind of routine for Mormon Apologists to throw former authorities under the bus if they get in the way of their pet theories.

Ghosts and Angels (Continued)

Here is the story that Smith himself told to Nancy Towles in October, 1831 which she put to paper soon after:

A certain man by the name of Smith, trained in the state of New York; and now about twenty-eight years of age: — professes to have seen, and held communion with an Angel from God. That, about four years since, [1827] as he was lying upon his bed, — (having just been reclaimed from a backslidden state,) [after 1823 visit] the room, of a sudden became light as day. When a beautiful personage, was presented to his view, — who requested, That he (Smith) should go to such a place, — as he had something wonderful, he wished to reveal. He accordingly went; and was directed by the angel to a certain spot of ground, where was deposited a “Box:” — which box contained “Plates,” that resembled gold: also, a pair of “interpreters,” (as he called them,) that resembled spectacles: by looking into which, he could read a writing engraven upon the plates, though to himself, — in a tongue unknown. These were delivered to him, as he asserts, to publish to the world. And when the things were committed to paper, “The box, &c. were to be sealed up; and deposited in the earth, — from whence they were taken.”

Smith himself claims that he was visited by the angel and got the plates immediately afterwards in 1827. He was in a “backslidden state” until the visit of the angel in 1827 (four years prior to 1831). It seems that Joseph was condensing his story and obscuring the dual visits of the angel. It is even possible that Joseph was formulating the new story of seeing Jesus when he was sixteen.

Allusion or Confusion?

This accords with his account in the Articles & Covenants of the Church, where Smith claimed to have seen an angel, became “backslidden” and then, four years later receives “power” from the angel to “translate” the record. Notice the similarities:

After it was truly manifested unto this first elder that he had received a remission of his sins, [1823] he was entangled again in the vanities of the world; But after repenting, and humbling himself sincerely, through faith, God ministered unto him by an holy angel, [1827] whose countenance was as lightning, and whose garments were pure and white above all other whiteness; And gave unto him commandments which inspired him; And gave him power from on high, by the means which were before prepared, to translate the Book of Mormon…

This could not be an “allusion” to 1820 or only be speaking of the angel’s visit in 1823, because in 1823 Joseph did not get the “power’ to “translate” the Book of Mormon (the interpreters): that happened in 1827, and at this time (1830) that was the focus of the story they were all telling, that an angel appeared to Joseph in 1827.

The early missionaries were teaching this same thing, that Smith had no religious experience prior to the first visit of the angel in 1823/24; and they were all conflating events that took place in 1827 with those of the earlier story of his asking for forgiveness in 1823/24. Here are Lyman E. Johnson and Orson Pratt:

Having repented of his sins, [catching a “spark of Methodism] but not attached himself to any party of Christians, [Joseph never joined any church] owing to the numerous divisions among them, and being in doubt what his duty was, he had recourse prayer. [1823] After retiring to bed one night, he was visited by an Angel [who forgave him of his sins] and directed to proceed to a hill in the neighborhood where he would find a stone box containing a quantity of Gold plates.

Joseph is “convicted” and prays and is answered by an angel. There is no mention of four years going by, but instead they claim that,

The plates were six or eight inches square, and as many of them as would make them six or eight inches thick, each as thick as a pane of glass. They were filled with characters which the learned of that state were not able to translate. A Mr. Anthony, a professor of one of the colleges, found them to contain something like the Cyrian Chaldena or Hebrew characters. However, Smith with divine aid, was able to translate the plates, and from them we have the Mormon bible, or as they stated it, another Revelation to part of the house of Joseph.

This is not how Smith describes the events in later accounts which we will discuss in Part II. (He adds another, earlier vision and the “backsliding” then takes place between that vision and the one with the angel which is then firmly dated to September 22, 1823). But notice that Smith has every opportunity to relate the story of the claimed 1820 vision to Nancy Towles, but does not. And yet, a few months later (Feb. 1832), Joseph and Sidney Rigdon have a vision in which they claim to see “the glory of the Son” on the “right hand” of the Father. This vision was spoken of openly and published in July of 1832. Joseph continued to change his story, and would continue to do so even after it was published in the Times and Seasons.

“The Glass Looker”

Money-digging, as it was called, or scrying for lost treasure or objects by way of “glass looking” was a crime in New York State in Joseph’s day:

…all persons who go about from door to door, or place themselves in the streets, highways or passages, to beg in the cities or towns where they respectively dwell, and all jugglers and all persons who pretend to have skill in physiognomy, palmistry, or like crafty science, or pretending to tell fortunes, or to discover where lost goods may be found… shall be deemed and adjudged to be disorderly persons…(pg. 114)

There was a good reason for this, as it was overwhelmingly used to con people out of their money. It’s like anything else, you can believe in dowsing rods and even use them to search for water, or treasure or whatever you like. But when you cross the line and use it to dupe other people, even though you and they might believe in it, is is breaking the law. But Joseph wasn’t doing this to help other people, he was doing it for monetary gain (according to Bushman it was greed) as these articles of agreement from 1825 show:

ARTICLES OF AGREEMENT.

We, the undersigned, do firmly agree, & by these presents bind ourselves, to fulfill and abide by the hereafter specified articles:

First—That if anything of value should be obtained at a certain place in Pennsylvania near a Wm. Hale’s, supposed to be a valuable mine of either Gold or Silver and also to contain coined money and bars or ingots of Gold or Silver, and at which several hands have been at work during a considerable part of the past summer, we do agree to have it divided in the following manner, viz.: Josiah Stowell, Calvin Stowell and Wm. Hale to take two-thirds, and Charles Newton, Wm. I. Wiley, and the Widow Harper to take the other third. And we further agree that Joseph Smith, Sen. and Joseph Smith Jr. shall be considered as having two shares, two elevenths of all the property that may be obtained, the shares to be taken equally from each third.
Second—And we further agree, that in consideration of the expense and labor to which the following named persons have been at (John F. Shephard, Elihu Stowell and John Grant) to consider them as equal sharers in the mine after all the coined money and bars or ingots are obtained by the undersigned, their shares to be taken out from each share; and we further agree to remunerate all the three above named persons in a handsome manner for all their time, expense and labor which they have been or may be at, until the mine is opened, if anything should be obtained; otherwise they are to lose their time, expense and labor.
Third—And we further agree that all the expense which has or may accrue until the mine is opened, shall be equally borne by the proprietors of each third and that after the mine is opened the expense shall be equally borne by each of the sharers.
Township of Harmony, Pa., Nov. 1, 1825.
In presence of
Isaac Hale, Chas. A. Newton,
David Hale, Jos. Smith, Sen.,
P. Newton. Isaiah [Josiah] Stowell,
Calvin Stowell, Jos. Smith, Jr.,
Wm. I. Wiley.

Joseph signed this document about a month after he supposedly met with the angel at the hill Cumorah for the third time! Joseph was being paid by Stowell and it was to be borne by him and others as an “expense”. And if a treasure happened to be found, the Smith’s would benefit from that, as well. And he was looking for the treasure by means of scrying, which was illegal. This wasn’t religious, this was searching for “filthy lucre” as Joseph Smith Sr. confessed to a judge at the 1826 Examination. Every time that Joseph used his supposed “seeric” power to search for buried treasure or lost objects, he was breaking the law, and the law uses such language as “pretending” for good reason. This means if you went around and claimed to be able to discern things that could not be seen by the natural eye, you were disorderly and breaking the law.

I’ve heard it argued (by Mormon Apologists) that well, Josiah Stowell believed that Smith could actually see things in the earth, kind of like Superman with his X-Ray Vision, except he needed the help of a peep-stone. And so Joseph did nothing wrong, it was all Josiah Stowell’s idea – he sought out Joseph. But that’s not how the law works. Stowell’s belief did not give the Smith’s a free pass to break the law.

How much treasure did Joseph ever recover for anyone with his crafty science of peeping in stones? None. As for the articles that he supposedly found for people, we find a good example of what Smith would tell others concerning his lack of success according to Josiah Stowell (who believed Joseph could really see things in his peep-stone):

…that [Joseph Smith] had looked through said stone for Deacon Attelon, for a mine – did not exactly find it, but got a piece of ore, which resembled gold, he thinks; that prisoner had told by means of this stone where a Mr. Bacon had buried money; that he and prisoner had been in search of it; that prisoner said that it was in a certain root of a stump five feet from surface of the earth, and with it would be found a tail-feather; that said Stowel and prisoner thereupon commenced digging, found a tail-feather, but money was gone; that he supposed that money moved down…

This is the prophet-in-training who was yearly meeting with an angel of God to learn how to run his kingdom? And this idea that it makes any kind of difference whether Joseph was found guilty in 1826. It doesn’t matter because we know he did what they claimed he did, he pretended to be able to find buried treasure, silver mines, etc. with a peep-stone and was getting paid for it. Smith was breaking the law. Juggling. Claiming that well, everybody else was doing it, matters not at all. It was still breaking the law.

Slipping Away from Reality into the Absurd

Does buried treasure really move through the earth? Is that what apologists are claiming? That angels and demons and ghosts move buried treasure through the earth at their leisure? These stories are absurd, yet, many superstitious people believed them and Joseph reinforced that belief by including it in his Book of Mormon:

And behold, the time cometh that he curseth your riches, that they become slippery, that ye cannot hold them; and in the days of your poverty ye cannot retain them. And in the days of your poverty ye shall cry unto the Lord; and in vain shall ye cry, for your desolation is already come upon you, and your destruction is made sure; and then shall ye weep and howl in that day, saith the Lord of Hosts. And then shall ye lament, and say: O that I had repented, and had not killed the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out. Yea, in that day ye shall say: O that we had remembered the Lord our God in the day that he gave us our riches, and then they would not have become slippery that we should lose them; for behold, our riches are gone from us. Behold, we lay a tool here and on the morrow it is gone; and behold, our swords are taken from us in the day we have sought them for battle. Yea, we have hid up our treasures and they have slipped away from us, because of the curse of the land. O that we had repented in the day that the word of the Lord came unto us; for behold the land is cursed, and all things are become slippery, and we cannot hold them. Behold, we are surrounded by demons, yea, we are encircled about by the angels of him who hath sought to destroy our souls. (Helaman 13:31-37)

Is this not a treasure digging yarn written right into the Book of Mormon? It has all those exciting demonic elements of a treasure digging yarn: the disappearing swords and tools, and the slippery treasures that are swallowed up in the ground because of the curse of the land as the demons and angels close in to destroy their souls.

Was Joseph really seeing treasure chests of money that moved every time they dug for them? What an interesting way to solve that problem, if Joseph was confronted later about his money-digging he could simply explain that God had cursed the land and that was why he always failed when he tried. It’s right there on the gold plates! It’s scripture. And where did he learn about this, why, from his father:

Joseph, Sen. told me that the best time for digging money, was, in the heat of summer, when the heat of the sun caused the chests of money to rise near the top of the ground. You notice, said he, the large stones on the top of the ground — we call them rocks, and they truly appear so, but they are, in fact, most of them chests of money raised by the heat of the sun. (Peter Ingersoll, Palmyra, Wayne Co. N. Y. Dec. 2d, 1833. )

Was Joseph’s clear practice of necromancy (during the time he was supposedly being taught by an angel of God every year) a restoration of ancient Christian beliefs? Not according to Christians of the day. Ronald Walker writes:

Probably the quality which most distinguished American treasure digger was his acceptance of the old cultural system that rapidly was passing into obsolescence almost from the founding of America’s first settlements, many community leaders rejected money digging. Seventeenth century puritan clerics such as Cotton Mather and John Hale called the wise men “devils’ priests and prophets” and their practices “witchcraft” Following European practice, the clergy’s long-standing opposition was given the force of law. A New York statute, for example, enjoined “all jugglers, and all persons pretending to have skill in physiognomy palmistry or like crafty science or pretending to tell fortunes or to discover where lost goods may be found while observed lightly or more often in the breach (Joseph Smith was tried at least once for his money digging but was apparently neither fined nor imprisoned), such laws and the clerical animosity that lay behind them created in the minds of many educated men and women a dark and unsavory image of money-digging that often became caricature.

American literature reinforced this tendency. …Whether in the poetry of John G. C. Brainard, the humorous sketches of Washington Irving, or the satires of Franklin and Forrest, the result was uniformly the same. Though money-digging, like any human endeavor, offered much to scorn and even to pity, the belles-lettres of the period conveyed the prevailing values of the intellectual elite by treating the money-diggers in overblown and often unjustified images. (op.cited above, pgs. 451-2)

Was the treatment of money-diggers really unjustified? It was all a scam. Every time! And they had good reason to pass those laws because unless one was digging for money for one’s own benefit or amusement, those who went around promoting such nonsense were perpetuating a fraud on their neighbors. It is like the holy relics of the Middle Ages. People were persuaded to buy things like the “milk of the Virgin Mary, the teeth, hair, and blood of Christ, pieces of the Cross, and samples of the linen Christ was wrapped in as an infant.“

No one ever found any buried treasure by way of peep-stones and divining rods and went around digging and peeping without wanting to be compensated for it. But there is coincidence and a broken clock is correct twice a day, especially when the Three Nephites are on the prowl.

Spiritualism is not Mormonism

Walker goes on to say that,

“money-digging may have influenced two of the nineteenth century’s major social and religious movements, Mormonism and Spiritualism. Its touch on American society was not light.” (ibid)

And yet, is Spiritualism a restoration of Apostolic Christianity? Apparently not, but there was a Mormon Spiritualist Church, founded by William S. Godbe. Ronald Walker writes,

There was also a spiritual, or spiritualist, dimension to their [The Godbeites] dissent. In October 1868 Godbe and Harrison traveled to New York City, ostensibly for business and recreation. They apparently used the occasion to seek direction from a spiritualist medium, Charles Foster. Fifty seances followed, confirming their religious doubts and mandating a radical restructuring of Mormonism. “The whole superstructure of a grand system of theology was unfolded to our minds,” Harrison later wrote. The system included a devaluation of the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants, and the rejection of a personal deity, the literal resurrection, and the doctrine of the atonement.

Spiritualism was almost a perfect solution for the Godbeite doubters. Its parallels with Mormonism eased the pain involved in their transfer of commitment. Both movements affirmed the eternal nature of the individual and taught the validity of spiritual experience. Each had an upstate New York genesis. Moreover, their new spiritualistic view allowed Godbe and Morrison to validate their previous religious experiences. These now seemed mere preliminaries to their new, higher revelation. There also was an additional advantage: nineteenth-century spiritualism had a liberal, intellectual content that fit the Godbeite mood.

Yet the new movement was condemned by Brigham Young who published in the Deseret News that their ideas would “drive the holy priesthood from the earth.” George A. Smith claimed that “A blacker spirit never reigned in the heart of mortals than reigns in those two men.” (Harrison & Godbe). When Godbe asked Young if they were going to get the typical charges of immorality leveled at them as they were excommunicated, Young said that there were none that they knew of, but that “they must have committed some secret crime, or they would not now be found … opposing the policies of the servants of God.” (pgs. 70-71)

Haven’t we come full circle here? Young opposing the spiritualism that Mormonism supposedly sprang from! This is what the Christians of the day (who Walker calls “elites”) were doing with the magic practices embraced by many in New York, including Joseph’s neighbors.

They didn’t accept that magical treasure digging and necromancy was from God, it was all superstition – a counter culture movement that began to decline soon after it began to flourish in places like New York’s burned over district. Yet, they still participated in it, as many do today with the lottery, or by way of prosperity gospels.

The Spiritualism that grew out of such folk beliefs, was rife with fraud, as Ron Huggins points out in his excellent article. And yet, those like Brigham Young, believed that there were actual evil spirits performing such stunts at seances:

Is there any revelation in the world? Yes, plenty of it. We are accused of being nothing more nor less than a people possessing what they term the higher order of Spiritualism. Whenever I see this in print, or hear it spoken, “You are right,” say I. “Yes, we belong to that higher order of Spiritualism; our revelations are from above, yours from beneath. This is the difference. We receive revelation from Heaven, you receive your revelations from every foul spirit that has departed this life, and gone out of the bodies of mobbers, murderers, highwaymen, drunkards, thieves, liars, and every kind of debauched character, whose spirits are floating around here, and searching and seeking whom they can destroy; for they are the servants of the devil, and they are permitted to come now to reveal to the people.” It was not so once, anciently or formerly, when there was no Priesthood on the earth, no revelations from Heaven. Then the Lord Almighty shut up this evidence, and all intercourse between men on the earth and the foul spirits, so that the latter could not deceive and destroy the former with their revelations. But God has spoken now, and so has the devil; Jesus has revealed his Priesthood, so has the devil revealed his, and there is quite a difference between the two. One forms a perfect chain, the links of which cannot be separated; one has perfect order, laws, rules, regulations, organization; it forms, fashions, makes, creates, produces, protects and holds in existence the inhabitants of the earth in a pure and holy form of government, preparatory to their entering the kingdom of Heaven. The other is a rope of sand; it is disjointed, jargon, confusion, discord, everybody receiving revelation to suit himself. If I were disposed to go into their rings I could make every table, every dot, every particle of their revelations prove that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I could lay my hands on the table with them, and if I would consent to have the spirits wrap, I would make them prove every time that Joseph Smith was a prophet; but let me go, and another man come along, a wicked man, and he would have all the evidence he desired that Joseph was not a prophet of God. I could make them say, every time, that this is the Church of Christ; while a wicked man might enter the circle and he would be told that this was not the Church of Christ; and this is their system—it is confusion and discord. It is like a rope of sand. There is no order, no organization; it cannot be reduced to a system, it is uncertainty. That is the difference between the two spiritual systems—yes, this is the higher order of spiritualism, to be led, governed and controlled by law, and that, too, the law of heaven that governs and controls the Gods and the angels. There is no being in heaven that could endure there, that could abide the heavens unless he is sanctified, purified and glorified by law, and lives by law. But take the other party, and it is without law. (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 13:281)

And it must be noted that Young’s point here, is that without the Mormon Priesthood, what was being practiced was counterfeit. Joseph supposedly did not receive the priesthood until 1829, and that is why God supposedly told Joseph to “go not after” them. And of course Young and Kimball had to invent the “natural prophet” who had power outside of the priesthood to account for what Smith was doing before he restored it.

And yet, those like Houdini proved it was all a hoax. Where was Young and others “gift of discernment’? What is very interesting is that when Houdini came up against the Medium Margery, who used all kinds of tricks to try and prove she was a real psychic, she failed when Houdini placed her in a fool proof box where she could not manipulate objects. But they found a way to sabotage Houdini’s precautions, and many people believed she was a true medium. If people want to believe, they will, even when they are proven frauds.

And why would Joseph doing those same things be any different? He didn’t have any priesthood in the 1820’s. He didn’t have any of those laws of God to guide him. And if he did, when he was supposedly talking to the angel every year for four years, he didn’t act like he did. Smith later claimed that the angel (later identified as Moroni) would reveal to him the priesthood, but all we see Smith doing during those four years is digging for buried treasure and getting arrested for doing it and then obfuscating these events in his later histories.

He was actually disobeying God, because he was going after things that he was told not to. Martin Harris later related that Joseph was told to “quit the company of the money-diggers”, but he just couldn’t seem to do so for a good seven years, even after a visit from God and an angel.

“the angels that tell where to find gold books…”

In fact, the very idea of associating buried treasure with angels of God was so repulsive to the Christian brother (Jesse) of Joseph Smith Sr., that he wrote to Hyrum on June 17, 1829:

Once as I thot my promising Nephew, You wrote to my Father long ago, that after struggling thro various scenes of adversity, you and your family, you had at last taught the very solutary lesson that the God that made the heavens and the earth w[o]uld at onc[e] give success to your endeavours, this if true, is very well, exactly as it should be—but alas what is man when left to his own way, he makes his own gods, if a golden calf, he falls down and worships before it, and says this is my god which brought me out of the land of Vermont—if it be a gold book discovered by the necromancy of infidelity, & dug from the mines of atheism, he writes that the angel of the Lord has revealed to him the hidden treasures of wisdom & knowledge, even divine revelation, which has lain in the bowels of the earth for thousands of years [and] is at last made known to him, he says he has eyes to see things that art not, and then has the audacity to say they are; and the angel of the Lord (Devil it should be) has put me in possession of great wealth, gold & silver and precious stones so that I shall have the dominion in all the land of Palmyra.

He goes on to say that,

You say you have God for a witness— to prove the truth of what you write miserable creature, not to say perjured villain, how dare you thus trifle, in taking the name of God in vain, nay far worse than vain— that God with whom you thus trifle, is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity he cannot look on sin with any degree of approbation or complacency it is true he passeth by iniquity transgression and sin in his redeemed ones, he sees their shield, and for his sake recieves them to favour, but to such as make lead books, and declare to the world that they are of the most fine gold, calling on the great & dreadful name of the most High to witness the truth of their assertions, He says “depart from me ye that work iniquity,” and again “these shall go away into everlasting punishment, they shall be cast into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” these are the angels that tell where to find gold books.——

It is obvious that as a Christian, the idea of angels revealing where to find buried treasure or “gold books” was anathema to Jesse Smith, who concluded his letter with this warning:

Your father would not be implicated in this place, but for the message he sent by the hands of a fool to my brother Saml [Smith] this fellow says that you and your father are in this business very deep the fellow also believes all to be a fact, this to be sure, for no one unless predisposed to believe a lie would have heard a syllable from either of you on the subject, he says your father has a wand or rod like Jannes & Jambres who withstood Moses in Egypt— that he can tell the distance from India to Ethiopia or another fool story, many other things alike ridiculous. You state your Father cannot write by reason of a nervous affection this is a poor excuse, worse than none, he can dictate to others and they can write, he can If he knows not what to write, he can get your Brother’s spectacles he would then be as able to write dictate a letter, as Joe is to decypher hieroglyphics, if more should be wanting he can employ the same scoundrel of a scribe, and then not only the matter but manner and style would be correct… (Jesse Smith to Hyrum Smith, Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents 1: 551-52, added emphasis).

Although there were many like Joseph Smith and members of his family who believed in the occult and that it was somehow sanctioned by God; there was a sharp divide among Christian believers and those that ascribed to folk magic practices – as the letter from Jesse Smith shows. There were also some Christians who believed in such things as divining rods or treasure guardians, and sought to justify their use by claiming they were “of God”, but Jesse Smith wasn’t one of them. And you know what, people are still doing it today!

Is Everything Christian?

This idea that folk magic and Christianity were one and the same, and that Smith’s Latter Day Saints Church sprang out of his folk magic beliefs is an apologist fabrication. Christianity and the folk magic of the day were not the same. It would be like starting a church and claiming that the Christian God was really an alien, and later apologists could justify it because many Christians at the time believed in aliens. In other words Christianity and belief in aliens would basically be one unified whole, right? And isn’t it interesting that someone is teaching that very thing. Meet John Polk:

Hello, my name is Reverend John Polk. I am channeling “Yahweh”, the Judeo-Christian and Islamic creator-god-alien featured in the Bible, the Hebrew Bible and in the Quran. For thousands of years, up to this present day, he has been masquerading as the real God and is pulling a collective veil over the eyes of most of the world. Ancient alien astronaut theorists comprehend this reality, but most of humanity has no idea. Yahweh tells me the time draws near for full alien disclosure, so that we primitive Earthlings can be weaned off of the Mother Universe’s figurative bosom. He wants the world to know that he is an extraterrestrial, that he is not God and that all God-figures in all cultures are ET’s, not God. However, all creator-gods and Yahweh had wanted we humans to keep worshiping those creator-gods just like always. As collective humanity adapts to this knowledge, religion, culture and tradition need not change. For now, you may pray to the alien god you have worshiped all along but now, pray to the real God as well. The real God loves everyone regardless of their religion or belief system and therefore, he is the God for everyone.

Is this really any different than the apologists “folk magic restoration”? One could even say that this is the right time for Polk to come forth, because until the “Roswell Incident” people were just not attuned to aliens. The post Roswell Incident culture allowed more and more people to believe in aliens and for it to become more acceptable. This prepared the world for the prophet of the true God, Enlil, Reverend John Polk. At this website, they claim that,

…Reverend John Polk is a metaphysical minister who can communicate to angels, extraterrestrials, and even the alien-creator-God itself, Yahweh, who he refers to as Enlil (the Sumerian god of the air) and they form a pantheon of aliens, Annunaki, hybrids, and extradimensional entities than inhabit his multiverse. And according to the good Reverend, Jesus was an alien-human hybrid engineered by Yahweh. … And Reverend John Polk might be saying some unusual things, but if we’re going to take religious stories on faith – with burning bushes, water into wine, Joseph Smith’s golden plates, Mohammed and his flying horse, etc… well, then let’s listen to Polk’s message and see what he’s trying to communicate.

“He told so many stories…”

When Ron Huggins wrote his article on Joseph Smith and his fascination with Captain Kidd, he tried to produce a timeline, which is hard to do with Joseph Smith. Morris seizes on this and uses it to try and create a distraction about timelines. But the fact is, Joseph was simply telling different stories to different people. At times it was a religious yarn, and at times it involved a treasure ghost and magic. As Lorenzo Saunders remembered, “Jo. Smith told the story but he told so many stories, it was a hard thing to get the fact in any way or shape…” (Edmund L. Kelley interview with Lorenzo Saunders — read and signed by Lorenzo Saunders, 1884, EMD Vol. II, 159, added emphasis). Yet Morris claims that,

The pattern is clear: the earliest witnesses emphasized the religious aspects of the story; accounts emphasizing “Captain Kidd” elements were later developments. This is the same pattern revealed with both newspapers and early letters and diaries. In every case, religious elements are included in the first accounts and are more common than the later magical elements. (pg. 33)

Actually, Morris doesn’t know what the “earliest witnesses emphasized”, because there are no extant accounts between 1823 and 1827 except the court documents that claimed Smith was a “glass looker”. So claiming that “the pattern is clear” that the earliest witnesses emphasized the religious aspects is disingenuous. Remember, Morris claims that what Ronald Walker wrote was extremely relevant:

At young Joseph’s 1826 money digging trial his father was reported to have claimed that both he and his son “were mortified that this wonderful [seeric] power which God had so miraculously given to the boy should be used only in search of filthy lucre, or its equivalent in earthly treasures.” Joseph Smith Sr “trusted that the Son of Righteousness would some day illumine the heart of the boy and enable him to see his will concerning him.” (added emphasis)

The fact that there was a complaint made against Joseph in 1826 and he was “Examined” and found guilty of being a “glass looker” is significant. This is the only evidence from that period (1823-27), six years after he later claimed he saw God and three years after his “religious” angel story. And yet, notice that Smith Sr. claims that Smith’s marvelous power was only being used to search for filthy lucre.

And yet a transcript that we have of the Examination, that Walker above quotes from, has Joseph’s father claiming that he hoped God would “some day illumine the heart of the boy and enable him to see his will.” But “the boy” later claimed to have seen God and later claimed he was seeing an angel every year at the hill by their home previous to this Examination. This indicates that the religious elements of the angel story weren’t really emphasized until 1827, and many later accounts bear this out. This evidence is the smoking gun that Joseph’s religious story was invented after 1826.

The corroborating evidence encompasses not only the Smith family neighbors, but close friends and future followers of Joseph’s “restored gospel”.

But what about Ron Huggins? He got things essentially right as we shall see. Morris claims that Huggins does not account for “the complex interweaving of faith and folk culture”, but that has little to do with what Huggins postulates because it is irrelevant. He claims that Huggins is the one “obscuring the timeline” and hiding “crucial details”. No, this is what Joseph Smith did.

Morris wants to write Huggins paper for him, which I find amusing. He tells us what Huggins should have done, whose Mormon research he should have used. I’ve shown how Morris only quotes selected extracts of Walker’s research, doing the very thing he accuses Ronald Huggins of doing, hiding crucial details. He claims that Huggins focuses on Captiain Kidd and therefore skews the entire debate, but that is what Morris does by claiming that the first person accounts (the ones crafted by the Smith’s) take precedence over others. (I mean, look at the timeline in the beginning of his new book and you will see it is the “faithful history” timeline.) But here is what Morris writes and it’s important to note:

Since Huggins claims that Joseph’s account changed from one thing (a money-digger’s yarn) to another (the religious story of an angel), the best way to test his thesis is to discover when various people talked to Joseph and compare their reports.

And not only Joseph, but Lucy, William, Joseph Sr., etc. It is also important to note that it was Joseph and Oliver who were claiming it was always a religious story, that there were no magical elements to it. But we know this was not the truth, hence the apologetic arguments that the “restoration” sprang out of both.

(To be Continued)

The Irrational World of Brian Hales’ Polygamy (Part 2)

Posted on December 9, 2018 by grindael

By Jeremy Runnells & Johnny Stephenson

Pt. I may be found here.

Part II: Method… Or Madness?

“Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.” ― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

“Madness breeds madness.” ― Dan Brown, Inferno

Brian Hales mentions that scholars may critique your work. Some of Hales own work was critiqued by Historian D. Michael Quinn in 2012 and 2013, and what Quinn had to say about Hales’ conclusions isn’t encouraging. Aside from important weaknesses and incorrect arguments, Hales’ work is full of red herrings, flawed methodology and manipulation of the evidence. And it is important to note that Quinn only reviewed Hales’ conclusions about sexual polyandry in Smith’s marriages.

But Quinn doesn’t treat Brian Hales like Hales treated Jeremy Runnells. He takes what Hales has written and step by step makes his assessment. He doesn’t claim right off the bat that Hales is being deceptive to try and poison the well in advance. Still, Quinn found a plethora of problems with Hale’s approach as an historian. Here are some of them:

Quinn accuses Hales of “citing easily refutable claims” (pg. 6); quotes secondary sources over primary sources (page 6); Quinn also writes that “The best evidence is the original record of sealing, not someone’s century later commentary about it” which Hales quoted instead of the original record.

He states that Hales “brushes off the significance of some of the evidence he has cited,” (page 11); makes contradictory assertions (page 11); conveniently shifts his standards of evidentiary analysis in his own direction (page 18); that Hales “apologetical observations contradict evidence (page 23); uses a red herring, (page 25); makes claims that have no basis whatever (page 27); strains credulity (page 27); uses “presentist bias” (page 33); accuses him of “misrepresentation” (page 64); of not consulting original sources (page 66); that Hales had an “academic obligation” to reveal certain information which he did not (page 66); of using a “vacuous red-herring when Hales does not quote a single exception from the “original records” about which he writes” (page 69); that Hales would not acknowledge crucial evidence that undermined his narrative (page 70 n. 46) which was that Joseph Smith forbid the practice of polygamy in Oct. 1843 (ibid); citing a source critical to his argument without a page number (page 72); uses flawed methodology and closed system of logic (page 73); worse (Quinn’s word) he has failed to acknowledge several of the contrary evidences in publications he has cited, (ibid); he makes “perplexing gaffes” in his use of evidence (page 73-74); he repeatedly questions the memory/accuracy of faithful Mormon witnesses that Hales disagrees with (page 74); does not use equal standards for evidence (page 74); of making “apologetical claims” knowing they were “improbable” (page 75); that he did not acknowledge critical evidence until forced to by Quinn (page 78); gave “anachronistic assessment”, and “a fallacy of irrelevant proof”, and “chronologically false” assessments (page 80).

He overstates problem in proving a negative, (Hales – “You can’t prove a negative”) to which Quinn writes, “for example it is possible to prove that someone didn’t die on a particular date” (page 82); falsely accusing Quinn of stealing documents (84); another red herring (87); absurdity (87); claimed that Quinn said something he did not say (90); of another fallacy of irrelevant proof (page 90); that Hales wrongly corrected an accurate page citation by Quinn (page 91); of knowing of evidence but ignoring it to support his conclusions (page 94); claimed no documentation existed when it did (page 95); of not acknowledging evidence (page 98); making claims that were wrong (page 98); raising an apologetical smoke-screen by questioning well known facts (page 101); making ridiculous assertions about conspiracies (page 101); of fallacy of irrelevant proof (page 102); that Hales is an unreasonable researcher (page 102); of using “multiple fallacies” (page 104); the purposeful absence of references (page 105); purposeful non-inclusion of first-person sources that contradict his argument (page 108); using “imprecise and less detailed” evidence to support his argument (page 108); exclusion of evidence (page 108); claims there is no “specific documentation” when Quinn provided it (page 110); wrongly stated something Quinn did not say (page 113) which was a “Stunning gaffe”, again a red herring (page 113); another red herring (page 115); irrelevant statements (page 115); “frequent use of polemical red-herrings to undermine historical evidence he dislikes” (page 115).

On page 118 Quinn writes, “NOTHING (Caps in original) can satisfy Brian Hales’ calculatedly stringent requirements that are impossible to achieve, unless he finds a Victorian American woman who said, wrote, or testified that she (as a devout Mormon) alternated sexual intercourse with two husbands during a period of time” [This speaks for itself]; Also includes Hales in using the “double standard of LDS apologists who narrowly define acceptable evidence for unpleasant realities” (page 118); of denying and ignoring evidence (pg. 123); using a closed system of logic (God knew Smith would be obedient so he was).

On page 124, Quinn compares Hales to Joseph Smith III, who refused to believe evidence he did not like, (page 124); accuses Hales of playing “a skillful shell game in which premises for judgment are conveniently shifted so that the conclusion is always the same” (page 125); ignores contradictions and other problems in evidence (page 126); omits significant facts (page 127); another wrong claim (page 127); does not cite sources he knows of (page 128); makes unqualified conclusions (page 128).[25]

Even with all this criticism, Quinn did agree with some of Hales’ conclusions and even complimented him a few times in his critique. This is something that Hales doesn’t do with Jeremy Runnells. (That is – be fair and acknowledge Jeremy’s sincere concerns or compliment him when he agrees that he got something right). Instead, Hales goes from irrational to ridiculous. He writes,

Runnells declares early that he has concerns about Joseph Smith’s polygamy, alleging that “three key facts remain unchallenged: (1) Joseph Smith married at least 34 women; (2) he married at least 11 women who were married to other living men; and (3) he married underage girls as young as 14-years-old.”[26]

All of Jeremy’s observations are absolutely accurate, and Hales knows that they are. But here is how Hales ridiculously responds to this:

Runnells seems concerned that Joseph Smith was sealed to “at least 34 women.” It is actually 35 by my count.[27]

Is it a bad thing to be concerned that Smith was sealed/married to at least 34 women? This concerns many people both in and out of the church. How though, does this show that what Runnells wrote is inaccurate or that he is lying? It simply doesn’t.

It’s obvious that Jeremy qualified his statement with two words, “at least”. With all of the other material that Jeremy includes in the Polygamy Section of “Debunking Fair,” one has to wonder why Hales would even respond to this, which is accurate (based on a consensus of polygamy historians, including Brian Hales).

And there is still debate over how many actual wives Joseph Smith had, (lsd.org claims it is “unknown”, Polygamy Essay, text at Note 24) but you don’t hear that from Brian Hales in this hit piece. Jeremy Runnells cites the many historians that disagree with Hales’ count, but Hales doesn’t mention this either.[28] Hales then writes,

While it [the number of women Smith “married”] is a large number, it is important to note that at least 13, and possibly as many as 20, were non-sexual “eternity only” sealings. As Joseph Smith taught, every woman needs to be sealed to an eternal husband to be eligible for exaltation. Lucy Walker remembered the Prophet’s emphasis: “A woman would have her choice, this was a privilege that could not be denied her.” None of the women left any complaints regarding their sealings to Joseph. Yet, Runnells seems bothered by this observation.[29]

Hales claim about “non-sexual ‘eternity only’ sealings” simply cannot be substantiated by any evidence that he presents, (which he admits elsewhere) so his comment here to Runnells is curiously disingenuous as is his comment about none of the women complaining. (Many did, as we shall see). And late remembrances by women who were trying to justify Smith’s spiritual wifeism should always be taken for what they are.

First, Hales doesn’t know if is 13 or “possibly as many as 20”, and his claim that “at least 13” were “non-sexual eternity only sealings” isn’t based on any credible evidence. He is simply making these numbers up. It’s an irrational claim. There is absolutely no evidence to prove that there was ever such as thing as a “non-sexual eternity only sealing” during the lifetime of Joseph Smith. (We will show this below).

There are only a few very late statements that are ambiguous at best and second hand stories with no supporting evidence to back up Hales claims. All sealings were for eternity, or for time and eternity (depending on the circumstances of the individuals), or time, but there are no known instances in the Nauvoo Era where sexuality in the marriage was specifically barred by ceremony or even alluded to. This is quite simply wishful thinking on the part of Brian Hales and he has absolutely no credible evidence to show that this was so.

There is credible evidence though, that there were one or two instances of pre-arranged “eternity only sealings” many years later between two living people with the caveat that they would be unconsummated, but that they were extremely rare. (We discuss this below).

Hales may be the only author who has published multiple volumes about Smith’s polygamy devoted to the point of view that he was only “sealed” to a large majority of his “wives” that were specifically set up to be “non-sexual marriages”.[30] This seems to be an obsession with Brian Hales and the reason is obvious, to try and mitigate the damage of Smith’s secretive “marriages” to other men’s wives which was considered adultery by Joseph’s own 1842 First Presidency Address. (Also discussed below).

Michael Quinn put Hales’ obsession with his idealistic version of Joseph Smith this way in relation to his denials of Smith’s obvious polyandry:

“NOTHING [Caps and underline in original] can satisfy Brian Hales’ calculatedly stringent requirements that are impossible to achieve, unless he finds a Victorian American woman who said, wrote, or testified that she (as a devout Mormon) alternated sexual intercourse with two husbands during a period of time”.[31]

Hales then writes at Rational Faiths,

Runnells writes that Joseph “married at least 11 women who were married to other living men.” In fact, I count 14 (Sylvia Sessions, Sarah Ann Whitney, Ruth Vose, Mary Elizabeth Rollins, Sarah Kingsley, Presendia Lathrop Huntington, Esther Dutcher, Zina Diantha Huntington, Patty Bartlett, Marinda Nancy Johnson, Elivira Annie Cowles, Elizabeth Davis, Lucinda Pendleton, and Mary Heron). Like many authors before him, Runnells implies sexual polyandry occurred; that is, that the wives were experiencing sexual relations with both their legal husbands and Joseph Smith. Yet, Runnells presents no credible documentation to support his interpretation, and he does not address evidences that contradict it. Joseph taught sexual polyandry was adultery and that a woman could never have two genuine husbands (D&C 22:1, 132:4).[32]

Again, Hales seems to have missed Jeremy’s use of the qualifier “at least”. And Jeremy would be more correct in doing so than Hales is giving an actual number. Hales includes in this list Mary Heron Snider of whom there is no evidence that she was ever a “wife” of Joseph Smith or even “sealed” to him. There is evidence though, that Smith had sexual intercourse with her in her son-in-law’s house which Joseph E. Johnson (her son-in-law) likened to his own adultery which happened years later. Concerning Mary Heron Snider, Hales writes elsewhere:

Without any additional evidence, it is impossible to conclusively identify the nature of Joseph Smith’s relationship with Mary Heron, if any special relationship ever existed.[33]

But this does not stop Hales from including her in Smith’s list of wives with absolutely no evidence to score rhetorical points against Jeremy. This is another irrational conclusion by Hales, because he claims that she was “married” to Joseph Smith, but that it is “impossible” to identify the relationship she had with Smith. But because she had sex with Smith, she has to be one of his wives, using Hales’ logic. Johnson likening Smith and Snider’s intercourse to his own adultery still doesn’t stop Hales from making these irrational pronouncements. Therefore including her in his list of wives “married” to Joseph Smith in response to Jeremy is baffling, as is his obvious bragging about numbers of wives he concludes Smith “married”.

There is very good evidence however, that Smith’s relationship with Mary Snider was an adulterous affair just like the one with Fanny Alger. (See Note #33).

If this is what Hales means by “the latest research”, then his website should be visited with caution and his conclusions discarded for their flawed methodology and closed system of logic, (to use the words of D. Michael Quinn).

Hales also claims that Jeremy provides no credible documentation to support the practice of sexual polyandry by Joseph Smith. This is astoundingly untrue. Jeremy provides this statement by Ann Eliza Webb, one of Brigham Young’s wives:

One woman [Zina Huntington] said to me not very long since, while giving me some of her experiences in polygamy: ‘The greatest trial I ever endured in my life was living with my husband and deceiving him, by receiving Joseph’s attentions whenever he chose to come to me.‘ Some of these women have since said they did not know who was the father of their children; this is not to be wondered at, for after Joseph’s declaration annulling all Gentile marriages, the greatest promiscuity was practiced; and, indeed, all sense of morality seemed to have been lost by a portion at least of the church.[34]

Of course, this is not credible evidence to Brian Hales because as D. Michael Quinn observed, Hales “does not use equal standards for evidence”. According to Hales:

Ann Eliza does not specifically name which of Joseph’s wives she was allegedly quoting [about the polyandry]. However, her mother, Eliza Jane Churchill Webb, repeated the accusation in two private letters a year later specifying Zina Huntington as the woman:

“There are women living in Utah now who were sealed to Joseph while living with their husbands, and they say it was the greatest trial of their lives to live with two men at the same time.”

Four months afterwards she also penned, “There is Zina,—whose maiden name was Huntington. She says the greatest trial of her life was, to live with her husband and Joseph too at the same time.”

Although it is commonly quoted by writers as primary evidence of sexual polyandry in Joseph Smith’s plural marriages, several problems emerge with Ann Eliza’s statement.

One is the issue of proximity. Ann Eliza did not live in the Lion House with Zina and Brigham Young’s other wives, but lived in her own house a few blocks away. She apostatized in 1872 and subsequently sued Brigham Young for alimony (and lost).

Yet, she claimed that sometime prior to her leaving the Church, Zina Huntington confided to her regarding her “greatest trial,” her frustrations with polyandrous sexuality between her, Joseph Smith, and Henry Jacobs decades before in Nauvoo.

In the nineteenth century, for a woman to mention her personal sexual involvement was rare. To admit to a polyandrous relationship would be rarer, but to openly refer to a polyandrous sexual involvement would be very extraordinary. The listeners to such admissions would have had no context to evaluate the declarations except to consider the behaviors plainly immoral. Even in the secret teachings of plurality in Nauvoo, no doctrinal foundation for sexual polyandry was ever discussed. At any time during the restoration, such statements would be interpreted as admissions of unchaste behavior.

Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Smith Young

Zina’s alleged openness concerning such a delicate topic also contrasts her 1898 interview statements. She then remarked that, “It was something too sacred to be talked about; it was more to me than life or death. I never breathed it for years.” She declared to the interviewer, “We hardly dared speak of it. The very walls had ears. We spoke of it only in whispers . . . you are speaking on the most sacred experiences of my life.”

In light of her declared reticence to talk about her marriage to Joseph Smith, it seems less likely that she would have suspended her discretion as reported by Ann Eliza.

Importantly, in an 1887 interview, Zina questioned Ann Eliza’s general truthfulness:

The trouble with Ann Eliza . . . was that she was not truthful. She was not grateful, and she was a very bad woman. She has convicted herself out of her own mouth. . . . She never lifted a her [sic] finger to do a bit of work that she didn’t want to do. She had servants and there was no necessity for her doing anything. She has asserted that President Young opened all his wives’ letters, and that they couldn’t visit anywhere or write to anybody, which is ridiculously untrue. President Young was occupied with too many important matters to give attention to such trivial things as his wives’ letters or his wives’ visits. We wrote to whom we pleased. . . . Ann Eliza knew she was misrepresenting the facts.

Zina did not directly dispute Ann Eliza’s claims regarding sexual polyandry probably because the original published statement did not identify her as the “one woman” and few individuals, including perhaps Zina herself, would have assumed her identity. Regardless, it appears Eliza’s assertion is best dismissed as anti-Mormon propaganda unless more credible supportive evidence for sexual polyandry is found.[35]

The first thing that we should mention here in critiquing Hales’ assessment of Ann Eliza is that Hales accuses her of spewing out “Anti-Mormon propaganda” and so she really can’t be trusted as a witness, because after Ann Eliza left the Church a believing Mormon (Zina Young) claimed she was not trustworthy.

To Hales, this is enough to give credence to Zina Young’s claims and cast doubt on Ann Eliza Webb. (Who is just another “Anti-Mormon) . Hales believes what Zina says about Ann Eliza (and polygamy), but not what Ann Eliza says about Zina because it does not fit his idealistic narrative. (The believing Mormon who says what Hales wants to hear is to be believed, while the person labeled by Hales as an “Anti-Mormon” is not unless they agree with his own personal conclusions). And there is Hales using that “anti” label again.

It also did not stop Hales from relying on Ann Eliza and her mother’s testimony to support his claims that Fanny Alger was “sealed” or “married” to Joseph Smith. Also, he does not mention any of these problems (Zina’s claims that Ann Eliza is untrustworthy) in an article he wrote about Fanny Alger because he uses Webb to support his position there. This is a hypocritical double standard that Hales employs over and over again.[36]

Hales then tries to tell us that because Ann Eliza apostatized years after she came to know Zina Huntington Young, (Ann Eliza was also Brigham Young’s wife for almost five years) that it makes it less probable that Huntington would have confided in her. According to Hales, since they only lived a few blocks away from each other, this makes it all the more unlikely! In fact, one of the points that Zina Young makes is that she wasn’t restricted by Young from making visits to whomever she wanted to. But as we shall see, she didn’t need to make any special visits to frequently see Zina.

Hales also claims that he knows it is rare for two women who were married to the same man and were sister wives, to speak to each other about personal matters involving sex. Hales tells us that, “To admit to a polyandrous relationship would be rarer, but to openly refer to a polyandrous sexual involvement would be very extraordinary.” According to whom? What is Hales basing this speculation on? There is no way to know because it is not based on any evidence in existence outside of Brian Hales’ imagination. There is evidence that Hales is aware that one of Smith’s “wives” had no qualms about explaining her polyandrous arrangement if she had the chance to do so in private:

Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner

I hope you will not think me [Mary Lightner] intrusive, I am sure I do not wish to be- If I could have an oportunity of conversing with you, [John Henry Smith] and Brother Joseph [F. Smith] I could explain some things in regard to my living with Mr L,[ightner] after becoming the Wife of another, which would throw light, on what now seems mysterious – and you would be perfectly satisfied with me. I write this; because I have heard that it had been commented on to my injury. I have done the best I could, and Joseph will sanction my action – I cannot explain things in this Letter – some day you will know all. That is, if I ever have an oportunity of conversing with either of you.[37]

What could Mary tell them that they already didn’t know about? Mary Lightner herself claimed that in February of 1842 “Brigham Young sealed us for time and all eternity.”[38]

What Mary wanted to speak to John Henry Smith and Joseph F. Smith about was something that people had commented on to her injury. This would not be having two husbands, for many of Smith’s wives were already married when they became his wife and they knew this. What would Joseph sanction? Staying with her husband? According to Mary Lightner this is exactly what Joseph told her to do, so this was no secret as she told Emmeline B. Wells years before this time:

“I could tell you why I stayed with Mr. Lightner. Things the leaders of the Church does not know anything about. I did just as Joseph told me to do, as he knew what troubles I would have to contend with.”[39]

She had no problem writing this. But it would be very controversial if she wrote that Joseph told her to share herself with both of them. To say this was a “non-sexual, eternity only sealing,” ignores the evidence, but Hales doesn’t mind doing that because Mary Lightner was having sex with Adam Lightner during this period and gave birth to a son in 1842 and a daughter in 1843 while she was Joseph’s spiritual wife.[40]

What did Mary Lightner mean by “becoming the wife of another?” A simple “eternity only sealing” makes little sense here. People were sealed to one another frequently during this period of time. Men were sealed to men, and women to men, and children to their parents. It is hard to believe that an “eternity only sealing” to Joseph would have been spoken of to her injury, especially when it was established doctrine and taught for many years that Gentile marriages were not considered authoritative.

Hales claims over and over again that polyandry was “a practice that would have been explosive from a morality perspective and otherwise unknown in their society.“[41] But then, so was polygamy, which the Nauvoo Relief Society denounced in 1842 as being “contrary to the old established morals & virtues & scriptural laws, regulating the habits, customs & conduct of society.”[42] Yet we have many women abandoning their 19th century morals to participate in polygamous marriages; and though some were reluctant to embrace the principle they all trusted that Joseph Smith was teaching them correct doctrine because they believed that he was their “lawgiver”.

So how would Hales know what women spoke of in confidence or in private or how rare that was? How is Zina Huntington “openly” referring to a polyandrous relationship when she is obviously confiding to a sister wife? Zina’s comments about Ann Eliza after she left Young must be taken with caution for obvious reasons. Where is Hales’ evidence that Zina Young considered Ann Eliza untrustworthy while they were both married to Young? That would help bolster his conjectures, but he doesn’t produce any.

This then, would have been a private admission. Ann Eliza did not reveal the circumstances surrounding the admission by Zina Young to her, only that Young gave Ann Eliza “some of her experiences in polygamy” in which she recounted certain things to her. Describing this as an “open admission” is misleading and a red herring.

These kinds of fallacious conclusions make up the bulk of Hales arguments in his articles and in his books as we have seen by the analysis of Hales’ work done by D. Michael Quinn.

It may be instructive to provide a little more of Ann Eliza’s comments about this matter from her book so one may understand their true context:

Joseph not only paid his addresses to the young and unmarried women, but he sought “spiritual alliance” with many married ladies who happened to strike his fancy. He taught them that all former marriages were null and void, and that they were at perfect liberty to make another choice of a husband. The marriage covenants were not binding, because they were ratified only by Gentile laws. These laws the Lord did not recognize; consequently all the women were free.

Again, he would appeal to their religious sentiments, and their strong desire to enter into the celestial kingdom. He used often to argue in this manner while endeavoring to convince some wavering or unwilling victim: “Now, my dear sister, it is true that your husband is a good man, a very good man, but you and he are by no means kindred spirits, and he will never be able to save you in the celestial kingdom ; it has been revealed by the Spirit that you ought to belong to me.”

This sophistry, strange as it may seem, had its weight, and scarcely ever failed of its desired results. Many a woman, with a kind, good husband, who loved her and trusted her, and a family of children, would suffer herself to be sealed to Joseph, at the same time living with the husband whom she was wronging so deeply, he believing fondly that her love was all his own.

One woman said to me not very long since, while giving me some of her experiences in polygamy : “The greatest trial I ever endured in my life was living with my husband and deceiving him, by receiving Joseph’s attentions whenever he chose to come to me.”

This woman, and others, whose experience has been very similar, are among the very best women in the church; they are as pure-minded and virtuous women as any in the world. They were seduced under the guise of religion, and they submitted as to a cross laid upon them by the divine will. Believing implicitly in the Prophet, they never dreamed of questioning the truth of his revelations, and would have considered themselves on the verge of apostasy, which to a Mormon is a most dangerous and horrible state, from which there is no possible salvation, had they refused to submit to him and to receive his “divine” doctrines.

Some of these women have since said they did not know who was the father of their children; this is not to be wondered at, for after Joseph’s declaration annulling all Gentile marriages, the greatest promiscuity was practised; and, indeed, all sense of morality seemed to have been lost by a portion at least of the church. Shocking as all this may appear, women that were sealed to Joseph at that time are more highly respected than any others. It is said, as the highest mead of praise which can be given, that they never repudiated any of the Prophet’s teachings, but submitted to all his requirements without a murmur, and eventually they will be exalted to a high position in the celestial kingdom.[43]

What Ann Eliza states here is true. Smith did not consider Gentile marriages (in private teachings) of any significance and certainly not binding upon any individuals at that time. (Before June, 1842).[44]

Smith also taught that in the pre-existence there were some promised to others, “kindred spirits” if you will, to make it more convincing to the woman that they were “meant” to be together.[45]

Hales claims time after time that all of this must have been innocent because the husband in many cases approved of the arrangement. Hales writes:

To answer the question why, [Smith married other men’s wives] is simply that the fourteen women, [Hales’ magic number] when they learned about eternal marriage, they chose Joseph Smith to be their eternal husband. It’s that simple. They chose him over the men that they were married to. Four of the women couldn’t be sealed to their legal husbands because those husbands were not active Latter-day Saints. But the remaining ten, whose husbands were active LDS, chose Joseph. So some observations. It’s kind of weird that a woman would be married to an active LDS but be sealed to Joseph Smith for an eternal marriage. And Joseph could be criticized that he was insensitive to those ten husbands, but none of them ever complained. We have no complaints from any of them. And there could be suspicions that Joseph coerced the women, but these are not supported by any kind of documentation. None of the women complained and we have good documentation that Joseph taught that the woman’s desires should be respected in every case. And there are at least five cases where women turned him down, and the only reason we know about it is that those women later talked about it. Joseph didn’t talk about it. He didn’t try to destroy their reputation. He didn’t castigate them. He just let it go, because that was their choice.[46]

If this is a correct principle, as Hales asserts, then how would this kind of behavior be treated in the Church today? Women could just “choose” another husband and start living with him? Why would this not be a precedent today among monogamous relationships? What the woman wants is what she gets, right? How many Bishops would counsel a woman who was dissatisfied with her “Gentile” marriage and wanted another (married) man that was Mormon, to simply pursue him and try to break up his marriage so that they could be together (because she claimed they were promised to each other in the pre-existence) and not worry about a divorce since the marriage was not really legal or binding? This is simply ludicrous and doesn’t make sense even for Joseph’s time, which is why those like William Law opposed Joseph when they learned of his shenanigans.

This also applies to Smith’s behavior. It is obvious that Smith chose these women and then convinced them to “marry” him, claiming he could “save” them and their families; that they were created for him by God, or whatever other explanation he could think of that would convince them. (Like angels with swords). He had neither the right, nor the authority to do so under the very rules he claimed God gave to him for the Church to abide by, but since he was designated as the “lawgiver” and “prophet” of the Church, everything he said (no matter how contradictory) was to be obeyed by these women and their husbands.

As Smith’s teaching spread that only Mormon men could “save” women in the afterlife, some women were obviously persuaded to go after Mormon men, especially those in high ranking positions who they felt had the most prestige and a better chance of “saving” them. This was also the case with men and the law of adoption, which we will discuss below.

Others like Catherine Lewis, Nancy Rigdon, Martha Brotherton, Sarah Pratt, and Jane Law were repulsed by the doctrine and rejected it. There was a good reason why Smith tried to marry women who were related to each other or were the sisters of wives of his close friends. He could persuade their relatives and friends (who in most cases were members) that helping him (Smith) was helping the family in the next life. They (the members being approached about polygamy) also for the most part had a “testimony” of Smith’s prophetic calling, and would put aside their initial doubts and fears after Smith assured them that they were pursing the right course.

Hales acts like this is something unique, that if no one complained, nothing “wrong” was done. Once again, we have all of history to show us that this is simply not the case; that many are and were fooled by men they put their complete trust in, especially in religious matters.

Zina Young

Hales then tries to muddy the waters by claiming,

Again there was no alleged “openness” by Zina Young. These were comments made to Ann Eliza Webb that were private since she didn’t claim that the conversation was made in a public setting. We also have Zina herself admitting that she did talk about it. She says, “I never breathed it for years”. This is something that a person would only say after they had “breathed it”. If one does something and does not speak of it, they say “I never spoke of it”. If one did speak of it, eventually, one says, I did not speak of it … for years. If Zina Huntington never spoke of such things, then why did she say, “We spoke of it only in whispers”? This implies that yes, Zina did speak of such matters, but only “in whispers”, (in Nauvoo) and then again years later, perhaps to someone like one of her sister wives (In private, not openly). Zina’s remarks here are contradictory and Hales’ interpretation of them is contrived to support an argument based on his own red herring.

Also, on his website Hales claims that:

“In light of the contradictory evidence and the inability of historians to examine the described document, the credibility of this story is not established and should be quoted with caution.”[48]

Isn’t it kind of hypocritical of Hales to quote this interview with Zina, when he claims that the RLDS Church (who published the interview) doctored the Temple Lot Case testimony and that they can’t be trusted; and goes after Jeremy for doing so? But without it, Hales’ claims about Zina Huntington fall apart as do his criticisms of Jeremy Runnells.

Concerning Zina Huntington Young, there is no reason to give credence to her “declared reticence” to keep totally silent about her marriage to Joseph Smith during the Nauvoo years because there is a declaration that she spoke of it “only in whispers” because “the walls had ears”. It cannot be both.

It was obviously to protect herself and Smith that she “spoke of it only in whispers” in Nauvoo. And this could also have been Zina’s own paranoia. For example, this makes far more sense if Zina was approached by Smith early (like in 1840 or 1841), a scenario that Hales rejects, even though Zina’s own descendants affirm this.[49] Later, when Smith was marrying more women, he was more open about it as the testimony of Melissa Lott Willes affirms.[50] Smith also had many more wives, who obviously helped Smith recruit new ones and supported each other. Helen Mar Kimball claimed later that she was close to Sarah Ann Whitney (another of Smith’s spiritual wives) during the Nauvoo period.[51]

To illustrate this, in all her Temple Lot Testimony, Melissa Lott never once mentions that it was “taboo” to talk about her “marriage” to Joseph which took place on September 20, 1843, and she admitted having sex with Joseph Smith! She also claims that some of her family attended her “wedding” ceremony. This is hardly someone who was worried that “the walls had ears”. For example, here is her testimony about her being “married” to Smith:

Malissa Lott Smith Bernhisel Willes

79 Q:–Now was this marriage public or private? A:–There was quite a number present.

81 Q:–Answer the question,–was it public of [sic] private? A:–It was not very private.
82 Q:–Who was present? A:–I can’t remember all who were there.
83 Q:–Well give us the names of the parties who were present as well as you can remember them? A:–My father and mother were there and several others and they are all in their graves today but myself.
84 Q:–Well who else was present besides yourself, your father and your mother? A:–Joseph Smith was there.
85:–Q:–Well I know that, but who else was there? A:–Well some of my brothers, — one of my brothers, and the witnesses that were necessary.[52]

Though Melissa Lott testified that Emma was notified, she was not present and so that was simply hearsay from Joseph Smith who we know did not inform Emma of any of his “marriages” until he was caught and had to; so there is no reason to believe that Smith informed Emma about this one either.[53]

This of course is long after Smith approached Zina Huntington. Hales’ assertion that Huntington’s relationship to Smith was non-sexual is troubling when considering what Zina herself wrote later,

When I heard that God had revealed the law of celestial marriag that we would have the privilige of associating in family relationship in \the/ worlds to come I searched the scripture & buy humble prayer to my Heavenly Father I obtained a testimony for himself that God had required that order to be established in his church. I mad[e] a greater sacrifise than to give my life for I never anticipated again to be look uppon as an honerable woman by those I dearly loved could I compremise conscience lay aside the sure testimony of the spirit of God for the Glory of this world. [54]

If these “marriages” were simply a ceremony for the next world, Huntington surely would not have felt that her honor was compromised, since the marriage would not be for “time”, but for the afterlife. Hyrum Smith would later openly preach about being “sealed” to his first (dead) wife while being married to another in April, 1844. Why would it be a greater sacrifice than her life to only be “sealed” to Smith in a marriage that would not affect her at all until the afterlife? Hales’ scenario makes no sense. Yet, according to Hales,

… Zina was undoubtedly aware that the RLDS interviewer was trying to establish that Joseph Smith did not experience conjugal relations with anyone but Emma, his legal wife. An admission by Zina that her marriage was for “eternity only” and without sexual relations played right into Wight’s hands by providing him with the exact evidence he was seeking.

Nonetheless, Zina knew that some of Joseph’s plural marriages were for “time and eternity” and included connubial relations. As a consequence, she may have been reticent to comply with Wight’s designs by providing evidence that might have used to perpetuate a deception.[55]

If she was so savvy about what was going on why does Zina demand to know of John W. Wight near the end of the interview, “what is your object in quizzing me like this?” Zina Young also seemed to not be able to make up her mind if she was married for “time” or “time and eternity”, which casts doubt on Hales’ assertion that some of the “marriages” were eternity only non-sexual sealings.

When Wight asks her at the end of the interview, “Mrs. Young, you have stated that you were married to Joseph Smith for time and eternity. Now, how could you marry Joseph Smith for time when at the same time you were married to Mr. Jacobs?” Zina does not correct Wight, instead she says “I do not wish to reply. I only know that this is the work of God upon the earth…”[56]

This makes little sense since it was known by many for years that Zina had been one of Joseph Smith’s plural wives. Wight even gives her the perfect opportunity to do so, but she declines! Why would she have so much trouble speaking about what was only (according to Hales) an eternity only non-sexual sealing that took place decades earlier and was well known by the public? After all, she had been a polygamous wife to Brigham Young for decades. Common sense tells us that this was about more than just a “non-sexual sealing.” Another thing to think about is that Zina did not want to give Wight exactly what he wanted because it would have been a lie.

Instead, we see that Zina’s attitude towards anyone asking her questions about her polygamous “marriage” to Smith was hostile. She herself claimed that “I never anticipated again to be looked upon as an honerable woman by those I dearly loved…” It is obvious that Huntington just doesn’t care about Wight, or his case. In many cases, these women only thought they would have to answer that they were Joseph’s wives, which they were happy to do. They did not anticipate having to be cross examined and resented it. Zina didn’t really want to answer those kinds of questions and dodged most of them. Hales’ speculations here are absurd.

It would have been much easier for Zina to talk with Ann Eliza Young about such matters, for she was also a spiritual wife. Wight (an outsider) was asking her the very questions that she had claimed were such a trouble to her conscience. Again, if this was not about sex, why was Zina so troubled by her marriage to Joseph? If it was secret and only for “eternity” and non-sexual then how would her status as an honorable woman come into play, especially so many years after the fact? She had been a polygamous wife to Brigham Young for years as we have mentioned above. Why was the period she spent with Joseph Smith so hard for her to explain? The answer is because it was for time and eternity and involved sexual relations with two men simultaneously just as Ann Eliza was told by Zina herself.

Hales claims that there are problems with Zina’s own family reminiscences because they do not fit the narrative he is promoting, but these family recollections agree with what Ann Eliza Young claimed that Zina Huntington told her.[57]

Hales would rather rely on the evidence from the 1898 interview, given under hostile circumstances which clearly shows Zina Young unwilling to answer even the most innocuous of questions without interjecting “that is none of your concern,” or “that is no matter”. Hales will even quote this to rebut Jeremy’s claims about Zina Huntington even though he warns on his website that it is a “suspect” interview. Contrast that with Melissa Lott Willes’ testimony during the Temple Lot Case,

227 Q:–Did you ever room with Joseph Smith as his wife? A. Yes sir.

228 Q:– At what place? A:– At Nauvoo
229 Q:– What place in Nauvoo? A:– The Nauvoo Mansion.
230 Q. At what place in the Mansion? A. Do you want to know the number of the room, or what?
231 Q. Well just what part of the house the room was in if you can give it? A. Well I can give it and the number of the room too. It was room number one.
232 [sic] Q. Room number one? A. Yes sir.
233 Q:–Who else roomed there? A:–I don’t know of any one.
234 Q:–Where was Emma Smith at that time? A:–I don’t know I didn’t ask where she was.
235 Q:–Did you know where she was at that time? A:–No sir I didn’t.
236 Q:–Did she know where you were at that time? A:–I did not ask her whether she did or not.
237 Q:–So you roomed with him in the Nauvoo Mansion in room number one? A:–Yes sir.
238 Q:–That was the house that Joseph Smith lived in was it not? A:–Yes sir.
239 Q:–And you don’t know whether Emma Smith was in the house or not? A:–No sir.
240 Q:– And you can’t say whether she knew where you were? A:–No sir. I couldn’t say where she was, and I don’t know that she knew about me, for I did not speak to her.
241 Q:–Well she was at home? A: Yes sir.
242 Q:–How do you know? A:–She was there when I see her last.
243 Q:–What time was that? A:–That I saw her?
244 Q:–Yes madam? A:–I can’t tell you the time, If I had thought I was to be asked all these questions I might have kept a note of all these things, but as I didn’t know anything about this examination I didn’t.
245 Q:–How often did you room there with Joseph Smith? A. Well that is something I can’t tell you.
246 Q:–Well was it more than once? A:–Yes sir, and more than twice.
247 Q:–Well that is something I would like to know? A:–Well there is something I would like to know. If I am to be asked these questions I would like to know if I am to answer them. I have told you all about this thing that I know, and I can’t see any reason in your worrying me with these questions, and I would like to know if I have to answer them?
248 Q:–Well if you decline to answer them say so, and that will do? A:–I don’t decline to answer any question that I know anything about.
249 Q:–Well answer that question then? A:–What is the question?
250 Q:–I asked how many times you had roomed there in the house with Joseph Smith? I do not expect you to answer positively the exact number of times, but I would like to have you tell us the number of times as nearly as you can remember it? A:–Well I can’t tell you. I think I have acted the part of a lady in answering your questions as well as I have, and I don’t think you are acting the part of a gentleman in asking me these questions.
251 Q:–Well I will ask you the question over again in this form, –was it more than twice? A:–Yes sir.
252 Q:–Well How many times? A:–I could not say.
253 Q:–Did you ever at any other place room with him? A:–In what way.
254 Q:– Of course I mean as his wife? A:–Yes sir.
255 Q:– At what places? A:–In my father’s house.[58]

Of course, Willes here is concerned with answering “like a lady”, but her testimony is not near as hostile as Zina Young’s was. Hales has the evidence, but won’t see anything but what he wants to see in it. A good example of this is with the testimony above. If one goes to Hales’ website and reads it, Hales does not list the question numbers (so you have no idea there is a break except for some small ellipsis) and so he leaves out much pertinent information about Emma Smith being in the Mansion and Melissa Lott never seeing her or interacting with her; and that she was frustrated in having to reveal intimate details about her relations with Smith, even though she knew ahead of time that this was why she was called. She was much better about this though, than Zina Huntington ever was, who was extremely hostile about it and refused to answer any questions with any real clarity except to defend Joseph Smith as a “prophet”. Zina was married to two men, while Malissa Lott was only married to one. Zina’s final “I only know that this is the work of God upon the earth…” is really the only point she wanted to make.

From Wille’s testimony it can be deduced that Emma Smith didn’t know the full purpose of why she was there at the Mansion House, since (according to Willes) the two women never spoke or met there. She saw Emma when she left the Mansion House, but doesn’t remember when that was and after Joseph’s death she even stayed with Emma for awhile. This would not have been all right with Emma if she had known that Malissa had been secretly married to her husband.

This is hardly an open “marriage” that Emma knew all about. What is interesting is that on another part of his website Hales does provide some of the missing testimony of Melissa Lott, but does not include the testimony about Emma Smith.

The testimony in bold above, is all the testimony that Hales leaves out (on his page about Melissa Lott Willes), which is very relevant in getting a complete picture of her testimony. Hales claims to have “the latest research” but tries to manipulate that research to his own irrational ends. Also, this “latest research” is scattered over his entire website, with plenty of Hales’ conjectures sandwiched between it. It is not a collection of evidence by topic that one can easily find and read (like the one here at fullerconsideration.com) without having to wade through Hales obvious apologetic speculations.[59]

Hales is hardly the person to be judging the correctness of Jeremy Runnell’s conclusions, how he arrived at them, or declaring deception by him because as we can see, more than one historian has arrived at the same conclusions as Jeremy, something Hales does not address or acknowledge in his hit piece on Jeremy. In fact, Jeremy provides ample documentation to show that Hales’ conclusions differ from almost every historian that has published major works on polygamy. Here is one example by Jeremy of a graphic which was included in a presentation by Brian Hales at a FAIRMORMON Conference.[60]

Hales then tries to bring out his same tired argument that D&C 132 isn’t really about polygamy and that sexuality is not needed. He then claims that “it appears that Runnells is unaware of Joseph Smith’s teachings dealing with plural marriage.” Well, we know that Helen Mar Kimball was “aware” and she completely disagrees with Hales’ forced presentist interpretation of Section 132.[61]

Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, who was pressured into “marrying” Joseph Smith when she was only 14 years old explains on page 7 of a pamphlet she published in 1884 titled Why we practice Plural Marriage, that Smith established polygamy and “all who entered into it in righteousness (including herself) have done so for the purpose of “raising up righteous seed”.[62]

Whitney here admits that polygamy is about the mandate to “raise up righteous seed’. In fact, the entire pamphlet is all about this, because Joseph Smith taught that there are many choice spirits waiting to take mortal bodies and this is how the bodies are provided for them. (By sex and plural marriage).

Helen Mar Kimball Whitney

Even in Smith’s Book of Mormon it claims that if polygamy is commanded by God it would be done for the purpose of raising up seed.[63] You can’t raise up righteous seed by not having sex with the women who you marry for that purpose now, can you? Only in Brian Hales’ world is this logical or rational.

Even though Whitney claims that the only reason for polygamy is to raise up righteous seed and that all who “righteously” enter into it do so for that purpose, the conflict in her “marriage” to Joseph Smith was that initially she was lied to about this.[64]

It seems that it is Brian Hales (who references this pamphlet in his writings) who is unaware of Smith’s Nauvoo teachings dealing with polygamy even though he has the evidence right in front of him.

Michael Quinn has spent years in the Church Archives gathering and analyzing original documents that have to do with Joseph Smith’s polygamy and his conclusions are far different than those of Brian Hales. For example, Hales writes at Rational Faiths,

The second woman, Helen Mar Kimball, was offered to Joseph as a plural wife by her father Heber C. Kimball. I agree this seems strange and possibly unfair to Helen. Regardless, there is no evidence the Prophet initiated the process and Helen remained a strong believer in Joseph Smith throughout her life. Importantly, there is strong evidence the sealing was never consummated and no supportive evidence that it was. Joseph was also sealed to a 16 year old (Flora Ann Woodworth) in a plural marriage that probably was not consummated. The pattern in Utah was to allow sealings to younger women, but not to live with the woman until she was 18. I believe this policy began with the Prophet, but there is no way to prove it.[65]

Hales’ “strong evidence” is simply a series of conjectures that he postulates and has no way of knowing could be true. There is though, “strong evidence” that Helen Mar Kimball had sex with Joseph Smith. Catherine Lewis, who was courted by Heber C. Kimball to become one of his polygamous wives and lived with the Kimballs in Nauvoo, wrote in 1848:

The Twelve took Joseph’s wives after his death. Kimball and Young took most of them; the daughter of Kimball was one of Joseph’s wives. I heard her say to her mother, “I will never be sealed to my Father, (meaning as a wife) as I would never have been sealed (married) to Joseph, had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it. I say again, I will never be sealed to my Father; no, I will sooner be damned and go to hell, if I must. Neither will I be sealed to Brigham Young.” The Apostles said they only took Joseph’s wives to raise up children, carry them through to the next world, there deliver them up to him, by so doing they should gain his approbation, &c.[66]

This is a remarkable statement that has been discounted by those like Brian Hales and Todd Compton as having problems because it was overheard and related by what Hales deems an “anti-Mormon source”, and that there was no doctrine in place about daughters being sealed to their fathers. Some have also claimed that this is hearsay, but actually it is not, since Catherine Lewis actually heard the conversation herself. Catherine Lewis did have direct knowledge that Helen Kimball told this to her mother because she was there and heard it. (See Note #77.)

Then there is the case of Flora Ann Woodworth. Hales writes that her marriage to Joseph Smith was “probably” not consummated. But that is simply wishful thinking and that is the best he can do. So how can Hales condemn Jeremy for his own conclusions, and call them “lyings” from Satan? As Jeremy writes,

Imagine you spent 50 years living with your devoted spouse, fully intending to be married together in heaven for all eternity, just like you have enjoyed on earth for the last 50 years and then the prophet says he wants your wife to be his 33rd wife. So, in the next life you don’t get your devoted wife of 50 years; instead you have to find another. Are we to believe that God actually commanded the prophet to do this? This is even crueler than having someone else have sex with your wife.

What moral justification can possibly be made for marrying other living men’s legally and lawfully married wives? Most of them were good LDS men. Orson Hyde was an Apostle on the Lord’s errand in Palestine to dedicate the land for the gospel when Joseph married his wife Marinda Hyde behind his back. Henry B. Jacobs was a faithful Latter-day Saint who served missions at great hardship. Other men were likewise on missions for the Church giving their time in service to the Church as faithful Latter-day Saints. What a wonderful reward for their service, loyalty, and dedication to the gospel.

How would a married, faithful, LDS man (even if he wasn’t sealed to his wife) feel today if he were to accept a mission call, only to return to find that Thomas S. Monson had secretly married and was sealed to his wife?[67]

Jeremy is right to declare that FAIRMORMON is completely wrong in declaring that polyandrous marriages had “little effect upon the lives of the women involved”. Sixteen year old Flora Woodworth was not happy having to “marry” Joseph Smith, especially when she had to deal with Emma’s unpredictable fury. It seems that Joseph Smith had given Flora a watch and that Emma saw her with it. Emma then confronted Woodworth and angrily demanded it back. The very next day after this encounter, Woodworth up and married a non member of the Church, Carlos Gove. D. Michael Quinn picks up the story from there:

Hales also acknowledged that (during the week after her legal marriage to non-Mormon Carlos Gove in August 1843 at the nearby town of Warsaw), Joseph Smith’s previously married wife Flora Ann Woodworth met with the Prophet alone at William Clayton’s house in Nauvoo, while Clayton was intentionally absent. Hales argues in today’s presentation that Joseph Smith’s private secretary was too discreet to record these encounters if they were for sexual intercourse.

He also sees significance in the fact that Clayton’s journal did not refer to “bed” or “bedroom” for these solitary appointments of the two at Clayton’s house. However, Clayton’s journal referred to performing a polygamous marriage for the Prophet, referred to Emma Smith’s jealousy about Joseph Smith’s polygamous wives Eliza R.Snow, Eliza Partridge, Emily Partridge, and Flora Woodworth, referred to the Prophet’s suspicions about “familiarity” between his legal wife Emma and Clayton, referred to the polygamous marriages of Joseph B. Noble, Vinson Knight, Parley P. Pratt, and Brigham Young, referred to the Prophet’s performing Clayton’s own polygamous marriage, referred to Clayton sexually consummating it three days afterward (with no reference to “bed” or “bedroom”),referred to his own cohabitation-visits with this plural wife (with no reference to “bed” or “bedroom”), admitted that “I had slept with her” (no reference to “bed” or “bedroom”), referred to her pregnancy, referred to what Joseph said would be the meaningless punishment if they were exposed to public condemnation, and Clayton’s journal referred to the birth of his polygamous wife’s child, as well as to its death.

There is no basis whatever to claim that an alleged “discretion” on Clayton’s part prevented him from also referring obliquely to Joseph Smith’s sexual trysts that were scheduled for Clayton’s house. Flora later said that she “felt condemned for” her “rash” decision “in a reckless moment “to marry this young non-Mormon, a remorse the 16-year-old girl probably experienced the morning after. Two subsequent trysts with the 37-year-old Prophet in Clayton’s house on consecutive days showed how much she regretted marrying a younger man earlier in the week.

William Clayton, Nauvoo

It strains credulity for Hales to claim in today’s presentation that it required those visits–beginning two days after Joseph Smith had already met with her and her mother–for him to inform Flora repeatedly that he was ending their own relationship. By contrast with what Hales asserts about her alleged “DIVORCE,” Joseph actually ended his polygamous marriages with two sisters during the same year by abruptly informing them of the fact.

Although he had previously “roomed” with Emily and Eliza Partridge individually, with whom he had “carnal intercourse,” Joseph Smith didn’t take two consecutive days in Clayton’s otherwise empty house to tell a wife that their polygamous relationship was finished–especially, if he had already announced that fact to Flora and her mother. Emily’s candor (which was “forced out of her under adversarial questioning,” while she was under oath) was as far as middle-class women of Victorian America could go in referring to sexual intercourse.

More typical was the published statement of the Prophet’s polygamous wife Lucy Walker, who married Apostle Heber C. Kimball after she became a widow. I am also able to testify that Emma Smith, the Prophet’s first wife, gave her consent to the marriage of at least four other girls to her husband, and that she was well aware that he associated with them as wives within the meaning of all that word implies.

Her opaque phrase referred to Emily D. Partridge, Eliza M. Partridge, Maria Lawrence, and Sarah Lawrence. Like Lucy Walker, who stated that her own marriage to Joseph involved sex, those four had married him during the spring of 1843. Marrying him in September of that year, Malissa Lott said: “The Prophet … explained it to her, that it was not for voluptuous love”—yet when asked decades later if she had been his wife “in very deed,” Malissa affirmed that she was. Furthermore, even Hales admits: “It seems probable that emotional and physical attraction played a part in some of Joseph’s plural relationships.”[68]

Of course, Hales is the one who knows exactly which relationships were physical and which weren’t. For Hales, everything he contests must be totally spelled out or he simply will not believe it. He writes,

In the aftermath of her daughter’s marriage to Carlos Gove, Flora’s mother once again entered the picture attempting to assist her strong-willed daughter. On August 26 Clayton wrote: “Joseph met Mrs. W[oo]d[wor]th and F[lora] and conversed some time.” Clayton’s journal also reports two additional visits between Joseph and Flora at Clayton’s home, occurring August 28 and 29. These meetings were undoubtedly to deal with the future of Flora’s sealing to the Prophet, as well as to consider the theological consequences of her rash decision to marry Gove. Joseph was positioned to judge (D&C 132: 46) and apply needed disciplinary measures, a process that might have included additional meetings beyond August 29 that Clayton did not record.[69]

So Joseph Smith met with Flora Woodworth and her mother on August 26 and “conversed some time”, and then had to meet with her on two more consecutive days to iron out disciplinary details? First, this was one of Smith’s “wives”. She was a sixteen year old girl that Smith decided to “marry” and add to his already large collection of “wives”, who Helen Mar Kimball Whitney said agreed to “raise up righteous seed” when they were married to the “prophet”. This means that every marriage was expected to involve sex, (both in this world or the world to come) period. There are simply no exceptions to this rule. D&C 132 does not allow any exceptions:

…for they [spiritual wives] are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.[70]

Why would this be any different for Joseph’s spiritual wives? Hales has no reasonable answer to this, and no evidence that it would be different for any of his spiritual wives. Hales objects to Quinn’s interpretation that Flora had sex with the “prophet” in those two days because,

“it ignores the moral, emotional, theological, and traditional values that were embraced by most Nauvooans (and probably Flora Ann as well). Those values would have universally labeled such activities as promiscuous. That she would have repeatedly engaged in such low behavior seems less likely.”[71]

Yet, Flora had no problems secretly and illegally “marrying” a man much older than herself and doing so behind the back of his legal wife! This was absolutely considered by society as “low behavior”. So she was already engaging in it! She had no objections to meeting with the prophet alone. She also had no problem leading on young Orange Wight, who she didn’t tell about her “marriage” to Smith, and who had to find out from Flora’s mother that she was “married” to Smith after getting caught together by the “prophet” who appears to have been stalking her. Smith supposedly spies Wight and Woodworth walking along the street “near his house” and picks them up in his carriage. He drives them all over town and this conveniently allows Smith to question Wight. Wight also says that he had to give Flora “a mild lecture” for leading him on like she did.[72]

This is the person that Hales states had such impeccable 19th Century morals? Self proclaimed “prophets” throughout history have proved that they can easily compromise the morals of almost anyone.[73] As Dan Vogel writes,

There’s more to historiography than simply collecting document[s]. You should know the difference between a strong and weak argument and what is more or less likely. What does it mean “in accordance with his teachings” when JS frequently changed his teachings? It’s like saying the BOM doesn’t teach a modalistic concept of the Godhead, or the Lectures on Faith don’t teach a binitarian view because that would contradict what he clearly taught in Nauvoo. Or, the BOM can’t be anti-Masonic because he became a Mason in Nauvoo. These are all examples of the Idealist Fallacy, because humans do contradict themselves and violate their own teachings. However, JS may have had a way of rationalizing his polyandrous marriages. He did say that whatever God commands is right no matter what it is—even if it seems abominable to us.

Next, your expectation that some of the dozen women would have complained about JS’s proposals is an attempt at an argument from silence. I say attempt because some women did complain. I can think of two: Sarah Pratt and Jane Law.

You might issue your challenge to prove JS had sex with his polyandrous wives, but do you conclude JS only had sex with his polygamous wives for whom there is evidence? No. Why? Because you assume marriage includes sexual access. You only engage in this sort of special pleading with polyandrous wives because you personally find the notion abhorrent. Nonetheless, you didn’t respond to my counter challenge to produce evidence that JS treated his polyandrous wives different than the other polygamous wives. You are the one with a theory that needs evidence. You are attempting to take advantage of a silence in the historical record where one is expected. Here is a test of your theory: Look at the historical record of other early 19th century childless marriages and see how often you can demonstrate they had sex.[74]

Hales also writes that “The pattern in Utah was to allow sealings to younger women, but not to live with the woman until she was 18. I believe this policy began with the Prophet, but there is no way to prove it.”[75]

Actually that was not any kind of “pattern” but rather, as Todd Compton writes, “there are cases of Mormons in Utah marrying young girls and refraining from sexuality until they were older.”[76]

And how many would that be? Where is the documentation by Hales to prove this was a common practice? Nowhere to be found. This is hardly a “policy” and to even suggest that this “began with the prophet” Joseph Smith has no evidentiary basis, rather, the evidence shows that Smith did indeed have sex with his young wives.[77]

Though Compton says that the evidence for Helen Mar Kimball Whitney is “ambiguous”, we still have the statement by Whitney herself that the only reason women practiced polygamy was to raise up righteous seed. We also have Catherine Lewis’ recollection made just a few years after Helen claimed that she was “deceived” about polygamy being only a “ceremony”, and that they deceived her (her Father and Joseph Smith).

If Helen Kimball was to be some kind of token wife until she was 18, what was the great “trial” she spoke of? Not going to a few dances? Really? Why did she tell her mother then, that if she had known it would be more than ceremony she would have backed out? It was obvious that she was not attracted to older men. After Smith died she married a man much closer to her age, rejecting the offer of Smith’s Apostles to be one of their wives.

There is also the letter from her father who stated that he and her mother “seek your welfare for time as well as eternity.” Heber Kimball also states in that letter:

You have done that which will be for your everlasting good for this world and that which is to come.”[78]

Certainly Joseph had lots of other “wives” that he would have needed to spend time with. Since men and women could be sealed at any time in the Church, what was the hurry for Smith to have these women sealed to him, unless it was to consummate a “marriage” to “raise up seed”? If the “marriages” did not have to involve sex, then why would an angel appear to him with a drawn sword (as he claimed)? To prod him into non-sexual “sealings”? Only in Hales’ irrational world.

Why would Smith have a problem with this idea? Why choose married women when there were lots of single women to choose from? Why arrange “front” husbands, if it were all just for the next life? If God is just, as Smith claimed, then they would have been his in eternity anyway. This was about convenience for Smith and who could keep secrets, or he simply would have married anyone.

There would certainly be ways of judiciously explaining such a doctrine as Hyrum Smith did in 1844. If, as Brian Hales asserts, polygamy is only some sort of appendage to monogamous “sealing”, and “non-sexual eternity only sealings fulfill the primary purpose”, then why would Smith ever have to consummate any of the spiritual marriages? To fulfill the letter of the law? Since when does God accept only token compliance? This is simply an apologist excuse, and makes little sense, especially when Smith claimed that God promised to give him whatever he asked for.[79]

In fact, what happened to Heber C. Kimball himself casts doubt on the concept of non-sexual sealings, as his first choice to marry after being commanded by Smith was to choose older women that would not involve sexuality. As Helen Mar Kimball later wrote,

“When first hearing the principle taught, believing that he would be called upon to enter into it, he had thought of two elderly ladies named Pitkin, great friends of my mother’s who, he believed, would cause her little, if any, unhappiness. But the woman he was commanded to take was an English lady named Sarah Noon, nearer my mother’s age, who came over with the company of Saints in the same ship in which father and Brother Brigham returned from Europe. She had been married and was the mother of two little girls, but left her husband on account of his drunken and dissolute habits. Father was told to take her as his wife and provide for her and her children, and he did so. [80]

Smith rejected Kimball’s initial choice and told him to take a younger wife he could have sex with, claiming that such an arrangement was “of the devil”. We know this because Kimball had children with her, and Lorenzo Snow affirmed it. (See Note above). Heber C. Kimball’s marriage to Sarah Noon was not a “non-sexual sealing”. Why then, would Smith not be satisfied with Heber C. Kimball’s first choice if this was all about eternity? As for the concept of non-sexual sealings, there is strong evidence that they were very rare and only performed well after Smith’s death. This, of course is disputed by Mormon apologists, like those of SHIELDS who write in a review of Todd Compton’s book “In Sacred Loneliness”:

In discussing polyandry, LDS leaders have claimed that Joseph Smith was sealed to other men’s wives for eternity, rather than for time and eternity. Compton disallows this as implausible, noting “there are no known instances of marriages for ‘eternity only’ in the 19th century.” While specific instances may not be available, Joseph F. Smith, in his testimony before the senatorial committee investigating Reed Smoot, said that he was personally aware of such marriages occurring until about 20 years previous:

Mr. TAYLER. Living persons have been united for eternity, have they not?

Mr. SMITH. I think there have been some few cases of that kind.

Mr. VANCOTT. To what time, Mr. Tayler, do you limit your question?

Mr. TAYLER. I was going to ask him. How recently have you known that kind of a marriage?

Mr. SMITH. Not very recently.

Mr. TAYLER. Do you mean five years or twenty-five years?

Mr. SMITH. Oh, twenty years or more.

Joseph F. Smith’s testimony in this regard is important in another aspect, for he stated unequivocally, that sealings for eternity did not allow for earthly cohabitation. After Smith saying that it was possible to be sealed for time, time and eternity, or only for eternity, the committee chairman asked about the possible rights of cohabitation between those sealed only for eternity:

The CHAIRMAN. According to the doctrines of your church, did that carry with it the right of earthly cohabitation?

Mr. SMITH. It was not so understood.

The CHAIRMAN. Then, what is your—

Mr. SMITH. It does not carry that right.

Since such a marriage did not carry rights of cohabitation in 1904, it is plausible that Joseph F. Smith was simply describing a policy that had been in place since the days of Nauvoo. Evidence that this was also the policy in Nauvoo is found in the one historical document, largely ignored by Compton, specifying the parameters of plural marriage: the 132nd section of the Doctrine and Covenants. This document came as the revelation explaining and approving plural marriage, in an effort to justify Joseph Smith’s actions and convince doubters. If his actions included polyandry, it seems very strange that the revelation does not address that concept.[81]

There are some real problems with this argument, one of which is that Allred does not quote enough of Joseph F. Smith’s testimony to give an accurate picture of what he really said. Here is the testimony of Smith that relates to “sealings” given at the Smoot Hearings,

Mr. TAYLER. And do you have as many different kinds of marriage now as formerly ?

Mr. SMITH. We have as many different kinds of marriage now as formerly.
Mr. TAYLER. Let me call your attention to what I mean, because it will save time: Sealing for time only, sealing for time and eternity, and sealing for eternity only.
Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir.
Mr. TAYLER. Do you have those ?
Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir.
Mr. TAYLER. All three of them ?
Mr. SMITH. All three of them. …[82]
Mr. TAYLER. Do you perform celestial marriage ceremonies now?
Mr. SMITH. That is simply a marriage for time and eternity.
Mr. TAYLER. Time and eternity ?
Mr. SMITH. That is what it means, nothing more and nothing less.
Mr. TAYLER. That, according to the civil or municipal law, is an ordinary marriage, is it not?
Mr. SMITH. Those that are married in that way outside of the temples, it is simply a civil contract for time, but where they have obtained these licenses and go to the temples to be married they are sealed for time and eternity.
Mr. TAYLER. Are there sealings still going on for eternity alone, not for time?
Mr. SMITH. Not that I know of, unless the parties are dead.
Senator FORAKER. Do you marry people for eternity and not for time?
Mr. SMITH. When they are dead; yes, sir.
Senator FORAKER. You marry them after they are dead?
Mr. SMITH. After they are dead; and, Mr. Senator, we do not have to have a license from the court to do that.
Senator FORAKER. That is simply a church marriage?
Mr. SMITH. That is just simply a principle that we believe in, that men and women are immortal beings.
Senator FORAKER. Are both the parties to that marriage dead at the time it is solemnized?
Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir; they are often dead, and they are represented by their heirs, either their sons or daughters, or some of their kinsmen.
Mr. TAYLER. Living persons have been united for eternity, have they not?
Mr. SMITH. I think there have been some few cases of that kind.
Mr. VAN COTT. To what time, Mr. Tayler, do you limit your question?
Mr. TAYLER. I was going to ask him. How recently have you known that kind of a marriage?
Mr. SMITH. Not very recently.
Mr. TAYLER. Do you mean five years or twenty -five years?
Mr. SMITH. Oh, twenty years or more.
Mr. TAYLER. Is there any rule of the church prohibiting that kind of marriage?
Mr. SMITH. Not that I know of.
Mr. TAYLER. It has merely fallen into disuse; is that all?
Mr. SMITH. It has merely fallen into disuse; that is all. I do not know that it could be said to have fallen absolutely into disuse.
Mr. TAYLER. Or rather, that the principle which still adheres has not been invoked or exercised so often?
Mr. SMITH. No, sir; it has not been invoked.[83]

With further questioning we learn,

Mr. WORTHINGTON. You said you remembered two instances where persons had been sealed by the church for eternity; you said one or two instances?
Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir; one or two instances.
Mr. WORTHINGTON. How long ago were those?
Mr. SMITH. Twenty-five to thirty years ago.
Taylor then wants everyone to totally understand what Smith is saying and further questions him:
Mr. TAYLER. Just one question. I want to be sure that I understand you correctly. You say that Apostle Teasdale told you that to this wife, from whom he had to obtain a divorce, he had been sealed for eternity only?
Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir.
Mr. TAYLER. That he had not been married either for time or for time and eternity, but only for that third form eternity only?
Mr. SMITH. Well, now, Mr. Tayler, I could not tell you as to the form of the ceremony.
Mr. TAYLER. I understand that. I am not speaking about that. But it was merely for eternity ?
Mr. SMITH. That is the understanding they had. It was for eternity, and not for time.
Mr. TAYLER. Exactly; and therefore the relations between them as contemplated at the time of the ceremony were that they should never cohabit?
Mr. SMITH. Never cohabit.
Mr. WORTHINGTON. Therefore his relations with her were as chaste as if she were his sister or a stranger to him ?
Mr. SMITH. Perfectly so.[84]

With Smith’s full testimony before us, a completely different picture emerges about these “eternity only sealings.”

First, they were performed almost exclusively for the dead, meaning that a living person was sealed to a dead one, or a dead person to a dead person, since there would be no need to seal them for “time”.

Second, in all his time in the Church Joseph F. Smith had only heard about “one or two” eternity only sealings between two living people.

Third, it is those “one or two instances” that Smith was dating, giving one example of George Teasdale and one of his wives that had occurred a few decades before. They were sealed, but later divorced. According to Smith’s testimony, these kinds of sealings were very rare, since he had only heard of “one or two” in his entire lifetime. (Remember, Smith had collected as many affidavits from Joseph Smith’s polygamous wives that he could in 1869, so he was familiar with those “marriages” and still claims to only know about only one or two eternity only sealings between living persons). In fact they were so rare that Angus Cannon who also testified, had never performed or seen one.

Angus M. Cannon (who was the nephew of John Taylor) immigrated to Nauvoo in 1842 with his family and went west with the Church. His older brother was George Q. Cannon. He also served in the mission field with John Taylor and was the President of the Salt Lake City Stake and it was said of him that he “was without equal in the field of Church law.”[85]

At the Reed Smoot hearings Cannon testified about sealings:

Senator OVERMAN. What do you mean by a sealing-for-eternity ceremony?

Mr. CANNON. A marriage for eternity.

Senator OVERMAN. As different from a marriage upon this earth ?

Mr. CANNON. Sir?

Senator OVERMAN. Different from the ordinary marriage?

Mr. CANNON. Oh; there is a ceremony for marriage for time and also for eternity.

Senator OVERMAN. Are your wives sealed to you for time or for eternity?

Mr. CANNON. Time and eternity.

Senator OVERMAN. Time and eternity both all six of them?

Mr. CANNON. Yes, sir.

Senator OVERMAN. Are there such marriages as sealing for time and sealing for eternity, and some for time’ and some for eternity?

Mr. CANNON. I have witnessed many marriages for time. I never witnessed any for eternity and not for time.

Angus M. Cannon

Senator OVERMAN. Are there such marriages as that?

Mr. CANNON. I can not say whether there are or not. Of course there are marriages performed between living people and dead people, by having persons act vicariously for the dead.

Senator OVERMAN. There are such marriages, then, with dead people?

Mr. CANNON. That is necessarily for eternity. It cannot be for time.

Senator OVERMAN. I say, you do have such marriages as that?

Mr. CANNON. Yes, sir.

Senator OVERMAN. A living person marrying a dead person?

Mr. CANNON. By the dead person being represented by a living person.

Senator OVERMAN. By having a representative here on earth he marries a living person here ?

Mr. CANNON. Yes, sir; vicariously, the same as Paul spoke of baptism for the dead.

Senator OVERMAN. Have you seen such marriages as that?

Mr. CANNON. Yes, sir; acting for the dead.

Mr. TAYLER. That does not result in the marriage for time between the proxy and the person who is married to the other for eternity only, does it?

Mr. CANNON. No; it only relates to the dead.

Mr. TAYLER. Do you recall any instances in the history of the church where the proxy vicariously representing the dead person has insisted that for time the woman was his?

Mr. CANNON. No; I never heard of such a thing. We would cut them off the church if they did.

Mr. TAYLER. I would think so. That is all.[86]

Both of these men testified that they knew of sealings for eternity but they had to do with the dead. Cannon testifies that he never witnessed a marriage for eternity between two living persons and “could not say” if there were marriages only for “eternity” for two living people.

Joseph F. Smith, who only mentions knowing about “one or two” that occurred about twenty to thirty years before, which would be in the 1870-80’s. This testimony shows that “eternity-only” sealings were very rare between two living parties, and not the norm. They were so rare in fact that an expert on Church Law had never heard of one. To claim that Joseph Smith participated in over a dozen of these without any evidence is wishful thinking, given the testimony above.

SHIELDS though, has no qualms about taking this testimony from Joseph F. Smith and selectively quoting it to make it appear that these kinds of sealings were normal until about twenty years before the time when Joseph F. Smith testified.

As for Section 132, as Dan Vogel explains in response to Brian Hales about the similar apologetic interpretation of D&C 132 that Allred makes:

Brian: Your reading of D&C 22[:1] is anachronistic. You are attempting to apply an 1840s definition to an 1830 term. At the time it was given, only the Catholics considered marriage a religious ceremony. Protestants rejected marriage as a sacrament of the church. Mormons were no different. While they insisted that converts be rebaptized, they didn’t require them to be remarried.

“In Joseph Smith’s theology, a woman could never have two husbands.”

You are presumably basing this on the July 1843 revelation (D&C 132:61-62). Yet, you have admitted that JS married at least three women who had living husbands. So, to save your thesis, you propose the following ad hoc hypothesis: “A marriage sealing in the new and everlasting covenant would cause the civil marriage to be done away from a Church standpoint.” However, this interpretation is aided by your anachronistic borrowing from D&C 22, which you haven’t shown that JS applied to marriage in the 1840s. Yours is a private interpretation of scripture since the Church’s position has been that non-Mormon marriage, or Mormon marriage out side the temple for that matter, is valid and binding for this life only but is dissolved at death. This is apparently the view expressed in D&C 132:41-44, which mentions that it is considered adultery if either the husband or wife breaks the marriage “vow” even if their marriage was “not in the new and everlasting covenant”. Indeed, the Church has always treated non-temple marriage as legitimate.

Nevertheless, you have only shown that under a certain semantic construction JS didn’t commit adultery; there still remains the issue of sexual polyandry. In other words, you seem to be arguing two things simultaneously: JS didn’t have sex with married women, but if he did he didn’t consider it adultery. And you say I’m subtle. Polyandry is polyandry. The revelation’s use of the term “virgins” (132: 61-62) would tend to exclude your specialized definition, which would require you to go deeper into semantics and equivocation. I[t] turns out that when you say everyone but you has ignored JS’s theology, you mean they don’t understand it in the unique (and unlikely) way that you do.

Given JS previous marriages to married women, D&C 132 is apparently JS’s repentance from polyandry. Under the definition in verses 61-62, JS had committed adultery, but his salvation was assured as long as he didn’t commit murder or blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (D&C 132:19, 26-27). “I seal upon you your exaltation” (v. 49). The revelation warns not to judge JS, “for he shall do the sacrifice which I require at his hands for his transgressions” (v. 60). Makes you wonder what this revelation is really about, doesn’t it? Universal salvation was also part of JS’s secret theology (D&C 19).

[You say], “there is no credible historical evidence for the teaching and practice of sexual polyandry in Nauvoo or afterwards.”

I say, there is. What you mean to say is: there are no explicit teachings or discussions of polyandry. This should not be surprising, especially given the nature of our questions. We therefore must build circumstantial cases and decide which is the most reasonable, which deserves the most respect. Historians do that all the time. Even in the most perfectly documented world, an imaginative apologist can always find a way to escape evidence. Rarely is there a decisive piece of evidence that ends debate. The most that can be hoped for is that an interpretation becomes increasingly ad hoc as it tries to accommodate adverse evidence and eventually falls out of favor. I have a feeling that in responding to Quinn’s evidence, the ad hoc nature of your position will become more apparent.

[You say,]“Quinn has amassed a remarkable volume of alleged evidences, but none of them constitute a clear documentation of the behavior. Not even once.”

Quinn is doing what a historian does.

[You say,]“And, like you, he completely ignores the theology and the reactions of the alleged participants.”

What theology? The theology that shows JS contradicted his own teachings or the one that shows that he couldn’t contradict them? You want Quinn to commit the Idealist Fallacy? We have discussed this. You don’t know how the participants reacted.

[You say,]“What we can document is that there is an important difference theologically: sexual polygamy was acceptable and sexual polyandry was adultery.”

Not according to your definition discussed above. Again, you don’t know that BY and John Taylor knew about polyandry, if they saw it as hypocritical, or how they would have reacted. At what point do you start to question someone you believe is a prophet speaking for God and telling you to reject the norms of society? Being under the influence of a charismatic leader of a religious cult who is sexually abusing some of his followers is probably the clearest example of why the Idealist Fallacy exists. Humans aren’t always rational and do not always behave in predictable ways. None of these follows possessed the qualities of Emma, who was alone in standing up to JS. I hope you see that you are on very shaky ground when you rely on this kind of argument from silence.

I understand that Orson Pratt struggled with the conflicting stories of JS and his wife, nearly lost his mind, but finally decided in JS favor. That was a mistake. JS’s denials about Jane Law and Sarah Pratt are not credible. We know that he was willing to lie to cover up polygamy. On 26 May 1844, JS said: “What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one” (DHC 6:411). Given the fact that Orson was so distraught over the incident with his wife, it is really no surprise that he would ultimately side with JS. Regardless, OP’s opinion says nothing about the veracity of Sarah’s claim. Neither does the attempt of JS and some of his followers to malign Sarah in 1842 by claiming she had an illicit sexual affair with John C. Bennett. Not only should those statements be read with skepticism, but they are irrelevant. What possible motivation could Sarah have for falsely accusing JS and drawing certain persecution on herself? Where did she get the idea in 1842 that JS was entering polyandrous marriages?

Given the context, Jane Law is more believable than JS. In fact, JS’s version doesn’t make sense. JS has a reputation for proposing marriage to multiple women, including married women. What in Jane Law’s history tells you she would propose to JS? Where did she get such an idea? JS was denying polygamy in public and trying to keep the church from disintegrating, so why is it so incredible that he would lie about Jane and her husband? It’s a complicated story, but still a clear example of JS’s unsuccessfully trying to enter a sexual polyandrous marriage.[87]

This exchange between Hales and Vogel is very informative, because Hales continues to harp about what he claims is a major problem with Joseph Smith’s critics, that they don’t understand nor address his theology. For example in a Blog Article about the new Essays (that Hales possibly contributed to) on November 9, 2014, he writes:

In lauding the Church’s effort to explain this difficult topic, some may assume that in defending the essay we are in fact defending polygamy. We are not. On earth, polygamy expands a man’s sexual and emotional opportunities as a husband as it simultaneously fragments a woman’s sexual and emotional opportunities as a wife. The practice is difficult to defend as anything but unfair and at times emotionally cruel.

However, within the context of Joseph Smith’s teachings, a few eternal polygamists are needed. This reality is routinely ignored by almost all critics who often declare or imply that libido drove the process. That is, they allege the implementation of plural marriage occurred because Joseph wanted to expand his sexual opportunities. Those authors seem confident that any of the Prophet’s associated teachings were simply a cover up, so there was no need to take them seriously and it seems none of the critics of the essay do either.

Yet, this may be the greatest weakness of most of the critics’ arguments—they are simply incomplete. Joseph Smith taught that couples who are sealed in eternal marriage, not plural marriage, “shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, all heights and depths … and they shall pass by the angels, and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads, which glory shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever. Then shall they be gods” (D&C 132:19–20). A plurality of wives allows all worthy women to be sealed to a husband on earth and become eligible for these blessings in heaven. Any woman who is not sealed will: “remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to all eternity; and from henceforth are not gods, but are angels of God forever and ever” (v. 17).

It is easy to denounce polygamy on earth, but for believers, the discussions should also include the importance of plurality in eternity. As described in section 132, it allows all of God’s children to receive His promised blessings by making eternal marriage available to everyone who seeks it. As the essay explains: “Joseph Smith’s revelation on marriage declared the “continuation of the seeds forever and ever” helped to fulfill God’s purposes for His children. This promise was given to all couples who were married by priesthood authority and were faithful to their covenants” (paragraph 12).

It appears that readers of the essay may only be able to appreciate its value if they are able to appreciate Joseph Smith’s teachings about eternal marriage. Without that understanding, they will see only an unjust earthly practice that is easily condemned. The fact that the eternal contributions of plurality have not been addressed by virtually any critic suggests that additional study on the topic might result in different critiques of this watershed essay.[88]

Hales is absolutely defending polygamy no matter how hard he tries to deny this—that is painfully obvious. Hales has deftly tried to refocus what Section 132 is really all about, which we discuss below (See also, Note #61).

And “only a few” eternal polygamists are needed? Where does he get this from? Nowhere does the polygamy revelation stipulate this. This is simply an invention of the Hales.

He also tries to claim (again and again it seems) that “Joseph Smith’s theological teachings regarding plural marriage are universally ignored.” Actually, they are not. Let’s put this to the test with a good example here. Hales claims above that “The practice [of polygamy] is difficult to defend as anything but unfair and at times emotionally cruel.”

If Hales (as he claims) understands Joseph’s theology, then how can he make such a statement and reconcile it with Mormon theology? Especially in the light of this letter by Joseph Smith to Nancy Rigdon:

“Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God. But we cannot keep all the commandments without first knowing them, and we cannot expect to know all, or more than we now know unless we comply with or keep those we have already received. That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another.”

“God said, “Thou shalt not kill;” at another time He said “Thou shalt utterly destroy.” This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted—by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire. If we seek first the kingdom of God, all good things will be added. So with Solomon: first he asked wisdom, and God gave it him, and with it every desire of his heart, even things which might be considered abominable to all who understand the order of heaven only in part, but which in reality were right because God gave and sanctioned by special revelation.”

“A parent may whip a child, and justly, too, because he stole an apple; whereas if the child had asked for the apple, and the parent had given it, the child would have eaten it with a better appetite; there would have been no stripes; all the pleasure of the apple would have been secured, all the misery of stealing lost.”

“This principle will justly apply to all of God’s dealings with His children. Everything that God gives us is lawful and right; and it is proper that we should enjoy His gifts and blessings whenever and wherever He is disposed to bestow; but if we should seize upon those same blessings and enjoyments without law, without revelation, without commandment, those blessings and enjoyments would prove cursings and vexations in the end, and we should have to lie down in sorrow and wailings of everlasting regret. But in obedience there is joy and peace unspotted, unalloyed; and as God has designed our happiness—and the happiness of all His creatures, he never has—He never will institute an ordinance or give a commandment to His people that is not calculated in its nature to promote that happiness which He has designed, and which will not end in the greatest amount of good and glory to those who become the recipients of his law and ordinances. Blessings offered, but rejected, are no longer blessings, but become like the talent hid in the earth by the wicked and slothful servant; the proffered good returns to the giver; the blessing is bestowed on those who will receive and occupy; for unto him that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundantly, but unto him that hath not or will not receive, shall be taken away that which he hath, or might have had.”

Be wise today; ’tis madness to defer:

Next day the fatal precedent may plead.

Thus on till wisdom is pushed out of time

Into eternity.

“Our heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in His mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive; and, at the same time, is more terrible to the workers of iniquity, more awful in the executions of His punishments, and more ready to detect every false way, than we are apt to suppose Him to be. He will be inquired of by His children. He says: “Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find;” but, if you will take that which is not your own, or which I have not given you, you shall be rewarded according to your deeds; but no good thing will I withhold from them who walk uprightly before me, and do my will in all things—who will listen to my voice and to the voice of my servant whom I have sent; for I delight in those who seek diligently to know my precepts, and abide by the law of my kingdom; for all things shall be made known unto them in mine own due time, and in the end they shall have joy.”[89]

Claiming that polygamy is “unfair and emotionally cruel” by its very nature (which we all know it is) directly contradicts what Joseph Smith claimed: that God would never institute a commandment or ordinance that by its nature is unjust (Hales word) or designed to promote unhappiness or unfairness.

At lds.org they write,

God is just, true, and righteous in all things (see Revelation 15:3; Psalm 89:14; Ether 3:12).

The problem with the Hales is that they are not Mormon Authorities. They are simply apologists who promote irrational arguments to defend Joseph Smith’s practice of polygamy. What they claim directly contradicts what Joseph Smith taught: that “happiness is the object and design of our existence, and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it…” A foundational Mormon theological concept is that men and women are born on earth that they might experience joy. The Book of Mormon declares:

Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy. (2 Nephi 2:25)

How can one pursue the path to happiness when forced to live a principle that according to Brian Hales is by design “unfair and emotionally cruel”? This makes little sense theologically or otherwise. As Milton R. Hunter taught to a General Conference audience in 1954:

I believe with all my heart that God the eternal Father wants his children on this earth to have joy, an abundance of joy. I believe, also, that he expects members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we who have taken upon ourselves the name of Christ, to live an abundant, joyful, happy life. Our lives should be lived in such a way as to bring to us a fulness of joy today, tomorrow, next week, ten years from now, a hundred years from now, a thousand years from now, and even, throughout the eternities. I want to remind each of us that God has placed within the reach of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ the possibilities of that joy, that perpetual and eternal joy, if we will just obey the laws that bring that joy into our lives.[90]

This is Mormon Doctrine, not the invented doctrine of Brian Hales. How does a practice that is emotionally cruel and unfair at its core bring joy into the lives of those that are commanded to practice it? In the end, was polygamy “joy”? Not for the vast majority of the women involved in it along with many of the men. It may have been joyful to those men who could discard their women at will, like Brigham Young and Joseph Smith, (as he did with the Partridge sisters and others) but not for everyone else that was forced to live the principle or pay a hefty $10 divorce fee that Brigham Young charged. Most of them looked at it as an unpleasant duty to their religion. There were many cases (for example) of men who married more than one woman and then refused to live with any but one (their favorite) and they were condemned for it.

Even marriage according to the Apostle Paul, should never get in the way of the gospel and so he admonished those who were single to stay so, even as he was, but that if you felt the need to be married, do so.[91] Even Paul claimed that, “…those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this.”[92]

Yet Joseph gave polygamy as a commandment, not an option as Paul does with marriage.

Hales theological argument about polygamy makes little sense if one looks back historically at the practice. What does the importance of polygamy in eternity have to do with why Joseph Smith and other church leaders would inflict so much emotional damage on those they commanded to practice it on earth?

What sense does it make for God to command it on earth, if according to Hales, the focus of it is for eternity? (Or only monogamous eternal sealings?) We know why, as both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young taught, it was to raise up righteous seed.

Hales quotes Brigham Young in an effort to show that polygamy was instituted as some kind of “trial”:

I foresaw, when Joseph first made known this doctrine, that it would be a trial, and a source of great care and anxiety to the brethren, and what of that? We are to gird up our loins and fulfill this, just as we would any other duty.[93]

Yet Young also said in the same speech:

This revelation, which God gave to Joseph, was for the express purpose of providing a channel for the organization of tabernacles, for those spirits to occupy who have been reserved to come forth in the kingdom of God…[94]

But for Brigham Young the answer to those who might be discontented was simple:

Sisters, do you wish to make yourselves happy? Then what is your duty? It is for you to bear children,…are you tormenting yourselves by thinking that your husbands do not love you? I would not care whether they loved a particle or not; but I would cry out, like one of old, in the joy of my heart, ‘I have got a man from the Lord!” ‘Hallelujah! I am a mother–…’[95]

For many women, this was not happiness, although some looked back on their hard lives living with polygamy and were thankful for their children, who ultimately did bring many some measure of joy. This takes the focus off of eternity where Hales wants to exclusively put it, and back on earth where it belongs. That is the true context of Section 132, time and eternity, and this applies to Patriarchal Marriage as well as monogamous ones.

Hales claims that the critics ignore his claim that “within the context of Joseph Smith’s teachings, a few eternal polygamists are needed.“

What, exactly is “a few”? Hales doesn’t explain. That the sealing power was all about what was bound on earth would be bound in heaven is self evident. That this also applies to marriage was the “revelation” of Joseph Smith to the Mormons in Nauvoo. Hales claims that polygamy is also part of the “restoration of all things”, but then cannot adequately explain why it was discontinued as a practice, given all the statements by Joseph’s disciples who carried on with it after the Nauvoo period.

Hales writes:

Polygamy isn’t fair on earth. But according to Joseph Smith’s theology, every man and every woman must have a spouse in order to be exalted. The promise is that they “shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, all heights and depths. . . and a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever. Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them.” (D&C 132:19-20.)

If we can believe this promise, then the need for eternal plural sealings becomes more easy to embrace.

My experience is that instead people just roll their eyes and rant about earthly polygamy. But in doing so, I think they may denigrate the polygamous women of the nineteenth century who practiced it for that reason, because it was commanded.

God commanded it according to the early prophets. Can we call it “damnable”? I guess it is a faith thing.[96]

Easy for whom to embrace? Those who for whatever reason are compelled to defend polygamy, for sure. Yet, the argument isn’t about polygamy in heaven, but on earth and why it was necessary and commanded to be practiced on earth. Hales offers no rational answers here; only that it is a “faith thing”. One can say that everything is a trial for some. But the object and design of the plan of salvation according to Mormon theology is that we are here to experience joy. Why then, would polygamy really be necessary on earth if God can assign righteous women to men in the afterlife?

And both Jeremy and I are not denigrating the polygamous wives, we are criticizing the practice and those who instigated it: Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. And there is no passage in the Bible where God commands polygamy, but he does command any future king of Israel not to practice it:

I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me, you shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses; one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not set a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the LORD has said to you, ‘You shall not return that way again. Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. (Deuteronomy 17:14-17)

For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. (I Kings 11:4 )

The promise of the celestial kingdom is for all who live righteously, even children who never get married. So what makes polygamy necessary on earth except for raising up “righteous seed”? This is never adequately answered by Hales, given the above. He also writes:

Perhaps another point is that those close to Joseph were just as skeptical as you and me. I’ve often said Fawn Brodie did a hatchet job on Joseph Smith. But she did a bigger hatchet job on those around Joseph because she portrayed them as being too dumb or gullible to figure out the alleged immoralities that Brodie depicted in her book a hundred years later. Brodie wasn’t that smart and Brigham, Eliza, Zina and John (Taylor) were not that gullible.

Recently Alex Beam said Joseph’s hypocrisy was “breathtaking.” How ridiculous. Beam can detect breathtaking hypocrisy 170 years later that none of the Nauvoo polygamists apparently detected because if they had seen ANY hypocrisy, they would have left Joseph.[97]

The only hatchet job being done here is by Hales against the critics of polygamy and Joseph Smith. Then he claims in a subsequent comment:

There is no doubt that plural marriage was taught as necessary for exaltation between 1840s and 1890. And it was required for exaltation for those Latter-day Saints during that span.

However, I have not found any statement that unequivocally declares that all men in the upper degree of the CK are polygamists, irrespective of the time and place they lived.

God issues specialized commandments. Abraham had to live the law of circumcision, the Children of Israel lived the law of Moses, LDS between 1840s and 1890, polygamy. God knows why but He never told us why.

Joseph F. Smith explained it the best: “However, toward the beginning of the talk Joseph F. Smith clarified,

It [plural marriage] is a principle that pertains to eternal life, in other words, to endless lives, or eternal increase. It is a law of the Gospel pertaining to the celestial kingdom, applicable to all gospel dispensations, when commanded and not otherwise, and neither acceptable to God or binding on man unless given by commandment, not only so given in this dispensation, but particularly adapted to the conditions and necessities thereof, and to the circumstances, responsibilities, and personal, as well as vicarious duties of the people of God in this age of the world. God has revealed it as a principle.”

JFS outlines that it can be commanded or not commanded. It is not a law because it didn’t exist in the Book of Mormon–this is certain based upon the text.

Fundamentalists like to quote a few excerpts and then believe their sealings are valid, but God saw this day (see D&C 132:18) and authority is paramount.[98]

In yet another comment Hales claims:

Polygamy is not always commanded and it hasn’t been according to the Bible and Book of Mormon. I think that conclusion is historical. But neither do I find a quote saying every man in the Celestial Kingdom will be a polygamist. Do you have one?[99]

Brigham Young

Actually, we do have one. Brigham Young said:p

It is not polygamy that men fight against when they persecute this people; but, still, if we continue to be faithful to our God, he will defend us in doing what is right. If it is wrong for a man to have more than one wife at a time, the Lord will reveal it by and by, and he will put it away that it will not be known in the Church. I did not ask Him for the revelation upon this subject. When that revelation was first read to me by Joseph Smith, I plainly saw the great trials and the abuse of it that would be made by many of the Elders, and the trouble and the persecution that it would bring upon this whole people. But the Lord revealed it, and it was my business to accept it.

Now, we as Christians desire to be saved in the kingdom of God. We desire to attain to the possession of all the blessings there are for the most faithful man or people that ever lived upon the face of the earth, even him who is said to be the father of the faithful, Abraham of old. We wish to obtain all that father Abraham obtained. I wish here to say to the Elders of Israel, and to all the members of this Church and kingdom, that it is in the hearts of many of them to wish that the doctrine of polygamy was not taught and practiced by us. It may be hard for many, and especially for the ladies, yet it is no harder for them than it is for the gentlemen. It is the word of the Lord, and I wish to say to you, and all the world, that if you desire with all your hearts to obtain the blessings which Abraham obtained, you will be polygamists at least in your faith, or you will come short of enjoying the salvation and the glory which Abraham has obtained. This is as true as that God lives. You who wish that there were no such thing in existence, if you have in your hearts to say: “We will pass along in the Church without obeying or submitting to it in our faith or believing this order, because, for aught that we know, this community may be broken up yet, and we may have lucrative offices offered to us; we will not, therefore, be polygamists lest we should fail in obtaining some earthly honor, character, and office, etc.” The man that has that in his heart, and will continue to persist in pursuing that policy, will come short of dwelling in the presence of the Father and the Son, in celestial glory. The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy. Others attain unto a glory and may even be permitted to come into the presence of the Father and the Son; but they cannot reign as kings in glory, because they had blessings offered unto them, and they refused to accept them.

The Lord gave a revelation through Joseph Smith, His servant; and we have believed and practiced it. Now, then, it is said that this must be done away before we are permitted to receive our place as a State in the Union. It may be, or it may not be. One of the twin relics—slavery—they say, is abolished. I do not, however, wish to speak about this; but if slavery and oppression and ironhanded cruelty are not more felt by the blacks today than before, I am glad of it. My heart is pained for that unfortunate race of men. One twin relic having been strangled, the other, they say, must next be destroyed. It is they and God for it, and you will all find that out. It is not Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Daniel H. Wells and the Elders of Israel they are fighting against; but it is the Lord Almighty. What is the Lord going to do? He is going to do just as he pleases, and the world cannot help themselves.

I heard the revelation on polygamy, and I believed it with all my heart, and I know it is from God—I know that he revealed it from heaven; I know that it is true, and understand the bearings of it and why it is. “Do you think that we shall ever be admitted as a State into the Union without denying the principle of polygamy?” If we are not admitted until then, we shall never be admitted. These things will be just as the Lord will. Let us live to take just what he sends to us, and when our enemies rise up against us, we will meet them as we can, and exercise faith and pray for wisdom and power more than they have, and contend continually for the right. Go along, my children, saith the Lord, do all you can, and remember that your blessings come through your faith. Be faithful and cut the corners of your enemies where you can—get the advantage of them by faith and good works, take care of yourselves, and they will destroy themselves. Be what you should be, live as you should, and all will be well.[100]

Mormon apologists claim that this quote is always taken out of context. Well here is the whole quote in context. Young claims that if polygamy is wrong, the Lord would reveal it and it would be put away and not be known in the Church. Well, did this happen? No. Has the principle of polygamy ever been considered or taught as “wrong”? No. Do men still have more than one wife at the same time in the church? Yes, if their wife dies and they marry again for eternity. So it has not really been “put away”, has it?

Is this practice still known in the Church? Yes it is. Young never believed that polygamy would be revoked. What he predicted about Statehood came to pass and in Young’s prophetic mind, this condemned the Church. His prophetic warning that only those that practice polygamy become gods was ignored over keeping earthly possessions. What Smith died for, what Young left the United States for, and what John Taylor went into hiding for was thrown aside so that the Church could integrate with the Nation and disregard the doctrine of the gathering, something anathema to all of those former “prophets”. It was the failure of those prophecies by Smith, Young and Taylor that led to Woodruff’s compromise. Their “enemies” did not “destroy themselves.”

We have the statement by Joseph F. Smith (given when there was no First Presidency, therefore authoritative as coming from the ruling body of the church) who claimed that none would be exalted to thrones without practicing polygamy, because those who did deserve it more:

Patriarchal marriage involves conditions, responsibilities and obligations which do not exist in monogamy, and there are blessings attached to the faithful observance of that law, if viewed only upon natural principles, which must so far exceed those of monogamy as the conditions responsibilities and power of increase are greater. This is my view and testimony in relation to this matter. I believe it is a doctrine that should be taught and understood.[101]

Has the Lord ever revealed that it was wrong for a man to have more wife than one at the same time since the days of Joseph Smith? No. That is not what Wilford Woodruff did. He stopped the practice of having two living wives at the same time. He did not declare the principle wrong. He was afraid they would take away the property of the Church and that the leaders would go to jail. In a speech he gave in 1891 he explained:

The question is this: Which is the wisest course for the Latter-day Saints to pursue—to continue to attempt to practice plural marriage, with the laws of the nation against it and the opposition of sixty millions of people, and at the cost of the confiscation and loss of all the Temples, and the stopping of all the ordinances therein, both for the living and the dead, and the imprisonment of the First Presidency and Twelve and the heads of families in the Church, and the confiscation of personal property of the people (all of which of themselves would stop the practice), or after doing and suffering what we have through our adherence to this principle to cease the practice and submit to the law, and through doing so leave the Prophets, Apostles and fathers at home, so that they can instruct the people and attend to the duties of the Church, and also leave the Temples in the hands of the Saints, so that they can attend to the ordinances of the Gospel, both for the living and the dead?[102]

Woodruff chose the United States over God. Just a year earlier Woodruff already had a “revelation” concerning the course to take with polygamy. According to Abraham H. Cannon:

Thursday, Dec. 19th: . . .During our meeting a revelation was read which Pres. Woodruff received Sunday evening, Nov. 24th. Propositions had been made for the Church to make some concessions to the Courts in regard to its principles. Both of Pres. Woodruff’s counselors refused to advise him as to the course he should pursue, and he therefore laid the matter before the Lord. The answer came quick and strong. The word of the Lord was for us not to yield one particle of that which He had revealed and established. He had done and would continue to care for His work and those of the Saints who were faithful, and we need have no fear of our enemies when we were in the line of our duty. We are promised redemption and deliverance if we will trust in God and not in the arm of flesh. We were admonished to read and study the Word of God, and to pray often. The whole revelation was filled with words of the greatest encouragement and comfort, and my heart was filled with joy and peace during the entire reading. It sets all doubts at rest concerning the course to pursue.[103]

Woodruff had done the opposite, he had trusted “in the arm of flesh” and ignored the previous revelation he claimed to have received from God. Woodruff’s previous “revelation” reads:

Revelation given to Wilford Woodruff, Sunday Nov 24, 1889. Thus Saith the Lord, to my Servant Wilford, I the Lord have heard thy prayers and thy request, and will answer thee by the voice of my spirit. Thus Saith the Lord, unto my Servants the Presidency of my church, who hold the Keys of the Kingdom of God on this earth. I the Lord hold the destiny of the courts in your midst, and the destiny of this nation, and all other nations of the earth in mine own hands, and all that I have [p.68] revealed, and promised and decreed concerning the generation in which you live, shall come to pass, and no power shall stay my hand.

Let not my servants who are called to the Presidency of my church, deny my word or my law, which concerns the salvation of the children of men. Let them pray for the Holy Spirit, which shall be given them to guide them in their acts. Place not yourselves in jeopardy to your enemies by promise. Your enemies seek your distruction and the distruction of my people. If the Saints will hearken unto my voice, and the counsel of my Servants, the wicked shall not prevail.

Let my servants, who officiate as your counselors before the courts, make their pleadings as they are moved upon by the Holy spirit, without any further pledges from the Priesthood. I the Lord will hold the courts, with the officers of government, and the nation responsible for their acts towards the inhabitants of Zion.

I, Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, am in your midst. I am your advocate with the Father. Fear not little flock, it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. Fear not the wicked and ungodly. Search the Scriptures, for they are they which testify of me, also those revelations which I have given to my servant Joseph, and to all my servants since the world began, which are recorded in the records of divine truths. Those revelations contain the judgments of God which are to be poured out upon all nations under the heavens which include great Babylon.

These judgments are at the door. They will be fulfilled as God lives. Leave judgment with me, it is mine saith the Lord. Watch the signs of the times, and they will show the fulfillment of the words of the Lord.

Let my servants call upon the Lord in mighty prayer, retain the Holy Ghost as your constant companion, and act as you are moved upon by that spirit, and all will be well with you. The wicked are fast ripening in iniquity, and they will be cut off by the judgments of God. Great events await you and this generation, and are nigh at your doors. Awake, O, Israel, and have faith in God, and His promises, and he will not forsake you. I the Lord will deliver my Saints from the dominion of the wicked, in mine own due time and way. I cannot deny my word, neither in blessing nor judgments. Therefore let mine Anointed gird up their loins, watch and be sober, and keep my commandments. Pray always and faint not, exercise faith in the Lord and in the promises of God; be valient in the testimony of Jesus Christ. The eyes of the Lord and the Heavenly Hosts are watching over you and your acts. Therefore be faithful until I come. I come quickly to reward every man according to the deeds done in the body. Even so, amen.[104]

Nauvoo House c. 1875

A year later when Woodruff realized that trusting in God to fix their problems with polygamy would not work, he wrote up the Manifesto. Brigham Young gave a prophetic statement which included a scenario he believed would never happen, and it didn’t; but what did happen was that Wilford Woodruff submitted to the U. S. Government and disobeyed a previous “revelation” from God to do so, and did just what Brigham Young prophetically counseled not to do.

There are many statements by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young about the parable of the Talents applied to polygamy, that those who only have one Talent will have that taken away and given to someone that has more. Hales simply ignores this strong evidence.

In fact, according to the statement by Brigham Young (quoted above), Wilford Woodruff abolished the practice of polygamy on earth for just the reasons he counseled against: pressure from the U. S. Government. Young declared that the breaking up of the community was an invalid reason for not practicing polygamy, the very reason that Woodruff gave for forbidding the practice of it.

Brigham Young stated that if the Lord would stop polygamy, he would declare it wrong, or an “abomination” as in the Book of Mormon. There has been no “revelation” at all that polygamy is “wrong”. In fact, Mormons still practice polygamy when they marry someone for eternity after their first wife dies. Is that considered wrong? They say no. They still have two wives at the same time, do they not? Death does not break the marriage covenant in Mormonism. If you are a polygamist in your faith, then you would practice it. This is what Young meant by that comment. It is the same as baptism. If you only believe in baptism and don’t submit to it and practice it, it does you no good.

Does it make sense to say that if you desire with all your hearts to gain entrance into the Kingdom of God, (the blessing associated with baptism) you will be baptized at least in your faith, and have this mean that baptism is somehow not essential? Young expressly states,

You who wish that there were no such thing in existence, if you have in your hearts to say: “We will pass along in the Church without obeying or submitting to it in our faith or believing this order, because, for aught that we know, this community may be broken up yet, and we may have lucrative offices offered to us; we will not, therefore, be polygamists lest we should fail in obtaining some earthly honor, character and office, etc,”—the man that has that in his heart, and will continue to persist in pursuing that policy, will come short of dwelling in the presence of the Father and the Son, in celestial glory. The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy.

Young is explicitly stating that one cannot avoid entering into polygamy, because there was no good reason to do so. Notice how Young couples the concepts together: “without obeying or submitting to it in our faith or believing this order.’

How can one submit and obey [practice] if they do not believe it? Refusing to obey and submit to it and therefore practice it, is the same as disbelieving in it. Young never taught that it was all right to not obey and submit to commandments. If one did, (fail to enter into the practice) it was for “obtaining some earthly honor, character and office.” What sense to say all this if one could simply say, ‘I believe in the principle in my faith, so I don’t have to practice it’ and ‘I’ll get the same blessing that those who do obey and enter get’. Again, it would be like Young claiming that one could obtain the blessings of baptism by only believing in it. Like baptism, Patriarchal Marriage was called The New and Everlasting Covenant:

Behold, I say unto you that all old covenants have I caused to be done away in this thing; [baptism] and this is a new and an everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning. (D&C 22:1)

For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; [Celestial Marriage including Plurality of Wives] and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory. (D&C 132: 4)

In 1868 Young stated that:

You take a woman in this Church who does not believe in the doctrine of celestial marriage or plurality of wives, and she does not believe anything at all about the Gospel, and she will soon manifest this by her unwise course, and by and by she drops off and away she goes. But our sisters believe and know that this doctrine is true, and consequently they feel bound to abide it.[105]

They believe it in their hearts, so they feel bound to abide by, or comply with it. (Practice it).

This is the stated purpose of the new and everlasting covenant (to obtain every blessing that God offers) and why Smith claimed there was to be a “restoration of all things” that would continue until the coming of Christ. Young then claims that,

The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy. Others attain unto a glory and may even be permitted to come into the presence of the Father and the Son; but they cannot reign as kings in glory, because they had blessings offered unto them, and they refused to accept them.

By following Woodruff’s Manifesto, Mormons rejected the “blessings” of polygamy, yet, God still “offers” the blessing of polygamy in Section 132. Has he said he does not? This part of the quote makes no sense at all if Brigham Young was claiming that polygamy could be tossed aside because the United States Government said so. This is the very problem that Fundamentalist Mormons have with the Manifesto. That is why Young taught:

How many of the Children of this people are Entitled to the Holy Priesthood & the Blessings of Abraham? All who are born after their parents have received their Endowments & are sealed & all others will have to be adopted to their parents. All who want the Blessings of Abram Isaac & Jacob go & get your Endowments before you get married. Then all your Children will be heirs to the priesthood. There is no Son has a right to the Priesthood & heirship unless their parents had their Endowments before they were born. Such must be adopted to their Parents or they have no right to heirship. Let no youth get married until they get their Endowments & get sealed at the Altar. If young men knew what was for their good they would go hundreds of miles to get married right before they would do as many have. Our boys who are guided by a right hand will be mighty men /of God/ in the Earth. The Lord instituted Polygamy to raise up a royal Priesthood a kingdom of Priest. It is an institution of heaven. All the blessings that are sealed upon us will do us no good unless we live for them.[106]

“Why do we believe in and practise polygamy?” asked Brigham Young,

…because the Lord introduced it to his servants in a revelation given to Joseph Smith, and the Lord’s servants have always practiced it. And is that religion popular in heaven? It is the only popular religion there, for this is the religion of Abraham, and, unless we do the works of Abraham, we are not Abraham’s seed and heirs according to promise.[107]

Lieutenant General Joseph Smith by Maudsley – restored by grindael

Hales claiming that the “critics” don’t understand or address Joseph’s “theology” is simply another red herring.

NOTES

[25] “Evidence for the Sexual Side of Joseph Smith’s Polygamy”, D. Michael Quinn, (expanded-finalized, 31 December 2012; circulated in mid-2013), pages cited in text. (Hereafter cited as Quinn, “Sexual Side”). Hales responded to those who would quote Mike Quinn by stating:

I appreciate the references to Mike Quinn’s work. Most historians at some time have benefited from his research and footnotes. However, I would feel much better about your criticism if you instead were not quoting Quinn, but quoting some Nauvoo polygamist or other historical figure who was there. Quoting secondary sources may create the illusion that some scholarly opinion is documented history. (This applies to me as well as Mike.) (Hales, Rational Faiths, op. cited, Comment made on July 15, 2014).

The person that made the comment to Hales (UtahHiker801) simply stated that others disagreed with Hales’ conclusions. He did not “quote” anyone. Quinn’s (and Richard Bushman’s) conclusions are based on the evidence that they quote in their various books and articles. This seems lost on Hales who doesn’t seem to understand the difference between a quotation and a general statement. Hales also does not keep his own advice about “secondary sources” as we shall see.

[26] Hales, Rational Faiths, op. cited.

[27] ibid.

[28] For example, George D. Smith in Nauvoo Polygamy claimed that Smith had 38 wives and did not consider Fanny Alger one of them, but that Joseph Smith committed adultery with her.

George D. Smith presents some very good arguments to document how Joseph Smith’s polygamy evolved from his troubled youth. To show how Brian Hales manipulates evidence to support his private narrative, we reproduce a portion of his review of George D. Smith’s book (Nauvoo Polygamy):

George D. Smith comments several times that Joseph Smith had polygamy on his mind in the 1820’s, even as a teenager (xiv, 12, 21, 29) but supporting documentation is equivocal. He also provides some psychoanalysis based on limited clinical data, stating that Joseph eventually came “to effectively de-emphasize the feelings of sin and guilt he had once experienced” (21). George D. Smith lays out the following hypothetical reconstruction:

Did young Joseph experience the usual challenges and questions accompanying adolescence? Is there anything to suggest a coming-of-age struggle? A few passages from his autobiography indicate that two years after the family moved to New York State, he confronted some uncertain feelings he later termed “sinful.” At a time when boys begin to experience puberty, “from the age of 12 years to 15,” or 1817-21, he “became convicted [convinced] of my sins.” Seeing his awakened emotions as “sinful” seems to have reflected parental admonitions prior to the age of fifteen or sixteen (1820-22), when he also sought divine assistance for his worries. “I cried unto the Lord for mercy . . . in the 16th year of my age,” he wrote. In response to his prayer, a personage he would later identify as Jesus confronted him and said: “Joseph my son thy sins are forgiven thee.”

Even so, he reported that he again “fell into transgression and sinned in many things . . . there were many things that transpired that cannot be written.” These cryptic words echo in his subsequent statements to friend and counselor Oliver Cowdery, leaving us to suspect that he was referring to the curious thoughts of an intense teenager. . . .

Two years after his initial autobiographical sketch, Smith addressed similar vaguely defined infractions of youth, including “vices and follies,” he wrote. The contemporary definition of “vice” was “every act of intemperance, all falsehood, duplicity, deception, lewdness and the like,” as well as “the excessive indulgence of passions and appetites which in themselves are innocent,” according to Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary. “Folly” was defined as “an absurd act which is highly sinful; and conduct contrary to the laws of God or man; sin; scandalous crimes; that which violates moral precepts and dishonors the offender.” In other words, “vices and follies” implied sins great and small, which conceivably involved sex but were not limited to it. (17-18; brackets George Smith’s)

George Smith reasons that Joseph Smith confessed to “sins great and small, which conceivably involved sex but were not limited to it.”However, the entire quotation, published in December 1834 in the Messenger and Advocate is susceptible of a different reading:

During this time, as is common to most, or all youths, I fell into many vices and follies; but as my accusers are, and have been forward to accuse me of being guilty of gross and outrageous violations of the peace and good order of the community, I take the occasion to remark, that, though, as I have said above, “as is common to most, or all youths, I fell into many vices and follies,” I have not, neither can it be sustained, in truth, been guilty of wronging or injuring any manor society of men; and those imperfections to which I allude, and for which I have often had occasion to lament, were a light, and too often, vain mind, exhibiting a foolish and trifling conversation.

The full quotation therefore lends itself to a self-accusation of silliness and light-mindedness, not sexual sin. (Dialogue, A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol. 42:4, 220-221, Online here, Accessed October 20, 2014).

Unfortunately neither George D. Smith nor Hales employs all of the quotation from the Messenger and Advocate (though Hales erroneously claims that he does). George D. Smith really didn’t need to, but it devastates Hales’ argument that Smith’s self accusation was only about “silliness and light-mindedness”. Here is the rest of the Joseph Smith confession from the 1834 Messenger and Advocate that Hales didn’t quote:

This being all, and the worst, that my accusers can substantiate against my moral character, I wish to add, that it is not with out a deep feeling of regret that I am thus called upon in answer to my own conscience, to fulfill a duty I owe to myself, as well as to the cause of truth, in making this public confession of my former uncircumspect walk, and unchaste conversation: and more particularly, as I often acted in violation of those holy precepts which I knew came from God. But as the “Articles and Covenants” of this church are plain upon this particular point, I do not deem it important to proceed further. I only add, that I do not, nor never have, pretended to be any other than a man “subject to passion,” and liable, without the assisting grace of the Savior, to deviate from that perfect path in which all men are commanded to walk! (Joseph Smith, Letter, Kirtland, Ohio, to Oliver Cowdery, Kirtland, Ohio, December, 1834; Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate, Dec. 1834, 40. Online here, Accessed October 20, 2014, added emphasis).

Not only does Joseph Smith tell of vices and follies, but he claims that he was guilty of “unchaste conversation” and that he “often acted in violation of those holy precepts which I knew came from God.” He then claims that he is a man who is “subject to passion” and liable to deviate from “holy precepts” he knew came from God. This is more than the “curious thoughts of an intense teenager”. Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines “unchaste” as: a. Not chaste; not continent; not pure; libidinous; lewd

So Smith here admits to lewd conversation, and that is defined by Webster’s 1828 dictionary as:

LEWD, a. [Heb.]

1.Given to the unlawful indulgence of lust; addicted to fornication or

adultery; dissolute; lustful; libidinous. Ezek 23.

2. Proceeding from unlawful lust; as lewd actions.

3.Wicked; vile; profligate; licentious. Acts 27.

Libidinous isn’t much better,

LIBID’INOUS, a. [L. libidinosus, from libido, lubido, lust, from libeo, libet, lubet, to please, it pleaseth; Eng. love, which see. The root is lib or lub.] Lustful; lewd; having an eager appetite for venereal pleasure.

One must also take into account that the word “conversation” had a different meaning in Smith’s day. In Joseph Smith’s day it meant “course of manners”, or “behavior”, and it was used especially in relation to morals:

CONVERSATION, n. [Webster’s 1828]

1.General course of manners; behavior; deportment; especially as it respects morals.

Let your conversation be as becometh the gospel. Phil 1. Be ye holy in all manner of conversation. 1 Pet 1

2.A keeping company; familiar intercourse; intimate fellowship or association; commerce in social life. Knowledge of men and manners is best acquired by conversation with the best company.

3.Intimate and familiar acquaintance; as a conversation with books, or other object.

4.Familiar discourse; general intercourse of sentiments; chat; unrestrained talk; opposed to a formal conference. What I mentioned in conversation was not a new thought. (Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, added emphasis).

Today we use the word conversation almost solely when we mean “familiar discourse”. In Smith’s day, this was not the case. When Smith says “unchaste conversation”, he really means lewd behavior. Even though Joseph Smith tries to extricate himself from the charges that were being bandied about throughout his career as both a moneydigger and a self proclaimed “prophet”, he still inadvertently shows us his real character by his choice of words to describe himself in this revealing confession from 1834.

This indeed helps us to understand why Joseph Smith would claim that “adultery was no crime”, and that the charge conveyed by Levi Lewis that he tried to seduce Eliza Winters is credible. In 1835 Smith was also accused of promulgating whoredom:

[At] Rufus Harwood’s near Angelica. Conversed with Anderson a Methodist Priest. He lied and scandalized Brother Joseph the Prophet and said he sanctioned and upheld whoredom and he bore testimony against him. (John Murdock Journal, May 1835, 2:66, Ms 1194, LDS Church History Library, added emphasis).

Whoredom in the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary is defined as,

Lewdness; fornication; practice of unlawful commerce with the other sex. It is applied to either sex, and to any kind of illicit commerce.

Smith himself claimed that “I had not been married scarcely five minutes, and made one proclamation of the Gospel, before it was reported that I had seven wives.” (History of the Church, Vol. 6, 403, 405, 410-11).

Polygamy would not have been reported in a favorable light at any time in Joseph’s career. It would have been associated with “whoredom”, just as it was in 1840’s Nauvoo. So would saying “adultery was no crime”.

There is a definite pattern here with Smith, he violates “holy precepts”, then repents. This was repeated in 1843 with the polygamy “revelation” (Section 132) where he also claimed to have been forgiven for any adulteries he might have committed. (Hat tip to Dan Vogel).

Michael Quinn speaks about, “what was known at the time as the “Holy Order of the Holy Priesthood” or the “Quorum of the Anointed” from 1843 to 1844.”(Joseph Smith’s III’s 1844 Blessing and the Mormons of Utah, Dialogue, Vol. 15, No. 2, Summer 1982, 74, Online here, Accessed January 16, 2016). Quinn adds that,

Joseph had introduced a series of rites and instructions known as the “endowment” in May 1842 to a group of trusted men of the church, and in September 1843 he began admitting women to the anointing and endowment ceremonies which he taught were revealed from God. As a part of these ceremonies, Emma Smith was sealed for time and eternity to Joseph Smith and was anointed to him on 28 September 1843 as an eternal wife, queen, and priestess. (ibid.).

It was before this (in July 1843) that Joseph produced his “revelation” on polygamy and proclaimed in that “revelation”:

And as ye have asked concerning adultery, verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man receiveth a wife in the new and everlasting covenant, and if she be with another man, and I have not appointed unto her by the holy anointing, she hath committed adultery and shall be destroyed. If she be not in the new and everlasting covenant, and she be with another man, she has committed adultery. And if her husband be with another woman, and he was under a vow, he hath broken his vow and hath committed adultery. And if she hath not committed adultery, but is innocent and hath not broken her vow, and she knoweth it, and I reveal it unto you, my servant Joseph, then shall you have power, by the power of my Holy Priesthood, to take her and give her unto him that hath not committed adultery but hath been faithful; for he shall be made ruler over many. (Doctrine and Covenants, Section 132:41-44, added emphasis)

Joseph is claiming here that when a man is married to a wife in the “new and everlasting covenant” and if she has sexual relations with another man and God has not “appointed her by the Holy Anointing”, she has committed adultery. That is an interesting clause in verse 41—which states that if she is “appointed by the Holy Anointing” she would not be committing adultery.

It also states that if the woman is not in the new and everlasting covenant, she is committing adultery. This also gives Joseph the power to give women whose husbands have committed adultery to other men who were “faithful”. This was illustrated by Joseph with his parable of the talent. Smith’s “revelation” then states that,

Behold, I have seen your sacrifices, and will forgive all your sins; I have seen your sacrifices in obedience to that which I have told you. Go, therefore, and I make a way for your escape, as I accepted the offering of Abraham of his son Isaac. Verily, I say unto you: A commandment I give unto mine handmaid, Emma Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself and partake not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her; for I did it, saith the Lord, to prove you all, as I did Abraham, and that I might require an offering at your hand, by covenant and sacrifice. And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me; and those who are not pure, and have said they were pure, shall be destroyed, saith the Lord God. (ibid, vs. 50-52, added emphasis).

Joseph receives a “revelation” about himself that vindicates him. What was Smith escaping from? Why would he need to escape from anything? It appears from the above that Smith was “forgiven” of any sins concerning adultery that he had previously committed.

Still, Joseph was committing adultery by his own First Presidency Address that he made in 1842 with Hyrum Smith, which declared that anyone who married a woman who had a husband and they were not legally divorced, was committing adultery. Joseph did this many times with married women who had not had legal divorces from their husbands. In fact, Joseph sometimes set up his wives with “Front Husbands”, so he facilitated the adultery.

Also, it states that Emma Smith was to “partake not” of something which God had previously commanded Joseph to “offer” Emma, but now this “revelation” states that it was only to “prove you all,” and that he “might require an offering” from Emma “by covenant and sacrifice.” This we believe is the arrangement that was made (as Joseph’s suggestion) for Emma to “offer” him the Partridge sisters, which according to Joseph he never went through with, though Emily Partridge claimed in an 1869 affidavit that they did. (See Note #56)

This is clearly a retraction of Joseph’s previous commandment from God to Emma that she could “indulge herself” with another man (as Joseph was doing with other women) which William Clayton wrote of on July 23, 1843 (See Note #46). Joseph then writes in this “revelation” that,

…I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not my law. (ibid., v. 54, added emphasis).

Clearly Joseph is commanding Emma that she is not to “indulge herself” with anyone but Joseph. Then Joseph tells her that God has further commanded that,

…mine handmaid [Emma] forgive my servant Joseph his trespasses; and then shall she be forgiven her trespasses, wherein she has trespassed against me; and I, the Lord thy God, will bless her, and multiply her, and make her heart to rejoice. …Verily, if a man be called of my Father, as was Aaron, by mine own voice, and by the voice of him that sent me, and I have endowed him with the keys of the power of this priesthood, if he do anything in my name, and according to my law and by my word, he will not commit sin, and I will justify him. Let no one, therefore, set on my servant Joseph; for I will justify him; for he shall do the sacrifice which I require at his hands for his transgressions, saith the Lord your God. (Doctrine and Covenants, Section 132:56-60, added emphasis).

Who gave the Saints “my law and my word”? Joseph Smith. What transgressions did Joseph commit that have to do with “this law”? We believe it was his so called polyandrous relationships, as spoken of in verses 41-44 above.

Joseph who was “with another woman, and he was under a vow, [to Emma] he hath broken his vow and hath committed adultery.” But Joseph wrote into the “revelation” a loophole for his polyandry, which is the clause of those “marriages” being “appointed by the holy anointing”. Joseph also has God promising him that if he does anything in the name of God, he cannot sin, for God will justify him. This “revelation” says what it says. Hales can claim all the day long that Joseph could not commit adultery because there were revelations forbidding it, but here it states that Joseph could do anything and not sin.

Even though Joseph wrote this “revelation” for Emma and it appears to be about Joseph’s repentance for his polyandry, Joseph told William Clayton in August of 1843 that, “he should not relinquish” any of his wives, even though he promised Emma that “he would relinquish all for her sake.” Would that include the wives who still had legal husbands? Apparently so.

It is no wonder that Emma, (when she read it) told Joseph that she did not believe a word of it and sent his brother Hyrum packing when he tried to convince her it was from God.

[29] Hales, Rational Faiths, op. cited. Even the new Essay at lds.org (“Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo”) claims that “The exact number of women to whom he was sealed in his lifetime is unknown…” (op. cited, above, added emphasis). So what does this say about Hales’ evaluation of the evidence that he can state unequivocally to Jeremy Runnells that Joseph had a specific number of wives? What is ironic is that the footnote to this (in the Essay) reads:

“Careful estimates put the number between 30 and 40. See Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 2:272–73.”

So Hales contradicts Hales. We are not at all surprised at this. So how is Hales justified in claiming 35 wives to Jeremy Runnells? We can only tell you that such is the irrational world of Brian Hales. Hales also stating that none of the women complained is simply ignoring the evidence at hand. Helen Mar Kimball did complain. Afterwards she accepted polygamy and changed her views about it. This is a favorite mantra of Hales. No one complained, therefore Smith did nothing wrong. (See Note #30 below). Some of the husbands also complained. D. Michael Quinn writes that Brian Hales (who he claims is an “honest” historian):

…has somewhat reluctantly discovered that another already-married woman (Esther Dutcher Smith) bore a son she named “Joseph” on 21 September 1844, sometime after she was “sealed to Joseph the Prophet in the days of Nauvoo,” before he died. This pre-death relationship was affirmed in a letter by Daniel H. Wells, an ever-faithful counselor to his successor, Brigham Young. Joseph’s martyrdom on 27 June 1844 occurred when she was six-months pregnant.

In a previous publication, Hales quoted this remarkable letter as saying that Esther” nearly broke his heart by telling him [her legal husband] of it, and expressing her intention of adhering to that relationship” with Joseph Smith.

First, this showed that she was sealed at Nauvoo without the knowledge of her legal husband, a faithful Mormon there.

Second, even though Esther’s husband eventually “got to feeling better over it”–seven years after Joseph’s death–and “had her sealed to him, and to himself for time,” this evidence (which Hales quoted) contradicts his claim that there were “No Complaints from Legal Husbands” (his emphasis) of the Prophet’s already-married wives.

Third, even though Hales quoted this source in a published essay that attempted to exonerate the Prophet of “sexual polyandry,” Esther’s” intention of adhering to that relationship” sounds like a reference to a sexual relationship that” nearly broke” her legal husband’s heart, not “adhering” to a “sealing for eternity,” which the letter itself did not allege. At the least, that is one way to interpret the document’s phrase, a possibility for “sexual polyandry” that Hales doesn’t admit.

Agnes Coolbrith Smith

Likewise, concerning John Hyde’s anti-Mormon 1857 book that “paired Joseph Smith with Hannah Ann Dubois Smith Dibble in a story based upon hearsay evidence,” Hales wrote in the same 2010 publication: “I have found no evidence to corroborate Hyde’s assertion” this wife of Philo Dibble. Nonetheless, during the Church trial of Benjamin Winchester in May 1843, a typescript of which was provided to Hales years ago by his research-assistant, Joseph Smith said that Winchester had “told one of the most damnable lies about me. [that I] visited Sister Smith–Sister Dibble … that I was guilty of improper conduct.” To protect himself and the Church, the Prophet dismissed the “lies” about him and his widowed sister-in-law Agnes Coolbrith Smith, yet Hales acknowledged that she was one of Joseph’s polygamous wives. If that 1843 document doesn’t persuade Hales as “evidence” about Hannah Dibble, in 1947 the LDS Church’s Midwest publishing company printed Benjamin F. Johnson’s autobiography, which stated: “At this time [May 1843,] I knew that the Prophet had as his wives… Sisters Lyon and Dibble,” among others he identified. Hales cited that source in this year’s article about “Joseph Smith’s Personal Polygamy.”(Quinn, Sexual Side, op. cited, 3-4).

This constant irrational application of sources is typical of Brian Hales. We do not agree that this is an “honest” approach to the evidence. Here is what Hales writes about the Wells letter at his website:

However, since the single reference [The Wells letter] is from a reliable source, albeit late, she is included here. [As one of his spiritual wives].

Just why Wells is “reliable”, Hales does not explain. The relevant portion of the Daniel H. Wells letter reads,

He [Albert Smith was] also much afflicted with the loss of his first wife. It seems that she was sealed to Joseph the Prophet in the days of Nauvoo, [for time and eternity] though she still remained his wife, and afterwards nearly broke his heart by telling him of it, and expressing her intention of adhering to that relationship. He however got to feeling better over it, and acting for Joseph, had her sealed to him, and to himself for time. (Daniel H. Wells, Letter to Joseph F. Smith, June 25, 1888, added emphasis, brackets ours).

Below this is a section that has been blacked out by the Church, but that H. Michael Marquardt transcribed:

Daniel H. Wells

Now comes the saddest part of the story. It transpired that not long before her death, she committed adultery, the old gentleman [Albert Smith] is sadly grieved over this, and desires to know what can be done for her, he considers that she has paid in the flesh for her crime and hopes that his and her daughter, may be permitted to be baptized for her, and have her former Charges considered as finished as she was an er[r]ing though not a bad woman and still be saved with Joseph as Joseph’s wife, all of which is herewith submitted, and hope that you will send me your conclusion after consulting with Bro. Woodruff, in which case it will not be necessary for me to write to him in relation to this case. (ibid.).

It seems that Hannah was not above committing adultery with Joseph Smith and again at a later date. It is clear from this letter that Albert Smith did complain about his wife’s “marriage” to Joseph Smith, but only later “felt better about it”. If this were an “eternity only sealing” as Hales claims, then why was Albert Smith so upset? Why did it make him much afflicted and heartbroken? Because his wife told him that she wanted to adhere to her relationship with Joseph Smith. It seems also that Albert Smith may not have felt better about it until after Joseph’s death since he was sealed to her as a proxy for Joseph Smith after Joseph Smith was dead.

And if she was already sealed to Joseph in Nauvoo for time and eternity, (the only kind of sealings we have evidence for) why perform another proxy sealing for eternity? This had to be for Albert’s benefit and was totally superfluous, though there is one reason why they might have. Joseph taught that for something to be “binding in heaven”, one must perform the ceremony with a witness and record it. Since many of those polyandrous marriages were done in secret and no records were kept, they may have felt they were invalid and had to be redone.

What is interesting is that Albert Smith was called on a mission from September 12, 1842 to August 22, 1843. This was during the period of time that Joseph was “marrying” other men’s wives. On January 9, 1845 Albert Smith wrote in his journal,

January 9, [1845]: My wife [Esther Dutcher Smith] and myself went to Father John Smith in the evening on a visit. Whilst we was there he blessed Joseph, our young son, who was born September 21, the [year] 1844. The following contains the substance:

Joseph Albert, I lay my hands upon thy head by the request of thy parents to bless thee, and I ask my Heavenly Father to bless thee and let a double portion of the spirit of Joseph of old rest on thee that thou mayest live and become a mighty man on the earth. Angels shall have charge of thee from this very hour and thou shall behold them and converse with them and thou shall enjoy the gift of tongues and the interpretation of tongues, and the discerning of spirits and the [page 19] spirit of revelation. Yea, thou shalt become a prophet, seer, and revelator. Thy name shall be had in honorable remembrance, for thou shall do a great work on the earth. Thou shall wield the sword in defense of the innocent blood which has been shed by wicked hands. Thou shall live till thou become old and see the end of wickedness of this generation and behold the coming of the Son of man. (Diary of Albert Smith, Online here, accessed November 5, 2014, added emphasis).

Young Joseph Albert Smith would have been conceived in December of 1843, therefore making it a possibility that he may have been the son of Joseph Smith. It is certainly interesting that John Smith would bless the boy and claim in that blessing that he would become a “prophet, seer and revelator”; that he would “wield the sword in defense of the innocent blood which has been shed,” (Joseph & Hyrum Smith), and live to “behold the coming of the Son of Man” (the Second Coming) which Joseph Smith predicted would happen in his generation.

[30] See Jeremy Runnells, Debunking FAIR, “Joseph Smith Was Married To At Least 34 Women” Section, online here, accessed October 30, 2014.

For example, Todd Compton advocates that the sealing between Helen Mar Kimball and Joseph Smith was a “dynastic” sealing, but that still did not preclude having sexual relations. Although many are persuaded by the “dynastic sealings” theory, we have some doubts. (Even so, we heartily recommend Todd’s book).

Did Joseph choose his spiritual wives specifically to set up dynasties, or was this already a part of the Mormon culture by then? D. Michael Quinn writes:

As Mormonism changed from an individualistic movement to an increasingly organized church, the Mormon Church manifested in the composition of its General Authorities features of dynasticism and corporation. In the sense of dynasticism, family interrelationships became a social subsystem of the Mormon hierarchy by the mid-1830s. In the corporate sense, men were advanced as LDS General Authorities in conscious representation of significant ethnic populations within Church membership.

At the most obvious, the importance of family interrelationships can be seen in the fact that 23.6 percent of the men appointed to the Mormon hierarchy between 1832 and 1932 were sons of other General Authorities. Revelations dictated by Joseph Smith and subsequent pronouncements by his successors in office have indicated that men have the right (or at least the predisposition) to preside in the LDS Church by virtue of their familial lineage. Although only the office of Presiding Patriarch was restricted to patrilineal succession, all other echelons of the Mormon hierarchy demonstrated intricate family interrelationships. … In the Mormon hierarchy, relationships as distant as fifth and sixth cousin were recognized and honored, and the men often referred to one another as “kinsmen” or “cousins.”

Moreover, General Authorities used marriage to bring into the hierarchical family men who were unrelated by kinship, as well as to reinforce distant cousin relationships. For example, Joseph Smith married in polygamy the sister of his fourth cousin, Apostle Willard Richards, and contracted a similar marriage with the sister of Brigham Young ( who was Joseph Smith’s acknowledged sixth cousin). The marriage of children also aligned General Authorities to one another. For example, recent LDS President David O. McKay entered the hierarchy as an apostle in 1906 without being related by kinship or marriage to any other General Authority, yet in 1928 his son married the niece of Apostle Joseph Fielding Smith, who was President McKay’s successor in the presidency.

… Although the degree of kinship penetration was extensive for the entire hierarchy, it is also evident that familial relationships were most extensive within the most powerful echelons: the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. This study has not probed as extensively the familial relationships of the General Authorities since 1932, but it is my hypothesis that the degree of family interrelationships has remained high in the upper two quorums and has diminished greatly in the First Quorum of Seventy for reasons to be discussed later. (D. Michael Quinn, “From Sacred Grove to Sacral Power Structure,” Dialogue, Vol.17, No.2, p.20-21, Online here, (PDF) accessed July 20, 2017).

Joseph naturally went to the people that were close to him to get his spiritual wives. This kind of intermarrying was not new, it had been going on since the beginning of the restoration.

Joseph used the persuasion of saving the entire family by demanding that the daughter “marry” him. Joseph taught about the sealing power in this way:

Again the doctrin or sealing power of Elijah is as follows: If you have power to seal on earth & in heaven then we should be crafty. The first thing you do go & seal on earth your sons & daughters unto yourself & yourself unto your fathers in eternal glory & go ahead and not go back but use a little Craftiness & seal all you can & when you get to heaven tell your father that what you seal on earth should be sealed in heaven. I will walk through the gate of heaven and Claim what I seal & those that follow me & my Council. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, p.365, March 10, 1844, added emphasis. This quote was changed when it was put into the History of the Church (without ellipsis or any notification) and is still used today in its edited form).

Notice that Joseph claims that you should “use a little craftiness and seal all you can.”

The 1828 definition of “crafty”,

CRAFTY, a.
1. Cunning; artful; skillful in devising and pursuing a scheme, by deceiving others, or by taking advantage of their ignorance; wily; sly; fraudulent.
He disappointeth the devices of the crafty. Job 5.
2. Artful; cunning; in a good sense, or in a laudable pursuit.
Being crafty, I caught you with guile. 2 Cor 12.

He was indiscriminate about who those should be. Some were relatives or the offspring of his close associates, some were young women that were working in his home.

Those with the most sealed to them (who would be below them) were raised higher in the Celestial order of the gods than the ones they would “seal” to themselves. Joseph could “save” the entire family, because he could “claim what I seal” in the afterlife. Joseph could approach the father of a young girl, and tell her parents that if they agreed to a marriage, he would then seal or adopt them, and therefore he could “claim” and save them in the afterlife.

Those who had the most sealed to them would naturally rule over their own dynasties in heaven. But this was only a cog in the great “chain” of sealings that Joseph and Brigham Young envisioned. Wilford Woodruff recorded in 1847 that:

While treating upon the principle of adoption he [Brigham Young] said some men were afraid they would loose some glory if they were sealed to one of the Twelve And did not stand alone And have others sealed to them. President Young said there kingdom consisted of their own posterity And it did not diminish that at all by being sealed to one of the Twelve but only bound them by that perfect chain according to the law of God and order of Heaven that will bind the righteous from Adam to the last saint and Adam will claim us all as members of his kingdom we being his children. (Van Wagoner, The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, 172, cf. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 3, 117, January 16, 1847, For more on the law of adoption and sealing of families, see Notes, #189 & #191).

According to Young, Adam seems to take precedence over Jesus Christ since Adam would claim all as members of his kingdom. We believe that this is the earliest reference by Young to what was later called the Adam God Doctrine.

Joseph went to his close associates to get their daughters, or “married” young girls living in his own home. How does one really separate close friends and Church Hierarchy into dynasties when all are sealed together in a “perfect chain”? For example, Helen Kimball later said that all who entered into polygamy did so to bear children and that was the purpose of it.

Catherine Lewis (who Heber C. Kimball asked to be one of his spiritual wives) wrote in 1848:

What Helen said to her mother here, (in 1848) was that Joseph and her father had told her that “the salvation of our whole family depended on it,” her being married to Smith. Helen wrote two reminiscences, a year apart, later in her life. One to her son, and another for the Women’s Exponent. For the Exponent she wrote:

I remember how I felt, but which would be a difficult matter to describe—the various thoughts, fears and temptations that flashed through my mind when the principle was first introduced to me by my father [Heber C. Kimball], who one morning in the summer of 1843, without any preliminaries, asked me if I would believe him if he told me that it was right for married men to take other wives, can be better imagined than told. But suffice it to say the first impulse was anger, for I thought he had only said it to test my virtue as I had heard that tales of this kind had been published by such characters as the Higbees, Foster and Bennett, but which I supposed were without any foundation. My sensibilities were painfully touched. I felt such a sense of personal injury and displeasure for to mention such a thing to me I thought altogether unworthy of my father, and as quick as he spoke, I replied to him, short and emphatically, “No, I wouldn’t!” I had always been taught to believe it a heinous crime, improper and unnatural, and I indignantly resented it.

This was the first time that I ever openly manifested anger towards him, but I was somewhat surprised at his countenance, as he seemed rather pleased than otherwise. Then he commenced talking seriously, and reasoned and explained the principle, and why it was again to be established upon the earth, etc., but did not tell me then that anyone had yet practiced it, but left me to reflect upon it for the next twenty-four hours, during which time I was filled with various and conflicting ideas. I was skeptical—one minute believed, then doubted. I thought of the love and tenderness that he felt for his only daughter, and I knew that he would not cast her off, and this was the only convincing proof that I had of its being right. I knew that he loved me too well to teach me anything that was not strictly pure, virtuous and exalting in its tendencies; and no one else could have influenced me at that time or brought me to accept of a doctrine so utterly repugnant and so contrary to all of our former ideas and traditions. This was just previous to his starting upon his last mission but one to the eastern states. Fearing that I might hear it from a wrong source, knowing, as he did, that there were those who would run before they were sent, and some would not hesitate to deceive and betray him and the brethren, he thought it best that I should hear it from his own lips.

The next day the Prophet called at our house, and I sat with my father and mother and heard him teach the principle and explain it more fully, and I believed it, but I had no proofs, only his and my father’s testimony. I thought that sufficient, and did not deem it necessary to seek for any further. (“Scenes in Nauvoo,” Woman’s Exponent 11, no. 5, August 1, 1882, 39.)

In this account Kimball claims that her father left out of his explanation that it was being practiced already. Then the next day, Joseph Smith came by the house and he then explained it to her. In an account written to her son a year earlier she writes something totally different:

Just previous to my father’s starting upon his last mission but one, to the Eastern States he taught me the principle of Celestial Marriage, & having a great desire to be connected with the Prophet, Joseph he offered me to him; this I afterwards learned from the Prophet’s own mouth. My father had but one ewe lamb, but willingly laid her upon the alter: how cruel this seemed to the mother whose heartstrings were already stretched until they were ready to snap asunder, for he had taken Sarah Noon to wife & she thought she had made sufficient sacrafise, but the Lord required more. I will pass over the temptations which I had during the twenty-four hours after my father introduced to me this principle & asked me if I would be sealed to Joseph who came next morning & with my parents I heard him teach & explain the principle of Celestial marriage – after which he said to me “If you will take this step, it will ensure your eternal salvation & exaltation and that of your father’s household & all of your kindred. This promise was so great that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward. None but God & his angels could see my mother’s bleeding heart – when Joseph asked her if she was willing, she replied “If Helen is willing I have nothing more to say.” She had witnessed the sufferings of others who were older & who better understood the step they were taking, to see her child, who had scarcely seen her fifteenth summer, following in the same thorny path, in her mind she saw the misery which was as sure to come as the sun was to rise and set; but it was all hidden from me. (Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, “Autobiography, 30 March, 1881, Ms 744 fd. 2, 1-2, CHL).

Helen writes in one account that she was taught the principle the night before and that was when her father asked her to be one of Smith’s spiritual wives, but in a second account, he omits telling her it was already being practiced. Much has been said about Heber Kimball offering his daughter to Joseph, but where did Helen learn about this? She claims that it was Joseph who told her, not her father.

Did Heber and Vilate on the spur of the moment have a discussion about their daughter, with Heber deciding that he wanted her to marry Joseph at age 14? Even though his wife was clearly reluctant?

We rather believe that it was Joseph who instigated this marriage, since it was his M.O. And using the line “out of the prophet’s own mouth,” was used by two other spiritual wives of Joseph in relation to Emma Smith’s “giving” Joseph four of his spiritual wives. Evidence shows that this also, is questionable.

And which account by Helen are we to believe? Why would Helen feel the need to relate different accounts? She was well known in Utah as being one of Smith’s spiritual wives.

In Helen’s second account we see exactly how it totally this distressed her mother. Would a non-sexual, eternity only sealing have evinced the same reaction? Helen may have initially misunderstood sexually in the marriage, but not Heber and Vilate Kimball. They knew what spiritual marriage entailed. In fact, Helen mentions Sarah Noon, and how that was a great trial for her mother, because Joseph would not allow Heber to marry two older spinsters and made him marry a much younger women and have sex with her. Helen likens her mother’s reaction to that, to her own situation.

The Catherine Lewis account also states that Helen claimed in 1848 that Joseph told them the marriage would save their entire family. Thirty years later, Helen affirms that he indeed told this to her and her parents. Every aspect of what Catherine Lewis wrote above has been verified as accurate. (See Note #66)

Todd Compton also writes that the Smith/Whitney union was a dynastic marriage:

The chief motivation for this [Joseph Smith & Sarah Ann Whitney) marriage was clearly dynastic. Joseph and Newel had a close friendship, and the sealing would link the families of Newel and Elizabeth Whitney and Joseph Smith in this life and in the next. (Compton, Todd M.. In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Kindle Locations 8127-8129). Signature Books. Kindle Edition).

Yet, all families would be linked together in the afterlife in a “great chain” or “welding link” by the sealing power through baptism for the dead and other ordinances, so what need was there for so called special “dynastic sealings”?

Only later, were these unions thought of as being specifically motivated by a desire for an afterlife dynasty. In reality, all that Joseph sealed to him, would become part of his extended family. One marriage did not take precedent over another. They were all to be dynastic.

A month after Young gave the comments above he taught:

Those that are adopted into my family and take me for their counselor—If I continue faithful I will preside over them throughout all eternity—I will stand at their head, and Joseph will stand at the head of this church and will be their president— prophet and God to the people in this dispensation—When we locate I will settle my family down in the order and teach them their duty. They will then have to provide temporal blessings for me instead of my boarding from 40 to 50 persons as I now do. I will administer in spiritual blessings to them. I expect to live in the House of the Lord and receive and administer ordinances to my brethren and for the dead all the year round. (ibid., 127-133, 16 February, 1847).

Young taught that Adam would be at the head of the Church (Kingdom of God) a month earlier. Then he teaches that Joseph would be at the head, and that he would be a God to them in the eternities. This begs the question, how does Adam and Christ fit into this hierarchy of the gods?

Todd Compton wrote:

It is significant that the Alger parents felt it a spiritual honor to have their daughter [Fanny] married to Smith, just as the parents of Sarah Ann Whitney and Helen Mar Kimball did. Fanny Alger’s marriage created a dynastic link not only between Smith and Hancock but between Smith and Fanny’s parents. Smith may also have felt that a woman would probably have been less likely to refuse a polygamous proposal if it came through a close relative rather than from the polygamous suitor himself. (Compton, op. cited)

But really, Fanny was a housemaid that Joseph had an affair with. It is only much later, that this was looked on as some kind of “dynastic” marriage. How else would her parents view the affair years later when it was being claimed as some kind of a marriage by those defending Joseph? Joseph was all about linking large numbers of people. This was done through marriage and adoption and baptism for the dead by the sealing power. It was all the same, as described above by Brigham Young. One reason adoption was discarded by the church was that there would already be a “welding link” between families through baptism for the dead.

Joseph told Clayton that “you have a right to get all you can.” This about personal aggrandizement in the world to come. That is why you “craftily” seal “all you can,” and then claim what you seal, whether they be wives or not, and you tell “your father” what you have done and that he has no right to deny you.

Joseph first taught about the sealing power in relation to baptism for the dead. He claimed that there must be a “link” from Adam down to the last of his posterity of the earth would be “utterly wasted”. As with marriage, Joseph taught the Saints to baptize by proxy all the friends and family they could, to form this “link” and in doing so they would become “saviors on Mount Zion”.

Smith taught,

For their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation, as Paul says concerning the fathers—that they without us cannot be made perfect—neither can we without our dead be made perfect. … the earth will be smitten with a curse unless there is a welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children, upon some subject or other—and behold what is that subject? It is the baptism for the dead. For we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect. Neither can they nor we be made perfect without those who have died in the gospel also; for it is necessary in the ushering in of the dispensation of the fulness of times, which dispensation is now beginning to usher in, that a whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glories should take place, and be revealed from the days of Adam even to the present time. (See D&C 128)

In January of 1844 Smith gave another speech on Elijah in front of the Temple:

The Bible says “I will send you Elijah before the great & dredful day of the Lord Come that he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the Children…” Now the word turn here should be translated (bind or seal).

Smith further explains that, “The keys are to be delivered and the spirit of Elijah is to come, The gospel to be esstablished … & the Saints to come up as Saviors on mount Zion.” How are they to be “Saviors”? According to Smith it was “By building their temples erecting their Baptismal fonts & going forth & receiving all the ordinances, Baptisms, confirmations, washings anointings ordinations, & sealing powers upon our heads in behalf of all our Progenitors who are dead & redeem them that they may come forth in the first resurrection & be exhalted to thrones of glory with us, & herein is the Chain that binds the hearts of the fathers to the Children & the Children to the Fathers which fulfills the mission of Elijah.”

“[T]he Saints,” declared Smith, “have none to[o] much time to save & redeem their dead, & gather together their living relatives that they may be saved also, before the earth will be smitten & the consumption decreed falls upon the world.” (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, p.341-42, January 21, 1844).

Marriage was simply another ordinance which sealed individuals together for eternity. There was already a “welding link” in place that sealed together families and dispensations. That was done through baptism for the dead and other ordinances. According to what Joseph already taught, he could “claim what I seal” in relation to baptism for the dead or adoption, etc., since those were transactions that were recorded on earth and therefore in heaven.

The problem with many of these “marriages” is that we simply do not have enough information to make such blanket assumptions as Hales does, especially that they were to be “non-sexual”. He doesn’t have any evidence to support this, though he says that he does. In his rebuttal to D. Michael Quinn, Hales writes:

Discerning between the “eternity only” and “time and eternity” sealings might be easier if the language used to seal the plural marriages was known. However, only one document has been found that records the wording used by an officiator to seal Joseph Smith to a plural wife, in that case, non-polyandrously.

Also, later recollections may not be helpful. When asked in 1892 if she could remember the words used to seal her to Joseph Smith, Malissa Lott replied: “I don’t know that I can go and tell it right over as it was… I don’t remember the words that were used.”

Similarly, Emily Partridge testified: “I can’t remember the exact words, that he said.”

Another indicator of the type of sealing a woman might have experienced is to discern the presence of sexual relations in the union, which would be consistent with a “time and eternity” sealing. Historical evidence demonstrates the presence of conjugality in twelve of Joseph Smith’s thirty-five sealings with ambiguous documents available regarding three more unions. For all remaining marriages there is no way to know for sure. Proponents of sexual polyandry might affirm that since sexuality was present in some, it is safe to assume it was present in most or all of the remaining plural marriages. However, acknowledging that nonsexual “eternity only” sealings could be performed provides another possible explanation. Accordingly, the reason sexuality is not documented in over half of Joseph Smith’s plural marriages could be because the historical record is incomplete or because they were “eternity only” sealings. In either case, speculation is required to fill in the missing pieces and neither view is based upon reliable documentation. (Hales, op. cited)

Why should anyone acknowledge something that there is absolutely no evidence of ever having existed except as an ad hoc apologist invention? Where is the evidence for Hales’ speculations? There just isn’t any. On the other hand, there is ample evidence for sexuality in Joseph’s “marriages”.

Hales himself stated in a conversation with Dan Vogel, that, “While I have compiled evidence of sexual relations in twelve of his thirty-five sealings, for all remaining there is no way to know for sure whether they were for “time and eternity” or “eternity only.”

The only revelation we have that Joseph gave about the ceremony to be used in relation to polygamous marriages (which Hales mentions above) says:

These are the words which you shall pronounce upon my servant Joseph and your daughter S. A. Whitney. They shall take each other by the hand and you shall say, You both mutually agree, calling them by name, to be each other’s companion so long as you both shall live, preserving yourselves for each other and from all others and also throughout eternity, reserving only those rights which have been given to my servant Joseph by revelation and commandment and by legal authority in times passed. If you both agree to covenant and do this, I then give you, S. A. Whitney, my daughter, to Joseph Smith, to be his wife, to observe all the rights between you both that belong to that condition. I do it in my own name and in the name of my wife, your mother, and in the name of my holy progenitors, by the right of birth which is of priesthood, vested in me by revelation and commandment and promise of the living God, obtained by the Holy Melchisedeck Gethrow [Jethro?] and others of the Holy Fathers, commanding in the name of the Lord all those powers to concentrate in you and through you to your posterity forever. All these things I do in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that through this order he may be glorified and that through the power of anointing David may reign King over Israel, which shall hereafter be revealed. Let immortality and eternal life hereafter be sealed upon your heads forever and ever.

(Joseph Smith, “revelation”, July 27, 1842. The complete document with footnotes can be found in H. Michael Marquardt, The Joseph Smith Revelations: Text and Commentary (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1999), 315-16.

The ceremony that was in the D&C at the time says,

“You both mutually agree to be each other’s companions, husband and wife, observing the legal rights belonging to this condition; that is, keeping yourselves wholly for each other, and from all others, during your lives.” And when they have answered “Yes,” he shall pronounce them “husband and wife” in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by virtue of the laws of the country and authority vested in him: “may God add his blessings and keep you to fulfill your covenants from henceforth and forever. Amen.”

Another marriage ceremony dictated by Joseph Smith in 1835:

You covenant to be each others companions through life, and discharge the duties of husband & wife in every respect to which they assented, I then pronounced them husband & Wife in the name of God and also pronounced the blessings that the Lord confeed upon adam & Eve in the garden of Eden; that is to multiply and replenish the earth, with the addition of long life and prosperity; dismissed them and returned home.

What is the preponderance of the evidence here? As Dan Vogel argued to Hales:

Normally one doesn’t have to discuss what happens in a marriage. It is the default position in this discussion. You are the one asserting a non-normal position, and therefore it is you who needs evidence.

All three of these ceremonies are the default position of what constitutes a marriage. All the “legal rights”, “the duties of husband and wife in every respect”, and “all the rights” that “belong to that condition”. To argue something else, one needs to produce credible evidence that there was some kind of ceremony that specifically includes a non-sex clause. There is none. Not even in the later affidavits from 1869 and beyond which we will discuss below.

So for Hales to claim anywhere (as he continues to do over and over again) that there were “non-sexual eternity only sealings”, is extremely disingenuous, is it not? Hales vacillates back and forth with this, depending on who he is talking to.

In many conversations where we have seen Hales claim this, he states it as if it were a fact, (as he does here in his hit piece on Jeremy,) he doesn’t preface it with any kind of qualifier like “there may have been eternity only sealings between Joseph and many of his wives.” For example he does so here:

Manuscript documentation supports plural sealings to perhaps thirty-four women, with many of those being for “eternity” only—that is, for the next life.

But Hales claimed to Dan Vogel that “there is no way to know for sure whether they were for “time and eternity” or “eternity only.” And here:

…it is important to note that at least 13, and possibly as many as 20, were non-sexual “eternity only” sealings.

But Hales claimed to Dan Vogel that “there is no way to know for sure whether they were for “time and eternity” or “eternity only.” And yet he still makes the same contradictory claim to Dan Vogel himself here:

“ETERNITY ONLY” SEALINGS DID OCCUR

Joseph was sealed to 14 women with legal husbands. Studying polyandry is complicated because the 14 sealings were not of the same type or duration. Contrary to the assertions of several authors, “eternity only” sealings were performed in Nauvoo. That is, a woman like Ruth Vose Sayers, whose husband was a non-member, was allowed to be sealed to another man for eternity only, with no marriage on earth. Sayers was sealed to Joseph Smith for “eternity only” as documented in Andrew Jenson’s handwriting in his notes found in the Church History Library. (“Hales-Vogel”, op. cited, added emphasis).

Notice the Header of Brian Hales (all in caps). No Brian, “non-sexual, eternity only” sealings did not occur and there is no way that you can legitimately claim this because you yourself have said there is there is “no way to know for sure”. To continue to say so without any evidence at all is simply irrational.

But Hales still presents this as fact based on one unidentified decades later statement compiled by Andrew Jenson; and another hearsay statement from D. Michael Quinn’s research.

This is the best “evidence” he has, (error filled recollections and unidentified hearsay) which he then inexplicitly applies to over a dozen other “marriages”! This is why we claim that Hales is totally irrational when it comes to Smith’s polygamy.

There is also no evidence to support that Ruth Sayers was sealed to Joseph Smith in the presence of his wife Emma. (We consider this highly unlikely for many reasons found in Note #78). Hales thinks it is a fact based on this note written by Andrew Jensen,

\Sister Ruth/ Mrs. Sayers was married in her youth to Mr. Edward Sayers, a thoroughly practical horticulturist and florist, and though he was not a member of the Church, yet he willingly joined his fortune with her and they reached Nauvoo together some time in the year 1841;

While there the strongest affection sprang up between the Prophet Joseph and Mr. Sayers. The latter not attaching much importance to \the/ theory of a future life insisted that his wife \Ruth/ should be sealed to the Prophet for eternity, as he himself should only claim [page2—the first 3 lines of which are written over illegible erasures] her in this life. She \was/ accordingly the sealed to the Prophet in Emma Smith’s presence and thus were became numbered among the Prophets plural wives. She however \though she/ \continued to live with Mr. Sayers / remained with her husband \until his death (Hales, “Ruth Vose”, online here, Accessed October 25, 2014, quoting Andrew Jenson Papers [ca. 1871–1942], LDS Archives).

Hales has no idea where these notes came from and neither does anyone else. He simply writes in a footnote, at his website:

Andrew Jenson Papers [ca. 1871–1942], LDS Archives. It appears that the documents in these folders were used to compile Jenson’s 1887 Historical Record article on plural marriage.

He has no idea if this is hearsay, speculation or someone’s decades later recollection. Yet he will base his entire polygamy narrative on this kind of evidence. That this statement includes her being sealed in the presence of Emma is so unlikely that anyone using this reference must do so with extreme caution. Hales then uses this as a precedent for all of his “non-sexual eternity only sealings”. We find this incredibly disingenuous. This is incredibly bad evidence to base anything on. The entire document reads,

[Page 1:]

1
Sayers, (Ruth Daggett Vose,) daughter
of Mark and Sally Vose, was born
in Watertown, Middlesex Co., Mass.,

and

Feb. 26, 1808, ^ baptized at Boston,
Mo in May, 1832. Du[r]-
[here the printed text is pasted in, changes in bold]
ing the building of the Kirtland Temple her
aunt Polly Vose and herself were engaged in up-
holstering in Boston, they both felt it was right
and necessary to give liberally towards the erec-
tion of that edifice, and did so to the full ex-
tent of their means, continuing their donations
that
until the Prophet Joseph sent word to them, “It
was
is enough.-” The Elders of the Church in trav-
eling in the Eastern States were the recipients
of their unbounded liberality.  Sister Ruth
Mrs. Sayers was married in her youth to Mr.
Edward Sayers, a thoroughly practical horticul-
turist and florist, and though he was not a mem-
ber of the Church, yet he willingly joined his
fortune with hers and they reached Nauvoo to-
gether some time in the year 1841; [handwriting resumes:]
While there
the strongest affection sprang
up between the Prophet Joseph
and Mr. Sayers. The latter not
the
attaching much importance to ^ theory of
a future life insisted that
Ruth
his wife ^ should be sealed
to the Prophet for eternity, as
he himself should only claim

[Page 2:]

[The first 3 lines written over]

2

was

her in this life. She accordingly

sealed to the Prophet in Emma

became

Smith’s presence and thus were

numbered among the Prophets

though she

plural wives. She however

continued to live with Mr. Sayers

remained with her husband

until his death.

After the Prophet’s death

marty martyrdom of Joseph

and Hyrum Smith Mr. Sayers

and his wife returned to Boston

and remained in that city until

1849, when they came to G.S.L City

locating first on the corner

known as the American Hotel

Corner; the following year they

removed to the Twelfth Ward,

where they both reside3d during

the remainder of their lives.

Mr. Sayers died July 17, 1861,

[Page 3:]

3

in his sixtieth year. Sister Sayers [Printed text pasted over handwriting crossed out, changes in bold:]

Sister Sayers has remained a widow since the

everafter death of her husband in 1861, and has lived a

very quiet and retired life, yet known to many

as a women worthy to be classed among the no-

^the      ble daughters of earth, simple in her tastes and

habits, honest, liberal, kind and just, faithful

and true, she passed calmly to her rest on the

morning of th [illegible type] August ^ 1884, in the    ^ 18

[Handwriting resumes:]

She was well known among

the early settlers of G. S. L. City [Pasted text continues, handwriting in bold:]

Sister Sayers was well known among the early

setters in this city. Tall and erect in figure, a

countenance always beaming with human kind-

ness, charitable to the poor and ever ready to

comfort the disconsolate, she endeared herself

to her associates. She was a woman of brilliant

conversational powers and possessed a ready

fund of valuable information, especially upon

topics of interest to the Saints. She was never

tired of relating incidents of her Boston life nor

of dwelling upon Gospel themes and the days of    the Prophet

Joseph and Hyrum

his brother Hyrum. She it

was that (Andrew Jenson Collection, 1850-1941, MS 17956, Box 49, Folder 16, Document 5, CHL).

Hales then tries to corroborate these notes by Jenson with another document that he claims he can’t verify at all. Such is the irrational thinking of Brian Hales. This other document, writes Hales at his website:

…confirms that concerning Joseph’s plural sealing to Ruth Sayers: “Joseph did not pick that woman. She went to see whether she should marry her husband for eternity.

Notice the language. This document doesn’t “confirm” anything. Here is the footnote to that document, (per Hales):

Recorded by D. Michael Quinn Papers, Yale University, Addition—Uncat WA MS 244 (Accession:19990209-c) bx 1. I have been unable to identify the primary document to verify this quotation.

In his book Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: Volume 1b, he discusses Ruth Vose Sayers and uses the same quote:

Another somewhat garbled document apparently dating to 1843 appears to be in the hand of excommunicated Mormon Oliver Olney, whose wife, Phebe Wheeler, worked as a domestic in Hyrum Smith’s home: “What motive has [S]ayers in it—it is the desire of his heart. . . . Joseph did not pick that woman [Ruth Vose Sayers]. She went to see whether she should marry her husband for eternity.”43 Evidently, Olney was gathering information through his wife and learned of the episode involving the Sayers and Joseph Smith. (Hales, Brian C., Joseph Smith’s Polygamy Volume 1b: History, Greg Kofford Books, Kindle Edition, Locations 3560-3564).

Hales used even less of this quote in his FAIRMORMON Presentation. His footnote from his book (43), reads:

[Oliver Olney], typescript excerpt in Quinn Papers, WA MS 244 (Accession:19990209-c) Box 1. I have been unable to identify the primary document to verify this quotation. (ibid., Kindle Locations 4122-4124).

But the full quote adds something that Mike Quinn thought important enough to (initially) assign this quote to someone else, Lucinda Sagers, not Ruth Sayers. The full quote that Don Bradley (who did the research for Hales) gave to Hales reads:

Oct-Nov 1843 document (Yale University) says: “Mrs. Sagers if she don’t look out and keep still she will be put aside…she shall keep her child as long as it lives… Joseph did not pick that woman she went to see whether she should marry her husband for Eternity.”—the document also lists the following plural wives of JS: Louisa Beman, Agnes Smith, Elisa R Snow, Emily Partridge, Elisa Partridge, Mrs Sylvia Lyons, Mrs D. Sessions, Mrs Granger.” (Hales, Document JS0596, 28, mormonpolygamydocuments.org, emphasis ours).

Notice all the ellipses! This is extremely important when analyzing this document.

But first, are there any reported children by Ruth and Edward Sayers in 1843? Not that we are aware of. There aren’t any children by her listed that we can find. Is this why Hales doesn’t quote that part of the document?

Concerning the Sagers, in the High Council Minutes from November 25, 1843 we read:

Joseph Smith [preferred a charge] against [William Henry] Harrison Sagars. Charge[:] Nauvoo City[,] November 21st 1843. Brother Marks[.] Dear Sir, I hereby prefer the following charges against Elder Harrison Sagars, namely: 1st. For trying to seduce a young girl, living at his house[,] by the name of Phebe Madison. 2nd. For using my name in a blasphemous manner, by saying that I tolerated such things in which thing he is guilty of lying &c &c. Joseph Smith. The defendant plead not guilty. One [high councilman each] were appointed to speak on [either] side, viz. (7) [Thomas] Grover and (8) [Aaron] Johnson[.] The charge was not sustained, but it appeared that he had taught false doctrine which was corrected by President Joseph Smith, and the defendant was continued in the church. [The] Council adj[ourne]d [un]till Saturday the 9th day of Dec[ember] next at 2 o’clock P.M. Hosea Stout[,] Clerk. (Dinger, John S. (2013-11-26). The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes (Kindle Locations 12620-12629). Signature Books, Kindle Edition).

John Dinger explains:

Phoebe Madison was Sagers’s sister-in-law, who lived with Sagers and his wife, Lucinda. Rumors circulated that Joseph Smith sanctioned a sexual relationship between Sagers and his wife’s sister, and in fact, Sagers would be allowed to marry the sister in a polygamous ceremony a month later. He would also take another three wives in Nauvoo and five more in Utah (George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: “… But We Called It Celestial Marriage [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008], 346-47, 617-18). (Dinger, John S. (2013-11-26). The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, Signature Books, Kindle Edition, Locations 13033-13037).

It is very easy to see Olney’s account being about the Sagers, and the woman that Joseph didn’t pick being Lucinda Sagers or her sister Phoebe Madison. The trial was public and there is an account given of it in the Warsaw Signal:

Mr. Editor—

In all probability, you have heard of the existence of a body in Nauvoo City, called the “High Council” whose business it is; to investigate all the affairs that concern the church, to try all offenders against the laws of said church, and punish accordingly…. I had often heard of this court, and my curiosity was aroused to see it, and I had the fortune to have it perfectly satisfied in the following manner. Being in that city [Nauvoo], last December, I heard considerable talk of the doctrine of Spiritual Wives, which doctrine, I find has been, and is now being taught to a great extent in that place, the proofs of which are daily, presenting themselves, but in what shape, I shall leave you to determine.

Being compelled to remain in that city on account of the closing of the river, I was happy to learn that there was to be a trial of one of their Priests [Harrison Sagers], not for teaching said doctrine, but for teaching it too publicly. Accordingly on the day of the trial, I repaired to the council chamber, and by good luck, obtained a seat, the room being crowded to excess. It was with much difficulty that I could learn the names of all concerned, but shall endeavor to give them as correct as possible: but previous to my going farther, I will say, that before this occurrence transpired, I cared little or nothing about their creed, consequently was not carried away, as others are against them on account of their faith; and therefore I watched their proceedings strictly, but without prejudice. But it was impossible to be there long, without seeing that it was fixed and settled between Smith and the accused, (the trial merely being got up for effect,) that it should all be blown over. The parties concerned, as near as I could find out, were, Joseph Smith, complainant, Harrison Sagers, defendant, and the two principal witnesses were, Lucy Sagers, wife of the said Sagers, and her sister, Miss Mason, to whom he had been teaching this doctrine for the last two years; which fact was clearly proven, and would have been satisfactory to any court but such an accursed Inquisition as this. The evidence here produced, is of too black and despicable a nature to be described; and had the accused have been dealt with according to his crime, he would have been divested of his office, as priest, and cut off from the church. As is common, however, in all cases of importance, that come before this tribunal, instead of meeting his just deserts, after a short address from the Prophet, which was more to screen himself and brother, than to chastise, the said Sagers was discharged by the Prophet, notwithstanding the suit was brought before the said High Council; and that body did not act officially on that subject, no vote being taken. I must say that a more ungallant speech than that of the Prophet, was never spoken in the presence of females—in fact, so lewd and lascivious, that it was with difficulty that I could sit still and hear it…. A TRAVELER. (Warsaw Signal, March 20, 1844, 2, emphasis ours)

Lucinda obviously did not approve of her husband’s spiritual wife, so she brought the matter before the High Council again on March 30, 1844:

Lucinda Sagars [preferred a charge] against [William Henry] Harrison Sagars. Charge[:] To the Presidency and the Twelve. Inasmuch as you have declared officially that you will deal with all persons who teach or have taught the abominable doctrine of Spiritual wive[s], this is to notify you that Harrison Sagars is guilty of that said sin, which thing can be proven by credible witnesses, and if he is not chastized for it by the church the laws of the land will be enforced against him. H[arrison] Sagars left his family in December last[,] since which time he has not provided for them in any way whatever. The cause of the innocent demand action immediately and you are the ones to take the matter in hand. Lucinda Sagars. Brother Harrison Sagars, Dear sir[:] As this complaint has been handed over to the High Council by the First Presidency to act upon, you are requested to appear before [the] Council on Saturday the 13th inst[ant] at my house at 2 o’clock P.M. to answer the within ^above^ charges.

Nauvoo City[,] April 10th 1844. William Marks President of said Council. [The] Defendant plead not guilty. Two were appointed to speak on [each] side to wit[:] (5) D[avid] Fulmer & (7) J[ames] G. Divine on the part of the plaintiff and (6) G[eorge] W. Harris and (8) A[aron] Johnson on the part of the defendant. [It was] decided that ^as^ the first part of the charge had been brought before the Council before (on the 25th of Nov[ember] 1843) and he [being] tried on it; that the Council had no right to deal with him on that item. And that the second part was not sustained and therefore that he should remain in the Church. Adjourned till the 27th inst[ant] at one o’clock P.M. Hosea Stout[,] Clerk. (Dinger, John S.,The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, Signature Books, Kindle Edition, Locations 13157-13174, emphasis ours).

Notice that Lucinda mentions “his family”, so they had children. John Dinger writes,

Notice that the action against Sagers is driven by his wife, while the high council remains surprisingly lackadaisical in its response to alleged adultery. It appears that they knew Sagers had been given permission to take his sister-in-law as a second wife. If so, considering that the revelation required a man receive his first wife’s permission, the high council was complicit in the transgression (D&C 132:61; but cf. vv. 64-65).

A document in the LDS Church History Library and Archives titled “Trial of Harrison Sagar[s] defendant and his wife Lucinda Sagars” states that Ja[me]s Hadlock — says that he heard the defendant teach the doctrine of spiritual wives, and that he said he believed it to be the order of God[.] It was before he had his trial before this council, that [the] def[endan]t said his whole salvation wd? rested on having 2 certain Girls to wit[,] [seventeen-year-old] Amanda Higbee and [twenty-five-year-old] Phebe Madison[,] and that was the way [he and his first wife] came to part[.] … They seperated last fall … P. Wells testifies [he heard James] Hadlock [speak about the] … spiritual wife doctrine … last fall [but] … thought it was all a joke. Mrs Hadlock says def[endan]t taught[the] spiritual wife doctrine … He frequently comes to see his child [and says] … that he must get an old woman to get young women for him … [The] def[endan]t and wife parted by agreement on the 8th of Dec[ember] … His wife said [the] def[endan]t and his mother all was whores … [It was] decided that as the first part of the charge had been brought up before the Council before (on the 25 Nov[ember] 1843) and he [was] tried on it[,] that the Council had no right to deal with him on that item, and that the second part was not sustained and therefore that he should remain in the Church (Nauvoo Stake High Council Court Papers, Selected Collections, 1:19). (Dinger, John S., The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, Signature Books, Kindle Edition, Locations 13912-13929, emphasis ours).

Notice that Sager’s wife calls them whores, (accusing them of committing whoredom), of which Joseph Smith was also accused in Kirtland.

Again, notice that “He [Sagers] frequently comes to see his child”. In the light of this, the quote makes more sense:

Mrs. [Sagers] if she don’t look out and keep still she will be put aside…she shall keep her child as long as it lives… Joseph did not pick that woman she went to see whether she should marry her husband for Eternity.”

It is obvious that Lucinda would be “put aside” if she did not “look out”. She had a child, (Ruth Vose Sayers did not) and Lucinda got to keep her child since Harrison Sagers was visiting it after they separated. How could this apply to Ruth Vose? Hales is claiming that Ruth went to Joseph because her husband told her since he didn’t care about a “future life” that he insisted she should be sealed to Joseph. So then why does the transcription say that “she went to see whether she should marry her husband for eternity?” Shouldn’t this say she went to see whether she could marry Joseph for eternity? And the Jenson note says that it was Mr. Sayers that went to Joseph, not his wife. And what did Ruth Vose do that she had to “look out and keep still” or she would “be put aside”? This just doesn’t fit the story that Jenson was given. (For more on the Sagers, see Note #212).

Could it be that Lucinda went to Joseph and wanted to be sealed to Harrison Sagers, and he said no because she would not accept the second wife? We agree with Mike Quinn’s initial conclusion that this best fits Lucinda Sagers, not Ruth Vose Sayers. But where is Hales disclosure of these problems? Nowhere to be found on his website or in his books. And why didn’t he reveal the entire quote? Because it raises too many questions? Hales has even convinced Mike Quinn that this is about Ruth Vose Sayers.

Mike Quinn wrote in 2012:

Despite my decades-long expectation for those specific words to be in the written records of sealing, Brian Hales has recently persuaded me that Joseph Smith was sealed during his lifetime to one already-married woman in a ceremony that she, her non-Mormon husband, and the Prophet all regarded as applying only to the eternities after mortal life. This was Ruth Vose Sayers, for whom there was no contemporary record of the ceremony’s wording. However, as Hales affirmed today and in his previous articles, in addition to a recently discovered narrative about this matter by Andrew Jenson, a document written by one of Joseph’s house-girls in late 1843 or early 1844 stated: “Joseph did not pick that woman. She went to see whether she should marry her husband for eternity.” …

Regrettably, in his publications about this matter, Hales has misrepresented the fact that my transcription gave the woman’s name as “Sagers” (with a “g,” NOT Sayers). In his 2012 publication, he even pretended that my typescript spelled the surname as “Sayers” (with a “y”). Acknowledging (with brackets) that he made only one change to my transcript, Hales, “Joseph Smith’s Personal Polygamy,” 220, stated: “Another document apparently dating to 1843 … [stated:] `What motive has [S]ayers in it–it is the desire of his heart,” and Hales claimed on the same page that this 1843 document “names Sayers explicitly.” Also see my Note 4 (last para.)

To the contrary, the surname that Hales allegedly quoted and allegedly paraphrased in 2012 was NOT Sayers (with a “y”) in my transcript, as explained midway into my citation to this document in D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature Books/Smith Research Associates, 1994), 348n39, as follows:

“Phebe Wheeler Olney statement, written between November 1843 and April 1844 on the back of Susan McKee Culbertson’s application for membership in the Nauvoo Relief Society, 21 [July] 1843, uncataloged manuscripts, Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. Nauvoo’s 1842 census showed `Phoebe’ Wheeler as the first of the six girls residing as house servants with the Joseph Smith family.

Despite her marriage to Oliver Olney on 19 October 1843, performed by Patriarch Hyrum Smith, Phebe apparently continued as a servant in the Smith home until 1844. Its unrelated [i.e., unrelated to Origins of Power’s emphasis on the document’s mentioning Robert D. Foster] reference to `Mrs Sagers’ indicates that this entry dates from November 1843 to April 1844, when the marital complaints of Mrs. [William Henry] Harrison Sagers involved the high council. The more likely time period for discussion of the Harrison [Sagers] case in the Smith household was November 1843, the only time Smith’s manuscript diary referred to the complaint against Harrison. …” Likewise, Gary James Bergera, “Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists, 1841-44,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 38 (Fall 2005): 3n4 (“Sagers was linked sexually to his sister-in-law, Phebe Madison, in late 1843, but she married civilly shortly before he was tried for adultery and forgiven”). Therefore, since discovering the Olney document in the early 1970s, I regarded the “eternity” reference in the original manuscript as a restatement of William Henry Harrison Sager’s excuse for adultery, and I didn’t realize it applied to a different already-married woman seeking to be sealed to Joseph Smith.

The index of Origins of Power (page 675) also had this entry: “Olney, Phebe Wheeler, 113, 348n39.” Hales cited this book in his 2010 “Joseph Smith and the Puzzlement of `Polyandry,’” 114n39. She had Culbertson’s application in her possession because (from 1842 to 1844) Phebe Wheeler was the assistant secretary of Nauvoo’s Relief Society. See Jill Mulvay Derr, Janath Russell Cannon, and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief Society (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992), 433. However, historians have disagreed about this assistant secretary’s middle initial and marital status: “Miss Phebe M. Wheeler” in Andrew Jenson, Encyclopedic History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Publishing, 1941), 696, contrasted with “Phebe J. Wheeler, a widow” in Derr, Cannon, and Beecher, Women of Covenant, 30. If the latter is accurate, then Phebe Wheeler Olney was probably a daughter of the Relief Society’s assistant secretary. However, the LDS Family History Library’s electronic website of familysearch.org has no entries in its Ancestral File or Records Search for “Phebe J. Wheeler” at Nauvoo, while it shows that “Phebe M. Wheeler” married Oliver Olney there in October 1843. With the exception of some minor differences in phrasing (plus giving the document’s recently assigned Yale catalog number as MSS S-1644/F349), this same description appeared in the citation to the Olney manuscript in D. Michael Quinn, “National Culture, Personality, and Theocracy in the Early Mormon Culture of Violence,” John Whitmer Historical Association 2002 Nauvoo Conference Special Edition ([Independence, MO]: John Whitmer Historical Association, 2002), 183n131.

Due to the citations by Hales from Andrew Jenson’s research-notes that Ruth Vose Sayers requested to be sealed “for eternity” to Joseph Smith and that her husband Edward Sayers agreed, I now realize that my original transcription of the surname was probably in error. The 1843-44 manuscript’s handwriting could as easily be read “Sayers” (with a “y”), instead of being read as “Sagers” (with a “g”–the way I transcribed it the 1970s).

However, neither Hales nor his research-assistant Don Bradley (see my Note 44, 2nd para.) consulted the original manuscript at the Beinecke Library. Hales indicated this in his “Puzzlement,” 129n93 (“I have been unable to identify the primary document to verify this quotation”), with identical statement in Hales, “Joseph Smith’s Personal Polygamy,” 220n195.

Therefore, Brian Hales had an academic obligation to tell his readers in 2010 and 2012 that my typescript of the surname did NOT match the way he was allegedly quoting my typescript, but Hales did not make such an admission. Even though Hales should have consulted the original manuscript in the Beinecke Library, his analysis that the document refers to Ruth Vose Sayers (which I now accept) also provides more precise dating for its entries about the polygamous marriages of Joseph Smith and of his brother Hyrum. By my analysis (see the narrative for my Note 274 and within that note itself), those entries were written no earlier than February 1844. That was when Hyrum Smith performed the sealing ceremony for Ruth and his brother Joseph), but also written before the martyrdom of the two brothers on 27 June 1844 (because the document’s entries about polygamy referred to them in the present tense–i.e., while the Smith brothers were still living). (D. Michael Quinn, Evidence For The Sexual Side of Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, Expanded-Finalized, 31 December 2012; circulated in mid-2013, 5, 64-66).

We are not sure why Mike Quinn was persuaded by Hales’ argument. Also, Don Bradley has informed us that he indeed did consult Quinn’s document at the Beinecke Library. The document cited:

“Phebe Wheeler Olney statement, written between November 1843 and April 1844 on the back of Susan McKee Culbertson’s application for membership in the Nauvoo Relief Society”

Is much more likely to be about Lucinda Sagers. We did consult the original document, and our handwriting analysis below shows it was indeed the name Sagers, not Sayers. Hales just made the change to support his own speculations, not because he studied the original document!

The first trial of Harrison Sagers took place on November 25, 1843, and the second on March 30, 1844 and April 10th. This fits the timeframe perfectly. Yet Quinn’s argument to overturn the evidence that this was indeed about Lucinda Sagers is that “The more likely time period for discussion of the Harrison [Sagers] case in the Smith household was November 1843, the only time Smith’s manuscript diary referred to the complaint against Harrison.” Yet “The Traveler’s” letter was published in the Warsaw Signal on March 20, 1844! Was this enough to cause discussion in the Smith household?

Quinn’s other objection was that Gary Bergera claims that Phoebe Madison had been married in 1843 before the first Sagers trial and so he could not have married her. Yet, Brian Hales affirms George D. Smith (cited above) and states in Joseph Smith’s Polygamy:

Sagers later was sealed to Phoebe Madison with Joseph Smith’s sanction, but the date of this sealing is not documented but was undoubtedly late 1843 or early 1844. George D. Smith affirmed that, on this occasion, the Nauvoo High Council (and by extension, Joseph Smith) showed “indifference toward [Phoebe Madison’s] moral welfare” and apparently Harrison Sagers’s as well. (Hales, Brian C., Joseph Smith’s Polygamy Volume 2a: History, Greg Kofford Books, Kindle Edition, Locations 5731-5734).

Hales continues to claim that he cannot locate the original document, (As of November, 2016) but we have easily done so, through our friend Joe Geisner. The text in question reads (thanks to Joe Geisner for help with this):

Wait till next week and thou shalt hav an oppo

rtunity – thou shalt go with true[?] persons –

there Stay 3 weeks Olive[r][?] will[?] come in 4 weeks

When he cometh he <if he> goeth to the place he will bring the plates

When he cometh again he will have the plates if he goeth

to the place..; Mrs sagers if she dont look out for and keep still

she will be put aside – __ do not like it but it

is the desire[?] of their hearts & they will do it saith the Lord

what motive has sagers in it – it is the desire? of his heart

he has shed the blood of many man he thinketh it is no

harm – she shall keep the child as long as it lives

– how long shall the child live – I will tell the[e] in 3 days

Miss V? thou shalt write half a sheet <to>day

that I will tell thee I[n] 3 weeks Mo[??] shalt have the gift

of tongues – ;; It is to be kept private

There has been man murdered lately by the name of [Monshing?]

by Dr Foster with a Sword on the prair[i]e 6 miles & buried

him in a ditch the cup is double filld with iniquity:–

Joseph did not pick? that woman she went to see Whether she

Should marry her husband for Eternity The tribe Asthemma?

is comming on the earth – 10000 years ago; six particular

hyms thou shall sing to day Why Lord – thou shalt fast

to d<a>y and sing–; because thou didst not fast but one day

[sideways:] The heroes shall gather in here—

Still, what about the mention of a child? We don’t see either of them addressing that elephant in the room. It is almost like that part of the quote just doesn’t exist for them. And what about the other part of the quote, ““What motive has [S]agers in it—it is the desire of his heart…?” Where does this come from? Is it a part of the original quote that someone didn’t transcribe? If so, why not? Why are quotes like this so full of ellipsis? Why, if Hales has these original documents, does he not quote them fully, (what Mike Quinn transcribed) in context so the readers can judge for themselves what is relevant?

Susan Cuthbertson Relief Society Document

So what does Hales have here? Andrew Jenson’s decades later notes that we have no provenance for; a “garbled” account of various happenings in Nauvoo that could span months; and an affidavit from 1869 with serious problems that doesn’t mention Emma and has Hyrum Smith marrying Ruth Vose before he accepts polygamy. This is Hales evidence of a non sexual eternity only sealing? This is evidence that there were 13 more such sealings?

In Sayers’ affidavit from 1869 (highly suspect affidavits in many ways) she gets the date wrong, claiming that it was Hyrum Smith who performed the sealing in February of 1843, but Hyrum Smith did not accept Joseph’s spiritual wife doctrine until May of that year so it could not have been Hyrum Smith at that time.

We believe that the best date for Sayers becoming one of Smith’s spiritual wives is in 1842 when he was in hiding and often stayed at her house. Of course, during this time Emma would not have sanctioned such a “wedding” and it certainly would not have been performed by Hyrum Smith.

There is testimony however, by Joseph F. Smith and Angus M. Cannon that “eternity only sealings” between two living individuals were extremely rare and so did not occur in Joseph’s lifetime. We discuss this later in the Essay. As Dan Vogel explains in the same Facebook exchange with Brian Hales that took place in the fall of 2013:

There’s more to historiography than simply collecting documents. You should know the difference between a strong and weak argument and what is more or less likely. What does it mean “in accordance with his teachings” when JS frequently changed his teachings? It’s like saying the BOM doesn’t teach a modalistic concept of the Godhead, or the Lectures on Faith don’t teach a binitarian view because that would contradict what he clearly taught in Nauvoo. Or, the BOM can’t be anti-Masonic because he became a Mason in Nauvoo. These are all examples of the Idealist Fallacy, because humans do contradict themselves and violate their own teachings. However, JS may have had a way of rationalizing his polyandrous marriages. He did say that whatever God commands is right no matter what it is—even if it seems abominable to us.

Nonetheless, you didn’t respond to my counter challenge to produce evidence that JS treated his polyandrous wives different than the other polygamous wives. You are the one with a theory that needs evidence. You are attempting to take advantage of a silence in the historical record where one is expected. Here is a test of your theory: Look at the historical record of other early 19th century childless marriages and see how often you can demonstrate they had sex. (Hales-Vogel, op. cited).

In his last response to Dan Vogel, Brian Hales writes,

I probably only have one more comment, unless you wish to revisit something.

You wrote: “I will read your chapters on Jane and Sarah, but you gave it a shot here and it wasn’t very impressive. Keep in mind, I referred to them as examples of women who rejected JS’s polyandrous marriage proposals, which you claimed didn’t exist. This was in response to your weak argument from silence, which you haven’t overcome.”

At the risk of an “ad hominem”, I mention accounts from several other witnesses that describe a sexual relationship between Sarah Pratt and John C. Bennett in 1840 and early 1841.

Nauvoans Stephen and Zeruiah Goddard signed the affidavit quoted above stating that on October 6, 1840: “from the first night, until the last, with the exception of one night it being nearly a month, the Dr. was there as sure as the night came, and generally two or three times a day–for the first two or three nights he left about 9 o’clock–after that he remained later, sometimes till after midnight.” They also claimed that she later moved into a separate house and they were seen there “together, as it were, man and wife.” Zeruiah Goddard also swore out her own affidavit: “On one occasion I came suddenly into the room where Mrs. Pratt and the Dr. were; she was lying on the bed and the Dr. was taking his hands out of her bosom; he was in the habit of sitting on the bed where Mrs. Pratt was lying, and lying down over her.”

In August of 1842, Hancock County Sherriff J. B. Backenstos, signed the following affidavit: “some time during last winter, he accused Doctor John C. Bennett, with having an illicit intercourse with Mrs. Orson Pratt, and some others, when said Bennett replied that she made a first rate go, and from personal observations I should have taken said Doctor Bennett and Mrs. Pratt as man and wife.”

Ebenezer Robinson reported in 1890: “In the spring of 1841 Dr. Bennett had a small neat house built for Elder Orson Pratt’s family [Sarah and one male child] and commenced boarding with them. Elder Pratt was absent on a mission to England.”

John D. Lee recalled: “He [John C. Bennett] became intimate with Orson Pratt’s wife, while Pratt was on a mission. That he built her a fine frame house, and lodged with her, and used her as his wife….”

Mary Ettie V. Coray Smith, a sometimes confused informant, related: “Orson Pratt, then, as now [1858], one of the “Twelve,’ was sent by Joseph Smith on a mission to England. During his absence, his first (i.e. his lawful) wife, Sarah, occupied a house owned by John C. Bennett, a man of some note, and at that time, quartermaster-general of the Nauvoo Legion. Sarah was an educated woman, of fine accomplishments, and attracted the attention of the Prophet Joseph, who called upon her one day, and alleged he found John C. Bennett in bed with her. As we lived but across the street from her house we heard the whole uproar. After reviewing available evidence, historian D. Michael Quinn concluded it to be a sexual union by referring to her as “Sarah M. Bates (Pratt, Bennett, Pratt).”

Richard Van Wagoner discounts some of this testimony, but his efforts fail to address even half of the testimonies and are problematic from a scholarly perspective.

Is this important? Perhaps not, but Sarah and Bennett had their own agenda. The curious thing is to read the different references to a conversation(s) between Joseph and Sarah. In a meeting of the Twelve Apostles dated January 20, 1843, Joseph Smith told Orson that Sarah “lied about me.” The Prophet continued: “I never made the offer which she said I did.” According to this statement, Joseph admitted making “an offer.” What was it? We don’t know. Was it sexual tryst? sexual polyandry? an “eternity only” sealing? The various accounts from Sarah and her anti-Mormon scribes describe it as a “proposal” and a “dastardly attempt on her virtue.” Joseph said Sarah “lied.” The “Workings on Mormonism” that you quoted from earlier contain an interesting citation allegedly from Joseph: “there was no sin in it as long as she kept it to herself.” Joseph never said this, but it was John C. Bennett’s bread-and-butter seductive line.

I’ve never been impressed by accusations based upon pure assumption. If Joseph were as immoral as you depict, it seems you might have more credible witnesses providing less ambiguous allegations.

This has been an excellent exchange. I hope you don’t mind me sharing it. You comments have been hard-hitting and probably about as effective as any could be. Of course I’m nonplussed and your [sic] haven’t been converted yet . (ibid.).

First, We find it odd that Hales claims in the exchange more than once with Dan Vogel that he is “nonplussed”. It means: “to render utterly perplexed; puzzle completely, a state of utter perplexity.” In other words, speechless. Here is how the Oxford Dictionary defines it:

In standard use, nonplussed means ‘surprised and confused’: the hostility of the new neighbor’s refusal left Mrs. Walker nonplussed.

But there is another definition that is not considered part of Standard English that Hales must think is the actual definition. In the “usage” section below they add:

In North American English, a new use has developed in recent years, meaning ‘unperturbed’—more or less the opposite of its traditional meaning: hoping to disguise his confusion, he tried to appear nonplussed. This new use probably arose on the assumption that non- was the normal negative prefix and must therefore have a negative meaning. It is not considered part of standard English.

We agree that Hales must have been utterly perplexed at Dan Vogel’s observations about Joseph Smith’s polygamy. He responded to very little of Dan’s conclusions about Smith’s logic in practicing polyandry but instead threw out ad hominems and argumentum ad ignorantiam. Why would anyone care if what Vogel wrote “perturbed” Hales or not? What does Hales’ reaction to Vogel’s comments have to do with Joseph Smith’s logic in practicing what is called polyandry?

Hales continues his idealist fallacy by defending Smith’s adultery and lying (according to church law and the laws of the land he did) and we are to believe Smith over Sarah Pratt, who Hales claims did the same thing (lie and commit adultery). Since Dan did not bother to respond to Hales last comment, we would like to offer a response here.

Hales quotes Mrs. Mary Ettie V. Smith, to support the allegations against Sarah Pratt, but what is very interesting is that Hales edits the quote. After Mary Smith claims that “we saw and hear the whole uproar,” she adds, “Sarah ordered the Prophet out of the house, and the Prophet used obscene language to her.” (Mary Ettie V. Smith, Fifteen Years Among the Mormons: Being the Narrative of Mrs. Mary Ettie V. Smith, by Nelson Winch Green, New York, H. Dayton, 1859, 31, Online here, Accessed September 20, 2014).

She also claimed that, “He [Orson Pratt] and his wife, were re-baptized for the remission of their mutual sin, and the Prophet was appeased.”(ibid., 32).

It appears that Mary Smith was simply repeating rumors she had heard in Nauvoo along with some observations that she could see from her house across the street. At best, she heard a fracas from the house across the street and heard Smith and Pratt arguing and then heard Smith use obscene language towards Sarah Pratt.

She says that “Sarah ordered Smith out of the house.” How did “they” even know that Bennett was in the house? She doesn’t say. One has to give credence to the John C. Bennett version of this story if that is the case, for he claimed to be a witness to it. As Van Wagoner writes,

Sometime in late 1840 or early 1841, Joseph confided to his friend that he was smitten by the “amiable and accomplished” Sarah Pratt and wanted her for “one of his spiritual wives, for the Lord had given her to him as a special favor for his faithfulness” (emphasis in original).

Shortly afterward, the two men took some of Bennett’s sewing to Sarah’s house. During the visit, as Bennett describes it, Joseph said, “Sister Pratt, the Lord has given you to me as one of my spiritual wives. I have the blessings of Jacob granted me, as God granted holy men of old, and as I have long looked upon you with favor, and an earnest desire of connubial bliss, I hope you will not repulse or deny me.” “And is that the great secret that I am not to utter,” Sarah replied. “Am I called upon to break the marriage covenant, and prove recreant to my lawful husband! I never will.” She added, “I care not for the blessings of Jacob. I have one good husband, and that is enough for me.” But according to Bennett, the Prophet was persistent. Finally Sarah angrily told him on a subsequent visit, “Joseph, if you ever attempt any thing of the kind with me again, I will make a full disclosure to Mr. Pratt on his return home. Depend upon it, I will certainly do it.” “Sister Pratt,” the Prophet responded, “I hope you will not expose me, for if I suffer, all must suffer; so do not expose me. Will you promise me that you will not do it?” “If you will never insult me again,” Sarah replied, “I will not expose you unless strong circumstances should require it.” “If you should tell,” the Prophet added, “I will ruin your reputation, remember that” (Bennett 1842a, 228-31; emphasis in original) .

According to Bennett, Sarah kept her promise. Even Orson did not know of the incident. Later Sarah recalled that “shortly after Joseph made his propositions to me . . . they enraged me so that I refused to accept any help from the tithing house or the bishop.” She also added that “Bennett, who was of a sarcastic turn of mind, used to come and tell me about Joseph to tease and irritate me” (Wyl 1886, 61) .

Nearly a year after Orson’s return to Nauvoo, in mid-July 1841, another incident, according to Bennett, forced Sarah to tell Orson of the Prophet’s behavior. If one believes Bennett’s account, Joseph kissed Sarah in his counselor’s presence. Sarah caused a commotion that apparently roused at least one neighbor, Mary Ettie V. Smith, who lived across the street from the Pratts. She recalled eighteen years later that during the fracas “Sarah ordered the Prophet out of the house, and the Prophet used obscene language to her” declaring that he had found John C. Bennett “in bed with her” (Green 1859, 31).

Bennett recounts (1842a, 231) that when Sarah told her husband of the Prophet’s behavior, Orson approached Joseph and told him “never to offer an insult of the like again.” Though full details of the confrontation between the two men have not been uncovered, it seems certain from subsequent events that Joseph not only denied Sarah’s allegations, but accused her of being Bennett’s paramour. Orson believed Sarah, however, a position that caused serious difficulties between him and Joseph Smith. (Richard S. Van Wagoner, Sarah M. Pratt: The Shaping of an Apostate, Dialogue, Vol.19, No.2, 72-73, Summer 1986).

Why does Mary Smith also use the word “alleged” when Smith supposedly saw Bennett in bed with her? Because she only heard Joseph Smith “use obscene language to her,” which was Joseph claiming that Sarah Pratt had been “in bed” with Bennett. All Mary Smith saw was some kind of an “uproar”. Yet Hales will latch on to this and use it as evidence, even though he says she was sometimes “confused”. How does he know she was not confused here? The problem is that Mary Smith doesn’t paint a pretty picture of polygamy in Nauvoo nor of Joseph Smith. Hales knows this but wants to have it both ways. Notice again, that Hales (who claims that he doesn’t like to use labels) claims that any accounts that support Sarah Pratt’s version of events are written by “anti-Mormon scribes”.

If Pratt were really the liar with the “agenda” that Hales makes her out to be, then why did Brigham Young allow Orson and Sarah to receive the “fullness of the Priesthood” after she supposedly committed adultery with Bennett? As Richard Van Wagoner writes:

Orson and Sarah were endowed in the Nauvoo temple on 12 December 1845 (the day after Orson’s return) and were again sealed on 8 January 1846–a customary step for sealings that had earlier been performed outside the temple. But on 11 January, during an unusual event in the temple, both Orson and Sarah were evicted by vote because of a conflict with Parley P. Pratt. Parley had been secretly sealed to Belinda Marden by Brigham Young on 20 November 1844, and, on 1 January 1846, she gave birth to a son, Nephi. Though Belinda was living in the Pratt home, Parley’s legal wife Mary Ann did not know of the sealing. Evidently Sarah Pratt told Mary Ann that the baby’s father was Parley, because during the 11 January temple session Parley confronted Sarah, accusing her of “influencing his wife against him, and of ruining and breaking up his family,” as well as “being an apostate, and of speaking against the heads of the Church and against him” (Watson 1975, 495). Orson strongly defended his wife as he had done in 1842, and they were both expelled from the temple.

The next day Orson felt conciliatory though justified in his actions. Apparently unaware of his brother’s sealing to Belinda Marden, Orson criticized Parley when he wrote Brigham Young on 12 January 1846:

Orson & Sarah Pratt, with children

With all the light and knowledge that he has received concerning the law of the priesthood and with all the counsels that he had received from our quorum, if he feels at liberty to go into the city of New York or elsewhere and seduce girls or females and sleep and have connexion with them contrary to the law of God, and the sacred counsels of his brethren, it is something that does not concern me as an individual. And if my quorum and the church can fellowship him, I shall find no fault with him, but leave it between him, the church, and God.

Orson continued by defending Sarah:

When it comes to that, that my wife cannot come into this holy & consecrated temple to enjoy the meetings and society of the saints, without being attacked by [Parley’s] false accusations and hellish lies, and then too in the presence of a large assembly, I feel as though it was too much to be borne. Where is there a person, that was present last evening, that heard my wife say the least thing against him or his family…. And yet she was accused by him, before that respectable company, in the most impudent and mailcious [sic] manner of whispering against him all over the temple. Under these circumstances, brethren, I verily supposed that I had a perfect right to say a few words in defense of my much injured family. I therefore accused him of false accusations and lying. It was my belief at that time, that there was no place nor circumstances, in heaven, on earth, or in hell, too sacred to defend the cause of my innocent family when they were publicly attacked in so unjust and insulting manner.

His letter provides insight into how Church leaders expected him to respond in such situations:

After I learned that it was my duty to stand and hear my family abused in the highest degree without the least provocation, and yet not open my mouth in her defense, I immediately confessed my fault to the counsel, but my confession was rejected. Now brethren, I stand ready and willing to make any further confessions to the counsel, necessary to my restoration from banishment to the enjoyment of your meetings, which you in your wisdom may dictate. And as I frankly & freely confessed the thing pointed out by Prest. as being wrong, namely “The opening of my mouth” (Brigham Young Collection; emphasis in original).

The letter was apparently considered sufficient evidence of remorse, and later that afternoon Orson and Sarah were initiated into the “Fulness of the Priesthood,” a sealing ordinance received through the second anointing and also referred to as “calling and election made sure,” “second endowment,” and “higher blessings” (Buerger 1983) . (Richard S. VanWagoner, Sarah M. Pratt, The Shaping of an Apostate, Dialogue, Vol.19, No.2, 85-86, PDF Online here, Accessed December 1, 2014).

It is rather hard to believe that if Sarah Pratt had been having an adulterous affair with John C. Bennett for years, as claimed by the Goddards and others, that Brigham Young would have allowed her to participate in the Second Anointing ritual. They obviously didn’t believe that she was an “apostate” either—as his brother Parley tried to paint her—because Orson and Sarah received their “second endowment” the very next day after Parley did so. What is much more likely is that they believed that Sarah had repented of her accusations against Joseph, and they accepted it.

John C. Bennett

As Van Wagoner mentions in his article, if Pratt and Bennett were having an affair since October of 1840, then,

What about the January 1841 revelation that declared of John C. Bennett, “I have seen the work he hath done, which I accept if he continue and will crown him with blessings and great glory” (D&C 124: 17).

So God accepted John C. Bennett’s adulterous shenanigans up to that time? Not according to what Brian Hales has written. And God wanted him to continue committing adultery so he could crown him with blessings and great glory? This is how FAIRMORMON tries to spin this “revelation”:

Was Bennett, then, ever sincere? An assessment of his lifelong behavior and character would probably lead most to reject this possibility—but, LDS authors have often entertained it because of a revelation addressed to Bennett. Bennett and others have read this as an endorsement of his behavior to that point, and critics have seen it as evidence that Joseph was both uninspired and unaware of Bennett’s nature and actions. B.H. Roberts believed that “his intentions in life at that time were honorable,” and argued that “the Lord” shared this view in D&C 124.

A close reading of both the text and the historical circumstances calls this assumption into question:

Again, let my servant John C. Bennett help you in your labor in sending my word to the kings and people of the earth, and stand by you, even you my servant Joseph Smith, in the hour of affliction; and his reward shall not fail if he receive counsel.

“And for his love he shall be great, for he shall be mine if he do this, saith the Lord. I have seen the work which he hath done, which I accept if he continue, and will crown him with blessings and great glory. (D&C 124:16–17)

The praise for Bennett is, in fact, rather mild. In the same section, the Lord is “well pleased,” (v. 1, 12) with others, who are described as “blessed” (v. 15), “holy” (v. 19), “without guile” (v. 20), and praised for “integrity of…heart.” No such language is applied to Bennett.

Bennett is instructed to support Joseph in difficulty and receive counsel (rather than give it, as is his wont) if he wishes a reward. Bennett is told he “will be” the Lord’s because of his love if he obeys—he is offered a transformation of his nature, if he will accept it. The Lord promised to accept his work “if he continue” (v. 20, emphasis added). (Polygamy book/John C. Bennett/Rise and Fall of Bennett, FAIRMORMON ANSWERS, Online here, Accessed December 1, 2014).

Actually the “revelation” does not say that the Lord promised to accept his work “if he continue”. It states that “I have seen the work which he hath done, which I accept if he continue…”

The “revelation” states that God has seen the work which Bennett has done. That would mean (since this is God we are talking about), all the things Bennett has done up to that time. The “revelation” does not condemn Bennett for the bad things he was supposedly doing at this time, his adulteries, etc. It doesn’t condemn him for anything. It states that God has seen his work and if he continues doing the work he is doing (up to that time and continue doing it) that he will be accepted. God does not tell Bennett that he will accept his good works, but that he has seen his work… which means all Bennett had been doing up to that time. What was Bennett doing? Committing adultery with Sarah Pratt (among other things) according to Joseph’s chosen witnesses, the most damning of which (Stephen Goddard) was a Danite. (See Note #212)

Bennett was then (four months after this “revelation”) ordained Assistant President of the Church. Was he “accepted” by God then? If not then, when?

For faithful Brian Hales, this may be a problem. Did John C. Bennett fool God? Why then would God allow Joseph Smith to ordain John C. Bennett to the First Presidency? Hales waves off Van Wagoner by claiming “his efforts fail to address even half of the testimonies and are problematic from a scholarly perspective.” As Van Wagoner writes, he pretty much did fool Joseph Smith:

Bennett, a Campbellite minister, self-trained lawyer, doctor, thirty-third-degree Mason, brigadier general in the Illinois Invincible Light Dragoons, and Quartermaster General of Illinois, seemed to be a real catch for Mormonism. With the missionary-apostles in Europe and counselor Sidney Rigdon chronically ill, the Church was experiencing a power vacuum. The glib, bombastic, and seemingly aristocratic John C. Bennett ingratiated himself into the inner circles of the Church; he was appointed “Assistant President” of the Church on 8 April 1841. Joseph Smith was so impressed by his new convert that he adopted many of the doctor’s personal mannerisms, including his oratorical style, his military dress and bearing, and his habit of using foreign phrases in written communications. Bennett boarded in the Prophet’s home, and the two were near-constant companions. William Law, a member of the First Presidency (1841-44) recalled in an 1871 letter that Bennett was “more in the secret confidence of Joseph than perhaps any other man in the city” (Stenhouse 1873, 198). (Van Wagoner, “Sarah Pratt,” Dialogue, Vol.19, No.2, 71).

There is only one problem with Van Wagoner’s claim that Bennett and Pratt had an affair, and that is Van Wagoner’s assertion that he might have been out of Nauvoo during the month of October, 1840 when the Goddards claim that they were keeping house together. This point is really minor.

Neither Hales nor FAIRMORMON really address the problem of the “revelation” that Smith supposedly received from God praising Bennett in 1841, or why Smith made him Assistant President of the Church, since Bennett’s reputation was built on a house of cards . The best they can do is claim that Bennett wasn’t given any “keys” with his ordination and that Bennett might have been “sincere” for a time. Where was Smith’s much lauded “spirit of discernment”? Brian Hales claims that,

Joseph Smith’s inability to correctly judge character was acknowledged in an earlier revelation, “you cannot always judge the righteous, or as you cannot always tell the wicked from the righteous” (D&C 10:37, quoted by Brian C. Hales, “1842: The Second Year of Nauvoo Polygamy”, Online here, Accessed December 15, 2014)).

Yet this “revelation” was given in April of 1829 right at the beginning of Joseph’s career! Joseph did not progress? Did not receive “keys”? This was before the “School of the Prophets” and before Smith was given the Priesthood and the “keys” of discernment. On March 8, 1831 Smith claimed in a “revelation” that,

And unto the bishop of the church, and unto such as God shall appoint and ordain to watch over the church and to be elders unto the church, are to have it given unto them to discern all those gifts lest there shall be any among you professing and yet be not of God. (D&C 46:27, added emphasis)

It specifically mentions in this “revelation” that one of these gifts is “the discerning of spirits”. (verse 23) Here we see that Hales is being completely disingenuous to cite a “revelation” that was given in 1829 before Smith was given these “gifts”, which allowed him to know if there were “any among you professing and yet be not of God.” If this didn’t apply to Bennett, who then? Hales also claims that,

Even though leaders were aware of Bennett’s licentious history, his public stature expanded and on April 8, 1841, he was presented as an “assistant president, until Pres’t. Rigdon’s health should be restored,” which occurred two months later. It appears that this surprising advancement was the result of Bennett’s immoral antics being privately discovered and then after promising to reform and receiving another chance to regain Joseph’s trust. (Hales, op. cited).

So the “promise” of reformation gets one advanced to the First Presidency of the Mormon Church? Who does Hales think he is kidding here? Then in May, 1842 Joseph does the exact same thing? It seems that the commission of adultery by one of the Church leaders simply did not carry as much weight as Hales claims that it did. What is obvious is that Joseph forgave and rewarded Bennett but only as long as he remained silent about Joseph’s own activities. But Bennett did not, so Joseph finally exposed him.

If Bennett was having an ongoing affair with Pratt, then once again, did he fool God? FAIRMORMON claims,

These two errors [Only one actually: That Bennett was not in Nauvoo because he was completing the Nauvoo Charter in Springfield] weaken Van Wagoner’s analysis irreparably, and raise the plausibility of the Goddards’ accounts, since their timeframe of “about a month” fits neatly between Bennett’s arrival in Nauvoo and his departure to lobby for the charter’s passage. It also matches a later claim made by Joseph in passing which dated Bennett’s first immoralities to October 1840. (FAIRMORMON, Online here, accessed November 1, 2014).

Even if this is true, it does not “weaken Van Wagoner’s analysis irreparably” because Gregory L. Smith does not address the rest of Van Wagoner’s analysis. And what did Smith say to Governor Carlin in 1842? He wrote:

The impression made upon the minds of the public by this event, [Bennett’s suicide attempt] was that he was so ashamed of his base conduct, that he took this course to escape the censure of a justly indignant community. It might have been supposed that after this he would have broken off his adulterous proceedings; but to the contrary, the public consternation had scarcely ceased, before he was again deeply involved in the same wicked proceedings and continued until a knowledge of the fact reached my ears. I immediately charged him with the whole circumstance, and he candidly acknowledged the truth of the whole. (Joseph Smith to Thomas Carlin, Nauvoo, June 24, 1842, History of the Church, Vol. V, 42, added emphasis).

There is no evidence that Bennett attempted suicide in 1841, except what was written later in 1842. Still, if Smith knew about Bennett’s adulteries and forgave him, why elevate him to the First Presidency only on the promise to reform? This makes little sense. The evidence shows that Smith honored and believed in John C. Bennett until he started practicing his version of spiritual wifeism that he learned from Smith in 1842. He was even forgiven as late as May 26, 1842 by Joseph on the condition that he would cease his activities and keep quiet. As Jerald and Sandra Tanner write:

John C. Bennett was elected Mayor of the city of Nauvoo, and was even made an assistant President of the Mormon Church. The following appeared in the minutes of the General Conference held in April of 1841: “John C. Bennett was presented, with the First Presidency, as assistant president until President Rigdon’s health should be restored.” (History of the Church, by Joseph Smith, Vol. 4, page 431)

The Mormon publication Times and Seasons, Vol. 2, p. 432 [June 1841], vigorously defended Bennett: “But General Bennett’s character as a gentleman, an officer, a scholar, and physician stands too high to need defending by us,… He has, likewise, been favorably known for upwards of eight years by some of the authorities of the Church,… But being a Mormon, his virtues are construed into defects,…”

On June 23, 1842, after John C. Bennett had left the Church, Joseph Smith admitted that a letter had been received from a “respectable” person warning that Bennett had left a wife and two or three children and that he was a very mean man: “…Dr. John C. Bennett…located himself in the city of Nauvoo, about the month of August, 1840, and soon after joined the Church. Soon after it was known that he had become a member of said Church, a communication was received at Nauvoo from a person of respectable character and residing in the vicinity where Bennett had lived. This letter cautioned us against him, setting forth that he was a very mean man, and had a wife and two or three children…but knowing that it is no uncommon thing for good men to be evil spoken against, the above letter was kept quiet, but held in reserve.” (History of the Church, Vol. 5, pp. 35-36, Mormonism—Shadow or Reality, 217-219).

Joseph Smith seems to have forgotten the facts in his letter to Governor Carlin. Bennett was applauded by the Mormons in the Times and Seasons in June 1841 after the Warsaw Signal wrote that “He came here followed by evil report-he joins a sect and advocates a creed in which no one believes he has any faith-his true character is not known to our citizens, nor have they any confidence in him.” (Warsaw Signal, May 19, 1841)

It was not until 1842 in The Wasp that George Miller claimed that he received a letter about Bennett having a wife and children in April of 1841. That is the same month that Bennet was raised to Assistant President of the Church.

So what Joseph wrote to Carlin is completely false.

Again, if there was such a letter, and Smith knew about Bennett’s adultery, why did they so vigorously defend him and why did Smith claim to have a “revelation” from God who said he saw the works of Bennett and would “accept them if he continued those works? Did this include Bennett’s adultery? Why did Joseph plead for and forgive Bennett on May 26, 1842? The entry reads,

Dr John C. Bennet[t] confessed the charges preferred again[s]t him concerning. females in Nauvoo. & was forgiven Joseph plead in his behalf.—

Joseph Smith Journal, May 26, 1842

The only mention of this entry by Hales is that, “The notice dated John C. Bennett’s excommunication as May 11, but Joseph Smith’s diary dates it as May 26, 1842.” (Hales, op. cited)

Actually, Bennett was not excommunicated here, but forgiven, with Joseph pleading in his behalf! Why doesn’t Hales quote this document in full? Because it destroys his narrative. Imagine if Bennett had kept his mouth shut like Joseph’s brother William Smith. He would probably have been completely restored to his former positions in the Church as were so many others. In fact, almost everyone except Higbee and Bennett were restored who were accused in 1842.

In 2015 Hales published an article about John C. Bennett in the Journal of Mormon History. He writes,

On May 8, 1844, Frances Higbee sued Joseph Smith in “plea of cause” claiming five thousand dollars damage. Joseph was taken into custody and told the court: “I want to testify to this court of what occurred a long time before John C. Bennet left his city.”46 The Prophet then described how Higbee had seduced a woman prior to the summer of 1842 when Bennett fled Nauvoo. Next, Joseph lamented, “The only sin I ever committed was in exercising sympathy and covering up their [the Higbees’, Fosters’, Laws’ and Bennett’s] iniquities, on their solemn promise to reform, and of this I am ashamed, and will never do so again.”47 (Manuscript History, Vol. F-1, pg. 15, May 8th 1844, compiled in the 1850’s.)

Hales footnote on his source for this:

47 Manuscript History of the Church, May 8, 1844, in Richard E. Turley Jr., ed., Selected Collections from the Archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, [December] 2002), Vol. 1, DVD #1 (hereafter cited as Selected Collections); see also History of the Church, 6:360. Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, 144 note 5, summarize: “Bennett’s immoralities had come to the attention of the Prophet [by early 1841], but the latter, acting on a bleak hope of possible reformation of Bennett, deferred publicly exposing his counselor in the First Presidency.”

Thing is, Smith only covered up what Bennett did because he was guilty of the same thing. There is an original source that they used when they compiled the Manuscript History of the Church, the actual minutes from the trial of Joseph Smith on May 8th, 1844 which are found in the Church History Library. Those actual minutes read quite differently from what was supposedly copied into the Manuscript History. What Joseph actually said was,

“I never said any thing about Law, etc. etc. but what was strictly true. I have been placed in — the only sin I ever committed was in covering up their iniquities, etc. that I am ashamed of & will never do it again—“

Nauvoo Municipal Court Document, May 8th 1844

Notice what they had to add to the testimony:

Joseph exercising sympathy

Joseph getting a solemn promise from them to reform

Manuscript History Version

We see that Joseph never testified that he had sympathy for anyone, and that he never tried to get a promise from them to reform.

Joseph only admits that he covered up their “iniquities” and that now (since he was caught) felt bad and wouldn’t do it again.

The reason that we checked this, is that we know that George A. Smith (Church Historian from 1854-1871) was very dishonest when he compiled Joseph Smith’s history. He would doctor diary entries, delete things he didn’t like and add all kinds of bogus statements like with this one above.

Hales complains over and over again that no one but him really understands Joseph Smith’s polygamy because he is the only one that has personally drawn on every known document related to it. Seriously, he actually makes this claim. From the Jacket Cover of Joseph Smith’s Polygamy Volume 1:

Drawing on every known historical account, whether by supporters or opponents, Volumes 1 and 2 take a fresh look at the chronology and development of Mormon polygamy…

From the Introduction:

At one point it became apparent that, if we continued searching, it might be possible to acquire copies or transcripts of essentially all of the known documents dealing with Joseph Smith’s polygamy…

But the problem is, can anyone take Hales seriously as a researcher when he makes gaffes like the one we detailed above? His article on John C. Bennett was published last year (2016). It’s not like it wasn’t easy to check on. But what is the significance of that statement by Smith above? (The doctored one). Hales makes that clear in his Bennett Essay:

Bennett’s biographer asks: “One wonders why Smith acted against Bennett in mid-June and not earlier. Perhaps Smith expected or at least hoped that Bennett would leave Nauvoo quietly.”82 Another possibility mentioned above is that Joseph was too sympathetic. That is, he still held out hope that Bennett would repent and become obedient. Admittedly, this view is based on accounts that are almost exclusively from Joseph Smith and his supporters, whose biases are clearly shown. However, these and other sources could support a repeating dynamic of Bennett’s transgressions, pleas for forgiveness, and the extension of mercy with the Prophet offering Bennett yet another chance to comply. This pattern would be consistent with Joseph’s 1844 regrets about “exercising sympathy and covering up their [the Higbees’, Fosters’, Laws’, and Bennett’s] iniquities, on their solemn promise to reform.”83

82 Andrew Smith, The Saintly Scoundrel, 91.

83 Manuscript History of the Church, May 8, 1844, in Selected Collections, Vol. 1, DVD #1 [2002]; see also History of the Church, 6:360 [Notice that Hales uses an outdated source here, when the original is at the CHL and open to the public]

There was no condition given by Joseph Smith in the original document. The only regrets that Joseph had in 1844 was that he got caught covering up what Bennett and others did, because they got their ideas from Smith.

As for the rest of the affidavits (Online here) against Sarah Pratt, let’s take a look. Here is the letter to Orson Pratt from Stephen Goddard and the affidavit of his wife Sarah,

LETTER TO ORSON PRATT.

ORSON PRATT, Sir: — Considering a duty upon me I now communicate unto you some things relative to Dr. Bennett and your wife, that came under the observation of myself and wife, which I think would be satisfactory to the mind of a man could he but realize the conduct of those two individuals while under my notice. I would have been glad to have kept forever in silence if it could have been so and been just. I took your wife into my house because she was destitute of a house, Oct. 6, 1840, and from the first night, until the last, with the exception of one night it being nearly a month, the Dr. was there as sure as the night came, and generally two or three times a day — for the first three nights he left about 9 o’clock — after that he remained later, sometimes till after midnight; what their conversation was I could not tell, as they sat close together, he leaning on her lap, whispering continually or talking very low — we generally went to bed and had one or two naps before he left. After being at my house nearly a month she was furnished with a house by Dr. Foster, which she lived in until sometime about the first of June, when she was turned out of the house and came to my house again, and the Dr. came as before. One night they took their chairs out of doors and remained there as we supposed until 12 o’clock or after; at another time they went over to the house where you now live and come back after dark, or about that time. We went over several times late in the evening while she lived in the house of Dr. Foster, and were most sure to find Dr. Bennett and your wife together, as it were, man and wife. Two or three times we found little Orson lying on the floor and the bed apparently reserved for the Dr. and herself — she observing that since a certain time he had rather sleep on the floor than with her.

I am surprised to hear of her crying because Bro. Joseph attempted to kiss her as she stated, even if he did do it; for she would let a certain man smack upon her mouth and face half a dozen times or more in my house without making up the first wry face. I will not mention his name at present.

There are many more things which she has stated herself to my wife, which could go to show more strongly the feelings, connexion, and the conduct of the two individuals. I shall not testify of these things at present for certain reasons, but can let you know them if you feel disposed to hear them.

As to the lamb which Dr. Bennett speaks of, I killed it, and kept a hind quarter of it for my own use, and saw the Dr. and Mrs. Pratt eat of the balance; The Dr. told me he would like to have me save enough blood to make a French pudding, which I believe Mrs. Pratt spoke of afterwards and said it looked so that she could not eat it.

I had not instructions to save the entrails, and the Dr. was not present to save them himself, consequently his statement that he burned them on twelve stones is a falsehood, for the hogs eat them.

Your friend,

STEPHEN H. GODDARD.

I certify that the above statement of my husband is true according to the best of my knowledge.

ZERUIAH N. GODDARD.

Sworn to before me July 23d 1842.

GEO. W. HARRIS.

Alderman of the City of Nauvoo.

TESTIMONY OF MRS. GODDARD.

Dr. Bennett came to my house one night about 12 o’clock, and sat on or beside the bed where Mrs. Pratt was and cursed and swore very profanely at her; she told me the next day that the Dr. was quick tempered and was mad at her, but gave no other reason. I concluded from circumstances that she had promised to meet him somewhere and had disappointed him; on another night I remonstrated with the Dr. and asked him what Orson Pratt would think, if he could know that you were so fond of his wife, and holding her hand so much; the Dr. replied that he could pull the wool over Orson’s eyes.

Mrs. Pratt stated to me that Dr. Bennett told her, that he could cause abortion with perfect safety to the mother, at any stage of pregnancy, and that he had frequently destroyed and removed infants before their time to prevent exposure of the parties, and that he had instruments for that purpose &c.

My husband and I were frequently at Mrs. Pratt’s and stayed till after 10 o’clock in the night, and Dr. Bennett still remained there with her and her little child alone at that late hour.

On one occasion I came suddenly into the room where Mrs. Pratt and the Dr. were; she was lying on the bed and the Dr. was taking his hands out of her bosom; he was in the habit of sitting on the bed where Mrs. Pratt was lying, and lying down over her.

I would further state that from my own observation, I am satisfied that their conduct was anything but virtuous, and I know Mrs. Pratt is not a woman of truth, and I believe the statements which Dr. Bennett made concerning Joseph Smith are false, and fabricated for the purpose of covering his own iniquities, and enabling him to practice his base designs on the innocent.

ZERUIAH N. GODDARD.

Subscribed before me one of the alderman of the City of Nauvoo, and sworn to this 28th day of August 1842.

GEO. W. HARRIS.

Alderman of the City of Nauvoo. (The Wasp, July 27, 1842).

These affidavits of the Goddards are pretty ridiculous. Sarah Pratt left her baby on the floor? The Goddards happened to catch them at seemingly all hours of the day and night? Didn’t the Goddards have anything else to do but watch that house? Sarah Pratt was “in the habit” of letting Bennett lie on top of her when there was someone else in the house? They mention a nameless man that she allowed to kiss her in their house often? These things defy common sense. Here is the affidavit of J B. Backenstos,

Affidavit of J. B. Backenstos.

State of Illinois, ss.

Hancock County.

Personally appeared before me Ebenezer Robinson acting Justice of the Peace, in and for said county, J. B. Backenstos, who being duly sworn according to law, deposeth and saith, that some time during last winter, he accused Doctor John C. Bennett, with having an illicit intercourse with Mrs. Orson Pratt, and some others, when said Bennett replied that she made a first rate go, and from personal observations I should have taken said Doctor Bennett and Mrs. Pratt as man and wife, had I not known to the contrary, and further this deponent saith not.

B. Backenstos

Sworn to, and subscribed, before me the 28th day of July, 1842.

Robinson, J. P. (The Wasp, July 27, 1842).

Here is the affidavit of Stephen Markham,

Personally came before me, Ebenezer Robinson, a Justice of the Peace in and for said county, Stephen Markham, who being duly sworn according to law deposeth and saith, that on the __ day of __ A. D. 1842, he was at the house of Sidney Rigdon in the city of Nauvoo, where he saw Miss Nancy Rigdon laying on a bed, and John C. Bennett was sitting by the side of the bed, near the foot, in close conversation with her: deponant also saw many vulgar, unbecoming and indecent sayings and motions pass between them, which satisfied deponant that they were guilty of unlawful and illicit intercourse, with each other. Stephen Markham. (The Wasp, July 27, 1842).

And the statement of Ebeneezer Robinson from “The Return”, in 1890:

In the spring of 1841 Dr. Bennett had a small neat house built for Orson Pratt’s family, and commenced boarding with them. Elder Pratt was absent on a mission to England. (Ebeneezer Robinson, The Return, Vol. 2, No. 11, November, 1890, page 362).

There are some problems with Backenstos affidavit from 1842. Why would Bennett confide this to a close friend of Joseph Smith’s, knowing that it could hurt himself? This makes little sense. Backenstos had loaned Joseph a large sum of money. You could not get a more biased person to write up an affidavit. Backenstos had also been accused of lying and shady deals.

According to Greg Whitman and James Varner, Backenstos was personal friends with Joseph Smith and in the spring of 1842 loaned Smith $1000. (Orner W. Whitman and James L. Varner, Sheriff Jacob. B. Backenstos: Defender of the Saints, Journal of Mormon History, Volume 29, Issue 1, (Spring, 2003) 153, Online here, Accessed December 20, 2014).

He had political aspirations and he could benefit in them by being friendly with the Mormons. His brother was married to Smith’s niece. Writing in 1847, Governor Ford characterized the sheriff as a “smart-looking shrewd, cunning, plausible man of such easy manners that he was likely to have great influence.” He also described him as a deadbeat who ran out on his debts in Sangamon County and used accounting tricks to transfer his goods to his brother William. (ibid., 156)

On October 15, 1845 Heber C. Kimball recorded that Backenstos told him “he firmly and positively believed [Mormonism] to be the truth, and he intended to embrace it … and he would go with us the whole extent to the expense of his life and all he possessed.” (ibid., 164)

He was suspended from his army post in 1849 (page 170), and in 1851 was forced out and resigned his commission. (page 172) He petitioned some influential men for political appointments in Oregon, but found no support, (page 172) not even for his reinstatement in the Army (ibid., 173).

He engaged in land speculation and his reputation was viewed as being “exceeding odious”. (ibid., 175) In 1857 he was involved in an altercation over a land deal and attempted to murder an “unarmed neighbor” and when his pistol misfired multiple times the neighbor came after him with an axe. (ibid.) In September of 1857 he was indicted by a grand jury for “assault with attempt to kill.” (ibid.) Before his case could come to trial Backenstos committed suicide by throwing himself in the Willamette River near its powerful waterfalls, something he had mentioned to his wife as a possibility to escape a prison sentence. (ibid., 176)

Also, Backenstos was involved with some of the very women that testified against Bennett in May of 1842. Catherine Fuller testified that,

B. Backenstos has also been at my house – was introduced by Chancy Higby – made request similar as above – gave me two dollars – He accomplished his designs only once – has been there two or three times since. This happened in the fore part of this winter– (Testimony of Catherine Fuller ^Warren^ before the High Council of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the City of Nauvoo May 25th 1842).

Catherine Fuller Warren’s testimony was published in the Church owned Nauvoo Neighbor on May 29, 1844, but only this excerpt:

Extract from the testimony of Catharine [Fuller] Warren, vs. Chauncey L. Higbee, before the High Council of the Church, &c.

I have had unlawful connexion with Chauncey L. Higbee. Chauncey Higbee, taught the same doctrine as was taught by J. C. Bennet, and that Joseph Smith, taught and practiced those things, but he [Chauncey] stated that he did not have it from Joseph, but he had his information from Dr. John C. Bennet. He, Chauncey L. Higbee, has gained his object about five or six times, Chauncey L. Higbee, also made propositions to keep me with food if I would submit to his desires.” (Nauvoo Neighbor, May 29, 1844; See also, Millennial Star 23:657658).

There is no mention of William Smith or J.B. Backenstos. Why? Because he was friends with Joseph Smith. Of course he would have “informed” on Bennett, and it was in his interest to help Joseph.

Stephen Markham’s affidavit is obviously slander. Carlos Gove, an Aide de Camp (Colonel) in the Nauvoo Legion, who also eloped with one of Joseph’s spiritual wives Flora Woodworth had an affidavit printed up which was printed in the Sangamo Journal which read:

Certificate of Colonel Carlos Gove.

“Nauvoo, September 3, 1842.

“Having been personally acquainted with Miss Nancy Rigdon, for some time, I take pleasure in saying to the public, that I verily believe Miss Rigdon a lady who sustains a virtuous, chaste, moral, and upright character, and that she has never given reason for any one whereon to rest a suspicion to the contrary, –and that the affidavit of Stephen Markham was procured for purposes well known to the public, –and I also believe said Markham to be a liar, disturber of the peace, and what may justly be termed a loafer.

“Carlos Gove.”

Sidney Rigdon produced this affidavit:

“Certificate of Sidney Rigdon, Esq.

“NAUVOO, September 3, 1842.
“‘Personally appeared before me, E. Robinson, a Justice of the Peace, within and for the county of Hancock, and State of Illinois, Sidney Rigdon, who, being duly sworn, deposeth and saith, that he is personally acquainted with Stephen Markham, of this city, and that said Markham is not to be believed; that his word for truth and veracity is not good; that he could not believe said Markham under oath, and that he did on a certain occasion testify under oath to that which deponent knows to be false, and he verily believes said Markham knew the same to be false while testifying; and further this deponent saith not.
“‘SIDNEY RIGDON.’

George W. Robinson:

Certificate of General George W. Robinson

Nauvoo, September 3, 1842.
Having been acquainted with Stephen Markham, of the city of Nauvoo, for many years, I can safely say that his character for truth and veracity is not good, and that I could not believe him under oath; and that I am personally knowing of his lying, and that his character in general is that of a loafer, disturber of the peace, liar, &c; and that he did come into the house of Sidney Rigdon, as stated in his affidavit, and that Dr. Bennett and Miss Rigdon were present, as well as myself, and that Miss Rigdon was then sick, and Dr. John C. Bennett was the attending physician; and I do further state that no such conversation or gestures as said Markham states, took place or came under my observation; and I do further believe that said Markham did invent, concoct, and put in circulation, said stories with a malicious design and intent to injure the character of Miss Rigdon, and more particularly for the use of the Elders, who are going out preaching to rebut Dr. Bennett’s statements; and further this deponent saith not.
Geo. W. Robinson.
Sworn to before me, L. R, Chaffin, a Justice of the Peace, within and for the county of Hancock, and state of Illinois, this ninth day of September, 1842,
Lewis R. Chaffin, J. P.

Henry Marks:

Certificate of Colonel Henry Marks

Having been acquainted with Miss Nancy Rigdon for nearly six years, I can say that she is a lady of a virtuous, chaste, and upright moral character, and I do not believe she ever gave any occasion for the least suspicion to the contrary; and I do further believe the certificate of Stephen Markham to be false, and given with a malicious design and intent to injure the character of Miss Rigdon unjustly.

Henry Marks.

LaHarpe, Illis., Sept. 10, 1842.

On the same day that these were written, The Wasp (edited by William Smith) printed a notice which read,

We are authorized to say, by Gen. Joseph Smith, that the affidavit of Stephen Markham, relative to Miss Nancy Rigdon, as published in the handbill of affidavits, was unauthorized by him; the certificate of Elder Rigdon relative to the letter, being satisfactory. (The Wasp, September 3, 1842.)

Reading the above, it begs the question of why those affidavits needed to be “authorized” by Smith. We know that Joseph Smith proposed to Nancy Rigdon in 1842 when he wrote her this letter:

“Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it, and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God. But we cannot keep all the commandments without first knowing them, and we cannot expect to know all, or more than we now know unless we comply with or keep those we have already received. That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another. God said, thou shalt not kill, — at another time he said, thou shalt utterly destroy. This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted — by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire. If we seek first the kingdom of God, all good things will be added. So with Solomon — first he asked wisdom, and God gave it him, and with it every desire of his heart, even things which might be considered abominable to all who understand the order of heaven only in part, but which in reality, were right, because God gave and sanctioned by special revelation. A parent may whip a child, and justly too, because he stole an apple, whereas if the child had asked for the apple, and the parent had given it, the child would have eaten it with a better appetite, there would have been no stripes — all the pleasure of the apple would have been secured, all the misery of stealing lost. This principle will justly apply to all of God’s dealings with his children. Everything that God gives us is lawful and right, and ’tis proper that we should enjoy his gifts and blessings whenever and wherever he is disposed to bestow; but if we should seize upon those same blessings and enjoyments without law, without revelation, without commandment, those blessings and enjoyments would prove cursings and vexations in the end, and we should have to lie down in sorrow and wailings of everlasting regret. But in obedience there is joy and peace unspotted, unalloyed, and as God has designed our happiness, and the happiness of all his creatures, he never has, he never will institute an ordinance or give a commandment to his people that is not calculated in its nature to promote that happiness which he has designed, and which will not end in the greatest amount of good and glory to those who become the recipients of his law and ordinances. Blessings offered, but rejected, are no longer blessings, but become like the talent hid in the earth by the wicked and slothful servant — the proffered good returns to the giver, the blessing is bestowed on those who will receive and occupy, for unto him that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundantly, but unto him that hath not or will not receive, shall be taken away that which he hath, or might have had.

“Be wise to-day, ’tis Madness to defer,

“Next day the fatal precedent may plead;

Thus on till wisdom is pushed out of time.

Into eternity.”

Our heavenly father is more liberal in his views, and boundless in his mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive, and, at the same time, is more terrible to the workers of iniquity, more awful in the executions of his punishments, and more ready to detect every false way, than we are apt to suppose him to be. He will [be] enquired of by his children — he says, ask, and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, but if you will take that which is not your own, or which I have not given you, you shall be rewarded according to your deeds, but no good thing will I withold from them who walk uprightly before me, and do my will in all things, who will listen to my voice, and to the voice of my servant whom I have sent, for I delight in those who seek diligently to know my precepts, and abide by the law of my kingdom, for all things shall be made known unto them in mine own due time, and in the end they shall have joy.” (Sangamo Journal, August 19, 1842, Online here, Accessed October 31, 2014).

Why would Smith write such a glowing “marriage for eternity” essay in 1842, if he was so reluctant to promulgate polygamy — so reluctant that according to many later reminiscences like this one from Wilford Woodruff:

“An Angel of God Stood by him with a drawn Sword and told him he should be slain & Cut off from the Earth and the kingdom of God if he did not obey that Law.” (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 8, p. 235)

This doesn’t sound like the “reluctant prophet” that Brian Hales describes in Joseph Smith’s Polygamy. According to Sidney Rigdon, it was Joseph Smith who was the liar, for as Sidney Rigdon swore in 1842:

I would further state that Mr. Smith denied to me the authorship of that letter. (Sidney Rigdon affidavit, Nauvoo, Aug. 27th, 1842)

FAIRMORMON writes,

Van Wagoner makes a stronger point when he argues that, it seems likely that had Bennett and Sarah been involved in a sexual liaison as public as the Goddard story implies, objections would have been raised when Smith called him to be “assistant president” six months later. Furthermore, despite the numerous cases of church action against sexual sins brought before the Nauvoo High Council, Sarah Pratt’s name is never mentioned.

One should not over-read the public nature of the reported behavior. The Goddards were purportedly aware because Sarah was boarding with them—this does not necessarily mean that Bennett was making a public spectacle of his affair. Van Wagoner’s analysis presumes that any affair between Sarah and Bennett was handled by the high council. We have already seen evidence that Joseph dealt with the initial reports of Bennett’s infidelities privately, without high council involvement.

In a more speculative vein, if this was true of the case involving Sarah’s adultery, he may well have regarded the issue as closed—one wonders what role the Goddards may have played in first alerting Joseph to Bennett’s true nature. (In this case, perhaps Sarah’s role was kept quiet because she promised to reform, and because Joseph wished to spare Orson Pratt pain and embarrassment. When Bennett began accusing Joseph, however, the Goddards may have been given leave to reveal what they knew.)

Goddard was one of Smith’s Danites. Van Wagoner makes many strong points. The only weak one is the one they try and exploit about Bennett possibly being in Springfield in October, 1842. The Goddards claimed that the house was built by Robert Foster, while Mary Smith claimed that the house belonged to John C. Bennett. Ebeneezer Robinson, who took the Backenstos affidavit, claimed that it was also Bennett’s house as did John D. Lee. So which was it? Someone was mistaken, most likely the Goddards.

And it is simply ludicrous that Bennett could set up Sarah Pratt with a house, carry on an affair with her in it with her for many months and that no other neighbors besides the Goddards would notice. Especially with the way that the Goddards claimed that they flaunted it. Why would they keep it a secret from their friend Orson Pratt and not report it to the church? Van Wagoner’s claims make much more sense than those of FAIRMORMON or Brian Hales.

Brian Hales claims that Sarah Pratt “had an agenda”. What agenda would that be? He doesn’t say. What Hales is doing is presenting Sarah Pratt as an “apostate” in 1842 when she was nothing of the kind. Her later actions prove that this is so. She agreed to rebaptism. She stayed with her husband. She was admitted to the Temple and received the Endowment and the Second Anointing. She accepted polygamy and went west with the Church. It was not until years later that Sarah Pratt became disillusioned with the Church and polygamy.

To say that in 1842 Sarah Pratt had an agenda is ignoring all the evidence to the contrary. The accusations against her were obviously contrived by Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Hales quotes Smith’s January 20 comments about Sarah Pratt to Orson Pratt and it might be instructive here to give them in their full context,

Nauvoo January 20th 1843

The Quorum of the Twelve assembled at the / home of Elder Brigham Young- present viz, B. Young / H. C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, W. Woodruff, John Taylor/ Geo. A. Smith, & W. Richards. also. President / Joseph Smith. & Hyrum Smith of the first presidency / also Orson Pratt

–the meeting having been / called to investigate his case:–

President Joseph Smith remarked that as there / was not a quorum when Orson Pratt’s case came / up before that he was still a member–he had not/ legally been cut off–/

Pratt remarked that he had rather die / than go to preach in any other standing than I had / before.

Joseph-Let him have the same calling that Paul / had. let him have the keys to the Jews. first unto / the Gentiles then unto the Jews–/Paul held the keys of transfer–that is when / the Gentiles have heard all they will–it shall be / given to the Jews.–/

Jos.–Orson by transgression laid himself liable to have / another ordained in his stead.–and brought Jacob and Esau / were brought for example– (p. 2)

[Brigham] Young. said there was but 3 prsnt. when Amasa / was ordained–/Joseph said that was legal when no / more could be had. Young said all he had against Orson was when he / came home he loved his wife better than David./ [Joseph Smith]

Joseph–She lied about me–I never made the offer / which she said I did.–I will not advise you to break up your / family–unless it were asked of me. then I would / concil you to get a bill from your wife / & marry a virtuous woman–& raise a new family / but if you do not do it shell never throw it in / your teeth.

Joseph Orson I prophesy in the name of the Lord / Jesus Christ that it will not be 6 months before / you learn things which will make you glad you / have not left us.–/

Prest. Joseph said to Orson Hyde–I can make / a swap with Amasa Lyman.–& let him have / the office we were going to give you.–Orson, the latter part of your life shall be more / joyful than the former

— 3 o.clock adjourned to President Josephs. /

4 o.clock Orson Pratt, Sarah Marinda Pratt (p. 3) & Lydia Granger were baptized in the River /

Per Prst–Joseph Smith–& confirmed in the / Court Room–Orson received the Priesthood & / the same power and authority as in former days. (W. Richards [Willard Richards’ hand] B. Young [Willard Richards. hand] (BYU Collection, Ms/f/219/Reel 79; CHO, Ms/d/1234/Bx 47/fd 2; January 20, 1843. These minutes were formerly in a box entitled “High Council Meetings etc, Conference and Public Meetings”, in a folder marked “Minutes of the Council of Twelve,” in the Church Historian’s Office. They were recataloged and placed in the Brigham Young Collection. “/” in this typescript means end of a line in the original minutes. (Typed as in the original. See, History of the Church, V, 253-6; Millennial Star, XX, 27 (Saturday 3 July 1858), 422-3; and Manuscript History of the Church, under date given).

These are very interesting minutes, for they do indicate that Smith made some kind of “offer” to Sarah Pratt and it is the word of Smith (a known liar) over Sarah Pratt who had no reason to lie. He also accuses Sarah Pratt of being unvirtuous. Sarah Pratt is faulted for having anything to do with Bennett even though Bennett was publicly defended by the Church as an upright and honest man until the summer of 1842. This is simply guilt by association after the fact.

That the affidavits concerning Bennett and Sarah Pratt are contrived is obvious. Still, if those defending Smith want to put forth the notion that the leaders of the Church were so devious that they covered up Bennett’s past simply to use him for his political influence, that is their prerogative. Either way it is a lose-lose situation for the apologists.

We also find it interesting that Brigham Young here refers to Joseph Smith as “David”. It reminds us of something that Ezra Booth once wrote,

Now, permit me to inquire; have you not frequently observed in Joseph, a want of that sobriety, prudence, and stability, which are some of the most prominent traits in the christian character? Have you not often discovered in him, a spirit of lightness and levity, a temper of mind easily irritated, and an habitual proneness to jesting and joking? Have you not repeatedly proved to your own satisfaction, that he says he knows things to be so by the spirit, when they are not so? You most certainly have. Have you not reason then to believe, or at least to suspect, that the revelations which come from him, are something short of infallible, and instead of being the production of divine wisdom, emanate from his own weak mind? Some suppose his weakness, nay, his wickedness, can form no reasonable objection to his revelations; and “were he to get another man’s wife, and seek to kill her husband, it could be no reason why we should not believe revelations through him, for David did the same.” So Sidney asserted, and many others concur with him in sentiment. (Ezra Booth to Edward Partridge, September 20, 1831, The Ohio Star, November 24, 1831).

And,

There are also some other things, the meaning of which, you will not be likely to apprehend, without some explanation. In this, as well as several of the commandments, it is clearly and explicitly stated, that the right of delivering written commandments, and revelations, belong exclusively to Smith, and no other person can interfere, without being guilty of sacrilege. In this office he is to stand, until another is appointed in his place, and no other person can be appointed in his stead, unless he falls through transgression; and in such a case, he himself is authorized to appoint his successor. But how is he to be detected, should he become guilty of transgression. The commandment makes provision for this. His guilt will become manifest by his inability to utter any more revelations, and should he presume “to get another man’s wife,” and commit adultery; and “by the shedding of blood, seek to kill her husband,” if he retains the use of his tongue, so as to be able to utter his jargon, he can continue as long as he pleases in the bed of adultery, and wrap himself with garments stained with blood, shed by his own hands, and still retain the spotless innocence of the holiest among mortals; and must be continued in the office of revelator, and head of the Church. Some others, and especially Cowdery, have earnestly desired to relieve Smith of some part of his burden. (Ezra Booth to Ira Eddy, November, 29, 1831. The Ohio Star, December 8, 1831).

In 1842 Joseph wrote a short letter to William Clayton which reads,

Oct— 7th 1842 in Solitude for love of Truth
Brother William Clayton Dear Sir I received your short note I reply in short be shure you are right and then go ahead David Crocket like and now Johnathan what shall I write more only that I am well and am your best Friend Joseph Smith
or David
or his mark
——X——

Joseph Smith to Wm. Clayton, Oct. 7, 1842

From Wiki,

David (Hebrew: דָּוִד‎; Dāwīḏ or David) and Jonathan (Hebrew: יְהוֹנָתָן‎; Yəhōnāṯān or Yehonatan) were heroic figures of the Kingdom of Israel, who formed a covenant of friendship recorded in the books of Samuel.

(Thanks to H. Michael Marquardt for bringing this to our attention, Image courtesy of the International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers). Here we see Joseph calling himself David and Clayton Jonathan, who had formed a covenant of friendship. This was four months after Smith had “married” Sarah Ann Whitney (July, 1842) and mentioned David and that what it meant would be revealed hereafter.

Yet, Hales writes,

The curious thing is to read the different references to a conversation(s) between Joseph and Sarah. In a meeting of the Twelve Apostles dated January 20, 1843, Joseph Smith told Orson that Sarah “lied about me.” The Prophet continued: “I never made the offer which she said I did.” According to this statement, Joseph admitted making “an offer.” What was it? We don’t know. Was it sexual tryst? sexual polyandry? an “eternity only” sealing? The various accounts from Sarah and her anti-Mormon scribes describe it as a “proposal” and a “dastardly attempt on her virtue.” Joseph said Sarah “lied.” The “Workings on Mormonism” that you quoted from earlier contain an interesting citation allegedly from Joseph: “there was no sin in it as long as she kept it to herself.” Joseph never said this, but it was John C. Bennett’s bread-and-butter seductive line. I’ve never been impressed by accusations based upon pure assumption. If Joseph were as immoral as you depict, it seems you might have more credible witnesses providing less ambiguous.

Bennett’s signature line? This statement by Joseph Smith as recorded by Wilford Woodruff may help clarify why some were convinced that Joseph could not sin when it came to his relations with women:

“…if we did not accuse one another God would not accuse us & if we had no accuser we should enter heaven. He [Joseph] would take us there as his backload. If we would not accuse him [Joseph] he would not accuse us & if we would throw a cloak of charity over his sins he would over ours. For charity coverd a multitude of Sins & what many people called sin was not sin & he did many things to break down superstition & he would break it down. He spoke of the curse of Ham for laughing at Noah while in his wine but doing no harm.” (Source: Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, p.137, November 7, 1841, emphasis mine.)

We have evidence though, that Joseph Smith lied constantly about polygamy and making offers of “marriage” to women in Nauvoo, and had others lie for him. As D. Michael Quinn notes:

Within a year after Joseph Smith began marrying plural wives himself and performing such ceremonies for others at Nauvoo, Illinois, these practices first were counterfeited and then publicly exposed by one of his counselors, John C. Bennett. On 1 August 1842, Apostle Parley P. Pratt published a rebuttal as an editorial: “But for the information of those who may be assailed by those foolish tales about the two wives [p. 73, “that God had given a revelation that men might have two wives”], we would say that no such principle ever existed among the Latter-day Saints, and never will,” yet Pratt’s autobiography later stated that Joseph Smith disclosed to him the revelation on celestial marriage in January 1840. Two months later twelve men and nineteen women signed affidavits that stated in part, “we know of no other rule or system of marriage than the one published in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants.” The signers included Apostle John Taylor and Apostle Wilford Woodruff (who had already been taught the doctrine of polygamy by Joseph Smith), Bishop Newel K. Whitney (who had performed a plural marriage ceremony the previous July for his own daughter and Joseph Smith in accordance with a revelation dictated by the Prophet on the occasion), Elizabeth Ann Whitney (who witnessed the plural ceremony), Sarah M. Cleveland (who had become Joseph Smith’s plural wife early in 1842), and Eliza R. Snow (who also married him on 29 June 1842). (D. Michael Quinn, LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, 1890-1804, Dialogue, Vol.18, No.1, 21).

If Smith lied (and encouraged others to lie) about practicing polygamy and making marriage proposals to certain women, why not about Sarah Pratt? Hales will use the Goddard’s testimony against Pratt, but even Stephen Goddard states, “I am surprised to hear of her crying because Bro. Joseph attempted to kiss her as she stated, even if he did do it…” This is hardly a ringing endorsement of Smith’s behavior according to the very witnesses called against Pratt.

And it being “no sin as long as she kept it to herself”? We have Orson Pratt affirming this practice just a few years later that, “…I frankly & freely confessed the thing pointed out by Prest. as being wrong, namely “The opening of my mouth”.

Even Brigham Young claimed that he had no problem with Pratt except for that he chose his wife instead of Smith (David). So what was Pratt’s “transgression”? He didn’t keep the matter to himself but publicly defended his wife against Joseph Smith.

So, as Vogel claims, what did Sarah Pratt have to gain by making herself a target by accusing Joseph Smith of making a polygamous proposal to her if it wasn’t true? Hales has yet to really answer this question, and we don’t think he can.

[31] Quinn, Sexual Side, op. cited, 118.

[32] Hales, Rational Faiths, op. cited. Both of Hales references here do not claim what he says they do. D&C 22:1 and D&C 132:4 have nothing to do with adultery or polyandry.

The claim of Smith’s that sexual polyandry was adultery (D&C 132:41) was written in July of 1843, after Smith had taken his last polyandrous “wife”, a year before the “revelation” was produced. (Our timeline for Smith’s Marriages). Dan Vogel in a discussion with Hales about this assertion wrote:

BRIAN HALES Also, Joseph Smith taught that sex out of legal marriage was adultery. Do you believe he taught that a woman having sexual relations with two men was adultery or permitted (even if one is a legal husband and the other is a sealed husband)? It is an important point because to posit that the men and women around Joseph would have tolerated blatant hypocrisy creates some plausibility issues that you and other proponents consistently ignore. The only way to show Joseph Smith didn’t practice sexual polyandry is to demonstrate that is plausibility is extremely low. You portray him as a deceiver that you could detect, but that Brigham Young, John Taylor, ELiza R. Snow, and Zina Huntington could not detect. Or do you suggest they were co-conspirators?

BRIAN HALES I appreciate your respect for the “Idealist Fallacy,” but it doesn’t quite help my focus on evidence as we try to reconstruct the world of Nauvoo polygamy.

DAN VOGEL Brian: I didn’t ask you to prove JS didn’t have sex with his polyandrous wives; I asked you to prove his pre-July 1843 teachings distinguished them from other polygamous wives. That is your thesis, isn’t it? Because your argument is one from silence, it is not my burden to prove that JS treated them differently. That’s your thesis to defend. In my view, you have created an artificial category that I don’t accept. So it is not my burden to prove anything. You only make appeals to sealing only marriages. This is not only an ad hoc escape from an undesirable situation, but it is another fallacy historians call the possible proof or disproof.

DAN VOGEL Brian: If JS taught that sex outside of legal marriage was adultery, then he committed adultery with all his plural wives because they were all illegal. Of course, you mean marriage under God’s law. So if JS was married to his polyandrous wives under God’s law, he didn’t commit adultery under that definition. However, everything wasn’t as compartmentalized in Nauvoo as it was in Utah, and who knew what it all meant and how it was to be conducted in the first years of its practice? Who could tell JS he was wrong or being a hypocrite? The people you name were already doing things they had a hard time accepting but went along with it anyway. Who could confidently say in such a situation that JS had crossed the line? God’s ways were not Brian Hales’ ways.

BRIAN HALES Okay, so you either don’t have any solid evidence of sexual polyandry or you have it but don’t feel compelled to share it. Wouldn’t this be easier if we were simply discussing documentation? I have kinda looked to you and [sic] the King of documentation for the circa 1830 span (think EMD). As you know, there are no “pre-July 1843 teachings” regarding plural marriage, unless we consult Clayton’s journal or use later recollections. Since it is a vacuum, you can fill it any way you want. Segregating the polyandrous wives from the non-polyandrous wives is easy so long as you treat the participants like comic book characters and ignore Joseph Smith’s theology. Section 132: 41-42, 61-63 describe three polyandrous situations labeling them all “adultery.” While you may be willing to believe that Joseph could have been such a hypocrite and no one said anything about it, I don’t think Brigham, John, Zina, Eliza etc. would have tolerated it. By ignoring the theology and the people, we create an unreal world – historical fiction.

I appreciate your not taking a straw man argument. I disagree that Joseph Smith could have been either a stark hypocrite or just wishy-washy on this topic. Sexual polyandry would have been explosive. It is strange even today. No anti-Mormons complained until 1850 (unless you have some other evidence). To believe it might have occurred without someone complaining or more likely defending it, is too implausible for me, but apparently not for you. I can live with that. But I’d still like to talk evidence. I’m even now going through Mike Quinn’s latest response. He’s an remarkable scholar and to have him focus here is great, but I still argue that the evidence is lacking and I will show that in my response (whenever I get it done – I’m getting remarried this week – monogamy .

DAN VOGEL Brian: You can’t shift the burden of proving your thesis to me. Your theory has to be established on its own merits and not rely on the inability of the opposition to disprove it—that would be an Argumentum ad Ignorantiam. The reason I ask for pre-July 1843 teachings is because as you know I see D&C 132 as JS’s possible repentance from his polyandrous marriages under pressure from Emma who was evidently threatening to practice polyandry herself. The revelation was dictated for her benefit and commands her “to cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed” (132:54). Quinn knows the documents better than I do, but I’m only focusing on the logic and arguments of your case and since you admit the documentation is scarce for either side, it becomes imperative to get the thinking right. Historians often argue from the known to the undocumented and build probabilistic cases, and I find your position not only improbable but a reflection of your own preference for how a prophet is supposed to behave. (Hales-Vogel, op. cited)

We will explore Dan’s highly insightful comment that D&C 132 should be viewed as Joseph Smith’s possible repentance from his polyandrous marriages under pressure from Emma. We find that this best fits the evidence that we have, though we believe that Joseph Smith never intended to relinquish any of those women but was forced to (with a handshake and a goodbye) when Emma found out about some of them.

[33] Hales, online here, accessed, November 10, 2014. The way that Hales handles the Joseph E. Johnson account about Mary Heron and Joseph Smith shows a lot about his lack of being able to present the evidence in any kind of rational way. For example if one goes to the link above, and you wish to read the minutes of the Joseph E. Johnson account, you are first presented with another link that provides a “concise summary”. Here is Hales’ summary:

Joseph Ellis Johnson

Joseph E. Johnson reported that he knew that “the first frigging [slang for sexual relations]—that was done in his house with his mother in law—by Joseph.” Johnson’s statement represents the only evidence I have been able to identify regarding a polyandrous plural relationship between Joseph Smith and Mary Heron Snider. However, Johnson seems credible so I have included Mary here as a possible conjugal wife. The fact that Mary Heron was not sealed to her legal husband, John Snider during their lifetimes, even though the opportunity was repeatedly available (including by proxy between her 1852 death and John Snider’s 1875 passing), is consistent with a sealing between her and the Prophet. John Snider remained an active Latter-day Saint, suggesting either that he was entirely unaware of the relationship (which is unlikely if his son-in-law, Joseph E. Johnson, knew about it) or that he knew about it and supported it.

Does it even occur to Hales that because the “prophet” had committed adultery with Snider’s wife and she agreed to it that it was his decision not to be sealed to her for that reason? Of course, this throws a wrench into Hales’ assumptions here. Snider was married to another women and was sealed to her in 1855. As Hales notes,

Two weeks later, [After Snider died] Apostle John Taylor, who had joined the Church in Toronto, Canada, in 1836 with John, penned a second obituary that was also published, which stated: “He [John Snider] gathered to Utah in 1851, where he has since continued a steadfast, faithful and honorable member in the Church. … Having been well acquainted with him for upwards of forty years, I thought it proper to give the above short statement.” There is no mention of his marriage to Mary Heron in either obituary notice.

Snider was never sealed to Mary Heron but he was sealed to his second wife.

When you are done reading the summary, by all means read the Mary Heron page and then come back and read the minutes here in their uninterrupted entirety, or read them first, curious reader. Here are the minutes we have been able to find as recorded by D. Michael Quinn:

1850 Sept. 2, 2 P. M

A Council met in WR’s East Room Present—B[righam] Y[oung] – H[eber] C K[imball] – W[illard] R[ichards] – O[rson] H[yde] P[arley] P P[ratt] E[zra] T[aft] B[enson], G[eorge] A. S[mith], O[rson] Spencer, T. B – D[aniel] Carn – A[lexander] Neibaur – J[oel]H. Johnson, B[enjamin] F. Johnson, and Joseph Kelly [clerk] –

[***]

Hyde [:] there is a matter of bro: Johnson to be laid before the Council—this matter was brot. before Council in Kanesville his Priesthood was required to be laid down until he came here—a Miss Goddard wife of Lorenzo Snow became in a family way by Bro Johnson—she was living in his house—we deemed it improper for her to be there he sent her away to a retired place—she was delivered of a child—she is again living at his house in Kanesville—he wishes to retain his fellowship in the Church. He says he has bro: Snow & he was satisfied.“

Joseph E. Johnson [:]—I am come purposely if possible to get the matter settled & atone for the wrong I av done—I av neglected to lay it before you before this—bro Hydes statements r all correct—true—all I can do is beg for mercy—I became acquainted with the girl, & the consequences r as the[y] r—I saw bro. Snow at Kanesville & he was satisfied—I am come here to atone for the wrong I av done.

[***]

“Ansr. I av not ad connection with Devol’s daur – as God is my judge this is true. I never herad [heard] any conversation to say it was right to go to bed to a woman if not found out – I was aware the thing was wrong. – had been with – he sd. He was familiar with the first frigging – that was done in his house with his mother in law—by Joseph. “O.H. sd. Kelly told him Johnson knew what he was about—it was done in his house by bro Joseph that the Ch had tried to break down bro. Babbitt & the Ch Therefor—I knew at the time I was doing wrong—I never av taken any body as a excuse—I never plighted my faith on Joseph’s transactions.

[***]

“J. Kelly—It as taken me by surprise—in our conversation—Johnson introduced the subject—as to himself—& many scenes that r familiar in the Ch—he sd. It was a matter of his own concern & interested nobody else but those he wod. av to bow to him.” (Source: Misc Minutes, Brigham Young Collection, d 1234, CHL, Sept. 2, 1850, restricted; excerpts transcribed by D. Michael Quinn, bx 3 fd 2, Quinn Collection, Yale Library.)

[Quinn note:]

Brigham Young reproves him and has him rebaptized.

Now, here is the account from Hales’ Vol. 1 of “Joseph Smith’s Polygamy” which he calls “an isolated source” (it is actually not “isolated”, but restricted by the Mormon Church):

Joseph Ellis Johnson’s Statement

Returning now to their original transgression in April 1849, even at that time with polygamy secretly gaining momentum among Church members, LDS leaders were intolerant of adultery regardless of the setting. Hence, upon learning of Hannah Maria’s pregnancy and the circumstances, Joseph Ellis Johnson’s Church membership was in jeopardy. He attended a council of priesthood leaders in the Salt Lake Valley on September 2, 1850, that discussed the case.70 Brigham Young presided at the meeting, which was also attended by Heber C. Kimball, Willard Richards, Orson Hyde, Parley P. Pratt, Ezra Taft Benson, George A. Smith, Orson Spencer, Daniel Carn, Alexander Neibaur, Joel H. Johnson, Benjamin F. Johnson, and Joseph Kelly (secretary).71 Notes from that council explain:

Hyde [speaking] there is a matter of bro: Johnson to be laid before the Council—this matter was brot. before Council in Kanesville his Priesthood was required to be laid down until he came here—a Miss Goddard wife of Lorenzo Snow became in a family way by Bro Johnson—she was living in his house—we deemed it improper for her to be there he sent her away to a retired place—she was delivered of a child—she is again living at his house in Kanesville—he wishes to retain his fellowship in the Church. He says he has bro: Snow & he was satisfied.

“Joseph E. Johnson [speaking]—I am come purposely if possible to get the matter settled & atone for the wrong I av done—I av neglected to lay it before you before this—bro Hydes statements r all correct—true—all I can do is beg for mercy—I became acquainted with the girl, & the consequences r as the[y] r—I saw bro. Snow at Kanesville & he was satisfied—I am come here to atone for the wrong I av done.72

During the proceedings, secretary Kelly recorded Joseph Ellis Johnson’s explanatory comments that make it clear he was not attempting to justify his conduct:

I never heard any conversation to say it was right to go to bed to a woman if not found out—I was aware the thing was wrong.—had been with—he sd. He was familiar with the first frigging [slang for sexual relations]—that was done in his house with his mother in law—by Joseph.73

The “mother in law” was Mary Heron Snider

Hales shows his obvious bias by claiming that the source must be considered because it was made by a devout Mormon, so here we have evidence that Hales considers a source by a Mormon who is “devout” to be of greater weight.

Hales also does this in the case of Esther Dutcher, who was said to be sealed to Joseph Smith by her husband Albert Smith per Daniel H. Wells who wrote about it in a letter to Wilford Woodruff in 1888. (He calls Daniel H. Wells “a reliable source”).

Hales also claims that one must provide “context” for the account above. How so? It really speaks for itself.

Notice also, the footnotes. It is not until after Hales presents all of his own conjectures as to what this account means (without just providing the whole account) that he then presents the rest of the account in a footnote (#111) which includes crucial details:

Other pertinent comments in the council meeting, as transcribed by Michael Quinn, are difficult to understand, although it does appear that the secretary, “J. Kelly,” was surprised. Quinn’s transcription reads: “O.H. sd. Kelly told him Johnson knew what he was about—it was done in his house by bro Joseph that the Ch had tried to break down bro. Babbitt & the Ch Therefor—I knew at the time I was doing wrong—I never av taken any body as a excuse—I never plighted my faith on Joseph’s transactions. . . . J. Kelly—It as taken me by surprise—in our conversation—Johnson introduced the subject—as to himself—& many scenes that r familiar in the Ch—he sd. It was a matter of his own concern & interested nobody else but those he wod. av to bow to him.” Miscellaneous Minutes, September 2, 1850.

These minutes are “difficult to understand”, only if you are trying to justify or explain away Smith’s clear adultery here, as some kind of marriage or present them intermixed with your own commentary.

The facts of this case are:

Joseph E. Johnson was accused of committing adultery and was “on trial” for it, and had been required to “lay down his priesthood” until the trial.
Joseph E. Johnson admitted he committed adultery.
Joseph E. Johnson admitted that what he did “was wrong”.
Joseph E. Johnson claimed that it is wrong for anyone to “go to bed with a woman if not found out”, and therefore that it was wrong, even if it was kept hidden.
Joseph E. Johnson claimed that it “had been with” and then recalls what Joseph Smith did—that he was familiar with the “first frigging” (or sexual intercourse) between Smith and Johnson’s mother-in-law, Mary Heron that took place in his house by bro. Joseph. It is obvious that he is saying that it was wrong when Joseph did it too.
Joseph E. Johnson claims again that he knew at the time he was doing wrong and that he had never taken anyone else as an “excuse” to do wrong and that he “never plighted my faith on Joseph [Smith’s] transactions” (his sexual escapades). Again, clear evidence that Johnson considered what Smith did as wrong, or adultery. Why would Johnson even have to claim that he didn’t base his faith on Joseph’s “transactions” if they were righteous actions? If Joseph was in a legitimate plural marriage with Mary Heron, why would Johnson use this as an example of what was wrong?
The only person who seems the least bit surprised by this is the clerk Joseph Kelly. What Hales does not tell you except in a footnote is that

Brigham Young reproved Joseph E. Johnson for his adultery and breaking his temple covenants and had him rebaptized. There are no objections or accusations directed at Johnson for lying, or giving false information, (or that Johnson’s comment that what Joseph Smith did with his mother in law was NOT something that he would “plight his faith on”) was anything most of those in attendance were surprised or offended at.

This proves that those men were not perturbed in the least by Smith’s sexual polyandry or adultery as Brian Hales claims they would be over and over again. The page about Mary Heron Snider at Hales’ website is basically the same as in his book. In attempting to try and mitigate the damage that this account does to Smith’s reputation and credibility Hales writes at his website:

… the faith of Joseph E. Johnson does not seem to have been negatively affected by what he learned about the Prophet and his mother-in-law in 1843. It is probable that, if he viewed the relationship as immoral, his testimony may have been compromised. Similarly, when he discussed his case with the council in 1850, the minutes do not record any reaction from the leaders to his comment about Joseph and his mother-in-law.

That they convened in part to consider Joseph E. Johnson’s membership status due to his adultery (he was disfellowshipped), demonstrates a lack of tolerance of sexual transgressions. That they would have disciplined Johnson but dismissed similar conduct by Joseph Smith without comment seems less likely. If the Prophet was guilty of adultery, Johnson could have claimed hypocrisy, which he was careful to not do.

So Hales can read Johnson’s mind and know what Johnson would have done? Is Hales reading the same document that we are? We have to ask because his comments are baffling. Johnson’s “faith” was not negatively affected even though he knew that Smith committed adultery. Why else would he state that he did not plight his faith on Joseph’s transactions? What transaction? The “frigging” of his mother-in-law by Joseph Smith that was obviously an adulterous affair, just like Joseph E. Johnson’s adultery was (which he freely admitted).

He said he was aware that it was wrong as it had been with… who? He then mentions Joseph Smith and his “frigging” of Mary Heron Snider. He obviously did view this as immoral, but it didn’t matter to him. (Again, “I never plighted my faith on Joseph’s transactions). If this were some kind of marriage, would Johnson be speaking in this manner? A “frigging and transaction”? There is really no sensible reason for Johnson to bring this up in relation to his own adultery, unless he was comparing what he did to what Joseph did.

Of course Johnson didn’t claim hypocrisy because he knew how those men (and he himself) felt about Joseph Smith. (Whatever he did was right, no matter what it was). But really, why bring it up if he was not subtly trying to make the point that well, Joseph did it too?

This same tired old argument by Hales (that everyone would have been offended at what Joseph did if it was immoral) gets very old after awhile. Even in his response to Mike Quinn on his website, Hales claims that if you only pay attention to those around Smith, you will see that their lack of negative reaction is proof that Smith could never have been practicing sexual polyandry.

Really? Then how could a man like David Whitmer reject Smith and still believe in the Book of Mormon? There are many other examples like this.

But what about those who still believed in Smith? Marvin Hill wrote in 1989:

Joseph told a city council in Nauvoo in 1844 that “the people’s voice should be heard, when their voice was just,” but that when it was not “it was no longer democratic.” He said that “if the minoritys views are more just then Aristocracy should be the governing principle.” For the most part, this meant that Joseph himself would decide what was just. He told the Saints in Kirtland that “he was authorized by God Almighty to establish his Kingdom–that he was God’s prophet . . . and that he could do whatever he should choose to do, therefore the Church had no right to call into question anything he did . . . he was responsible to God Almighty alone.” (Marvin S. Hill, Counter-revolution: The Mormon Reaction To The Coming Of American Democracy, Sunstone 13:3/31 (Jun 89).

This was affirmed by Henry Jacobs — the living husband of Zina Huntington while Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were married to her – for he believed that:

…whatever the Prophet did was right, without making the wisdom of God’s authorities bend to the reasoning of any man; for God has called and empowered him, and no man has a right to judge their works. (Oa Jacobs Cannon, “History of Henry Bailey Jacobs,” MS 6891 1, Church History Library).

Think about that statement for a moment. This is how many men that have led religious movements could do whatever they pleased and still be justified in doing so by their followers. It is Hales that must show evidence that Brigham Young or others in the Hierarchy would have condemned Smith for any immoral acts. But Young actually did the opposite. He said:

Many may say, “br. Brigham, perhaps you are mistaken; you are liable to err, and if the mob should not come, after all, and we should burn up our houses and learn that the Government had actually countermanded their orders and that no armies are coming to Utah, it would be a needless destruction. We have all the time felt that there was no need of leaving our houses. How easy it is for men to be mistaken, and we think a Prophet may be mistaken once in a while.” I am just as willing as the Lord, if he is disposed to make me make mistakes, and it is none of the business of any other person. If a people do the best they know, they have the power to ask and receive, and no power can prevent it.

And if the Lord wants me to make a mistake, I would as soon be mistaken as anything else, if that will save the lives of the people and give us the victory. If you get such feelings in your hearts, think of what my conclusion on the subject is, and do not come to my office to ask me whether I am mistaken, for I want to tell you now perhaps I am.

Do I want to save you? Ask that question. But John, what are you doing? Are you not an Elder in Israel? “Yes, I am a High Priest.” What is the office of an High Priest? John replies, “I do not know, without it is to whip my wife, knock down my children and make everybody obey me; and I believe a High Priest presides over an Elder.” You will find some Elders just about that ignorant. Let me tell you what the office of a High Priest and an Elder is. It holds the keys of the revelation of Jesus Christ; it unlocks the gates of heaven. It opens the broad windows of revelation from eternity. John, what are you about, imagining that I may be mistaken? or that br. Heber may be mistaken? Why do you not open the windows of heaven and get revelation for yourself? and not go whining around and saying, “do you not think that you may be mistaken? Can a Prophet or an Apostle be mistaken?” Do not ask me any such question, for I will acknowledge that all the time, but I do not acknowledge that I designedly lead this people astray one hair’s breadth from the truth, and I do not knowingly do a wrong, though I may commit many wrongs, and so may you. But I overlook your weaknesses, and I know by experience that the Saints lift their hearts to God that I may be led right. If I am thus borne off by your prayers and faith, with my own, and suffered to lead you wrong, it proves that your faith is vain. Do not worry. (Brigham Young, sermon given on 21 March 1858, Salt Lake Tabernacle, transcribed by George D. Watt, Van Wagoner, Vol. 3, pp. 1417-1418).

Then in the Afternoon Sermon given on the same day,

I have told you what causes apostacy. It arises from neglect of prayers and duties, and the Spirit of the Lord leaves those who are thus negligent and they begin to think that the authorities of the church are wrong. In the days of Joseph the first thing manifested in the case of apostacy was the idea that Joseph was liable to be mistaken, and when a man admits that in his feelings and sets it down as a fact, it is a step towards apostacy, and he only needs to make one step more and he is cut off from the church. That is the case in any man. When several of the Twelve were cut off, the first step was that Joseph was a prophet, but he had fallen from his office and the Lord would suffer him to lead the people wrong. When persons get that idea in their minds, they are taking the first step to apostacy. If the Lord has designed that I should lead you wrong, then let us all go to hell together and, as Joseph used to say, we will take hell by force, turn the devils out and make a heaven of it. (ibid. pg. 1420)

Young and other’s point of view about Joseph was that he would never lead them astray, and that if he made mistakes well, so what? Joseph Smith himself said,

When did I ever teach anything wrong from this stand? When was I ever confounded? I want to triumph in Israel before I depart hence and am no more seen. I never told you I was perfect; but there are no errors in the revelations which I have taught.” [addressing his doctrinal infallibility]. Must I, then, be thrown away as a thing of naught? I enjoin for your consideration—add to your faith virtue, love, &c. I say, in the name of the Lord, if these things are in you, you shall be [p.367] fruitful. I testify that no man has power to reveal it but myself—things in heaven, in earth and hell; and all shut your mouths for the future. (Joseph Smith, History of the Church, Vol. 6, p.367).

Hales’ naïve conjecture that because Joseph Smith committed immoral acts his followers would have left him is not borne out in many historical accounts before and after the time of Smith. We have mentioned Warren Jeffs and David Koresh as two modern examples, but there are many more. Concerning Joseph Smith, Richard S. Van Wagoner wrote,

“Gentile Law,” with its civil marriage, was publicly denounced as early as 1847 by Orson Pratt in a sermon recorded by Wilford Woodruff:

As all the ordinances of the gospel Administered by the world since the Aposticy of the Church was illegal, in like manner was the marriage Cerimony illegal and all the world who had been begotten through the illegal marriage were bastards not Sons & hence they had to enter into the law of adoption & be adopted into the Priesthood in order to become sons & legal heirs to salvation.

Pratt further explained in his 1852 Church-sponsored periodical, The Seer:

Marriages, then among all nations, though legal according to the laws of men, have been illegal according to the laws, authority, and institutions of Heaven. All the children born during that long period, though legitimate according to the custom.; and laws of nations, are illegitimate according to the order and authority of Heaven.

Even Mormon marriages prior to the fall of 1835, when priest-hood authority began to be evoked in marriage ceremonies, were pronounced invalid. John D. Lee, member of the secret Council of Fifty and an adopted son of Brigham Young, remembered:

About the same time the doctrine of “sealing” was introduced…. the Saints were given to understand that their marriage relations with each other were not valid. That those who had solemnized the rites of matrimony had no authority of God to do so. That the true priesthood was taken from the earth with the death of the Apostles and inspired men of God. That they were married to each other only by their own covenants, and that if their marriage relations had not been productive of blessing and peace, and they felt it oppressive to remain together, they were at liberty to make their own choice, as much as if they had not been married.

Married women such as Mary Elizabeth Lightner, Marinda Hyde, Sylvia Sessions, Prescendia Buell, Zina D. H. Jacobs, and others were likely persuaded by Joseph Smith himself that even though their marriages may have been “productive of blessing and peace,” he, a prophet of God, could take them to the highest degree of the coveted celestial kingdom whereas their legal husband might not. (Richard S. Van Wagoner, “Joseph and Marriage”, Sunstone 10:9/33 (Jan 86)

Jedidiah Grant would later claim that not everyone did agree that Joseph could do whatever he wanted to and be justified:

When the family organization was revealed from heaven-the patriarchal order of God, and Joseph began, on the right and on the left, to add to his family, what a quaking there was in Israel. Says one brother to another, “Joseph says all covenants are done away, and none are binding but the new covenants; now suppose Joseph should come and say he wanted your wife, what would you say to that?, “I would tell him to go to hell.” This was the spirit of many in the early days of this church. Did the Prophet Joseph want every man’s wife he asked for? He did not but in that thing was the grand thread of the Priesthood developed. The grand object in view was to try the people of God, to see what was in them. (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 2, 13-14, Online here, Accessed October 31, 2014).

Unlike what Hales states, there were some that objected to Smith’s behavior and some who did not, but embraced it in all its ugliness (See Note #66 about Catherine Lewis and Augusta Cobb). Van Wagoner, again:

In some instances, however, the Prophet’s intent went beyond “trying the people,” for he apparently did want the wives of some men. Despite a canonized statement in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants which recognized that “all legal contracts of marriage made before a person is baptized into this church, should be held sacred and fulfilled,” the Prophet in the 1840s viewed as invalid those marriages not sealed by his blessing. As God’s earthly agent, he believed he had been given powers that transcended civil law. Claiming sole responsibility for binding and unbinding marriages on earth and in heaven, he did not view it necessary to obtain civil marriage licenses or divorce decrees. Whenever he deemed it appropriate he could release a woman from her earthly marriage and seal her to himself or another, thus eliminating in his mind any stigma of adultery. In an unusual polyandrous twist to such relationships, the Prophet advised each of these married women to continue living with her husband. (Van Wagoner, op. cited)

Yet, others who did what Joseph did, were committing adultery according to Joseph’s own 1842 address (discussed below). This concept of doctrinal and personal infallibility as to sin was explained by Abraham H. Cannon,

The angels who appeared in the Kirtland Temple delivered the keys of power to the Prophet Joseph and they were now with the Priesthood. There is not a man who has the Holy Ghost that the adversary can make him do anything wrong. (Abraham H. Cannon, Brian Stuy, Collected Discourses, Vol. 3, 284).

Therefore, whatever the leadership did was right, and certainly not sin. It didn’t matter if it was in the “scriptures”, the “living oracles” always trumped the scriptures and anyone who would call these men to account were told that they themselves were without the “Holy Ghost”. George Q. Cannon made this perfectly clear in an 1896 Conference Address:

There is one thing that the Lord has warned us about from the beginning, and that is, not to speak evil of the Lord’s anointed. He has told us that any member of the Church who indulged in this is liable to lose the Spirit of God and go into darkness. The Prophet Joseph said time and again that it was one of the first and strongest symptoms of apostasy. Have we not proved this? Have not his words upon this subject been fulfilled to the very letter? No man can do this without incurring the displeasure of the Lord. It may seem strange, in this age of irreverence and iconoclasm, to talk in this way. Nevertheless, this is the truth. God has chosen His servants. He claims it as His prerogative to condemn them, if they need condemnation. He has not given it to us individually to censure and condenm them. [p.223] No man, however strong he may be in the faith, however high in the priesthood, can speak evil of the Lord’s anointed and find fault with God’s authority on the earth without incurring His displeasure. The Holy Spirit will withdraw itself from such a man, and he will go into darkness. This being the case, do you not see how important it is that we should be careful? However difficult it may be for us to understand the reasons for any action of the authorities of the Church, we should not too hastily call their acts in question and pronounce them wrong. (George Q. Cannon, October 6, 1896, Brain Stuy, Collected Discourses, Vol. 5, 223)

Again and again they take this concept back to Joseph Smith. In 1900, Joseph F. Smith claimed:

The question in my mind is this: Who is to judge who are the good men and the wise men? If you leave me to judge, I say one man; if you leave Brother Brigham to judge, he may say another man; or, if we leave it to the people to judge, one says this is the wise man, and another says that is the wise man. The question with me is: Am I in a frame of mind, that when I get the word of the Lord as to who is the right man, will I obey it, no matter if it does come contrary to my convictions or predilections? If I feel that I can obey the word of God on this matter, then I am in harmony with the spirit of the work of God. If I cannot do it, I am not in harmony with that spirit. (Joseph F. Smith, Conference Report, October, 1900, 48, Online here, (archive.org) Accessed October 31, 2014).

Like with Hales and polygamy being “difficult to understand”, so too Cannon uses this same line of reasoning to justify leaders not being held accountable for their actions. You cannot find fault with “God’s leaders” without incurring his displeasure. So Joseph Smith and Brigham Young could take other men’s wives away from them, commit adultery and break any law because “it is not given to us individually to censure and condemn them.” This was drilled into the heads of the “saints” during the Nauvoo years, and unfortunately many fell victim to this perversion of scripture and by their silence enabled these men to act with impunity in any way they so desired.

Joseph’s mantra, that some sin is really not sin, (See Note #71) was taken up by many and believed when it came to marriage, the law and adultery. Brian Hales today is a prime example of someone who believes in this way and will go to any length and postulate any silly or illogical excuse to exonerate Smith from his John C. Bennett type spiritual wifery. (polyandry) As John D. Lee wrote in his memoirs:

During the winter [of 1842], Joseph, the Prophet, set a man by the name of Sidney Hay Jacobs, to select from the Old Bible such scriptures as pertained to polygamy, or celestial marriage, and to write it in pamphlet form, and to advocate that doctrine. This he did as a feeler among the people, to pave the way for, celestial marriage. This, like all other notions, met with opposition, while a few favored it. The excitement among the people became so great that the subject was laid before the Prophet. No one was more opposed to it than his brother Hyrum, who denounced it as from beneath. Joseph saw that it would break up the Church, should he sanction it. So he denounced the pamphlet through the Wasp, a newspaper published at Nauvoo, by E[beneezer] Robinson, as a bundle of nonsense and trash. He said that if he had known its contents he would never have permitted it to be published, while at the same time other confidential men were advocating it on their own responsibility. Joseph himself said on the stand that should he reveal the will of God concerning them, they—pointing to President W[illiam] Marks, P[arley] P. Pratt and others—would shed his blood. He urged them to surrender themselves to God instead of rebelling against the stepping stone of their exaltation. In this way he worked upon the feelings and minds of the people, until they feared that the anger of the Lord would be kindled against them, and they insisted upon knowing the will of Heaven concerning them. But he dared not proclaim it publicly, so it was taught confidentially to such as were strong enough in the faith to take another step. About the same time, the doctrine of “sealing” for an eternal state was introduced, and the Saints were given to understand that their marriage relations with each other were not valid. That those who had solemnized the rites of matrimony had no authority of God to do so. That the true priesthood was taken from the earth with the death of the Apostles and inspired men of God. That they were married to each other only by their own covenants, and that if their marriage relations had not been productive of blessings and peace, and they felt it oppressive to remain together, they were at liberty to make their own choice, as much as if they had not been married. That it was a sin for people to live together, and raise or beget children, in alienation from each other. There should exist an affinity between each other, not a lustful one, as that can never cement that love and affection that should exist between a man and his wife.

… After the death of Joseph, Brigham Young told me that Joseph’s time on earth was short, and that the Lord allowed him privileges that we could not have. (John Doyle Lee, The Writings of John D. Lee, Ed. by Samuel Nyal Henrie, 2001, 2002, 133-34, added emphasis, Online here, (Google Books) Accessed November 5, 2014. Lee probably meant Orson Hyde, who had problems accepting Joseph’s Spiritual Wife Doctrine in Nauvoo).

Notice how Joseph threatens those who were reluctant to embrace his radical teachings. It is no wonder that many did not object to them. In 1856 Brigham Young made this amazing declaration:

There are many of the men and women now before me who have looked for a pure people, and have supposed that that was a proof of the truth of our doctrines, but they will never find such a people until Satan is bound, and Jesus comes to reign with his Saints. The doctrine we preach is the doctrine of salvation, and it is that which the Elders of this Church take to the world, and not the people of Utah.

Some of the Elders seem to be tripped up in a moment, if the wicked can find any fault with the members of this Church; but bless your souls, I would not yet have this people faultless, for the day of separation has not yet arrived. I have many a time, in this stand, dared the world to produce as mean devils as we can; we can beat them at anything. We have the greatest and smoothest liars in the world, the cunningest and most adroit thieves, and any other shade of character that you can mention.

We can pick out Elders in Israel right here who can beat the world at gambling, who can handle the cards, cut and shuffle them with the smartest rogue on the face of God’s foot-stool. I can produce Elders here who can shave their smartest shavers, and take their money from them. We can beat the world at any game.

We can beat them, because we have men here that live in the light of the Lord, that have the Holy Priesthood, and hold the keys of the kingdom of God. But you may go through all the sectarian world, and you cannot find a man capable of opening the door of the kingdom of God to admit others in. We can do that. We can pray the best, preach the best, and sing the best. We are the best looking and finest set of people on the face of the earth, and they may begin any game they please, and we are on hand, and can beat them at anything they have a mind to begin. They may make sharp their two-edged swords, and I will turn out the Elders of Israel with greased feathers, and whip them to death. We are not to be beat. We expect to be a stumbling block to the whole world, and a rock of offence to them.

I never preached to the world but what the cry was, “That damned old Joe Smith has done thus and so.” I would tell the people that they did not know him, and I did, and that I knew him to be a good man; and that when they spoke against him, they spoke against as good a man as ever lived.

I recollect a conversation I had with a priest who was an old friend of ours, before I was personally acquainted with the Prophet Joseph. I clipped every argument he advanced, until at last he came out and began to rail against “Joe Smith,” saying, “that he was a mean man, a liar, money-digger, gambler, and a whore-master;” and he charged him with everything bad, that he could find language to utter. I said, hold on, brother Gillmore, here is the doctrine, here is the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the revelations that have come through Joseph Smith the Prophet. I have never seen him, and do not know his private character. The doctrine he teaches is all I know about the matter, bring anything against that if you can. As to anything else I do not care. If he acts like a devil, he has brought forth a doctrine that will save us, if we will abide it. He may get drunk every day of his life, sleep with his neighbor’s wife every night, run horses and gamble, I do not care anything about that, for I never embrace any man in my faith. But the doctrine he has produced will save you and me, and the whole world; and if you can find fault with that, find it. He said, “I have done.” (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 4, p.77, online here, Accessed December 1, 2014).

The fact that Young was still retelling this story some 25 years later shows that he still felt the same way. Joseph could sleep with his neighbor’s wife every night and Brigham would not care. He knew that this was a part of Joseph’s behavior because he warned one of his wives (Augusta Adams Cobb) not to be alone with Joseph lest she be “overcome” by him.

John Snider

It seems that Joseph Smith was also able to deny people the right of their free agency to refuse to go on a mission without being penalized by him acting in his Church leadership role. In 1842 this is what Smith instructed the Twelve to do in relation to John Snider (whose wife Joseph was having sex with):

<1842.> January 28 Joseph decided that Elder John Snider should go out on a mission, and if necessary some one go with him. and raise up a Church. and get means to go to England. & carry the Epistles required in the Revelation109 page 36.— and instructed the Twelve, B[righam] Young H[eber] C. Kimball. W[ilford] Woodruff. &— W[illard] Richards— being present. to call Elder Snider into their council & instruct him in these things, & if he will not do these things he shall be cut off from the Church. & be damned.— (Online here, (Joseph Smith Papers) Accessed November 5, 2014, added emphasis).

Is using threats against someone’s eternal salvation because someone is reluctant to go on a mission the righteous exercise of priesthood authority over them? Joseph Smith himself wrote that God told him that:

Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen? Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson—That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness. That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man. Behold, ere he is aware, he is left unto himself, to kick against the pricks, to persecute the saints, and to fight against God. We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. (Doctrine & Covenants, Section 121:34-39, added emphasis).

Every Mormon knows that it is a fundamental doctrine of the Church that one cannot be “forced” to serve a mission as Joseph Smith tried to do with John Snider. For example, at mormon.org, “Nick” wrote,

“Required” is an interesting word when it comes to faith and religion. In the Mormon Church no one is “required” to serve a mission. Church membership is not revoked for not serving a mission.

It seems that church membership can be revoked, if the “prophet” wants your wife. As James E. Talmage taught,

It is no more a part of God’s plan to compel men to work righteousness than it is his purpose to permit evil powers to force his children into sin.” (James Talmage, The Great Apostasy, The Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1909, 35, Online here, Accessed November 5, 2014).

David O. McKay also taught this same principle,

Freedom of the will and the responsibility associated with it are fundamental aspects of Jesus’ teachings. Throughout his ministry he emphasized the worth of the individual, and exemplified what is now expressed in modern revelation as the work and glory of God–“To bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” Only through the divine gift of soul freedom is such progress possible.

Force, on the other hand, emanates from Lucifer himself. Even in man’s preexistent state, Satan sought power to compel the human family to do his will by suggesting that the free agency of man be inoperative. If his plan had been accepted, human beings would have become mere puppets in the hands of a dictator, and the purpose of mans coming to earth would have been frustrated. Satan’s proposed system of government, therefore, was rejected, and the principle of free agency establish in its place. (Conference Report, April 1950, 34 -35, added emphasis, Online here, Accessed November 5, 2014).

David O. Mckay

So, according to David O. McKay, where did Joseph Smith’s threat to cut off John Snider from the Church if he did not accept a mission come from? Lucifer himself. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the Snider “frigging” is how Hales continues to portray it, even though he claims there is no evidence any special relationship existed:

My research supports that Joseph Smith and all of his plural wives obeyed the theology undergirding the practice of polygamy. That is, a wedding ceremony creating a valid priesthood marriage always occurred, they did not engage in sexual polyandry, and adultery was always condemned.

Looking specifically at Joseph Smith’s marriages to women with legal husbands, I conclude that three were for “time and eternity” (Sylvia Sessions, Mary Heron, and Sarah Ann Whitney) and included sexual relations with Joseph Smith (or may have included it). Importantly, documentation of sexual relations with the legal husband during the same period is absent because two of the women were already physically separated from their civil spouses (Windsor Lyon and Joseph Kingsbury) and the third case (of Mary Heron) is too poorly documented. (“Hales-Quinn”, online here, Accessed November 5, 2014).

How then, can Hales claim that it is probable that Smith was married to Mary Heron Snider for “time and eternity”? Fact is, he can’t. We do have evidence enough to conclude that it was adultery, but a marriage? That is simply wishful thinking on the part of Hales. But it still did not stop him from correcting Jeremy Runnells and including her as one of Smith’s wives. It is obvious that it is Hales who has problems with the evidence, not Jeremy Runnells.

As for this speculation by Hales concerning John Snider,

A fourth interpretation [of Smith and Mary Heron’s relationship] also acknowledges conjugality between Joseph Smith and Mary Heron and assumes that a plural sealing in the new and everlasting covenant occurred that would have caused the legal marriage to be “done away” (D&C 22:1) with John continuing as a “front husband” to shield Joseph Smith from suspicion. This explanation absolves Joseph of charges of both adultery and hypocrisy but raises plausibility issues about John Snider’s willingness to give up his wife and to thereafter serve as a “front husband.” In support of this possibility are the observations that John Snider and Mary Heron seem to have endured significant periods of estrangement after 1833, with no pregnancies after Mary turned twenty-nine. Also, the couple’s marriage was apparently never sealed, although the option was available. (Hales, “Mary Heron”, op. cited above).

Hales use of D&C 22 in relation to the polygamy “revelation” is anachronistic. (We discuss this in various places in this Essay) And unfortunately for Hales, it directly contradicts an Address from the First Presidency (in other words a binding “revelation” to the Church) made in November, 1842:

ADDRESS FROM THE FIRST PRESIDENCY.

Nauvoo.

To our well beloved brother, Parley P. Pratt, and to the elders of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in England, and scattered abroad throughout all Europe, and to the Saints,Greeting:

Whereas, in times past persons have been permitted to gather with the Saints at Nauvoo, in North America—such as husbands leaving their wives and children behind; also, such as wives leaving their husbands and children behind; and such as women leaving their husbands, and such as husbands leaving their wives who have no children, and some because their companions are unbelievers. All this kind of proceeding we consider to be erroneous and for want of proper information. And the same should be taught to all the Saints, and not suffer families to be broken up on any account whatever if it be possible to avoid it. Suffer no man to leave his wife because she is an unbeliever, nor any woman to leave her husband because he is an unbeliever. These things are an evil and must be forbidden by the authorities of the church, or they will come under condemnation; for the gathering is not in haste nor by flight, but to prepare all things before you, and you know not but the unbeliever may be converted and the Lord heal him; but let the believers exercise faith in God, and the unbelieving husband shall be sanctified by the believing wife; and the unbelieving wife by the believing husband, and families are preserved and saved from a great evil which we have seen verified before our eyes.

Behold this is a wicked generation, full of lyings, and deceit, and craftiness; and the children of the wicked are wiser than the children of light; that is, they are more crafty; and it seems that it has been the case in all ages of the world. And the man who leaves his wife and travels to a foreign nation, has his mind overpowered with darkness, and Satan deceives him and flatters him with the graces of the harlot, and before he is aware he is disgraced forever: and greater is the danger for the woman that leaves her husband. , and there are several instances where women have left their husbands, and [pg. 2] come to this place,& in a few weeks, or months, they have found themselves new husbands, and they are living in adultery; and we are oblige us to cut them off from the church. I presume There are men also that are quilty of the same crime, as we are credibly informed. We are knowing to their having taken wives here and are credibly informed that they have wives in England. [red text underlining in original, red text removed when published in the Millennial Star]

The evils resulting from such proceedings are of such a nature as to oblige us to cut them off from the church. [Not in original]

There is another evil which exists. There are poor men who come here and leave their families behind in a destitute situation, and beg for assistance to send back after their families. Every man should tarry with his family until providence provides for the whole, for there is no means here to be obtained to send back. Money is scarce and hard to be obtained. The people that gather to this place are generally poor, the gathering being attended with a great sacrifice; and money cannot be obtained by labour, but all kinds of produce is plentiful and can be obtained by labour; therefore the poor man that leaves his family in England, cannot get means, which must be silver and gold, to send for his family; but must remain under the painful sensation, that his family must be cast upon the mercy of the people, and separated and put into the poorhouse.

Therefore, to remedy the evil, we forbid a man to leave his family behind because he has no means to bring them. If the church is not able to bring them, and the parish will not send them, let the man tarry with his family—live with them—and die with them, and not leave them until providence shall open a way for them to come all together. And we also forbid that a woman leave her husband because he is an unbeliever. We also forbid that a man shall leave his wife because she is an unbeliever. If he be a bad man (i. e. the unbeliever) there is a law to remedy that evil. And if she be a bad woman, there is law to remedy that evil. And if the law divorce them, then they are at liberty; otherwise they are bound as long as they two shall live, and it is not our prerogative to go beyond this; if we do it, it will be at the expense of our reputation.

These things we have written in plainness, and we desire that they should be publicly known, and request this to be published in the [Millennial] STAR.

May the Lord bestow his blessing upon all the Saints richly, and hasten the gathering, and bring about the fulness of the everlasting covenant are the prayers of your brethren.

Written by Hyrum Smith, patriarch, by the order of Joseph Smith, president over the whole church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. HYRUM SMITH. (“Address from the First Presidency”, Millennial Star 3 [November 1842]: 115; emphasis added, Online here, Accessed October 30, 2014, original letter online here, accessed July 13, 2015. Thanks to Brent Metcalfe for the link and H. Michael Marquardt for bringing the original letter to our attention).

As you can see, the original letter has more material than what was printed in the Millennial Star. (In red).

We also found it interesting that the First Presidency here should use the word crafty in relation to these things. Joseph Smith himself did so in relation to “sealing” in 1844:

Again the doctrin or sealing power of Elijah is as follows: If you have power to seal on earth & in heaven then we should be crafty. The first thing you do go & seal on earth your sons & daughters unto yourself & yourself unto your fathers in eternal glory & go ahead and not go back but use a little Craftiness & seal all you can & when you get to heaven tell your father that what you seal on earth should be sealed in heaven. I will walk through the gate of heaven and Claim what I seal & those that follow me & my Council. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, p.365, March 10, 1844, added emphasis. This quote was drastically changed when it was put into the History of the Church (without ellipsis or any notification) and is still used today in its edited form. See quote at Note 8 here at lds.org, Accessed November 5, 2014).

Here is how they altered the quote in their Manual, Teachings of Joseph Smith,

Again: The doctrine or sealing power of Elijah is as follows:—If you have power to seal on earth and in heaven, then we should be wise. The first thing you do, go and seal on earth your sons and daughters unto yourself, and yourself unto your fathers in eternal glory. (Teachings: Joseph Smith, Chapter 26: Elijah and the Restoration of the Sealing Keys, Online here, Accessed, October 26, 2016, Quote at Note #8).

And their source note reads:

History of the Church, 6:251–53; spelling modernized; from a discourse given by Joseph Smith on Mar. 10, 1844, in Nauvoo, Illinois; reported by Wilford Woodruff.

Neither the History of the Church nor this modern Manual mentions that the quote was drastically altered by them. And “crafty” does not mean “wise”. What it means is being “clever at achieving one’s aims by indirect or deceitful methods.” It also means “artful” or “cunning” according to Webster’s 1828 dictionary. It reminds us of this Book of Mormon verse from 2 Nephi, Chapter 9:

O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish.

What are we to make of Joseph Smith deceitfully using the “sealing power” to multiply “wives” unto himself that had living husbands? Why did he ignore his own commandment not to break up marriages and families? Did he misuse this power? From what we see above, yes, it appears that he did and then when his first wife Emma totally rebelled against him wrote the apology “revelation”, Doctrine and Covenants Section 132.

[34] Ann Eliza Webb, Wife No. 19, Or the story of a life in bondage. Being a complete exposé of Mormonism, and revealing the sorrows, sacrifices and sufferings of women in Polygamy, 1876, pages 70-71. Notice that this is not a “secondary source”. The original may be read here, at archive.org. Accessed, October 30, 2014.

[35] Hales, Rational Faiths, op. cited. Hales uses selective editing when quoting the interview with Zina D. H. Young in 1887, to remove her obvious bias against Ann Eliza Webb. The actual quote reads (from Hales’ website mormonpolygamydocuments):

“The trouble with Ann Eliza,” Aunt Zina answered, “was that she was not truthful. She was not grateful, and she was a very bad woman. She has convicted herself out of her own mouth. She said she lived in a hovel. The cottage she occupied is still standing on the corner beyond, and it is among the best and prettiest in this part of the city. The fact is it is far too good for her. “Yes,” said Mrs. Wells, “I knew Ann Eliza at school, and she was never fit to be the wife of President Young.”

“She says she was starved,” Aunt Zinah continued; “when the fact is she got more than any of us. Mr. Parks, now with the Z. C. M. I. was President Young’s steward, and he gave each family its monthly allowance of sugar, soap, coffee, etc., and Ann Eliza got more than all the others, because she made Mr. Parks give it to her. She says she made butter for the other wives when she was on President Young’s farm. She never did any such thing. She had her horses and carriages, with which she rode to and from the farm, and it may have been that occasionally some butter was put in her carriage, which she left at the Lion House or Bee Hive, but that was all. She never lifted her finger to do a bit of work that she didn’t want to do. She had servants and there was no necessity for her doing anything. She has asserted that President Young opened all his wives’ letters, and that they couldn’t visit anywhere or write to anybody, which is ridiculously untrue. President Young was occupied with too many important matters to give attention to such trivial things as his wives’ letters or his wives’ visits. We wrote to whom we pleased and went where we wanted to go.” … (“Two Prophets’ Widows, St. Louis Globe Democrat, August 18, 1887, 6, JSP_Book_15, PDF, Online here, Accessed October 14, 2014).

We don’t know why Hales employed those ellipses, but from what we see here, both Zina Young and Emmeline Wells didn’t think that Ann Eliza was fit to be Young’s wife in the first place. This sounds more like petty jealousy.

These wives also state that Ann Eliza made trips to the Lion and Beehive houses, which would have given her ample opportunity to interact with Zina and Young’s other wives. For Hales to claim “proximity” here, is disingenuous. The quote isn’t that long, so why didn’t Hales transcribe it all? Because it doesn’t support his narrative. Many readers will simply not take the trouble to look up the original sources. Hales could also provide links to the pages with the actual sources if he chose to do so, but so far he has not. I am hopeful that he will, since he has gone to the trouble of producing and making public his research.

As for Ann Eliza, she did not say that she lived in a hovel. She wrote,

Such a home it was! A little house, the rent of which would have been extremely moderate had it been a hired house, furnished plainly, even meanly, when the position of the man whose wife was to occupy it was considered. It was the very cheapest pine furniture which could be bought in the city, and the crockery was dishes that Brigham had left when he sold the Globe bakery. There were very few of these, and they were in various stages of dilapidation. My carpet was an old one, taken from the Lion House parlor, all worn out in the centre, and, it being a large room, I took out the edges and pieced out enough to cover two rooms, and the other floors were bare. I had no window curtains of any sort, and there being no blinds to the house, I had to hang up sheets to keep people from looking in.

I told him several times that I was insufficiently supplied; but for a long time he made some excuse or other for not giving me more. At last he sent me a very few additional ones; so that, although there was still a lack of what I actually needed, I managed to get along by a great deal of contriving. (Ann Eliza Young, op. cited, 458).

This is hardly claiming she lived in a “hovel”. Ann Eliza calls it a “little house”; which is what Zina called it: a “cottage”. Ann Eliza complained about the sparse furnishings, of which Zina makes no mention. And even this, says Zina, “is far too good for her.” In fact Ann Eliza states on page 533 of her book that “Outwardly, my new home had a lovely appearance.” She adds, “And, indeed, with its somewhat irregular architecture, its wide verandas, vine-draped and shaded, its broad, low windows, and beautiful surroundings, it is one of the pleasantest looking places that one would care to see.” (ibid., 533)

This of course is exactly what Zina Young states. It is obvious that Zina is out to vilify Ann Eliza by putting a derogatory spin on the things that she reported in her book. The author of the article describes it as a “charming little house”, while Ann Eliza called it a lovely … little house.

For example, Ann Eliza doesn’t claim that she ever made butter. She writes,

My mother made the butter and cheese [at the Farm], and took charge of the cooking. I assisted her with the latter, [cooking] took care of the house, did the washing and ironing, and was allowed the extreme pleasure of carrying the farm supplies to the other wives every week. (ibid., 534, added emphasis).

Again, we see that Zina is mistaken, and only has part of it right. Ann Eliza did claim that she carried supplies (like butter) to the other wives, not that she made the butter herself. It seems that it is Hales who is not really familiar with the research, if he will use such biased witnesses without disclosing them as such. Still, we are troubled by the ellipses he employs that drastically alter the tone of Zina Young’s statements about Ann Eliza. This also destroys Hales “proximity” argument.

Notice also, that Zina claims that she was “sealed” to Joseph for time and eternity, and claims that it was a “marriage”.

[36] Brian Hales, Fanny Alger and Joseph Smith’s Pre-Nauvoo Reputation, Journal of Mormon History, Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 141, 149, 153-54, 156-57, 159-60, online here, accessed October 20, 2014. If one reads through the references on Ann Eliza Webb Young given by Brian Hales in this article, one curious thing becomes obvious. He never reveals the credibility problems he seems to have with her as he does when Ann Eliza’s reminiscences are used by others who have come to different conclusions than Brian Hales does.

We also see that Hales on the one hand tries to provide evidence for a “sealing”, but then denies that there could be one. Hales and Gregory L. Smith write in their Interpreter Article,

We do not claim the Fanny Alger plural marriage was a sealing. Joseph possessed priesthood authority that could solemnize marriages. The first such recorded marriage occurred 24 November 1835, when the Prophet performed the monogamous wedding ceremony of Lydia Goldthwaite Bailey and Newell Knight. It is common nowadays to think of plural marriage as always tied to the doctrines of sealing and eternal marriage, but the two concepts are separate. The historical evidence has Joseph discussing plural marriage years prior to expressing ideas about eternal sealings. (Hales-Smith, op. cited)

There is absolutely no evidence to support the notion that Smith possessed a priesthood authority that could solemnize polygamous marriages in 1835. Hales provides no credible evidence that the concepts are “separate”. In his article for the Journal of Mormon History Hales writes,

“An analysis of the various narratives shows that none is contemporary with 1835; thirteen were written at least thirty-seven years after the events occurred; ten of the accounts are second-hand. Seven considered the relationship a plural marriage or sealing …” (Hales, op. cited, 142-3, note 20).

If only “Priesthood Authority” (not having the sealing “keys”) could solemnize celestial/plural marriages, then why does every single “prophet” of the Mormon Church claim that it takes those “keys” to do so, and that anyone who did not have those “keys” could not perform them without express permission? It has always been taught that no one could perform a plural marriage without direct permission of the President of the Church. This is because he is the one that held the “keys” to do so, keys that were not given to the Church (as they claim) until 1836. This is a dilemma for those that wish to turn the Alger affair into a polygamous marriage. That plural marriages were linked with the sealing “keys” and that these were not really valid until performed in a Temple is affirmed by Hales himself:

The belief developed in Nauvoo that all eternal sealing ceremonies performed outside of a temple, whether monogamous or polygamous, would need to be repeated within temple walls (with the same individuals or by proxy) at some point. By this logic, the Joseph Smith-Fanny Alger plural marriage needed to be repeated in a temple to become an eternal marriage. (Hales, ibid., 158)

But why would Joseph marry Fanny Alger only for time, when Hales claims that the polygamy “revelation” is all about the next life and eternal “marriages”? Is he making an exception with this “marriage”? If so, why? Hales advocates time and again that everything to do with Smith is done in a proper order as revealed by God. Hales claims that,

A second applicable theological principle apparently overlooked by proponents including Quinn is found an 1830 revelation, now D&C 22:1, which states: “Behold, I say unto you that all old covenants have I caused to be done away in this thing; and this is a new and an everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning.” This revelation was given shortly after the Church was organized in response to a specific question about baptism, which is a new and everlasting covenant between a person and God. The revelation states generally that the new and everlasting covenant causes all old covenants to be done away.

Thirteen years later Joseph recorded another revelation dealing with his question about Old Testament patriarchs who practices a “plurality of wives” (D&C 132:1). As part of the revelatory reply, the Lord proclaimed: “For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant…” The revelation continues declaring that this new and everlasting covenant allows the marriage of a man and a woman to be “valid…[and] of force when they are out of the world” (v. 18; see also 19-20). The question is whether the earlier statement that “all old covenants have I caused to be done away in this thing; and this is a new and an everlasting covenant” (D&C 22:1) applies to all “new and everlasting covenants” mentioned in D&C 132:4.

Isaiah provided a possible hint regarding the teaching methods of the God of the Bible: “But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little…” (Isaiah 28:13; see also 2 Nephi 28:30). This instruction was repeated to Joseph Smith in one of his revelations (D&C 98:12, see also 128:21). The 1830 revelation states “all old covenants” are “done away” by “a new and everlasting covenant.” If “all” means “all,” then new and everlasting covenants revealed later in a “line upon line” fashion would be subject to the same constraints as those revealed early. Then sealings in the new and everlasting would cause old legal marriage covenants to be “done away.” In 1854, Jedediah M. Grant recalled that when eternal marriage was revealed in Nauvoo, Joseph Smith taught that “all covenants are done away, and none are binding but the new covenants.”

These verses have important ramifications for the practice of sexual polyandry. They support that from a religious standpoint, a woman previously legally married and subsequently sealed would not have two husbands with whom she could experience sexual relations after the sealing ceremony. The new and everlasting covenant of marriage would supersede the legal covenant of marriage causing it to be “done away.” Thereafter, going back to her legal husband would be adultery because in the eyes of the Church, that marriage ended with the sealing. (Hales, op. cited).

There is no evidence at all that a “Celestial Marriage” would void an already existing secular marriage in the Kirtland or Nauvoo Era. According to Hales, Joseph was then guilty of breaking up marriages, which Smith condemned in 1842 in a First Presidency Address. He declared that no one had the right to break up any marriage for any reason. If the wife left the husband she must get a legal divorce and then she could marry again. If she did not, she and any man she took up with were committing adultery. This means that Joseph Smith committed adultery with every one of his polyandrous wives.

And far be it for us to “overlook” any of Hales illogical assertions or private interpretations of Smith’s doctrine. (We are sure that there are many we will not get to even in an Essay of this length). Hales claims that in an 1830 “revelation” Smith claimed,

“Behold, I say unto you that all old covenants have I caused to be done away in this thing;”

What is “this thing”? Hales claims the “revelation” is about baptism, which it is; but he then goes on to say that it is “generally” about all things in the Church. Here is what it actually says,

1 Behold, I say unto you that all old covenants have I caused to be done away in this thing; and this is a new and an everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning.

2 Wherefore, although a man should be baptized an hundred times it availeth him nothing, for you cannot enter in at the strait gate by the law of Moses, neither by your dead works.

3 For it is because of your dead works that I have caused this last covenant and this church to be built up unto me, even as in days of old.

4 Wherefore, enter ye in at the gate, as I have commanded, and seek not to counsel your God. Amen. (added emphasis)

“This thing”, is Baptism, not Marriage. As Dan Vogel explained to Hales,

Your reading of D&C 22 is anachronistic. You are attempting to apply an 1840s definition to an 1830 term. At the time it was given, only the Catholics considered marriage a religious ceremony. Protestants rejected marriage as a sacrament of the church. Mormons were no different. While they insisted that converts be rebaptized, they didn’t require them to be remarried.

“In Joseph Smith’s theology, a woman could never have two husbands.” You are presumably basing this on the July 1843 revelation (D&C 132:61-62). Yet, you have admitted that JS married at least three women who had living husbands. So, to save your thesis, you propose the following ad hoc hypothesis: “A marriage sealing in the new and everlasting covenant would cause the civil marriage to be done away from a Church standpoint.” However, this interpretation is aided by your anachronistic borrowing from D&C 22, which you haven’t shown that JS applied to marriage in the 1840s. Yours is a private interpretation of scripture since the Church’s position has been that non-Mormon marriage, or Mormon marriage out side the temple for that matter, is valid and binding for this life only but is dissolved at death. This is apparently the view expressed in D&C 132:41-44, which mentions that it is considered adultery if either the husband or wife breaks the marriage “vow” even if their marriage was “not in the new and everlasting covenant”. Indeed, the Church has always treated non-temple marriage as legitimate.

Nevertheless, you have only shown that under a certain semantic construction JS didn’t commit adultery; there still remains the issue of sexual polyandry. In other words, you seem to be arguing two things simultaneously: JS didn’t have sex with married women, but if he did he didn’t consider it adultery. And you say I’m subtle. Polyandry is polyandry. The revelation’s use of the term “virgins” (132: 61-62) would tend to exclude your specialized definition, which would require you to go deeper into semantics and equivocation. I turns out that when you say everyone but you has ignored JS’s theology, you mean they don’t understand it in the unique (and unlikely) way that you do. (“Hales-Vogel”, op. cited).

“Hear the word of the Lord, you scoffers…”

Another error that Hales makes is applying the quote from Isaiah that he mentions:

9 “Who is it he is trying to teach? To whom is he explaining his message? To children weaned from their milk, to those just taken from the breast? 10 For it is: Do this, do that, a rule for this, a rule for that; here a little here, a little there.” 11 Very well then, with foreign lips and strange tongues God will speak to this people, 12 to whom he said, “This is the resting place, let the weary rest”; and, “This is the place of repose”— but they would not listen. 13 So then, the word of the LORD to them will become: Do this, do that, a rule for this, a rule for that; a little here, a little there— so that as they go they will fall backward; they will be injured and snared and captured. Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem. (Isaiah 28:9-14 NIV, added emphasis).

It is obvious that Isaiah was being extremely sarcastic here, and that teaching “line upon line” was not the Lord’s way, it was a curse that would cause the ruling scoffers “to fall backward” and become “injured” and “snared and captured.” In verse 19 Isaiah claims, “The understanding of this message will bring sheer terror.” His message was being delivered to “scoffers” who had “made a lie” of their refuge. This is not about some approved method of teaching doctrine; it is about what happens when wicked men rule and abuse their positions of power.

The 1830 “revelation” absolutely does not apply to the one given in 1843. The binding scripture of the Church in 1835 declared, “All legal contracts of marriage made before a person is baptized into this church, should be held sacred and fulfilled.” (1835 Doctrine and Covenants, Section CI:4, added emphasis; Webster’s 1828 Dictionary: FULFILL’ED: Accomplished; performed; completed; executed).

Yes, Smith did teach in Nauvoo that all Gentile marriages were not binding upon those individuals “in and after the resurrection from the dead”, but that was a doctrinal change without support from earlier scripture, used by Smith to justify his polyandry. Indeed, Smith himself claimed in his 1843 “revelation”,

And verily I say unto you, that the conditions of this law are these: All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations, that are not made and entered into and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, of him who is anointed, both as well for time and for all eternity, and that too most holy, by revelation and commandment through the medium of mine anointed, whom I have appointed on the earth to hold this power (and I have appointed unto my servant Joseph to hold this power in the last days, and there is never but one on the earth at a time on whom this power and the keys of this priesthood are conferred), are of no efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection from the dead; for all contracts that are not made unto this end have an end when men are dead. (D&C 132:7, added emphasis).

The problem with Hales’ logic here, is that the husbands of the women that Smith “married” were not dead when he did so, so their marriage “contracts” were still valid, and as we mentioned above it was a law to the Church:

And we also forbid that a woman leave her husband because he is an unbeliever. We also forbid that a man shall leave his wife because she is an unbeliever. If he be a bad man (i. e. the unbeliever) there is a law to remedy that evil. And if she be a bad woman, there is law to remedy that evil. And if the law divorce them, then they are at liberty; otherwise they are bound as long as they two shall live, and it is not our prerogative to go beyond this; if we do it, it will be at the expense of our reputation. (1842 Address, op.cited above).

Eliza R. Snow wrote a list of Smith’s wives with Andrew Jenson and he penned this about Fanny Alger:

“One of the first wives Joseph married, Emma made such a fuss about – Sister ER Snow was well acquainted with her and lived with the prophet at the time She afterwards married in Indiana where she became the mother of a large family”(Hales, op. cited)

Hales states that “Eliza’s proximity to the events is important because it provides a chronological marker because she went to live with the Smith family in the “spring of 1836,” so Hales concludes that the “marriage” took place during this period of time. He also makes the conclusion that Eliza was then an “eyewitness to the fuss”, with Emma.

Snow moved to Kirtland in December of 1835. She writes in her “Sketch” in 1885, “In the Spring of 1836, I taught a select school for the young ladies, and boarded with the Prophet’s family: at the close of the term I returned to my parental home…”

This does not say that she moved to Kirtland in “the Spring of 1836”. But I did find this notice in the February Edition of the Messenger and Advocate for 1835:

Notice. — The spring term of the “Kirtland School” will commence on the 20th of April next. Young gentlemen and ladies from a distance can obtain board, in respectable families for $1.00 to $1.25 per week. (Messenger & Advocate, Vol. I. No. 5, February, 1835, 80, Online here, Accessed November 5, 2014).

This would seem to indicate that the Spring Term started in mid April, and this is probably the case for the next year (1836). We learn from Eliza Snow’s journal that her terms lasted for three months so Eliza would have been at the Smith home until mid-July. Joseph Smith left for Salem, Massachusetts on July 25, 1836.

There are problems with Snow’s account. First, it is too vague. What did she mean by “married”? Did she ever claim to witness a ceremony? Did Alger ever describe herself as Smith’s “wife”? All we have is that Snow was “well acquainted” with Alger, who left Kirtland in the Winter of 1836. What this brief sentence does not say is that Snow and Alger lived with the Smith’s at the same time. “At the time” could just mean the year 1836 when Smith was committing adultery with Alger. Snow doesn’t have to be an “eyewitness” to have known that Emma put up a “fuss”.

Since Snow was in Kirtland since December of 1835 she could have easily learned about the scrape and the “fuss” that Emma put up about it. Snow describing it as a “marriage” later, means nothing because she was an ardent defender of Smith and that is how she viewed it. If Snow really knew all that about Alger, why are there so little details? She doesn’t provide a timeframe for the supposed “marriage”, who performed it, or who was there, all crucial details that someone who was well acquainted with Fanny Alger would supposedly know.

Hales also can’t answer the problem of a “sealing”. He only uses Smith’s “priesthood authority” to perform marriages and quotes Newell Knight from 1846 to substantiate this claim. Hales admits that “sealing” in Ohio seems to have been used only in “sealing up to everlasting life.”

So Smith had no authority to perform plural marriages or sealings at that time. This is an important point that can’t be stressed enough. Smith’s “priesthood authority” simply did not extend to plural marriages because he did not have the “keys” to perform them, including those for “time”. If he could perform them, then why have Elijah come and why do all subsequent Mormon “authorities” claim that they are needed to do so? Why then, did John C. Bennett not have the authority to perform plural marriages for time only? If Joseph could break the rule, why couldn’t Bennett also? Remember, Bennett was operating before the “revelation” on polygamy was written that designated that only one man could authorize those “marriages”.

This whole scenario makes little sense except as an apologetic ploy. Therefore, Hales needs to throw out any reference to Smith and Alger being “sealed”, or that Joseph could have performed a plural “marriage” at that time by “priesthood authority”. This cuts way down on his evidence of a marriage, which doesn’t do him any good anyway, because they are all late accounts decades after the event. Even Eliza J. Webb (Ann Eliza Young’s mother) couldn’t say for sure what went on in Kirtland as she wrote on May 4, 1876:

But I am surprised that Emma will testify that Polygamy was not practiced in Joseph’s day. Aunt Fanny Murray [Brigham Young’s sister] was sealed to Joseph. She told me so herself. Mother Granger who your mother will remember, told me she herself was sealed to Hyrum Smith…Helen Kimball and Sarah Ann Whitney were among the ‘victims’ Helen was only fourteen years old when she was given to the “prophet.” Poor girl, and poor Mother, we may also say, for sister Vilate was both shocked and grieved almost beyond measure. Emma Smith knows all this, but I do not wish to quarrel with her about it, for she has no doubt, had trouble enough. I think I could enumerate towards a hundred women who were sealed to Joseph; many of them already having husbands at the time, who the “prophet” said were not competent to save and exalt their wives…I do not know that the “sealing” commenced in Kirtland but I am perfectly satisfied that something similar commenced, and my judgement is principally formed from what Fanny Alger told me herself concerning her reasons for leaving “Sister Emma”. (Eliza J. Webb letter of 4 May 1876, in Myron H. Bond Papers, RLDS Archives, added emphasis).

What would be “similar” to sealing? There is simply no answer to this question, therefore Eliza Webb is simply mistaken and conflating later events with what Alger told her fifty years earlier. Joseph Smith could have told Fanny Alger anything which she may have repeated to Eliza Webb, (about it being some kind of “marriage”) but that doesn’t change the fact that Joseph did not have the authority to perform a plural marriage in 1835. The Encyclopedia of Mormonism states,

The Book of Mormon makes clear that, though the Lord will command men through his prophets to live the law of plural marriage at special times for his purposes, monogamy is the general standard (Jacob 2:28-30); unauthorized polygamy was and is viewed as adultery. Another safeguard was that authorized plural marriages could be performed only through the sealing power controlled by the presiding authority of the Church (D&C 132:19). (Encyclopedia of Mormonism, “Plural Marriage”, 1992, p. 1094).

Joseph did not have the “sealing power” which is supposedly a “safeguard” against what Hales claims he did, and therefore he could not perform any plural marriage at that time. Therefore, what Hales is advocating here, is his own fantasy.

In Smith’s diary from 1835 we have the actual marriage ceremony he used for the Newell Knight marriage:

24 November 1835 • Tuesday

Tuesday 24th at home, spent the fore noon, instructing those that called to inquire concerning the things of God, in the last days: in the after-noon, we translated some of the Egyptian, records; I had an invitation, to attend a wedding at Br. Hiram [Hyrum] Smith’s in the evening also to solemnize the matrimonial ceremony, <between Newell Knights [Newel Knight] & Lydia Goldthwaite [Bailey]> I and my wife, went, when we arrived a conciderable company, had collected, the bridegroom & bride came in, and took their seats, which gave me to understand that they were ready, I requesteded them to arise and join hands, I then remarked that marriage was an institution of h[e]aven institude [instituted] in the garden of Eden, that it was necessary that it should be Solemnized by the authority of the everlasting priesthood, before joining hands however, we attended prayers. I then made the remarks above stated; The ceremony was original <with me> it was in substance as follows, You covenant to be each others companions through life, and discharge the duties of husband & wife in every respect to which they assented, I then pronounced them husband & Wife in the name of God and also pronounced the blessings that the Lord confeed upon adam & Eve in the garden of Eden; that is to multiply and replenish the earth, with the addition of long life and prosperity; dismissed them and returned home.— The weather is freezing cold, some snow on the ground…(Joseph Smith Diary, 1835-1836, 49, Online here, Accessed November 16, 2014).

Notice that even with a monogamous marriage, Smith blesses them to “multiply and replenish the earth”. It is also important to note that a few months earlier, this was printed in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants which soon after became binding on the entire church (including Joseph Smith):

Section CI.

Marriage.

1. According to the customs of all civilized nations, marriage is regulated by laws and ceremonies: therefore we believe, that all marriages in this church of Christ of Latter Day Saints, should be solemnized in a public meeting, or feast, prepared for that purpose: and that the solemnization should be performed by a presiding high priest, high priest, bishop, elder, or priest, not even prohibiting those persons who are desirous to get married, of being married by other authority. We believe that it is not right to prohibit members of this church from marrying out of the church, if it be there determination so to do, but such persons will be considered weak in the faith of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
2. Marriage should be celebrated with prayer and thanksgiving; and at the solemnization, the persons to be married, standing together, the man on the right, and the woman on the left, shall be addressed, by the person officiating, as he shall be directed by the holy Spirit; and if there be no legal objections, he shall say, calling each by their names: “You both mutually agree to be each other’s companions, husband and wife, observing the legal rights belonging to this condition; that is, keeping yourselves wholly for each other, and from all others, during your lives.” And when they have answered “Yes,” he shall pronounce them “husband and wife” in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by virtue of the laws of the country and authority vested in him: “may God add his blessings and keep you to fulfill your covenants from henceforth and forever. Amen.”
3. The clerk of every church should keep a record of all marriages, solemnized in his branch.
4. All legal contracts of marriage made before a person is baptized into this church, should be held sacred and fulfilled. Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy: we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again. It is not right to persuade a woman to be baptized contrary to the will of her husband, neither is it lawful to influence her to leave her husband. All children are bound by law to obey their parents; and to influence them to embrace any religious faith, or be baptized, or leave their parents without their consent, is unlawful and unjust. We believe that all persons who exercise control over their fellow beings, and prevent them from embracing the truth, will have to answer for that sin. (Added emphasis)

First, all marriages should be “solemnized” in a public meeting. Second, they should be performed by the presiding officer of the Ward, and they should not be prohibited from being married by “other authority”. Also, this proclamation (which became binding scripture on the church) states that these marriages were to be performed “by virtue of the laws of the country and authority vested in him, whether by Mormon “priesthood” or by “other authority”.

Finally, we have a warning against polygamy, and that the declared belief of the church is “that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband,” and that it is not lawful for any man to influence a woman to leave her husband.

What does it say about a self proclaimed prophet who does not follow the binding scripture of his own church? No wonder Smith did what he did in secret.

This article on marriage says nothing about gentile marriages not being valid or that a woman can just leave her duly married husband because some priesthood holder desired her or she desired him. As D. Michael Quinn writes,

In October of 1842, twelve men and nineteen women signed affidavits that stated in part, “we know of no other rule or system of marriage than the one published in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants.” The signers included Apostle John Taylor and Apostle Wilford Woodruff (who had already been taught the doctrine of polygamy by Joseph Smith), Bishop Newel K. Whitney (who had performed a plural marriage ceremony the previous July for his own daughter and Joseph Smith in accordance with a revelation dictated by the Prophet on the occasion), Elizabeth Ann Whitney (who witnessed the plural ceremony), Sarah M. Cleveland (who had become Joseph Smith’s plural wife early in 1842), and Eliza R. Snow (who also married him on 29 June 1842). (Quinn, LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, Dialogue, Vol.18, No.1, 21. See, Times and Seasons, Vol. 3, 939-40, 1 Oct. 1842, Online here, Accessed November 5, 2014).

In 1842 the Relief Society reiterated the Church’s Marriage Law in an effort to denounce John C. Bennett’s “spiritual wifeism”, (what Joseph called his own system) in this affidavit published in the Times and Seasons:

We have given the above rule of marriage [Section CI] as the only one practiced in this church, to show that Dr. J. C. Bennett’s “secret wife system” is a matter of his own manufacture; and further to disabuse the public ear, and shew [show] that the said Bennett and his misanthropic friend Origen Bachelor, are perpetrating a foul and infamous slander upon an innocent people, and need but be known to be hated and despise. In support of this position, we present the following certificates:-
We the undersigned members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and residents of the city of Nauvoo, persons of families do hereby certify and declare that we know of no other rule or system of marriage than the one published from the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and we give this certificate to show that Dr. J. C. Bennett’s “secret wife system” is a creature of his own make as we know of no such society in this place nor never did.
N. K. Whitney, (Married daughter Sarah Ann to Joseph Smith)
George Miller, Albert Pettey,
Alpheus Cutler, Elias Higbee,
Reynolds Cahoon,
John Taylor, (knew of Plural Marriage)
Wilson Law, E. Robinson,
Wilford Woodruff, (knew of plural marriage)
Aaron Johnson.

We the undersigned members of the ladies’ relief society, and married females do certify and declare that we know of no system of marriage being practised [practiced] in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints save the one contained in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and we give this certificate to the public to show that J. C. Bennett’s “secret wife system” is a disclosure of his own make.
Emma Smith, President,
Elizabeth Ann Whitney, Counsellor, (Witness to Marriage of Smith to daughter Sarah Ann)
Sarah M. Cleveland, Counsellor, (Plural Wife)
Eliza R. Snow, Secretary, (Plural Wife)
Mary C. Miller,
Catharine Pettey,
Lois Cutler,
Sarah Higbee,
Thirza Cahoon,
Phebe Woodruff
Ann Hunter,
Leonora Taylor,
Jane Law,
Sarah Hillman,
Sophia R. Marks,
Rosannah Marks,
Polly Z. Johnson,
Angeline Robinson,
Abigail Works. (Times and Seasons, Vol. 3, No. 23, 939, October 1, 1842, added emphasis, Online here, Accessed November 5, 2014).

There are further questions that need to be answered here pertaining to Fanny Alger. If an angel appeared to Joseph Smith in 1834 (as Hales asserts according to very late accounts) why would he command Smith to practice polygamy without the sealing power which was essential to such marriages? Mormon apologists don’t address such questions let alone adequately explain them.

Ann Eliza Webb account:

Mrs. [Emma] Smith had an adopted daughter, a very pretty, pleasing young girl, about seventeen years old. She was extremely fond of her; no own mother could be more devoted, and their affection for each other was a constant object of remark, so absorbing and genuine did it seem. Consequently it was with a shocked surprise that the people heard that sister Emma had turned Fanny out of the house in the night. . . . By degrees it became whispered about that Joseph’s love for his adopted daughter was by no means a paternal affection, and his wife discovering the fact, at once took measures to place the girl beyond his reach. . . . [T]he storm became so furious, that Joseph was obliged to send, at midnight, for Oliver Cowdery, his scribe, to come and endeavor to settle matters between them…The scribe was a worthy servant of his master. He was at the time residing with a certain young woman, and at the same time he had a wife living. . . . The worthy couple—the Prophet and his scribe—were sorely perplexed what to do with the girl, since Emma refused decidedly to allow her to remain in her house; but after some consultation, my mother offered to take her until she could be sent to her relatives. Although her parents were living, they considered it the highest honor to have their daughter adopted into the Prophet’s family, and her mother [Clarissa Hancock Alger] has always claimed that she was sealed to Joseph at that time. (Ann Eliza Webb Young, op. cited, 66-67).

It was Fanny Alger’s mother who later claimed that it was a sealing, but as we see above, there were no “sealings” being performed by Joseph then, and we have the text of the first marriage that Joseph performed.

Hales quotes Benjamin F. Johnson in an effort to prove a sealing or marriage:

And now as to your question, “How early did the Prophet Joseph practice polygamy?”. . . In 1835, at Kirtland, I learned from my sister’s husband, Lyman R. Sherman, who was close to the Prophet, and received it from him, “that the ancient order of Plural Marriage was again to be practiced by the Church.” This, at the time did not impress my mind deeply, although there lived then with his family (the Prophet’s) a neighbor’s daughter, Fannie Alger, a very nice and comely young woman about my own age, toward whom not only myself, but every one, seemed partial, for the amiability for her character; and it was whispered even then that Joseph loved her. (Hales, op. cited above, added emphasis. Hales is citing Benjamin F. Johnson’s letter to George F. Gibbs, written in 1902 or 1903, added emphasis).

Yet in his autobiography penned years before the Gibbs letter, Johnson writes that in 1843,

…we sat down upon a log he began to tell me that the Lord had revealed to him that plural or patriarchal marriage was according to His law; and that the Lord had not only revealed it to him but had commanded him to obey it; that he was required to take other wives; and that he wanted my Sister Almira for one of them, and wished me to see and talk to her upon the subject. If a thunderbolt had fallen at my feet I could hardly have been more shocked or amazed. He saw the struggle in my mind and went on to explain. But the shock was too great for me to comprehend anything, and in almost an agony of feeling I looked him squarely in the eye, and said, while my heart gushed up before him, “Brother Joseph, this is all new to me; it may all be true—you know, but I do not. To my education it is all wrong, but I am going, with the help of the Lord to do just what you say, with this promise to you—that if ever I know you do this to degrade my sister I will kill you, as the Lord lives.” (Benjamin F. Johnson, My Life’s Review, Independence, Mo., Zion’s Printing and Publishing Co., 1947, 94-95, added emphasis).

Notice that Johnson states in his “Review” that in 1843 that “this [polygamy] is all new to me”, but then years later he “remembers” that he was told about plural marriage in 1835.

Oliver Cowdery, by grindael

The evidence closest to the event is of course the letter by Cowdery who wrote that,

I never confessed intimated \or admitted/ that I ever willfully lied about him [Joseph Smith]. When he was here we had some conversation in which in every instance, I did not fail to affirm that what I had said was strictly true A dirty, nasty, filthy scrape affair of his and Fanny Algers was talked over in which I strictly declared that I had never deviated from the truth on the matter, and as I supposed was admitted by himself. (Oliver Cowdery, Letter to Warren Cowdery, 1838)

Hales tries to make much about the fact that the word “affair” was written over the word “scrape” above, but if we go to the minutes of the High Council Minutes for April 12, 1838, we read:

The High Council and Bishoprick of Zion met according to appointment in Far-West April 12th 1838 Edward Partridge Presiding…

George W. Harris testifies that one evening last fall O. Cowdery was at his house together with Joseph Smith jr, and Thomas B. Marsh, when a conversation took place between Joseph Smith jr & O. Cowdery, when he seemed to insinuate that Joseph Smith jr was guilty of adultery, but when the question was put, if he (Joseph) had ever acknowledged to him that he was guilty of such a thing; when he [Oliver] answered No…

David W. Patten testifies, that he went to Oliver Cowdery to enquire of him if a certain story was true respecting J. Smith’s committing adultery with a certain girl , when he turned on his heel and insinuated as [p. 123] though he [Joseph] was guilty; he then went on and gave a history of some circumstances respecting the adultery scrape stating that no doubt it was true. Also said that Joseph told him, he had confessed to Emma, …

Thomas B. Marsh testifies that while in Kirtland last summer, David W. Patten asked Oliver Cowdery if he Joseph Smith jr had confessed to his wife that he was guilty of adultery with a certain girl, when Oliver Cowdery cocked up his eye very knowingly and hesitated to answer the question, saying he did not know as he was bound to answer the question yet conveyed the idea that it was true. Last fall after Oliver came to this place he heard a conversation take place between Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery when J. Smith asked him if he [Joseph] had ever confessed to him that he was guilty of adultery, when after a considerable winking &c. he said no. Joseph then asked him if he ever told him that he confessed to any body, when he answered no.

Joseph Smith jr testifies that Oliver Cowdery had been his bosom friend, therefore he intrusted him with many things.

He then gave a history respecting the girl business. (“The Conference Minutes, and Record Book, of Christ’s Church of Latter Day Saints,” Minute Book 2, (Also known as the “Far West Record”, 118, 123-124, added emphasis, underlines in original. Online here, Accessed November 1, 2014)

Here we see that it is called an “adultery scrape”, and that would be an “affair”. Thomas B. Marsh relates that when David Patten asked Cowdery if Smith had confessed to his wife that he was guilty of adultery, Cowdery did not answer but conveyed the idea that it was true. Then in a conversation Marsh overheard between the two in the fall of 1837, Joseph carefully asked Cowdery if he had ever confessed to him that he was guilty of adultery, but that Cowdery with a wink said no, conveying the idea that this was a lie. David Patton claimed that Cowdery insinuated to him that Smith had committed adultery (which he calls a “scrape”) and that “no doubt it was true” and had “confessed to Emma.”

All of the early documents show that this was not a marriage; it was only looked upon as such in later reminiscences. Why, if Joseph gave “a history respecting the girl business”, is there no one that recalls him claiming to be married to the “girl”? Why was Benjamin Johnson so shocked at Smith’s proposing polygamy in 1843 when he supposedly knew that Joseph was going to restore it in 1835?

We support the interpretation of the evidence by George D. Smith who wrote:

Joseph met the daughter of a carpenter, Samuel Alger, who had converted to Mormonism in October 1830 in Mayfield, about fifteen miles east of Cleveland and ten miles southwest of Kirtland. The fourteen-year-old Fanny Alger was the fourth of eleven children. As might be expected from a teenager from such a large family, she was looking for work, and Emma obliged by hiring her to help around the house. This made Fanny the first of many young women who would come to live with the Smiths as domestic workers. Before long, talk about Joseph echoed Fanny’s name, maybe as early as 1832 but certainly from 1833 to 1835. The ensuing scandal contributed to the dissent and excommunication that swept the church in 1837-38, even after Fanny had left town and married someone else. Joseph wrote in his journal on December 4, 1832: “Oh, Lord, deliver thy servant out of temtations and fill his heart with wisdom and understanding.” If this was not in reference to Fanny Alger, it coincided with the report of two of Joseph’s scribes, Warren Parrish and Oliver Cowdery, that Joseph had been “found” in the hay with his housekeeper. Parrish said Joseph and Fanny were discovered together “as wife,” while Cowdery called it a “dirty, nasty, filthy affair.” As a result of having publicly discussed the incident, and for “seeking to destroy the character of President Joseph Smith jr by falsly insinuating that he was guilty of adultry &c.,” Cowdery was expelled from the church. …Smith’s relationship with Alger was also mentioned by Benjamin F. Johnson, Smith’s brother-in-law through Smith’s marriage to two of his sisters. In 1835, Alger was living with Delcena Sherman, Benjamin’s married sister, when it was whispered that Alger enjoyed the attention of the prophet: “And I was afterw[a]rds told by Warren Parish That He himself & Oliver Cowdery did know that Joseph had Fanny Alger as wife for They were Spied upon & found togather.” It might be important to mention that the testimony here and elsewhere regarding “[ having] Fanny Alger as wife” employs a Victorian euphemism that should not be construed to imply that Fanny was actually married to Joseph. This delicate wording may have later contributed to some of the misunderstanding about their marital status. If she had been sealed to him at the time, it was not mentioned and there is no record of it. Johnson knew that Jared Carter and others criticized the “doings of the Prophet” on the assumption that it was an affair, not a plural marriage. (Smith, George D. (2013-11-24). Nauvoo Polygamy “… But We Called It Celestial Marriage”, Signature Books, Kindle Edition, Kindle Locations 860-872, 903-910).

As will be shown below, there is no real credible evidence to overturn Smith’s narrative above. As Gary Bergera (Signature Books) writes:

I do not believe that Fanny Alger, whom [Todd] Compton counts as Smith’s first plural wife, satisfies the criteria to be considered a “wife.” Briefly, the sources for such a “marriage” are all retrospective and presented from a point of view favoring plural marriage, rather than, say, an extramarital liaison, which seems clearly to be Oliver Cowdery’s interpretation of the relationship. In addition, Smith’s doctrine of eternal marriage was not formulated until after 1839–40.(Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists, 1841–44,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought Vol. 38, No. 3, Fall 2005, 30n75).

The biggest problem that Mormon Apologists have is trying to retrofit Joseph’s spiritual wifeism to the Kirtland Era. To try and persuade his readers that this was some kind of polygamous “marriage”, Brian Hales quotes Mosiah Hancock, who was a baby when these events played out. So Hales is basing his narrative on a second hand source who wrote about these events in 1896, more than 60 years later! Hancock’s information about Fanny Alger is found in the autobiography of his father, Levi Ward Hancock, but it is not based on anything written by Levi, it was all added to his autobiography by his son Mosiah in 1896 and is therefore suspect. Mosiah Hancock was only a year old in 1835.

Hales also claims that he has “important new evidence” that “supports that Fanny was a plural wife of Joseph Smith.” This evidence is Andrew Jenson’s research notes about Joseph’s spiritual wives compiled in the 1880’s. First, we don’t really know where Jenson got the information he used in compiling some of those notes about Fanny Alger. Hales claims that Jenson spoke to “several Nauvoo polygamists”, and he names Malissa Lott and Eliza R. Snow. Though Jenson did speak with many polygamists, there is simply no way to link exactly who he got his information from.

Hales also writes,

Eliza’s knowledge of the incident is important because Don Bradley was able to determine that she personally wrote Fanny’s name on a list he was making of Joseph Smith’s wives in 1886. It appears Jenson interviewed Malissa Lott, obtaining information on thirteen of Joseph Smith’s plural wives, writing their names on a document now called “document 1.”

Sometime thereafter, Jenson met with Eliza R. Snow who apparently took the paper into her own hands and penned thirteen additional names. (ibid)

Since the handwriting on this paper is actually Snow’s, this is an accurate description of the evidence. (That Snow wrote down some women’s names on it). I’m not sure what the importance of this “Document 1” really is. Eliza wrote down the names of some of Joseph Smith’s wives on a piece of paper, names that many were already familiar with. All we can say is, So what?

Though Jenson did interview Malissa Lott, there is no evidence that she was personally familiar with the circumstances of Joseph’s relationship to Fanny, (she was ten years old in 1834) although there is evidence that Eliza Snow knew some things.

This then, is simply a list of Joseph’s spiritual wives compiled by Eliza Snow and Andrew Jenson. Since this information was uncovered by Don Bradley and he has written about it, it would be best to quote Bradley directly:

… Jenson was the first to publish Fanny Alger’s name as that of one of Joseph Smith’s plural wives, and others have followed in his footsteps. What has not been known is why Jenson included her on his list—on what authority he made the identification. This source was Eliza R. Snow, president of the LDS Relief Society and herself one of the prophet’s plural widows. At Jenson’s request, Snow recorded for him a handwritten list of her “sister wives,” including Fanny Alger. When Jenson subsequently interview[ed] Eliza Snow about Fanny’s life and relationship with Joseph Smith, she told him, per his interview notes, that Fanny Alger was “one of the first wives Joseph married,” one whom “Emma made such a fuss about.” Most significantly, Eliza R. Snow explained how she knew about Fanny Alger and the relationship: Eliza “was well acquainted with her as she lived with the Prophet at the time,” of Emma’s “fuss” on discovering the pair together.

Snow’s presence in the house at the discovery establishes the range for when it could have occurred. According to her autobiography, Eliza Snow lived in the Smith’s Kirtland home twice, once in mid-1836 while teaching a school term that began in the spring and again at the first of 1837. By 1837 Fanny Alger was living in Indiana and married to Solomon Custer; so it was during the first of these two stays, in mid-1836, that Snow and Alger shared the house and the great “fuss” occurred.

The testimony of a contemporary member of the household that the relationship was discovered during her 1836 residence both confirms that a relationship occurred and effectively nails down the time of its discovery and consequent termination.

This timing for the discovery has important implications for the subject to be addressed next—the nature of Smith and Alger’s relationship. (Don Bradley, Mormon Polygamy Before Nauvoo? The Relationship of Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger, pg. 11-12, Online here, accessed October 30, 2016.)

Actually it was not Jenson that first published that Fanny Alger was one of Joseph’s wives, (or sealed to him) it was Ann Eliza Young, who did so ten years earlier in 1876 when she published her expose Wife No. 19. This is mentioned by Bradley in a footnote.

As has been written elsewhere the list and notes by Andrew Jenson and Eliza Snow aren’t really that important since there was already a list of wives collected by Joseph F. Smith in 1869, and the “interview” of Snow by Jenson contains little useful information. The information Jenson collected about Sylvia Lyons for example, is scant, misleading, and omits crucial details about her marriage to Smith. As for Fanny Alger, Bradley claims that these notes were written by Jenson and the information was provided by Eliza R. Snow:

Alger, Fanny
Joseph Smiths wife
one of the first wives Joseph
married, ~~Emma made such a~~
~~fuss about~~~
Sister \E R./ Snow was well acquainted
with her \as she/ and lived with the
Prophet at the time
She afterwards married in
Indiana where she became the
Mother of a large family
A brother Alger lives in
St. George
Write to Pres. McAllister

Here is how Hales interprets this:

Eliza’s proximity to the events is important because it provides a chronological marker because she went to live with the Smith family in the “spring of 1836,” and she “was well acquainted with her [Fanny Alger] as she [Eliza] lived with the Prophet at the time” that “Emma made such a fuss about” her. Thus, it appears Eliza was an eye witness to the “fuss” associated with the discovery of the relationship. (Hales, op. cited above).

We interpret this evidence quite differently. It states:

Fanny Alger was one of the first wives Joseph married who Emma made such a fuss about. (Notice the hyphen (~) after the word “about”. I don’t see this as the word “in” as it has been transcribed by Hales. This indicates a break here. (Notice also that this sentence is crossed out. Why? Did Eliza Snow not have any details about this and so they decided not to mention it?)
Eliza R. Snow was well acquainted with her (Fanny) since she lived with the Prophet during that period of time. (This is quite ambiguous. Eliza lived with the prophet “at the time”. At what time, exactly? All we know is that it was during the Spring of 1836 and then again in the Spring of 1837. And if you want to connect Eliza’s being there at the exact time of the “fuss”, why is that crossed out and more importantly, why are there no details about the “fuss”?)
Fanny Alger afterwards married in Indiana and raised a large family.
Fanny Alger has a brother who lives in St. George, Utah.

These are all separate bare bones summaries, not a narrative or recollection. Where is there any evidence that Eliza R. Snow lived in the Smith home at the same time that Emma discovered Joseph and Fanny together in the barn? Both Hales and Bradley offer only these vague notes by Andrew Jenson. In our search through all of the evidence, we can’t find any that verifies that she did. Is it possible? We suppose so, but it is just as possible that she wasn’t there during the snafu with Emma. And that seems more likely, because of the scantiness of those notes. What unique information does Eliza offer to Jenson here? Nothing, really, that hadn’t already been given by Ann Eliza Young. (The “fuss” with Emma).

As Don Bradley wrote, Eliza Snow boarded at the Smith home twice. The first time in the Spring of 1836 and again in January of 1837. It is entirely possible that Eliza Snow knew nothing about the Fanny Alger/Joseph Smith liason until the second time she boarded with the Smiths. She could actually have known her well, but not know any details about the affair. (Her lack of any details in Jenson’s notes attests to this). We only know that Eliza boarded at the Smith home “in the Spring” of 1836. When she boarded there the first time, she taught a girl’s school. Since Hales and Bradley date the “fuss” in mid-1836, it is entirely possible that Eliza had already left for home by that time, since her school terms (based on her later terms in Nauvoo, See Beecher 402-403,) were only for three months. That would have her leaving the Smith home in late June, (if she started teaching in late March). And we actually have a window that extends all the way to July 25, 1836, when Joseph left for a trip to Salem, Massachusetts to search for hidden treasure. That means that the “fuss” with Emma could certainly have occurred after Eliza left the Smith residence, and that she learned about it when she next boarded with the Smiths, either from them, someone else, or from rumors. Since Eliza Snow gives absolutely no details about the “fuss”, it leaves room for doubt that she was present when it happened.

While in Salem, Joseph Smith wrote to Emma:

Salem, Mass., August 19th, 1836.

My beloved Wife:—Bro. Hyrum is about to start for home before the rest of us, which seems wisdom in God, as our business here can not be determined as soon as we could wish to have it. I thought a line from me by him would be acceptable to you, even if it did not contain but little, that you may know that you and the children are much on my mind. With regard to the great object of our mission, you will be anxious to know. We have found the house since Bro. Burgess left us, very luckily and providentially, as we had one spell been most discouraged. The house is occupied, and it will require much care and patience to rent or buy it. We think we shall be able to effect it; if not now within the course of a few months. We think we shall be at home about the middle of September. I can think of many things concerning our business, but can only pray that you may have wisdom to manage the concerns that involve on you, and want you should believe me that I am your sincere friend and husband. In haste. Yours &c., Joseph Smith, Jr (Joseph Smith, Letter to Emma Smith, 19 August, 1836, Online here, accessed October 30, 2016).

The last line of this communication to Emma seems very odd, but not if they had had some kind of blowup before he left Kirtland. (We also found the timing of this trip interesting). Joseph wants Emma to believe him that he is her “sincere friend and husband.” This was quite different from the way he closed a letter to Emma in 1832 which ended, “I Subscribe myself your Husband.” Or one in 1834 which closed with, “O may the blessings of God rest upon you is the prayre of your Husband until death.”

In 1838 while a prisoner of the Missourians, he closed a letter to Emma with, “I am your husband and am in bonds and tribulation &c.” And in a letter to Emma from Liberty Jail in 1839 he closed it with the simple, “Yours forever”. Emma, though, seems to have been concerned about her husband long after the Fanny Alger incident. On the 25 April, 1837 Emma wrote to Joseph that, “I pray that God will keep you in purity and safety till we all meet again.” On May 3,1837 she wrote,

I shall do the best I can in all things, and I hope that we shall be so humble and pure before God that he will set us at liberty to be our own masters in a few things at least, Yours for ever.

Would Fanny have confided her secret trysts with Joseph to Eliza Snow? Eliza was new to Mormonism, she did not join the Church until the fall of 1835, and so she would have been a stranger to Alger when she moved into the Smith residence, and Joseph’s M.O. was to have his wives tell no one about his liaisons. In the case of Eliza and Emily Partridge, they were unaware (for a time) that each had become one of Joseph’s spiritual wives.

The biggest problem that we see is that if Eliza knew Fanny Alger so well, why are these notes so scanty? There is virtually nothing here that can’t be gleaned from rumors (that were prevalent in early 1837 when Eliza returned to Kirtland) or what Ann Eliza later wrote in Wife No. 19, ten years before these notes were compiled. Fanny Alger was Smith’s “plural wife”, Emma made a fuss and Eliza was “well acquainted with her”, and she moved to Indiana. That’s it.

Why did Jenson not provide any historical details about Fanny Alger in The Historical Record? There is absolutely nothing there except for him affirming that she was one of Smith’s spiritual wives. He had the “well acquainted” Eliza Snow to get information from, right? If she spoke with Joseph about it, or Emma or even Fanny, where are any reminiscences? If it was a marriage, who performed it? Surely she would have remembered the circumstances of when Fanny (or others) first told her that Joseph had married her. Surely she would have related to Jensen the Levi Hancock story, which is promoted by both Hales and the Church.

Again, Eliza Snow offers us almost nothing here, except for claiming Fanny was a plural wife of Joseph Smith, which is all that Jenson felt comfortable including in the Historical Record. Why? We find it interesting that the actual well acquainted Eliza Jane Churchill had far more information (that she passed on to her daughter) about Fanny Alger than Jenson provides through Eliza Snow, even if she did believe it was some kind of marriage.

What information did Eliza Snow provide that wasn’t already known in relation to Smith’s other “wives”? Here is Snow’s 1886 part of the list from the Jenson document. Notice that except for one or two instances, most of this information was already well known by 1886:

Desdemonda Fullmer (6-17-1869) Jos. F. Smith Affidavit Book 1&4
Malissa Lott (5-20-1869) Affidavit Book 1&4
Ruth Vose (5-1-1869) Affidavit Book 1&4
Sarah Ann Whitney (6-19-1869) Affidavit Book 1&4
Mary Lightner (Affidavit, March 23, 1877)
Eliz Durfee (Not in Affidavit Books)
Sarah Cleveland (Not in Affidavit Books)
Louisa Beaman (Joseph B. Noble, 6-26-1869) Affidavit Book 1&4
Patty Sessions (Not in Affidavit Books, but signed affidavit 6-1-1867)
Sylvia Sessions (Undated/Unsigned Affidavit, Affidavit Book 1 & 4)
Maria Winchester (family tradition, Helen Kimball, Orson F. Whitney)
Helen M Kimball (Clayton Statement, February 16, 1874, Catherine Lewis, Narrative, 1848)
Alvira Cowles (8-28-1869 Affidavit Book 1&4)
Elmira Johnson (Benjamin F. Johnson Affidavit, Book 2, 3-4-1870)
Fanny Alger (Ann Eliza Young, Wife No. 19, 1876)
Olive Frost (Died in 1845, sister Mary Ann Pratt gave statement to Jenson, James Whitehead to Jos. Smith III, on April 20, 1885)
Rhoda Richards (5-1-1869) Affidavit Book 1&4
Fanny Young (Died in 1859, See Harriet Cook Affidavit, 3-4-1870. Affidavit Book 2&3)
and others

Jenson also includes many of the published 1869 affidavits in the Historical Record. What is interesting is that Eliza Snow provides the name of Maria Winchester, but that was from a second hand source, Orson F. Whitney (the son of Helen Mar Kimball) who published the Life of Heber C. Kimball in 1888 and claimed that Nancy Maria [Winchester] Smith was a widow of Joseph Smith and subsequently married Heber C. Kimball.

Hales writes,

Historians Scott Faulring and Richard L. Anderson argue that the “cumulative evidence argument for such marginal references [supporting Winchester as one of Joseph’s plural wives] does not meet historical guidelines,” and Winchester should not be included. However, they were undoubtedly unaware of the opinion of Eliza R. Snow.

And as we have shown above, why should that matter? So Eliza Snow knew about what Helen Kimball related to her son. These “sister wives” spoke often to each other. It is not a stretch to believe they exchanged information and speculations.

All of the rest of these women had either given affidavits years earlier proclaiming that they were “married” to Smith, or others had already made that assertion. What is interesting are the crossed out names. None of those appear in Joseph F. Smith’s affidavit Books.

We can see only one other person (Olive Frost) whose possible “marriage” to Smith was new information at that time, given to Jenson by Mary Ann Pratt. But even that wasn’t really new since James Whitehead had written to Joseph Smith III a year earlier and mentioned her as one of Smith’s spiritual wives. Still, there is no evidence that Eliza Snow was the one who originally gave all this information to Jenson as firsthand knowledge. So what, exactly did Eliza Snow contribute that wasn’t gotten secondhand, and why would her information about Fanny Alger “help to break the scholarly deadlock about whether Joseph and Fanny were actually married as opposed to having an affair.”?

We really can’t find any, and don’t see how this breaks any scholarly deadlock. Conversely, the evidence that this was an adulterous affair is far stronger. (See the Cowdery Letter and High Council Minutes cited above).

Those are interesting minutes. They tell us a lot, and those that want to claim that Joseph and Fanny were married in some kind of way seldom analyze them in depth. Don Bradley does though, and he writes:

The evidence for an extramarital affair between Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger is of varying quality. While the evidence of contemporaneous behavior provides some direction, the direct testimony, despite surface appearances, is largely ambiguous, failing to distinguish between an extramarital affair and a secret polygamous marriage.

Even the vehement oral accusations and letter by Cowdery, for instance, fall short of stating that Smith’s behavior constituted adultery. In his trial Cowdery was charged with “insinuating” that Smith’s relationship with Alger was adulterous, accused of this in the testimony, and convicted of making insinuations rather than assertions that Smith had committed adultery. Though said to have given his verbal answer with incongruous body language, he stated “no” when asked pointblank if Smith’s confessions to him amounted to an admission of adultery. There is nothing to indicate that “adultery” was his term. This reluctance to use the term “adultery” seems out of line with his emphatic condemnation of Smith’s “dirty, nasty, filthy” behavior and his insistence that his reports had been “strictly true” and “never deserted from the truth of the matter.”

Because Cowdery was alienated from Joseph Smith at the time of his trial and was being expelled from the church, it is not likely that the best construction was being placed on his words and actions. And Cowdery was not in attendance at his trial, rendering him unable to defend himself from exagerration and misunderstanding. The wrong he saw in Smith might thus have not been adultery, but polygamy. (Bradley, op. cited above, 18-19)

We don’t agree with parts of Don’s assessment and here is why we don’t. He first claims that “the direct testimony… is largely ambiguous, failing to distinguish between an extramarital affair and a secret polygamous marriage.”

Actually, the testimony is quite clear that Cowdery had affirmed rumors that Smith had had an adulterous affair. David W. Patten, who had heard these rumors that were said to be confirmed by Cowdery, confronted him about them. He testified that:

…he went to Oliver Cowdery to enquire of him if a certain story was true respecting J. Smith’s committing adultery with a certain girl , when he turned on his heel and insinuated as though he [Joseph] was guilty; he then went on and gave a history of some circumstances respecting the adultery scrape stating that no doubt it was true. Also said that Joseph told him, he had confessed to Emma. (1838 Minutes, op. cited above, added emphasis)

Patton is testifying that Cowdery called it an adultery scrape. What is interesting is that when Oliver wrote to his brother Warren about it on January 21, 1838, he stated:

When he was here we had some conversation in which in every instance I did not fail to affirm that what I had said was strictly true. A dirty, nasty, filthy scrape affair of his and Fanny Alger’s was talked over in which I strictly declared that I had never deviated from the truth on the matters, and as I supposed was admitted by himself. (Cowdery to Cowdery, op. cited above, added emphasis).

If one observes the word “affair” in the letter above, one can see that the word “scrape” has been written over (as Don Bradley astutely observed). Here we see Cowdery calling it a “dirty, nasty filthy ~~scrape~~ affair.” And what did David W. Patten testify to? That Oliver gave a history of some circumstances respecting the adultery scrape stating that no doubt it was true. How Bradley can come to the conclusion that adultery was not Cowdery’s term is baffling to us. Patten also testified that Cowdery told him that Joseph told him he had confessed the adultery scrape to Emma. We could not find this testimony from Patten in his article.

Patten was so upset by what Cowdery told him that he confronted Joseph about it, who slapped him in anger. This was the Second Elder of the Church accusing/insinuating the First Elder of the church of committing adultery. As for Cowdery insinuating that Smith committed adultery, it might be instructive to produce the 1828 definition of the word,

INSIN’UATE, verb transitive [Latin insinuo; in and sinus, the bosom, a bay, inlet or recess.]

1. To introduce gently, or into a narrow passage; to wind in. Water insinuates itself into the crevices of rocks.
2. To push or work one’s self into favor; to introduce by slow, gentle or artful means He insinuated himself into the very good grace of the duke of Buckingham.
3. To hint; to suggest by remote allusion.<
And all the fictions bards pursue, Do but insinuate what’s true.
4. To instill; to infuse gently; to introduce artfully.

These men understood that Cowdery was in fact accusing Smith of adultery, he was just introducing the story “gently” or “artfully”. From the testimony above, it is obvious that Cowdery was not just hinting at Smith’s committing adultery. He wasn’t suggesting by remote allusion, (affair, adultery scrape) he was relating the story in an artful way. Notice in the testimony that they claim that Cowdery, “gave a history of some circumstances respecting the adultery scrape stating that no doubt it was true.” This was apparently enough to cause David Patten to confront Joseph about it and elicit a violent response.

Years later, Wilford Woodruff recorded a conversation that took place in Brigham Young’s office on June 25,1857 concerning an altercation between David W. Patten and Joseph Smith:

1837 C. Rich came into the office at 2 oclok & set & conversed upon various things. He said that David Patten & T. B. Marsh Came to kirtland in the fall of 1837. He said as soon as they came I got Marsh to go to Joseph, But Patten would go to W Parrish. He got his mind prejudiced & when He went to see Joseph David insulted Joseph & Joseph slaped him in the face & kicked him out of the yard. This done David good.(Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 5, p. 63).

What could Smith have told them at that High Council trial? It only states that Smith testified that Cowdery “had been his bosom friend, therefore he intrusted him with many things. He then gave a history respecting the girl business.” The girl business?

Smith obviously did not tell the High Council that Fanny Alger was a spiritual wife. Too many present on that occasion would later be shocked when Smith revealed the principle a few years later in Nauvoo. For example, Thomas Grover, a member of the High Council would later write to Brigham Young about his experience with polygamy:

“Prest. Brigham Young, Dear Brother: There was something took place when I was commanded by Bro. Joseph to take more wives which I thought it was wisdom to communicate to you. At the time I was in the deepest trouble that I had ever been in in my life. I went before the Lord in prayer and prayed that I might die as I did not wish to disobey his order to me. On a sudden there stood before me my oldest wife that I have now and the voice of the Lord said that ‘This is your companion for time and all Eternity.’ At this time I never had seen her and did not know that there was such a person on this Earth. Days & weeks passed away & I had not seen her. About the time that you came from your mission to the East, she came to my house for an item of counsel, the first time that I ever saw her with my natural eyes. . . .Yours Respectfully in the Gospel, Thomas Grover.”

Bradley writes,

[I]n her autobiography [Eliza R. Snow] expresses the shock and dismay she experienced on learning, in Nauvoo, that polygamy “was to be introduced into the church” and reveals that she first thought this restoration was far off, probably even beyond the term of her natural life. Whatever experience Eliza may have had of polygamy in Kirtland, she did not understand from it that polygamy was to become a church practice, and may not have even recognized it as polygamy at the time (if indeed it was there).

Yet such expressions of shock are a stock theme in the autobiographies of Nauvoo Saints, even when those Saints had prior inklings of polygamy. Benjamin F. Johnson and Brigham Young, who both report prior understanding that polygamy would be practiced, felt thunderstruck when they confronted it up close. The point of such narratives, which undoubtedly express genuine turmoil from the time, is that polygamy was not sought after or chosen, but dropped on the unwilling narrator, who accepts it only because God requires it.

Given this function of the stock “polygamy shock” motif, Snow’s autobiographical use of it tells little about previous encounters she may have had with polygamy, including whether she knew or heard in 1836 that Fanny Alger had been Joseph Smith’s plural wife. — (Bradley, 45–46; emphasis in original).

Yet Johnson wrote in 1885 that when he first learned about polygamy, he told Joseph that “this is all new to me; it may all be true–you know, but I do not. To my education it is all wrong, but I am going, with the help of the Lord to do just what you say, with this promise to you–that if ever I know you do this to degrade my sister I will kill you, as the Lord lives.” (Benjamin F. Johnson, My Life’s Review, Independence, Mo., Zion’s Printing and Publishing Co., 1947, 94-95, added emphasis).

In his long 1870 affidavit about polygamy, Johnson never mentions that polygamy was first revealed in Kirtland, as he did in his 1903 letter. As for Brigham Young, he claimed that,

I knew of the doctrine of polygamy by revelation to myself while I was in England before it was revealed to me by Joseph.[148](Brigham Young, October 8, 1866, SLC Bowery Conference. LJA 12-56-4,2; BYC; BYA 5:52-55, CDBY, 2383, October 8, 1866).

Young doesn’t ever claim to have learned about polygamy in Kirtland, or, for that matter from Joseph Smith until later in Nauvoo. Young didn’t make the voyage to England until 1840. He claims that he had his own revelation about it before Joseph revealed it to him. This means that Brigham did not learn about polygamy from Joseph until after his return from England in the fall of 1841. Since Brigham Young was also at the Trial of Oliver Cowdery, we can therefore be assured that Joseph never told the High Council that Fanny Alger was a spiritual wife or that he was practicing polygamy. What Joseph did was offer them an explanation for the “girl business”. What that was, remains a mystery. But it is evident that it was not that he was practicing any kind of polygamy.

Bradley writes:

Had she [Eliza Snow] felt uncertain or troubled over Fanny’s status as a wife, or feared that including her as a wife might prove embarrassing, she had the option of omitting or removing her name as well. But she did not. (Bradley, 36).

Eliza might also have included Fanny on the list to counter the stories being circulated that this was an adulterous affair. Ann Eliza’s expose had brought this affair out into the light, and gave it more credence than just unfounded rumors from family traditions. One cannot discount Eliza Snow’s obvious bias for this to be some kind of marriage.

Bradley also notes:

Eliza R. Snow’s confidence that Smith was not an adulterer who had used girls living in his home is also indicated by another, more momentous action she undertook. Six years after the Alger incident, while again living in the Smith home, she married Joseph Smith. She then, following a course eerily like Fanny’s, reportedly found herself pregnant with his child and expelled from the home by Emma. Though there is no doubt that Eliza Snow was taken with Joseph Smith’s charisma and awed by his prophetic mantle, her action bespeaks a degree of trust in both Smith’s revelations and his intentions that reasonably might, and ought, to have been lacking had she observed evidence that he seduced his former boarder Fanny Alger. (ibid).

But not if Eliza didn’t know the details of what went on between Joseph and Fanny. Was Fanny Alger really pregnant? Would Emma Smith have confided details about the affair to Eliza? Would Joseph have? There is no evidence that either did so. It is far easier to discount unfounded rumors, as this was portrayed to be by Joseph, as he himself denied that anyone was practicing polygamy in 1838.

With no other details forthcoming from Eliza Snow about the relationship, it is hard to accept that she was knowledgeable about any claimed Smith/Alger marriage. And another piece of evidence troubles us. Since Andrew Jenson consulted Eliza Snow, and she was so very familiar with Fanny Alger, how does one explain what Jenson wrote in the Historical Record in the Index under Alger, Fanny:

Fanny, a wife of Joseph the Prophet, who since his death married again in Indiana, and became the mother of a large family, 233. (The Historical Record, 1887, Vols. 5-9, pg. 942).

This is an obvious fabrication. She married Solomon Custer almost immediately after leaving Kirtland. If this is not a fabrication, then neither Jenson nor Snow really knew much about Fanny Alger. All they had to do was ask Fanny’s brother, who lived in St. George. If they did know and purposefully mislead with this, then what else might they mislead us about? If they would endeavor to protect Joseph by deliberately misconstruing the facts about when Fanny remarried, how can we trust that they would not do so when claiming it was a marriage?

The evidence that this was a “sealing” or marriage is not credible; while the evidence of an affair is plentiful, with direct contemporary statements from Oliver Cowdery that it was an adulterous affair.

[37] Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner to John Henry Smith, January 25, 1892, in George A. Smith Family Papers, MS 36, Box 7, Folder 12, emphasis in the original.

[38] Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, Affidavit, March 23, 1877, in Scott G. Kenney Collection, MS 587, Box 11, Folder 14; Marriott Library. The Affadavit reads:

Minersvile Beaver County, Utah

March 23rd 1877

I Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner do testify that in the year 1842 in the month of February the Prophet Joseph Smith came to me and said he had received a direct command from God to take me for a wife for time and all eternity; After receiving what I felt to be a witness of the truth of the said statement made to me by the said Joseph Smith the Prophet, I was sealed to the said Joseph Smith by Pres Brigham Young in Nauvoo, Hancock Illinois. And I have lived and am at this date in full fellowship as a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The said ceremony was solemnly performed in the month of February A.D. 1842 as first above written. [signed:] Mary E R Lightner

In this early statement by Lightner, (as compared with others) she claims that Joseph Smith first approached her about becoming his spiritual wife in February, 1842. (It was also to be a marriage for time and eternity). There is no mention an angel with a sword, or that she spent weeks and months debating the request. In 1884 Lightner made another statement which may shed light on earlier events from Kirtland that were later interpreted through a polygamous lens:

At a meeting in the first part of the Winter at Kirtland Ohio, at which Father Smith’s family and a few others were present […]

He [the Savior] has given me a commandment to give unto you, to seal you up unto everlasting life. he has given you to me to be with me in His Kingdom even as He is in the Father’s Kingdom. […]

Sister Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, wife of Adam Lightner, was present at this meeting and she made this statement concerning it to Presidents John Taylor and Geo. Q. Cannon at her house in Minersvile, Beaver Co., Utah, on Friday, April 18th, 1884. (Rollins Lightner, Mary Elizabeth, “Statement,” 1884 Apr 18, LDS Church Archives, MS 4638).

[39] Excerpts from a letter from Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner dated November 21, either 1870 or 1880, Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Collection; MS 752, Folder 4; LDS CHL.

[40] Todd Compton writes,

Mary was twenty-three years old and pregnant with her third child by Adam Lightner during the ceremony [with Joseph Smith]. He was out of town, “far away” at the time, so probably did not know about it.

Mary later commented on the polyandrous aspect of her marriage: “I could tell you why I stayed with Mr. Lightner. Things the leaders of the Church does not know anything about. I did just as Joseph told me to do, as he knew what troubles I would have to contend with.” So Smith instructed her to stay with her husband. One obvious advantage to such a modus operandi was that it would preserve the secrecy of their polyandrous union.

About a month after the marriage, on March 22, George Algernon was born to Mary in Nauvoo. Miles Henry was now six, Caroline one and a half. On April 14 Mary was accepted into the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, and on June 9 she contributed $ 1.00 to it. Adam Lightner was back in Nauvoo by July 1, when he bought a hat at the Joseph Smith store. … on May 3, 1843, Mary’s and Adam’s fourth child, Florentine Mathias, was born… (In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, Signature Books, 1998, 212, added emphasis).

Lightner herself swore that she was sealed to Joseph Smith “for time and all eternity”. (Mary Rollins Lightner affidavit, March 23rd 1877). In a letter to Emeline Wells in 1906, Joseph F. Smith wrote concerning Lightner,

“I have no doubt she could tell me many things I have never known. There are many people who could do likewise. But we ourselves know of some things which would be hard for even Aunt Mary to explain. And those things, altho in themselves right and proper under the circumstances and conditions existing, would hardly be proper to expound to the world. (Joseph F. Smith to Emeline B. Wells, January 20, 1906).

One wonders what could be so “hard for even Aunt Mary to explain”? If the “marriage” between Joseph Smith and Mary Lightner were just a sealing for eternity, why would that be hard to explain or improper to expound to the world?

[41] “Hales-Quinn”, 31. The strawman that Hales invents here to try and deal with Smith’s obvious sexual polyandry is staggering. He writes,

It appears that proponents of sexual polyandry, like Quinn, fail to account for the inevitable doctrinal consequences of their declarations. For example, if both a plurality of wives and a plurality of husbands were permitted in Joseph Smith’s theology, then two husbands could share the same two wives and those two women could share the same two husbands between them as each man practiced polygyny and each woman practiced polyandry. Extending the dynamic would allow three men two marry the same three wives. Expanding it further would permit a dozen men to marry the same dozen women and on and on. The ramifications resulting from both authorized polyandry and polygyny are network marriages or omnigamy (all men are married to all women). Within the network, each husband could cohabit with each wife s and each woman could cohabit with each husband under the guise of polygamy.

Practically speaking, Quinn affirms sexual polyandry between Joseph Smith and Sylvia Sessions and her legal husband Windsor Lyon (see below). So if polyandry was acceptable, then Lyon could have been sealed to another of Joseph Smith’s plural wives, say Lucy Walker, and the two men would be married to both Lucy and Sylvia and Lucy and Sylvia would be married to Joseph and Windsor and each could experience conjugality with either husband or wife.

No polyandry supporter has addressed this obvious weakness of their theory. The clearest defense would be so say that Joseph Smith was the only person who practiced sexual polyandry in Nauvoo (with or without theological justification). However, no polyandry advocate as yet made the claim or defended it. The Prophet’s early revelations designated him as the only person “appointed to receive commandments and revelations in this church” (D&C 28:2) and as holding the “keys of the mysteries” (D&C 28:7, 64:5). However, no revelation granted him exclusive marital and sexual access to any woman including those already married and cohabiting with their husbands. Probability questions emerge regarding how readily Church members would have accepted such a matrimonial monopoly without someone mentioning it. Proponents of sexual polyandry would probably be wise to address this glaring problem with their theories or limit their allegations to the notion that Joseph Smith personally engaged in both polygyny and polyandry, but did not allow others to do so and that sexual polygyny was the only privilege allowed Church membership generally. However, that interpretation generates its own set of historical challenges. Regardless, to allege that Joseph secretly taught polyandry as a companion principle to polygyny is fraught with a remarkable number of implausibilities. (Hales-Quinn, 31-32, added emphasis)

First, to even suggest women having multiple husbands is disingenuous of Hales. It is irrelevant to the discussion. Polygamy in Mormonism was based on a Patriarchal system (Smith’s polyandry was an aberration, which he himself condemned in D&C 132). This strawman is so disingenuous, that it is hard to believe he could write it.

Hales does not address (even in his response to Vogel) Dan’s excellent observation that Doctrine and Covenants Section 132 was written by Joseph Smith as an act of repentance for his own polyandry. Dan writes,

Jonathan & Elvira Holmes, circa 1870

You can’t shift the burden of proving your thesis to me. Your theory has to be established on its own merits and not rely on the inability of the opposition to disprove it—that would be an Argumentum ad Ignorantiam. The reason I ask for pre-July 1843 teachings is because as you know I see D&C 132 as JS’s possible repentance from his polyandrous marriages under pressure from Emma who was evidently threatening to practice polyandry herself. The revelation was dictated for her benefit and commands her “to cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed” (132:54). Quinn knows the documents better than I do, but I’m only focusing on the logic and arguments of your case and since you admit the documentation is scarce for either side, it becomes imperative to get the thinking right. Historians often argue from the known to the undocumented and build probabilistic cases, and I find your position not only improbable but a reflection of your own preference for how a prophet is supposed to behave. (Hales-Vogel, op. cited, added emphasis).

This is exactly what Hales tries to do, time after time: shift the burden of evidence to anyone else but himself. Hales response is simply a denial that it could be such:

It is impossible to detect whether Joseph Smith’s teachings evolved from 1841 to 1843. But if they did, do we not think someone would have said something? He taught the apostles in 1841 and they stayed or apostatized without mentioning plural marriage. The only way for me to show that sexual polyandry did not occur is to pile up the improbabilities… and while you can’t see it, they are piling up. Ironically, one single corroborative evidence of this alleged explosive practice could be all that is needed to document it. The very absence of such is another improbability (if it actually happened). (Hales, ibid).

To claim that it is impossible to detect whether Smith’s teachings evolved from 1841 to 1843 is simply Hales not wanting to confront the evidence. After 1842 there are no instances of Smith “marrying” a woman who had a living husband. (Those that would place such marriages after this do so with the flimsiest of evidence). His last instance of doing so was (Holmes) on June 1, 1843, little more than a month before the July “revelation”, and we have a problem with that dating. Hales would place the marriage in 1843, yet her daughter wrote,

Farmington June 30^th /,87

Mr Andrew Jenson

Dear Sir

I have just recieved your card have been away from home or would have answered before. My mother was born in Unadilla, Otsego Co, New York on the 23^d of November 1813. She was married to my father the 1^st day of Dec 1842. We do not know wheather she was sealed to the Prophet before or after that. I think in the statement I sent you it says she became a member of the family of the Prophet in the spring of 1840. but we do not know wheather she was sealed to him then or not, will write to our sister and ascertain from her if she knows.

Respectfully

Marietta Welling

This would not be a case of polyandry, but of Joseph marrying a single woman and setting up a “front husband”, (beforehand) perhaps one of the first. He may even have had an affair with her in the Spring of 1840 when she lived with him as he did with Mary Heron Snider.

After this, available evidence shows that Smith only “married” seven more women, all of which were single. And what happened leading up to the July “revelation”? On May 29, 1843 Joseph asked William Clayton, “if I [Clayton] had used any familiarity with E[mma].” (George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, 107).

Why would Smith accuse Clayton of such a thing? Clayton writes less than a month later,

June 23, 1843. Friday.] This A.M. President Joseph took me and conversed considerable concerning some delicate matters. Said [Emma] wanted to lay a snare for me. He told me last night of this and said he had felt troubled. He said [Emma] had treated him coldly and badly since I came…and he knew she was disposed to be revenged on him for some things. She thought that if he would indulge himself she would too. He cautioned me very kindly for which I felt thankful. He said [Robert] Thompson professed great friendship for him but he gave away to temptation and he had to die. Also Brother [Vinson] Knight he gave him one but he went to loose conduct and he could not save him. Also Brigham Young had transgressed his covenant and he pled with the lord to spare him this end and he did so, otherwise he would have died. Brigham denied having transgressed. He said if I would do right by him and abide his council he would save my life while he lived. I feel desirous to do right and would rather die than loose my interest in the celestial Kingdom.

Hales admits that,

On February 9, 1938, just months before her death at eighty-eight years of age, Phebe Louisa Holmes, daughter of Elvira Ann Cowles Holmes, recalled, “I heard my mother testify that she was indeed the Prophet’s (Joseph Smith) plural wife in life and lived with him as such during his lifetime.” (Hales, op. cited)

Hales only answer for this is to refer to Section 132 where Smith taught that having sex with other men’s wives was adultery. But this “revelation” was written after Smith supposedly married Holmes, and claimed to receive forgiveness for all his “transgressions”. And Elvira Cowles lived with Smith from 1840-1842. If this is true, they were living as husband and wife well before their marriage ceremony in June, 1843. According to Smith’s own June, 1842 Address, this would be considered adultery.

As for the June 23 entry by Clayton, we find it altogether strange. As D. Michael Quinn writes that Joseph Smith,

…once referred figuratively to himself as married to a male friend. Beginning in 1840, twenty-nine-year-old Robert B. Thompson became the prophet’s scribe and personal secretary. Their relationship was so close that Smith told his friend’s wife: ‘Sister Thompson, you must not feel bad towards me for keeping your husband away from you so much, for I am married to him.’ She added that ‘they truly love each other with fervent brotherly affection.’

Concerning Thompson’s death in 1841 Smith made this unusual explanation to his next secretary during a discussion of ‘loose conduct’ and sexual transgressions: ‘He said [Robert B.] Thompson professed great friendship for him but he gave away to temptation and he had to die. (Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1996, 136).

What are we to make of this? We can only share what we know and let the readers decide. There is no mention in any record of Robert B. Thompson committing any transgression. He was praised by everyone before and after he died. On January 19, 1841 Smith penned a “revelation” which mentioned Thompson:

And again, verily I say unto you, let my servant Robert B. Thompson, help you write this proclamation, for I am well pleased with him, and that he should be with you; let him, therefore, hearken to your council, and I will bless him with a multiplicity of blessings; let him be faithful and true in all things from henceforth, and he shall be great in mine eyes; but let him remember that his stewardship will I require at his hands. (Times and Seasons, Vol.2, No.15, 425, Online here, Accessed November 5, 2014).

On August 30, 1841 Joseph and Hyrum Smith wrote to Oliver Granger concerning Thompson and his brother Don Carlos Smith,

…all things Prosper in this Place Except the Loss we have sustaind in the death of two of our most valuable men Brother D C Smith & Robert B Thompson Both have recently Died of what I call a qick Consumption theyr Desease was upon theyr Lungs they wasted a way in one week & Spit up theyr verry vitals—they are gone. theyr Loss is Irreparable but we must be submissive to the will of god & try to Stand in our Lot both now & at this End … I Saw Sister Agnes Carloss widow this morning She wished me to say to you She hoped you would remember the widow & fatherless & be shure to deed the House & Lot in Kirtland to her for it is all She has… (Hyrum Smith and JS, Letter, Nauvoo, IL, to Oliver Granger, Kirtland Township, OH, 30 Aug. 1841; handwriting of Hyrum Smith; two pages; Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, Online here, Accessed November 5, 2014).

On July 31, 1842 it was recorded in Joseph Smith’s diary concerning Vinson Knight,

In council with Bishops Miller & Whitney, B Young, Jno Taylor &c concerning Bishop Knights sickness. Bro Knights has been sick about a week and this morning he began to sink very fast untill 12 o clock when death put a period to his sufferings. (Joseph Smith Journal, July 31, 1842, 128, Online here, Accessed December 20, 2014).

Remember, Smith was speaking of these men’s deaths (both died within a week of getting ill) within the context of having given way to “loose conduct” and “temptation”, after Joseph complained about Emma wanting to “indulge” herself. Less than a month earlier Joseph had asked Clayton if he “had used any familiarity with E[mma].” (George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, 107).

Both Thompson and Knight were among the very first that Smith revealed his spiritual wife doctrine to, as was Brigham Young. As for what Brigham Young’s transgression might have been, we think it may have something to do with Augusta Adams Cobb. (See Note #66)

As for Vinson Knight, we found this account concerning his acceptance of Smith’s teachings on polygamy:

Martha [McBride Knight] was equally involved in the key events of Nauvoo. She was a founding member of the LDS Relief Society, being present at the organization meeting on 17 March 1842 in Nauvoo, which also happened to be her 37th birthday. Martha was told by Joseph Smith that she was the first woman to give her consent for her husband to enter into plural marriage. The story is told that Martha knew something was worrying her husband and he couldn’t seem to tell her about it. One evening as Martha was sitting in the grape arbor behind the house, Vinson returned home carrying a basket. He explained to Martha that he had taken some fruit and vegetables to the widow of Levi N. Merrick, whose husband had been killed at Haun’s Mill. Vinson explained to Martha that he had been told to enter plural marriage and that, if he had to, this Sister Merrick would be the one he could help best. Martha’s reply is said to have been, “Is that all.” Perhaps she had confidence in her husband’s choice, since Philindia Clark Eldredge Merrick (Myrick) was also a founding member of the Relief Society.

At a time when Martha and her husband were becoming even more greatly involved in the affairs of Nauvoo, her husband of 16 years suddenly took ill and died on 31 July 1842 in Nauvoo at the relatively young age of 38. Joseph Smith preached at the funeral, stating that Vinson was the best friend he ever had on earth. One month later Martha lost her youngest child less than one year old, Rodolphus Elderkin Knight, who died on 3 September 1842.

At the time of Vinson’s death, their house was not quite finished. In order to make ends meet, Martha moved to the second floor and rented out the downstairs floor to the George Grant family.

Sometime during the summer of 1842 (one source states this was before the death of Vinson Knight), Martha McBride Knight was married polygamously to Joseph Smith, Jr. by Heber C. Kimball. (“Life Story of Martha McBride Knight Smith Kimball”, written by Brent J. Belnap, Online here, Accessed December 31, 2014).

The wife of Robert B. Thompson (Mercy Fielding) was given to Hyrum Smith by his brother Joseph. Mercy later wrote about this to Joseph Smith III, as found in Gary Bergera “The Earliest Mormon Polygamists”:

Mercy Rachel Fielding Thompson

My beloved husband R[obert]. B. Thompson, your father’s private secretary to the end of his mortal life, died August 27th 1841, (I presume you will remember him.) Nearly two years after his death your father told me that my husband had appeared to him several times, telling him that he did not wish me to live such a lonely life, and wished him to request your uncle Hyrum to have me sealed to him for time. Hyrum communicated this to his wife (my sister) who, by request, opened the subject to me, when everything within me rose in opposition to such a step, but when your father called and explained the subject to me, I dared not refuse to obey the counsel, lest peradventure I should be found fighting against God; and especially when he told me the last time he came with such power that it made him tremble. He then enquired of the Lord what he should do; the answer was, “Go and do as thy servant hath required. He then took an opportunity of communicating this to your uncle Hyrum who told me that the Holy Spirit rested upon him from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. The time was appointed, with the consent of all parties, and your father sealed me to your uncle Hyrum for time, in my sister’s room, with a covenant to deliver me up in the morning of the first resurrection to Robert Blas(h)el Thompson, with whatever offspring should be the result of that union, at the same time counseling your uncle to build a room for me and move me over as soon as convenient, which he did, and I remained there as a wife the same as my sister to the day of his death. All this I am ready to testify to the presence of God, angels and men. (Mercy Fielding Thompson, letter to Joseph Smith III, September 5, 1883, reproduced in the Deseret Evening News, February 6, 1886, Gary Bergera, The Earliest Mormon Polygamists, Dialogue, Vol. 38, No. 3, 26, Online here, Accessed December 31, 2014).

Mercy writes that nearly two years after her husband’s death (late Spring, 1843), Robert B. Thompson, (who was dead) appeared to Joseph several times. Smith himself taught:

The organization of the spiritual and heavenly worlds, and of spiritual and heavenly beings, was agreeable to the most perfect order and harmony… The Hebrew Church “came unto the spirits of just men made perfect, and unto an innumerable company of angels, unto God the Father of all, and to Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant.” What did they learn by coming of the spirits of just men made perfect? Is it written? No. What they learned has not been and could not have been written. What object was gained by this communication with the spirits of the just? It was the established order of the kingdom of God: the keys of power and knowledge were with them to communicate to the Saints. Hence the importance of understanding the distinction between the spirits of the just and angels.

Spirits can only be revealed in flaming fire or glory. Angels have advanced further, their light and glory being tabernacled; and hence they appear in bodily shape. The spirits of just men are made ministering servants to those who are sealed unto life eternal, and it is through them that the sealing power comes down.

[Recently deceased] Patriarch Adams is now one of the spirits of the just men made perfect; and, if revealed now, must be revealed in fire; and the glory could not be endured. Jesus showed Himself to His disciples, and they thought it was His spirit, and they were afraid to approach His spirit. Angels have advanced higher in knowledge and power than spirits.

Concerning Brother James Adams… Brother Adams has gone to open up a more effectual door for the dead. The spirits of the just are exalted to a greater and more glorious work; hence they are blessed in their departure to the world of spirits. Enveloped in flaming fire, they are not far from us, and know and understand our thoughts, feelings, and motions, and are often pained therewith. (History of the Church, 6: 51 – 52)

Mercy Thompson relates that Robert appeared to Joseph numerous times with the request that he “seal” Mercy to his brother Hyrum. She refused Joseph’s request more than once for she states that “when he told me the last time he came with such power that it made him tremble”.

It seems that it was Joseph who threatened Mercy Thompson numerous times, and claimed that her dead husband (a spirit or angel) had appeared to him. Bergera also quotes Mercy Thompson’s Temple Lot testimony where she states that,

If there was communication between the eternal world and this I should never have been sealed to any body—if I had not obeyed the command of the Lord, when the Lord sent it through an angel to his prophet Joseph Smith—and sent my own husband or a message from him in the eternal world to me through the prophet, and to his brother Hyrum that he should take me, and my little child—that is the that my dead husband sent from the eternal world to brother Hyrum that he should take charge of me and my little child and keep us in this world, and on the day of resurrection to deliver us up safely to my husband. Now that was the message from my husband to the prophet, or to brother Hyrum through the prophet, commanding Hyrum to take me to live with my sister with my little child, and he did not act on it quick enough, and so he came the second time—or he went and enquired of the Lord—and the Lord spoke to him through the angel, and when he inquired of the Lord the voice told him to go and do as his servant required him to do and that was the time that he went to Hyrum and told him what he had been ordered to do, and he then sent my sister over to me to break the word to me. (ibid, page 27, Mercy Thompson Temple Lot Testimony, page 263, Q. 512)

Notice here, that ten years later, Mary adds that an angel appeared to Smith first, then her husband, and when they didn’t act quickly enough, appeared again. This is amazingly like the story that was told by some of Joseph’s spiritual wives in relation to the practice of polygamy. Could this story have morphed into the angel with the sword? We think it is a good possibility.

With further questioning, Mercy Thompson clarified her testimony about her husband supposedly appearing to Joseph Smith and when it supposedly happened:

520 Q. Did the prophet say that he got it [the message to “marry” Hyrum Smith] from your husband that was dead? A. No sir.
521 Q. He did not tell you that? A. No sir.
522 Q. How did he state to you he got it? A. The Lord with the message from my husband in the eternal world making this request. Now I hope you understand me.
523 Q. Well I think I do. Now that was when? A. When did I get that message?
524 Q. Yes. A. That was in April.
525 Q. How long was that before you was married to Hyrum Smith? A. Well it was very soon afterwards that we were married, for I found out that as the Lord and my husband both required it of me, -required it of us, we did not dare refuse. (ibid, p. 264)

Notice that when questioned under oath, it is not her dead husband that appears to Smith, but an angel with a message from her dead husband. In her Temple Lot testimony, Mercy Thompson also affirmed that she obeyed Joseph Smith simply because he was the prophet and the lawgiver to the church. She testified that, “Joseph Smith was. He was the lawgiver, and whatever he said was a law unto us.” (Q. 190) She goes on to say “Whatever he told us came from the Lord we accepted, and when he said that the word of the Lord was thus and so we knew it was so and believed it, without witnessing it ourselves, for we knew that he would not tell us that anything came from the Lord that did not come from the Lord.” (Q. 192)

These accounts are troubling when taken with what Joseph Smith related to William Clayton on June 23, 1843 where, “He said [Robert] Thompson professed great friendship for him but he gave away to temptation and he had to die.” Temptation though, appears to be something that Thompson would not give way to.

According to Oliver B. Huntington, a few weeks before Thompson’s death, Joseph Smith took him aside and said “Robert, I want you to go and get on a bust, to and get drunk and have a good spree. If you don’t you will die.” Huntington also writes in his journal that “Robert Thompson did not do it,” and that “He was a very pious and exemplary man and never guilty of such an impropriety as he thought that to be. In less than two weeks he was dead and buried.” (Quoted in Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows my History: The Life of Joseph Smith, (Second edition; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971), 289).

Since Hyrum Smith did not accept his brother’s spiritual wife doctrine until May of 1843, and he didn’t marry Mercy Fielding Thompson until August 11, 1843 that would mean that according to Mercy Thompson her dead husband who had “gave way to temptation” and “had to die” according to Joseph Smith on June 23, appeared to Smith (or an angel did depending on the account) in April and told him that he wanted his wife to be sealed to Hyrum for “time”.

Mercy claims that as soon as Joseph heard from the angel he sent Mary Fielding Smith over to Mercy to inform her and that she did not dare refuse the request. In her letter to Joseph Smith III, it was her husband Robert who appeared to Joseph Smith Jr. many times and that Hyrum told his wife Mary who in turn told Mercy, who had some problems and so Joseph Smith came to visit her to persuade her with much trembling. Mercy then claims she dared not refuse the prophet, because he was the law. No angel is mentioned in the 1886 account but appears in an account just a few years later in 1892.

After Hyrum Smith died Mercy Thompson then “married” John Taylor who she divorced in 1847, and then in the same year married another man named James Lawson. Mercy Thompson went through three marriages in four years. She also lived as Hyrum’s wife for almost a year but bore him no children.

What is interesting is that on May 14, Hyrum spoke about polygamy at the Temple:

Attended meeting at the Temple A.M. Hyrum Smith addressed the people – subjects from the Book of Mormon 2 Chap. Jacob – remarked that – the Book Mormon was a mirror, a key, to the Bible – spoke of persecution as being one of the wars of salvation – when persecution ceased, apt to forget the first commandment – said there were many that had a great deal to say about the ancient order of things as Solomon & David having many wives & concubine – but its an abomination in the sight of God – If an angel from heaven should come & preach such doctrine would be sure to see his cloven foot & cloud of blackness over his head, – though his garments might shine as white as snow – A man might have one wife, – concubines he should have none – observed that the idea was that this was given to Jacob for a perpetual principle – Said, “I would say that in consequence of the prosperity of some they look down with contempt on their neighbors – partiality to some class making their dregs to correspond &, ought to be looked upon indignantly by all the noble minded in the Church of God— (Levi Richards Diary, May 14,1843, Volume 18, MS 1284, Box 1, Folder 18, CHL).

Joseph & Hyrum Smith

William Clayton wrote in his diary on May 26, 1843 that, “Hyrum received the doctrine of priesthood.” (An Intimate Chronicle) Three days earlier he wrote that “a plot that is being laid to entrap the brethren of the secret priesthood by Brother H[yrum]and others. (ibid). Did Joseph tell Mercy Thompson the story of the angel so that Hyrum would be more sympathetic about the spiritual wife doctrine? Perhaps Hyrum had problems believing the story and so preached about it a few weeks later.

Willard Richards wrote in Joseph Smith’s Diary,

Monday, May 29th 1843 9 A.M. Met pursuant to adjournment. Hyrum, Brigham, Willard, and Sis[ter] Thompson (were married) and Heber and Newel K. [Whitney] [were] present. Also Joseph and James Adams. Singing and prayer by Elder Brigham Young. Conversation and instruction &c. teaching concerning the things of God. Had a pleasant interview.

So two years after Robert B. Thompson died, Joseph sealed him to his wife Mercy. Then a month later claimed that he “had to die”. Joseph Smith made an interesting comment to the Nauvoo City Council on June 10, 1844:

What the opposition party [William Law and the Nauvoo “dissenters”] wanted was to raise a mob on us and take the spoil of us as they did in Missouri. Said that he had as much as he could do to keep his clerk [Robert B.] Thompson from publishing the proceedings of the Laws and causing the people to [amass against them] — said he would rather die tomorrow and have the thing smashed, than live and have it grow. (Dinger, John S., The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, Signature Books, Kindle Edition, 7220-7222, added emphasis).

So Joseph would rather have died than see what “live and grow”? Have what “smashed?” The Expositor? Did Smith think that his death would stop the Laws? It apparently did. It is hard to know what Joseph meant, because he told many falsehoods at this time about various people. (See Note #212)

For example, it was not the Laws that Thompson & Don Carlos Smith were publishing against, it was John C. Bennett and unknowingly, Joseph Smith:

“Both Don Carlos and Thompson had heard the rumors about polygamy going on within the leadership. They died in August of 1841, so this was early on and 3 years before things really became exposed to the point that Joseph and Hyrum were killed. So Joseph was really still doing everything in almost complete secrecy and pretty much getting away with it at this point. And, he was just beginning to let a few others in. Hyrum didn’t even know about what was really going on and neither did Emma for sure yet (she obviously knew that he’d cheated on her…but she didn’t know about the lengths Joseph would go to with the spiritual wifery, etc.).

Don Carlos was adamantly opposed to polygamy. He is quoted as saying

“Any man who will teach and practice the doctrine of spiritual wifery, will go to hell, I don’t care if it is my brother, Joseph.” [See Ebenezer Robinson, “The Return” 1890] So he obviously had heard something. There is evidence that Don Carlos and Thompson were going to publish some things (and did) in their newspaper and Joseph (and Bennett) got wind of this.

It has been stated that Don Carlos was very charismatic and good looking. He would have been a formidable opponent if he had lived (but Joseph may have thought he could convert him to the principle just like he eventually did with Hyrum). Don Carlos was the editor for the “Times and Seasons” along with a partner, Robert Thompson.

The first information I read stated that Don Carlos had died suddenly from catching a cold because of the poor conditions of the room he worked in. But, then I found in a couple of different places where John C. Bennett had told others that he had poisoned Don Carlos (because he was angry with him and also to get even with Joseph). Bennett had lived with Joseph Smith from September, 1840 (when he arrived in Nauvoo) until July, 1841 when he moved out. Bennett’s first disciplinary court was also held in July of 1841. Bennett had befriended Don Carlos and had asked him, as a personal favor, not to print anything negative about him in the “Times and Seasons”. Bennett also asked Don Carlos’s partner and other editor, Robert Thompson, to refrain from reporting what was going on between him and the church and Joseph. They went ahead and printed the events. Don Carlos died suddenly on August 7, 1841 and then Robert Thompson died suddenly at the end of August, 1841, just a few weeks later. Don Carlos was only 25 years old and Robert Thompson was only 29 years old.” (Thanks to Madison)

Brigham Young taught in 1852:

The Elders should take Heed & not break the commandments of God. If they were to commit Adultery After Receiving their Endowments they cannot be forgiven but must be destroyed in the flesh & his spirit given to the Buffiting of Satan untill the first Resurrection. How long it will be from the morning till evening I am not able to say but after the day of redemption He will come forth and inherit all the Blessings that were sealed upon his head. No power can take them from him If he has been sealed to any woman thrones powers Dominions or Kingdoms or any other Blessing. He will inherit them to all Eternity if they do not shed innocent Blood. (Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 4, 146-147, September 12, 1852).

David John Buerger writes,

Doctrine and Covenants 132: 26-27 implies that such persons would be deprived of godhood only if they committed the unpardonable sin: i.e., “. . . murder wherein ye shed innocent blood, and assent unto my death.” This would seem to give license to commit a wide variety of sins including adultery, rape, incest, theft, extortion, etc., and still be guaranteed godhood after “they shall be destroyed in the flesh, and shall be delivered unto the buffetings of Satan unto the day of redemption.”

Themes of the unconditional nature of the second anointing occasionally appeared in public sermons of Church I he in Utah. On 7 April 1855, Orson Pratt stated,

But we have no promise, unless we endure in faith unto the end…. In speaking of this, I will qualify my language by saying, that the Saint who has been sealed unto eternal life and falls in transgression and does not repent, but dies in his sin, will be afflicted and tormented after he leaves this vale of tears until the day of redemption; but having been sealed with the spirit of promise through the ordinances of the house of God, those things which have been sealed upon his head will be realized by him in the morning of the resurrection.

Pratt’s September 1860 comments on this subject were given in the same vein: “This would seem to be as near an unconditional promise as can well be made to mortals. But this is not altogether unconditional, for there are some exceptions; but it would come as near as anything we have ever read of.” And in November 1867, Brigham Young affirmed, “When men and women have travelled to a certain point in their labors in this life, God sets a seal upon them that they never can forsake their God or His kingdom; for, rather than they should do this, He will at once take them to Himself.” (David John Buerger, “The Fullness of the Priesthood”: Second Anointing in Latter-Day Saint Theology and Practice, Dialogue, Vol.16, No.1, 37-38).

In 1883 President John Taylor reconvened the “School of the Prophets” in Salt Lake City, which was originally begun under the leadership of Joseph Smith in Kirtland, Ohio nearly fifty years before. During a meeting held on September 27, the discussion turned to adultery and polygamy and the penalties for breaking the covenants made in the Endowment. According to the minutes, those present included:

The First Presidency and Apostles met at the Office of President John Taylor at 3 o’clock P.M. Present: Presidents John Taylor, George Q. Cannon, Apostles W. Woodruff, L. Snow, E. Snow, F.D. Richards, A. Carrington, B. Young, M. Thatcher, and H. J. Grant. Secretaries L. John Nuttall and George Reynolds.

President John Taylor stated the object of the meeting to be, to give further consideration of the organization of the School of the Prophets.

The minutes of the meeting held on Thursday August 2nd 1883, also on Saturday September 22nd 1883, were read by Secretary Nuttall. During the reading of the minutes, President Joseph F. Smith and Councillor Daniel H. Wells came in. (Salt Lake City School of the Prophets Minute Book, 33, CHL).

During the meeting some remarks made by Joseph Smith as published in The Millennial Star, (Vol. 15, 423) were read. Smith claimed that they should not “watch for iniquity in each other, if you do you will not get an endowment, for God will not bestow it on such.” (ibid., 42) Why would Joseph say this? In the Doctrine and Covenants it states that:

The teacher’s duty is to watch over the church always, and be with and strengthen them; And see that there is no iniquity in the church, neither hardness with each other, neither lying, backbiting, nor evil speaking; (D&C 20:53-54)

How is one to do this if they do not “watch for iniquity”? I guess this means that one should not watch the leaders for “iniquity”. Smith also taught that,

You need an endowment, brethren, in order that you may be prepared and able to overcome all things; and those that reject your testimony will be damned. The sick will be healed, the lame made to walk, the deaf to hear, and the blind to see, through your instrumentality. But let me tell you, that you will not have power, after the endowment to heal those that have not faith, nor to benefit them, for you might as well expect to benefit a devil in hell as such as are possessed of his spirit, and are willing to keep it: for they are habitations for devils, and only fit for his society. But when you are endowed and prepared to preach the Gospel to all nations, kindreds, and tongues, in their own languages, you must faithfully warn all, and bind up the testimony, and seal up the law, and the destroying angel will follow close at your heels, and exercise his tremendous mission upon the children of disobedience; and destroy the workers of iniquity, while the Saints will be gathered out from among them, and stand in holy places ready to meet the Bridegroom when he comes.” (ibid., 42-43)

Interestingly they (in 1883) record that,

Apostles F.D. Richards was quite prepared to vote but would humbly ask that, before the question was put another word might be inserted in his remarks for the word “Polygamy.” That was a Gentile word, and he would rather, have another word inserted–say Patriarchal or Celestial marriage. (ibid., 44)

The discussion then turned on who should receive the Endowment and if it should be broken up into two parts: the “Aaronic Priesthood” portion of the Endowment and the “Melchizedek Priesthood” portion. Daniel H. Wells then asked:

There is this difficulty which presents itself to my mind. Persons do not get sealed until they are ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood. But persons getting the lesser priesthood might want to take a wife. Now, in this case, would they be entitled to the same sealing ordinances?

President Taylor: They would not have the priviledge at first. (ibid., 45)

Coun. Wells: Bro. Cannon has stated in his remarks that he was first married for time. But there is this objection arises in my mind. A person who is not sealed according to the order of the Holy Priesthood, his children are not legal heirs to the Priesthood. Hence, where people are married for time, I do not understand their children would be legal heirs to the Priesthood, and consequently would have to be adopted.

President Taylor: That is correct. We understand these things.

Coun. Wells: Pres. Young thought probably the time would come when the First Endowment could be given to the lesser Priesthood in a garden where there would be trees, and then let those receiving this first Endowment go on and prove themselves for a while; but this question of marriage and sealing for time and eternity, and the heirship of children always came in as an objection to separating the Endowments. (ibid., 44-45, added emphasis).

This is an interesting comment by Wells. Why then, would Joseph marry Fanny Alger for time to have children not born as legal heirs to the Priesthood? John Taylor then explained:

One of our brethren–a very good man, (I won’t mention his name)–wanted to know if his son.–a very good boy could have his endowments. I replied that under the circumstances I would not want my children to have their endowments. Why not? Because they would have to take upon themselves obligations and responsibilities which they might not be prepared to fill. Why not? I will show you one reason. Our youth are all the time subject to temptation and are liable to be led astray. If they should commit adultery or fornication as it may be called, what would be the result? The result would be that they would have to make acknowledgement before the Church and ask the forgiveness of the Church, and if they were forgiven after making their confession, they would pass, say for the first time; but for the second offense they must be cast out. That is the way I look upon people who have not entered into this covenant. When they have entered into the marriage covenant and commit adultery it is said they shall be destroyed. Now, I would not like to place my children in the position, under these circumstances. I would much rather they had a chance under the first arrangement of overcoming their weakness, and have a standing in the Church. I now speak of the laws of God being carried out and we are supposed to carry them out. I cannot feel in the least to have people who commit adultery continued members of this Church- -that is people who have entered into sacred covenants if there is anyway for their redemption it is not made manifest to me. Furthermore, the law says they shall be destroyed. I would not want to place responsibilities upon people until their minds and character were mature to enable them to act wisely, prudently, and intelligent, and to magnify their calling. What is meant then– I am among men who understand these matters–by the passage in the revelation where it says that “they that are sealed (p. 47) by the Holy Spirit of Promise, according to mine appointment, and he or she shall commit any sin or transgression of the new and everlasting covenant whatever, and all manner of blasphemies, and if they commit no murder, wherein they shed innocent blood– yet shall they come forth in the first resurrection and enter into their exaltation; but they shall be destroyed in the flesh, and shall be delivered over to the buffetings of Satan until the day of redemption”? Well, it is just on the same principle [illegible]er spoke of, to people of his day. He said, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ which before was preached unto you: Now what would be the law of God if carried out?–What is it to be destroyed in the flesh? What does that mean? [Sign of the Priesthood – cutting throat] You all know. What does that mean [Another sign of the Priesthood] You all know. Now if that was carried out [.]

Coun. Wells: Is that what is meant by being destroyed in the flesh?

President Taylor: I think it would be pretty near.
After citing another example of adultery Taylor then added,

It is a thing we should be very careful about. But I did not make that revelation. I cannot change it. I am not authorized to change it. The law says they shall be destroyed; I cannot say they shall not. Unless the Lord manifests something to me about things of that sort, I do not feel authorized to go contrary to the word of God on these subjects. They are very important. As it is said, in times of men’s ignorance God winked at it. Now, he calls upon all people everywhere to repent. I look upon it that we are called upon to carry out the law and will and word of God, and we have no right to change either. Formerly we are told there were placed in the Church (p. 49) Apostles, Prophets, etc. for the perfecting of the Saints and the edifying of the body of Christ. But if these laws are not put into execution how is the Church to be perfected. If drunkards, sabbath-breakers, whoremongers, are allowed to carry on their wickedness, how is the Church to be purified? And who will be responsible for these things? Those who will permit them. The Church ought to be purified; we ought to be stepping forward in purity; and seeking to do the will of God on earth as it is done in Heaven.

Joseph once said that in attending to the ordinances, as we have today, that if we violate our covenants we shall be delivered over to the buffetings of Satan until the day of redemption. Prest. Taylor then spoke of the signs [penalties] in the Endowments and asked what they meant,--have thought that the ancient Japanese understood something in regard to these matters in the Hari Kari–we do not interfere with the lives of men, those who violate their covenants, we leave them in the hands of God, and in many instances that you know he has visited signal judgments upon transgressors. In the cases of Whoredom, harlots engage in those matters do not live to exceed five years, so the statistics say. Whoremongers and adulterers purge. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,–it requires the greatest care to properly control ourselves and those associated with us. (ibid., 90-91)

Yet, the Church removed the penalties from the Endowment in the 1990’s. Why was Jospeh E. Johnson (see above) not “cut off” and turned over to Satan for his adultery? He was endowed at the time he committed it his adultery. Why were so many given a “pass” like William Smith, George Adams, and even John C. Bennett for a time? It appears that unlike Brigham Young and Joseph Smith, John Taylor was reluctant to administer Blood Atonement himself. He would rather the transgressor perform some kind of “Hari Kari” on themselves.

Still, the entry by Clayton is troubling for there were many rumors of men being poisoned in Nauvoo. Joseph Smith once thought he had been poisoned by his wife Emma. William Smith once accused Brigham Young of having poisoned his brother Samuel H. Smith. D. Michael Quinn writes,

“Then Samuel Smith suddenly became violently ill and died on 30 July 1844. This added suspicion of murder to the escalating drama. Council of Fifty member and physician John M. Bernhisel told William Smith that anti-Mormons had somehow poisoned his brother. William learned from Samuel’s widow that Hosea Stout, a Missouri Danite and senior officer of Nauvoo’s police, had acted as his brother’s nurse. Stout had given him “white powder” medicine daily until his death. Samuel became ill within days of the discussion of his succession right, and by 24 July was “very sick.” There had been enough talk about Samuel’s succession claims that the newspaper in Springfield, Illinois, reported: “A son of Joe Smith [Sr.] it is said, had received the revelation that he was to be the successor of the prophet.”

“William Smith eventually concluded that Apostle Willard Richards asked Stout to murder (his brother) Samuel H. Smith. The motive was to prevent Samuel from becoming church president before Brigham Young and the full Quorum of Twelve arrived (in Navuoo). William’s suspicions about Stout are believable since Brigham Young allowed William Clayton to go with the pioneer company to Utah three years later only because Stout threatened to murder Clayton as soon as the apostles left. Clayton regarded Hosea Stout as capable of homicide and recorded no attempt by Young to dispute that assessment concerning the former Danite.”

“One could dismiss William Smith’s charge as a self-serving argument for his own succession claim, yet Samuel’s daughter also believed her father was murdered. “My father was undoubtedly poisoned,” she wrote. “Uncle Arthur Millikin was poisoned at the same time-the same doctors were treating my father and Uncle Arthur at the same time. Uncle Arthur discontinued the medicine-without letting them know that he was doing so. (Aunt Lucy [Smith Millikin] threw it in the fire). Father continued taking it until the last dose-he spit out and said he was poisoned. But it was too late-he died.” Nauvoo’s sexton recorded that Samuel Smith died of “bilious fever,” the cause of death listed for two children but no other adults that summer.”

“This troubling allegation should not be ignored but cannot be verified. Nevertheless Clayton’s diary confirms the efforts of Richards to avoid the appointment of a successor before his first cousin Brigham Young arrived. Stout’s diary also describes several occasions when Brigham Young and the apostles seriously discussed having Hosea “rid ourselves” of various church members considered dangerous to the church and the apostles. Stout referred to this as “cut him off-behind the ears-according to the law of God in such cases.” Stout’s daily diary also makes no reference whatever to his threat to murder Clayton in 1847. When the Salt Lake “municipal high council” tried Hosea Stout for attempted murder, he protested that “it has been my duty to hunt out the rotten spots in the Kingdom.” He added that he had “tried not to handle a man’s case until it was right.” Evidence does not exist to prove if the prophet’s brother was such a “case” Stout handled.” (D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy : Origins of Power, 152-153, added emphasis).

[42] “A Book of Records, Containing the proceedings of The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo,” Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 17 Mar. 1842–16 Mar. 1844, 87, Church History Library, Online here, Accessed October 30, 2014.

[43] Ann Eliza Young, Wife #19, 70-71, Online here, Accessed October 30, 2014.

[44] See Note #33 where we discuss the 1842 First Presidency Address. Todd Compton wrote,

Whatever the uncertainties in documentation for this polyandrous aspect of Latter-day Saint practice, there is a clearly discernible outline of ideology in the Mormon historical record that explains the development and rationale for the practice of Mormon polyandry. “Gentile” marriages were “illegal,” of no eternal value or earthly validity; marriages authorized by Mormon priesthood and prophets took precedence. Sometimes these sacred marriages were thought to re-enact pre-mortal marriages or to fulfill pre-mortal linkings and so justified a sacred marriage superimposed over a secular one. Mormonism’s intensely hierarchical nature allowed a man with the highest earthly authority—a Joseph Smith or a Brigham Young—to ask for the wives of men holding lesser priesthood authority. The authority of the prophet would allow him to promise higher exaltation to those involved in the triangle, both the wife and her first husband. (A Trajectory of Plurality: An Overview of Joseph Smith’s Thirty Three Plural Wives, Dialogue, Vol.29, No.2, Summer, 1996, 32).

[45] See Todd Compton, “Truth, Honesty and Moderation in Mormon History: A Response to Anderson, Faulring and Bachman’s Reviews of In Sacred Loneliness, by Todd M. Compton, first published in pamphlet form and on the internet, July 2001”, where he writes,

…a concept that I discovered in the Mary Elizabeth Lightner autobiographies was very useful to me when I was trying to understand the superimposition of higher upon a lower marriage. Mary wrote that Joseph Smith, when proposing to her while she was married to another man, said, “Joseph Said I was his, before I came here.” Elsewhere she wrote that Smith told her that, “I [Mary] was created for him before the foundation of the Earth was laid.” Certainly, if we accept Mary as a credible witness, Joseph was referring to a connection, a linking he had with Mary in the pre-existence as authorizing or requiring the polyandrous marriage. …

William Hall wrote that Smith taught that “all real marriages were made in heaven before the birth of the parties.” He connected this with the phrase “kindred spirits.” If Hall were not so closely paralleled by Lightner here, I would not cite him. But as corroborative evidence dovetailing with Lightner he is valuable. Then I show that the phrase “kindred spirits” is attested in “conservative” Mormon literature — first by William Smith in 1845, when he was Presiding Patriarch, then by Helen Mar Whitney in 1886. See In Sacred Loneliness, p. 640. (“Pre-existence and polyandry, online here, accessed October 20, 2014.)

[46] Brian Hales, Joseph Smith’s Sexual Polyandry and the Emperor’s New Clothes: On Closer Inspection, What Do We Find? FAIRMORMON Conference, 2012, Online here. Accessed, October 30, 2014.

The problems with Hales’ logic are insurmountable for him, but he goes ahead anyway. For example, he tries to claim that Sylvia Sessions Lyon was not having sex with Joseph Smith and her husband Windsor Lyon at the same time, even though she conceived a daughter by Joseph Smith and later two children by Windsor Lyon all the while never separating from Lyon. Hales writes,

The women who were sealed just for the next life, like Ruth Vose Sayers, are on Joseph’s list of wives, but technically they don’t belong there until we get into the next realm. But we have to deal with it today. So, were all fourteen of these women sealed to Joseph Smith for eternity only? No. It’s not that easy At least three of the sealings were for time and eternity and in a covenant that superseded the legal covenant. In other words, after the sealing to Joseph, the legal husband was not going to be able to experience conjugality with her. They are special cases and there are not a lot of parallels between the three. We’re going to talk about all three of them.

The first one is Sylvia Sessions Lyon. If you’ve read Todd Compton’s book “In Sacred Loneliness” you know that he elaborately unfolds a plausible case. But new evidence suggests that he is in error. I talked to him, I emailed him this past week about it and he still defended it at Sunstone when we presented this just a week ago. He was the respondent. But you just can’t do it and you will see why here in a minute. Sylvia married Windsor Lyon on April 21, 1838 in a legal ceremony performed by Joseph Smith. “In Sacred Loneliness uses the date February 8, 1842 as their [Joseph Smith-Sylvia Sessions] sealing date. That’s the first problem. The daughter was conceived over a year later, on May 18 1843. And this daughter I believe is Joseph Smith’s actual daughter. The assumption is that Sylvia experienced sexual relations with both Windsor and Joseph Smith during this period. Now, there’s no evidence for that, for either one of them during the period up until Josephine was conceived, but the willingness of people to assume these things is very high, as we’ll talk about in a minute.

But the problem is that Todd uses this date here, of 1842, but in the same set of documents, and Todd didn’t know this when he wrote his book because he didn’t have time to get to this, but there is an 1843 date. They’re equally valid or invalid. They are not signed. They talk about this marriage, but we don’t know how close Sylvia Sessions Lyon was to the creation of these documents, and they just cancel each other out. The whole timeline presented by Todd, I would argue, is not reliable.

Sylvia Sessions Lyon

But there is one other evidence that Todd will cite, to say that Sylvia Sessions was sealed to Joseph early, and that is that she witnessed the sealing of her mother in March of 1942. [sic] Now that clearly indicates that Sylvia was a polygamy insider. But the problem is that I’ve identified seventeen other men and women who are not polygamous who did witness these marriages. (They are: Fanny Huntington, Cornelius Lott, Permelia Lott, Joseph Lott, Amanda Lott, Benjamin F. Johnson, Elizabeth Whitney, Sarah Godshall Phillips, Julia Stone, Hettie Stone, Mary Ellen Harris Able, James Adams, Joseph B. Noble, Dimick B. Huntington, Brigham Young, Willard Richards, and Newel K. Whitney.) It’s just not strong evidence. So the whole timeline that Todd presents, which is more or less a plausible course of sexual polyandry, just falls apart.

Windsor was excommunicated in November of 1842. We have three evidences that the sealing occurred after this, and that the excommunication of Windsor cause him and Sylvia to part. They were already separated. So they are legally married but they separate. And then Joseph is sealed to Sylvia after the excommunication. In a document undoubtedly used to write his 1887 historical record article on plural marriage, Andrew Judson wrote “Sylvia Sessions was married to Mr. Lyon. When he left the church she was sealed to the prophet Joseph Smith.” Elsewhere he refers to Sylvia as “formerly the wife of Windsor Lyon.”

In 1915, Josephine, the child, related that back in 1882, just months before her mother died, she told Josephine in a very dramatic fashion, that she had “been sealed to the prophet at the time that her husband, Mr. Lyon was out of fellowship with the Church”, and that Josephine was actually Joseph Smith’s daughter. Josephine married a guy named Fisher and there’s a whole Fisher family in Bountiful that descend from this. And I have been in contact with some of the descendants, and they are starting to say maybe we need to make a claim that we’re actually coming from Joseph and not from Windsor Lyon. From my research there are only 2 children from the plural wives. This is one. The other is Olive Frost’s daughter, or son, we don’t even know the gender, as both Olive Frost and the child died before they left Nauvoo. And that’s all. There are references to a third, but we don’t know. Maybe some new evidence will come up and we will find out.

Looking at the timeline, we find that Windsor and Sylvia married in 1838. She conceives three children, then he’s excommunicated and that’s when they separate. It’s not a legal divorce, but she is then sealed to Joseph in a marriage that I argue would have superseded the legal marriage anyway, which would curtail any conjugality between Sylvia and Windsor. Josephine is conceived. Joseph Smith is killed. Windsor is rebaptized and then they come back together and the legal marriage is still intact.

Now, is this weird? Yeah, this is weird. Is it sexual polyandry? Is it immoral? Is it breaking the law of chastity that Joseph taught? No it isn’t. (Hales, “Emperor’s New Clothes,” op. cited)

Hales, in an effort to try and muddy the waters and support his later 1843 date for the “marriage” of Lyon to Smith writes,

The 1842 date for Sylvia Sessions sealing comes from [Affidavit] Book 1 and the 1843 date from Book 4. Book 4 is also unique because it contains two additional unfinished affidavits, one for Vienna Jacques, and a second started on Jun 26, 1869, but never completed. Book 1 does not contain those who aborted affidavit attempts.

Accordingly, it appears that since Book 4 contains more documents than Book 1, it was in fact the primary of the two and was the first to receive entries, at least in those two instances. This observation suggests that the 1843 date could well be the more accurate, or at least the first recorded, even though it is found in a book currently referred to a [sic] Book 4. Either way, it is a date with at least as much validity as the date (1842) written in Book 1 and should not be dismissed on the inaccurate assumption that it was simply a coypist error that occurred as the contents of Book 1 were being duplicated in Book 4.

We agree that the affidavit Books don’t prove much. They are very late recollections and are being used in many cases as a basis for actual dates and events with little or no other evidence. But we do have problems with Hales interpretation of the evidence, even this evidence. If Hales had just taken a good look at both affidavits he would have seen something that indicates that the affidavit in Book 4 was probably written after the affidavit in Book 1.

If you study the two affidavits of Sylvia Sessions, you will notice that the affidavit with the 1843 date was rewritten without leaving the last sentence in the middle of the page. This indicates that the 1842 document may have been written first, since it is much sloppier.

We know that some of these affidavits were previously prepared because there are templates in some of the books with blank spaces for names and dates. (See the Mary Ann Young illustration). The Sessions Affidavits are also unsigned so we don’t know where the dates came from. This folks, is not good evidence for anything.

Hales tries to infer that because some of those who participated in plural marriages were not polygamists, that this somehow makes a bit of difference concerning Sylvia Sessions. But there were obviously some who helped Joseph to “marry” women that he wanted for spiritual wives.

Cornelius Lott was the father of Melissa Lott Wiles, one of Joseph’s spiritual wives. (Polygamy insider)
Permilia Darrow Lott was the mother of Melissa Lott Wiles, one of Joseph’s spiritual wives. (Polygamy insider)
Joseph Darrow Lott was the brother of Melissa Lott Wiles, one of Joseph’s spiritual wives. (Polygamy insider)
Harriet Amanda Lott was the sister of Melissa Lott Wiles, one of Joseph’s spiritual wives. (Polygamy insider)
Joseph Bates Nobel was married to Mary Beaman, a sister of Louisa Beaman, one of Joseph’s spiritual wives. (Polygamy insider)
Sarah Godshall Phillips was the mother of Catherine Phillips Smith who was one of Hyrum Smith’s plural wives. (Polygamy insider)
Julia Stone was the wife of Robert Stone who was a member of the Nauvoo High Council which had the polygamy “revelation” presented to them in May of 1843. She was a member of the Relief Society. (Polygamy insider)
Hettie Stone was the daughter of Julia and Robert Stone who was a member of the Nauvoo High Council. (Polygamy insider)
Mary Ellen Harris Abel was the spiritual wife of Heber C. Kimball who he married in 1843. (Polygamy insider)
Dimick B. Huntington was the brother of Zina D. Huntington, one of Joseph’s spiritual wives and helped Smith win her over to Smith. (Polygamy insider)
Brigham Young (Really?)
Willard Richards (Really?)
James Adams was another polygamy insider who supposedly “married” Smith to some of his spiritual wives. (Polygamy insider).

All of these people were polygamy insiders. What point Hales is trying to make here is unclear. Compton’s point was that Sylvia Sessions was a polygamy insider, having witnessed her mother’s “marriage” to Joseph, therefore she knew about the spiritual wife doctrine before 1843 and so could easily have been “married” to Joseph in 1842.

If you can truly understand what happened between Joseph Smith and the Lyon (and make a competent analysis from Hales’ disjointed and scattered composition above), you did better than we could. So to make this very clear and easy to comprehend, let’s look at a timeline of events here,

April 21, 1838— Joseph Smith marries 19 year old Sylvia Sessions to Windsor P. Lyon.

c. 1840-1841—Windsor P. Lyon built a drug and variety store on Hotchkiss Street between Main and Hyde streets. …Within in a year of his arrival in Nauvoo, Lyon had opened his store, which sold “Dry Goods, Groceries, Crockery, Glass, and Hardwares. Books and Stationery [sic]. Drugs and Medicines, Paints and Dye stuffs, Boots, Shoes, Military Goods; and a thousand other articles too numerous to mention”

February 8, 1842—Smith and Sylvia are “married”, but Sylvia and Lyon continue to live together as man and wife.

March 9, 1842—Patty Bartlett Sessions writes in her journal, “I was sealed to Joseph Smith by Willard Richards March 9 1842 in Newel K Whitney’s chamber Nauvoo, for time and all eternity…Sylvia my daughter was presant when I was sealed”

March 20, 1842—Joseph Smith preaches to a large assembly in the grove, the body of a deceased child of Windsor P. Lyon being before the assembly causes him to change his remarks. (History of the Church remarks. Vol. 4, p.553)

1842-1844—Joseph Smith III writes in 1894: “There was a scandal about Mrs. Lyons, while yet in Nauvoo, but on inquiry was either fruitless of results; it was hushed up, whitewashed. But she was then a married woman, her husband a storekeeper, his store known as the “Lion Store” because of a painted lion used as a sign.”

June 1842—Windsor Lyon appointed aide-de-camp to major general in Nauvoo Legion, June 1842

August 12, 1842—Sylvia records in her diary that she was making shirts for Joseph Smith.

October 9 1842—Emmeline Wells writes, “”Windsor Lyon, her [Patty Sessions] daughter’s husband, went to St. Louis to purchase goods.”

November 7, 1842—Windsor Lyon is disfellowshipped by William Marks, President of the Nauvoo Stake, for trying to collect a debt from Marks , but does not move out of his house and continues to live in Nauvoo with Sylvia as husband and wife.

William Marks against Windsor P. Lyon.

“To the High Council of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

I prefer a charge against Windsor P. Lyon for instituting a suit at law against me on the 4th of November, and for other acts derogatory to the character of a christian

Nauvoo Nov. 7th 1842.

William Marks, complainant”

Defendant said that the suit was instituted by him, in another man’s name, therefore, did not think he was in fault &c. Two were appointed to speak on the case, viz; (9) [Newel] Knight and (10) [William] Huntington [Sr.].

The charge was fully sustained. The president then decided that, unless he humble himself and repent, the hand of fellowship be with drawn from him, which decision was unanimously sanctioned by the Councillors (Minutes of the High Council of the Church of Jesus Christ of Nauvoo Illinois)

November 8, 1842—Tuesday, 8.—This afternoon called upon Windsor P. Lyon and others to make affidavits concerning the frauds and irregularities practiced in the post office in Nauvoo. A petition was drawn and signed by many, and sent by Squire Warren to Judge Young, [U.S. senator from Illinois] with a request that the latter should present the same to the postmaster general, and use his influence to have the present postmaster removed, and a new one appointed. I was recommended for the appointment. In the afternoon officiated in court as mayor at my house. (History of the Church, Vol. 5, 184)

December 24, 1842—24[th] P.M. Read and revised history. [Joseph] Walked with Sec[retary Richards] to see Sister [Sylvia] Lyon who was sick. Her babe died 30 minutes before he arrived. Thence to Bro[ther] Sabin[‘s] to get some money for expences to [go to] Springfield, having just borrowed $100 of Nehemiah Hatch. (Scott H. Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 257)

Asa W. Lyon, son of Windsor and Sylvia Lyon, was twelve hours old when he died. His gravestone gives 25 December 1842 as the date of his death. (Cook, Nauvoo Deaths and Marriages, 49.)

February 8, 1843—An alternate date for the Sylvia Lyon “marriage” to Smith.

February 12, 1843—Lyon loans Joseph Smith $500, even though he is disfellowshipped.

September 18, 1843. Monday.—A.M. at President Joseph’s …Joseph and I rode out to borrow money, drank wine at Sister Lyon. P.M. I got $50 of Sister Lyon and paid it to D. D. Yearsley. (George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, 120)

January 11, 1844—Windsor P. Lyon—still disfellowshipped, and Sylvia, living as man and wife, host in their home, the marriage of William H. Kimball, son of Heber C. Kimball, to Mary Davenport. Helen Mar Kimball wrote,

On the 11th of May [1844] following, my brother William H. and Mary Davenport were joined in wedlock by father at the house of Winsor P. Lyon, and on the 13th he brought her home to live with us. (Other sources have the date as Jan. 11, 1844, Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, Scenes and Incidents in Nauvoo, 90)

February 8, 1844—Josephine Rosetta Lyon, Joseph Smith’s daughter is born. Josephine would have been conceived in April or May of 1843.

September 10 Tuesday—I was sick. Went to B. Young. He and my self went to the foot of Main St. The Ospra[y] Landed thare. Elder Hide left fore Ohio, Elder Ri[g]don left. We held a council at B. Young. Judg Demming met with us. Went Br. Lyons. Elder Limon sick. From thence went to Br. Geens, then to Br. Cheaces [Ezra Chase?]. They ware sealled. All wright. Held a council at B. Youngs concerning Legion & Arsnal.

September 21 Saturday—Went to Br. Haltons and Sealled Him to his dead wife, and gave the family council. From thence went to Winser Lyons [Windsor P. Lyons], found B. Young, A. Limon, had a smart chat.

September 24, 1844—Tuesday—I attended council at Winsor P. Lyon. Six of the brethren of the Twelve were present, and Elder Joseph Young [senior President of the Seventy]. We selected seventy [p.xxix] presidents to preside over the seventies—over the ten quorums of the seventies then in contemplation, and fifty high priests to preside over different sections of the country. (Brigham Young, History of the Church, Vol. 7, xxix)

December 20, 1844—Willard Richards writes in his journal, “I went out with her [his wife Jennetta] as far as Mr. Lyons where we called and drank a glass of wine were very kindly entertained by Mrs. Lyon.”

3 February 1845—I would remark that on the eighteenth of January that my brother in law Winsor P. Lyon and my cosen Enock B. Tripp were baptized under the hand of brother Heber C. Kimball one of the Twelve this give the connection a time of rejoicing to see them Obey the truth on the twentieth after receiving my indewments in the house of the Lord with Lucina my wife.”

Friday, Aug. 5, 1845—About 6 p.m. Dr. [Franklin Richards] returned and at sundown drove me [Thomas Bullock] to [Windsor] Lyons to get 12 grains of quinine…” [60 grains is about a teaspoon full]

Saturday, Oct. 25, 1845—Copying Baptisms for the dead nearly all day. Doing errands the remainder. That mean little fellow, [Windsor] Lyons, refused to trust Dr. Willard Richards five cents on my [Thomas Bullock] buying some quinine saying “I will not trust Dr. Willard Richards or any one else &c.” when the poor simpelton will have to sacrifice his all at the Drs. feet in a few months. Such is the effect of a grasping avaricious disposition, which proves “it is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven”.

This may be a reason that Windsor did not travel west with the “Saints”, but rather chose to settle in Iowa City. From the account above, he would have had to “sacrifice his all” to the Twelve if he chose to move west with the “Saints”. Also, Windsor had been burned twice loaning money to Mormon “Authorities” and he was probably not keen on giving out any more credit to others.

1 February, 1846—On Sunday morning, February 1, 1846, Heber C. Kimball came to the house of Mr. Windsor P. Lyon in order to rebaptize him into the church and they sent up to the temple and got a large bath tub. The mob violence was so strong, Heber C. Kimball did not dare to do it in public.”

January 26, 1846, Windsor Lyon, now restored to High Priest, accompanied Sylvia to the Nauvoo Temple where she was sealed to the now deceased Joseph Smith for eternity and also sealed to Heber Kimball for time. Sylvia, now married to Smith for eternity, and Kimball and Lyon for time, continued to live with Lyon as man and wife.

January or February 1846, Windsor, living with Sylvia, is sealed to Susanne Eliza Gee for eternity. By February, Sylvia is simultaneously married for time to Kimball and Lyon and Lyon is married to Gee for eternity. But the evidence is that even with this complex polyandrous arrangement, Sylvia and Lyon lived together as man and wife as shown by the fact that Windsor and Sylvia (also still married for time to Kimball) had two more children.

If this behavior is acceptable then, why was it not during Joseph Smith’s lifetime? Why would Sylvia even be married to Kimball for “time” and why would Sylvia agree to it when she was married to Windsor and moved with him to Iowa City a few months later?

April 19, 1846—Patty Sessions receives a letter from “Windsor and Sylvia” from Nauvoo.

June 23, 1846—Patty Sessions receives letter from “Sylvia Dated June 3d said she was going to Iowa in a week.”

The above entries could be taken to mean that they went separately, but we know they did not.

Sunday [February] 14 [1847] Went to meeting then in the evening collected Zina ^Jacobs^ Eliza Snow sister Marcum [Markham] ^at^ sister Buels to pray for Sylvia and child that they might be delivered from bondage and Windsor and David come here with them we prayed sung in toungues spoke in toungues and had a good time then went ^to^ put sister Oakley to bed. (Patty Sessions Diary)

April 21, 1847—Sylvia and Josephine visit Patty Sessions at Winter Quarters.

May 1, 1847—Patty Sessions writes, Sylvia and I went to a meeting to Sister Leonards none but females there we had a good metting I presided it was got up by E R Snow they spoke in toungues I interpreted some prophesied it was a feast.”

May 5, 1847, Sylvia gets ready to leave Winter Quarters to return to Iowa City, and Eliza Snow writes her a poem which Patty records in her diary^[90] Snow writes of Sylvia’s husband Windsor and Josephine,

But thy husband will caress the[e],
And thy sweet angelic child,
With her growng charms will bless thee
Thus the hours will be beguiled, [..]

May 9, 1847—Sylvia leaves Winter Quarters.

September 4, 1847, Byron Windsor Lyon was born to Sylvia and Windsor Lyon.

August 8, 1848, David Carlos Lyon was born in Iowa City to Sylvia and Windsor Lyon.

January, 1849—Windsor Lyon dies in Iowa City, Slyvia remarries Gentile, Ezekiel Clark on January 1, 1850. In July 1849, Heber received a letter from Sylvia requesting her family to come and get her. In October her older brother Perrigrine came to get her. His trip from the west (600 miles through snow) was very difficult and he arrived to find Sylvia getting married to a well to do Gentile: Ezekiel Clark. Perrigrine was upset and returned to Utah with David Jr. In Sacred Loneliness, pg 193) She had three children by Ezekiel before deciding to leave him. She “realized that he was very intolerant of her religion and resentful of the fact that she was sealed to the Prophet.” Perregrine came east once again to take her to Utah. Clark cooperated with her wishes to rejoin her family in Utah. Later Clark traveled to Utah to try and convince her to return with him to Iowa with the children, but she refused. In Utah, Sylvia would go to visit her other husband Heber C. Kimball.

What we found interesting is that in her book “Mormon Midwife” Donna Toland Smart writes that,

“Family tradition also records that during the administration of Wilford Woodruff, Sylvia had the sealing to Joseph Smith canceled and was sealed to Windsor P. Lyon.

This is not a complete list. For example, Emily Partridge claimed that after she left the Smith Mansion House in the fall of 1843, she went to live with Sylvia and Windsor and took care of their newborn infant and slept in the same room with the three of them. For further information about Sylvia & Windsor Lyon, see “Brian Hales Polygamy: Sylvia Lyon & The 1869 Utah Affidavits,” by Johnny Stephenson at Mormonite Musings, online here.

As D. Michael Quinn plainly explains concerning Hales and his closed system of logic,

By contrast, nothing–not co-residence of legally married couples, not saying “I was the wife of another man for time while I continued to live with my legal husband,” not childbirth that the wife attributed to her “other” husband, NOTHING–can satisfy Brian Hales’ calculatedly stringent requirements that are impossible to achieve, unless he finds a Victorian American woman who said, wrote, or testified that she (as a devout Mormon) alternated sexual intercourse with two husbands during a period of time. For example, Hales, “Joseph Smith and the Puzzlement of `Polyandry,'” (“Researchers who accept Josephine’s 1915 statement as evidence that she was Joseph’s offspring cannot easily reject … the implication that [her publicly assumed father] Windsor’s church estrangement was interpreted by Josephine as an official separation or divorce … Neither is there any indication that Josephine thought her mother was simultaneously married to two men polyandrously or that Sylvia [her mother] continued to cohabit with Windsor …”), (“It is true that some later reminiscences [by already-married women] state that their sealings [to Joseph Smith] in Nauvoo were for `time and eternity. ‘However, to assume that the women were remembering the exact language may not be warranted… to presuppose that sexual relations were present based solely on a late memoir that declared a Nauvoo marriage (`polyandrous’ or not) was for `time and eternity’ would be unjustified by the documents alone”), (“observing that a woman lived under the same roof with a man does not verify a sexual connection between her and her legal husband”).In fact, Hales has acknowledged (105-06) that he makes an evidentiary requirement that is unachievable: “… to openly refer to a polyandrous sexual involvement would be very extraordinary. … Hence, the women would be essentially declaring themselves to be unchaste. Zina, Lucinda, and Presendia all partook of the conservative Victorian standards of the time and were devout Latter-day Saints. It seems highly unlikely that these women would make such comments.” (“Quinn, Sexual Side”, 66, note 183).

Even Todd Compton rejects Hales ridiculous assertions,

Finally, one wonders why these “first husbands” apparently acquiesced to their wives’ marriages to Joseph. One possibility is that they were promised spiritual rewards in return. Such was the case with the fathers of three “single” plural wives. When Fanny Alger was married to Joseph, her family looked upon the sealing as an honor to them, according to Ann Eliza Webb. In the same way, when Sarah Whitney was sealed to Joseph, he rebaptized her parents and gave special blessings to her father, Newel Whitney. Heber C. Kimball wanted his daughter Helen to marry Joseph so that there would be an eternal connection between the two families, and Joseph himself told her that the marriage to him would ensure her family’s salvation.

If we can apply these phenomena to the polyandrous families, including the husbands, it would explain some of the dynamics of polyandrous marriages: the husbands may have been promised that Joseph’s marriage to their wives would contribute to their own exaltation after this life. “Buckeye’s Lament,” a piece of anti-Joseph doggerel published shortly before his death, supports this interpretation. “But if you yield willingly,/ Your daughters and your wives,/ In spiritual marriage to our POPE,/ He’ll bless you all your lives;/ He’ll seal you up, be damned you can’t, No matter what you do—If that you only stick to him,/ He swears HE’LL take you through.” The phrase “your daughters and your wives” clearly suggests that Joseph offered salvation to “first husbands,” as well as to the fathers of his brides.

It should also be borne in mind that the men and women involved in Nauvoo polygamy and polyandry did not understand it thoroughly; it was new doctrine; it was not preached openly; and though Joseph taught polygamy to his inner circle, practical experience often differed from didactic religious doctrine. So a husband giving his wife to Joseph may not have understood fully what the marriage meant. Helen Mar Kimball, a non-polyandrous wife, found her marriage to Joseph to mean more on an earthly plane than she had expected. Possibly the husbands and wives in polyandrous triangles had the same experience. In Nauvoo-period theological terminology, there was some ambiguity in the terms “sealing” and “marriage,” and it is possible that some men and women did not understand that “sealing” also meant “marriage” and included sexual relations. It is unfortunate that we do not have a full, frank memoir from even one of the polyandrous “first husbands”; we only have two autobiographies from two polyandrous wives, Mary Elizabeth Rollins and Zina Huntington. (Todd Compton, Dialogue, Vol.29, No.2, 30-31)

A further problem with the Rollins and Huntington autobiographies is that they are very late, and they are extremely apologetic to Joseph Smith. Compton further explains,

About the same time the doctrine of “sealing” for an eternal state was introduced, and the Saints were given to understand that their marriage relations with each other were not valid. That those who had solemnized the rites of matrimony had no authority of God to do so. That the true priesthood was taken from the earth with the death of the Apostles . . . They were married to each other only by their own covenants, and that if their marriage relations had not been productive of blessings and peace, and they felt it oppressive to remain together, they were at liberty to make their own choice, as much as if they had not been married. That it was a sin for people to live together, and raise or beget children in alienation from each other. There should be an affinity between each other, not a lustful one, as that can never cement that love and affection that should exist between a man and his wife.

This is a radical, almost utopian rejection of civil, secular, sectarian, non-Mormon marriage. Such “lower” marriage was even a “sin” unless a higher “affinity” cemented the partners together.

Another relevant doctrinal statement comes from an 1861 speech by Brigham Young, which is preserved in two versions:

Also there was another way—in which a woman could leave [a] man—if the woman Preferred—another man higher in authority & he is willing to take her. & her husband gives her up—there is no Bill of divorce required in the case it is right in the sight of God.

The Second Way in which a wife can be seperated from her husband, while he continues to be faithful to his God and his preisthood, I have not revealed, except to a few persons in this Church; and a few have received it from Joseph the prophet as well as myself. If a woman can find a man holding the keys of the preisthood with higher power and authority than her husband, and he is disposed to take her he can do so, otherwise she has got to remain where she is . . . there is no need for a bill of divorcement . . . To recapitulate. First if a man forfiets his covenants with a wife, or wives, becoming unfaithful to his God, and his preisthood, that wife or wives are free from him without a bill of divorcement. Second. If a woman claimes protection at the hands of a man, possessing more power in the preisthood and higher keys, if he is disposed to rescue her and has obtained the consent of her husband to make her his wife he can do so without a bill of divorcement.

This statement gives two options: (1) if a man apostatizes from the church, his wife can leave him without a formal divorce; (2) if a woman desires to be married to a man with greater priesthood authority than her current husband has, and if both men agree, she may be sealed to the second man without formal divorce. Brigham reports that he learned this from Joseph Smith. In some ways, this principle applies to Joseph’s polyandrous marriages. He clearly was regarded as having more priesthood authority than any other living man, so he would be the most authoritative, spiritually desirable, second husband available.

The emphasis on the woman’s desire is notable. In nineteenth-century Utah there are well-documented cases in which women asked to be married to a general authority. In Nauvoo, however, such cases would not be frequent, as polygamy was still secret. Also interesting is the emphasis on the volition of the first husband. This would be consistent with the suggestion made above, that the first husbands in Joseph’s polyandrous marriages often knew about the marriages and permitted them.

The statement by Jedediah Grant referred to above will now be quoted more fully. My explanations are in brackets:

When the family organization was revealed from heaven—the patriarchal order of God, and Joseph began, on the right and the left, to add to his family, what a quaking there was in Israel. Says one brother to another, “Joseph says all covenants [previous marriages] are done away, and none are binding but the new covenants [marriage by priesthood sealing power]; now suppose Joseph should come and say he wanted your wife, what would you say to that?” “I would tell him to go to hell.” This was the spirit of many in the early days of this Church [i.e., unwilling to consecrate everything to Joseph as mouthpiece of God] . . . What would a man of God say, who felt aright, when Joseph asked him for his money? [he would give it all willingly] Or if he came and said, “I want your wife?” “O yes,” he would say, “here she is, there are plenty more” . . . Did the Prophet Joseph want every man’s wife he asked for? He did not . . . the grand object in view was to try the people of God, to see what was in them. If such a man of God should come to me and say, “I want your gold and silver, or your wives,” I should say, “Here they are, I wish I had more to give you, take all I have got.” A man who has got the Spirit of God, and the light of eternity in him, has no trouble about such matters. (Todd Compton, Dialogue, Vol.29, No.2, 24-25).

Joseph Smith certainly did try to destroy women’s reputations. We have the cases of Sarah Pratt, Martha Brotherton, and Nancy Rigdon to name a few.

“In his endeavors to ruin my [Sarah’s] character Joseph went so far as to publish an extra-sheet containing affidavits against my reputation. When this sheet was brought to me I discovered to my astonishment the names of two people on it, man and wife, with whom I had boarded for a certain time…. I went to their house; the man left the house hurriedly when he saw me coming. I found the wife and said to her rather excitedly: ‘What does it all mean?’ She began to sob. ‘It is not my fault’ said she. ‘Hyrum Smith came to our house, with the affidavits all written out, and forced us to sign them. ‘Joseph and the Church must be saved,’ said he. We saw that resistance was useless, they would have ruined us; so we signed the papers.” (Sarah Pratt, in Wilhelm Wyl, Mormon Portraits, 1886, 62-63).

William Law claimed that,

“My wife would not speak evil of … anyone … without cause. Joseph is a liar and not she. That Smith admired and lusted after many men’s wives and daughters, is a fact, but they could not help that. They or most of them considered his admiration an insult, and treated him with scorn. In return for this scorn, he generally managed to blacken their reputations – see the case of… Mrs. Pratt, a good, virtuous woman.” (William Law, Salt Lake Tribune, January 20, 1887).

George D. Smith writes that,

Nancy Tracy recalled that Smith taught the “Celestial Order of Marriage” only to “a few that could bear it.” Evidently one such person was Ebenezer Robinson, who recalled that the “doctrine of spiritual wives” was “talked privately in the church in Nauvoo, in 1841” but that he was invited to participate in 1843. Hyrum Smith “instructed me in Nov or Dec 1843 to make a selection of some young woman and he would seal her to me, and I should take her home,” he recalled, “and if she should have an offspring give out word that she had a husband, an Elder, who had gone on a foreign mission.” Possibly referring to a secluded birthplace, or conceivably to abortion, Robinson spoke of “a place appointed in Iowa, 12 or 18 miles from Nauvoo to send female vic[t]ims to his polygamous births.” (George D. Smith, Nauvoo Roots of Mormon Polygamy, 1841-46: A Preliminary Demographic Report, Dialogue, Vol.27, No.1, 27).

According to D. Michael Quinn,

One response of the Mormon hierarchy toward an unwelcome messenger has been character assassination founded on a common assumption about the general public: “If you discredit the messenger, you discredit the message.” The logic is flawed but often effective. Linked to character assassination has been the use of excommunication and the designation of “apostate,” particularly in response to partisan accounts of Church history.

Character assassination was common in Nauvoo Mormonism. In 1842, Nancy Rigdon rejected Joseph Smith’s polygamous proposal. She told her family, and her brother went public. As a result, Joseph Smith published affidavits that she had been sexually impure. In another example, Martha Brotherton published an affidavit about her rejection of Joseph Smith’s polygamous proposal. As a result, he had her sister Elizabeth publish the answer that her sister was a whore and a liar. Elizabeth Brotherton later became a plural wife of Apostle Parley P. Pratt. (D. Michael Quinn, 150 Years of Truth and Consequences About Mormon History, Sunstone 16:1/13 (Feb 92).

Orson Hyde used the baseless rumors about Nancy Rigdon in an effort to combat the claims made by Sidney Rigdon in a speech before the High Priests Quorum of Nauvoo in April, 1845:

During my absence to Palestine, the conduct of his [Sidney Rigdon’s] daughter, Nancy, became so notorious in this city, according to common rumor, she was regarded generally, little if any better than a public prostitute. Joseph Smith knowing the conduct she was guilty of, felt anxious to reprove and reclaim her if possible. He, accordingly, requested my wife to invite her down to her house. He wished to speak with her and show her the impropriety of being gallanted about by so many different men, many of whom were comparatively strangers to her. Her own parents could look upon it, and think that all was right; being blind to the faults of their daughter.—There being so many of this kind visiting Mr. Rigdon’s house at the steamboat landing, (for he kept some sort of a tavern or boarding house,) that Mr. Smith did not care to go there to see her. Miss Nancy, I presume, considered her dignity highly insulted at the plain and sharp reproofs she received from this servant of God. She ran home and told her father that Mr. Smith wanted her for a spiritual wife, and that he employed my wife to assist him in obtaining her. This was a good time for Miss Nancy and John C. Bennett to wreak vengeance on the victim of their hatred for his severe admonitions. Mr. Bennett I think, was a boarder at Mr. Rigdon’s at that time, and I am told was all hosey with the whole family. No one like Dr. John C. Bennett. (Speech of Elder Orson Hyde, Delivered Before the High Priest’s Quorum in Nauvoo, April 27th, 1845, upon the course and conduct of Mr. Sidney Rigdon, and upon the Merits of his claims to the Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Nauvoo, Illinois, Printed by John Taylor, 1845, 26-27, Online here, Accessed December 1, 2014.)

The claims made here by Orson Hyde against Nancy Rigdon are demonstrably false. We know that Joseph Smith did make a proposal to Nancy Rigdon to become one of his spiritual wives, because we have a letter from Joseph Smith to Nancy Rigdon written on the 11th of April, 1842, where he tries to justify what many might consider “abominable” behavior [his spiritual wife doctrine] to her.

And why would many women still choose Joseph? It is not hard to understand why when Joseph Smith told them that their salvation and the salvation of their families depended on accepting his propositions. According to Sarah Kimball,

“Joseph Smith taught me the principle of marriage for eternity, and the doctrine of plural marriage. He said that in teaching this he realized that he jeopardized his life; but God had revealed it to him many years before as a privilege with blessings, now God had revealed it again and instructed him to teach with commandment, as the Church could travel [progress] no further without the introduction of this principle.” (“LDS Biographical Encyclopedia” By Elder Andrew Jensen, 6:232, 1887).

Joseph Kingsbury wrote that he served as a surrogate husband for Joseph Smith and that embraced this deception to protect him:

“I according to Pres. Joseph Smith & council & others, I agreed to stand by Sarah Ann Whitney [sealed to Smith 27 July 1843] as though I was supposed to be her husband and a pretended marriage for the purpose of shielding them from the enemy and for the purpose of bringing out the purposes of God.” (Elder Joseph Kingsbury, “History of Joseph Kingsbury Written by His Own Hand,” page 5, Utah State Historical Society).

Why would they question their “prophet” if they are told, as Kingsbury was that it was to bring out the purposes of God? Some never did, they just obeyed Smith. (See Mary Thompson’s testimony above). That none of the women complained is a weak argument by Hales that he uses over and over again. Of course Joseph didn’t talk about the women who turned him down (how many of them there were we may never know); he was lying in public that he even practiced polygamy. He certainly did not just “let it go” in the case of Nancy Rigdon, Sarah Pratt and Martha Brotherton, because they told other people who made it public, and others that Joseph Smith had influenced continued to do so after his death.

[47] Hales, “New Expert,” op. cited. For the original source and interview, see The Saints Herald, Vol. 52, No. 2, January 11, 1905, pp. 29-30, Online here, accessed October 21, 2014.

Zina’s interview with Wight is astounding for her hostility to the man. She absolutely will not reveal that date of her marriage to Joseph Smith. Here is a sample of the interview,

“I believe you claim your brother officiated at the marriage?”

“He did at the first. When Brigham Young returned from England, he repeated the ceremony for time and eternity.

Can you give us the date of that marriage with Joseph Smith?”

“No, sir, I could not.”

“Not even the year?”

“No I do not remember. It was something too sacred to be talked about; it was more to me than life or death. I never breathed it for years. I will tell you the facts. I had dreams—I am no dreamer but I had dreams that I could not account for. I know this is the work of the Lord; it was revealed to me, even when young. Things were presented to my mind that I could not account for. When Joseph Smith revealed this order I knew what it meant; the Lord was preparing my mind to receive it.”

“You say that Brigham Young repeated the ceremony after his return from England?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who first approached you with regard to the subject of plural marriage.”

“I was about to say, that is none of your business.”

Huntington claims that she had “dreams” that prepared her for polygamy and that it was “revealed” to her when she was young. She then claims that when Smith revealed “this order” she knew what it was all about because “the Lord was preparing my mind to receive it”.

Yet, later in the interview Huntington claims that she never heard the question of plural marriage discussed either privately or publicly prior to her having been sealed to Smith. Then she reverses herself and says that “We hardly dared speak of it, the very walls had ears, we spoke of it only in whispers.”

She then claims that her brother told her about polygamy at the behest of Joseph Smith. So Huntington’s testimony here is forced, contradictory, hostile and ultimately untrustworthy. Still, Hales will use it to bolster his own forced claims and irrational assumptions.

[48] Hales, online here, accessed October 21, 2014.

[49] Hales discounts their assertions in part because a certain document was apparently lost by Zina’s family, and that there is only a transcription of it. We have no problem voicing doubt in such a case. Many of the dates for the Smith “marriages” in Nauvoo are questionable, especially the early ones because many were only recalled years later, many in 1869. Some ‘wives” had documentation to back up the dates but many did not because of the need to keep them a secret and Joseph’s penchant for asking people to burn documents.

[50] In addition to Melissa Lott Willes’ family, Smith involved the Whitney family when he demanded Sarah Ann; and the Kimball family when he demanded Helen Mar as a wife, claiming that he could save the entire family if they gave their daughters to him as spiritual wives. See Todd Compton’s “Trajectory”, op. cited above.

[51] Helen Mar Kimball wrote that,

My acquaintance with Sarah Ann Whitney, eldest daughter of Bishop N. K. and Elizabeth Ann Whitney, whose name is mentioned in one of my father’s letters, I began to make in the spring of 1842. Though our parents had long been associated, and we had known each other since the schooldays of Kirtland, but as she was some four years older than myself, who had entered my teens but a few months previous, I had never thought of becoming a companion to her.

I had grown up very fast and my father often took me out with him and for this reason was taken to be older than I was. I really thought it curious that Sarah Ann should take such a fancy to me. My first introduction into her circle was at a party given in honor of her seventeenth birthday, in March, 1842, in the Masonic room above Joseph Smith’s store. The latter her father had charge of, and his family occupied a small house adjoining it. This was quite a select party. Among them were the daughters of Elder Rigdon, Bishop Higbee’s sons, the Miss Pierces, (Margaret Pierce Young being one of them) and Rachel, Mary and Mary Ann Ivins, the former, now Rachel Grant, were cousins, with some of their brothers and many others too numerous to mention, were among the guests. The Prophet spent a little time with them, but took no part. I believe that I was the youngest and I know that I was the most bashful, so much so that I declined nearly every invitation to take part in their various games. If there had been dancing I might have passed through with a better grace, but dancing was not so much approved at that time, at least was not so commonly practiced among the Saints. Sarah Ann’s brother Horace, who was twenty months her senior, made one of the party but had never dreamed of such a thing as matrimony with me, whom he only remembered in the earliest school days in Kirtland as occupying one of the lowest seats. He becoming enough advanced, soon left the one taught in the red schoolhouse on the flat and attended a higher one on the hill, and through our moving to Missouri and Illinois we lost sight of each other. After the party was over I stopped the rest of the night with Sarah, and as her room and his were adjoining, being only separated by a partition, our talk seemed to disturb him, and he was impolite enough to tell us of it, and request us to stop and let him go to sleep, which was proof enough that he had never thought of me only as the green school girl that I was, or he would certainly have submitted gracefully (as lovers always should) to be made a martyr of. No brother and sister could be more affectionately devoted to each other than were Horace and Sarah Ann. He had always been to her like a guardian. This I heard from her mother previous to our intimacy, and it made an impression upon my mind as being admirable and praiseworthy in an elder brother. Soon after this event he was engaged to accompany Amasa Lyman and others, as clerk, to the southern states, where they went to preach and transact some business for Joseph, and after a short absence they returned. He was a printer by trade, and was employed by Don Carlos Smith until the death of the latter, whom he loved as dearly as an own brother. The next autumn after his return from the South the bishop moved his family into a house on Parley Street, nearer to us. About a year after her birthday party she invited my brother and I to attend another small party which, to me, was very pleasant and far more enjoyable than the other, there being present only a few select friends. The Prophet was there during the early part of the evening, and some peculiar remarks which he made, I remember, gave food for talk and no little amount of wit which passed from one to the other after he had left; and William and I talked it over after we returned home, of the enjoyable time and the peculiarities of Joseph. (Helen Mar Kimball, quoted in A Woman’s View, by Richard Neitzel Holzapfel & Jeni Broberg Holzapfel, Religious Studies Center, BYU, 1997, 251-252).

And,

It was not till the summer after he had gone east that I learned of the existence of the plural order of marriage, and that the spring of 1842 had seen his sister Sarah Ann the wife of Joseph Smith. My father was the first to introduce it to me; which had a similar effect to a sudden shock of a small earthquake.

When he found (after the first outburst of displeasure for supposed injury) that I received it meekly, he took the first opportunity to introduce Sarah Ann to me as Joseph’s wife. This astonished me Beyond measure; but I could then understand a few things which had previously been to me a puzzle, and among the rest, the meaning of his words at her party. I saw, or could imagine, in some degree, the great trial that she must have passed through, and that it had required a mighty struggle to take a step of that kind, and had called for a sacrifice, such as few can realize but those who first rendered obedience to this law. It was a strange doctrine, and very dangerous too, to be introduced at such a time, when in the midst of the greatest trouble Joseph had ever encountered. … No earthly inducement could be held forth to the women who entered this order. It was to be a life-sacrifice for the sake of an everlasting glory and exaltation. Sarah Ann took this step of her own free will, but had to do it unbeknown to her brother, which grieved her most, and also her mother, that they could not open their hearts to him. But Joseph feared to disclose it, believing that the Higbee boys would embitter Horace against him, as they had already caused serious trouble, and for this reason he favored his going east, which Horace was not slow to accept. … Sarah felt when she took this step that it would be the means of severing her from the happy circle in which she had moved as one of their guiding stars. She was called proud and somewhat eccentric; but the influence that she seemed to hold over one was almost magnetic. I found her incapable of professing anything which she did not feel, and that she was a most pure-minded, conscientious and God-fearing girl. Our friendship dated from that period, and we became, as much as is possible, like “the two halves of one soul.” (ibid., 252-253).

It is obvious from the above, that Helen had a crush on Horace Whitney and that Joseph forcing her to become one of his Spiritual Wives was a great source of pain for her. She also claimed it was to be a “life sacrifice”. If it were only that she could not associate with friends, how does one explain Flora Woodworth, who was riding around with Orange Wight?

[52] Melissa Lott Wiles, Temple Lot Transcript, Ms d 1160, Box 1 fd 11, Church History Library, 96.

[53] Though it is claimed that Emma gave Joseph four of his wives, we have serious questions about that evidence because all of the accounts begin in the late 1860’s when Joseph F. Smith began compiling affidavits to rebut the claims of his cousins from the Reorganized Church that polygamy was not taught or practiced by their father Joseph Smith.

Concerning Emma Smith, she was opposed to the doctrine from the start, and even though she loved her husband, still rejected it as the evidence shows.

William Clayton wrote on July 12, 1843:

This A.M. I wrote a Revelation consisting of 10 pages on the order of the priesthood, showing the designs in Moses, Abraham, David and Solomon having many wives and concubines &c.42 After it was wrote Presidents Joseph and Hyrum presented it and read it to E[mma] who said she did not believe a word of it and appeared very rebellious. Joseph told me to Deed all the unincumbered lots to E[mma] and the children. He appears much troubled about E[mma]. (George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, 110, Wednesday, July 12, 1843, emphasis ours.)

This is more than likely the first time that Smith admitted to Emma that he was indeed practicing a version of spiritual wifeism that included sexual relations with his “wives”. There is little doubt that Emma suspected him of something before this time, but highly doubtful that Emma participated in or sanctioned any specific “marriages” before this date due to her reaction that she did not believe the “revelation”. William Clayton wrote on June 23, 1843, a few weeks before Joseph wrote the “revelation”:

[June 23, 1843. Friday.] This A.M. President Joseph took me and conversed considerable concerning some delicate matters. Said [Emma] wanted to lay a snare for me. He told me last night of this and said he had felt troubled. He said [Emma] had treated him coldly and badly since I came…and he knew she was disposed to be revenged on him for some things. She thought that if he would indulge himself she would too. (George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, p.108, added emphasis).

This indicates that Emma knew that Joseph was indulging himself, and so (according to Smith) to get revenge, she told him she would indulge herself too. A few weeks later, Smith penned the “revelation” on polygamy, but Emma did not believe it and ultimately burned a copy of it. Then the next day Clayton writes that,

[July 13, 1843. Thursday.] This A.M. Joseph sent for me and when I arrived he called me up into his private room with E[mma] and there stated an agreement they had mutually entered into. (ibid., 110)

This agreement was probably that Joseph would deed the unencumbered lots to her, for two days later Clayton writes that he deeded Emma over 60 city lots. (ibid.) This probably reassured Emma for a time, but didn’t stop her from opposing polygamy.

It was probably Emma that made the suggestion that Joseph deed the “unincumbered lots” to her and the children because she was worried that the additional wives might make some kind of claim on Joseph’s assets.

As to Emma ever actually giving Joseph any of his wives, we are not persuaded by the evidence, which really only amounts to late accounts which were all given after Emily Partridge produced an affidavit in 1869 that Emma was present at a second mock “marriage” ceremony that included both of the Partridge sisters and possibly the Lawrence sisters. Years after Emily Partridge gave her 1869 affidavit she wrote:

The first intimation I had from Brother Joseph that there was a pure and holy order of plural marriage, was in the spring of 1842, but I was not married until 1843. I was married to him on the 11th of May, 1843, by Elder James Adams. Emma was present. She gave her free and full consent. She had always up to this time, been very kind to me and my sister Eliza, who was also married to the Prophet Joseph Smith with Emma’s consent; but ever after she was our enemy. She used every means in her power to injure us in the eyes of her husband, and before strangers, and in consequence of her abuse we were obliged to leave the city to gratify her, but things were overruled otherwise, and we remained in Nauvoo. My sister Eliza found a home with the family of Brother Joseph Coolidge, and I went to live with Sister Sylvia Lyon. She was a good woman, and one of the lord’s chosen few. Emma, about this time, gave her husband two other wives—Maria and Sarah Lawrence. (“Autobiography of Emily D. P. Young,” Woman’s Exponent 13 (1884).

Even though Emily mentions the Lawrence sisters in this account, she did not do so in the 1869 affidavit which reads,

Be it remembered that on this First day of May A.D. 1869, personally Appeared before me, Elias Smith, Probate Judge for Said County, Emily Dow Partridge Young, who was by me Sworn in due form of law, and upon her oath saith that on the eleventh day of May A.D. 1843 at the City of Nauvoo, County of Hancock State of Illinois, She was married or Sealed to Joseph Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, by James Adams, a High-Priest in Said Church; according to the laws of the Same regulating Marriage, in presence of Emma (Hale) Smith, and Eliza Maria Partridge (Lyman). (Emily D. P. Young, affidavit, May 1, 1869 Joseph Smith affidavit books, CHL).

Emily’s sister Eliza also gave an account of their “marriages” to Smith in her autobiography, but she doesn’t mention that there was a second marriage, or that Emma Smith was involved in any way:

After a time, my sister Emily and myself went to live in the family of the Prophet Joseph Smith. We lived there about three years. While there, he taught to us the plan of celestial marriage and asked us to enter into that order with him. This was truly a great trial for me but I had the most implicit confidence in him as a Prophet of the Lord and not but believe his words and as a matter of course accept of the privilege of being sealed to him as a wife for time and all eternity. We were sealed in 1843, by H. C. K [Heber C. Kimball] in the presence of witnesses. I continued to live in his family for a length of time after this but did not reside there when he was martyred which was the 27th of June, 1844. (Lyman, Eliza Marie Partridge Smith, Autobiography (1820-1885)

Eliza Partridge with children

Eliza later burned her journal because she claimed it was “too full”. (Mormon Enigma, 139) In another account, Emily Partridge wrote about her and her sister’s “marriages” to Smith:

It was about this time [February 1843] that the principles of Celestial marriage were being taught to a few. I and my sister Eliza received it and were married to br. Joseph about the same time, but neither of us knew about the other at the time, everything was so secret. This was March of 1843. Joseph had tried to make these things known to me, several months before—I think, in the spring or summer of 1842, but I had shut him up so quick that he said no more to me until the 28th of Feb. 1843, (my nineteenth birthday) and I was married the 4th of March following. (Emily D. P. Young “Incidents of the life of a Mormon Girl,” n.d. MS d 5220 fd 2, CHL)

Eliza Partridge Lyman also gave an affidavit on July 1, 1869 that was almost word for word what her sister had signed on May 1, 1869:

Be it remembered that on this first day of July A. D. 1869 personally appeared before me Edward Partridge, Probate Judge in and for said County, Eliza Maria (P) Lyman who was by me sworn in due form of law and upon her oath saith, that on the eleventh day of May A. D. 1843, at the City of Nauvoo County of Hancock State of Illinois, she was married or sealed to Joseph Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by James Adams a high-Priest in said church, according to the laws of the same regulating marriage; in the presence of Emma (Hale) Smith and Emily Dow Partridge (Joseph F. Smith Affidavit Books, 2:30, 3:30; 2:32, 3:32; 2:33, 3:33; 2:34, 3:34).

There are multiple copies of this affidavit in the Joseph F. Smith Affidavit books, and none of them are signed by Eliza Partridge, while her sister Emily did sign hers along with the Probate Judge, Elias Smith. The date of Eliza’s affidavit is two months later, July 1, 1869, and is also witnessed by her brother Edward Partridge (Jr.), in Fillmore, Utah.

The problem that we see with these affidavits by Eliza is that they also give the same problematic date of May 11, 1843 for the second sham “marriage” that was supposedly attended by Emma Smith. H. Michael Marquardt wrote an Essay titled “Emily Dow Partridge Smith Young on the Witness Stand: Recollections of a Plural Wife”, and spoke of this sham “marriage”. He begins by quoting Emily Partridge’s Temple Lot Testimony:

Q:- Did he [Joseph Smith] offer to take your [Emily Partridge Young] hand then? [in February 1843] A;- No sir.
Q:- Or put his hand around you? A;- No sir.
Q:- He never did any such a thing as that? A;- No sir.
Q:- At any time or place? A;- No sir, – not before we were married.
Q:- Now did he tell you there about the principle of sealing? A;- Yes sir.
Q:- He did? A;- Yes sir.
Q:- He told you all about the doctrine or principle of sealing? A;- Yes sir.
Q:- Was it sealing for eternity? A;- Yes sir, – time and eternity.

Under questioning, Emily confirmed, though somewhat confusedly, that she had already heard rumors of polygamy: There were “reports around that made me think, – that gave me an idea of what it was he wanted to say to me but I did not know what it was about, or had no idea what it was that he wanted to speak to me about any more than that I had heard, which gave me a suspicion of what it was. . . . [T]here was so many reports flying around there in Nauvoo, that I did not pay much attention to it until he spoke to me about it, and then I found out that the reports I had heard were connected with what he had to tell me. I did not think so much about it until he told me himself.”When asked if she had seen the revelation, Emily responded, “No sir.” Then she was questioned:

Q:- How did you come to marry him without seeing it? A;- Well he told me it was all right and I just took his word for it.
Q:- Well did you go and get married without ever knowing it was the law of the church? A;- I got married on his own teachings, – he was the prophet of the church and he told me it was all right and I took his word for it.
Q:- You took his word for it and got married to him in that way on his own teachings? A;- Yes sir, and on my own convictions, for I believed it was all right or he would not have taught me and told me what he did.
Q:- Now did he teach you that a man could have more women then one? A;- Yes sir.
Q:- As wives? A;- Yes sir.
When E. L. Kelley asked about the second ceremony in May 1843, Emily could not remember whether it occurred in the morning or afternoon, but stated positively that it was May 11. The attorney continued:
Q:- Who roomed with Joseph Smith that night, – the night of that day the 11th of May 1843 when you say you and your sister were married to Joseph Smith? A;-Well I don’t want to answer that question.
[By Mr. Hall, -] Q:- Well answer it if you can, if you know? A;- Well it was myself.
Q:- Now you have answered it, and that will do?
[By Mr. Kelley, -] Q:- You roomed with Joseph Smith that night? A;- Yes sir.

Edmund L. Kelley read into the record the record an 1874 affidavit by William Clayton reporting Hyrum Smith’s description of Emma after he read the revelation to her as “very bitter and full of disap[p]ointment and anger.” Emily was asked if Emma turned bitter from the minute she was married. Re-questioned on that point, Emily replied, “Well I might have said that, but I meant from a short time after we were married, – It might have been from the hour we were married. I know she was bitter soon after that, but I can’t say how long it was afterwards that she got that way, but I know it was very soon after that. . . . Well after the next day you might say that she was bitter.” Kelley was obviously trying to ascertain the degree of Emma’s bitterness and asked Emily if the sisters left the Smith home immediately afterward. Emily responded, “We did not leave the house for several months after that. This testimony overlapped her 1887 autobiographical sketch, in which she had written: “From that very hour, however, Emma was our bitter enemy”; still they “remained in the family several months after this.” It is difficult to determine which version most accurately represents 1843 events.

Edmund Levi Kelley

Kelley then read the “History of Joseph Smith” for May 11 as it had been published in the Millennial Star. The day had begun at 6:00 A.M. with baptisms. Emma had gone to Quincy in a new carriage, and Joseph had ridden out on the prairie outside Nauvoo. Obviously there seemed little time for the sealing ceremony involving both Joseph and Emma that Emily had described. Pressed on the point, she responded, “Well it is possible that I have made a mistake in the dates, but I haven’t made any mistake in the facts” and admitted that “it must have been before that.”

Neither sister was keeping a diary at the time; but a more likely reconstruction is that the date of May 11 stuck in Emily’s mind because she was actually among those rebaptized that morning. Joseph had announced the possibility of rebaptism for sins at the April 1841 conference; and both he and Sidney Rigdon were rebaptized on April 11. Wilford Woodruff,who had joined the Church in 1833, and John Taylor were, with many others, “Baptized for the remission of my sins” on March 27, 1842. Willard Richards made the following entry in Smith’s journal on May 11, 1843: “Thursday, May 11th 6 A.M. baptized [blank space] Snow, Louisa Beman, Sarah Alley, &c.” Louisa Beman was Joseph’s first plural wife in Nauvoo, and Sarah Alley was Joseph B. Noble’s plural wife. Thus, although Emily and Eliza Partridge’s names were not recorded, they may have also received the same ordinance, giving the date significance that Emily later attached to the second sealing to Joseph.

Confirming the fact that May 11 is erroneous is the fact that Emily recalled James Adams as the officiator. He arrived in Nauvoo from Springfield on May 21. May 23 is the more likely date when Adams sealed the Partridge sisters to the Prophet Joseph with Emma participation. Willard Richards, who was then keeping Joseph’s diary, recorded that the Prophet was “at home in conversation with Judge Adams and others.”

Kelley then asked Emily:

Q:- Have you got a marriage certificate? A;- No sir.
Q:- Did you ever have one? A;- No sir.
Q:- Why did you not get one? A;- Well it was not thought necessary in those days.

Emily was obviously groping for an answer; this one, though unconvincing, sidesteps the obvious fact that plural marriages were illegal. By this point in Utah, an important part of a plural sealing was obtaining the first (legal) wife’s consent, symbolized by her placing the new wife’s hand in the right hand of her husband. In 1853, the year after the public announcement of plural marriage, Orson Pratt had published part of a plural marriage sealing ceremony. The officiator asks the first wife: “Are you willing to give this woman to your husband to be his lawful and wedded wife for time and for all eternity? If you are, you will manifest it by placing her right hand within the right hand of your husband.” This portion of the ritual had apparently been established in Nauvoo. James Whitehead, a clerk who worked in Joseph Smith’s store and as William Clayton’s assistant, was interviewed by William W. Blair, a counselor in the RLDS First Presidency in 1874. Blair recorded the conversation, with many abbreviations, in his diary:

“[Whitehead] Says J[oseph] did te[ach]- p[olygamy]- and pr[actice]- too. That E[mma]- knows it too that She put h[a]nd of Wives in Jos[eph] ha[n]d W[hitehead]. Says Alex H Smith asked him when sleeping with him at his house in Alton [Illinois on May 14, 1864], if J[oseph] – did p[ractice] & tea[ch]. p[olygamy], and he, W[hitehead]. told him he did.

However, when Kelley asked Emily, “Did Emma take your hand and place it in Joseph Smith’s hand?” Emily responded evasively, “I think she did” but then backtracked even further: “I could not swear to it at all.”( H. Michael Marquardt, Emily Dow Partridge Smith Young on the Witness Stand: Recollections of a Plural Wife, Journal of Mormon History 34 (Summer 2008):196-198, PDF, Online here, Accessed December 4, 2014).

Yet, Brian Hales claims that,

Emily Partridge testified that Emma took her hand and placed it in Joseph’s Smith’s hand. (Hales, josephsmiths polygamy.org, “Emma’s Response?”, Online here, Accessed November 1, 2014.

Actually, the testimony reads,

488 Q. Did Emma take your hand and place it in Joseph Smith’s hand. A. I think she did.
489 Q. Well are you willing to swear on your oath that she did? A. Well no, It seems to me that way, but then I think she did, but I could not swear to it at all.
490 Q. You cannot swear that she did? A. No sir.
500 Q. Have you seen that done since that time? A. Well I don’t remember whether I did or not.
501 Q. Did not Brigham Young’s wife do that with you when you married Brigham Young? A. No sir.
502 Q. Why did she not do it? A. She was not present.
503 Q. Well did she give consent to your marrying Brigham Young? A. No sir, not to my knowledge, for she was not there.

She actually could not remember or swear to it. “I think she did”, is hardly a testimony that she did so, but this is how Brian Hales misconstrues the evidence to favor his own narrative.

Michael Marquardt shows that the May 11 date for the second “marriage” is highly unlikely and so proposes another, May 23. But this date also has problems. William Clayton recorded in his Diary,

Conversed with H[eber] C. K[imball] concerning a plot that is being laid to entrap the brethren of the secret priesthood by Brother H[?] and others. Attended to much tax business with sundry brethren…President Joseph and lady rode to his farm. Evening President gave up lot 4 B 148 which he agreed to purchase of Asa Smith some time ago in consequence of Asas wanting to drag all money out of President and paying it for land else to here. President said such covetous minded men would be damned. President stated to me that he had had a little trouble with Sister E[mma]. He was asking E[liza] Partridge concerning [Joseph] Jackson[‘s] conduct during Presidents absence and E[mma] came upstairs. He shut to the door not knowing who it was and held it. She came to the door and called Eliza 4 times and tried to force open the door. President opened it and told her [p.106] the cause &c. She seemed much irritated. He says Jackson is rotten hearted.

May the Lord preserve me from committing a fault to cause me to lose the confidence of my friends for I desire to do right thou Lord knowest. (George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, 105-106).

Clayton records that Emma and Joseph rode to his farm during the day, while Eliza and Emily were at the Smith House, and that upon their return and in the evening was with Clayton and told Clayton that he “had a little trouble with Sister Emma”. While they were gone it seems the Partridge sisters had spoken to Joseph Jackson and Smith was worried about his conduct during his absence. He was quizzing Eliza about this when Emma came upstairs and tried to get into the room, but Joseph held the door shut on her, which “much irritated” Emma. It doesn’t seem likely that there was any kind of “marriage” on this day. Since Smith confided in his private secretary who recorded many of Joseph’s “marriages”, it is odd that he would not mention anything in his journal if one took place on that day.

Judge Adams was present on May 28, 1843, when Willard Richards records that, “Joseph and J.[ames] Adams <were married> [were sealed for eternity to their wives.]” (Scott H. Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 381). This would be Joseph’s sealing to his wife Emma. It is unlikely at this time that Emma accepted all the ramifications of her husband’s spiritual wifeism, because just six weeks later she did not believe the “revelation” Joseph claimed to have had about it.

Emily Partridge Affidavits – signed but not notarized

But what about those 1869 affidavits that were gotten up by Joseph F. Smith? In the summer of 1869 two of Joseph Smith’s sons, David and Alexander took a trip to Utah. They preached against polygamy. It is obvious that the affidavits collected by Joseph F. Smith at this time were to counter the claims of the RLDS Missionaries being sent to Utah. One such affidavit was supplied by Lovina Smith Walker, sister of Joseph F. Smith:

I, Lovina Walker hereby certify, that while I was living with Aunt Emma Smith, in Fulton City Fulton Co. Illinois, in the year 1846, that she told me, that She, Emma Smith was present and witnessed the marrying or Sealing of Eliza Partridge, Emily Partridge, Mariah Lawrence, and Sarah Lawrence to her husband, Joseph Smith, and that She gave her concent there to.

Lovina Walker

We hereby witness that Lovina Walker made and Signed the above Statement, on this sixteenth day of June A.D. 1869 at Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co. Utah Territory of her own freewill and accord.

Hyrum S. Walker

Sarah E. Smith

Joseph F. Smith (1869 Affidavit Book 1, 30)

Walker claims that Emma told her in 1846 that she was present and gave her consent to the “marriage” of Joseph Smith to the Partridge and Lawrence Sisters. Considering Emma Smith’s hostility to polygamy and that she denied to her sons that their father ever practiced it, this admission seems (as they say) too good to be true and should be considered in the context of which it was produced (to counter the claims made by Emma and her sons).

Eliza Partridge Affidavits – neither signed by her or notarized, affidavit which describes witnessing Emily’s marriage on May 11th, was changed from original, (Emma Smith’s name was added by Joseph Fielding Smith).

Aside from the dates mentioned above, there are further problems with the claims made by Emily Partridge and Lovina Smith. What is interesting is that this affidavit was included in the same affidavit books, which is was copied from William Clayton’s journal:

Territory of Utah SS. County of Salt Lake
“Wednesday Aug. 16th. 1843. This a.m. Joseph told me that since Emma came back from St. Louis, she had resisted the principle [of plural marriage] in toto, and he had to tell her he would relinquish all for her sake. She said she would give him Eliza and Emily Partridge, but he knew if he took them she should pitch on him, and obtain a divorce and leave him. He however told me he should not relinquish anything. O! God deliver thy Servant from (this) iniquitous Bondage.”
The foregoing is a true and correct copy of entry in William Clayton’s Journal, kept at the time as pr. date, as witnesseth our hands.
Salt Lake City
Joseph F. Smith
Aug. 17- 1869-
John Henry Smith
Robt. L. Campell (p. 68)

First, Judge Adams (who Emily claimed performed the ceremony) died on August 11, 1843, five days before Smith told William Clayton that Emma supposedly told him that she would “give” Joseph the Partridge sisters. (Notice that there is no mention made of the Lawrence girls). So how could they have been given to Joseph by Emma in May, June, July or even August in a second mock ceremony to Joseph by James Adams?

On the 16th of August Emma also rejects polygamy “in toto”, and Smith had to lie to her that he would “relinquish all for her sake”. Also, why would Emma give Joseph any of them when she had rejected polygamy “in toto”?

Joseph after this mentions the Partridge sisters, but the context appears to be future tense (Emma claimed she would give them to Joseph, who said “if he took them…”). Why would Joseph tell this to Clayton in August, if he had already taken them in May with Emma present?

So how and when could Emma have given Joseph the Partridge Sisters and the Lawrence girls? The contemporary evidence does not support the timeline that Emily Partridge suggests, (given the August entry of William Clayton). The only real evidence we have are three affidavits made in 1869, which have erroneous dates that do not match the contemporary evidence.

More than likely at some point Joseph got Emma to speculate on who she perhaps might choose if Joseph would give up the rest, but that seems to be as far as it went. The diary entry does not suggest whose idea this was initially. There is no contemporary evidence at all that Emma even knew about the Lawrence sisters at this time. Years later William Law would recall,

Emma complained about Joseph’s living with the L[awrence] girls, but not very violently. It is my conviction that she was his full accomplice, that she was not a bit better than he.

Yet we know from the contemporary evidence that this is not true, she did complain strenuously and rejected polygamy “in toto” by the summer of 1843. Since Emma did not divorce Joseph over polygamy, it would be easy for William Law to believe that she was a willing partner. Especially when he claims,

“Well, I told you that she used to complain to me about Joseph’s escapades whenever she met me on the street. She spoke repeatedly about that pretended revelation. She said once: “The revelation says I must submit or be destroyed. Well, I guess I have to submit.” On another day she said: “Joe and I have settled our troubles on the basis of equal rights.”

This is so vague that it is hard to know exactly what Emma meant or what timeframe we can apply these comments to except that they were after July 1843. But Emma did propose to indulge herself as Joseph was, and perhaps this was what she was alluding to. In an earlier recollection that Law gave to William Wyl in a letter dated January 1, 1887, Law spoke about Wyl’s book and mentions the claims of supposed “wife swapping”. Law claims that this was never suggested by Smith but that,

The story may have grown out of the fact that Joseph offered to furnish his wife, Emma, with a substitute for him, by way of compensation for his neglect of her, on condition that she would forever stop her opposition to polygamy and permit him to enjoy his young wives in peace and keep some of them in her house and to be well treated, etc.

William Clayton may help us to put this into a timeframe. He wrote on June 23, 1843 that Joseph told him that Emma,

…knew she was disposed to be revenged on him for some things. She thought that if he would indulge himself she would too.

And yet, Joseph writes a revelation just a few weeks later which claims that if Emma were to “indulge herself” with other men, she would be “destroyed”.

A month after this “revelation”, Joseph himself claims that he told Emma that he would “relinquish all” for her sake but this doesn’t support what Joseph himself said. If Emma was going to give him two (or four) wives, why did she want him to “relinquish all”?

This is addressed by Emily who claims that as soon as the “ceremony” was over, Emma reversed herself about the “marriages”. But then if this is so, why would she then submit to this again with the Lawrence girls as Emily states? This makes little sense. Also, Emily Partridge’s story seemed to change on the stand as she was questioned. First she was angry the next day, then a few hours later. She had written just a few years earlier in an autobiography that Emma was angry and bitter from the moment they were “married”.

Affidavits of Eliza Partridge. These are the originals, signed and notarized but do not mention Emma Smith presence at the marriage.

Affidavits of Eliza Partridge which claim that Emma Smith witnessed the “marriage” on May 11, 1843.

It sounds more like Joseph was asking Emma about the Partridge girls and that Emma wasn’t really serious about giving them to him, because Joseph himself stated that if he were to go through with it Emma would leave him and divorce him. The irony is, Joseph had already “married” them.

Perhaps these affidavits were gotten up by Joseph F. Smith to make it appear that Emma had “given” Joseph at least a few of his wives to answer the claims being made by Joseph’s sons and Emma herself, who is also not a very credible witness since she also lied about her knowledge of Joseph’s spiritual wife doctrine. In fact, Emily Partridge’s Temple Lot testimony seems to reflect this,

I think it was in May, Emma had consented that he should have more wives than one, and she had consented to this, we were married again I think it was in May, for she had given her consent that we should be married, that she had chosen myself and my sister, and we were married in her presence again because we thought proper to say nothing about the former marriage, and it was done over again on the 11th of May 1843 in her presence, and she gave her consent fully and freely and voluntarily… (Emily Partridge, Temple Lot Transcript, op. cited, 351, Q. 25)

It would have been very easy for Emily to have read the diary entry by William Clayton in the affidavit book and then craft a story that seemed to fit what Clayton had written. The problem was making the dates fit, which she had difficulty doing. H. Michael Marquardt writes,

This conversation, [on August 16, 1843] confusingly, sounds as if Joseph had not yet married the two sisters once (let alone twice) and, furthermore, that the incident had not occurred in which, at Emma’s insistence, Joseph shook hands with the girls, thereby dissolving his sealings to them—an action that Emily, at least, took seriously. (Marquardt, op. cited, 188-89).

Lovina Walker’s statement also has problems. Emma was in full denial then, even to her sons. Her son David was shocked when he learned of Emma’s knowledge of her husband’s polygamy, which he did not learn until after these affidavits came forth.

If Emma had been admitting to having taken part in polygamous marriage ceremonies in 1846, it seems that at least her older son would have known about it and communicated this to his brothers. Lovina was also Joseph F. Smith’s sister, and her bias towards the Utah Church can’t be ignored here.

A few days later on August 21, Clayton reports that Emma is still “vexed and angry” over finding some letters from Eliza Snow in Joseph’s pocket. (Smith, Clayton’s Diaries, 118) From there, it didn’t get any better. She had rejected polygamy “in toto” a week before, and there is no evidence that she changed her mind about it, but that she became more turned against it, later siding with William Marks who had also rejected the teaching. Clayton wrote on August 23:

…President Joseph told me that he had difficulty with E[mma] yesterday. She rode up to Woodworths with him and called while he came to the Temple. When he returned she was demanding the gold watch of F[lora]. He reproved her for her evil treatment. On their return home she abused him much and also when he got home. He had to use harsh measures to put a stop to her abuse but finally succeeded… (Smith, Clayton’s Diaries, 118)

Then, in September Willard Richards wrote that Joseph:

Walked up and down St[reet] with Scribe and gave instructions to try those who were preaching, teaching, or practicing the doctrine of plurality of wives on this Law. Joseph forbids it and the practice thereof. No man shall have but one wife. (Scott H. Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 417).

Could this have been part of a proposed bargain between Emma and Joseph, allowing him to keep the Partridge sisters if he “relinquished all”? If it was, Joseph did not sound very convinced that she would go through with it, but it appears that Joseph at least made an effort to publicly state that there would be no polygamy in the church, which may have appeased Emma for a time.

Joseph would not give up his wives and so why then would Emma fulfill her part of the bargain to “give” him the Partridge sisters? Remember, Joseph here is telling Clayton that Emma wanted him to “relinquish all” for her sake, so she had to know about some of his previous marriages. It may well be that Emma didn’t know that all the “marriages” were for time, and when she found out, was “vexed and angry.”

In trying to prove that Joseph Smith taught and practiced polygamy, Joseph F. Smith may have gone too far as this supposed eye witness affidavit shows:

Territory of Utah SS.County of Salt Lake
Be it remembered that on this twenty-eighth day of August A.D. 1869 personally appeared before me, James Jack, a Notary Public in and for Said county, Nathan Tanner who was by me sworn in due form of law, and upon his oath Saith, that, in the Spring of 1844 at Montroes, Lee County, Iowa, he heard President Joseph Smith, while in conversation with himself, Harrison Sagers, [blank] Daniels and others, teach the doctrine of Celestial Marriage or plurality of wives, and subsequently he heard the Prophet teach the doctrine publicly from the Stand in Nauvoo, in a manner that he perfectly understood, not only that the Prophet believed it, but that it was in force at that time.
Subscribed and sworn to
by the Said Nathan Tanner
the day & year first written
James Jack
Notary Public [seal] (Affidavit Book 1, 76).

Joseph never preached polygamy publicly from the Stand in Nauvoo. The historical record is replete with his denials that polygamy was taught or practiced in the church. While many of the other 1869 affidavits concerning Joseph’s marriages may be verified by the historical facts (like Diary entries, church records, etc) they should be taken with caution.

In the case of Emily Partridge, a little suggesting by Joseph F. Smith (citing Clayton’s Journal) may have convinced her that Emma would have given her and her sister to Joseph, and so it was all right to claim that she did so. Certainly there are serious problems with Emily Partridge’s account about the supposed second mock ceremony. There are also other problems with her Temple Lot testimony. First, she can’t remember the time of day, though she claims to remember the date, where it was and that Emma was there distinctly:

Q. And the second time [you were married] what time was it? A. It was in the afternoon I think.
Q. Whose house the last time? A. Joseph Smith’s own house.
Q. You were married the first time to him at Heber C. Kimball’s house in the evening after supper, and the next time you were married to him at this own house in the afternoon? A. Yes sir. (Partridge, op. cited, 361)

She remembers confidently the details of her first “marriage” to Smith but not the alleged second mock marriage. She can remember the exact date of her alleged second “marriage” to Smith, but can’t remember the month or day she “married” Brigham Young (It was in September of 1844),

Q. Then you were married to Brigham Young in the fall of the same year that Joseph Smith died? A. Yes sir.
Q. Can you give the date of that marriage? A. No sir, I cannot.
Q. Can you give the month in which you were married to Brigham Young? A. No sir, I cannot even give you the month.
Q. Can you come within two months of the time that you were married to Brigham Young? A. I can’t say. I think it was in November, but I would not be positive of that.
Q. You say you think it was in November? A. Yes sir.
Q. That you were married to Brigham Young? A. Yes sir, but I could not be positive, that is merely a guess so to speak. (ibid., 362)

She is forced to guess with her marriage to Young, but distinctly remembers the month and day of her second “marriage” to Smith? (One that is apparently wrong). She also claims that she spent the night with Smith after this second “marriage” while Emma was in the house,

Q. Who roomed with Joseph Smith that night, the night of that day the 11th of May 1843 when you say you and your sister were married to Joseph Smith? A. Well I don’t want to answer that question.
Q. Well answer it if you can, if you know? A. Well it was myself.
Q. You roomed with Joseph Smith that night? A. Yes sir.
Q. Where was Emma? A. She was in her room I suppose. I don’t know where she was but that was where I supposed she was.
Q. Was she there? A. I supposed she was there in her room.
Q. Was she there at the house? A. Yes sir. (ibid., 364)

Kelly then proceeds to debunk the May 11, 1843 date for the second “marriage”, and Emily’s backpedaling begins. Emily claims that Emma turned “bitter” almost right after the ceremony and so this makes it very unlikely that Emma would have allowed Joseph to sleep in Emily’s room that very night. Kelly then asks,

Q. Well is that the truth? [That Emma turned bitter]. A. Well I say I think she did turn against us. I did not make any affidavit that it was true though.
Q. You did not make any affidavit that Emma was there at all? A. No sir.
Q. Well would you make an affidavit that she was there at all? A. Yes sir.

Kelly then asks,

Q. You have not made a mistake in the facts. A. No sir.
Q. But you have made a mistake in the date? A. Yes sir, but I have made none in the fact that we were married.
Q. Well now was it before or after this date then? A. That we were married to Joseph Smith?
Q. Yes ma’am. A. Well it must have been before that. [May 11, 1843]
Q. It must have been before that? A. Yes sir, if I have made a mistake in the dates it must have been before that.
Q. But you have been claiming ever since 1843 that it was the 11th day of May that you were married to him the last time? A. It has been in my mind ever since that that was the date. (ibid., 366)

Here Emily denies that she ever made any affidavit that Emma was present and consented to a “marriage” to Joseph Smith though we know she made one in 1869. This is hard to fathom when Emily had written an article for the Woman’s Exponent just eight years earlier and affirmed that she and her sister had done so.

In the same article written by Emily Partridge which mentions an affidavit produced by E. C. Brand and that he claimed that,

“J. Adams denied performing the ceremony, in 1873, while in London, and in the presence of Emma Smith, who also denies any knowledge of such a marriage, on her death bed.”

In rebuttal, Emily Partridge claimed,

Emma was a witness to Joseph taking plural wives, on one occasion at least, and if she had denied it on her death bed (which is very hard to believe) even forty times over, it does not destroy the facts; and as to J[ames]. Adams denying that he performed the marriage ceremony, I think it is a mistake. It might have been George J. Adams that denied it, but the one I mentioned in my affidavit was James Adams, generally known as Judge Adams, of Springfield, Ill. He did not reside in Nauvoo, but was there on a visit. I do not think he would deny it, unless he had apostatized, and I know an apostate will say and do almost anything to injure the truth. But if he and Emma, and every other witness should deny it, the fact still remains. Emma seemed to feel well until the ceremony was over, when, almost before she could draw a second breath, she turned, and was more bitter in her feelings than ever before, if possible. She had, as it were, bound us to the ship and carried us to mid ocean, then threw us over board to sink or swim, as the case might be.

She often made things very unpleasant, but I have nothing in my heart towards her but pity. I know it was hard for Emma, and any woman to enter plural marriage in those days, and I do know know as anybody would have done any better than Emma under the circumstances. I think Emma always regretted having any hand in getting us into such trying circumstances. But she need not have blamed herself for that, in the least, for it would have been the same with or without her consent, and I have never repented the act that made me a plural wife. (“Testimony that Cannot be Refuted”, Woman’s Exponent, Vol. 12, No. 21, 165, April 1, 1884, Online here, Accessed December 11, 2014).

And there is the gist of it and Emily’s justification: “it would have been the same with or without her consent,” So why not pretend that Emma was really there if it would help the church? In her Temple Lot testimony Emily put it this way when she was confronted about the bogus date of the claimed second mock marriage, that there was no mistake that she and Joseph were “married”. Yes, but not with Emma present.

It should be noted that in the Exponent article Emily also mentions and quotes from the affidavit of her sister Eliza. There are problems though, with these affidavits. Why would Eliza sign two affidavits that are exactly identical except one does mention Emma Hale Smith being a witness and one does not? Why would Joseph F. Smith then copy the affidavit that does not mention Emma into Affidavit Book 2 and insert Emma’s name?

It is hard to believe that Emily Partridge did not know or could not remember that James Adams (the man who “married” her and her sister) had died in Nauvoo on August 11, 1843. William Clayton mentions on August 16 in his diary that “We returned and met President Joseph and some of the family going to the funeral of Judge Adams.” Since the Partridge sisters supposedly lived in the Homestead at the time, it is hard to believe that Emily would not have known about Adam’s funeral or that Joseph attended it.

Though it cannot be completely ruled out that Emma did participate in four of Joseph Smith’s marriages, the evidence that says that she did is all based on late recollections which begin in 1869. We believe that the historical record should reflect the problems with this claim, and that the Mormon Church today needs to reflect this in their publications, which for the most part accept this as fact. For example, the new Essay published by the Church on Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo reads,

Emma approved, at least for a time, of four of Joseph Smith’s plural marriages in Nauvoo, and she accepted all four of those wives into her household. She may have approved of other marriages as well. (Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo, op. cited above).

This is footnoted with testimony by Emily Partridge and the Joseph F. Smith affidavits which Andrew Jenson based some of his evidence upon in the Historical Record. They also mention an account by Orson Pratt in the Journal of Discourses which was made in 1869, also after the affidavits had been produced. Aside from these late accounts, there is no evidence that Emma ever did “lead forth ladies and place their hands in the hands of Joseph,” as Orson Pratt claims.

Emily Partridge’s recollections are full of errors. All that can be said is that she claimed that Emma approved of and gave her consent to her and Eliza’s mock “marriage” to Joseph. Her firm date of May 11, 1843 has been overturned by the historical facts. Additionally, her sister Eliza also supposedly remembered the exact same erroneous date for the second “marriage” two months after Emily made her affidavit. This raises questions about all of the affidavits made in 1869 that have to do with Emma Smith consenting to and giving Joseph additional “wives”.

Hales also uses testimony from Benjamin F. Johnson from 1904 to try and support the notion that Emma approved and consented to some of Joseph’s polygamous marriages. But in an 1870 affidavit by Johnson printed in the Historical Record, he does not mention this. In William Clayton’s 1874 affidavit he does concede that Emma was “cognizant” of Joseph’s “marriages” to other women, but he does not mention Emma agreeing or consenting to them. He does mention that she generally treated these women “very kindly”, but we don’t know the timeframe for this. We do know that Emma did not treat Eliza Snow very kindly, nor Emily and Eliza Partridge by her own words after Joseph admitted to having them for wives.

Lucy Walker Smith Kimball

Lucy Walker also testified that Emma approved of and consented to Joseph’s polygamous “marriages” claiming that,

Emma Smith, the Prophet’s first wife, gave her consent to the marriage of at least four other girls to her husband, and that she was well aware that he associated with them as wives within the meaning of all that word implies. This is proven by the fact that she herself, on several occasions, kept guard at the door to prevent disinterested persons from intruding, when these ladies were in the house. (Andrew Jenson, The Historical Record, Vol. 6, 230, Online here, Accessed December 11, 2014).

This testimony has serious problems. Emily Partridge herself recanted her initial testimony that she spent the night with Smith after her alleged May 1843 “marriage” to Joseph. It is hard to believe that Emma would have been guarding the door while Joseph was having sex with his polygamous wives. Also, four of the “wives” supposedly lived in the house for an extended period of time. Was Emma Smith guarding the door constantly while they were in the house? This seems unlikely. Lucy also claims that she moved in with her brother in August of 1843 so she would not have been in the Mansion House for very long. (p. 458) Walker claims that she was living in the house with the Smith Family and the Partridge and Lawrence sisters, but then claims that the Lawrence sisters “were not there prior to the time of moving into the Mansion House” which was in November of 1843.

We believe that these recollections should be taken with extreme caution until further evidence comes forth to verify that Emma did indeed consent to four of Joseph’s polygamous marriages. Johnny Stephenson will soon be publishing an article on Emma Smith & The 1869 Utah Affidavits which will go into this in much more detail and will have new additional evidence which supports the above contentions.

[54] Zina D. H. Young—Undated Biographical Sketch, in Zina Card Brown Collection, CHL, MS 4780, Box 2, Fd. 17, Reel 2.

[55] Brian Hales, op. cited, Zina Diantha Huntington “Overview”, Online here, Accessed December 1, 2014).

[56] John Wight, “Evidence from Zina D. Huntington Young,” Interview with Zina, October 1, 1898, Saints Herald, Vol. 52, 29, (January 11, 1905), Online here, Accessed December 11, 2014).

[57] The undated sketch attributed to Zina Young reads,

[page 1]

Sept 29th 1840 my Father married Lydia Partridge the widow of Bishop Edward Partridge

[…]
I attended school the winter after Father’s marriage.
[…]
When I heard that God had revealed the law of celestial marriag that we would have the privilige of associating in family relationship in the worlds to come I searched the scriptures & by humble prayer to my Heavenly Father I obtained a testimony for himself that god had required that order to be established in his church. I mad a greater sacrifise than to give my life for I never anticipated again to be look uppon as an honerable woman by those I dearly loved coud I compremise concience lay aside the sure testimony of the spirit of God for the glory of this world

[…]
I head the words of the Prophet of God saying (at King Folletts funeral) all you that will not oppose the doctrin that God reveals through me I will see you enter celestial glory his teachings were in evry respect to benefit the human family

[…]

[page 2]

a perfect cure for infidelity, for we love our Father & mother in heaven for we had an existence prior to our coming here in that relationship that \is most/ endeare in our Father’s family in this second estate we get our material body […] (Zina D. H. Young—Undated Biographical Sketch, in Zina Card Brown Collection, MS 4780, Box 2, Fd. 17, original spelling retained)

Zina reveals some of Joseph’s arguments for polygamy, which include a “perfect cure for infidelity”, that he could see them “enter a celestial glory” and preexistence. What better argument to make to those who were taught that this was adultery than this was actually a cure for it? As Ann Eliza Young wrote,

Again, he would appeal to their religious sentiments, and their strong desire to enter into the celestial kingdom. He used often to argue in this manner while endeavoring to convince some wavering or unwilling victim: “Now my dear sister, it is true that your husband is a good man, a very good man, but you and he are by no means kindred spirits, and he will never be able to save you in the celestial kingdom; it has been revealed by the Spirit that you ought to belong to me.”

One woman [Zina Huntington] said to me not very long since, while giving me some of her experiences in polygamy: “The greatest trial I ever endured in my life was living with my husband and deceiving him, by receiving Joseph’s attentions whenever he chose to come to me.”

This woman, and others, whose experience has been very similar, are among the very best women in the church; they are as pure-minded and virtuous women as any in the world. They were seduced under the guise of religion, taught that the Lord commanded it, and they submitted as to a cross laid upon them by divine will. Believing implicitly in the Prophet, they never dreamed of questioning the truth of his revelations, and would have considered themselves on the verge of apostasy, which to a Mormon is a most dangerous and horrible state, from which there is no possible salvation, had they refused to submit to him and to receive his “divine” doctrines. (Ann Eliza Young, op. cited, 70-71, added emphasis).

This shows that Ann Eliza Webb was certainly familiar with Smith’s arguments in relation to polygamy, the same ones he made to Zina Huntington it seems.

[58] Melissa Lott Willes, Temple Lot Transcript, op. cited, 105-106.

[59] Hales has finally posted all of his polygamy research online here, Accessed December 1, 2014, and though it is searchable, it is still rather jumbled up, and in many cases there are only excerpts of documents. Still, it is a valuable resource and contains many documents that are not available anywhere else online. We would recommend going here to research Joseph Smith’s polygamy and to evaluate the evidence that Hales provides. There are essential documents though, that are not located here, for example, the Temple Lot Transcripts which can be accessed at the Church History Library.

[60] This graphic can be found within this essay given by Brian Hales at the 2012 FAIRMORMON Conference, titled “Joseph Smith’s Sexual Polyandry and the Emperor’s New Clothes: On Closer Inspection, What Do We Find?”

[61] The presentism that Hales employs is to interpret Section 132 as simply a revelation on eternal marriage with polygamy as a side issue is nothing new. This was a necessity in the aftermath of the Manifesto. Still, one must totally misread the entire “revelation” to do so. It is so disingenuous that no one takes the view that Hales does except Mormon apologists (and selected “authorities” after the Manifesto) whose only concern is changing how polygamy is defined (by them) in the pre-Manifesto period to defend its discontinuance as a necessary ordinance.

There are many examples of what Mormons of that Era taught about the polygamy “revelation”. Erastus Snow claimed that,

When the Lord determined to bless and multiply Abraham and His seed, He commanded that they should take of time daughters of Eve for wives and multiply and increase in the land. I do not say that plural marriage was not practiced prior to this time, but I say from and after Abraham it was enjoined upon Israel, the seed of Abraham, for a wise and glorious purpose in Him, namely, that of increasing them and giving them the ascendency among the nations of the earth, as I once heard the Prophet Joseph remark. In speaking of these things, and inquiring wherefore God had enjoined plural marriage upon Abraham and his seed, his answer was, because He had purposed to multiply and increase them in the land and make of them a great people and give them the ascendency over other peoples of the earth, and that because, as he said of Abraham, He knew that He would serve Him and command his seed after Him. (Erastus Snow, Journal of Discourses Vol. 26, 217-218, May 31, 1885. added emphasis, Online here, Accessed December 14, 2014).

Still, Hales claims,

Joseph Smith asked God about polygamy (D&C 132:1). In response, the revelation speaks of eternal marriage, which is Joseph’s zenith doctrine. Plural marriage is [sic] small but necessary component. Non-sexual “eternity only” sealings fulfill the primary purpose of plural marriage in Joseph’s cosmology.

These are “meaty” teachings easily misunderstood (see D&C 19:22). I wish they were easier to grasp, but those who embrace them and live worthily are promised an eternal reward (D&C 132:19-20). (Hales, “Rational Faiths”, Comment made on July 15, 2014, added emphasis.)

Where does Hales get the idea that polygamy is a small component of this revelation? This is only his opinion and is disputed by every single “authority” from pre-Manifesto times; and by Joseph Smith himself in his polygamy “revelation”. There is no evidence at all that there were “non sexual eternity only sealings” in Joseph Smith’s time, or that polygamy was only a “small” component of the “revelation”.

We have the testimony of many of Smith’s wives, like Helen Mar Kimball, who claimed that the only reason to practice polygamy was to raise up “righteous seed”. And once again we see Hales making the claim that this is a “meaty” teaching that is easily misunderstood. Not really. Smith himself said,

God hath not revealed anything to Joseph, but what he will make known unto the Twelve, and even the least Saint may know all things as fast as he is able to bear them… (Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 150-151).

Samuel O. Bennion taught that the teachings of Joseph Smith are easy to understand,

It is the duty and labor of Latter-day Saints to deliver unto the children of men the message which the Lord has revealed in these the last days. He spoke unto Joseph Smith. He said the things Joseph Smith declared he said. He delivered unto him the gospel, and the Prophet wrote and preached it. There isn’t any doubt about it. I know as I stand here, and I say it to all the world: If there is an honest man, a man or a woman with a heart that desires to know the truth, that knowledge can come unto them. It is easy to receive, easy to understand. The gospel is not full of mysticisms or of things that cannot be understood, but it is a plain and simple plan which the children of men may follow and thereby go back into the presence of our Father in heaven. And unless they do this they cannot return where he is, worlds without end; so says the scripture given by the Prophet Joseph Smith. (Samuel O. Bennion, Conference Report, October 1921, 56, added emphasis).

Why would Joseph’s “Zenith Doctrine”, be hard to understand? It is only so to those who are trying to explain it in a way that it was never meant to be explained. The polygamy “revelation” is just that, a “revelation” justifying the practice of polygamy. Though “sealing” for time and eternity is integral to the practice, the thrust of Section 132 is procreation on earth and in heaven, and the “continuation of the seeds”, which is essential to godhood. To do this, a man needs many partners here and in the afterlife. The “righteous seed” born “under the covenant” here, raise those who become kings and priests and gods in the next life to even higher glory. This aspect of polygamy seems lost on Brian Hales, or downplayed to utter unimportance.

At the very beginning of the “revelation” it is explained why it was given, because Joseph “inquired” about the Patriarchs being justified in taking many wives. They could do this, explains the “revelation” because what they bound on earth was binding in heaven and therefore Joseph was justified to practice polygamy on earth to raise up righteous seed.

In 1842 Smith gave a “revelation” on baptism for the dead and taught that what is bound on earth is bound in heaven. (See D&C 128:8-9, and this article from Teachings: Joseph Smith, “Chapter 26: Elijah and the Restoration of the Sealing Keys”, online here, Accessed December 1, 2014).

Celestial Marriage”, or the true order of Marriage as it was known (polygamy), was simply another ordinance and if done through the “sealing power” was bound on earth (for time) and in heaven (for eternity). This is why it was called “the new and everlasting covenant of marriage”, (not baptism). As Wilford Woodruff taught in 1867,

Then, again, the blessing that God has revealed to us in the patriarchial order of marriage—being sealed for time and eternity—is not prized by us as it should be. When that principle was revealed, the prophet told the brethren that this kingdom could not advance any farther without it; “and,” said he, “if you do not receive it you will be damned saith the Lord.” You may may think this very strange, but the Lord never reveals anything that He does not require to be honored. (Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses Vol. 12, 14, May 19, 1867, added emphasis, Online here, Accessed December 1, 2014).

Two years later Woodruff clarified what he meant by Patriarchal Marriage,

Herein is why these principles are a part of our religion, and by them husbands and wives, parents and children will be re-united until the links in the chain are re-united back to Father Adam. We could not obtain a fullness of celestial glory without this sealing ordinance or the institution called the patriarchal order of marriage, which is one of the most glorious principles of our religion. I would just as lief the United States Government would pass a law against my being baptized for the remission of my sins, or against my receiving the Holy Ghost, as against my practicing the patriarchal order of marriage. I would just as lief they would take away any other principle of the Gospel as this. The opinion of men generally, in relation to this subject, is that the Latter-day Saints practise it for the gratification of their carnal desires; but such ideas are wholly untrue. The world seek after this; but the Saints of God practise this principle that they may partake of eternal lives, that they may have wives and posterity in the world to come and throughout the endless ages of eternity. (Journal of Discourses Vol. 13, 167, December 12, 1869, emphasis added, Online here, Accessed December 10, 2014.)

They were not worried about the Government taking away marriage “for time and all eternity”, but the Patriarchal Order of Marriage, which was polygamy. It is clear from Woodruff’s quotes above that “being sealed for time and eternity” was a blessing of the patriarchal order of marriage, (not the other way around) which was polygamy.

Patriarchal Marriage was so important in the eternal scheme of things that Joseph F. Smith taught that,

Patriachal marriage involves conditions, responsibilities and obligations which do not exist in monogamy, and there are blessings attached to the faithful observance of that law, if viewed only upon natural principles, which must so far exceed those of monogamy as the conditions responsibilities and power of increase are greater. This is my view and testimony in relation to this matter. I believe it is a doctrine that should be taught and understood.

The benefits derived from the righteous observance of this order of marriage do not accrue solely to the husband, but are shared equally by the wives; not only is this true upon the grounds of obedience to a divine law, but upon physiological and scientific principles. In the latter view, the wives are even more benefitted, if possible, than the husband physically. But, indeed, the benefits naturally accruing to both sexes, and particularly to their offspring, in time, say nothing of eternity, are immensely greater in the righteous practice of patriarchal marriage than in monogamy, even admitting the eternity of the monogamic marriage covenant. (Joseph F. Smith, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 20, 30, July 7, 1878, Online here, Accessed December 10, 2014).

You cannot quibble in the face of this evidence. Hales is interpreting Doctrine and Covenants Section 132 through a modern presentist lens, and has it exactly backwards. On August 26, 1883, Heber J. Grant would write in his diary:

This morning I copied a letter of Prest Taylor’s written about the plurality of wives. He was very plain in giving the Sister to whom the letter was written to understand that simply being sealed did not fulfill the law. [The Diaries of Heber J. Grant, 1880-1945, Abridged, Privately Published, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2010, 9, Courtesy of H. Michael Marquardt, added emphasis].

Here we have a Mormon prophet claiming that simply being sealed, does not fulfill the law. For an interesting look at where the presentist argument that Hales employs for D&C 132 began, See, “Changed Faces: the Official LDS Position On Polygamy, 1890-1990”, by Martha S. Bradley, Sunstone 14:1/26 (Feb 90), Online here, accessed December 10, 2014) where she discusses the dismantling of the original interpretation of D&C 132 and the modern definition of “Celestial Marriage”.

[62] See Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, “Why We Practice Plural Marriage”, Online here, accessed October 21, 2014.

[63] Jacob 2:24-30, Online here, accessed December 10, 2014.

[64] See Note #77.

[65] Hales, “Rational Faiths”, op. cited. Yet there is plenty of evidence that Smith did “initiate the process” with other wives, and there is no contemporary evidence to suggest that Smith did not do the same with Helen Mar Kimball. For example, Richard S. Van Wagoner writes,

Emily and Eliza Partridge, youthful daughters of deceased church bishop Edward Partridge, had been living in poverty after moving to Nauvoo in early 1840. Emma Smith invited Emily to live in the Smith home to care for the Smiths’ baby, Don Carlos, who was born 13 June 1840. Eliza Partridge joined the family a short time later. Emily later wrote that in the spring or summer of 1842 Joseph Smith approached her about polygamy. “I … shut him up so quick,” she said, “that he said no more to me until the 28th of Feb. 1843, (my nineteenth birthday)” (Young, “Life,” 185). On this date Smith approached her privately, saying, “Emily, if you will not betray me, I will tell you something for your benefit.” When he asked her if she would burn a private letter he wanted to send to her, Emily replied that she could not accept it from him. But she reconsidered. On 4 March 1843 Smith sent a “friend to plurality,” Mrs. Elizabeth Durfee, with a message. When Partridge asked the envoy what Smith wanted, Durfee replied “she thought he wanted me for a wife.” At a clandestine meeting later that evening at the Heber C. Kimball home, Emily later recounted, Smith advised her that “the Lord had commanded him to enter into plural marriage, and had given me to him, and although I had got badly frightened, he knew I would yet have him, so he waited till the Lord told him.” Emily agreed to Smith’s proposal and “was married there and then.”

Emily Partridge with children

Emily subsequently explained that though she did not know it at the time, her older sister Eliza had also been approached by Elizabeth Durfee, who “introduced the subject of spiritual wives as they called it in those days.” The older Partridge girl was sealed to Smith on 8 March 1843. Emma Smith knew nothing of these relationships at the time, but two months later Smith apparently convinced his wife to let him be sealed to the girls with her blessing. According to Emily’s account, “Emma had consented to give Joseph two wives, if he would let her choose them for him, and she chose E[liza] and myself.… I do not know why she gave us to him, unless she thought we were where she could watch us better than some others, outside of the house” (Jenson, Historical Record 6 [July 1887]: 226). “To save family trouble,” Emily added in an 1887 account of the matter, “Brother Joseph thought it best to have another ceremony performed. Accordingly on the 11th of May, 1843, we were sealed to Joseph Smith a second time, in Emma’s presence” (Young, “Life,” 185).

Emily is probably incorrect on the date of the second sealing. On 11 May, Emma Smith left Nauvoo at 10:00 a.m. for Quincy, Illinois, and did not return for four days. Unless the ceremony was performed at an early hour, she could not have been in attendance. Moreover James Adams, a Sangamo County probate judge who performed the second sealing, did not arrive in Nauvoo from Springfield until 21 May. The sealing most likely occurred two days later. Smith’s journal entry for May reads: “At home. in conversation with Judge Adams, and others.” In discussing the impact of the event, Emily later noted that “Emma seemed to feel well until the ceremony was over … [but] before the day was over she turned around or repented of what she had done and kept Joseph up till very late in the night talking to him.” This closely matches William Clayton’s journal entry for 23 May: “Pres[iden]t. stated to me that he had had a little trouble with sis. E[mma] he was asking E[liza] Partridge concerning [Joseph] Jackson[‘s] conduct during Prest.[‘s] absence & E[mma] came up stairs. he shut to the door not knowing who it was and held it. She came to the door & called Eliza 4 times & tried to force open the door.”

Smith may not have provided his scribe with all the details of this situation. What, for example, was the source of Emma’s irritation? Did finding Joseph and Eliza privately together bring back jealous memories of Fanny Alger or Eliza R. Snow? Or did Emma discover that Smith’s relationship with Eliza Partridge was more than “spiritual?” Emma had not been told about her husband’s first sealing to the Partridge girls. Perhaps she had been similarly misled regarding the real purpose of the second sealing as well. (Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 52-53, added emphasis).

On the one hand we are to believe that Joseph Smith taught that these women were destined to be his “wives” in this life because they were promised to him in the pre-existence, but that in many cases Smith had nothing to do with their choosing? Smith’s method of choosing his wives can best be illustrated by Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner who wrote that Joseph told her she “was created for him before the foundation of the earth was laid.” (Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, “Mary Elizabeth Rollins,” copy of holograph in Susa Young Gates Papers, USHS box 14, fd 4).

Hales writes,

Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner lived with her legal husband, Adam Lightner, until his death in 1885. Consistent with an “eternity only” sealing, no evidence of sexual relations in Mary Elizabeth’s plural sealing to Joseph Smith has been found. In 1905, she related, “My husband did not belong to the Church. I begged him and pled with him to join but he would not. He said he did not believe in it, though he thought a great deal of Joseph. He sacrificed his property rather than testify against Joseph, Hyrum and George A. Smith. After he said this, I went forward and was sealed to Joseph for eternity” (italics added). (Hales, online here, Accessed December 1, 2014).

This statement by Mary Lightner is from 1905. Yet in 1904 Mary Lightner wrote a letter and stated that,

“I was married to Mr. Lightner August 11, 1836, he had been dead 19 years. Joseph the Seer taught me the principle of plural marriage in Nauvoo. He said God gave him a commendment in 1834 to take other wives besides Emma, and I was the one he was commanded to take, though I was a thousand miles from him. Brigham Young had not been in the church long enough to broach such a thing to Joseph, for I talked with him about it. After a long time of prayer and supplication to my heavenly Father for a witness of the truth I went forward and was sealed to him for time and all eternity…” (Mary Lightner, letter to Mr. A. M. Chase, April 20, 1904, found in quoted in J. D. Stead, Doctrines and Dogmas of Brighamism Exposed ([Lamoni, Iowa]:RLDS Church, 1911), 218–19, added emphasis, Online here, Accessed December 1, 2014).

Why would Mary Lightner need to be sealed to Smith for “time” in 1846 after he was dead? That makes absolutely no sense. But it does make sense that she was sealed to him for time in 1842, and that the ceremony was repeated “for time and eternity” in the Temple when it was completed in 1846. Hales quotes this section of a letter from Mary Lightner to John Henry Smith in 1892 in an effort to prove an “eternity only” sealing,

I hope you will not think me intrusive, I am sure I do not wish to be- If I could have an oportunity of conversing with you, and Brother Joseph [F. Smith] I could explain some things in regard to my living with Mr L, after becoming the Wife of another, which would throw light, on what now seems mysterious – and you would be perfectly satisfied with me. I write this; because I have heard that it had been commented on to my injury. I have done the best I could, and Joseph will sanction my action – I cannot explain things in this Letter – some day you will know all. That is, if I ever have an oportunity of conversing with either of you. (Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner to John Henry Smith, January 25, 1892, in George A. Smith Family Papers, MS 36, Box 7, Folder 12 (John Henry Smith, incoming correspondence); Marriott Library; emphasis in original.)

First what action needed to be “sanctioned”? If Mary was married to Adam Lightner for time and Smith for eternity as Hales claims, what is the problem here? It is not like these men did not understand the concept of “front husbands”. The letter from Mary Lightner to John Henry Smith does not (as Hales claims) indicate that the sealing to Joseph in 1842 was only for “eternity”. If this were all innocent and easily explainable, then why didn’t Mary want to divulge it in a letter? Why does she tell Emmeline Wells in 1880 that,

“I could tell you why I stayed with Mr. Lightner. Things the leaders of the Church do not know anything about. I did just as Joseph told me to do, as he knew what troubles I would have to contend with.”

They did know all about it though if it were only a sealing for eternity. She may have thought they also knew nothing about Joseph’s sexual polyandry, but from evidence we have of Mary Heron Snider and others, some were aware and it didn’t seem to bother them. Why? Because they never looked at any “Gentile” husband as having a claim on any woman. In the summer of 1905 Mary Lightner made this statement,

It was his [Bishop Newell K. Whitney] house that the Prophet Joseph Smith first told me about his great vision concerning me. He said I was the first woman God commanded him to take as a plural wife in 1834. He was very much frightened about until the angel appeared to him three times. It was in the early part of Feb, 1842 that he was compelled to reveal it to me personally, by the angel threatening him. I would not accept it until I had seen an immortal being myself… [page 4] My journal got burned up, so cannot remember dates. [page 5] I could tell you many things I cannot write. I remember every word [page 6] he ever said to me of importance. (Mary Lightner to Emmeline B. Wells, Summer 1905, LKN Collection Ms 447, bx 9, fd 2 copy of holograph).

If Mary Lightner truly loved Joseph Smith and was sealed to him for “time and eternity” as she states she was, according to Brigham Young, Mary Lightner was committing adultery, for he taught that if one stayed with a spouse they did not love, it was adultery:

In speaking of the married state sayes if man & wife become Alliniated from each other it is in one sens the spirit of Adultery. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 4, 39, June 22, 1851)

And,

The subject of Adultery again Came up. Joseph said a man Cannot Commit Adultery with his wife. So says the revelation on the Patriar[chal?] Marriage. Yet a man Can do rong in having Connexion with his wife at times. Joseph Young said the Ancient Apostle said this. A man should not put away his wife save for the Cause of fornication. If He did they would both Commit Adultery.

Brigham Young Said Joseph taught that when a womans affections was entirly weaned from her husband that was Adultery in spirit. Her Affections were [p.56] Adulterated from his. He also said that there was No law in Heaven or on Earth that would Compel a woman to stay with a man either in time or Eternity. This I think is true (but I do not know) that if a man that is a High priest takes a woman & she leaves him & goes to one of a lesser office say the Lesser priesthood or member I think in the resurrection that that High Priest Can Claim her. “Joseph. What if she should not want to go with him? I should not want a woman under those Circumstances. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 5, 55-56, June 2, 1857)

Why would Joseph put a woman through this, if she loved her husband? Smith did not approach Mary Lightner and ask her, he told her that she was his and tried to take her from her husband. Still, Hales claims that Joseph and Mary Elizabeth Lightner were only sealed “for eternity”, even though he states,

However, on other occasions Mary Elizabeth stated she had been sealed to the Prophet for “time and eternity.”

The source of the dual reports may be due to the fact that she had experienced two sealing ceremonies. If the first sealing to Joseph Smith during his lifetime was for “eternity only” and the second a “time and eternity” proxy sealing performed on January 16, 1846, in the Nauvoo temple, then both answers would have been accurate.

It was actually on multiple occasions that she stated she was sealed to Joseph for “time and eternity”, but Hales relegates the evidence cited above to a footnote:

Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, Affidavit, March 23, 1877, in Scott G. Kenney Collection, MS 587, Box 11, Folder 14, Marriott Library (photocopy of manuscript); Mary E. Lightner to A. M. Chase, April 20, 1904, Mary E. Lightner to A. M. Chase, April 20, 1904, quoted in J. D. Stead, Doctrines and Dogmas of Brighamism Exposed ([Lamoni, Iowa]:RLDS Church, 1911), 218–19.; Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, “Mary Elizabeth Rollins,” copy of holograph in Susa Young Gates Papers, USHS box 14, fd 4; Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, “Statement” signed Feb. 8, 1902 (Vesta Crawford Papers, MS 125, bx1 fd 11. Original owned by Mrs. Nell Osborne, SLC (courtesy Juanita Brooks). See also Juanita Brooks Papers, USHS, MSB103, bx16, fd 13; BYU special collections, Ms 1132.

Instead of emphasizing this overwhelming evidence from half a dozen sources that Mary Lightner was sealed to Smith for time and eternity, he produces only one statement in full where Lightner claims that “in the month of March, [1842], Brigham Young sealed us for time and all eternity. Willard Richards and Heber C. Kimball knew of it, but were not present on the 23rd of March.” (Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, “Mary Elizabeth Rollins,” copy of holograph in Susa Young Gates Papers, USHS box 14, fd 4, emphasis added).

He then produces the statement that Lightner made in public in 1905 which has all the earmarks of an apologetic and claims that all this evidence is “consistent with an eternity only sealing.” Hales claims that there is a conflict with “dual reports”, but it is not just two, it is one statement verses five others and a signed affidavit that she was sealed to Joseph Smith in 1842 for time and eternity by Brigham Young.

We feel it is irrational to assume this when Lightner herself on at least half a dozen occasions she stated that she was sealed to Joseph for TIME and all eternity. She also made a statement on February 8, 1902 which reads,

I was sealed to Joseph Smith, the Prophet by commandment. In the Spring of 1831. The Savior appeared and commanded him to seal me up to Everlasting Life, gave me to Joseph to be with him in his Kingdom, even as he is in the Father’s Kingdom. In 1834, he was commanded to take me for a wife. I was a thousand miles from him. He got afraid. The angel came to him three times, the last time with a drawn sword and threatened his life. I did not believe. If God told him so, why did he not come and tell me? The angel told him I should have a witness. An angel came to me – it went through me like lightning – I was afraid. Joseph said he came with more revelation and knowledge than Joseph ever dare reveal. (Brigham Young sealed me to him, for time and all eternity – Feb. 1842). Joseph said I was his before I came here and he said all the Devils in Hell should never get me from him. I was sealed to him in the Masonic Hall, over the old brick store by Brigham Young in Feb. 1842 and then again in the Nauvoo Temple, also the Manti Temple and the Salt Lake Temple after I came to Utah. (Mary Elizabeth Lightner, “Statement” signed February 8, 1902 (Vesta Crawford Papers, MS 125, bx1, fd 11, original owned by Mrs. Nell Osborne, SLC (courtesy Juanita Brooks, added emphasis).

Mary Lightner even made out an affidavit in 1877 which declared the same thing,

March 23rd 1877

I Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner do testify that in the year 1842 in the month of February the Prophet Joseph Smith came to me and said he had received a direct command from God to take me for a wife for time and all eternity; After receiving what I felt to be a witness of the truth of the said statement made to me by the said Joseph Smith the Prophet, I was sealed to the said Joseph Smith by Pres Brigham Young in Nauvoo, Hancock Illinois. And I have lived and am at this date in full fellowship as a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The said ceremony was solemnly performed in the month of February A.D. 1842 as first above written. [signed:] Mary E R Lightner (Rollins Lightner, Mary Elizabeth, Affidavit, March 23, 1877, in Scott G. Kenney Collection, MS 587, Box 11, Folder 14; Marriott Library (photocopy of manuscript), emphasis added.

All of what Lightner stated in 1905 was known. What was it that she was too afraid to write down and could only relate in person? What could have been used to her “injury”? We believe that it was her polyandrous relationship with Joseph Smith.

[66] Catherine Lewis, Narrative of Some of the Proceedings of the Mormons (Lynn, Mass.; Catherine Lewis, 1848), pg. 19. Some of the following is a synopsis of Connell O’Donovan’s biography of Catherine Lewis and Augusta Cobb that appears in his work, “Boston Mormons”, located here online:

Born Catherine Ramsdell on March 17, 1799, she was the daughter of William Ramsdell and Salley Richards who hailed from Lynn, Massachusetts. Lewis claimed in a letter she wrote to Brigham Young that she had some kind of important spiritual experience around the year 1818 or 1819. Her first husband was named Nathaniel Parrott, who died in 1832. It is not known if she divorced him before his death, but she married Joseph Lewis Jr. in 1831 in Lynn’s First Congregational Church. Catherine Lewis converted to Mormonism in 1841, the year that her second husband Joseph died. Her husband’s children did not approve of her joining the church and so they expelled her from the Lewis home in Lynn and sold it, keeping the money for themselves. She wrote to Brigham Young in November of 1844,

I have noot bean without trials sense you [Brigham Young] was here I have had the hous that I was living in when you was here tacken from me — by my Husband’s Children and and sold they have sold it and tacken the pay and have not alowed me one cent so you see tha I am turned out into the world without hous or home and all this they say because I am a mormon I will — prais the Lord I — can tacke the spoiling of my goods joyfuley with the exception of this, I would be glad to have gotten something for the building of the Tempel and the caus of Zion … (Letter to Brigham Young, November 17, 1844, Online here, Accessed December 5, 2014)

Catherine Lewis attended the Boston and Salem branches of the Church, and became friends with Augusta Adams Cobb, who had an affair with Brigham Young and later “married” him. Catherine worked with fabrics and donated over 50 yards of material for use in the Nauvoo Temple. The material was taken to Nauvoo by “Elder Snow” in the fall of 1843 and when Catherine wrote to Brigham Young a year she asked about her gift to the temple and if it was properly recorded in the Book of the Law of the Lord.

On October 25th 1843 there is an entry in the Book of the Law of the Lord for Lorenzo Snow donating 35 3/4 yards of cloth for his tithing (receiving a credit of $49.12) We could not find any entries for Catherine Lewis for this timeframe but we may have overlooked it if it is there.

At the time Joseph Smith was murdered in June of 1844 many of his Apostles had gathered at Boston where a Conference and a Convention about Smith’s upcoming Presidential run was held. It was at this time that Heber C. Kimball approached Catherine Lewis and asked her if Augusta Cobb (one of Brigham Young’s secret wives) had spoken to her about the spiritual wife doctrine. Catherine acknowledged that Cobb had spoken to her, but that she was reluctant to accept the doctrine. Kimball gave her until July 5, to “think it over.” Connell O’Donovan writes that,

… it was at this same convention that Parley P. Pratt obtained the already-married Belinda Marden Hilton as a plural wife, by having Brigham Young and Lyman Wight convince her to lie to her husband (Benjamin Abbott Hilton) about visiting relatives in the country but she really abandoned him to move to Nauvoo. (ibid., 56)

From Kimball’s diary, July 5, 1844:

5 Friday. At 12 Oc took cars to Linn [Lynn, Massachusetts], to the House of Sister Lewis. Stade all night. Elder B. Young was with. We had rest to our bodies. I inquired [of the] Lord if my family was well, my wife [Vilate] on hur way to the East. I meet hur at Ph – [Philadelphia] when I returned from Boltimore, had much rest. (On The Potter’s Wheel, 72)

During Kimball’s stay at Catherine Lewis’ house he asked her again about becoming his spiritual wife and she again balked at the idea. He then told her he would bring Vilate to speak with her and that she would the “say all is right” (O’Donnell, op. cited).

On July 9, the news of the death of Joseph and Hyrum Smith reached the Twelve in Massachusetts where Kimball was attending a Conference in Salem. Kimball and his wife then left for Nauvoo. Brigham Young was beginning to have problems with the husband of Augusta Cobb:

…left in the evening for Boston found my self in Boston on Sunday morning stayed with the Saints through the day had a good meeting. on monday I went to Lynn on monday saw Vilate on tusday She came up to Sister Lewis with Sister Cobb She is in good helth and sperits. she is going to school. Sister Cobbs children think much of her and due all they can to make her happy She will come home with me this seson. sister Cobb is well all things goes well with hir, as far as I can fined out. Mr Cobb tried to get a bill of devose [divorce] from hir but could not, and she is in peasable? possesion of hir famely and hir house. I stayed and visited with vilate through day, went to Salem in the evening stayd for 3 days with the Saints and returned to Boston and went to Lowel to visite the Bretherin stayed over the sabath with them. I have jenerly had a good time with the saints. But the time at present seems to be big with events it seems as though judgements hung over the people and would soon be pord out upon them, but judgement belongs to the Lord. (O’Donnell, 58)

Catherine Lewis – Letter to Brigham Young, courtesy Connell O’Donovan

Like many Mormons at the time, Catherine Lewis was affected deeply by the murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and wrote this poem which was published in the September 28, 1844 edition of The Prophet,

On the Death of the Prophet and Patriarch of The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Shall they live again?
Rest from your labors here ye honored ones;
For scenes more glorious now
Attend your labors there:
And when those who have gone before
Shall see you enter as their head, on earth
To lead the prisoners forth –
A shout of joy will then be heard,
Behold the Prophet of the Lord!
Joseph, by name, he comes their souls to claim;
Who shall be heirs to God,
And joint heirs with His Son –
His work on earth is done;
He hath laid the great foundation here,
And now hath passed
Thro’ blood; within the veil
A greater work to do.
But soon he will burst those prison doors,
And in fully glory shine,
With all his glorious train on earth to stand,
And meet King Jesus from on high
With all his heavenly band;
While Saints on earth shall join the throng
And far on high ascend to wait the redemption
Of the earth, and then again return.
Ye weeping Saints shake off your fears,
God’s promises are sure;
Tho’ heaven and earth shall pass away,
His word will still endure;
This earth shall be as Eden fair,
When all things are restore;
The Saints shall then in peace abide
Without corroding toil.
The earth shall yield her fruit again
As at Creation’s morn;
And man be placed back again
The garden to adorn;
While angels from on high
Shall mingle with the Saints,
And Christ their Lord shall be their
To heighten all their joys.
(CATHERINE LEWIS.)

In November Catherine who was staying with her sisters on Common Street in Lynn, Massachusetts, wrote a long letter to Brigham Young and mentioned to him that his oldest daughter Vilate was staying with Augusta Cobb and had visited her. She also passed along some personal information and news about what was going on in the surrounding country.

Lewis left the Boston area and headed for Nauvoo in the fall of 1845 and likely reached the city by late November. She was endowed as a single woman on December 22, 1845. She was washed by Sarah Crosby and anointed by Vilate Kimball. She was also a member of the second endowment company and she was taken through the veil by Heber C. Kimball, though he was not her husband. (O’Donnell, 62)

Heber C. Kimball was still courting Catherine Lewis as an additional wife at the end of 1845. William Clayton records a celebration that she was part of that took place in the Temple:

The labors of the day having been brought to a close at so early an hour viz; half past 8, it was thought proper to have a little season of recreation, accordingly, Brother Hans Hanson was invited to produce his violin. He did so, and played several lively airs, among the rest some very good lively dancing tunes. This was too much for the gravity of Brother Joseph Young, who indulged in a hornpipe, and was soon joined by several others, and before the dance was over several French fours were indulged in. The first was opened by President B. Young with Sister [Elizabeth] Whitney and Elder H. C. Kimball with Sister [Catherine] Lewis. The spirit of dancing increased until the whole floor was covered with dancers. After this had continued about an hour, several excellent songs were sung, in which several of the brethren and sisters joined. The Upper California was sung by Erastus Snow. After which Sister Whitney being invited by President Young, stood up and invoking the gift of tongues, sung one of the most beautiful songs in tongues, that ever was heard. The interpretation was given by her husband, Bishop Whitney, it related to our efforts to build this House, and to the privilege we now have of meeting together in it, of our departure shortly to the country of the Lamanites, and their rejoicing when they hear the gospel, and of the ingathering of Israel. Altogether, it was one of the most touching and beautiful exhibitions of the power of the Spirit in the gift of tongues which was ever seen. (So it appeared to the writer of this.) After a little conversation of a general nature, the exercises of the evening were closed by prayer by President B. Young, and soon after most of the persons present left the Temple for their homes . . . (George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, 244, December 30, 1845)

It was after this that Catherine came to her crisis, because she could not accept the spiritual wife doctrine and was being pressured to become the polygamous wife of Heber C. Kimball, and if not him, some other like Brigham Young. She claims in her 1848 expose,

Heber C. Kimball

From the time Mrs. Cobb first introduced the subject of Plurality of Wives, until the time of which I am now writing, my mind was unsettled about it; for they had so much Scripture intermixed, and interpreted in such manner to make it appear right, it was almost impossible to refute their arguments; besides they professed immediate revelation from Heaven, and a commandment from God to take wives. But there was an article in the doctrines of the Church, that every person should have an evidence for him or herself, which article I ever claimed as my right; and when any thing was said to me on this subject, my answer was— “I have not the evidence that it is right for me.” But things were approaching to a crisis. I was troubled in mind, because I must soon say yea or nay to Kimball or some of his myrmidons. Had they not claimed what is before stated: an immediate revelation, and that by an Angel, I should not have hesitated to have said as I did at first, “It is the doctrine of the Devil.” My spirits became depressed, lest these things should be as they represented them; and if I said nay, I might be found raising my voice against the Lord’s Anointed, which to my mind was no small thing. (Lewis, Narrative, Page 11)

The pressure by Augusta Cobb and others like Heber C. Kimball was too much for Catherine Lewis, and in her mind the admonitions to not “resist counsel,” took on a threatening connotation. She prepared to leave Nauvoo being fearful that they would not let her leave with what she knew. Since there was no preparation for those that first experienced the Endowment, she was disturbed by the blood oaths and having to be “bound to obey the Heads of the Church; avenge the blood of your brethren every way possible, and strive to build up the Kingdom; if you do not, you must suffer the penalties before mentioned.” (Lewis, page 11)

The fact that Catherine was also single at the time she received her Endowment may also have played a part in her having qualms about the whole experience, since she was not there to be married for all eternity (which some women probably looked forward to) but to have her fears and doubts alleviated by what she thought she could learn from the Endowment Ceremony. After all, she claimed that

The Elders taught publicly, “Whoever went to Nauvoo and received an endowment in the Temple would witness such a manifestation of the power of God which could not be doubted. The keys of the priesthood would be given, and things which had been hidden from the foundation of the world would then be revealed and made known,” &c. Under such representations, (which at the time I believed), I felt anxious to obtain information for good, and accordingly made ready. (Lewis, op. cited, 7)

Unlike many of the women who did submit and accept it, Catherine Lewis was repulsed by the Endowment Ceremony and the pressure to become a polygamous wife. She later claimed that she was “shocked at the conversation of Kimball and others, although their language was studiously guarded in my presence; and I feared to show my displeasure openly, lest evil come of it.” (ibid., 10)

Soon after this experience Catherine Lewis left Nauvoo for St. Louis and,

“after staying there less than a month, Mrs. [Augusta] Cobb made her appearance at my house. She said to me, “you missed a good chance; one of the Brethren and his wife were going to Warsaw to take the Boat [to St. Louis], they would have carried you for nothing, and saved expense; but you went away so privately, they did not know you were going until the night before you left.” (ibid., 12-13)

This seemed to develop feelings of paranoia in Catherine who later claimed,

I have no doubt, this was a plan and a snare to entrap me; because these persons of whom she spoke, remained in Nauvoo for some length of time after I left. Her language opened my eyes, to see what a wonderful and narrow escape I had made; and I could look back and see many times, my life had been in danger—for some things seemed mysterious. When Mrs. Cobb called to see me, in St. Louis, she brought another woman with her, and I did not care to say much. They talked of those glorious things, (the spiritual wife doctrine.) The woman thought it was Spiritual, nothing literal but the ceremony, &c. After hearing them some time, I said, “In my opinion, it is damnable heresy and the doctrine of Devils.” They were both speechless for some time. News was brought to me at St. Louis, stating a letter had been received at Boston from Nauvoo in which I was called an apostate. This was done to prevent any influence I might have had amongst them, on my return. They threatened to excommunicate any member who visited, talked, or listened to, or with an apostate; because such, they say, are unworthy of belief. (ibid, 12-13, italics in original).

Catherine Lewis eventually returned to the east and remarried. The rest of Catherine’s Narrative is filled with what she had discovered in Nauvoo about the Endowment, the move to the West and polygamy, along with information about the Danites and the Mormon’s views about the American Nation. Much of her narrative can be corroborated by other evidence, but we will not undertake that here, though one example may suffice. On page 14 she writes that in an extract of a letter from J. C. Phelps of Boston he wrote,

In conversation with Parley P. Pratt, one of the Twelve, he informed me, the Church had numerous bodies of Indians, under tuition for a number of years; teaching them among other things, that if they would obey the Church in all things, the Church would assist them in regaining their lands from the United States Government, &c. I have often heard Micah, chap. v. ver. 8, (before quoted) cited, as applicable to this subject, vix:—the remnant of Jacob, being the remnant of Indians, and that the Indians are taught to fulfill this prophecy. Pratt said a number of tribes were then ready, at a moment’s warning, to take up arms against the U. S. Government, at a given signal from the Twelve,” &c. (ibid.)

Pratt had already written as early as 1838 that the American Indians were the remnant of Jacob and that,

…not only does [the Book of Mormon] set the time for the overthrow of our government and all other Gentile governments on the American continent, but the way and means of this utter destruction are clearly foretold; namely, the remnant of Jacob [the Indians] will go through among the Gentiles and tear them in pieces. like a lion among the flocks of sheep. Their hand shall be lifted up upon their adversaries, and all their enemies shall be cut off. This destruction includes an utter overthrow, and desolation of all our Cities, Forts, and Strong Folds–an entire annihilation of our race, except such as embrace the Covenant, and are numbered with Israel. (Parley P. Pratt, Mormonism Unveiled: Zion’s Watchman Unmasked, And its Editor, Mr. L. R. Sunderland Exposed: Truth Vindicated! The Devil Mad & Priestcraft in Danger: by P. P. Pratt, Minister of the Gospel, Published by Orson Pratt, 14, Online here, Accessed December 20, 2014).

Pratt also declared,

…I will state as a prophecy, that there will not be an unbelieving Gentile upon this continent 50 years hence; and if they are not greatly scourged, and in a great measure overthrown, within five or ten years from this date, then the Book of Mormon will have proved itself false. (ibid., 14-15).

Brigham Young, in a pubic discourse to the “Saints” recorded by Wilford Woodruff stated that,

President Young in his address to the Saints remarked that He was determined to have order in all things & righteousness Should be practized in this land. That we had come here according to the direction & council of Br Joseph Smith before his death & that He would Still have been alive if the Twelve had been in Nauvoo when He recrossed the river from Montrose to Nauvoo.

He spoke of the saints being driven from place to Place, And Said the ownly way Boggs, Clark, Lucas Benton & all the leaders of the mob could have been saved in the day of the Lord Jesus would have been to have come forward voluntarily & let their heads been cut off & let their blood run upon the ground & gone up as A smokeing incens before the heavens as an antonement but now they will be eternally damned.

Also said all the govornors & Presidents of the U.S.A Had rejected all our petitions from first to last. That when the Saints were driven from Illinois & perrish as it were on the Prairies then President Polk sends for a draft of 500 men to go into the Army. What for? That they might be wasted [one line of text illegible] entirely wasted away as A people.

If the Brethren had not gone they would have [p.241] made war upon us & the Gov of Mo would have been ordered not to have let us Cross the Missouri & the raising of the Battalion was our temporal Salvation at the time & said Polk would be damned for this act & that He with many of the goverment men had a hand in the death of Joseph & Hyram & that they should be damned for these things & if they ever sent any men to interfere with us here they shall have there throats cut & sent to Hell. And with uplifted hand to Heaven swore by the Gods of Eternity that He would never cease His exhertion while He lived to make every preperation & avenge the blood of the Prophets & Saints.

That He intended to have evry hole & corner from the Bay of Francisco to Hudson bay known to us And that our people would be connected with every tribe of Indians throughout America & that our people would yet take their squaws wash & dress them up teach them our language & learn them to labour & learn them the gospel of there forefathers & raise up children by them & teach the Children & not many generations Hence they will become A white & delightsome people & in no other way will it be done & that the time was nigh at hand when the gospel must go to that people to. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 3, 240-241, July 28, 1847)

Brigham Young claimed to know these things because as he stated in December of 1845,

The truth of the matter is those who are leading the House of Israel while in the path of there duty know the wickedness that is among the people. It cannot be hid from them for they are in vision all the time. (ibid., 102, December 20, 1846).

As Connell O’Donovan writes:

Catherine later left Mormonism after Kimball repeatedly pressured her to marry him plurally, and after her disappointing temple endowment experience. After her refusal to marry Heber C. Kimball, Catherine Lewis returned to the Boston area. Sometime soon after May 3, 1847, Catherine Lewis corroborated the depostion of George J. Adams before the Massachusetts State Supreme Court in Cobb v. Cobb that they both had certain knowledge that Brigham Young and Augusta Adams Cobb had had sexual intercourse while Augusta was still legally married to Henry Cobb. (O’Donnell, op. cited, 62)

According to D. Michael Quinn:

George J. Adams

Ordained a special apostle by Joseph and admitted as one of the original members of the Council of Fifty, George J. Adams had been excommunicated on 10 April 1845 for defying the Quorum of Twelve by teaching and practicing polygamy in New England. In May, he organized a church in Iowa, with Joseph Smith III as the intended president and himself as young Joseph’s spokesman, and on 15 June 1845 Adams wrote: “I have suffered much persecution since i left Boston and much abuse because i cant support the twelve as the first presidency i cant do it when i know that it belongs to Josephs Son– Young Joseph who was ordained by his father before his Death. ” Adams had told Emma in 1844 that he had witnessed the ceremony, and fifty years later James Whitehead included Adams in the list of witnesses to the blessing of Joseph Smith III in January 1844. But George J. Adams was an erratic and inconsistent advocate of Joseph Smith III, and even though James J. Strang’s claims left little room for lineal succession, Adams testified to the world in 1846 that Strang was the one “appointed and chosen of God, to stand in the place of brother Joseph.” (Dialogue, Vol.15, No.2, 82).

To show how the Twelve treated those who disagreed with them and Young’s succession claims, Irene Bates wrote:

The accusation of “licentiousness” seems to have surfaced mainly during the succession crisis of 1844, a year after polygamy had been introduced in Nauvoo. Even then the judgments passed on William’s behavior were contradictory. During the trial of John Hardy, formerly president of the Boston area, Hardy accused William, along with George J. Adams and Samuel Brannan, “and at least five others of the Twelve,” of teaching the “plurality wife” doctrine in secret, “in its worst features.” William Smith, he alleged, had also behaved in an “obscene” manner towards certain females. Wilford Woodruff, visiting Boston on his way to England, evidently accepted the allegations as true. Writing to Brigham Young from Boston 9 October 1844, he said:

I soon discovered from various sources that the conduct of Wm. Smith, Adams, Brannan, Ball and others had been such in crowding their spiritual wife claims . . . until some of the strongest pillars were shaking, and if any opposed them in their deeds, they would trample them down until presiding Elders were loosing their posts and some ready to come out in battle array openly against the Church.

Yet Parley P. Pratt, only three months later, wrote in The Prophet 18 January 1845 in New York:

I have just returned from a short visit to Boston and vicinity . . . I must now hasten to close by saying that I highly approve of the course pursued by Elder Wm. Smith and the presiding officers in general in this region . . . and by a strict and just administration of the laws and discipline of the church they have been enabled to cut off from the tree those branches which were most bitter and to excommunicate those members which were seeking the destruction of the society in which they were. Thus they have preserved the church in union by the aid of the Spirit of God.

Nevertheless, George J. Adams and Samuel Brannan were cut off from the Church for adultery three months later, 10 April 1845, Brannan being restored to fellowship six weeks later. No action was taken against William Smith and he was ordained as Patriarch to the Church 24 May 1845. Less than five months later, one of the grounds for Parley P. Pratt’s objection to William as an apostle was his conduct in the East; thus one can only conjecture about the basis for the change in Pratt’s publicly stated view of William’s activities there.

There is a reference to possible sexual misconduct on William’s part prior to Joseph Smith’s death which appears as a second-hand account recorded in Abraham H. Cannon’s diary 9 April 1890. According to Cannon, President Snow–illustrating the fact that all must be tested–told of one instance, unspecified in time, when Brigham Young had been “tried to the very utmost by the Prophet.” Joseph had instructed Brigham to prefer charges against William for adultery and “many other sins.” Cannon, quoting President Snow, continues:

Before the time set for the trial, however, Emma Smith talked to Joseph and said the charge preferred against William was with a view to injuring the Smith family. After the trial had begun Joseph entered the room and was given a seat. The testimony of witnesses concerning the culprit’s sins was then continued. [In] a short time Joseph arose filled with wrath and said, “Brother Brig[ham] I will not listen to this abuse of my family a minute longer. [I] will wade in blood up to my knees before I will do it.”

Most of the labeling of William as licentious, however, seems to be retrospective. For example, in the January 1865 issue of the Millennial Star, a short history of William Smith says, “In all his missions the course of conduct he pursued towards the females subjected him to much criticism.” Jedediah M. Grant, in a discourse in the Salt Lake Tabernacle 23 March 1856, compared Joseph Smith–a “great lover of women” who elevated them and made them virtuous and happy–with William, the “profligate brother,” whose brand of love would make women “wretched and miserable, would debauch and degrade them.” Even Thomas L. Kane, ignorant of the reality of polygamy among the Saints, referred to William on 11 July 1851 as a “ribald scamp” who, because the authorities had been forced to excommunicate him for his own licentiousness, had concocted “that unmixed outrage the spiritual wife story.” Kane’s observation was published, without correction, in the Millennial Star, November 1851, by editor Franklin D. Richards. (Irene M. Bates, William Smith, 1811-93: Problematic Patriarch, Dialogue, Vol.16, No.2, 16-17, Online here, Accessed December 20, 2014).

William B. Smith

She also observes that, “Because of the secrecy involved in the early practice of polygamy before the Saints came west, church laws governing it were, to some extent, unformed, unknown, and unenforced, so there were abuses of the principle as well as the approved practice of it.” (ibid., 18).

For example, “… in 1843, George J. Adams had brought back a wife and child from his mission in England, even though he had a family already in Nauvoo. According to gentile Charlotte Haven, the first wife “is reconciled to this certainly at first unwelcome guest to her home for her husband and some others have reasoned with her that plurality of wives is taught in the Bible.” Adams had been charged with adultery 12 February 1843, but he was restored to full fellowship only three months later, 27 May 1843, and a Times and Seasons announcement said he had been “honorably acquitted of all charges.” (ibid.)

Connell O’Donovan writes:

Adams never participated in LDS temple ordinances in Nauvoo, although apparently William Smith taught him parts of the endowment ritual, which he passed on to Mormon women in New England as part of a “secret lodge.” By March 1846, Adams became interested in the James J. Strang faction of Mormonism and wrote to Strang. His letter from Cincinnati, Ohio warned Strang that the Brighamites and Rigdonites were telling lies about Adams. That he is an alcoholic is “a Base phalshood” being spread to destroyhis influence. In fact, crowds always gathered “wherever and whenever I lift up myvoice.” The other rumor, that Adams “was fond of womin” was also “a Base lie” and his phrenological chart proves it showing that Amativeness is not very developed in him.(Adams to Strang, March 27, 1846, Strang Collection Document #34, Beinecke Library,Yale.) (O’Donovan, Boston Mormns A-C, 40)

George Adams had many problems with the Strangites, and O’Donnell writes that the “Boston branch of the Strangite branch of Mormonism voted on February 1, 1847 that it would not “sustain Elder George J. Adams, any longer as a public teacher in the Church of Jesus christ of Latter Day Saints” due to his misconduct and immoral doctrines, including the misuse of church funds, and also for having “taught that it was not wrong to commit fornication and Adultery under certain circumstances.” (ibid.)

Adams gave a deposition on May 3, 1847 in the Cobb v. Cobb divorce/libel case, where he testified that,

“In the fall of 1844 after her return from Nauvoo to Boston, Mrs. Cobb said she loved Brigham Young better than she did Mr. Cobb, and, live or die, she was going to live with him at all hazards. This was in the course of a conversation in which she used extravagant language in favor of Mr. Young and against Mr. Cobb. Mrs. Cobb went out again to Nauvoo, the second time, and lived with Mr. Young, and their living together and their conduct, was the subject of conversation in the society and out of the society. The subject of conversation, to which I have alluded, was that persons had a right to live together in unlawful intercourse, and Mrs. Cobb avowed her belief in this doctrine, and said it was right. (Quincy Whig, (from the Boston Post), December 22, 1847, Online here, Accessed December 20, 2014)

She also said (claimed George Adams), “I never will forsake brother Young, come life or come death. She (Augusta Adams) said that the doctrine taught by Brigham Young was a glorious doctrine; for if she did not love her husband, it gave her a man she did love”. Catherine Lewis also testified that these things were true.

Brigham Young married two women with living husbands in 1842 and 1843, Lucy Ann Decker (born on May 17, 1822) “married” Young on June 15, 1842, and Augusta Adams Cobb (born December 7, 1801) “married” Young on November 2, 1843. Lucy Ann Decker was married to William Seely (b. January 27, 1816) about the year 1836, had three children together and both were members of the Church. Little’s Biography of Lorenzo Dow Young says (p. 56) that William Seely was wounded in the battle of Crooked River. Mike Quinn lists him as one of the Danites. Lorenzo Dow Young was a close friend to Lucy Decker’s father, Isaac. On March 9, 1843, Harriet Page Wheeler Decker, wife of Isaac Decker, was “married” to Lorenzo Young as a spiritual wife.

William Seeley

There are no records for any divorce of William Seeley from Lucy Ann Decker (by the compiler above) and no information about why they separated, except for a family “tradition” that Seeley was an abusive drunk. Yet, after he left Nauvoo he moved to Chicago and became quite wealthy where he died in on 20 April, 1851 without ever remarrying. He left his two children his estate.

Augusta Adams Cobb married Henry Cobb on December 22, 1822 in Lynn, Essex, Massachusetts. Henry Cobb was a handful of years older than Augusta (born June 23, 1798) and was a shoe dealer. Henry and Augusta had nine or ten children together, the next to last child born in 1838 but died in infancy. The last child of Augusta Cobb was born on May 19, 1843 and was named Brigham Cobb but also died in infancy on November 7, 1843 in Nauvoo. (See Connell O’Donovan, “Early Boston Mormons and Missionaries, A to C 1831-1860”, 24-39, PDF, Sept. 2014, Online here, Accessed December 1, 2014).

Augusta and Henry had no children from 1838 to 1843, but she gets pregnant in August of 1842 (when Brigham Young is in Nauvoo).

Augusta Cobb was baptized by Samuel H. Smith on one of his missionary journeys to the east in 1832, and wrote in his journal concerning this event:

29 held a meeting in the evening a[t] Mr Merises to two ladies confesed their faith in the work the people attentive So visited Some that wa[s] believeing baptized three a Augutasta cobb Elizebeth Harendeen [sic – Cobb] & [blank space] Porter & [blank space] Porter July 1[s]t held a meeting at Fan[n]y Bruers….(Samuel H. Smith Journal, entries of June 29; July 1, 1832, LDS Archives)

His missionary companion at the time Orson Hyde wrote:

29 people came in at Sister Brewers & we preached to them & answered their questions in the forenoon & in the afternoon went to Sister Grangers & a number Came in & conversed as in the forenoon preached in the evening at No. 195 Ann St Mr. Merris. two ladies confessed their faith in the work a Miss & Mrs Cobb people paid good attentio[n] after meeting was invited by a Christian Elder to call on him next day at 2 oclk went home with Sister Brewer

30th visited 3 families and Baptized 3 persons at South Boston, had quite a comfortable time the Lord was with us talked with a free will Baptist Elder found him quite unbelieving he feared lest he should lose some of his flock or at least it was said he was a free will Baptist preacher his name was Hymes (Orson Hyde Journal, entries of June 29-30, 1832, LDS Archives)

[July 2] talked with a man names [Henry] Cobb…I cried against his spirit and told him ‘it was of the Devil…’

Wilford Woodruff mentions Augusta Cobb in his Journal in 1841:

6th We left Portland at 7 o-clock on board the Bangor. The sea was rough & most all was sea sick. We arived in Boston at 6 o-clock in the evening. We Spent the night in Boston at the Layfaett Hotel. I had a vary interesting time in the evening with Elder Freeman Nickelson Sister Vose, (57 Temple Street) Sister Cobb & others who called at our room [at the Lafayette Hotel] & spent the evening. They were vary anxious that I should stop & Preach with them but my circumstances would not permit. The distance of the Day 110 miles. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, p.110, July 6, 1841)

And in 1843:

30th Br Frost walked to New Haven with me & Bought $12.91 cts worth of Books for me. I then parted with him & took steem Boat for New York & arived at 6 oclok & Called upon Elder Foster 145 walker St & suped with him. Then walked with him to Br Rogers 67 franklin St. I here found Elder B Young & Sister Cobb. They were well. Elder Young went home with us & spent the night with me. Distance of the day 75 me. Distance of the day 75 m. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, p.314, October 30, 1843.

On March 7, 1842 Henry Cobb’s name appeared on a List of Bankrupts in the Boston Daily Courier.

Brigham Young and many of the Quorum of the 12 arrived in Boston on September 8, 1843 and held a Conference the next day where he told the Boston “saints” that “we are rough Stones out of the mountain, & when we roll through the forest & nock the bark of from the trees it does not hurt us even if we should get a Cornor nocked of occasionally. For the more they roll about & knock the cornors of the better we are. But if we were pollished & smooth when we get the cornors knocked of it would deface us. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, 297).

Augusta Adams Cobb Young

On September 23, Augusta Cobb left Boston with Brigham Young and some others (along with her 6 year old daughter Charlotte and baby Brigham who took ill and died in Cincinatti) who were returning to Nauvoo. They arrived there on October 22, 1843, with the dead infant in a tin box who was buried in Nauvoo. According to the Nauvoo Neighbor the baby was five months and 20 days old when they buried him. Eleven days later, Brigham Young “married” Augusta Cobb on November 2, 1843 (the same day that Brigham sealed his sister Fanny Young to Smith) while she was still legally married to Henry Cobb. Augusta Cobb returned to Boston in the Spring of 1844 accompanied by Young’s daughter Vilate who was attending a private school in Salem Massachusetts and they arrived on April 29, 1844.(O’Donnell, op. cited, pg. 31)

Upon her return, Heber C. Kimball enlisted her aid in trying to persuade Catherine Lewis to become one of his spiritual wives, but even though they were friends she was unsuccessful, though Lewis did make the journey to Nauvoo after the murder of the Smith brothers where she participated in the Endowment Ceremony and lost her faith. (See above)

On July 18, 1844 Young wrote to his wife Mary Ann Angel and told her that he,

…left in the evening for Boston found my self in Boston on Sunday morning stayed with the Saints through the day had a good meeting. on monday I went to Lynn on monday saw Vilate on tusday She came up to Sister Lewis with Sister Cobb She is in good helth and sperits. she is going to school. Sister Cobbs children think much of her and due all they can to make her happy She will come home with me this seson. sister Cobb is well all things goes well with hir, as far as I can fined out. Mr Cobb tried to get a bill of devose from hir but could not, and she is in peasable? possesion of hir famely and hir house. I stayed and visited with vilate through day, went to Salem in the evening stayd for 3 days with the Saints and returned to Boston and went to Lowel to visite the Bretherin stayed over the sabath with them. I have jenerly had a good time with the saints. But the time at present seems to be big with events it seems as though judgements hung over the people and would soon be pord out upon them, but judgement belongs to the Lord. (Brigham Young to Mary Ann Angell Young, July 18, 1844, MS 16230, LDS Archives, courtesy of Connell O’Donovan, op. cited above, 32).

Henry Cobb did not give up trying to get a bill of divorce from his estranged wife. In 1846 he sued Augusta for divorce claiming that she had become “the Spiritual Wife of a Mormon Leader” while having “criminal conversation” with Young. In the November 1846 session the case went before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. (O’Donovan, 34).

Neither Cobb nor Young appeared as prescribed by the court order on March 2, 1847, but they did have representation by a Boston lawyer.

George J. Adams was the main witness against Cobb and Young with his written deposition corroborated by “a widow lady, who had been to Nauvoo, and while there “been endowed in the Temple”. This would be Catherine Lewis, the one time friend of Augusta Cobb. Henry won the divorce case and was “decreed a full divorce from the bonds of matrimony.” (ibid., 35)

According to Adams testimony, Augusta told Henry Cobb,

…she loved Brigham Young better than she did Mr. Cobb, and, live or die, she was going to live with him at all hazards. This was in the course of a conversation in which she used extravagant language in favor of Mr. Young, and against Mr. Cobb. (ibid., 33)

In the divorce/libel lawsuit it was charged that the first known time Augusta Cobb and Brigham committed adultery was on August 10, 1844 in Boston, then she traveled to Nauvoo with Young in late August. Cobb returned to Nauvoo and Young in the fall of 1845 and on December 1, 1845 they again committed adultery. On the 16th of December Augusta Cobb received her temple endowment and passed through the veil to Heber C. Kimball who presented her to Brigham Young. She was sealed to Young on February 2, 1846, while still legally married to Henry Cobb. She also received her second anointing that day. (ibid, page 33)

It appears that breaking the laws of the land did not hinder her from receiving these “blessings”, but it may almost cost Brigham Young his life according to the Journal entry of William Clayton.

In 1862 Augusta Cobb wrote to Brigham Young claiming that he had warned her away from being alone with Joseph Smith, because she would have been “overcome” by him:

If you had allowed me to have gone up to Nauvoo free and untrameled In my Spiret I should have seen Br Joseph the first thing. But instead of that you exacted a promise of me that I would not see him alone Saying he would certainly over come me I replied if he did he would be the first man. You then aid I had never had to deal with a Prophet of the Lord[.] Now suppose he had over come me And I should by that means have raised up a Son or a King if you please[?] Who would have been the wiser?––––– Not Mrs [Catherine] Lewes Most certainly And I should have been Sealed to him And all would have been right.” (Augusta Adams Cobb to Brigham Young, February 4, 1862, Courtesy of Connell O’Donovan).

Here Cobb states that being “overcome” by Smith would have produced a child that she claims may have been “a Son or a King”, then she would have been sealed to him and it would have “been right”. She then remonstrates about Catherine Lewis, and then reminds Young that:

…who was it that <came> to Lynn and stoped at Mrs Lewes’s and sent for me what transpired after I arived there? You very well know, Altho you may have forgotten, but I have not God for bid that I ever should, After Mrs Lewis Apostatized she went before the Court and gave Oath to all she knew Mr C got a bill of divorce for adultry by that news, and my name now stands recorded in Boston Court state House as an Adultress (ibid., 1, Online here, Accessed December 5, 2014, added emphasis).

Cobb was dissatisfied with Young, and here claims that she committed adultery with Young while he was in Lynn in 1843. According to Young’s diary he was there in August and September of 1843 and took Cobb back with him to Nauvoo along with Sister Sarah Alley, who became the spiritual wife of Joseph B. Nobel.

the next day had a pleasant visit held our conference in New York tund [sic] some [same?] day came to Boston had a good visit at Lima [Lynn] hed our conference according to apointment [September 9] staid till September 29 (Brigham Young Diary, August 31, 1843, Courtesy of H. Michael Marquardt)

staid [in Boston] till September 29 then started home with sister Alley & Cobb came to New York staid one day came to Pheledelpha (Brigham Young Diary, September 29, 1843, Courtesy of H. Michael Marquardt)

Catherine Lewis and Augusta Cobb both were raised with “Victorian” values and yet both chose different paths, one embracing Smith’s doctrine of spiritual wifeism while the other rejected it and those that taught it, even though she once thought them inspired men. This practice tore their friendship apart and caused Augusta Cobb to turn her back on the moral code each had embraced from their youth. For Cobb, no man could really be good enough for her, Smith’s teachings brought out in her the need to have more than even an “American Moses” could personally offer her. The claims she made about loving Young soured, but that did not change her opinion about Smith’s teachings. For Lewis, they created in her the need to expose them as something evil and wicked, and she did just that in her 1848 publication. They became two sides of a polygamous coin, both believing they had chosen for themselves the right course of action that would lead them to the reward each of them so desired in the after life they both believed in.

Brigham Young would make a claim in 1855 about his initial reaction to polygamy which has been quoted many times:

Some of these my brethren know what my feelings were at the time Joseph revealed the doctrine; I was not desirous of shrinking from any duty, nor of failing in the least to do as I was commanded, but it was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave, and I could hardly get over it for a long time. (Brigham Young, July 14, 1855, Provo, Utah JD 3:264-268; DN 5:282., CDBY, 994, added emphasis).

And ten years later,

Polygamy did not have its origin with Joseph Smith, but it existed from the beginning. So far as I am concerned as an individual, I did not ask for it; I never desired it; and if I ever had a trial of my faith in the world, it was when Joseph Smith revealed that doctrine to me; and I had to pray incessantly and exercise faith before the Lord until He revealed to me the truth, and I was satisfied. I say this at the present time for the satisfaction of both saint and sinner. Now, here are the commandments of the Lord, and here are the wishes of wicked men, which shall we obey? It is the Lord and them for it. (Brigham Young, June 18, 1865, Journal of Discourses Vol. 11, 128).

But in 1866 Young would also claim that,

An angel never watched him [Joseph Smith] closer than I did, and that is what has given me the knowledge I have today. I treasure it up and ask the Father in the name of Jesus to help my memory when information is wanted and I have never been at a loss to know what to do concerning the Kingdom of God. I knew of the doctrine of polygamy by revelation to myself while I was in England before it was revealed to me by Joseph. (Brigham Young, October 8, 1866, SLC Bowery Conference. LJA 12-56-4,2; BYC; BYA 5:52-55, CDBY, 2383, October 8, 1866).

We will let the readers decide where the truth of the matter actually lies, but for someone who claimed to so abhor the principle of polygamy, Young “married” 20 year old Lucy Ann Decker in 1842, (a full year before Joseph Smith dictated his polygamy “revelation”), took two more “wives” in 1843 (Augusta Adams Cobb & Harriet Elizabeth Cook – both on the same day); 11 more in 1844, including a 15 year old (Clarissa Caroline Decker), a 16 year old (Elizabeth Fairchild), and a 17 year old (Diana Chase). He took 23 more wives in 1845-46. See this page for a list of Brigham Young’s wives.

[67] Runnells, “Debunking”, online here, accessed October 21. 2014.

[68] Quinn, “Sexual Side”, 16-17.

[69] Hales, op. cited, online here, accessed October 21, 2014.

[70] D&C 132:63. Could Joseph Smith have “married” some women and not had sex with them? Absolutely. But was there a policy that some marriages were entered into to be “non-sexual eternity only sealings” and that Joseph could/would not have sex with those women? This was not known of or practiced in Nauvoo no matter how much Brian Hales wishes that it was and there is absolutely no credible evidence to support it.

[71] ibid. Hales claims about “traditional values” are ludicrous. Joseph Smith himself taught (again),

“…if we did not accuse one another God would not accuse us & if we had no accuser we should enter heaven. He [Joseph] would take us there as his backload. If we would not accuse him [Joseph] he would not accuse us & if we would throw a cloak of charity over his sins he would over ours. For charity coverd a multitude of Sins & what many people called sin was not sin & he did many things to break down superstition & he would break it down. He spoke of the curse of Ham for laughing at Noah while in his wine but doing no harm.” (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, 137, November 7, 1841, emphasis added.)

This was Joseph’s teaching to change the traditional thinking of the “Nauvooans” that Hales mentions. Smith also taught that traditional marriages that were not “sealed” were invalid. Therefore, those that “married” a woman already married were under no condemnation. This changed after the July “revelation” was given (he “repented”) and Joseph did not marry any women who already had living husbands after this. (Though it appears that he left himself a “loophole”)

We discuss this issue [traditional values and their impact on polygamy] throughout this essay. Smith totally undermined (in private) the Victorian or traditional view of marriage taught at that time. To many in Nauvoo this was a horrendous thought and they blamed it all on John C. Bennett. It is the reason that “A Voice of Innocence” was published in Nauvoo and championed by Emma Smith, which condemned polygamy and other sins as a “poisoned dagger” aimed at the heart of traditional marriage. In the face of all this opposition, Smith was still able to convince many women that the traditional view of marriage should be ignored and what was being condemed in public (his spiritual wifeism) should be propogated by them in secret because some “sin” was not really sin and Smith was there to “break down tradition, and would break it down”. Smith convinced literally hundreds of “Nauvooans” of this along with dozens of women that he secretly “married” himself. We cannot stress enough how repulsive this concept of marriage was to those with traditional views of marriage. This was bourne out in subsequent events as virtually the whole country stood against Smith’s marriage teachings and passed laws against them which forced a Mormon “prophet” to discontinue the practice. Slavery and polygamy (both embraced by the Mormons) were later referred to as the “twin relics of barbarism” by a Nation that shunned them both as an abomination and fought a bloody civil war to rid themselves of one of them.

The Mormons were certain that this stance would be the end of the United States of America and that an indignant and angry God would lead the American Indians and the Mormons to destroy them after the North had been overcome by the South and the slaves had risen up against their masters. When all hope that this was not going to be the destiny of this Nation had finally overwhelmed them, the Mormons finally abandoned the fight and the claims of their former “prophets” that they would return to Zion in their generation and that the Lord would lead them there in victory.

[72] “Recollections of Orange L Wight son of Lyman Wight,” written May 4 1903, holograph, CHL, (Ms 405) 19-23.

[73] David Koresh and the Branch Davidians come to mind here. There are many, many other examples that could be listed, like Warren Jeffs. In fact, Hales claims that the only differences between them and Joseph Smith were that they just didn’t have the “authority”. He writes,

It [D&C 132:18] indicates that even using the correct sealing ceremonial language is insufficient, that sincerity, a burning bosom (i.e. personal revelation—see D&C 9:8–9), and/or tradition are incapable of making up for the lack of genuine sealing priesthood. It appears that this verse specifically addresses the situation of all Mormon fundamentalist polygamists (e.g. Warren Jeffs and the FLDS, “Sister Wives,” the Kingstons, the Allreds–AUB, etc.). For many reasons, their claims to possess the keys of sealing authority are faulty and are indefensible historically and theologically.

Consequently, their plural marriages are “not valid neither of force when they are out of the world” and will bring condemnation. For example, in 1847 when W. W. Phelps feigned to marry plural wives without the authority of Brigham Young, he was excommunicated. Brigham allowed a quick rebaptism, but warned Phelps that each time he experienced sexual relations with those women, he had committed adultery because the marriage ceremonies were not authorized. (Hales, op. cited, online here, accessed October 21, 2014).

What is interesting is that Hales will make an exception for Smith’s “marriage” to Fanny Alger and claim that Smith didn’t need the “sealing power”, or that “authority”. Hales writes,

Newell Knight reported Joseph as saying: “I have done it by the authority of the holy Priesthood and the Gentile law has no power to call me to an account for it. It is my religious privilege, and the congress of the United States has no power to make a law that would abridge the rights of my religion.”

It is clear that Joseph Smith believed that the priesthood authority he possessed in 1835 could solemnize a marriage that would stand for the duration of mortal life, so long as that union was approved of God. That priesthood authority could be bestowed upon others who would be similarly empowered to perform a matrimonial ceremony that would be valid according to God’s laws even if “gentile law” would not allow it.

But Joseph Smith is here speaking of traditional marriages that have nothing to do with polygamy. There was no thought of the sealing power being applied that way at that time. That would come later, in Nauvoo after Joseph applied it to baptism for the dead.

What Hales is espousing here would mean that anyone could have performed a polygamous marriage prior to the “sealing power” being restored because there would have been no “keys” involved. Yet, it is binding scripture at that time that polygamy was “forbidden” by God. Hales contradicts himself here. He first claims that others who perform plural marriages must have the “sealing power” given to only one man, and that any marriages performed without it would be adultery, but for some reason this does not apply to Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger and so there must have been some special exception in Kirtland.

He also claims that an angel came and appeared to Joseph in 1834 and commanded him to practice polygamy. Why would an angel do so, when the sealing power they claimed was needed to perform such marriages had not been restored (according to the church), and could not be until a Temple had been built? Hales claims that,

Verse 7 [D&C 132] also identifies “one” man who holds the keys and controls this sealing authority. The next verse emphasizes the order surrounding him and the authority he controls: “Behold, mine house is a house of order, saith the Lord God, and not a house of confusion” (D&C 132:8). This need for order is repeated again in verse 18. (Brian Hales, op. cited, online here, accessed October 21, 2014).

So why would God send an angel to Joseph Smith in 1834 and “command” him to practice polygamy without the sealing power that he knew was going to be “restored”? Is this a “house of order”? This is simply irrational thinking and the desperate need to come up a way to extricate Smith from what is clearly an adulterous affair.

Also of interest here is an Essay written by Lawrence Foster that attempts to analyze Smith’s behavior with single women and with other men’s wives. Foster writes,

Women whom Smith or his closest associates approached to become plural wives usually were individuals of proven loyalty to the Church. Many of them, especially the daughters of Smith’s closest followers, reported that he told them that their action would insure their salvation and that of their families, linking them indissolubly to Smith in the hereafter. After such relationships had been established, neither the men nor the women could readily apostatize. Not only were their emotional commitments at stake if they left the Church, so were their reputations.

Perhaps the most puzzling behavior in which Joseph Smith apparently engaged during this period was t ask some of his closest associates to give him their wives. In addition, he may also have sustained sexual relations with some women who were, at the same time, legally married to other men. This phenomenon has been misleadingly characterized as “polygandry” by many Mormon scholars, including Danel Bachman, Richard Van Wagoner, Todd Compton, and George Smith. Compton, for example, in his massive and thoughful apolotetic study, In Sacred Lonliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, asserts that fully one third of his plural wives, eleven of them, were married to other men when he married them…Polyandry might be easier to understand if one viewed these marriages to Smith as a sort of defacto divorce with the first husband. However, none of these women divorced their “first husbands” while Smith was alive and all of them continued to live with their civil spouses while married to Smith.

Contrary to almost all other scholars who have looked closely at this phenomenon—with the notable exception of Andrew Ehat and Kathryn Daynes—I believe that the behavior in which Smith apparently engaged could not possibly have been viewed—either by himself or by his loyal followers at the time—as a form of “polyandry.” Kathryn Daynes, in her nuanced and arguably definitive study of the development of Mormon polygamy in the nineteenth-century Utah, agrees that:

As Lawrence Foster argues, calling such marriages polyandrous is misleading because polyandry is incompatible with the patriarchal nature of nineteenth-century Mormon marriage. While Mary Ann [Richardson]’s two marriages overlapped, the form of the marriage to each man was different and did not entail the same rights and responsibilities. Marriages for time were perceived as temporary because life on this earth was viewed as ephemeral in the expanse of eternity. Sealings for eternity were thus much more important and took precedence over marriages for time, although they did not necessarily invalidate them.

Although most Mormon scholars who have dealt with this complex issue have unfortunately continued to use the term “polyandry,” I believe that Joseph Smith himself could not have considered any of his marital practices to be “polyandrous” because of early Mormon polygamy’s intensely partiarchal character. Let me therefore briefly restate here the argument I made in my 1981 study, Religion and Sexuality… (Lawrence Foster, “Sex and Prophetic Power, A Comparison of John Humphrey Noyes, Founder of the Oneida Community, with Joseph Smith Jr. , theMormon Prophet, Dimensions of Faith, A Mormon Studies Reader, Stephen C. Tayson, Editor, Signature Books, Salt Lake City, 2011, online here, accessed November 1, 2014).

Foster’s argument that what Smith practiced should not be labeled polyandry is simply not compelling precisely because Smith was often very quick to disregard his own teachings with behavior that contradicted them. This would work better, if Smith had been open and honest about his practice of spiritual wifeism, but he was anything but honest about it. The testimony of Joseph E. Johnson in 1850 about Joseph’s affair with his mother-in-law (which Johnson construed as simple adultery) points more to Joseph’s libido than anything else. As Dan Vogel wrote to Brian Hales,

In Joseph Smith’s theology, a woman could never have two husbands.” You are presumably basing this on the July 1843 revelation (D&C 132:61-62). Yet, you have admitted that JS married at least three women who had living husbands. So, to save your thesis, you propose the following ad hoc hypothesis: “A marriage sealing in the new and everlasting covenant would cause the civil marriage to be done away from a Church standpoint.” However, this interpretation is aided by your anachronistic borrowing from D&C 22, which you haven’t shown that JS applied to marriage in the 1840s. Yours is a private interpretation of scripture since the Church’s position has been that non-Mormon marriage, or Mormon marriage out side the temple for that matter, is valid and binding for this life only but is dissolved at death. This is apparently the view expressed in D&C 132:41-44, which mentions that it is considered adultery if either the husband or wife breaks the marriage “vow” even if their marriage was “not in the new and everlasting covenant”. Indeed, the Church has always treated non-temple marriage as legitimate.

Nevertheless, you have only shown that under a certain semantic construction JS didn’t commit adultery; there still remains the issue of sexual polyandry. In other words, you seem to be arguing two things simultaneously: JS didn’t have sex with married women, but if he did he didn’t consider it adultery. And you say I’m subtle. Polyandry is polyandry. The revelation’s use of the term “virgins” (132: 61-62) would tend to exclude your specialized definition, which would require you to go deeper into semantics and equivocation. It turns out that when you say everyone but you has ignored JS’s theology, you mean they don’t understand it in the unique (and unlikely) way that you do.

Dan Vogel

Given JS previous marriages to married women, D&C 132 is apparently JS’s repentance from polyandry. Under the definition in verses 61-62, JS had committed adultery, but his salvation was assured as long as he didn’t commit murder or blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (D&C 132:19, 26-27). “I seal upon you your exaltation” (v. 49). The revelation warns not to judge JS, “for he shall do the sacrifice which I require at his hands for his transgressions” (v. 60). Makes you wonder what this revelation is really about, doesn’t it? Universal salvation was also part of JS’s secret theology (D&C 19).

You say, “there is no credible historical evidence for the teaching and practice of sexual polyandry in Nauvoo or afterwards.” I say, there is. What you mean to say is: there are no explicit teachings or discussions of polyandry. This should not be surprising, especially given the nature of our questions. We therefore must build circumstantial cases and decide which is the most reasonable, which deserves the most respect. Historians do that all the time. Even in the most perfectly documented world, an imaginative apologist can always find a way to escape evidence. Rarely is there a decisive piece of evidence that ends debate. The most that can be hoped for is that an interpretation becomes increasingly ad hoc as it tries to accommodate adverse evidence and eventually falls out of favor. I have a feeling that in responding to Quinn’s evidence, the ad hoc nature of your position will become more apparent.

“Quinn has amassed a remarkable volume of alleged evidences, but none of them constitute a clear documentation of the behavior. Not even once.” Quinn is doing what a historian does. “And, like you, he completely ignores the theology and the reactions of the alleged participants.” What theology? The theology that shows JS contradicted his own teachings or the one that shows that he couldn’t contradict them? You want Quinn to commit the Idealist Fallacy? We have discussed this. You don’t know how the participants reacted.

“What we can document is that there is an important difference theologically: sexual polygamy was acceptable and sexual polyandry was adultery.” Not according to your definition discussed above. Again, you don’t know that BY and John Taylor knew about polyandry, if they saw it as hypocritical, or how they would have reacted. At what point do you start to question someone you believe is a prophet speaking for God and telling you to reject the norms of society? Being under the influence of a charismatic leader of a religious cult who is sexually abusing some of his followers is probably the clearest example of why the Idealist Fallacy exists. Humans aren’t always rational and do not always behave in predictable ways. None of these followers possessed the qualities of Emma, who was alone in standing up to JS. I hope you see that you are on very shaky ground when you rely on this kind of argument from silence.

I understand that Orson Pratt struggled with the conflicting stories of JS and his wife, nearly lost his mind, but finally decided in JS favor. That was a mistake. JS’s denials about Jane Law and Sarah Pratt are not credible. We know that he was willing to lie to cover up polygamy. On 26 May 1844, JS said: “What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one” (DHC 6:411). Given the fact that Orson was so distraught over the incident with his wife, it is really no surprise that he would ultimately side with JS. Regardless, OP’s opinion says nothing about the veracity of Sarah’s claim. Neither does the attempt of JS and some of his followers to malign Sarah in 1842 by claiming she had an illicit sexual affair with John C. Bennett. Not only should those statements be read with skepticism, but they are irrelevant. What possible motivation could Sarah have for falsely accusing JS and drawing certain persecution on herself? Where did she get the idea in 1842 that JS was entering polyandrous marriages?

Given the context, Jane Law [and Sarah Pratt] is more believable than JS. In fact, JS’s version doesn’t make sense. JS has a reputation for proposing marriage to multiple women, including married women. What in Jane Law’s history tells you she would propose to JS? Where did she get such an idea? JS was denying polygamy in public and trying to keep the church from disintegrating, so why is it so incredible that he would lie about Jane and her husband? It’s a complicated story, but still a clear example of JS’s unsuccessfully trying to enter a sexual polyandrous marriage. (Hales-Vogel, op. cited, added emphasis)

In another comment, Dan added,

The same degree of probability that compels you to admit sexual polyandry in three cases also exists for all the other marriages in this category. You state: “Yet, documentation of sexual relations with the legal husband during the same period is absent.” Why should this matter if JS didn’t respect legal marriage, as you have argued?

“Accordingly, if Joseph Smith engaged in sexual polyandry, he was either a hypocrite, contradicting his own teachings, or he had found a loophole.” The majority of the polyandrous marriages occurred before the July 1843 revelation; so if he contradicted his teachings, it was retroactively. For those who think JS was a pious deceiver, as I do, the idea that he contradicted his teachings is no problem. Of course, you are aiming at Mormons who assume a prophet can’t make mistakes. Two months before dictating D&C 132, JS said: “I do not want you to think I am very righteous, for I am not” (DHC 5:401). One thing about JS is that he was constantly repenting. So what you see as contradiction, I see as repentance. That’s my position.

(3) Of the twenty-three marriages for which you can’t document sexual relations, you say that there is no way to know which marriages were for “time and eternity” or “eternity only”. I have already said that you are making a hasty generalization based on an exceptional case. The “eternity only” marriage was suggested to JS by the non-Mormon husband who didn’t believe in an afterlife. Obviously to him it wasn’t a serious proposal but a novelty and not necessarily a reflection of JS’s teachings.

You admit JS had sex with three of his polyandrous wives, but argue that the remaining eleven are matters of speculation. But you think you are justified in assuming that all eleven were “eternity only” marriages because the critics can’t prove JS had sex with them. As I have already pointed out, your position is an argumentum ad ignorantiam. Moreover, I don’t believe you have sufficient grounds to assume such a category existed let alone it’s near universal application in the polyandry category. Why is it that the critics are speculating when they assume sexual polyandry but you aren’t when you assert that there was a wide practice of “eternity only” marriages by JS and that all (except three) polyandrous marriages were of this type? Why aren’t you arguing the evidence in the Ruth Vose Sayers example is ambiguous or unclear? Indeed, upon what authority does Jenson’s note rest? It seems to me you are engaged in wishful thinking on an extraordinary level. (ibid, emphasis added.)

One example of changing theology to try and explain Smith’s behavior is the folktale ascribed to Smith about the angel with the sword. To believe that God would send an angel with a sword to kill Joseph Smith because he would not enter in the practice of polygamy strikes at the heart of Smith’s doctrine of Free Agency. Also, Smith’s claim that entering into the practice of polygamy would “insure their salvation” implies that God would overlook the established doctrine that a person must work out their own salvation simply because Smith could circumvent the law with the “sealing” power. Smith hinted at this in Nauvoo as Marvin Hill relates,

New powers granted to the priesthood were instruments of group cohesion. Smith announced in the summer of 1840 that the leading elders had been given authority to baptize vicariously for the dead, so that the Saints’ ancestors might comply with gospel standards and the elect be fused into a “whole and complete, and perfect union.” Later, in 1842, Smith declared that the keys had been restored whereby priesthood leaders could “seal” family members on earth and the ordinance would be confirmed in heaven. Through the sealing power the elders would have the opportunity of “adoption,” as well. (Marvin S. Hill, Quest for Refuge, p.114).

In 1844 Smith taught,

Again the doctrin or sealing power of Elijah is as follows: If you have power to seal on earth & in heaven then we should be crafty. The first thing you do go & seal on earth your sons & daughters unto yourself & yourself unto your fathers in eternal glory & go ahead and not go back but use a little Craftiness & seal all you can & when you get to heaven tell your father that what you seal on earth should be sealed in heaven. I will walk through the gate of heaven and Claim what I seal & those that follow me & my Council. The Lord once told me that what I asked for I should have. I have been afraid to ask God to kill my enemies lest some of them should peradventure repent. I asked a short time since for the Lord to deliver me out of the hands of the govornor of Missouri & if it must needs be to accomplish it to take him away & the next news that came pouring down from their was Govornor [Thomas] Reynolds had shot himself. And I would now say beware O earth how you fight against the saints of God & shed innocent Blood, for in the days of Elijah his enemies came upon him & fire was called down from heaven & destroyed them. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, p.365, March 10, 1844, added emphasis. This quote was drastically changed when it was put into the History of the Church (without ellipsis or any notification) and is still used today in its edited form. See quote at Note 8 here at lds.org, Accessed December 10, 2014).

This is why Smith claimed that he could save anyone who was sealed to him. Smith here, seems little concerned with the concept of unrighteous dominion. His use of the word “crafty” here is especially disturbing. This is like using a loophole to get people into heaven. Smith was willing to radically change his theology in these instances so why is it so hard to believe that he would not when it came to sexual polyandry?

Vogel’s assertion that the July 1843 “revelation” is about repentance for those polyandrous marriages is bolstered by the fact that after that “revelation” all of Smith’s subsequent “marriages” that we have record of were to single women. (Even the Louisa Beaman “sealing” which we believe was in 1842, not 1841). Still, Fosters’ argument is of interest because the rationale for marrying other men’s wives isn’t any better than calling what Smith did polyandry:

The first two of my three arguments about Joseph Smith’s marriages to already-married women have been widely echoed in later scholarship. In the first place, the 1843 revelation on plural and celestial marriage states that civil marriages were not considered valid for eternity. …

Later Mormon theology has assumed that this statement refers only to the afterlife, but in the millenarian context of Nauvoo and early Utah, Mormon leaders were attempting to apply presumptive heavenly standards on earth. Earthly and heavenly standards were viewed as inextricably inter twined; an imminent earthly millennium was to be realized. This meant that existing marriage standards were invalid; only marriages sanctioned under the “new and everlasting covenant” on earth were efficacious. Mormon initiatory ceremonies, from baptism to the more elaborate temple rites, involved a rebirth into a new world that was in the process of realization on earth under Joseph Smith’s guidance. Prior to initiation into the new millennial world, however, there was a brief but disruptive interregnum when neither the old nor the new standards were operative and when the basis of social authority was unclear.

A former member of Smith’s secret Council of Fifty, which helped to regulate this transition, recalled:

About the same time [1842][,] the doctrine of “sealing” for an eternal state was introduced, and the Saints were given to understand that their marriage relations with each other were not valid. …That they were married to each other only by their own covenants, and that if their marriage relations had not been productive of blessings and peace, and they felt it oppressive to remain together, they were at liberty to make their own choice, as much as if they had not been married. That it was a sin for people to live together, and raise or beget children, in alienation from each other.

In addition to the supremacy of the revelation on celestial marriage over earthly covenants, there is a second reason why Joseph Smith might have asked for the wives of other men. In a public speech on October 6, 1861, Brigham Young discussed the ways “in which a woman might leave a man lawfully.” The primary valid cause for divorce was when “a woman [had become] alienated in her feelings & affections from her husband.” “if the woman Preferred another man higher in authority & he is willing to take her & her husband gives her up—there is no Bill of divorce required.” Such a practice of “moving up” in the hierarchy without a formal divorce may well have originated with Joseph Smith.

There is a third, more speculative explanation put forward in Religion and Sexuality that might account—within a patriarchal framework—for Smith taking married women as plural wives. According to several nineteenth-century sources, it was possible for what was colloquially called a “proxy husband” to be assigned as a temporary spouse for a woman when her husband was either absent on a long missionary assignment or was otherwise unable to sire children. The children born under such circumstances would be viewed as belonging to the original husband, who was symbolically considered to have become temporarily “dead.” Thus, while a man was absent in the service of the Church, his patriarchal “kingdom,” which was heavily dependent upon how many children he had, would not suffer loss.

If such extraordinary arrangements were actually sanctioned, they might provide a coherent rationale for Smith’s sexual relationships with wives of his close associates. Significantly, a remarkable letter Brigham Young wrote on March 5, 1877, to Mrs. Mary Ann Richardson, a Mormon woman in Manti, Utah, appears to sanction such a “proxy” practice in one unusual circumstance. Responding to a letter from Mrs. Richardson on February 22, Young declared that “if I was imperfect and had a good wife[,] I would call on some good bro[the]r to help me, that we might have increase; that a man of this character will have a place in the Temple, receive his endowments[,] and in eternity will be as tho’ nothing had happened to him in time.” Although this particular case occurred in Utah, the example and the pragmatic flexibility it illustrates also might reflect a similar pragmatism in some of Joseph Smith’s marital alliances in Nauvoo.

An astute early leader of the RLDS movement, Jason Briggs, criticized what he saw as an apparent “proxy” authorization in the revelation on celestial marriage itself. The passage in question states: “And as ye have asked concerning adultery, verily, verily I say unto you, if a man receiveth a wife in the new and everlasting covenant, and if she be with another man, and if I have not appointed [him] unto her by the holy anointing, she hath committed adultery and shall be destroyed”. (Foster, op. cited, added emphasis).

This is clearly theological justification for polyandry. A woman commits adultery if she is married, but not if Joseph (acting for God) appoints another to her “by the holy anointing”.

[74] Hales, op. cited. There were others who “complained”, among them Catherine Lewis (mentioned above) along with Martha Brotherton, Sarah Pratt and Nancy Rigdon. Even FAIRMORMON admits that, “Other women loudly trumpeted the plural marriage doctrine in Nauvoo and the hostile press. These women’s testimony and character were generally attacked to try to discredit them in an effort to preserve the secrecy which surrounded plural marriage.” (Online here, accessed December 1, 2014.)

If, as Hales claims, the woman always got to choose why did Brigham Young have Martha Brotherton sealed to him on August 1, 1870, knowing that she was repulsed by him and polygamy? She had already made her choice.

For an interesting article on proving a negative, See, “Thinking Tools: You Can Prove A Negative”, by Stephen D. Hales, online here, Accessed December 1, 2014. Stephen Hales claims that it is a principle of “folk logic” that one cannot prove a negative.

[75] Compton, op. cited

[76] ibid., added emphasis. Specifics might help here, but we have none offered by Compton or Hales. If “non-sexual eternity only sealings” fulfills the “primary” purpose of polygamy in Smith’s cosmology, Joseph sure had a funny way of advocating it. See note #58 & #59 below, and note #61 above.

[77] This point is well illustrated by the comments of Helen Mar Kimball to Catherine Lewis who wrote,

The Twelve took Joseph’s wives after his death. Kimball and Young took most of them; the daughter of Kimball was one of Joseph’s wives. I heard her say to her mother, “I will never be sealed to my Father, (meaning as a wife) as I would never have been sealed (married) to Joseph, had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it. I say again, I will never be sealed to my Father; no, I will sooner be damned and go to hell, if I must. Neither will I be sealed to Brigham Young.” The Apostles said they only took Joseph’s wives TO RAISE UP CHILDREN, carry them through to the next world, there deliver them up to him, by so doing they should gain his approbation, &c. (Lewis, Narrative, 1848, 19, Added emphasis).

It seems that Helen Kimball was first told that a “marriage” to Smith would only be “ceremony” but found out it was to be more than that, and balked at the idea. As Richard Van Wagoner writes,

A multitude of Mormon records provides irrefutable evidence for Smith’s prerogative with an array of women, many of them just a few years older than his own children. And while the prophet now stands astride the Mormon world like a colossus, in Nauvoo he maneuvered within the charisma of his own mystique to defy both church, Nauvoo City, and Illinois marriage laws, as well as to conceal his behavior from his wife Emma. This equivocal deportment, secreted by a deferential and circumspect group of men and women, created two cultures in Nauvoo—one where monogamy and fidelity prevailed—the other where eros and duplicity seemed to subvert the highest moral values, and where exonerating the “Lord’s Anointed” became more important than telling the truth.

Richard S. Van Wagoner

This dichotomy left Joseph’s and Emma’s marriage hanging by a thread. Emma spent the last three years of her husband’s life jealously battling his errant yearnings, more than once threatening to return to her family in New York. On one occasion, according to Smith’s private secretary, she threatened that if he continued to “indulge himself she would too.” Although Emma apparently countenanced two of her husband’s 1843 sealings—to Emily and Eliza Partridge—she recanted within a day and demanded that Joseph give them up or “blood should flow.” Her change of heart came after she found Joseph and Eliza Partridge secluded in an upstairs bedroom at the Smith home. The realization that the sealing represented more than a “spiritual marriage” or “adoptive ordinance” devastated her.

Smith used this ruse that same month, May 1843, to convince another young woman, Helen Mar Kimball, that her sealing to him would be of a “spiritual order and not a temporal one.” Helen, fifteen-year-old daughter of Apostle Heber C. Kimball, reported that the prophet admonished her: “If you will take this step, it will insure your eternal salvation & exaltation and that of your father’s household & all of your kindred.” “This promise was so great,” Helen later remembered, “that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward.” Lamenting her [p.294] decision, Helen confided to a close Nauvoo friend: “I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it.”(Richard S. Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon A Portrait of Religious Excess, 293-294).

Also, the Book of Mormon explicitly states that if God were to command polygamy it would be to “raise up seed”. See Jacob Chapter 2. Even Brigham Young affirmed this in 1855 when he claimed,

I am not personally cognizant of anyone jeering at and deriding this doctrine; still, I hear that there are some few who are opposed to it. Once in a while sentiments reach my ears which sound very curious and strange, and when I hear them, I do really wish that some were possessed of better sense; I will, therefore, tell you a few things that you should know. God never introduced the Patriarchal order of marriage with a view to please man in his carnal desires, nor to punish females for anything which they had done; but He introduced it for the express purpose of raising up to His name a royal Priesthood, a peculiar people. Do we not see the benefit of it? Yes, we have lived long enough to realize its advantages.

Suppose that I had had the privilege of having only one wife, I should have had only three sons, for those are all that my first wife bore, whereas, I now have buried five sons, and have thirteen living.

It is obvious that I could not have been blessed with such a family, if I had been restricted to one wife, but, by the introduction of this law, I can be the instrument in preparing tabernacles for those spirits which have to come in this dispensation. Under this law, I and my brethren are preparing tabernacles for those spirits which have been preserved to enter into bodies of honor, and be taught the pure principles of life and salvation, and those tabernacles will grow up and become mighty in the kingdom of our God.

I believe that our children will become mighty in faith, be powerful in defending the truth, and will soon have to take important places in the great work of this dispensation. They may be rude at present, yet, you will find within them the true principles of “Mormonism,” and, when our sons become men, they will be men of God, and be useful in accomplishing a good work upon the earth.

The spirits which are reserved have to be born into the world, and the Lord will prepare some way for them to have tabernacles. Spirits must be born, even if they have to come to brothels for their fleshly coverings, and many of them will take the lowest and meanest spirit house that there is in the world, rather than do without, and will say, “Let me have a tabernacle, that I may have a chance to be perfected.”

The Lord has instituted this plan for a holy purpose, and not with a design to afflict or distress the people; hence, an important and imperative duty is placed upon all holy men and women, and the reward will follow, for it is said, that the children will add to our honor and glory.

It hurts my feelings when I see good men, men who love correct principles and cling to the counsels of the Church, who have lived near to God for years and have always been faithful, with not a child to bear up their names to future generations, and I grieve to reflect that their names must go into the grave with them. (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses Vol. 3, 264-5, July 14, 1855, Online here, Accessed December 20, 2014).

For Brigham Young, the primary purpose of polygamy was to raise up righteous seed. This whole discourse makes that perfectly clear. Brigham Young would also claim in 1854 that,

When you get back into the presence of God, and the Lord should say, “Who have you brought with you?” Your reply would be, “My wife and children;” but in reality you have only with you your brothers and sisters. The Father would say, “These are my children.” When you meet your Father in Heaven, you will know him, and realize that you have lived with him, and rested in his bosom for ages gone passed, and he will hail you as his sons and daughters, and embrace you, and you will embrace him, and, “Hallelujah, thank God, I have come to Father again, I have got back home,” will resound through the heavens. …
I commenced with Father Adam in his resurrected state, noticed our spiritual state, then our temporal, or mortal state, and traveled until I got back to Father Adam again. After considering all this, what have you seen that makes it appear we are not brethren and sisters. Does it appear that we are not because we are commanded to multiply and replenish the earth? You think when you run into grandchildren and great-grandchildren, etc., that by and by there will be no connection. They are just as much connected in spirit and body, in flesh, and blood, and bone, as your children are that you bear off your own body.
This is something pertaining to our marriage relation. The whole world will think what an awful thing it is. What an awful thing it would be if the Mormons should just say we believe in marrying brothers and sisters. Well, we shall be under the necessity of doing it, because we cannot find anybody else to marry. The whole world are at the same thing, and will be as long as man exists upon the earth.(Brigham Young, Conference Address, October 8, 1854, added emphasis)

Lorenzo Snow also taught the same thing in 1896 as recorded by Abraham H. Cannon,

Thursday, July 15th: I was studying during the forenoon and in the afternoon was busy writing catechism. It was clear and very hot today. In the evening, Bro. Shepherd was moved into No. 3 and put to sleep with Bro. Snow; he wanted to sleep on the floor, and got his bed made, but Doyle gruffly ordered him in with Bro. Snow–An Italian from Ogden was placed in No. 2, he having been sentenced to 7 years by Judge Powers for setting fire to Cardon’s barn. He claims that it accidentally caught fire while he was smoking. In the evening Rud and I had a conversation with Bro. Snow about various doctrines. Bro. Snow said I would live to see the time when brothers and sisters would marry each other in this church. All our horror at such a union was due entirely to prejudice, and the offspring of such unions would be as healthy and pure as any other. These were the decided views of Pres. Young, when alive, for Bro. S. talked to him freely on this matter.–Bro. S. believes that Jesus will appear as a man among this people and dwell with them a time before he comes in His glory. The Gentiles will hear of it and they will reject him, as the Jews did anciently, but they will have no power over him at all. –He says that if a man will place himself in a position where he is ready to sacrifice everything at the command of the Lord, he is then in a position to ask and receive Heavenly revelation. (Abraham H. Cannon Diary, July 15, 1896, added emphasis).

Joseph H. Jackson wrote in his 1844 booklet:

I pressed her (Lavina Smith, Hyrum Smith’s daughter) to tell me all, and finally she said that about the latter part of May, 1844, Joe had feigned a revelation to have Mrs. [Lucy Smth] Milligan, his own sister, married to him spiritually. This was just after William Smith had left Nauvoo to preside over a branch of the church at Philadelphia; Joe and he having hushed up their differences. When this revelation was made know to Mrs. Milligan, she wrote to William, giving an account of Joe’s conduct and said she should go back to the State of Maine and spend the summer. When she received an answer from William, she accordingly did go. In his answer, William gave Mrs. Milligan a good piece of advice concerning Lavina; and cautioned her not to let Joe get advantage of her. Previous, however, to this answer arriving, he had a revelation concerning Lavina, who was at that time living with him and attending on her Grandmother. Lavina went to her aunt, Mrs. Milligan, for advice, and enquired of her if this was lawful in the sight of God. Mrs. Milligan told her not to submit, and wept bitterly to think Joe was so base as first to try seduce William’s wife, then his own sister, and lastly his niece. She advised Lavina to leave Joe’s house and to shun it as she would a house of ill fame. Accordingly, Lavina did so. (A Narrative of the Adventures and Experience of Joseph H. Jackson in Nauvoo, Warsaw, Illinois, 27-28. Online here, accessed November 23, 2017. We believe that the date is wrong in the above recollection, that is was a year or two earlier, and was perhaps a printer’s error).

This puts Catherine Lewis’ statement into clear focus:

The Twelve took Joseph’s wives after his death. Kimball and Young took most of them; the daughter of Kimball was one of Joseph’s wives. I heard her say to her mother, “I will never be sealed to my Father, (meaning as a wife) as I would never have been sealed (married) to Joseph, had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it. I say again, I will never be sealed to my Father; no, I will sooner be damned and go to hell, if I must. Neither will I be sealed to Brigham Young.” The Apostles said they only took Joseph’s wives to raise up children, carry them through to the next world, there deliver them up to him, by so doing they should gain his approbation, &c. (Lewis, op. cited above, added emphasis).

Did Helen Mar Kimball per Catherine Lewis have it wrong? (about being “sealed” to her father?) Lewis was correct that the twelve took most of Smith’s wives. Helen Mar was one of them, and she was told that the salvation of her family would depend on her “marriage” to Joseph.

Did the Twelve take Joseph’s wives “for time” and to raise up children that would be given to Joseph in the afterlife? Yes.

Some claim that this statement isn’t accurate because Lewis claimed that Helen stated she would not be sealed to her father. Yet the concept of marrying close relatives was later taught by Brigham Young, and Lorenzo Snow who claimed that we were all one family and so it didn’t really matter. Since Helen Kimball was already sealed to Joseph for time and eternity, a second sealing to her father could only be for time.

At this time it was all new doctrine, taught in secret. Still, Lorenzo Snow and Brigham Young both taught that sisters and brothers would marry in the Church someday, that there was really nothing wrong with it. And then there is the account by Joseph Jackson who claims that Joseph wanted his own sister sealed to him. Who knows if the sealing of Fathers and daughters was not one of the early teachings of polygamy being bandied about? It is not any different than siblings marrying. It is still incest but was not looked upon that way by the Mormon hierarchy at that time. Hales continually claims that these men would not follow Smith if they knew his teachings were deviant. That two Church Presidents taught such a thing as sisters marrying brothers throws doubt on that conjecture.

The statement by Catherine Lewis is about the Mormon concept of raising up seed. This is why Helen claiming that her marriage to Joseph was “more than ceremony” is about sexual relations, it fits within the context of Lewis’ statement. For more on Catherine Lewis see Note #66.

[78] Letter, Heber C. Kimball to Helen Mar Kimball, June 9, 1844, cited in “Scenes and Incidents In Nauvoo”, Woman’s Exponent, Vol. 11, no. 15, 1 January 1883, 114, Online here, Accessed December 10, 2014.

[79] See Note #61.

[80] Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball, 336-337, Online here, Accessed December 1, 2014. Whitney writes in a footnote that Smith told Heber C. Kimball that if he did not do as he was told by Joseph he would “lose his Apostleship and be damned.” Gary Bergera writes,

According to Lorenzo Snow, another early apostle and later LDS Church president, when Joseph Smith learned of Kimball’s intention, he vetoed the plan, declaring that the “arrangement is of the devil you go and get you a young wife one you can take to your bosom and love and raise children by.”

So not only did Joseph object to Kimball taking two older women as wives, he claimed that such an arrangement was “of the devil” and that Kimball should marry a young women who he could “raise children by”. (See Gary Bergera, Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists, 1841-1844, Dialogue, A Journal of Mormon Thought, Volume 38, No. 3, Fall 2005, 13, online here, accessed November 22, 2014.)

This is strong evidence that Hales’ “non sexual eternity only sealings”, were going on in Nauvoo, or that they were even an option for those practicing polygamy.

[81] Alma G. Allred, “Review of In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, online here, accessed December 2, 2014.

[82] Proceedings before the Committee on Privileges and Elections of the United States Senate in the Matter of The Protests Against the Right of Honorable Reed Smoot, a Senator From the State of Utah, to Hold His Seat. Washington: Government Printing Office 1904, Volume I, 181.

[83] ibid., 184-5

[84] ibid., 490-491.

[85] See, “Angus M. Cannon: Pioneer, President, Patriarch”, by Donald Q. Cannon, online here, Accessed December 2, 2014.

[86] Reed Smoot Transcript, op. cited, 794.

[87] Hales-Vogel, op. cited. D&C 22:1 reads,

“Behold, I say unto you that all old covenants have I caused to be done away in this thing; and this is a new and an everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning.”

See Note #36 and Note #61 where we discuss the “New and Everlasting Covenant” in relation to the “sealing power”.

Hales’ claim that there is “no credible evidence” of sexual polyandry (i.e. adultery) is extremely weak but one that he is persistent with, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

We have mentioned Mary Heron Snider. Why would this woman who was supposedly brought up with all the “emotional, theological, and traditional values” that Hales ascribes to the “Nauvooans”, be having sex with the “prophet” Joseph when she still had a living husband that she never divorced or separated from? There is no evidence that she did, as much as Hales’ wishful thinking might want there to be. And if, by some chance she had embraced polygamy and played the game of having a “front husband” (was that also the “norm” for “Nauvooans”?), then why in 1842 did the Relief Society publish a warning that, “we do not want any one to believe any thing as coming from us contrary to the old established morals & virtues & scriptural laws, regulating the habits, customs & conduct of society.”

Now, what would that be? They tell us: “wherefore, while the marriage bed, undefiled in honorable, let polygamy, bigamy, fornication, adultery, and prostitution, be frowned out of the hearts of honest men.”

Since there is no evidence for any “non-sexual eternity only sealings” in relation to Smith’s wives, it doesn’t seem that all the women who “married” Smith and his associates and became his spiritual wives paid much attention to the “moral, emotional, theological and traditional values that were embraced by most Nauvooans”.

To show just how off track these women could get by these strange teachings about marriage one only has to take the case of Augusta Cobb to heart. Originally sealed to Brigham Young, in time that was not good enough for her and she asked to be sealed to Jesus Christ himself! She claimed to have that right by way of the Priesthood that she held, and appealed to Brigham Young to have the sealing done. He declined to do so but did honor her back up request (if she could not be sealed to Jesus Christ) to be sealed to Joseph Smith. Young approved the sealing, and dissolved the sealing between himself and Cobb and then stood as proxy for Smith. (See Note #66). Was this also the “norm”, to want to be married to Jesus Christ?

Polygamy was considered adultery by the “Nauvooans”, yet scores of women were able to redefine marriage and ignore this to become spiritual wives. Hales loves to claim that they did not complain, but Emma Smith did, and that is why she ultimately rejected her husband’s polygamy. But even she was almost persuaded, for such was the power of her husband’s status to her and these women, and she was probably told that it was not an earthly practice. Was sexual polyandry such a leap for some? Obviously not, since Mary Heron Snider practiced it with Joseph Smith (if you believe they were in some kind of way “married” which there is no evidence of).

[88] Brian Hales, LDS Essay on Nauvoo Polygamy What Did Readers Expect? Online here, Accessed December 20, 2014

[89] History of the Church, Vol. 5, 134-136, See also “The Letter of the Prophet, Joseph Smith to Miss Nancy Rigdon,” Joseph Smith Collection, LDS archives.

[90] Milton R. Hunter, Conference Report, April 1954, 128-131, Online here, Accessed November 5, 2014, added emphasis.

[91] See 1 Corinthians, Chapter 7.

[92] ibid.

[93] Hales, op. cited.

[94] Journal of Discourses, Vol. 3, 264, Online here, accessed December 19, 2014.

[95] Journal of Discourses, vol. 9, 37, Online here, accessed December 19, 2014.

[96] Brian Hales, Comment, Mormon Matters, 256: The Church’s New Articles on Plural Marriage, Online here, accessed December 20, 2014.

[97] ibid. See also “A Review of Alex Beam’s Treatment of Polygamy by Brian Hales”, online here, accessed December 20, 2014. Hales claims against Beam are harsh, and unwarranted. Some of these claims are addressed by Johnny here, where it is shown that Brian and Laura Hales try to discredit Alex Beam by manipulating the contents of a letter written by Eliza R. Snow.

[98] ibid.

[99] ibid.

[100] Journal of Discourses, Vol. 11, 268-69, August 19, 1866, Online here, Accessed December 20, 2014. As I wrote in a Mormon Discussions thread in 2014 (link in Note #1),

In the comment section of the Mormon Interpreter Essay Hales claims:

Similarly, Joseph asked about a plurality of wives and received an answer that dealt, not only with polygamy, but with the entire New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage, which includes plural marriage but is not limited to it. Plural marriage itself is not mentioned until verse 34.

Actually he is completely wrong and he knows it—if he knows how to read and comprehend what he is reading. For him to propagate untruths like this is really disingenuous. Verse 1 says,

1 Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines—

That is about “plural marriage”. Unless “having many wives and concubines” is not polygamy? This reminds us of Hales’ claim about those who are qualified to teach the things of the Gospel. Should those that knowingly proclaim falsehoods be doing so? Not according to the Doctrine and Covenants or Brian Hales himself because they would not have the “spirit”. Verse 1 indicates that the entire Section is about:

“Knowing and understanding why… the Lord…justified… the principle and doctrine of…having many wives and concubines.”

This is the stated purpose of Section 132. For Hales to claim that polygamy is only secondary to this “revelation” is incorrect. It then says in verse 3,

3 Therefore, prepare thy heart to receive and obey the instructions which I am about to give unto you; for all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same.

This is the key. All who had it revealed to them, unlike the Nephites, who did not. What is “this law”? It has to be something that was already revealed in the “revelation”, and the only thing that “the Lord” mentions, is “the principle and doctrine of…having many wives and concubines.” The “instructions which I am about to give”, are about what was mentioned in verse 1, “having many wives and concubines”.

It says explicitly that “all who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same”. There is no qualification here. This whole “revelation” is about polygamy. What Brian Hales doesn’t seem to get is the whole picture. He claims that the “revelation” doesn’t mention polygamy until verse 34, which is absolutely false. The whole “revelation” was leading up to that so that they would “know and understand why… the Lord…justified… the principle and doctrine of…having many wives and concubines.”

To claim that this was all about Monogamy and then it just switched up to polygamy in the middle of the “revelation” is ridiculous. Then we have the commentary about this “revelation”. Brigham Young himself calls the ‘NEW AND EVERLASTING COVENANT’ as it pertains to Marriage, POLYGAMY:

I will say a few words on a subject which has been mentioned here—that is, celestial marriage. God has given a revelation to seal for time and for eternity, just as he did in days of old. In our own days he has commanded his people to receive the New and Everlasting Covenant, and he has said, “If ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned.” We have received it. What is the result of it? I look at the world, or that small portion of it which believes in monogamy. It is only a small portion of the human family who do believe in it, for from nine to ten of the twelve hundred millions that live on the earth believe in and practice polygamy. Well, what is the result? Right in our land the doctrine and practice of plurality of wives tend to the preservation of life. Do you know it? Do you see it? What is our duty? To preserve life or destroy it? Can any of you answer? Why yes, it is to perpetuate and preserve life. But what principle do we see prevailing in our own land? What is that of which, in the East, West, North and South, ministers in their pulpits complain, and against which both gentlemen and ladies lecture? It is against taking life. They say, “Cease the destruction of pre-natal life!” Our doctrine [polygamy] and practice make and preserve life; theirs [monogamy] destroy it. Which is the best, saying nothing about revelation, which is the best in a moral point of view, to preserve or to destroy the life which God designs to bring upon the earth. Just look at it and decide for yourselves. (Journal of Discourses Vol. 14, 43, added emphasis, Online here, Accessed January 5, 2015).

It is obvious that Young contrasts “celestial marriage” or the New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage, with MONOGAMY. Therefore, Brian Hales doesn’t know what he is talking about when he says,

Polygamists today want the New and Everlasting Covenant to be strictly plural marriage or always to require plural marriage. It is just isn’t true. (Hales, Interpreter comments, October 15, 2014, op. cited above).

Unfortunately it is true. On May 16, 1843 Joseph Smith had a “revelation” which reads in part,

In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter in to this Order of the Priesthood; (meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage;) And if he does not, he cannot obtain it. He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom: he cannot have an increase.

The New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage was “Celestial Marriage” and required a special “order of the priesthood,” which would be restored by Elijah. Concerning this on 26 June 1882, John Taylor declared in a “revelation”:

No person, or people, or nation, can enter into the principle of celestial marriage unless they come in by me, saith the Lord, and obey the law of my Gospel through the medium of him who is appointed unto this power * * *. You ask, what shall we do? Thus saith the Lord God: obey my law, and seek not to become a law unto yourselves, nor trust to outside influences; * * * Concerning the course taken by the United States, they have a right to reject this law themselves, as they have a right to reject the Gospel; but it is contrary to the provisions of the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, for them to prohibit you from obeying it. Therefore, abide in my law which I have revealed unto you, saith the Lord God. ( Brian Stuy, Collected Discourses, Vol.2, xx)

Are you getting this, those that would believe the apologetics of Hales and Greg Smith? In a “revelation”, John Taylor calls “Celestial Marriage”, polygamy. If it was not, then how could the United States “reject” it? They could not, because it would be like Brian Hales describes it now, Monogamy. “This law”, that Smith talks of in Section 132, was polygamy. Taylor also says that it is “contrary to the provisions of the Constitution… for them to prohibit you from obeying it.” What were they “prohibiting”? Polygamy or “this law”.

This is plain, simple, and cut and dry. If the New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage was only the sealing of two people together, why does Taylor claim that the United States can’t prohibit you from obeying it? Was the U.S. trying to prohibit monogamy? No.

Hales is completely changing the definition of what the early Mormons knew Celestial Marriage to be. With that in mind, we find that John Taylor specifically addressed this in 1882,

Question: Is the law of Celestial Marriage [POLYGAMY] a law given to this nation or to the world?
Answer: No, in no other sense than as the Gospel is given, and in accordance with the laws thereof. So far as it is made known unto them as the Gospel is made known unto them and is a part of the New and Everlasting Covenant; and it is only those who receive the Gospel that are able to, or capable of, entering into this Covenant. (page 2) Have I not said through my servant, Joseph, that “all Kingdoms are governed by law,” and if they receive not the law of My Gospel they cannot participate in the blessings of celestial marriage, which pertains to my elect.
No person, or people, or nation can enter into the principle of celestial marriage unless they come in by me, saith the Lord, and obey the law of my Gospel through the medium of him who is appointed unto this power, as made known unto my people through my servant, Joseph, in a revelation (page 3) on “The eternity of the marriage covenant, including plurality of wives.” I have therein stated that “All those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same; for, behold, I reveal unto you a new and everlasting Covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory*” Furthermore, “And as pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, it was instituted for the fullness of my glory; and he that resanctified by the same. That which breaketh a law, and abideth not by law, but seeketh to become a law unto itself, and willeth to abide in sin, and altogether abideth in sin, cannot be sanctified by law, neither by mercy, justice, nor judgment.*”
It is further written, speaking of Celestial Marriage, “And verily I say unto you, that the conditions of this law are these: All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations that are not made, and entered into, and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, of him who is anointed, both as well for time and for all eternity, and that too most holy, by revelation and commandment thro’ the medium of mine anointed, whom I have appointed on the earth to hold this power, (and I have appointed unto my servant, Joseph, to hold this power in the last days, and there is never but one on the earth at a time, or on whom this power and the Keys of this Priesthood are conferred,) are of no efficacy, virtue or force, in and after the resurrection from the dead; for all contracts that are not made unto this end, have an end when men are dead” This law is a Celestial law and pertains to a Celestial Kingdom. It is a new and everlasting Covenant, and appertains to thrones, principalities, powers, Doc. and Cov. Sec. 132, ver. 7. dominions, and eternal increase in the Celestial Kingdom of God.
You are not now sent to proclaim this principle to the United States, nor the world; nor to urge it upon them. It is not for them as a nation, or nations, only as many as accept the law of my Gospel and are governed thereby. Behold, if you were to preach this principle unto them and they said, “We accept it,” Could you then administer it unto them? Verily, I say unto you, Nay. Have I not said, “Behold, mine house is a house of order, saith (page 10) the Lord God, and not a house of confusion. Will I accept of an offering, saith the Lord, that is not made in my name, or will I receive at you hands that which I have not appointed, and will I appoint unto you, saith the Lord, except it be by law, even as I and my Father ordained before the world was!
“I am the Lord thy God, and I give unto you this commandment, that no man shall come unto the Father but by me, or by my word, which is my law, saith the Lord; and everything that is in (page 11) the world, whether it be ordained of men, by thrones, or principalities, or powers, or things of name, whatsoever they may be, that are not by me, saith the Lord, shall be thrown down, and shall not remain after men are dead, neither in nor after the resurrection, saith the Lord your God; for whatsoever things remain, are by me: and whatsoever things are not by me shall be shaken and destroyed.
“Therefore, if a man marry him a wife in the world, and he marry her not by me, nor by my word; and he Covenant with her so long as he is in the world (page 12) and she be with him, their Covenant and marriage are not of force when they are dead, and when they are out of the world; therefore, they are not bound by any law when they are out of the world. (Fred C. Collier, Unpublished Revelations of the Prophets and Presidents of the Church of Jesus Chrsit of Latter-day Saints, Vol. 1, 129-131).

Taylor here specifically states that the “Eternity of the marriage covenant” INCLUDES plurality of wives. The sealing power is a necessary component of plural marriage. Again during 1882, John Taylor issued an epistle on marriage which states:

What shall be done with those who do not fulfill the obligations of the Gospel, and are not prepared to assume the responsibilities and obligations connected therewith? Is the order of God to be violated? Are the barriers placed around this sacred institution to be trampled down and broken underfoot? And are unworthy characters who do not fulfill the requirements of the Gospel to have conferred upon them the blessings of eternal lives, of thrones, and powers, and principalities in the Celestial Kingdom of God? We emphatically answer, No! (Brian Stuy, Collected Discourses, Vol.2, xix)

This “sacred institution” was plural marriage, which was having “barriers” placed around it by the Federal Government. This statement makes no sense if Taylor was only speaking of monogamy. Taylor then admonished Church members to obey the law of God, even if they had to break the laws of the land:

Now, then, the United States pass a law that a man shall not marry wives according to the order that God has revealed. Now it is a fact that we should like to obey the laws of the United States, if we could do it. …

Has God given us a law? Yes. All right we will get along and do the best we can, but we won’t forsake our God. All who are willing to abide by the laws of God signify it by raising the right hand (unanimous vote). Now try and keep them. But will we fight against the United States? No, we will not. Well, how will these things be brought about? Don’t you expect that the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our God and his Christ? Yes, I do, as much as I believe I am speaking to you and you are hearing me, and I not only believe it but know it. Well, now, how will that be brought about if you do not pitch in? We need not do this. There is plenty that will pitch in; there will be plenty of trouble by and by without our interference, when men begin to tear away one plank after another out of the platform of constitutional liberty; there will not be much to tie to. And how will you get along with them? We will leave them to get along with themselves. And how will that be? We are told the wicked shall slay the wicked, but says the Lord: “It is my business to take care of the Saints.” God will stand by Israel, and Zion shall triumph and this work will go on until the kingdom is established and all nations bow to its standard.(Journal of Discourses Vol. 21, 70-71, Online here, (for full context), Accessed December 31, 2014).

If the order that God revealed is simply man to woman sealing, then why does Taylor claim that they passed a law that a man shall not marry wives according to the ORDER that God has revealed? This is an important point and why Taylor would never renounce polygamy. He stated that God would have “the wicked slay the wicked” until “the kingdoms of this world” become the kingdoms of the Mormons. They would not need to renounce it. God would take care of it. As Thomas G. Alexander wrote,

Plural marriage had been so thoroughly ingrained in the Latter-day Saint community that neither a public pronouncement nor a hierarchical decision could easily eliminate it. Members reading section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants understood “plural marriage” for “new and everlasting covenant” or, in common parlance “celestial marriage.” Apostle Marriner W. Merrill, for instance, insisted in one discussion that no year would go by without some children being born to plural marriages and that the Manifesto of 1890 was not a revelation from God. (D. Michael Quinn, New Mormon History, Ch.14, 256)

The references he gives to these facts are impressive:

Matthias F. Cowley, Cowley’s Talks on Doctrine (Chattanooga, Tenn.: Ben E. Rich 1902), pp. 180-82; Joseph Eckersley, Journal, 26 Dec. 1904, LDS Church Archives; Lund, Journal, 9 Jan. 1900, 18 Nov. 1903, JH, 19 Nov. 1903; John Henry Smith, Journal, 9, 10 Jan. 1900, 19 Nov. 1903; Joseph F. Smith to Samuel L. Adams 24 Dec. 1903, Joseph F. Smith Letterbooks, LDS Church Archives; Talmage, Journal, 14 Oct. 1904; Merrill, Utah Pioneer and Apostle, p. 147; Smoot Proceedings, 1:408-10.

John Henry Smith

Here for example is the John Henry Smith entry:

[Tuesday, Jan. 9, 1900 – Salt Lake City] All of the Apostles but Rudger Clawson met in the Temple at 10 a.m. Brigham Young [JR] presiding. Brigham Young gave words of Wisdom. Abraham O. Woodruff talked on Colinization. Matthias F. Cowley bore testimony to the whole truth. Anthon H. Lund felt we should be guarded in what we did. Rudger Clawson came in and gave us a good general talk. Marriner W. Merrill gave us some of his early experience and stood strong for polygamy. John W. Taylor was for Zion first and last. (See entry here at the Signature Books Library).

These are men who are looking for options to continue to practice polygamy, not discontinue it because they felt that Woodruff never had a “revelation” to revoke it. Then, Hales would have us believe this:

I really like Apostle Joseph F. Smith’s 1878 teaching:

“There is a great deal said about our plural marriage… It is a principle that pertains to eternal life, in other words, to endless lives, or eternal increase. It is a law of the Gospel pertaining to the celestial kingdom, APPLICABLE TO ALL GOSPEL DISPENSATIONS, WHEN COMMANDED AND NOT OTHERWISE, AND NEITHER ACCEPTABLE TO GOD OR BINDING ON MAN UNLESS GIVEN BY COMMANDMENT” (JD 20:26; caps added by Hales).

Unfortunately, Hales didn’t quote ALL of what Smith said that would be pertinent. Smith also said,

In the first place, it [plural marriage] is a principle that savors of life unto life, or of death unto death; therefore it is well for those who have embraced the Gospel to obtain a knowledge in relation to this matter. It is a principle that pertains to eternal life, in other words, to endless lives, or eternal increase. It is a law of the Gospel pertaining to the celestial kingdom, applicable to all gospel dispensations, when commanded and not otherwise, and neither acceptable to God or binding on man unless given by commandment, not only so given in this dispensation, but particularly adapted to the conditions and necessities thereof, and to the circumstances, responsibilities, and personal, as well as vicarious duties of the people of God in this age of the world. God has revealed it as a principle particularly suited to the nature of the work we are called to perform, that it might be hastened to its consummation. (ibid., added emphasis, Online here (for context), Accessed December 31, 2014).

Smith here is saying that yes, polygamy is not acceptable unless given by commandment, but it in fact was given by commandment, and then Smith states that polygamy was “a principle particularly suited to the nature of the work we are called to perform, that it might be hastened to its consummation.

When Joseph F. Smith speaks of polygamy not being commanded, he is obviously speaking of other dispensations, not the one in which they are in now. That it not to be revoked and was necessary for the completion of the work of the last dispensation is obvious when he claims that polygamy was to be practiced until the work is comsummated (completed).

So what reason was there to revoke it? None, according to Smith, or John Taylor, or Wilford Woodruff until Woodruff had to concede that God was not going to bail them out and they would lose all of their property. That was more important to Woodruff than the principle. Hales writes,

So here Joseph F. Smith says polygamy is a “law” but only “when commanded.” So, when it is NOT commanded, it is not a law. Since plurality can be commanded, it can be revoked, (see D&C 56:4, 58:32; Jacob 2:30), which happened in 1890. Elder Smith states polygamy is not “binding” unless “given by commandment.” Also, it is not required of “all gospel dispensations.” This is exactly what I believe.

Actually, Smith said that polygamy was “applicable to all gospel dispensations”. Hales claims that Smith said exactly the opposite of this. It may be what Hales believes, but he is taking F. Smith totally out of context to arrive at his erroneous conclusions. Was it required of the “last dispensation”. Smith says, yes. In fact, he shows that Brian Hales is misleading people about polygamy in this “last” dispensation,

Some people have supposed that the doctrine of plural marriage was a sort of superfluity, or nonessential to the salvation or exaltation of mankind. In other words, some of the Saints have said, and believe, that a man with one wife, sealed to him by the authority of the Priesthood for time and eternity, will receive an exaltation as great and glorious, if he is faithful, as he possibly could with more than one. I want here to enter my solemn protest against this idea, for I know it is false. (Smith, op. cited, 28, added emphasis).

Hales answer for this is to refer to the quote that he puts in all caps, but that he must take out of context to apply to the later part of F. Smith’s speech. As for Section 132, listen to what Smith has to say here:

The marriage of one woman to a man for time and eternity by the sealing power, according to the law of God, is a fulfillment of the celestial law of marriage in part—and is good so far as it goes—and so far as a man abides these conditions of the law, he will receive his reward therefore, and this reward, or blessing, he could not obtain on any other grounds or conditions. But this is only the beginning of the law, not the whole of it. Therefore, whoever has imagined that he could obtain the fullness of the blessings pertaining to this celestial law, by complying with only a portion of its conditions, has deceived himself. He cannot do it. (ibid.)

Smith does not qualify this statement. It is what it is. Polygamy is ESSENTIAL to obtain the FULNESS of the blessings pertaining to celestial marriage. There is no other way to interpret this. Unless the Church has finished its mission here in the last dispensation and the “consummation” of the Age has taken place, polygamy must be in effect. But it is not, because unlike Joseph Smith, Wilford Woodruff was not willing to move the “Saints” out from under the influence of the United States. Brigham Young and John Taylor always taught that the Lord would protect them and destroy the United States Government. That is why they did not revoke the principle. He claimed in 1865:

We are now located in the midst of these mountains, and are here because we were obliged to go somewhere. We were under the necessity of leaving our homes, and had to go somewhere. Before we left Nauvoo, three Members of Congress told us that if we would leave the United States, we should never be troubled by them again. We did leave the United States, and now Congressmen say, if you will renounce polygamy you shall be admitted unto the Union as an independent State and live with us. We shall live any way, and increase, and spread, and prosper, and we shall know the most and be the best-looking people there is on the earth. As for polygamy, or any other doctrine the Lord has revealed, it, is not for me to change, alter, or renounce it; my business is to obey when the Lord commands, and this is the duty of all mankind. (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 11, 111, added emphasis, Online here, Accessed December 31, 2014).

A year later he claimed,

It is not Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Daniel H. Wells and the Elders of Israel they are fighting against; but it is the Lord Almighty. What is the Lord going to do? He is going to do just as he pleases, and the world cannot help themselves.

I heard the revelation on polygamy, and I believed it with all my heart, and I know it is from God—I know that he revealed it from heaven; I know that it is true, and understand the bearings of it and why it is. “Do you think that we shall ever be admitted as a State into the Union without denying the principle of polygamy?” If we are not admitted until then, we shall never be admitted. These things will be just as the Lord will. Let us live to take just what he sends to us, and when our enemies rise up against us, we will meet them as we can, and exercise faith and pray for wisdom and power more than they have, and contend continually for the right. Go along, my children, saith the Lord, do all you can, and remember that your blessings come through your faith. Be faithful and cut the corners of your enemies where you can—get the advantage of them by faith add good works, take care of yourselves, and they will destroy themselves. (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 11, 269, added emphasis, Online here, Accessed December 31, 2014).

Hales makes a gross mistake when he writes about polygamy. He looks at it through presentist eyes. He applies modern definitions to the practice. Celestial Marriage in the 19th Century ALWAYS included polygamy. They were inseparable. That is why Joseph F. Smith said,

If, then, this principle was of such great importance that the Prophet himself was threatened with destruction, and the best men in the Church with being excluded from the favor of the Almighty, if they did not enter into and establish the practice of it upon the earth, it is useless to tell me that there is no blessing attached to obedience to the law, or that a man with only one wife can obtain as great a reward, glory or kingdom as he can with more than one, being equally faithful.
Patriarchal marriage involves conditions, responsibilities and obligations which do not exist in monogamy, and there are blessings attached to the faithful observance of that law, if viewed only upon natural principles, which must so far exceed those of monogamy as the conditions responsibilities and power of increase are greater. This is my view and testimony in relation to this matter. I believe it is a doctrine that should be taught and understood.
The benefits derived from the righteous observance of this order of marriage do not accrue solely to the husband, but are shared equally by the wives; not only is this true upon the grounds of obedience to a divine law, but upon physiological and scientific principles. In the latter view, the wives are even more benefited, if possible, than the husband physically. But, indeed, the benefits naturally accruing to both sexes, and particularly to their offspring, in time, say nothing of eternity, are immensely greater in the righteous practice of patriarchal marriage than in monogamy, even admitting the eternity of the monogamic marriage covenant. (Smith, op. cited, 29-30, added emphasis).

There is no argument that can counter these words. Smith claims that even if one is only married for “eternity” to one wife, the blessings of practicing polygamy far exceed those of monogamy. As Wilford Woodruff explained in 1869,

There is not a man who has lived since the Church went into the wilderness and the kingdom of God was taken from the earth; until Moroni rent the vail and gave to Joseph Smith the records of the Book of Mormon, and until Peter, James and John sealed upon him the keys of the holy Priesthood, who can claim a wife in the resurrection. Not one of them has been married for eternity, but only until death. But unto the Latter-day Saints the sealing ordinances have been revealed, and they will have effect after death, and, as I have said, will re-unite men and women eternally in the family organization. Herein is why these principles are a part of our religion, and by them husbands and wives, parents and children will be re-united until the links in the chain are re-united back to Father Adam. We could not obtain a fullness of celestial glory without this sealing ordinance or the institution called the patriarchal order of marriage, which is one of the most glorious principles of our religion. I would just as lief the United States Government would pass a law against my being baptized for the remission of my sins, or against my receiving the Holy Ghost, as against my practicing the patriarchal order of marriage. I would just as lief they would take away any other principle of the Gospel as this. The opinion of men generally, in relation to this subject, is that the Latter-day Saints practise it for the gratification of their carnal desires; but such ideas are wholly untrue. The world seek after this; but the Saints of God practise this principle that they may partake of eternal lives, that they may have wives and posterity in the world to come and throughout the endless ages of eternity. (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13, 167, added emphasis, Online here, Accessed January 5, 2015).

Woodruff is claiming that without “patriarchal marriage” or POLYGAMY, along with the sealing ordinances, one could not obtain a “fullness of celestial glory”. This is because the law had been revealed to this dispensation and could not be revoked. If Woodruff is speaking of just monogamy or sealing then why mention “carnal desires” and the United States Government’s passing of laws? He is speaking of polygamy. The “partriarchal order of marriage” (Section 132) is plural marriage, not monogamy. That is why in 1886, eight years after this discourse, John Taylor wrote this “revelation”:

My son John: You have asked me concerning the New and Everlasting Covenant and how far it is binding upon my people. Thus saith the Lord All commandments that I give must be obeyed by those calling themselves by my name unless they are revoked by me or by my authority and how can I revoke an everlasting covenant. For I the Lord am everlasting and my covenants cannot be abrogated nor done away with; but they stand forever. Have I not given my word in great plainness on this subject? Yet have not great numbers of my people been negligent in the observance of my law and the keeping of my commandment, and yet have I borne with them these many years and this because of their weakness because of the perilous times. And furthermore it is more pleasing to me that men should use their free agency in regard to these matters Nevertheless I the Lord do not change and my word and my covenants and my law do not. And as I have heretofore said by my servant Joseph all those who would enter into my glory must and shall obey my law. And have I not commanded men that if they were Abraham’s seed and would enter into my glory they must do the works of Abraham. I have not revoked this law nor will I for it is everlasting and those who will enter into my glory must obey the conditions thereof, even so Amen. (“Revelation” to John Taylor to answer his son’s questions about polygamy, September 27, 1886, Collier, op. cited, 88).

Taylor calls polygamy the “new and everlasting covenant”, and answers how far it is BINDING on the people. Why would he need to answer this if it were only about sealing and monogamy? He certainly is not asking if the sealing power is binding on the people. Polygamy was given to the Last Dispensation as an EVERLASTING Covenant, never to be revoked. This is made perfectly clear by Taylor. To answer this Brian Hales simply states that,

Nor should it [Taylor’s “revelation”] be considered to be the “final word” regarding the topics it discusses.

Can a Mormon prophet revoke baptism? According to Hales’ logic, SURE CAN! He can do ANYTHING he wants, even disavow Jesus Christ, and it would be ok, because continuing “revelation” trumps all previous “revelation” about everything. This argument is lucicrous and irrational, but that doesn’t stop Hales from propogating it.

This kind of explanation is so disingenuous that it defies credulity. Continuous “revelation” does not mean that God mocks himself, which is what Hales would have us believe these men taught. It makes one wonder how he can condemn someone like Jeremy Runnells for lying, when Hales himself is the consummate misconstruer of facts.

[101] Journal of Discourses, Vol. 20, 30-31, July 7, 1878, added emphasis, Online here, Accessed January 5, 2015).

[102] Wilford Woodruff, November 1, 1891, Brian Stuy, Collected Discourses Vol.2, 288.

[103] Abraham H. Cannon Diary, December 19, 1889.

[104] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 9, 68-69, November 24, 1889.

[105] Journal of Discourses, 12:308-316, 21 November, 1868, online here, accessed September 9, 2018.

[106] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 6:232-233, 13 July 1865 Mount Pleasant, Utah First Discourse.

[107] Journal of Discourses, 9:318-23, 6 July, 1862.

Brian Hales Polygamy: His Continued Misuse of Sources

Posted on October 24, 2018 by grindael

I am continually amazed when I read anything written by Brian Hales about Joseph Smith’s Polygamy. And that is not a good thing, for he continues to be completely dishonest in his use of sources in an effort to convince others of his invented polygamy narrative, in this instance, the interpretation of Doctrine & Covenants, Section 132.

I admit, I’m just getting sick and tired of reading his articles and in this case “review”, because he continues to knowingly omit crucial details when he quotes sources, leaving out information that radically changes the meaning of what he is quoting. I will give a few examples below.

Brian’s latest foray into Smith’s polygamy is a “review” of the book, The Plural Marriage Revelation, part of a series on “Textual Studies of the Doctrine and Covenants” published by Greg Kofford Books and written by William Victor Smith.

Now, I don’t know William Victor Smith, nor have I read his book, I have only read Hales’ “review”, which is not really a review of the book at all. Hales writes a few general comments about the book, (mostly negative), and then takes a few examples of what he claims are “several significant topics mentioned in the revelation which TPMR seems to ignore or discuss incompletely.”

Being intimately familiar with Hales irrational views about Joseph Smith’s polygamy, I understand completely his M.O. when he writes anything about it and therefore wasn’t surprised to find him sticking to that M.O. in this “review”. The first thing that Hales does is try to vilify any “critics” of Joseph Smith. Here is what he wrote concerning them:

Critics too will enjoy an interpretation that alleges that all Church members today are going to be damned because they are monogamists.

So Brian thinks that all critics will enjoy the thought that post Manifesto Mormons are all going to be damned? Where does he get such irrational thinking from I wonder?

I know there are many critics who have Mormon friends and family, and the thought of them suffering with such a burden would not be enjoyable to say the least. And is a serious book review the place to even make such derogatory comments? What should it matter what critics think about certain aspects of Joseph’s polygamy in this context? But it does matter to Mormon Apologists, which Hales claims that he is.

In his section titled “Nauvoo Teachings of Eternal Marriage Without Plural Marriage”, Hales writes,

While available accounts of Joseph Smith’s discourses contain few references to eternal marriage, a January 5, 1844, letter from Nauvoo Church member Jacob Scott to his daughter Mary Warnock indicates that such doctrines were known by rank-and-file members in late 1843. Scott wrote, “Several Revelations of great utility, & uncommon interest have been lately communicated to Joseph & the Church; but where you are you cannot obey them; one Tis that all Marriage contracts or Covenants are to be ‘Everlasting[‘], that is: The parties (if the[y] belong to the Church) and will obey the will of God in this relationship to each other; are to be married for both Time and Eternity.” He then discusses proxy marital sealing ordinances:

And as respects those whose partners were dead, before this Revelation was given to the Church; they have the privilege to be married to their deceased husbands, or wives (as the case may be) for eternity, and if it is a man who desires to be married to his deceased wife; a Sister in the Church stands as Proxy, or as a representative of the deceased in attending to the marriage ceremony; and so in the case of a widow who desires to be joined in a everlasting covenant to her dead husband.

Next, paraphrasing the information found in verses 16‒17, Scott explained to his daughter, “if they are not thus married for Eternity, they must remain in a state of Celebacy [sic], & be as the angels, ministering spirits, r [are] servants to the married to all eternity, and can never rise to any greater degree of Glory.”

Remarkably, Scott then described how the teaching and practice were expanding and how he anticipated his “second nuptials”: “Many members of the Church have already availed themselves of this privilege, & have been married to their deceased partners … & I intend to be married to the wife of my youth before I go to Ireland, I would be unspeakably glad to have you all here to witness our Second Nuptials. The work of Generation is not to cease for ever with the Saints in this present life.”

Jacob Scott lived outside of Nauvoo’s polygamy insider circle, but according to this letter, he possessed a working understanding of eternal marriage ceremonies while making no mention of a connection to plural marriage or a need to engage in polygamy in order to be eternally sealed.

TPMR, quoting briefly from Scott’s letter (citing it from a secondary source), concludes: “Scott’s remarks reflect public explanations in the face of the rumored revelation” (60fn56). A full examination of the letter indicates that the “public explanations” were rather detailed concerning eternal marriage and proxy sealings without tying them to plural marriage.

Hales is trying to claim that Scott did not comprehend that this was polygamy. And reading what Hales quoted, one may even come to that conclusion. Except that Hales didn’t fully quote Scott’s letter. He left something out. Notice Hales’ ellipses? Scott explains to his daughter,

“Many members of the Church have already availed themselves of this privilege, & have been married to their deceased partners …

He then writes (which Hales conveniently leaves out):

…& in some cases where a Man has been married to 2 or three wives, and they are dead he has been married to them all; in the Order in which he was married to them while living & also widows have been married to their dead husbands [several words crossed out and the following inserted at the same writing, and in the same hand] but only to ONE husband. & I intend to be married to the wife of my youth… (emphasis mine)

If that isn’t polygamy, then I don’t know what is. Why would Hales just leave this out of his quote? Because it would destroy his irrational interpretation of D&C 132. A few months later, Hyrum Smith taught at Conference that this kind of Spiritual Wifeism [polygamy] was what converted him to the principle:

The idea of marrying for eternity is the seal of the covenant, and is easily understood; and as to speaking of it, I could make all the world believe it, for it is noble and grand; it is necessary in consequence of the broken covenants in the world. I never saw any scripture but what was written by Prophet to instruct and prepare mankind for eternity. I read that what God joins together, let no man put asunder. I see magistrates and Priests in the world, but not one who is empowered to join together by the authority of God. Nor yet have I seen any priest that dare say that he has the authority of God; there is not a sectarian Priest in Christendom that dare say he has the authority by direct revelation from God. When I look at the seal of the new Covenant and reflect that all the covenants made by the authority of man are only made to be in force during the natural life and end there, I rejoice that what is the consideration of the Almighty God, everything rightfully and lawfully belongs to man if he fulfills the stipulated conditions; and if a thing belongs to me legally, it cannot belong to any one else.

I married me a wife, and I am the only one who had any right to her. We had five children, the covenant was made four our lives. She fell into the grave before God showed us his order. God has shown me that the covenant is dead, and had no force, neither could I have her in the resurrection, but we should be as the angels–it troubled me. President Joseph said you can have her sealed to you upon the same principles as you can be baptized for the dead. I enquired what can I do for any second wife? You can also make a covenant with her for eternity and have her sealed to you by the authority of the priesthood.

I named the subject to my present wife, and she said, “I will act as proxy for your wife that is dead, and I will be sealed to you for eternity myself for I never had any other husband. I love you and I do not want to be separate from you nor be forever alone in the world to come.” If there is any man that has no more sense, and will make a base story of such a fact, his name shall be published. What honest man or woman can find fault with such a doctrine as this? None. It is a doctrine not to be preached to the world; but to the Saints who have obeyed the gospel and gathered to Zion. It is glad tiding of great joy.

The Lord has given Joseph the power to seal on earth and in heaven [for] those who are found worthy; having the Spirit of Elijah and Elias, he has power to seal with a seal that shall never be broken, and it shall be in force in the morn of the resurrection. Talk about spiritual wives! One that is dead and gone is spiritual. We will come up in the morn of the resurrection; and every soul that is saved will receive an eternal increase of glory. Will you believe this, (loud shouts of aye).

Every great and good principle should be taught to the Saints, but some must not be taught to the world; until they are prepared to receive them; it would be like casting pearls before swine. No man must attempt to preach them.

I believe every good man should have one wife in this life, and I know if I had two I should not know what to do with them; they might quarrel about me, and I might get a whipping. One is enough, and I warn all of you not to attempt it; if a man should begin to find out, you would get into some cell in Alton. (Hyrum Smith, Conference Address, April 8. 1844).

What they were teaching was that polygamy wasn’t to be practiced on earth, but that it was practiced in the afterlife, exactly what Scott writes months earlier. Hyrum, of course was lying, he had more than one wife on earth when he gave this address. What is interesting about what Scott wrote, is that he included this that Hales also forgot to mention:

there are many things connected with this subject which I am not at liberty to communicate to you, where you are living which would make the matter plainer to your minds & more satisfactory therefore, beware how you treat this subject for no doubt it is of God.

So Jacob told his daughter that there were “many things” he could not tell her that were “connected to this subject,”. Could one be that they were indeed practicing polygamy in this life also? We don’t know, but Hales simply leaves out this possibility, instead claiming that Scott makes “no mention of a connection to plural marriage or a need to engage in polygamy in order to be eternally sealed.”

Jacob further explains,

Other revelations intimately connected with this momentous dispensation and which are almost ready to unfold themselves to us, I cannot communicate to you at present, altho’ I know them in part for you could not bear them now. If you were living with the Church, your Spiritual advantages would be much greater than they now are: but to inform you of all that is made known to the Church, here, yet would go abroad from you and likely cause you much persecution, at any rate much more than you have.

So Scott was purposefully not telling his daughter all that he knew. What could his daughter “not bear”? This gives us a more complete picture of what Scott wrote, but you don’t learn this from Hales, and he dishonestly leaves out that Scott knew that men could be sealed to more than one wife, which was polygamy!

In another section titled “TPMR’s Polygamy Tunnel Vision”, Hales writes,

Another discussion that seems to be missing from TPMR is the exploration of the different views regarding the importance of plural marriage in Joseph Smith’s overall cosmology. Instead, it consistently manifests a type of polygamy tunnel vision of a “seeming inseparability of polygamy and eternal sealing” (2). “So much of Mormon theology [is] centrally tied to plurality” (4). “The ability to retain or remit sins in the context of the revelation highlights the importance of plural marriage in Joseph Smith’s broader narrative of salvation and exaltation” (132).

Consistent with this view, TPMR refers to Section 132 as the “plural marriage revelation” 159 times and as the “polygamy revelation” three times. In contrast, it is referenced as the “celestial marriage revelation” or “eternal marriage revelation” zero times. These latter two labels could also be appropriately used, depending on context, but that context is generally absent in TPMR (see below).

This view is important, especially when interpreting the word “law” in verse 6: “And as pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, it was instituted for the fulness of my glory; and he that receiveth a fulness thereof must and shall abide the law, or he shall be damned, saith the Lord God.” What is this “law” that must be obeyed to avoid damnation?

TPMR offers an opinion: “The meaning of the word ‘law’ in this particular revelation was historically interpreted as referring to authorized polygamy” (37) and further explains: “The revelation [makes] clear that after receiving knowledge of the law of plural marriage, a failure to participate resulted in damnation (v. 4)” (86; emphasis added). This narrow interpretation is reflected elsewhere: “In order to be exalted in God’s presence one must fulfill all of the sacraments including, in this case, participation in polygamy” (35).

While LDS leaders and members in the past have used words like law, covenant, practice, principle, and commandment interchangeably, plural marriage was more commonly referred to as a doctrine, principle, or practice. A review of references to the practice in early general conference discourses shows that polygamy and plural marriage were seldom referred as a law.(See the summary in the table on the opposite page.)

In addition, it doesn’t appear that Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and John Taylor ever taught that polygamy was God’s law commanded of all peoples in all places and times.In 1883, President Taylor recognized a distinction between the “law of celestial marriage” and the “principle of plural marriage”: “He [God] has told us about our wives and our children being sealed to us, that we might have a claim on them in eternity. He has revealed unto us the law of celestial marriage, associated with which is the principle of plural marriage.”

Hales simply cherry picks what he wants from Taylor’s 1883 sermon. Doesn’t he realize that it is very easy to simply read the sermon to get the context of what Taylor meant? Hales simply quotes Taylor’s opening line, which is totally disingenuous. Taylor says this immediately after what Hales quoted:

I will speak a little upon this subject.

He then does so, at length. And what Taylor says is exactly the opposite of how Hales interprets his remarks:

It is very seldom that I refer to it, but there is need for it occasionally. I speak of it as that law given to us of God. I do not know, but I have been informed that there are those who seem to be opposed to this law in one or two places where we have been traveling. Now, I dare not oppose anything of the kind. I dare not violate any law of God.

Taylor here, refers to it as a LAW OF GOD. But is he talking about polygamy? Of course he is:

And I will tell you what Joseph Smith said upon the subject. He presented this principle to the Twelve, and called upon them to obey it, and said if they did not, the kingdom of God could not go one step further. Why could it not go one step further? Because we had a religion to live by, but none that placed our associations upon eternal principles or gave us a claim upon each other in the family relations in the eternal worlds. But through this principle we could be sealed to one another through time and eternity; we could prepare ourselves for an exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom of God. It is one of the greatest blessings that ever was conferred upon the human family. It is an eternal law which has always existed in other worlds as well as in this world. I will here call your attention to the revelation itself which reads:

“Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines—“

“Behold, and lo, I am the Lord thy God, and will answer thee as touching this matter.

“Therefore, prepare thy heart to receive and obey the instructions which I am about to give unto you; for all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same.”

This you will see is strictly in accordance with what I have told you Joseph Smith told the Twelve—that if this law was not practiced, if they would not enter into this covenant, then the kingdom of God could not go one step further.

Taylor then explains that he and the Twelve did not want to prevent the kingdom of God from going forward, so they embraced the LAW:

The revelation, as you have heard, says that, “all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same.” Now, that is not my word. I did not make it. It was the Prophet of God who revealed that to us in Nauvoo, and I bear witness of this solemn fact before God, that He did reveal this sacred principle to me and others of the Twelve, and in this revelation it is stated that it is the will and law of God that “all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same.” And the revelation further says:

“For behold, I reveal unto you a new and everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned.” Think of that, will you. For it is further said: “no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.”

There are many people who try to excuse themselves in this matter and who essay to do as they please, but as the Lord God liveth, He will not excuse them. He expects those who profess to be his people to carry out that law. The revelation continues to say:

“For all who will have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof, as were instituted from before the foundation of the world.”

“And as pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, it was instituted for the fullness of my glory; and he that receiveth a fullness thereof must and shall abide the law, or he shall be damned, saith the Lord God.”

I thought I would have a little of this revelation read. The whole revelation is quite lengthy. But it goes to say that all covenants heretofore entered into amount to nothing, and that they will be of no benefit to people beyond the grave.

Now, as I have already said, the reason was very obvious why a law of this kind should be had. As a people we professed to be Latter-day Saints. We professed to be governed by the word, and will, and law of God. We had a religion that might do to live by, but we had none to die by. But this was a principle that God had revealed unto us, and it must be obeyed. I had always entertained strict ideas of virtue, and I felt as a married man that this was to me, outside of this principle, an appalling thing to do.

The idea of my going and asking a young lady to be married to me, when I had already a wife! It was a thing calculated to stir up feelings from the innermost depth of the human soul. I had always entertained the strictest regard for chastity. I had never in my life seen the time when I have known man deceiving a woman—and it is often done in the world, where notwithstanding the crime, the man is received into society, and the poor woman is looked upon as a pariah and an outcast—I have always looked upon such a thing as infamous, and upon such a man as a villain, and I hold today the same ideas. Hence, with the feelings I had entertained, nothing but a knowledge of God, and the revelations of God, and the truth of them, could have induced me to embrace such a principle as this. We seemed to put off, as far as we could, what might be termed the evil day. Some time after these things were made known to us, I was riding out of Nauvoo on horseback, and met Joseph Smith coming in, he, too, being on horseback. Some of you who were acquainted with Nauvoo, know where the graveyard was. We met upon the road going on to the hill there. I bowed to Brother Joseph, and having done the same to me he said; “Stop;” and he looked at me very intently. “Look here,” said he, “those things that have been spoken of must be fulfilled, and if they are not entered into right away, the keys will be turned.” Well, what did I do? Did I feel to stand in the way of this great, eternal principle, and treat lightly the things of God? No. I replied: “Brother Joseph, I will try and carry these things out,” and I afterwards did, and I have done it more times than once…

It is obvious that Taylor is calling polygamy the law that they had to obey, not simply eternal marriage. Why would they object to simply practicing eternal marriage? It was polygamy Taylor was speaking of, that they had to practice, not just eternal marriage. And the definition of the word “principle”: is “a comprehensive and fundamental law, doctrine or assumption”.

Three years later, Taylor wrote this revelation, which absolutely calls polygamy (the new and everlasting covenant) God’s LAW:

My son John, you have asked me concerning the New and Everlasting Covenant how far it is binding upon my people.

Thus saith the Lord: All commandments that I give must be obeyed by those calling themselves by my name unless they are revoked by me or by my authority, and how can I revoke an everlasting covenant, for I the Lord am everlasting and my everlasting covenants cannot be abrogated nor done away with, but they stand forever.

Have I not given my word in great plainness on this subject? Yet have not great numbers of my people been negligent in the observance of my law and the keeping of my commandments, and yet have I borne with them these many years; and this because of their weakness—because of the perilous times, and furthermore, it is more pleasing to me that men should use their free agency in regard to these matters. Nevertheless, I the Lord do not change and my word and my covenants and my law do not, and as I have heretofore said by my servant Joseph: All those who would enter into my glory must and shall obey my law. And have I not commanded men that if they were Abraham’s seed and would enter into my glory, they must do the works of Abraham. I have not revoked this law, nor will I, for it is everlasting, and those who will enter into my glory must obey the conditions thereof; even so, Amen. (Given to President John Taylor September 27, 1886).

Here Taylor calls polygamy the “New and Everlasting Covenant”. He wasn’t speaking of revoking eternal marriage, but POLYGAMY which he calls a new and everlasting covenant. Hales also makes this ridiculous assertion:

God states that he is revealing a new and everlasting covenant (vv. 4, 6); polygamy would not have been new to Joseph, who had been reading the Bible for many years.

And yet Joseph calls baptism a “new and everlasting covenant” in D&C 22:

Behold, I say unto you that all old covenants have I caused to be done away in this thing; and this is a new and an everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning.

Was baptism new to Joseph in 1830? Hales argument is simply irrational. Hales “review” of Smith’s commentary on D&C 132 is full of erroneous conclusions based on faulty interpretations which in turn are based on manipulating sources to suit his own end: to promote his invented polygamy narrative. This is Hales M.O., used in all of his commentary about Joseph Smith’s polygamy, and I advise anyone reading anything written by Hales on this subject to beware, and to certainly check every source that he quotes.

Johnny Talks Polygamy with Naked Mormonism

Posted on October 13, 2018 by grindael

Bryce Blankenagel of Naked Mormonism graciously asked me to participate in a podcast about Joseph Smith’s polygamy. Here is Part I for your listening pleasure,

http://nakedmormonismpodcast.libsyn.com/ep-123-bm-pt-3-polygamy-pre-bennett-wjohnny-stephenson

And Part II:

http://nakedmormonismpodcast.libsyn.com/ep-124-bm-pt-4-polygamy-post-bennett-wjohnny-stephenson

The Irrational World of Brian Hales’ Polygamy (Part I)

Posted on August 27, 2018 by grindael

By Johnny Stephenson & Jeremy Runnells

Introduction

It appears that plural marriage is gospel meat that can only be understood by those who have sufficiently prepared themselves in faith and knowledge. ~Brian Hales

Ok. There you have it. If you don’t have sufficient “faith and knowledge” it appears that you are doomed to misunderstand everything about Joseph Smith and his practice of polygamy according to Brian Hales. So for all of you that are not members of the Mormon Church—it appears that you’re just out of luck. No matter what you read or no matter what your comprehension skills; it won’t do you any good because this is “gospel meat” and not meant to be understood by the unworthy. You know, the whole ”pearls before swine” thing.

The desperation of such an argument speaks for itself. So, is there some kind of faith and knowledge meter that can tell a person if they have finally arrived at a place where they can understand Joseph Smith’s practice of polygamy—because according to many faithful Mormons, they don’t understand it either. (Even those who have been in the Church for many, many years). Perhaps they might, if the faithful could only look at the evidence without all the apologetic interpretation of those like Brian Hales, who seem to be the only ones proclaiming that this is hard to understand without some kind of special spiritual “preparation”.

In our estimation anyone who claims that a person cannot understand something without some kind of “preparation” and special “knowledge” has already shown that their conclusions cannot be reached by any reasonable method used by the public at large (like simply reading and evaluating the evidence with common sense). We understand that there is a difference between faith and understanding, and that one does not necessarily hinge on the other. When it comes to the supernatural, of course some people believe in those things, but that doesn’t preclude anyone from understanding the claims made by those who do. At least we think so and are pretty sure we can show you why.

For example, must a psychiartrist experience schitzophrenia to understand what it is and treat it? Criminal profilers are often very accurate in their assessment and character of who committed crimes, but do they have to be criminals themselves to understand them and give an accurate profile?

What this really means (in our humble estimation) is that apologists like Brian Hales are trying to control the narrative. (Which it appears he certainly has tried very hard to do, even going so far as to question the friendship of those that do not use the research he pushes on them). But what price must one pay to do so? Embrace hypocrisy and folk tales, folk tales that aren’t even contemporary with the period of time they were supposed to originate in?

For example, we think that one can easily understand (without any special preparation and knowledge) why stories began circulating a decade after Joseph Smith died that he was so repulsed by polygamy and only began to practice it because he was threatened by an angel with a sword who commanded him to do so or die—and this in direct contradiction of all that Smith ever taught about free agency. We think people get that. It makes Smith look more reluctant to embrace his spiritual wifeism (the correct term used by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and others for what later became plural or celestial marriage) and therefore appear more “prophet-like” in the eyes of his apologists and ardent followers who are understandably uncomfortable with the thought of a Warren Jeffs-like “prophet” as the founder of their religion.

Unfortunately, for those who put their faith in such folktales, there is no evidence that this story was ever related by anyone in the lifetime of Joseph Smith; there are only some late accounts that begin about a decade after he died. This folktale also turns the Mormon God into the Mormon Satan—who wanted to force everyone to do what they were told so they could become “gods”. This may “prepare” the Mormon base of believers to accept Smith’s teachings and actions about his spiritul wifeism; but it doesn’t do much (in our estimation) for the credibility of those propagating such folk tales.

It doesn’t take special “preparation and knowledge” to understand when there isn’t any evidence and that something is in all likelihood a folk tale. Yet that doesn’t stop some from repeating folklore as if it were reality and denigrating those that don’t agree with the apologetic conclusions they come up with because they think this will take some of the heat off of Joseph Smith’s practice of polygamy.

It sure didn’t stop the Church from including this particular folk tale (the angel of death) in one of their Essays recently added to the Gospel Topics page at lds.org. Of course, the story of the angel and the sword that appears in the new Essay titled “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo” was mysteriously transformed into an angel of “encouragement”, and the Essay doesn’t give the reader any references or sources as to why they transform the angel, except a hyperlink to an article by Brian Hales—who is referenced half a dozen times in the Essay and who we suspect wrote or contributed to it.

In the above mentioned Essay it states that this tale is what Joseph Smith “told” some “associates”. It also states that “fragmentary evidence” declares that Smith was first commanded by God to practice polygamy with Fanny Alger, but this would be before Smith (according to his own teachings) had authority to do so.

Welcome folks, to the irrational world of Brian Hales’ polygamy.

This Essay was begun in the summer of 2014 and completed by the Spring of 2015, with further editing and additions made from April, 2015 to January, 2018. Jeremy made a promise to give a response to Brian Hales’ many accusations against him about the information in the CES Letter and elsewhere, and enlisted the aid of Johnny Stephenson in crafting a reply. This reply is filled with media and notes, some of them individual essays in and of themselves and so it took us many years to finish. Here is Part I, and subsequent parts (II-IV) will be published in two week intervals. ~Jeremy Runnells & Johnny Stephenson, August, 2018.

Nauvoo, by David Hyrum Smith

Part I: Sticks and Stones

Remember the old adage, ‘Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me’. True courage consists in doing what is right, despite the jeers and sneers of our companions. ~The Christian Recorder, March 1862.

In the ongoing debate over how Joseph Smith’s polygamy is being interpreted by Mormon apologists, historians and critics, we have Brian Hales (josephsmithspolygamy.org) contributing an article on July 15, 2014 sarcastically titled, “Jeremy Runnells—the New Expert on Joseph Smith’s Polygamy?”[1]

CLICK to go to CES LETTER

Jeremy Runnells is the author of the CES LETTER, which was published on the internet in April, 2013 after he wrote the original.[2] It included many of his concerns about the Mormon Church, and subsequently went “viral” on the internet. The letter by Runnells has many Mormon apologists very concerned about its contents and soon after Jeremy published it FAIRMORMON (an organized group of Mormon apologists) wrote a response to Runnells’ concerns in the letter,[3] to which Runnells’ has responded.[4]

It is a section on Polygamy in Jeremy’s response titled Debunking FAIR’s Debunking that Brian Hales addresses in the above mentioned article posted on the Rational Faith’s Blog.[5] Unfortunately, Hales sarcastic attempt to cast doubt on Jeremy’s effort does not really address many of his concerns about Joseph Smith’s polygamy; instead Hales uses this article to attack and try to defame Jeremy Runnells—and promote his website.

Among other things, what is really troubling to us is this reply by Brian Hales in response to a comment about the article he posted at Rational Faiths on July 17, 2014:

Frankly, I’ve never been a fan of labels like “apologist” and “anti-Mormon.” I think people resort to labels when they run out of evidence to support their positions. I have invited Jeremy to defend his interpretation of Joseph Smith’s involvement with plural marriage. I don’t expect to change his current convictions (but I wish he would for his sake). I do believe that he and many other writers have used assumptions, misrepresentations, and half-truths to support their claims. The way for everyone to win (even though we will undoubtedly not agree) is for Jeremy and me to use documentation and less rhetoric in explaining and defending out interpretations. That is the challenge.[6]

After publishing the sarcastic response to Runnells on July 15, 2014; and some other comments on July 17, where he states that the way to “win” is to use more documentation and less rhetoric; Mr. Hales took it one step further and published an interesting bit of fiction on his website Blog (which is sandwiched among all of the apologetics that attempt to defend and prop up the practice of polygamy by Joseph Smith) on July 30, 2014, which is titled:

“’There Began to be Lyings Sent Forth among the People’: The Message of Jeremy Runnells”[7]

Hales also made sure to publish it again (himself) on FAIRMORMON’s Blog,[8] and this he did on August 4, 2014.

So much for more documentation and less rhetoric. Hales also said he was waiting for a response from Jeremy, but I guess he couldn’t really resist slinging more rhetoric while he waited.

Right off the bat, Hales pumps up the derogatory rhetoric by calling Jeremy names and claiming that his “message” is simply “lyings” send forth from Satan; who Brian Hales seems to think is the puppet master of almost every critic of the Mormon Church. This coming from someone who claims to be a defender of Joseph Smith and is critical of any who conclude the same thing about the Mormon “prophet” (that he is a liar or con-man—though not necessarily a tool of Satan).[9] All we could think of when we read this was “Did he really just say that?” But Hales did, and he appears to be serious. Hales begins by quoting the Book of Mormon:

And it came to pass that from this time forth [when the star appeared at the birth of Christ] there began to be lyings sent forth among the people, by Satan, to harden their hearts, to the intent that they might not believe in those signs and wonders which they had seen… [10]

Automatically, we have Jeremy’s intent: “to harden hearts” so that “they might not believe.” But Jeremy was initially asking for answers. It seems that in Hales’ irrational world that this is an agenda inspired by Satan to turn people away from Mormonism. Hales adds, “The sending forth of “lyings” is not a new phenomenon.” Hales then goes back to Genesis—to Satan and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden—as if this is somehow relevant to Jeremy Runnells’ concerns about Smith’s polygamy and other issues.

Of course Hales believes that anyone who is not a good Mormon like he obviously must be, (since he is “qualified” to teach about Joseph Smith by having the Priesthood and a “testimony” of Smith) disqualifies them from writing about Mormonism.[11] So Hales basic problem with Runnells seems to be that he tells lies from Satan and he isn’t “authorized” to teach. Hales’ focus here isn’t on the evidence, but seems to be trying to make it appear that Jeremy is some kind of sock puppet of Satan.

Right away, Hales tries to poison the well for any Mormon that might want to read what Runnells is so concerned about by claiming that Jeremy is a liar.

This is the same tactic that Hales and Gregory L. Smith used at the Mormon Interpreter on Grant Palmer, which is documented in Note #1 below, although with a little more subtlety.

Setting down the groundwork for the attack to come, Hales then states:

Recently Jeremy Runnells wrote two articles, “Letter to a CES Director: Why I Lost My Testimony” and “Debunking FAIR’s Debunking,” where he outlines his reasons for his current disbelief. I analyzed his statements regarding plural marriage in a short essay entitled “Jeremy Runnells—the New Expert on Joseph Smith’s Polygamy?” There I examine his primary claims and methodology, of which I am quite critical.[12]

Quite critical? Hales went much farther than being “quite critical”. First, the Letter to a CES Director was not originally an article, though it was eventually expanded and updated from the original. (Because it was a list of concerns about material Jeremy had gleaned from many different sources). What Hales claims here though, (that he has examined Runnells’ primary claims in “Debunking FAIR”) is not true. Hales simply takes a couple of cheap shots at Runnells by using an example or two from Jeremy’s lengthy treatment of Smith’s polygamy, which he (Hales) then completely bungles with his “frequent use of polemical red-herrings to undermine historical evidence he dislikes”.[13]

We will address those treatments by Hales below. In the comments attached to that Blog Article at Rational Faiths, Hales writes,

In 3 Nephi 1:22 we read: “And it came to pass that from this time forth there began to be lyings sent forth among the people” and so it seems to be today. That is how I would classify Runnells treatment of Joseph Smith’s polygamy. How can we identify a lie? Perhaps reading the original documents would help.[14]

It was this comment that Hales subsequently turned into a primarily ad hominem attack on his website.

For someone who has claimed to have read “the latest research”, I (Johnny) can say with assurance that in his case, it doesn’t help Hales at all. Why? Because I and others who have also thoroughly studied Smith’s practice of polygamy (like Jeremy Runnells) can show that Hales analysis of the documents is flawed by his determination to misconstrue that evidence in an effort to protect Hales idealistic representation of Joseph Smith. D. Michael Quinn called what Hales does a “closed system of logic”.[15]

But before I get into that, let’s get back to the lying thing. How does Hales show/prove that Jeremy is a liar? (Which would be the point, wouldn’t it?) Hales states on his website:

Jeremy Runnells reflects confidence in his interpretations and satisfaction in his aggressive antagonism of the Church and its teachings. He is obviously entitled to his own opinions and to believe whatever voices he chooses to believe. However, it may be possible to see in him and in his actions, a process as old as Adam and as predictable as the sunset turning into the blackness of night.[16]

As we see above, Hales doesn’t show Jeremy to be a liar—he does something worse, he slanders his name with no proof at all. He then likens Jeremy and his concerns about Mormonism “to a process as old as Adam” which he describes with cheap dime store novel rhetoric. Hales then quotes a Mormon “Authority” to try and give his pulp fiction weight (at least in his mind):

Apostle Neal Maxwell

Church members will live in this wheat-and-tares situation until the Millennium. Some real tares even masquerade as wheat, including the few eager individuals who lecture the rest of us about Church doctrines in which they no longer believe. They criticize the use of Church resources to which they no longer contribute. They condescendingly seek to counsel the Brethren whom they no longer sustain. Confrontive, [sic] except of themselves, of course, they leave the Church, but they cannot leave the Church alone. Like the throng on the ramparts of the “great and spacious building,” they are intensely and busily preoccupied, pointing fingers of scorn at the steadfast iron-rodders (1 Ne. 8:26–28, 33). Considering their ceaseless preoccupation, one wonders, “Is there no diversionary activity available to them, especially in such a large building—like a bowling alley?” Perhaps in their mockings and beneath the stir are repressed doubts of their doubts. In any case, given the perils of popularity, Brigham Young advised that this “people must be kept where the finger of scorn can be pointed at them.”[17]

It’s all so simple to Hales via Maxwell isn’t it? If you ask for questions and seek answers but do not get them and you are not satisfied and make this known, you are a “tare” who by even questioning the leadership of the Church are now “pointing the finger of scorn”?

Here we have Hales (through Neal Maxwell) claiming that Jeremy Runnells is masquerading as something he is not. First, what is Maxwell getting at here? His whole speech was about what he calls “the harvest from permissiveness”. About “living ethically without God” and replacing a “just and moral order” with “disorder and confusion”.

Maxwell acts like the Mormon people are the only ones who have ever had the finger of scorn pointed at them.[18] Maxwell’s solution is for members to shut up and play follow the leader (become “like a child”) because no matter what, the “brethren” are right and you are wrong because you dared to ask questions or question their teachings. You are all children and we (the “Lord’s Anointed”) are the adults.[19]

Did Jeremy Runnells proclaim such things? Not at all. What Jeremy did was to write down all of the concerns that he had about the Church from a variety of sources, and then ask for help from a church “authority” to answer them. What help did Jeremy get from the church? He got none at all, even though he was promised answers.

Maxwell talks about those who criticize the church who no longer believe in it, but if you criticize the history or doctrine of the Church as a believer, you can be disciplined or excommunicated for doing so; something that Jeremy also had questions about in his Letter, but which the Mormon Hierarchy didn’t bother to answer. Maxwell also says that such people are,

Confrontive, [sic] except of themselves, of course, they leave the Church, but they cannot leave the Church alone.[20]

This is one of the most hackneyed apologist lines ever invented and that never seems to get old with them. And now that Mormon “authorities” have picked it up and are spewing it out to the public in General Conferences, it is one we may never hear the end of. Who can’t leave who alone? When Jeremy’s letter (to his great surprise) went viral, who was it that came after him? FAIRMORMON, and apologists like Daniel C. Peterson and Brian Hales. Hales even says in his ad hominem on Jeremy:

“When lyings gain traction in the media, sometimes due to the efforts of individuals like Jeremy…”[21]

So is this what Brian Hales is concerned about: “Traction in the media”? It seems like it is, because this is the focus of his article. Didn’t Hales say that this was all about the evidence? Instead, he mockingly claims that Jeremy has propped himself up as the new “expert” on polygamy—when Jeremy did nothing of the kind .

Could Brian Hales simply be jealous? He certainly attacks a lot of people that never mention him at all, but do write or speak about polygamy. Does Hales think that he is the expert on polygamy because he printed up some documents that he had a research assistant gather together—to which he added some inane apologetic commentary? Or perhaps Brian and Laura Hales consider themselves the Internet Police when it comes to Joseph Smith’s polygamy?[22]

We don’t make this claim (that their commentary is inanely apologetic) lightly. Many of Hales’ arguments are illogical and incomprehensible, as will be shown below. One of the more ridiculous arguments is self evident in its ridiculousness: that Jeremy Runnells is some kind of Sock Puppet of Satan, and that in response (apparently), God is using Brian C. Hales to expose him to the world.

It seems that Hales only wants to denigrate Jeremy, because all he does is make a few baseless and trivial objections to what Jeremy has written about polygamy in his rebuttal to FAIRMORMON—who he then calls a liar. Hales then leaves it at that, with no credible evidence at all to back up his cowardly attack. He then directs his audience to go to his website, which promotes his books.

The Hales pattern of behavior is self evident: 1) Set themselves up as the Internet Police regarding Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 2) Insert themselves into Polygamy discussions or respond to Blogs and Articles, 3) Shamelessly promote their website and books.

As for those who leave the church but can’t leave it alone, this comment was brought to our attention recently:

“You can leave the church, but you can’t leave it alone.”

What about a kidnapping survivor that wants to devote their time and efforts to educate and bring awareness to others?

What about a former gang member that wants to devote their time and efforts to educate and bring awareness to others?

What about a mentally and physically abused wife that wants to devote her time and efforts to educate and bring awareness to others?

What about a rape victim that wants to devote her time and efforts to educate and bring awareness to others?

What about a recovering drug addict that wants to devote their time and efforts to educate and bring awareness to others?

What about a cancer survivor or family of someone that has lost their life to cancer and they want to devote their time and efforts to educate and bring awareness to others?[23]

It is obvious that this is exactly what the Mormon Hierarchy and their apologists want: for their critics to simply leave them alone so they can be in control of as much information about the Church as possible. If not, then why would Hales include that quote by Maxwell in a follow up hit piece on Jeremy when it doesn’t apply to his situation at all?

And since many of the critics of Mormonism are Ex-Mormons (including the authors of this article) who understand the Church very well; of course Mormon apologists have to twist their (the Ex-Mormons) experience into something it is not and never was as they accuse them of being obsessed with the Church after they leave it. There is no love here for the “lost sheep” in our opinion; neither is there any real concern over the pain that it must cause to those who do leave the church. All that is swept aside as they are transformed into lying “Anti-Mormon” Agents of Satan. Hales sporadic platitudes of sympathy mean little in the light of these kinds of attacks.

What Maxwell does not do, what these men (Mormon General Authorities) never seem to do, is give a real sympathetic ear to those who continue to have (after getting unsatisfactory or no answers from Mormon leaders at the Ward and Stake level) legitimate problems with the Church’s History and Doctrine. They don’t seem to understand the concept of the “lost sheep”. Instead they produce anonymous Essays (in an effort to do damage control) and spout platitudes like “your questions will all be answered in the next life,” which is really no answer at all.

Jeremy Runnells

This is what happened to Jeremy Runnells, a faithful member of the Church who originally wrote up a 60 page document about all of the doctrinal and historical concerns he had, which he then sent off to an “authority” to answer, pleading for help. Yet, his concerns were ignored.

If after this you leave the Church and talk about your experience, and it becomes viral you may finally get a response, but not from any “authorities”—who seemingly couldn’t care less about you until they have their lackeys drag you into a church court for “apostasy”.

But because the Church dropped the ball and you made it public, you are condemned by the Church’s apologists (because no one in authority will address your concerns) as an “apostate” who can’t leave the Church alone because you felt that you must defend yourself from their attacks! You are then labeled as a liar, because you dared to try and rebut all of the accusations against you and your concerns about the Church by those same pontificating Mormon apologists, chief among them Brian Hales, Kevin Christensen, Stephen O. Smoot and Daniel C. Peterson. They have even devoted a website to attack Jeremy, and are now producing YouTube Videos.

All the while the Church itself washes its hands of the whole affair but then begins posting anonymous essays on their official website dealing with some of the very issues that went viral because of your letter—that they still won’t “officially” answer themselves.

Jeremy Runnells did get a response, but not one made in love and understanding. It was an ugly response that makes one question the very ethics of the Hierarchy of the Mormon Church and those who claim to defend it. At Rational Faiths faithful Brian Hales writes:

Of course Runnells is entitled to his own views, but when individuals attempt to expound and defend a specific historical interpretation before the public, it seems it would be wise to familiarize themselves with the latest research on the topic. Otherwise, they may perpetuate incomplete or deceptive arguments. Such persons should probably expect that their historical reconstruction will be critiqued by scholars who have also studied the same subject. It appears that Runnells’ accounts and criticisms of Joseph Smith’s polygamy reflect important weaknesses. But even more unfortunate is the apparent fact that Runnells is himself unaware of those weaknesses.[24]

Hales makes sure to get this in before he ever starts critiquing any of Runnells’ section on polygamy in their FAIRMORMON rebuttal. An honest person writing about another person’s work would perhaps have said something like, “Otherwise they may perpetuate incomplete or incorrect arguments.”

Only someone with an agenda to slander someone else would have used the word deceptive, which implies dishonesty. This would be acceptable if it was true, but we can show that it is not, therefore it is simply slander.

Disbelieving the claims of Joseph Smith (in part because the Church has no answers to very troubling questions) and disapproval of the practice of polygamy (among other things) in Brian Hales irrational world makes one a Sockpuppet of Satan. But almost everyone has questions and seeks answers. If Brian Hales is so concerned about Jeremy (as he claims), then why go to these lengths to vilify him before he even gets Runnells’ response to his accusations?

Hales is also trying to claim that Jeremy Runnells isn’t using the “correct” method to obtain his answers. Let’s go back to that quote by Hales again:

Is this what Hales did with Jeremy (use documentation to rebut his concerns)? Not really. He personally attacked him and called him a liar and an Agent of Satan. (And he did so AFTER he made the comment above). So is Brian Hales sincere in his effort to explain and defend his position? We must say given the evidence above he is not, but has already made up his mind about Jeremy and has closed his mind to anything but his own invented narrative. Notice also the words that Hales uses to describe the “many other writers” that don’t agree with Hales conclusions. They “misrepresent”, which is “the action or offense of giving a false or misleading account of the nature of something.” It’s all about malice with Hales because they don’t agree with him.

That still leaves us with those token rebuttals of Hales, to which we can add information from his website and other published works. That is where I (Johnny) came in. Not having had much interaction with Jeremy before this, I was troubled when I first heard about and read Hales initial attack on Jeremy and offered my help in crafting a response. It has taken years of intensive research by the both of us to do so.

Hales loves to claim (about others) that they come to their conclusions based on assumptions, misrepresentations and half-truths. That is quite a claim to try and support—let’s see if he can make that stick to Jeremy and if the evidence supports Hales’ own irrational conclusions. We’ll let you—the interested readers—decide if Hales has been successful in making his case.

Notes to Part I: Sticks and Stones

[1] Hales’ article may be found here online, accessed October 10, 2014, hereafter cited as Hales, Rational Faiths.

During the first part of October, 2014, Brian Hales along with Gregory L. Smith (another Mormon Apologist) recently co-authored another hit piece—on Grant Palmer, in which they use the same deplorable tactics there as Brian Hales does with Jeremy Runnells.

Hales & Smith claim in this new character assassination article that Palmer has “represented the historical data” both “poorly” and that by advancing factual inaccuracies, quoting sources without establishing their credibility, and that by ignoring contradictory evidences he has manifested superficial research techniques that fail to account for the “latest scholarship” [which would be Hales own of course]. This will sound very familiar after reading what Hales wrote about Jeremy Runnells, Alex Beam and John Dehlin.

To show the ridiculousness of Hales and Smith’s assertions against Palmer, one need only read this quotation below where they describe what they deem a very “problematic issue”:

Factual inaccuracies. For example, on page 8 he speaks of a man, “Benjamin F. Winchester,” but there is no such person. Church history participants included “Benjamin F. Johnson” and “Benjamin Winchester” but no “Benjamin F. Winchester.” This might seem a nitpicky criticism, but it is an example of how poorly Palmer’s essay has been constructed and edited. It also suggests a reliance on secondary sources rather than a consultation of the original documents.

However, at FAIRMORMON Gregory L. Smith makes the same mistake, (online here, but changed by Smith after he was called on it – see my screenshot) and so because of what Brian Hales nitpicks, should we assume that they too have all of the same problems that Hales attributes to Grant Palmer? Hales wants his audience to believe that because Palmer included the middle initial that Van Wagoner used in Mormon Polygamy, he also is simply not reading the primary sources. I guess Hales isn’t either.

This is simply another one of Hales’ (and Smith’s) many silly strawman arguments which all of his articles and essays are full of. This of course does not negate Winchester’s contributions to Mormon History; but is simply a ploy of Hales and Smith to discredit Palmer before they even assess his article.

We will find Hales using this same tactic with Jeremy Runnells. What is even more ironic, Gregory L. Smith identifies Winchester with the middle initial “F” in a big bold header in this FAIRMORMON Article (not a citation) he posted on their wiki page. He also uses Benjamin F. Winchester in a footnote that was lifted from Van Wagoner’s work, and since the original source does not have the middle initial, how could Van Wagoner “cite” a person that (according to Hales and Smith) doesn’t exist? (This has since been corrected by Smith).

Hales and Smith also actually tried to accuse Richard Van Wagoner of plagiarism, but when I brought these mistakes up (which they must consider as plagiarism also, right?) in my comments at the Mormon Interpreter, they deleted my comments. Smith also used the middle initial “F” for Benjamin Winchester on the “Other Accounts” section of “Mormonism and Temples”, (see screenshot above) which has also since been changed.

In fact, Hales himself also uses the middle initial “F” in one of his polygamy articles for The Journal of Mormon History, (Fall 2009) issue. On page 167 he uses the same citation that Grant Palmer does in his article, “Benjamin F. Winchester, “Primitive Mormonism—Personal Narrative of It,” Salt Lake Tribune, September 22, 1889, 2.”

Hales doesn’t mention any discrepancies there at all, and uses this as a legitimate source quotation. He doesn’t cite Van Wagoner at all, which is where he must have gotten it from, since the original source does not have the middle initial. Must we therefore conclude that Hales also produces poorly constructed essays and relies on secondary sources for his information? Did he then plagiarize this from Van Wagoner? This is silly stuff folks, but part of their irrational world.

For more information see the Discussion, “Grant Palmer is Attacked by Brian Hales and Gregory L. Smith”, at Mormon Discussions, posted on October 13, 2014, Online here, by grindael/Johnny Stephenson, accessed October 17, 2014.

At the Mormon Interpreter, only one comment by me was approved, but then the response by Gregory L. Smith and my comment were mysteriously deleted the next day. They did not bother to respond to any of my subsequent comments. This is their modus operandi, to smear those who don’t agree with them, and never let their fan base or “believing” audience see them get embarrassed by the evidence that knowledgeable Historians can and do present. My comments and reply by Smith are included in the Mormon Discussions Post from October 13, 2014 mentioned above.

Addendum: Hales also had a Facebook Conversation with Dan Vogel that rose (slightly) above these tactics which to his credit he posted on his website, but Hales still employs ad homenim towards Dan, and continues to use hypocritical tactics with the evidence. We have included and addressed some of these comments in this Essay, and have answered Hales’ last comment to Dan Vogel in Note #30.

[2] Jeremy Runnells, “CES Letter,” PDF, online here, accessed September 1, 2014, hereafter “Runnells, CES”.

[3] FAIRMORMON, “Criticism of Mormonism,” online here, accessed September 1, 2014.

[4] Jeremy Runnells, Debunking FAIRMORMON, PDF online here, accessed October 20, 2014, hereafter “Runnells, Deunking.”

[5] Runnells, Debunking, “Polygamy-Polyandry”, online here, accessed October 20, 2014.

[6] Hales, Rational Faiths, op. cited.

[7] Brian Hales, “There Began to be Lyings Sent Forth Among the People—The Message of Jeremy Runnells”, online here, August 14, 2014, hereafter cited as “Hales, Lyings”.

[8] Hales, Lyings, online here, accessed August 14, 2014.

[9] The difference here is that while Hales doesn’t show in any way that Jeremy is a liar; there is definite proof that Joseph Smith was. Also, see Episodes 402-404 at Mormon Stories Podcast, “Brian Hales”, Pt. 1 found here, accessed, October 20, 2014.

[10] 3 Nephi 1:22.

[11] On July 4, 2014 Cheryl L. Bruno published a response to a letter that Hales wrote to the Editor of the John Whitmer Historical Association on the Worlds Without End Blog. Hales immediately began attacking Cheryl Bruno (another believing Mormon who disagreed with him). One of his comments about her was,

Are we to classify Cheryl Bruno as another webmaster who teaches that Joseph Smith was a fraud? Unfortunately, there seems to be a growing number of such voices on the Internet these days. (Cheryl Bruno, “Emma’s Awareness: A Response to Brian Hales’ JMH Letter to the Editor, Worlds Without End, Online here, Accessed, October 20, 2014).

Instead of sticking to the historical issues, which Hales called “pseudo-evidence”, he continued his personal attack on Cheryl Bruno:

Cheryl chastises me saying: “For shame, Brian.” Perhaps I should apologize, but when a person like Cheryl or me places themselves in front of others as teachers of Joseph Smith’s life and doctrines, our personal beliefs become an issue. Why? Because he taught, “If ye receive not the Spirit ye shall not teach” (D&C 42:14). I think many in our audiences would like to know what spirit we seek as we teach. It seems to me that when you label Joseph Smith’s plural marriages as “indiscretions,” you portray him as a false prophet because he plainly disagreed with your assessment (see D&C 132:19-20). You affirm your belief in him but I seem to detect an inconsistency – (ibid., added emphpasis).

This is simply a ploy by Hales to try and jade the audience against those who disagree with him or his views about Joseph Smith. No one was asking this (by the way) if you read the comments. If you don’t uphold Smith and declare him totally innocent in everything he did, then you are a liar and Agent of Satan as Hales claims that Jeremy Runnells is; or that you have no right to teach anything about Smith as Hales directed at Cheryl Bruno.

With all of the erroneous conclusions that Brian Hales makes concerning polygamy, maybe he should evaluate himself as a teacher, but of course that will never happen, he will just produce more and more hit pieces on those who do not agree with him to promote his books and website. I advise Hales to carefully reread Doctrine and Covenants Section 107 and the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood. But if he is taking his cue from the Mormon Hierarchy in Salt Lake City, it will make little difference.

[12] Hales, Rational Faiths, op. cited. There is a difference between being “quite critical” and blatant ad hominem which seems lost on those like Brian Hales.

[13] In the comments to this article Hales writes,

You are right that in this response I’ve not be able to really talk evidence. That is why I refer people to JosephSmithsPolygamy.ORG. There I have not avoided any topic. They are all there. Maybe give it a look?

It seems that everything that Hales produces is simply a promotion for his books or website. In his response to me about the attacks on Grant Palmer even Gregory L. Smith made a book pitch for Hales:

This is one reason that I recommend Brian’s 3 volumes so highly (and he didn’t pay me to say this!) He presents all the data available, or strives to. He explains how and why he reads it as he does, but even if you completely disagree, you can see how he got there. (Gregory L. Smith, response to grindael, October 14, 2014, since deleted by The Mormon Interpreter, but may be read here, Accessed, October 20, 2014).

Actually, you really can’t see how Hales gets to his conclusions because his speculations are, “ridiculous assertions”, (“The Sexual Side of Joseph Smith’s Polyandry,” 2012, 101) in which one finds “absurdity” (87) and many “fallacies of irrelevant proof”, among other things, (80, 102, 104) according to Historian D. Michael Quinn.

Michael Quinn produced a massive analysis of Brian Hales’ questionable methodology in 2012 with his rebuttal to Hales’ flawed system of logic and perplexing gaffes in his use of the evidence in his presentations and written work dealing with Smith’s polyandry. He even went so far as to say that Hales consistently used a “double standard of LDS apologists who narrowly define acceptable evidence for unpleasant realities,” which for Hales, Smith’s life is full of.

The fact that Hales admits that his article targeting Jeremy Runnells really wasn’t about the evidence tells us that he was either too lazy to even try, or that it was so important to smear Jeremy Runnells that he just didn’t care about presenting any evidence to go along with his false accusations—or that he just didn’t have any. We will let the readers decide.

What is interesting is that in a (now deleted) comment at the Mormon Interpreter, Gregory L. Smith derided me for saying that Grant Palmer was not obligated to include every apologist speculation that disagreed with his conclusions. He claimed that Palmer was then obligated to write a longer article. He wrote,

If, however, Palmer is going to cite evidence regarding specific episodes that suggest Joseph had sexual dalliances outside of marriage relationships, then he must mention all the evidence which bears on those episodes. If this requires a larger article, so be it–he must either expand the article, or narrow his focus so that he can treat the evidence fairly in the allotted space. The same applies to you. One can’t simply allude to evidence that exists “out there” and consider the job done. I am a bit surprised that this is a point that must be explained. (Gregory L. Smith, comment to grindael, op. cited above in Note #1, added emphasis).

Does Hales do this with Jeremy Runnells? No. Even in his comments he admits that he doesn’t address the evidence but refers them to what is “out there” on his website. We find this blatant hypocrisy troubling.

[14] Hales, Rational Faiths, op. cited.

[15] Using closed systems of logic is one of the tactics of cultists. See for example, Captive Hearts Captive Minds: Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Abusive Relationships, Alameda, CA: Hunter House, Inc, Madeleine Landau Tobias, & Janja Lalich, (1994).

[16] Hales, Blog, op. cited.

[17] Neal A. Maxwell, “Becometh As a Child,” Conference Address, April 1996. Online here, accessed October 20, 2014.

[18] This kind of approach reminds us of something that Brigham Young once said, in regard to Mormon persecution,

The accusation brought against the Latter-day Saints was that they tampered with the slaves in Missouri, with the design of setting them free, and because of this the people were driven, and the Lord suffered it. But I ask did the Latter-day Saints ever suffer in Missouri as the Missourians did in the late struggle? No, not a drop in a bucket compared with it. The Missourians have been driven from their houses and hung up, their property confiscated, their women and children murdered, and every conceivable evil has been heaped upon them. Did we ever suffer like that? In very few instances; and it is a shame for the Latter-day Saints ever to talk about suffering. (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13, 148, added emphasis, Online here, Accessed October 20, 2014).

In other words according to Brigham Young Mormons have never really suffered compared to others and have a tendency to blow things out of proportion. That has not changed.

[19] In this speech Maxwell cleverly interweaves the stories of Children’s faith in God and then likens that to the membership placing the same faith and trust in Mormon leaders. He claims that “Because they trusted God as to what was really going on, like Job, they did not charge God foolishly”, and then states that members (like the people in the Book of Mormon) should be “willing to submit to what had been inflicted upon them.” He concludes that “Such submissive stillness is necessary, because the process of consecration is not one of explanation.” (added emphasis)

The concept of the lay membership being no more than “children” that need to be submissive and obey their leaders is nothing new in Mormonism. In speaking of the Endowment, Catherine Lewis wrote in 1848:

This is called “the Sealing;” the Order of the Celestial Kingdom. In this part, the Twelve are commanded to take a plurality of wives; but lay members are only allowed to take to themselves wives with the consent of the Twelve. Here they seal up men, women and children to eternal life, as they term it. Men with their wives and families are sealed up to the Twelve as children, and are bound by solemn Oaths to obey their Parents (the Twelve) in all things, forever. They never become of age, but are subject to the Apostles, as Christ is to the Father. At Nauvoo, I repeatedly heard it said, “When we arrive in the wilderness, where the law of the Lord can be executed, then the children who will not obey their parents, will be taken out of the Camp, and stoned to death. Did the people know under what bonds and penalties they brought themselves, by this sealing, very few, if any, but the most vicious and depraved, would consent to be sealed. But it is wrapt so much in mystery, that many submit to its obligations from motives of curiosity, who afterward view them with abhorrence. I saw the sealing ceremony performed on Kimball’s lawful family, but should not be allowed to see the sealing of his adopted wives or children. (Catherine Lewis, Narrative, pg. 19, added emphasis).

Catherine Lewis is describing the Law of Adoption, which was practiced in the Church from the time of Joseph Smith until Wilford Woodruff discontinued the practice in 1894. A few years earlier in his Temple Lot Testimony, Lorenzo Snow lied that it was ever practiced in the Church. (See Note #176 & #177).

There is also plenty of evidence for the practice of Blood Atonement that was instigated by Young “in the wilderness” which we will discuss later in this Note.

For Hales to use this speech by Maxwell in relation to Jeremy Runnells is puzzling. Maxwell opens his speech with what he terms are the dangers of “Secularism” in America, and that “permissiveness” is opening the door to “awful consequences.” This is a debate that has been going on in America for many decades. Maxwell quotes a line from one of journalist Peter Marin’s articles which speaks of “Secularism’s Blind Faith.” But Maxwell completely misses Marin’s conclusion:

“We know now, or ought to know, that men are as ready to kill in God’s absence as they are in his name: that reason, like faith, can lead to murder, that the fanaticism long associated with religion was not born there, but has its roots deeper down in human nature.” (ibid, added emphasis)

One only has to look at the tyrannical reign of Brigham Young in Utah to see the flip side of Secularism’s problems in our day. What is ironic is that Maxwell quotes Brigham Young in an effort to denounce what Young deemed “popularism” after he (Maxwell) denounces those who he claims “cannot leave the church alone”:

Like the throng on the ramparts of the “great and spacious building,” they are intensely and busily preoccupied, pointing fingers of scorn at the steadfast iron-rodders (1 Ne. 8:26–28, 33). Considering their ceaseless preoccupation, one wonders, Is there no diversionary activity available to them, especially in such a large building—like a bowling alley? Perhaps in their mockings and beneath the stir are repressed doubts of their doubts. In any case, given the perils of popularity, Brigham Young advised that this “people must be kept where the finger of scorn can be pointed at them” (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe [1941], 434). (Maxwell, op. cited).

But if one reads the quote by Young in context it becomes clear what he is really speaking of:

I look at this, and I am satisfied that it will not do for the Lord to make this people popular. Why? Because all hell would want to be in the church. The people must be kept where the finger of scorn can be pointed at them.

Although it is admitted that we are honest, industrious, truthful, virtuous, self-denying, and, as a community, possess every moral excellence, yet we must be looked upon as ignorant and unworthy, and as the offscouring of society, and be hated by the world. What is the reason of this? Christ and Baal can not become friends. When I see this people grow and spread and prosper, I feel that there is more danger than when they are in poverty. Being driven from city to city or into the mountains is nothing compared to the danger of our becoming rich and being hailed by outsiders as a first-class community. I am afraid of only one thing. What is that? That we will not live our religion, and that we will partially slide a little from the path of rectitude, and go part of the way to meet our friends. They say now that if we will only give up the doctrine of plurality of wives, they will admit us as a state, and hail us as “a pet state,” give us the preference to all the states, for our industry and prudence. (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses Vol. 12, pg. 272, August 16, 1868, added emphasis, Online here, Accessed October 20, 2014).

Yet Brigham Young was one of the richest men in Utah Territory, and collected a $10,000 a year salary from the Church for 30 years. (See, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 7, 409, April 10, 1878, online here, at the CHL). The Church did renounce polygamy for statehood.

Jeremy Runnells is asking questions about Mormonism, not advocating permissiveness in society. But of course it has always been a penchant for Mormon “authorities” to accuse those who question their leaders as having some kind of spiritual problem. For example, Marion G. Romney taught that,

“What we get out of general conference is a build-up of our spirits as we listen to those particular principles and practices of the gospel which the Lord inspires the present leadership of the Church to bring to our attention at the time. He knows why he inspired Brother Joseph F. Merrill to give the talk he just gave. He knows why he inspired the other brethren who have talked in this conference to say what they have said. It is our high privilege to hear, through these men, what the Lord would say if he were here. If we do not agree with what they say, it is because we are out of harmony with the Spirit of the Lord.” (Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, October 1950, 126-127, added emphasis, Online here, Accessed October 20, 2014).

This is the Mormon doctrine of infallibility in a nutshell. Though there are many citations by apologists that Mormon “prophets” always encourage members to think for themselves, yet, if they do not agree with their “file leaders”, they are the ones with the problem, not the leaders. Of course there is more leeway with the lower Priesthood leadership, but there is none with the upper hierarchy and thus they are infallible when it comes to doctrine as Joseph Smith claimed when he said “I never told you I was perfect but there is no error in the revelations I have taught,” regardless if he was “righteous” or not, which he claimed he was not.

Although this Ward Teacher’s Message from 1945 was later criticized because of its extreme phrasing, it stands as a testament to the same sentiment echoed above by Marion G. Romney in General Conference:

Any Latter-day Saint who denounces or opposes whether actively or otherwise, any plan or doctrine advocated by the prophets, seers, revelators’ of the church, is cultivating the spirit of apostacy. One cannot speak evil of the lord’s annointed… and retain the holy spirit in his heart. This sort of game is Satan’s favorite pastime, and he has practiced it to believing souls since Adam. He wins a great victory when he can get members of the church to speak against their leaders and to do their own thinking.”

Any Latter-day Saint who denounces or opposes, whether actively or otherwise, any plan or doctrine advocated by the “prophets, seers, and revelators” of the Church is cultivating the spirit of apostasy. One cannot speak evil of the Lord’s anointed and retain the Holy Spirit in his heart.

It should be remembered that Lucifer has a very cunning way of convincing unsuspecting souls that the General Authorities of the Church are as likely to be wrong as they are to be right. This sort of game is Satan’s favorite pastime, and he has practiced it on believing souls since Adam. He wins a great victory when he can get members of the Church to speak against their leaders and to “do their own thinking.” He specializes in suggesting that our leaders are in error while he plays the blinding rays of apostasy in the eyes of those whom he thus beguiles. What cunning! And to think that some of our members are deceived by this trickery.

The following words of the Prophet Joseph Smith should be memorized by every Latter-day Saint and repeated often enough to insure their never being forgotten:

I will give you one of the Keys of the mysteries of the Kingdom. It is an eternal principle, that has existed with God from all eternity: That man who rises up to condemn others, finding fault with the Church, saying that they are out of the way, while he himself is righteous, then know assuredly, that that man is in the high road to apostasy; and if he does not repent, will apostatize, as God lives. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 156-157.)

When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they propose a plan–it is God’s plan. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give direction, it should mark the end of controversy. God works in no other way. To think otherwise, without immediate repentance, may cost one his faith, may destroy his testimony, and leave him a stranger to the kingdom of God. (Ward Teachers Message, Deseret News, Church Section, 5, May 26, 1945. See also, Improvement Era, June 1945, 345).

This “Message” encapsulates what was proclaimed by every Mormon “authority” up to that time. Yet, what Joseph Smith claimed above, is exactly what he did himself (condemn others and claim that he was a prophet). Do all those that criticize Mormon leaders claim to be “righteous”? Not even Smith claimed that, he said that he was “not very righteous.” But he did claim there were no errors in his “revelations”. When the Ward Teachers Message from 1945 began to be circulated, it embarrassed the leadership of the church and George Albert Smith tried to retract it six months later:

The leaflet to which you refer, and from which you quote in your letter, was not “prepared” by “one of our leaders.” However, one or more of them inadvertently permitted the paragraph to pass uncensored. By their so doing, not a few members of the Church have been upset in their feelings, and General Authorities have been embarrassed.

George Albert Smith

I am pleased to assure you that you are right in your attitude that the passage quoted does not express the true position of the Church. Even to imply that members of the Church are not to do their own thinking is grossly to misrepresent the true ideal of the Church, which is that every individual must obtain for himself a testimony of the truth of the Gospel, must, through the redemption of Jesus Christ, work out his own salvation, and is personally responsible to His Maker for his individual acts. The Lord Himself does not attempt coercion in His desire and effort to give peace and salvation to His children. He gives the principles of life and true progress, but leaves every person free to choose or to reject His teachings. This plan the Authorities of the Church try to follow. (Letter from President George Albert Smith to Dr. J. Raymond Cope, Dec. 7, 1945).

If this was not the “true position” of the Church, then why did Marion G. Romney proclaim in General Conference five years later the very same thing? If you do not agree with what they (the leadership) say, it is you who are “out of harmony”. Notice that Smith only focused on members not doing their own thinking, not that the leaders are infallible. He never rebuts that part of the message.

Actually, Joseph Smith supposedly claimed, and it is included in the new Essays on polygamy published by the church, that an angel appeared to Joseph Smith himself and threatened him with death (this is coercion is it not?) unless Smith began practicing polygamy. This is hardly the ideal that George Albert Smith speaks of.

How is this allowing someone to be “free to choose or reject that teaching?” Smith also called John Snider on a mission and told him that if he did not go, he would be cut off from the church and damned. (See Note #33) This is definitely coercion, which Joseph also used on many of the women he tried to gain as spiritual “wives” by claiming that he could save them if they “married” him and if they did not they would be damned with their families. (See Note #73 & #44) If they chose to marry someone else and not Smith, they would be “damned”? How is this not coercion?

The bottom line here is that Church “authorities” are always right and if the members do not do what they say, they are wrong. Though they supposedly teach people to think for themselves, in practice this is not the case, for if you do not agree with the church hierarchy it is because you (not them) are “out of harmony with the Spirit of the Lord” and an “apostate” who will be excommunicated as Rock Waterman and John Dehlin recently were.

You can think for yourself, as long as you agree. If you do not, and voice your disagreement, that is “speaking evil of the Lord’s Anointed,” and you are “out of harmony” once again. What is interesting is that when Spencer Kimball overturned the racist Priesthood Ban on blacks, Bruce R. McConkie wrote,

There are individuals who are out of harmony on this and on plural marriage and on other doctrines, but for all general purposes there has been universal acceptance; and everyone who has been in tune with the Spirit has known that the Lord spoke, and that his mind and his purposes are being manifest to the course the Church is pursuing. (Bruce R. McConkie, Speech delivered to CES Religious Educators Symposium, 18 August 1978, added emphasis).

“Out of harmony with the Spirit” simply means not agreeing with church “authorities” who Marion G. Romney claims all speak by its power and say “what the Lord would say if he were here.” Though cached in stronger language (the thinking has been done) the Ward Teachers Message from 1945 was exactly what Marion G. Romney was teaching five years later in 1950.

All of the people that were “in harmony” with Brigham Young who claimed that the blacks would never be able to be ordained to the Priesthood until all the sons of Abel were ordained were now “out of harmony” (in 1978) if they continued to believe that Young spoke by the “Holy Ghost” and was a bona fide prophet.

This makes no logical sense of course, unless one goes on an apologetic tangent and redefines what constitutes a prophet (in contradiction of what they themselves teach) or make the claim that they are only men and get “revelations” wrong sometimes. (They taught folklore that we don’t know the origin of, is a typical response). Of course, you won’t find the “authorities” admitting to any of this, it is all done anonymously and put up on their website with disclaimers that it is not “official”.

Notice that everyone who agreed with the leadership had “the Spirit”, while those who did not were “out of harmony”. McConkie was still using the same playbook that they used for the Ward Teacher’s Message from 1945 and that Marion Romney used five years later. Brigham Young summed it up when he claimed:

I have told you what causes apostacy. It arises from neglect of prayers and duties, and the Spirit of the Lord leaves those who are thus negligent and they begin to think that the authorities of the church are wrong. In the days of Joseph the first thing manifested in the case of apostacy was the idea that Joseph was liable to be mistaken, and when a man admits that in his feelings and sets it down as a fact, it is a step towards apostacy, and he only needs to make one step more and he is cut off from the church. That is the case in any man. When several of the Twelve were cut off, the first step was that Joseph was a prophet, but he had fallen from his office and the Lord would suffer him to lead the people wrong. When persons get that idea in their minds, they are taking the first step to apostacy. If the Lord has designed that I should lead you wrong, then let us all go to hell together and, as Joseph used to say, we will take hell by force, turn the devils out and make a heaven of it. (Brigham Young, sermon given on 21 March 1858, Salt Lake Tabernacle, transcribed by George D. Watt, Richard Van Wagoner, The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Vol. 3, 1420, added emphasis).

Young claims that as “prophets” they are never wrong. And if the Lord designs Young to lead them astray, well, just follow him to hell! Notice that he claims that it is “the Lord” that would direct Young to lead them astray. The Lord would direct Young to lead them astray from the Lord? This is senseless, but Young simply could not admit that he could ever lead anyone astray.

As for those who would not obey their covenants, there are many statements made by Brigham Young and other “authorities” in his day about the consequences and the blood atonement necessary as payment for doing so. Here is one example:

I could refer you to plenty of instances where men, have been righteously slain, in order to atone for their sins. I have seen scores and hundreds of people for whom there would have been a chance (in the last resurrection there will be) if their lives had been taken and their blood spilled on the ground as a smoking incense to the Almighty, but who are now angels to the devil, until our elder brother Jesus Christ raises them up—conquers death, hell, and the grave. I have known a great many men who have left this Church for whom there is no chance whatever for exaltation, but if their blood had been spilled, it would have been better for them. The wickedness and ignorance of the nations forbid this principle’s being in full force, but the time will come when the law of God will be in full force.

This is loving our neighbour as ourselves; if he needs help, help him; and if he wants salvation and it is necessary to spill his blood on the earth in order that he may be saved, spill it. Any of you who understand the principles of eternity, if you have sinned a sin requiring the shedding of blood, except the sin unto death, would not be satisfied nor rest until your blood should be spilled, that you might gain that salvation you desire. That is the way to love mankind. (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. Vol. 4, 215-221, February 8, 1857, Online here, Accessed October 20, 2014).

This was also called by Young “cleansing the platter”, and part of this was the making of some men into eunuchs. This punishment (carried out on Mormon Thomas Lewis) was performed by a Mormon Bishop (Warren Snow) in the same year as the speech above by Brigham Young which culminated in the Mountain Meadows Massacre (1857).

FAIRMORMON of course, instead of using the original source material (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal and the Diary of Samuel Pitchforth ) in the case of Bishop Warren Snow castrating Thomas Lewis, uses an apologetic synopsis taken from the Master’s Thesis of John A. Peterson. They don’t even quote the original sources found in Peterson’s thesis. With all the talk about using “original sources”, we think that Brian Hales and Gregory L. Smith would better serve the Mormon community by cleaning up the FAIRMORMON websites before criticizing others about using “secondary sources”.

The actual account of the matter recorded by Wilford Woodruff reads,

2d I spent the day in the office. President Young Called in in the afternoon also George A. Smith. We Conversed upon various subjects. Herd one of G. A. Smith Sermons read. We Conversed upon the subject of the present excitement in the states Concerning mormonism. We then went into the Temple Block to see the form of the first w[ater?] table made of white sandstone.

I then went into the president office & spent the evening. Bishop Blackburn was present. The subject Came up of some persons leaving Provo who had Apostitized. Some thought that Bishop Blackburn & [p.55] President Snow was to blame. Brother Joseph Young presented the thing to presidet Young. But When the Circumstances were told Presidet Brigham Young sustained the Brethren who presided at Provo. He said they had done [ ].

The subjects of Eunuchs came up & Joseph said that He would rather die than to be made a Eunuch. Brigham Said the day would Come when thousands would be made Eunochs in order for them to be saved in the kingdom of God.

The subject of women & Adulterry Came up. Joseph Asked if a woman & man who were married Could Commit Adultery. Brigham said that Joseph said they Could not yet He was satisfied they Could do wrong.

President Young said we Cannot Clens the Platter because the people will not bear it. Joseph. I am willing to have the people Clens the platter if they Can do it in righteousness & Judge righteous Judgment. Brigham. This people never was half as well prepared to execute righteousness as Now.

.I wish there was some people on Earth who Could tell us Just how much Sin we must sustain before we Can chastize the people & correct their errors. The wicked may go to the states & call for troops. I dont think the people will get rich. To come after us they have got a long road to travel. We have either got to Join hands with sin & sinners or we have got to fight them.

L to R: Lorenzo Dow Young, Brigham, Phineas H., Joseph & John Young [13 Sept. 1866]

Brigham. I will tell you what you will find. That all those evil traditions & affections or passions that Haunt the mind in this life will all be done away in the resurrection. You will find then that any man who gets a glory & exaltation will be so beautiful that any woman will be willing to have him if it was right & wharever it is right for the woman to go there she will be willing to go for all those evils will vanish to which we are subject in this life.

I have told the people the truth Just as it is but others will at times get up & tell the people that they will get no heaven ownly what they make in this life and that it will be in the next world as it is in this. Now they do not mean what they say. They do not explain themselves. Hence the people will not understand what is said to them.

Joseph said I wish I knew what my limits were Brigham Your limits are endless & you have not got half way to the [end?] of it yet. Now when I was an Elder I was as willing to Correct an Error in the Brethren as I am now. But the people do not see it so. Now if you should be with the 12 or any body you would have a right to correct an Error as well as with a member but you could not Correct them by cutting them off from the Church because they are over you in the priesthood. Many other remarks were made at the time. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 5, 54-56, June 1, 1857. The Woodruff Journals are now online here, at the CHL).

Michael Quinn (citing Peterson) writes (The Mormon Hierarchy, Extensions of Power, 251) that in the account above, Joseph Young “disapproved” of castration, yet, Joseph Young only states that “He would rather die than to be made a Eunuch.” This is not approval or disapproval of doing so to others, it is simply a statement that he himself would not like to be made into one.

If one reads the actual quote from the Samuel Pitchforth diary one comes away with an entirely different view of what Joseph Young was talking about as John A. Peterson writes in his Master’s Thesis,

Late in the spring, Joseph Young (Brigham’s brother,) and a few other members of the Church’s First Quorum of the Seventy, learned of the incident while visiting the central Utah area. Joseph was incensed and “entirely disaproved” of the action. He mentioned it in Nephi as he returned to Salt Lake City. He furiously declared that he “did not want” that man as a leader that “would shed blood before he was duly commanded.” “Oh how careful men ought to be- in not steping to[o] far” he cautioned the Nephi leadership, “for they might do something that would give them sorrow forever.” (John A. Peterson, “Warren Stone Snow, A Man In Between : The Biography of a Mormon Defender,” Master’s Thesis, BYU (1985) 114, citing The Diary of Samuel Pitchforth, May 31, 1857).

Peterson then claims that when Joseph Young was in Salt Lake and at the meeting described by Woodruff above, that he was “In a near rage” when he claimed that he would rather die than be made a Eunuch. (ibid.).

First, there is nothing to convey that Joseph Young was in a “near rage” at all at either meeting. And most importantly, Young isn’t saying that he disapproved of the castration, (though he didn’t want to be castrated himself –who would?) he “entirely disapproved” of any man that “would shed blood before he was duly commanded.” To show that this was the thrust of what Joseph Young meant, one simply has to read the minutes recorded in Wilford Woodruff’s Journal.

Peterson very selectively quotes from the Woodruff Journal as he does with the Pitchforth Diary, (which has restricted access at the CHL) so I am relying on his edited transcription.

It is from Pitchforth that we are told that Thomas Lewis was “under arrest and on the way to the City (Salt Lake) to be taken to the penitentiary”. (ibid., 203-204) This still does not stop FAIRMORMON from claiming that “Lewis was being transported to the penitentiary for a sexual crime. He was not attacked simply for desiring a marriage.” They also make a lot of other points based on Peterson’s apologetic work.

Quinn (per Peterson) writes that Lewis’ transport to the penitentiary was for an “undisclosed sex crime”. (D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy, Origins of Power, Signature Books, 251). This is also used by FAIRMORMON and others to try and shift the blame for the attack—not on Warren Snow’s jealously of Lewis, but on some “sex crime” committed by Lewis even though Peterson states that there are no records of any kind of crime being committed by Lewis at Nephi, or of any excommunication for such. (See Peterson, pp. 203-204 where he states that “No minutes of any civil or church trial for Thomas Lewis’ crime have been found.”)

Now, there may have been no records found in Nephi, but there are records of a Church trial in Manti— but not for a sex crime. As John Turner writes:

“Even if Young primarily considered the doctrine [of blood atonement] a prod to repentance, several brutal acts of violence indicated the dangerous nature of his rhetoric. On October 29, 1856, at the height of the reformation in Manti, Thomas Lewis was castrated. Lewis was a Welsh immigrant in his early twenties; a few weeks earlier, he had been excommunicated from the church because he had nearly killed Manti resident John Price with a [p. 259] shovel. More recently, he had threatened to kill his brother-in-law Isaac Vorhees and had been sentenced to five years in prison. While being transported to the penitentiary, according to his mother, Elizabeth Jones, Lewis ‘was taken out of the wagon and a blanket put round his head & . . . like a pig by taking his Testicles clean out & he laid at this place in a dangerous state he was out two nights & part of two days before he was found.’ Manti bishop Warren Snow had ordered her son’s castration. Two later anti-Mormon exposes alleged that Lewis had courted a woman also desired by Bishop Snow, but the incident may also have simply stemmed from Lewis’s violent behavior.[n76]

Elizabeth Jones wrote to Young for an explanation. Young was aware of Lewis’s crimes and punishments, for local leaders had discussed the Price incident with him. According to Jones, Young had authorized her son’s transportation in handcuffs to the Salt Lake penitentiary. Now she asked the church president if her son’s punishment was ‘right and righteous.’ Young responded with a letter that, while expressing sympathy, offered theological justification for the castration by alluding to the concept of blood atonement. ‘I would prefer that any child of mine should lose his life in atonement for his sins than lose eternal salvation,’ he counseled. The following spring, when other church leaders questioned Snow’s judgment, Young defended the bishop. ‘I will tell you,’ Young insisted, ‘that when a man is trying to do right & do[es] some thing that is not exactly in order I feel to sustain him.’ Snow kept his bishopric.

Though he condoned it afterward, it is uncertain whether Young had authorized Thomas Lewis’s castration in advance.[n77]” (John Turner, Brigham Young, 258–259).

Notes 76 and 77 on page 463 read as follows:

Excommunication in Manti Ward Record, 5 Oct. 1856, LR 5253 11, CHL; Minutes of Sanpete County Court, 20 Oct. 1856, microfilm at HBLL Family History Library; Jones to BY, 8 Nov. 1856, Box 69, Folder 7, BYP; Ann Eliza Young, Wife No. 19, or the Story of a Life in Bondage (Hartford, CT: Dustin, Gilman, 1875), 280; MU, 285–286.
BY to Elizabeth Jones, 15 Nov. 1856, Letterpress Copybook 3, page 186a, BYP; WWJ, 2 June 1857, 5:54–55.

It becomes clear why Peterson states that there were no records to be found for any sex crime committed by Lewis, because he was excommunicated for almost killing a man and threatening to kill another. Lewis’ mother, Elizabeth Jones wrote two letters to Brigham Young in early November about her son’s castration, which are at the Church History Library but are currently restricted.

Young’s response to Elizabeth Jones is troubling because it is about “losing your life in atonement” for sin, which sentence was usually carried out on murderers and those who broke their temple covenants. Castration does not seem to fit this crime. (The one Lewis was actually excommunicated for).

The fact that Lewis did not actually murder anyone may be why Joseph Young told those at Nephi that not waiting to be duly commanded to carry out punishments of this nature might “give them sorrow forever”. Still, Joseph Young was speaking many months after the incident took place, and it is not certain that he knew Brigham Young was already aware of the incident from the letters of Elizabeth Jones. During the meeting held in June, they mention two persons that had left Provo who had “apostatized”, and then Bishop Snow. This is important because it corroborates an 1859 account by a U. S. soldier. (mentioned below)

Ann Eliza Young wrote about Lewis in her book, Wife No. 19 and claimed that,

Contrary to his [Thomas Lewis] usual habit, he attended a dancing-party one evening at the urgent and repeated entreaties of his friends, and during the evening he was quite attentive to a young lady-friend or his who was present, and with whom he was on terms of greater intimacy than with any other in the company. …It happened that Snow, the Bishop of the ward in which the Lewis family lived, had cast his patriarchal eye on this young girl, and designed her for himself; and he did not relish the idea of seeing another person pay any attention to his future wife. He had a large family already, but he wished to add to it, and he did not choose to be interfered with.

Lewis’s doom was sealed at once; the bewitched Bishop was mad with jealous rage, and he had only to give a hint of his feelings to some of his chosen followers, who were always about, and the sequel was sure. He denounced Lewis in the most emphatic manner, and really succeeded in arousing quite a strong feeling of indignation against him for his presumption in daring to pay even the slightest attention to a lady who was destined to grace a Bishop’s harem.

The closest espinoage was kept upon him by the Bishop’s band of ruffians, and one evening a favorable opportunity presented itself; he was waylaid, and the Bishop’s sentence was carried out, which was to inflict on the boy an injury so brutal and barbarous that no woman’s pen may write the words that describe it.

He lay concealed spot for twenty-four hours, weak and ill, and unable to move. Here his brother found him in an apparently dying state, and took him home to his poor, distracted mother, who nursed him with a breaking heart, until after a long time, when he partially recovered. (Ann Eliza Young, Wife No. 19, 280-81, Online here, accessed November 1, 2014).

Ann Eliza Young does try to paint Lewis as a “quiet, inoffensive fellow”, which he obviously was not, but she gets some other details correct in her account. (See below)

There is other corroborating evidence for this being a case of a Bishop getting revenge. There is an 1859 diary entry by John Wolcott Phelps, a U. S. Calvary Soldier who later became a Brigadier General, but who was a First Lieutenant during the Mormon War. According to D. Michael Quinn, Phelps wrote that,

…“two youths” fled to the U.S. army camp after being “castrated by Mormons.” One “handsome young Dane” had been courting a girl whom an LDS bishop wanted. To dispose of his rival, the bishop claimed the young man “had committed bestiality and had him castrated.” (John W. Phelps diary, March 28, 1859, cited by Quinn, Extensions of Power, 1997, 255 & 538 n. 195).

Quinn believes that this is a later incident, but in Peterson’s thesis he claims that in the spring of 1859, District Judge John Cradlebaugh began a crusade against any Mormons accused of various crimes and “sought any information that would incriminate any Mormon leader in any way and the Lewis affair… put Warren near the top of the judge’s wanted list.” (ibid., 116).

At the end of March we have John Phelps writing about a Mormon Bishop who had orchestrated the castration of a young man who they claimed had committed bestiality. This same young man had been courting a girl that the Bishop wanted for himself. It was only a few weeks after this that men showed up at Warren Snow’s door to arrest him and he fled.

It is entirely plausible that First Lieutenant John Phelps was told the story about the Bishop and the castration (since he was near the top of their wanted list at that time) before the men were dispatched to arrest Snow. Also, the meeting recorded by Woodruff in June of 1857 speaks of two persons who had apostatized and left Provo and mentions them in connection with Bishop Snow.

Even FAIRMORMON claims that,

One other event from journals in 1859 reports an unnamed bishop supposedly castrating someone because they wanted to marry their girlfriend. Snow is named by one source in the 1859 account; given Brigham’s reaction to the first event, it seems unlikely that Snow would do the same thing again. His inclusion in an account of the second event may well be due to conflation, which may demonstrate how unusual such events were. It may be that rumor and frontier “urban legend” confused the Snow story with the passage of time.

Judge John Cradlebaugh

This is unlikely because at that time (1859) Judge John Cradlebaugh was investigating Snow for castrating John Lewis and these appear to be the details of that investigation which were written about at that time.

Again, what sense does it make that Snow would want to castrate Lewis for bestiality or some other crime, when he was already going to the penitentiary for attempted murder? It makes much more sense that Snow would do so out of revenge to perhaps teach him a lesson or carry out his idea of Mormon justice.

Peterson claims that Warren Snow “railed” that “There is some of our sisters … that will ask those cussed Gentiles to go home & sleep with them.” (Peterson, op. cited, 111). But Lewis was not a “Gentile”, he was a member of the church. Snow also claimed “that a dagger should be put through both of their hearts,” not that the man should be castrated. (ibid.).

Peterson blames this on violent rhetoric by Mormon “authorities”, and that may be so in this case because Joseph Young claimed that they carried out this punishment without being duly commanded.

Peterson also claims that, “To Warren, who trusted his leaders implicitly, such preaching was more than simple hyperbole”. He also claims that Brigham “tempored” [sic] his teaching” by claiming that such things were for a time “not yet here”. (ibid., 112-113)

When discussing the meeting recorded by Woodruff, Peterson writes:

“Obviously referring to Lewis’ crime, they then discussed sexual sin. Brigham again emphasized his feeling that the time for such severe punishment was still in the future by saying that church leaders could not “Clens the Platter because the people will not bear it.” He expressed his fear that if such penalties were carried out, “the wicked [would]go to the states & call for troops.” But then, making obvious reference to Warren, he said, “I will tell you that when a man is trying to do right & do[es] something that is not exactly in order I feel to sustain him.” and perhaps looking at Joseph [Young], he authoritatively added “& we all should.” (ibid.).

Actually, they were not referring to any crime committed by Lewis, they spoke of two people leaving Provo who had “apostatized.” They then discussed the castration (Joseph Young presenting it to Brigham Young) and Young sustained Bishop Snow in his action. They then spoke about Eunuchs. It was only after this that the “subject of adultery came up.”

Peterson then relates that later, Brigham Young wrote a letter to Warren Snow and “affirmed his friendship” and in answer to a letter from Snow to Young about complaints from Ward members stated that Young’s writing an Epistle to the Ward members affirming Snow’s action “would be like pouring water on “a hot Iron,” making only “the more smoke.” “Just let the matter drop,” he told Warren, “and say no more about it, and it will soon die away amongst the people.” (ibid., 114-115) It obviously did not die down, for Joseph Young was told about it, mentioned it in Nephi and then reported the incident to his brother. This was eight months later.

This obvious whitewash of the whole affair by Brigham Young is astounding if (as Young claimed) this was all something that was not any kind of policy in the Church, but was for a future time. And Peterson’s edited version of the minutes of the meeting recorded by Woodruff on June 2, 1857, do not do it justice. Joseph Young also claimed that,

I am willing to have the people Clens the platter if they Can do it in righteousness & Judge righteous Judgment. (Woodruff, op. cited)

This is hardly disapproval of castrating people or killing them if they “sin”.

Brigham Young replied,

This people never was half as well prepared to execute righteousness as Now. I will tell you that when a man is trying to do right & do[es] some thing that is not exactly in order I feel to sustain him & we all should. I wish there was some people on Earth who Could tell us Just how much Sin we must sustain before we Can chastize the people & correct their errors. (ibid., added emphasis).

Peterson claims that they were speaking of Lewis’ “crime” when they spoke of cleansing the platter, but this was prefaced by a question about adultery between those already married by Joseph Young. To therefore ascribe the remarks to some nameless sex crime committed by Lewis is going beyond the evidence.

Why also, (if this were only hyperbole on Brigham Young’s part) does he ask how much sin they have to sustain before they could chastize the people and correct their errors? Wasn’t this what was being done with the so called hyperbole as Peterson claims? What then does he mean here by chastize?

One also wonders why Brigham Young would only be concerned about someone doing “something that is not exactly in order” and that attempted murder and castration is “trying to do something right” if blood atonement was not a practice in the church.

What Woodruff’s Minutes convey is that Young felt that the practice was not ready to go to the Church as a whole. It does not mean that it was not being carried out in private and sanctioned by the “authorities”, as polygamy was before it was given to the church. It also makes sense out of Joseph Young’s initial concern that Snow carried out the order without being duly commanded.

It is also interesting that less than a year after the Lewis castration; Hosea Stout recorded another incident that took place,

“Saturday 27 Feb 1858. This evening several persons disguised as Indians entered Henry Jones’ house and dragged him out of bed with a whore and castrated him by a square & close amputation.” (On the Mormon Frontier; The Diary of Hosea Stout, Vol. 2, 653).

This was the same M.O. that was used during the Mountain Meadows Massacre. A year later Henry Jones and his mother were murdered. (Vally Tan, April 19, 1859).

Still, Blood Atonement has been denied as a doctrine of the Church and in the 1990’s the Temple Endowment was changed and the blood Oaths which filled Catherine Lewis with so much loathing and fear (which obviously led her to feel some paranoia) were removed from the ceremony.

In a strange turn of events we find that the mother of Thomas Lewis eventually became one of Brigham Young’s wives:

“For two decades, Elizabeth Jones had endured a tumultuous family life. A woman of some means, she left Wales as the wife of David Thomas Lewis, married Captain Dan Jones shortly after her arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, and then divorced Jones in October 1856. One day after her divorce, her son Thomas Lewis was castrated by an extralegal posse, and Young conveyed to her his approval of the punishment. Elizabeth then married a third husband, whom she also divorced. In the late 1850s, she asked Young to marry her. ‘I belong to you,’ she wrote the church president, adding that he had previously caused her to marry against her wishes. ‘Had you Have acted the right part toward me I should [p. 376] have Been another woman,’ she stated. Young admired the woman many Mormons called the ‘Welsh Queen’; he publicly praised her generosity toward poor emigrants from Wales. He was unwilling to marry her, however, and she eventually returned to Captain Jones. Seven years after Dan Jones’s 1862 death, Young and Elizabeth finally kneeled together at the Endowment House altar. . .” (Turner, op. cited, 375–376).

Ann Eliza Young in her expose writes that,

But a still greater marvel is, that the mother of Biship Snow’s poor victim still retains her faith in Mormonism, and since the cruel and disgraceful tragedy which deprived her of her son, has been sealed to Brigham Young as one of his wives. It was not pity that moved him to marry her, nor a desire to comfort her and lighten her burdens; but it was because he saw by so doing he could advance his own interests. Mrs. Lewis is never mentioned among his wives, yet he was sealed to her about two years after his marriage to me. Brigham’s matrimonial experiences hardly find a place here, but as Mrs. Lewis’s alliance with the Prophet came about in a way through this tragedy, it may not be out of place even in this chapter on “Blood-Atonement.” (Ann Eliza Young, op. cited, 281-282).

[20] Maxwell, op. cited.

[21] Maxwell, op. cited.

[22] Hales, “Lyings”, op. cited

[23] Attributed to Ryan Robinson.

[24] Hales, “Rational Faiths”, op. cited.

Origin of the Baptism for the Dead Doctrine

Posted on October 5, 2017 by grindael

This is an expanded version (with media) of an article which originally appeared in the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal by Johnny Stephenson and H. Michael Marquardt. (Spring, 2017 Issue)

INTRODUCTION

In 1990 Guy Bishop wrote about baptism for the dead in Nauvoo and made this observation based on his research:

We have been left with scant evidence of how Joseph Smith formulated the Mormon plan of baptism for the dead. But, by the time the beleaguered Saints had crossed the Mississippi River in 1839 and had begun to reestablish themselves in western Illinois, the Prophet apparently knew how the worthy dead were to meet the mandate for baptism.[1]

What was the origin of the baptism for the dead doctrine that Joseph preached in Nauvoo in the late summer of 1840? New evidence and a re-examination of existing evidence may help us to answer this question.

THE GOSPEL GOES TO ENGLAND

In the summer of 1837, Apostles Heber C. Kimball[2] and Orson Hyde[3] left America for a mission to preach the newly restored Gospel in England. After arriving in Liverpool, they made their way north to Preston where they met with the relatives of some Canadian converts such as Joseph Fielding and John Taylor, who had joined the Church due to the efforts of Parley P. Pratt in 1836.[4]

William Clayton & Wife Diantha Farr

The relatives of these Canadian converts readily accepted the Gospel in England, and helped Kimball and Hyde to convert many others including William Clayton[5] who was appointed second counselor to the British Mission President, Willard Richards.[6] By the end of 1837, almost a hundred and fifty souls had been baptized due to the efforts of these Apostles.

A year later, another of the original Quorum of the Twelve, David W. Patten was called on a mission,[7] but before he could fulfill it, he was wounded in the Battle of Crooked River[8] in Ray County, Missouri and died from his injuries on October 25, 1838.

In July, 1838, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, John E. Page and Willard Richards were called to fill vacancies in the Quorum of the Twelve.[9] In that same July revelation Joseph Smith instructed that the Twelve Apostles were to leave Far West on April 26, 1839 and journey “over the great waters” to “promulgate my gospel.”[10]

In January, 1839 George Albert Smith, Joseph’s cousin was also called to fill a vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve.[11]

By April of 1840 eight Apostles had assembled together in the British Isles at Preston, England where they ordained Willard Richards to their quorum. [12] At a general conference held on April 15, 1840 the Apostles announced that there were 1,671 members, 34 elders, 52 priests, 38 teachers, and 8 deacons in England and Scotland.[13]

THE VISION OF ANN BOOTH

One of those English Saints converted by the efforts of William Clayton was Ann Eastwood Booth, the wife of Robert Booth of the town of Manchester.[14] A month before the general conference was held in Preston, Ann claimed to have had a vision about the Spirit World which subsequently came to the attention of Brigham Young.

Mary Ann Angell Young, circa 1850

On May 26, 1840 Brigham wrote to his wife, Mary Ann,[15] about the vision and included a copy of it in his letter. Young wrote:

I am desposed to wright you a vision in this or som other letter <that> I shall send, it is concerning David W. Patten’s minestry in the world whare he has gon, it gives my hart joy inexspesable; …

I will now give you the vision * [insert from top of letter] Sister Booth sayes she heard a voice saying she must goe to Paridice then she was cared away in in the vision*

I Ann Booth, Wife of Robert Booth of the Town of Manchster, England, had the following vision of the 12 day of march in the year of our Lord one thousand and forty <1840>.

Being caried away in a vision to the Place of departed spirits I saw 12 Prisons, one abov another, verry large, and builded of soled stone. on ariveing at the <dore of the> upermost Prision I behed one of the 12 apostles of the Lamb who had been martered in America, standing at the dore of the Prison holding a key in his hand with which he opned unlocked the dore and went in and I fol[low]ed him.

he appeard to be of a large sise. thick set, darke hare darke eyes and eyebrows of a smiling countnane, and on <his> head was a crown of gold or somthing brighter, he was dresed in a long white robe, with the sleves plated from the sholder down to the hand. upon his brest ware fore stares apparently like gold <or briter>. and a golden girdle about his Loins. his feet was bare from above the Ancles down<w>ard and his hands were also bare. as he entred the prison he seemed to stand about 3 feet from the floor (which was of Marble) as if the place was not worthy for him to stand upon. a verry brilient and glorie<u>s light surounded him, while the res of the prison was dark. but his light was peculiar to him self, and did not reflect upon others who was in the prison, who ware surounded with a gloom of darkness.

Brigham Young letter to Mary Ann Young, May 26, 1840

on the right hand of the dore stood Jhon Wesley, who on seing the glories personage, rased his hands and shouted >glory, honer, praise, and Power, be ascribed unto God and the Lamb forever and ever— Deliverance has Com-. the Apostle then commecd to preached the Baptism of repentence for the remision of sins, and the gift of the Holy Gost by the laing of hands when the hundreds of prisners gave a shout with aloud voice saying >Glory be to God for ever and ever.

the marble floor was then remo=ved and a River of watter clere as Cristall seemed to fow in it place. the Apostle then called to John Wesley by name who came fawrd quickley and both went down in to t[he -damaged] water and the Apostle Baptized him and coming up out of the water he lade his hands upon him for the gift of the Holy Gost, at the same time ordainedng him to the Preasthood of Aaron;

the Apostle then retired to the place ware he first stod and John Wesley then proseded to Baptize a man by the of Kilbham and next John Madison and Wm Scott. and John Tongue <who> ware Methodest Prachers with whome I had ben a quanted personly. the next he Baptized was my grand father Edmond Whitehead the next was my unkel Johon Whitehead and the next was my sister Elizabath Oland, the <next> was Joseph Lancashere next Samuel Robinson Robinson and the next was my own Mother, all these had lived and died Methodest and I And had ben personly aquanted with them all, and after this he Baptized all the Prisoners amoun=ting to menny hundreds.

after they ware all Baptized, the Apostle Lade his hands on them all and confermed them, then instantly the Darkeness dispersed and they ware all surrounded and envellopd in a Brilint light, such as surounded the Apostle at the first. and they all lifted up theyer voices with one accord giving glory to God for deliverence.

My gra<n>d father then came to me and Blest me saying the Lord bless forever and ever, art thou com to see us deliverd. my mother then came to me and clasped me in hir arms and kissed me three times and said the Lord Almightly Bless the for ever and evere.

I then awoke out of my vision and felt so happy and rejoiced that I could not lay in bed. I awaked my husben we got up. I then tooke the Bible opened it to 3 different places, first to Isah 24, Chap. 22 v. the next was John C- 1- v-5— the third time I opned bible was <first> Peater 3-C-18-19-20—ver— not being aquanted with these texts of Cripture and opening to each of them provedencily I was asstonished beyond measure.

I would futher state that at the time I had the vission I had never hered of the deth of David Patten whome I have sence lerned was one of the twelve Apostles of the Later day saynts in America, and was martered in the late percution in the fall of 1838. but in <the> vision I knew that it was an Apostle who had ben slane in America,

I here by sollemly testfy that I actually saw and hered in the vision what I have related, and I give my name and set my seal in witness to same; well know that I must stand before the Judment seet of Christ and ancer to this testmony, amen & amen.[16]

Wilford Woodruff, Nauvoo Era

A few months later, on July 2, 1840 Wilford Woodruff wrote in his journal that he,

…spent the day at 149 Oldham road in writing. I was informed of a remarkable vision of Sister Ann Booth which I have written on the following page. I spent the night at Br John Walkers Cookson Strt No 10.[17]

Woodruff then writes “A Remarkable Vision” in his journal and copies the entire vision of Ann Booth below this header. There are some slight differences between the two copies, so Woodruff may not have gotten his copy of the vision from Brigham Young.[18]

DAVID W. PATTEN THE MARTYR

Back in America, David W. Patten was being hailed as a martyr of the faith. In the Times and Seasons, an account of his death was printed in November, 1839:

The Battle of Crooked River by C.A.A. Christensen

On the retreat of the mob from Daviess, I [Joseph Smith] returned to Caldwell, [County] hoping to have some respite from our enemies, at least for a short time; but upon my arrival there, I was informed that a mob had commenced hostilities on the borders of that county, adjoining to Ray co. and that they had taken some of our brethren prisoners, burned some houses and had committed depredations on the peaceable inhabitants. A company under the command of Capt. Patten, was ordered out by Lieutenant Col. Hinckle to go against them, and stop their depredations, and drive them out of the county. Upon the approach of our people, the mob fired upon them, and after discharging their pieces, fled with great precipitation, with the loss of one killed and several wounded. In the engagement Capt. Patten, (a man beloved by all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance,) was wounded and died shortly after.[19]

Seven months earlier, Wilford Woodruff recorded in his journal that

Elder David W. Patten… was martered in Missouri in 1838 for the word of God & the testimony of Jesus Christ. He was the first marter of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints chosen to build up the kingdom of GOD & prepare for the coming of Christ.[20]

After his arrival in England, Woodruff wrote in November, 1839:

I had a dream during the night & had an interview with Mrs Woodruff, But did not see [daughter] Sarah Emma. I travelled a distance with Judge [Elias] Higby in a hard storm in my dream. I also saw Br David Patten who was Martered in Missouri.[21]

Though Ann Booth claims that she never heard of the death of David W. Patten previous to having her vision in March, 1840, he was an important figure that was both written about and spoken of, and had been designated as a martyr soon after his death.

THE GOSPEL IN THE SPIRIT WORLD

Brigham Young, Circa 1840’s

Mary Ann Young most likely received the copy of Ann Booth’s vision from her husband Brigham Young in mid-summer 1840 and then shared it with many of the saints in Nauvoo. This vision excited and inspired many, as it did with the Apostles who had read it.

The vision spoke of David W. Patten as performing an important mission in the Spirit World, a place where many of the Saints felt they too would be called to serve after death.

When Joseph was translating the Bible in 1830, he wrote about the wicked who had died in the days of Noah:

But behold, these which thine eyes are upon shall perish in the floods; and behold, I will shut them up; a prison have I prepared for them. And that which I have chosen [Jesus Christ] hath pled before my face. Wherefore, he suffereth for their sins; inasmuch as they will repent in the day that my Chosen shall return unto me, and until that day they shall be in torment.”[22]

A few years later Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon had a vision of the afterlife[23] and in that vision they claimed that, “…concerning them who shall come forth in the resurrection of the just—they are they who received the testimony of Jesus, and believed on his name and were baptized after the manner of his burial… that by keeping the commandments they might be washed and cleansed from all their sins, and receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on of the hands of him who is ordained and sealed unto this power; and who overcome by faith, and are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise… these are they whose bodies are celestial, whose glory is that of the sun, even the glory of God.”[24]

Those who were locked up in the Spirit Prison, would inherit a lesser glory:

And again, we saw the terrestrial world, and behold and lo, these are they who are of the terrestrial, whose glory differs from that of the church of the Firstborn who have received the fulness of the Father, even as that of the moon differs from the sun in the firmament. Behold, these are they who died without law; And also they who are the spirits of men kept in prison, whom the Son visited, and preached the gospel unto them, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh; Who received not the testimony of Jesus in the flesh, but afterwards received it. These are they who are honorable men of the earth, who were blinded by the craftiness of men.[25]

In 1836, Joseph Smith claimed to have had another vision of the afterlife,[26] during which he saw “Father Adam and Abraham and Michael and my father and mother, my brother, Alvin, that has long since slept” in the Celestial Kingdom. Joseph “marvled how it was that he [Alvin] had obtained this an inheritance <in> this <that> kingdom, [of glory] seeing that he had departed this life before the Lord <had> set His hand to gather Israel <the second time>, and had not been baptized for the remission of sins—”[27]

The answer claimed Joseph, was given to him in the same vision by “the voice of the Lord”:

All who have died with[out] a knowledge of this gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God—also all that shall die henseforth with<out> a knowledge of it, who would have received it with all their hearts, shall be heirs of that kingdom; For I, the Lord, <will> judge all men according to their works according to the desire of their hearts—and again I also beheld the Terrestial kingdom also beheld that all children who die before they arrive at the years of accountability are saved in the celestial kingdom of heaven—[28]

In 1838, Joseph Smith was asked a question about “those who have died since the days of the apostles.” Joseph’s answer was that,

All those who have not had an opportunity of hearing the gospel, and being administered to by an inspired man in the flesh, must have it hereafter before they can be finally judged.[29]

It is clear that Joseph is claiming that all those who have died and have not heard the gospel must have it administered or preached to them by “an inspired man” in this life, must have it preached to them hereafter. This was evident from the Bible, where it speaks of Jesus preaching the gospel to the spirits in prison:

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits—to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.[30]

Sidney Rigdon spoke of this authority to administer the gospel in February, 1836:

For take the priesthood away by which the gospel was administered, and of what avail is the gospel? the answer is, it is of none; for the gospel is only of use to man, when there is somebody to administer it to them.[31]

As far as the Church and Joseph were concerned, this settled the matter. The question of baptism was left unanswered. Ann Booth’s vision was innovative in that it spoke of these prisoners being both baptized and confirmed in the Spirit World, after they had the gospel preached to them by one who had the authority to do so. This answered the apparent conundrum about baptism and confirmation of the Holy Spirit for those who had not received these ordinances while they were in mortality.

THE DEATH OF SEYMOUR BRUNSON

In August of 1840, a few months after the vision of Ann Booth had made its way to Nauvoo, Seymour Brunson,[32] a forty year old High Councilman, friend and bodyguard of Joseph Smith was taken with a severe sickness. His son later wrote,

In the month of July 1840, my father having occasion to get up in the night to drive some cattle out of his lot, caught cold which brought on a severe sickness, which ultimately resulted in death. . . . Joseph Smith had previously had him removed to his house thinking the change might prove beneficial to my father’s health, but he still continued to decline, and when Joseph understood that my father would rather go than stay, he and others visited him and bidding him goodby, remaked “Brother Brunson, since it is your desire to go, we shall not hold you by faith any longer.” My father then called his family together, and after asking my mother if all the children were present, he bid us a last farewell, and shortly after his spirit winged its flight from its earthly tenement to take its place amongst the spirits of the just.[33]

In early September (after the Brunson funeral), Vilate Kimball wrote to her husband, Heber, in England:

Semor Brunson is dead. everything was done to save him that could be done, but the Lord had kneed of him a short time before he died he told Joseph not to hold him any longer, for sed he, I have seen David Patten and he wants me and the Lord wants me, and I want to go. they then gave him up. at one time as Joseph entered the room, he told him there was a light incircled him above the brightness of the sun, he exclaimed the room is full of angels, they have come to waft my spirit home, he then bid his family farewell, and sweetly fell asleep in jesus. he requested President Smith to preach his funeral sermon which he did.[34]

John Smith, circa 1850’s

John Smith wrote to his son George Albert in England about the death of Elder Brunson on August 21, 1840:

There has been considerable sickness in Nauvoo and Commerce and many some deaths though I think not so many as last by any means, according to the number of inhabitants, only mention Elder Brunson he Died very happy, David Patton came after him he said with a convoy of Angels David wanted him and Davids God wa=nted him and Joseph held him back but he must go. …Joseph has commen=ced Delivering a course of Lectures to us on this side of the River on the first Princlpals of the gospel particularly the Resur=rection of the Dead and Eternal Judgement has spent two Sabbaths has an appointment tomorrow at Nashville is to ap<p>oint a place o this side to build up a Town as the Saints in Iowa are scattered over a large tract of land[35]

From what Vilate and others wrote later, when Seymour Brunson was on his deathbed he expressed a strong desire to go to the Spirit World, claiming to have “seen David Patten”, who wanted him to help with the work he was performing there on behalf of the dead. By this time, the vision of Ann Booth had probably influenced many about David Patten including Seymour Brunson.

Neither of these letters (written after the funeral) mention the doctrine of Baptism for the Dead. Brunson’s obituary, written by Joseph Smith read,

Colonel Seymour Brunson, aged forty years, ten months and twenty-three days, died at Nauvoo. Colonel Brunson was among the first settlers of this place. He has always been a lively stone in the building of God and was much respected by his friends and acquaintances. He died in the triumph of faith, and in his dying moments bore testimony to the Gospel that he had embraced.[36]

THE FUNERAL OF SEYMOUR BRUNSON

Vilate Kimball in the same September letter to her husband wrote that Seymour Brunson’s funeral,

…was attended by thousands of people, he was buried under arms. the prosession that marched to the grave was judged to be a mile long. a more solm sight I never witnessed, and yet the day was joyful because of the light and glory which Joseph set forth; I can truly say my soul was lifted up.[37]

On November 9th, Heber Kimball conveyed to John Taylor the news of Brunson’s death and funeral that Vilate had written to him about in September:

Semer Bronson is gon. David Paten came after him. the Rom was full of Angels that came after him to waft him home, he was burred under arms, the Procession, that went to the grave was judged to be one mile long, and a more joyfull Season She Ses She never Saw be fore on the account of the glory that Jospeh set forth”[38]

The comments made about David W. Patten by Seymour Brunson to Joseph Smith apparently did not go unnoticed by him. In addition to Patten’s preaching in the Spirit Prison he was also described as performing baptisms and confirmations upon the spirits of the dead. Many, including Brunson, probably had questions about what exactly was happening in the Spirit World.

When Joseph had questions about doctrine he would often refer to the scriptures to find answers. Considering the fact that neither Vilate Kimball or John Smith wrote about this startling new doctrine in their August and September letters, it is doubtful that Joseph did more than mention baptism for the dead in passing at the funeral of Seymour Brunson.[39]

On December 15, 1840 Joseph wrote a letter to the Twelve Apostles in England. In that letter he states that he “first mentioned the doctrine in public while preaching the funeral sermon of Bro Brunson, and have since given general instructions to the Church on the subject.”[40]

THE TESTIMONY OF JANE NEYMAN AND VIENNA JACQUES

Vienna Jacques, circa 1860’s

In 1854, Jane Harper Neyman[41] and Vienna Jacques[42] stopped by the Church Historian’s Office in Salt Lake City and gave brief statements about their experiences concerning Baptism for the Dead in Nauvoo. Curiously, there are two versions of their testimony in the Church History Library. The first document reads,

Front:

Sept 13th 1840

*Jane Neymon States that at the funeral of Col Seymour Brunson that Joseph Preached Seymour Brunsons funeral sermon & then first introduced the subject of Baptism of the Dead & said to the people I have laid the subject of Baptism for the Dead before you you may Receive or Reject it as you choose. Sept 13th (Aug 15th 1840 written in pencil)

The them [They then] went & was baptized for her son Cyrus Livingston Neymon by Harvey Olmstead. Joseph ^on hearing of it at Table in the evening^ asked what he said o his telling what the Ceremony was it prooved that father Olmstead had it Right

Vaenna Jaques witnessed the same by Riding Into the River on horseback to get close so as to hear what the ceremony would be

These statements given by Jane Neymon & Vienna Jaques in history office GSL City Nov 29th 1854 1/2 past 10 oclock AM

Back:

Smith, Joseph

Statement in

Regard to Baptism for

the Dead Nauvoo

Sept 13th 1840[43]

This document states that according to Jane Neyman, Joseph first introduced the subject of Baptism for the Dead at Seymour Brunson’s funeral, claiming that he laid the subject before them and that it was up to them to receive it or reject it. Then under the date of September 13th, she claims that she was baptized for her son Cyrus Livingston[44] and that Harvey Olmstead performed the ceremony of which Joseph later approved. Vienna Jacques testifies that she witnessed the ceremony on the 13th of September and rode her horse into the water so she could hear what was said.

What is interesting is the second document that is in the same folder. It reads,

Front:

Mrs Jane Neymon States that her husband Wm [William] Neymon died at nauvoo on the 10th day of Sept – they had frequently conversed together concerning their son who had died before they heard the gospel on hearing Joseph sermon which was delivered the Sabath after her husbands Death she immediately applied to the Elders for baptism they hesitated, but finaly Elder Harvey Olmstead consented

Vienna Jaques Rode into the water on horseback from curiosity to hear the ceremony & she asserts that it was precisely the same as was afterwards used by the Elders while Joseph was at supper that evening he was told that his doctrine was already taken effect, he ^says^ what are they baptizing for the dead on being told what had been done he inquired what form or words they

Back:

used in the performance of Ceremony. on being[45]

This document claims that Jane Neyman had frequently conversed with her husband William before his death in early September[46] concerning their son Cyrus who had died before they heard the gospel, and that on hearing Joseph’s sermon which he delivered the Sunday after her husband’s death (September 13th) she was baptized for her son by Harvey Olmstead. It is difficult to determine which of these statements was made first, but other accounts of these events may help to clarify the apparent contradictions here.

THE SEPTEMBER 13TH DISCOURSE AND THE FIRST BAPTISMS FOR THE DEAD

In the Journal History of the Church[47] under the date of 15 AUG 1840, Andrew Jenson wrote:

Joseph the Prophet according to the document hereunto attached preached the funeral sermon in memory of Elder Seymour Brunson who had died Aug 10, 1840.

The following document was found by Andrew Jenson at the Historian’s Office, April 9, 1908, while undertaking a careful perusal of original documents. [Then follows the first Neyman Document transcribed above].[48]

The Journal History then continues:

Following is a statement made by Simon Baker in a speech which he delivered:

I was present at a discourse that the prophet Joseph delivered on baptism for the dead 15 August 1840.[49]

After this follows a summary of the speech that Baker claimed to hear, which will be quoted below. The speech by Baker has some problems. First, someone added a date (when the discourse supposedly took place) to the document: August 15, 1840. The original document did not include any date.

In this discourse that Baker speaks of, the widow that Joseph Smith refers to is Jane Neyman, but she didn’t become a widow until after September 2, 1840 when her husband William died. So this discourse that Baker speaks of could not have been given on August 15th, 1840.

The reason why Jenson probably added the dates to these documents was because of Joseph Smith’s December 15, 1840 letter to the Twelve in England. Joseph wrote:

I presume the doctrine of “baptizm for the dead” has ere this reached your ears, and may have raised some inquiries in your mind respecting the same. I cannot in this letter give you all the information you may desire on the subject, but aside from my knowledge independant of the Bible, I would say that this was certainly practized by the antient Churches And. St Paul endeavors to prove the doctrine of the resurrection from the same, and says “else what shall they do who are baptized for the dead” &c &c. I first mentioned the doctrine in public while preaching the funeral sermon of Bro Seymour Brunson, and have since then given general instructions to the Church on the subject. The Saints have the priviledge of being baptized for those of their relatives who are dead, who they feel to believe would have embraced the gospel if they had been priviledged with hearing it, and who have received the gospel in the spirit through the instrumentality of those who may have been commissioned to preach to them while in the prison. Without enlarging on the subject you will undoubtedly see its consistancy, and reasonableness, and presents the the gospel of Christ in probably a more enlarged scale than some have received it. But as the performance of this right is more particularly confined to this place it will not be necessary to enter into particulars, at the same time I always feel glad to give all the information in my power, but my space will not allow me to do it.[50]

Joseph writes that he first mentioned the doctrine of Baptism for the Dead at the funeral of Seymour Brunson, but then states he had “since then given general instructions to the Church on the subject.” Jenson probably thought that these recollections all took place on only one date: August 15th.

According to Joseph, he did mention baptism for the dead on August 15th, but he also said that since then, he gave general instructions to the Church. This would be the sermon that Joseph gave on September 13, 1840 that both Jane Neyman and Simon Baker attended, (which fits the evidence) and further instructions on October 4, 1840 at the General Conference of the Church.

What appears to have transpired is that the vision of Ann Booth had been circulated among the Saints at Nauvoo after being sent from overseas by Brigham Young to his wife, Mary Ann. This excited and inspired those like Seymour Brunson who took ill about the time the vision was first being noised about Nauvoo. Through Seymour Brunson or perhaps Mary Ann Young, Joseph learns about the vision of Ann Booth and addresses some of the questions about the vision at the funeral of the High Councilman, correcting the notion that spirits can be baptized. Joseph does not reveal much at this time, because those that attended the funeral do not mention anything about baptism for the dead. Joseph continues to study and ponder the scriptures and focuses on the verses in 1st Corinthians that speak of Baptism for the Dead. He now has his answer for how those who have died without the Gospel (such as his brother Alvin) can be saved in the Celestial Kingdom.

A few weeks after the funeral of Seymour Brunson, Joseph’s father (Joseph Smith, Sr.) took ill and Lucy Mack Smith later wrote that she concluded that her husband “was appointed unto death,” so she “sent for Joseph and Hyrum.”[51]

Joseph and Hyrum arrived home on Saturday, September 7th, 1840 and gave their father a blessing. The next day Joseph had a conversation with his father and informed him that it was now “the privilege of the Saints to be baptized for the dead,” and Joseph Smith, Sr. requested that his son Joseph “should be baptized for Alvin immediately.”[52]

Six days later Joseph Smith Sr. died, and the next day Joseph Smith preached his first real sermon on baptism for the dead. As Simon Baker recalled:

He read the greater part of the 15th chapter of Corinthians and remarked that the Gospel of Jesus Christ brought glad tidings of great joy, and then remarked that he saw a widow in that congregation that had a son who died without being baptized, and this widow in reading the sayings of Jesus ‘except a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven,’ and that not one jot nor tittle of the Savior’s words should pass away, but all should be fulfilled. He then said that this widow [Jane Neyman] should have glad tidings in that thing. He also said the apostle [Paul] was talking to a people who understood baptism for the dead, for it was practiced among them. He went on to say that people could now act for their friends who had departed this life, and that the plan of salvation was calculated to save all who were willing to obey the requirements of the law of God. He went on and made a very beautiful discourse”[53]

After Joseph spoke to the assembled group of Saints on that mild day in mid-September, 1840, the new widow Jane Neyman applied to the Elders to baptize her as a proxy for her son Cyrus, and Harvey Olmstead stepped up and performed the ceremony, which Joseph Smith later that night approved of.[54]

On Sunday, October 4, the Prophet again addressed the Saints on Baptism for the Dead, this time at some length. The Minutes of the General Conference taken by Robert B. Thompson record that,

Pres Smith then arose and spoke on the subject of being baptized for the dead at considerable length.”[55]

According to Vilate Kimball, who wrote to her husband Heber in England a few days after the October Conference:

President Smith has open[e]d a new and glorious subject of late which has caused quite a revival in the church. that is, being baptised for the dead. Paul speaks of it, in first Corinthians 15th chapter 29th vers[e].

Joseph has received a more full explaination of it by Revelation. He says it is the privilege of this church to be baptised for all their kinsfolks that have died before this Gospel came forth; even back to their great Gran[d]father and Mother if they have be[e]n personally acquainted with them. by so doing we act as agents for them, and give them the privilege of comeing forth in the first resurection.[56]

Vilate added that Joseph urged them “to be up and a doing and liberate their friends from bondage as quick as posable.” Vilate then spoke of her own need to redeem her dead, writing that “I want to be baptized for my mother.” She adds that “Since this order has been preached here, the waters have been continually troubled. During the conference there were some times from eight to ten elders in the river at a time baptizing.” She also informed Heber that “there is a number of the neighbors going forward,” and “[s]ome have already been baptized a number of times over. They have to be baptized and confirmed for one person before they can be baptized for another. Those that have no friends on the earth to be baptized for them can become ministering spirits to whom so ever they will and make known their request.”[57]

“There is a chance for all,” she happily writes, “[i]s not this a glorious doctrine? Surely the gentiles will mock, but we rejoice in it.”[58]

THE IMPORTANCE OF ANN BOOTH’S VISION

In her October letter to Heber C. Kimball, Vilate also wrote that Joseph Smith “says they [the dead] will have the Gospel preached [to] them in Prison, but there is no such thing as spirits being baptized.” As for Ann Booth’s glimpse of the afterlife, Vilate wrote that Joseph “doesn’t wholly discard sister Booth’s vision,” and “says it was to show her the necessity of being baptized.”[59]

Vilate Kimball, circa 1860’s

It is clear that the vision of Ann Booth was the impetus for Joseph’s instigation of proxy baptisms for the dead. Joseph claimed that all who would have accepted the gospel would become heirs to the Celestial Kingdom, including his brother Alvin who he claimed to have seen there in a vision in 1836. Instead of the baptisms and confirmations taking place in the Spirit World, Joseph proclaimed that they were to be performed on earth, using the verse in 1st Corinthians as a proof text. As Wilford Woodruff journalized in 1842:

Joseph the seer …made some edifying remarks concerning Baptism for the dead. He said the Bible supported the doctrin. “Why are ye Baptized for the dead if the dead rise not &c.” If their is one word of the Lord that supports the doctrin it is enough to make it a true doctrin. Again if we can baptize a man in the Name of the Father of the Son & of the Holy Ghost for the remission of sins it is just as much our privilege to act as an agent & be baptized for the remission of sins for & in behalf of our dead kindred who have not herd the gospel or fulness of it.[60]

In 1845 Brigham Young preached a sermon and mentioned how he first learned about the Baptism for the Dead doctrine:

The doctrine of baptism for the dead you have been taught for some time, and the first account that I heard of it was while I was in England; it was there I got the glad tidings that the living could go forth and be baptized for those who had fallen asleep. This doctrine I believed before anything was said or done about it in this church; it made me glad when I heard it was revealed through his servant Joseph, and that I could go forth, and officiate for my fathers, for my mothers, and for my ancestors, to the latest generation who have not had the privilege of helping themselves; that they can yet arise to the state of glory and exaltation as we that live, have a privilege of rising to ourselves. The next year I came home and requested Brother Joseph to preach upon the subject, which he did, I also heard many of the elders preach upon the same subject. [61]

Here Young admits that he first learned about Baptism for the Dead in England, and that would have been from the vision of Ann Booth.

AFTERMATH

On November 5, 1840, Robert B. Thompson penned a letter to Heber C. Kimball about what he termed as “the old doctrine of Baptism for the Dead”:

You will have heard ere this of the death of our beloved Bishop Partridg Bro Seymour Brunson and the patriarch of the Church Joseph Smith Senr. You will likewise probably have heard of the old doctrine of Baptism for the Dead which has been introduced by President Joseph Smith Jr. So that the Saints have the priviledge of being baptised for their relatives and friends who have not had the priviledge of hearing the gospel while in the flesh but who probably receive while in the spirit in prison. so they can claim them at the ressurrection of the just. this is certainly a glorious doctrine and shews forth the gracious purposes of our God, and the grandeour of that scheme which is to raise mankind from the ruins of the fall. Hundreds have allready Gone forth and been baptized for their friends who are deceased. There has been many things said, and notions imbibed concerning this doctrine. Allow me to advance an idea, and it is this; except we attend to this ordinance according to the law of heaven in all things it will not be valid or be of any benefit either to the living or the dead; when it was first revealed all the order of it was not made known, afterwards it was made known…[62]

When Joseph first explained the doctrine of baptism for the dead in the fall of 1840, he had no idea what the ramifications of it would be. He simply claimed that men and women could act “as agents” for their dead, by being baptized for them. Anyone could be baptized for any deceased relative or friend. According to her 1854 statement, Jane Neyman was baptized for her dead son Cyrus on September 13, 1840,[63] and Joseph approved of her doing so and the ceremony that was used. After this, thousands of baptisms were performed in the Mississippi River and in the basement of the Temple in the next few years.[64]

Joseph would not produce any formal revelation on baptism for the Dead until January 19, 1841 when he called upon the Saints to erect a new Temple. Joseph proclaimed that the word of the Lord to him was:

I command you, all ye my saints, to build a house unto me; and I grant unto you a sufficient time to build a house unto me; and during this time your baptisms shall be acceptable unto me. But behold, at the end of this appointment your baptisms for your dead shall not be acceptable unto me; and if you do not these things at the end of the appointment ye shall be rejected as a church, with your dead, saith the Lord your God.[65]

In the same revelation Joseph (like Ann Booth) also mentions David W. Patten who he claims “is with me at this time, and of who the Lord had “taken unto myself; behold, his priesthood no man taketh from him.”[66]

These willy-nilly baptisms went on for almost two years before Joseph set more stringent parameters of how the Saints were to perform them.[67] Even with these further instructions, which Joseph outlined in two letters written in September, 1842, Joseph still did not forbid men being baptized for women or women for men. Brigham Young would change this, and explained why in a later discourse from 1873:

Do you recollect that in about the year 1840-41, Joseph had a revelation concerning the dead? He had been asked the question a good many times; “What is the condition of the dead, those that lived and died without the Gospel?” It was a matter of inquiry with him. He considered this question not only for himself, but for the brethren and the Church. “What is the condition of the dead? What will be their fate? Is there no way today by which they can receive their blessings as there was in the days of the Apostles, and when the Gospel was preached upon the earth in ancient days?” When Joseph received the revelation that we have in our possession concerning the dead, the subject was opened to him, not in full but in part, and he kept on receiving. When he had first received the knowledge by the spirit of revelation how the dead could be officiated for, there are brethren and sisters here, I can see quite a number here who were in Nauvoo, and you recollect that when this doctrine was first revealed, and in hurrying in the administration of baptism for the dead, that sisters were baptized for their male friends, were baptized for their fathers, their grandfathers, their mothers and their grandmothers, &c. I just mention this so that you will come to understanding, that as we knew nothing about this matter at first, the old Saints recollect, there was little by little given, and the subject was made plain, but little was given at once. Consequently, in the first place people were baptized for their friends and no record was kept. Joseph afterwards kept a record, &c. Then women were baptized for men and men for women, &c. It would be very strange, you know, to the eyes of the wise and they that understood the things pertaining to eternity, if we were called upon to commence a work that we could not finish. This, therefore, was regulated and all set in order; for it was revealed that if a woman was baptized for a man, she could not be ordained for him, neither could she be made an Apostle or a Patriarch for the man, consequently the sisters are to be baptized for their own sex only.[68]

The origin of the baptism for the dead doctrine had its genesis in wake of the claimed vision of an early English convert, a woman who has fallen into relative obscurity. The vision of Ann Booth inspired many to feel concern and joy for their dead friends and relatives, and to look forward in carrying on the work of the gospel in the world to come. The questions raised from the promulgation of her vision both intrigued and inspired Joseph Smith to further explore and solve the conundrum of how those like his brother Alvin could be heirs to the celestial kingdom.

NOTES

[1] Guy Bishop, “’What Has Become of Our Fathers?’ Baptism for the Dead at Nauvoo,” Dialogue 23 (Summer 1990): 86.

[2] Heber C. Kimball, [1801-1868] was ordained an Apostle on February 14, 1835.

[3] Orson Hyde, [1805-1878] was ordained an Apostle on February 15, 1835.

[4] Parley P. Pratt, [1807-1857] was ordained an Apostle on February 21st 1835, and like the rest of the Twelve was urged to begin preaching the gospel, and subsequently went on a mission to New York, New England, and eastern Canada. In the spring of 1836 Pratt started out on another mission, this time to Toronto, Canada. There he met and converted John and Lenora Taylor, and with the help of John Taylor he baptized Joseph Fielding, John Snider, Isaac Russell, Robert B. Thompson and others into the church. It was the relatives of these converts that Heber C. Kimball and Orson Hyde visited in England a few years later.

[5] William Clayton, [1814-1879] was baptized on October 21, 1837 and ordained a High Priest on April 1, 1838. He quit his job as a factory worker to help start a branch of the Church in Manchester, England where he was called as a counselor to Mission President Willard Richards. Clayton and his wife Ruth Moon [1817-1894] immigrated to the United States in 1840, arriving on November 24 in Nauvoo where he became a clerk and scribe for Joseph Smith. James B. Allen writes,

“It was a formidable challenge for the twenty-four-year-old Clayton to try to establish a branch of Mormonism in this industrial center. He proselytized, however, mainly among the working classes, and within six months he had converted about seventy people. Among them was the Hardman family, who ran a boardinghouse at No. 2 Maria Street. Clayton himself eventually took up residence there, staying until he was released from his church assignment. Other early converts included James Bewshaw, a coachman, and his wife, Ellen, who were particularly kind in providing meals and other help for Clayton while he was in Manchester; and Robert Booth, whose wife, Ann, later received a remarkable vision foreshadowing the introduction of the doctrine of baptism for the dead.”(James B. Allen, William Clayton, Trials of Discipleship, p.21)

[6] Willard Richards [1804-1854], was baptized on December 31, 1836 by his cousin Brigham Young and ordained an elder in February, 1837. He was called on a mission to England where he met his wife Jenetta, [1817-1845] daughter of the Reverend John Richards, who he married on September 24, 1839. Brigham Young [1801-1877] was ordained an Apostle on February 14, 1835.

[7] David W. Patten, [1799-1838] was ordained an Apostle on February 15, 1835. He was called on a mission on April 11, 1838. See, Doctrine and Covenants 114:1.

[8] The Battle of Crooked River was a skirmish that took place on October 24, 1838 between Mormon settlers under the command of David W. Patten (codenamed “Captain Fearnought”) and a Missouri State Militia unit under the command of Samuel Bogart. See, The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, by Stephen C. LeSueur, University of Missouri Press, 1987, 286 pages.

[9] John Taylor, [1808-1887] was ordained an Apostle on December 19, 1838; Wilford Woodruff, [1807-1898] was ordained on April 26, 1839; John E. Page, [1799-1867] was ordained on December 19, 1838; Willard Richards was ordained on April 14, 1840.

[10] Doctrine and Covenants 118:4-6.

[11] George Albert Smith, [1817-1875] was ordained an Apostle on April 26, 1839.

[12] The ordination of Willard Richards brought the number of Apostles to 11. Two of the remaining Apostles, William Smith, [1811-1893] who was ordained on February 15, 1835 and John E. Page, [1799-1867] who was ordained on December 19, 1838, never went to England. Lyman Wight, [1796-1858] would bring the number to 12 with his ordination on April 14, 1841.

[13] Scott G. Kenney, ed., Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 1, 1833–1840, (Midvale, UT: Signature Books, 1983,), 438.

[14] Ann Eastwood Booth [1794-1874] and Robert Booth [1785-1846] were married in Manchester, England in 1817. They had a son Thomas who was born in 1836. They immigrated to the United States in 1840 with William Clayton’s company. Not much is known about Robert Booth, but he is mentioned in Clayton’s diary in 1844:

“Sister [Ann] Booth tells me that Sara Ann [Whitney] is very unhappy and wants to see me she says Jane Charnock is perfectly unhappy and if there is any way she can be loosed she wants me to take her. Mary Aspen is ready to unite to me as her savior and Sister Booth says she shall not risk her salvation in Roberts [Booth] hands and wants me to interfere. We had considerable conversation on many subjects and felt pretty well.” (George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1991), 151, October 21, 1844.) Ann Booth immigrated west with the Saints and died in Utah.

[15] Mary Ann Angell Young [1803-1882] was Brigham Young’s second wife. They were married on March 31, 1834.

[16] Brigham Young, letter, Manchester and Lancashire [England] to Mary A. Young, Commerce, IL, 1840, May 26. MS 15616, Box 1, Folder 7, CHL, 1-2. Original spelling and punctuation retained. Paragraph breaks are taken from Woodruff’s Journal copy.

[17] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 1, 1833–1840, p.475, July 2, 1840.

[18] For example, in the first paragraph Young writes out then inserts the date, “one thousand and forty <1840>”; while Woodruff simply writes the date; in paragraph two Young writes: “departed spirits”; Woodruff writes: “departed souls”; Young writes: “in his hand”; Woodruff omits this; in the third paragraph Young writes: “down to”; Woodruff omits this; Young writes: “or briter”; Woodruff omits this; in the fourth paragraph Young writes: “right hand of the dore”; Woodruff writes: “right hand near the door”; in the fifth paragraph Young writes: “the Apostle Baptized him”; Woodruff writes: “he Baptized him”; in the sixth paragraph Young writes: “Kilbham and next”; Woodruff writes: “Killham the leader of the New Connection of Methodist and next”; Young writes: “Wm Scott; Woodruff omits “Wm”; Young writes: “who ware Methodest Prachers with whome I had ben a quanted personly”; Woodruff writes: “The three latter were Methodist Preachers with whom I had formerly been acquainted”; in the seventh paragraph Young writes: “confermed them”; Woodruff writes: “oncfermed them evry one”; in the eighth paragraph Young writes,: “Lord bless forever”; Woodruff writes: “Lord bless thee forever”; in the ninth paragraph Young writes: “happy and rejoiced that I could not lay in bed”; Woodruff writes: “happy & overjoyed that I knew not how to remain in bed”; Young writes: “awaked my husben we got up”; Woodruff writes: “waking my husband we arose”; Young writes: “Bible opened it to 3 different places first to”; Woodruff writes: “the Bible I opened Providentially to the text”; Young writes: “Chap. 22v.”; Woodruff writes, “they shall be gathered together &c. More and more astonished”; Young writes: “the next was John C- 1- v-5— “; Woodruff writes: “I again opened the Bible to the 1st of St John The light shineth in darkness &c.”; Young writes: “the third time I opned bible was first Peater 3-C-18-19-20—ver— not being aquanted with these texts of Cripture”; Woodruff writes: “And again the third time I opened it & immediately cast my eyes upon the 3d chapter of Peter 18, 19, 20 speaking of the spirits in Prison. Being before ignorant of these texts”; in the tenth paragraph Young writes, “was martered”; Woodruff writes, “was slain”; in the last paragraph Woodruff writes, “Perhaps many will think lightly of this vision”; Young omits this; Young writes, “I have related”; Woodruff writes, “I have here related”; Young writes, “amen & amen”; Woodruff omits this. There are other minor differences in spelling and punctuation. Woodruff also does not mention that Ann Booth “heard a voice” that she “must go to Paradise” and was then “carried away in the vision.”

[19] Times and Seasons, Vol.1, No.1, p.5, November 1839.

[20] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 1, 1833–1840, p.328, April 26, 1839.

[21] ibid., 368, November 11, 1839.

[22] Moses 7:38-39.

[23] “The Vision,” Hiram Township, OH, 16 February 1832; signed by Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith, Revelation Book 2, 1-10; handwriting of Frederick G. Williams and Joseph Smith; CHL. See also, Doctrine and Covenants of The Church of the Latter Day Saints: Carefully Selected from the Revelations of God, And Compiled by Joseph Smith Junior, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, Frederick G. Williams, [Presiding Elders of said Church.] Proprietors, Kirtland, Ohio, Printed by F. G. Williams & Co., For the Proprietors, 1835, Section XCI, “A Vision”, 225-231.

[24] 1835 Doctrine & Covenants, Section XCI:5, (page 228); Doctrine and Covenants (modern edition), Section 76: 50-51, 52, 70.

[25] ibid., Section XCI:6, (page 229); D&C 76:71-75.

[26] Visions, Kirtland, OH, 21 January 1836, in Joseph Smith’s Journal, September 1835-April 1836, handwriting of Warren Parrish, CHL; Doctrine and Covenants (modern edition) Section 137. Original spelling and punctuation retained.

[27] ibid., 136; D&C 137:5-6. Original spelling and punctuation retained.

[28] ibid., 137; D&C 137:7-10. Original spelling and punctuation retained.

[29] Elders’ Journal of The Church of the Latter Day Saints, 1 (July 1838): 43. Whether or not Joseph meant ordinances here is ambiguous. He does not mention the need for ordinances in his January vision of 1836, but couples those who would have received the gospel “with all their hearts” and attain the Celestial Kingdom with children who die under the age of eight, who are not required to be baptized.

[30] 1 Peter 3:18-20, NIV.

[31] The Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate, Vol. II, No. 5, Feb. 1836, 262. In early 1840 an titled “The Gospel” appeared in the Times and Seasons which explained the authority to administer the Gospel:

“Being thus endowed with the spirit and power from on high, they [the Apostles] were capable of teaching that system which Christ delivered to them, without alteration; for the comforter brought to their minds what they had forgotten, and lead them into all truth and prevented the introduction of error. The Lord never called a man to that office, unless he qualified him in that manner, for that qualification is absolutely necessary for the salvation of the world; for without it the gospel never was and never will be preached in purity, and administered in righteousness, consequently will not make those pure to whom it is administered. Therefore, as Paul said, so say I, how can a man preach, except he be sent. Answer he can teach for doctrine, the commandments of men, and make void the law of God through the traditions of the fathers, as did the Scribes and Pharisees of old. The lack of that calling and qualification in the multitude of modern divines, is evidently the cause of contentions, differences, and divisions in the christian world, and of the dublety that rest upon the minds of the religious world, relative to the true points of Christ’s doctrine.” (“The Gospel”, Times & Seasons, Vol. I, No. 5, March, 1840, p.76)

[32] Seymour Brunson was born December 1, 1798 in Orwell, Vermont to Reuben Brunson and Sally Clark. He married Harriet Matilda Gould from New York about 1823. They became the parents of seven children between the years of 1825 and 1839, namely: Reuben, Lewis, Lucretia, Joseph ,Jerusha, Seymour, and William Morgan. He died on August 10, 1840 in Nauvoo, Illinois. He was a Lieutenant Colonel of the Illinois Militia and was buried with military honors in Nauvoo.

[33] Short Sketch of Seymour Brunson, Sr., by his son Lewis Brunson, submitted by Darlinda Gorley, Hyrum, Ut, Nauvoo Journal 4 (spring 1992): 4. Online here, accessed July 20, 2016.

[34] Vilate Kimball, Nauvoo, to Heber C. Kimball, Liverpool, England, September 6, 1840, MS 3276, Folder 2, CHL.

[35] John Smith, Lee County, Iowa to George Albert Smith, London, England, August 21, 1840, MS 1322, Box 9, Folder 2, CHL.

[36] History of the Church, 4:179.

[37] Vilate Kimball, Commerce, Illinois, to Heber C. Kimball, September 6, 1840, CHL.

[38] Heber C. Kimball, Clitheroe, England to John Taylor, Liverpool, England, November 9, 1840, MS 24689, CHL. This would be the information from Vilate’s September 6, letter to Heber which does not mention baptism for the dead.

[39] John Smith mentions the death of Seymour Brunson but nothing about his funeral, it is possible that he was in Montrose and did not attend it. It is strange that even after almost a week after the funeral he still does not mention baptism for the dead, though he does mention David Patten. Vilate Kimball writing almost a month after Brunson’s funeral, also does not mention anything about baptism for the dead, even though she obviously attended the funeral. She also mentions David Patten. This leads us to believe that even though Smith claims to have first mentioned it at the funeral, (in December, 1840) it was probably only briefly and many did not understand the ramifications of what he spoke about.

[40] Joseph Smith, Letter, Nauvoo, IL, to the Council of the Twelve, England, 15 Dec. 1840; handwriting of Robert B. Thompson; eight pages; JS Collection, CHL, 6, added emphasis.

[41] Jane Harper Neyman was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania on September 22, 1792. She was baptized in 1838 with her husband William and moved to Nauvoo in 1840. William died shortly after on September 2, 1840. She remarried a brother Fisher, and moved west with the Saints with her daughters Rachel Neyman Fullmer [1832-1912] and Mary Ann Neyman Nickerson [1823-1916] in 1850. She died in Beaver, Utah on May 3, 1880 from a stroke. She had eight other children, Margaret Jane, [1813-1899] Cyrus Livingston, [b. June 14, 1815] Annis, [1818-1845] Hiram [1819-1904], Ebenezer [abt. 1820] Matilda [abt. 1821] Frederick [abt. 1824] and Shilo [abt. 1834] See, Obituary, The Woman’s Exponent, Vol. 9, No. 1, June 1, 1880, 4, Online here, Accessed July 20, 2016; Genealogy records retrieved from Family Central, Online here, Accessed July 20, 2016.

[42] Vienna Jacques was born on June 10, 1787 and died on February 7, 1884. She was baptized by E. Harris on July 12, 1831. She married Daniel Shearer in 1839 in Missouri. She moved to Nauvoo by 1840. She left Nauvoo on June 21, 1847 and arrived in Salt Lake City on October 2, 1847. She died in Salt Lake City, Utah.

[43] Jane Neyman Statements, November 29, 1854, CR 100 396, Box 1, Folder 45, document 1, CHL.

[44] Cyrus Livingston Neyman was born on June 14, 1815, we could find no information on his death.

[45] Jane Neyman Statements, November 29, 1854, CR 100 396, Box 1, Folder 45, document 2, CHL.

[46] Thursday, the 10th of September was the date that William was buried, according to genealogical records. He died on the 2nd of September. The Sunday following this would be September 13, 1840.

[47] The Journal History of the Church was a daily history taken from newspapers, minutes, letters and other documents and kept in a series of scrapbooks compiled by Andrew Jenson in 1906. By 1913, Jenson had completed the years 1830-1852. By his death in 1941 he had reached the year 1930. After his death the History was continued by staff working in the Church Historians Office. In 2008 work on the project ceased.

[48] Journal History of the Church, 15 August 1840, CR 100 137, Reel 4, Volume 12, CHL.

[49] ibid

[50] Joseph Smith, Letter, Nauvoo, IL, to the Council of the Twelve, England, 15 Dec. 1840; handwriting of Robert B. Thompson; eight pages; JS Collection, CHL, 6.

[51] Lucy Mack Smith, Lucy’s Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith’s Family Memoir, ed. Lavina Fielding Anderson (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001), 713-714.

[52] ibid., 714.

[53] Joseph Smith Addresses, 1839-1842, MS 155, Box 4, Folder 4, CHL.

[54] Jane Neyman Statements, November 29, 1854.

[55] Minutes of General Conference, October, 1840, CR 100 318, Box 1, Folder 6, CHL.

[56] Vilate Kimball, Nauvoo, Illinois to Heber C. Kimball, London, England, October 11-13, 1840, photocopy, MS 18732, Folder 1, CHL.

[57] ibid.

[58] ibid.

[59] ibid.

[60] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, p.165, March 27, 1842.

[61] “Speech”, Delivered by President Brigham Young, in the City of Joseph, April 6. 1845, Times &Seasons, Volume VI, No. 12, July 1, 1845, 954.

[62] Letter, Robert B. Thompson to Heber C. Kimball, November 5, 1840, CHL.

[63] In the Nauvoo Baptisms for the Dead, Book A, attached note, film no. 183, 376, LDS Family History Library, Salt Lake City, it states that “Jane Neyman was baptized for her son Cyrus Livingston Neyman, Sund. Sept 12 1840”. This date is mistaken, for that Sunday would have been the 13th, and her 1854 statement gives the date as Sunday, the 13th.

[64] See Guy Bishop, “’What Has Become of Our Fathers?’ Baptism for the Dead at Nauvoo,” Dialogue 23 (Summer 1990): 85–97.

[65] Doctrine and Covenants 124:31-32.

[66] ibid., 19, 130.

[67] See Alexander L. Baugh, “For This Ordinance Belongeth to My House”: The Practice of Baptism for the Dead Outside the Nauvoo Temple, Mormon Historical Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1, (Spring 2002), 47-58.

[68] Journal of Discourses, Volume 16, 165-66, Aug. 31, 1873. See also, ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, The Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City, 2009, 76-80. Conference Address given at Nauvoo, Illinois, 6 April, 1845. In that address Young declared:

I do not say that you have not been taught and learned the principle; you have heard it taught from this stand from time to time, by many of the elders, and from the mouth of your beloved and martyred prophet Joseph; therefore my course will not be to prove the doctrine, but refer to those things against which your minds are revolting. Consequently I would say to this vast congregation of Saints, when we enter into the Temple of God to receive our washings, our anointings, our endowments and baptisms for the saving of ourselves, and for the saving of our dead: that you never will see a man go forth to be baptized for a woman, nor a woman for a man. If your minds should be in any dubiety with regard to this, call to mind a principle already advanced, that when an infinite being gives a law to his finite creatures, he has to descend to the capacity of those who receive his law, when the doctrine of baptism for the dead was first given, this church was in its infancy, and was not capable of receiving all the knowledge of God in its highest degree; this you all believe. I would keep this one thing in your minds, and that is, that there is none, no not one of the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, that ever received the fullness of the celestial law at the first of the Lord’s commencing to reveal it unto them….

Joseph in his life time did not receive every thing connected with the doctrine of redemption, but he has left the key with those who understand how to obtain and teach to this great people all that is necessary for their salvation and exaltation in the celestial kingdom of our God. We have got to learn how to be faithful with the few things, you know the promise is, if we are faithful in a few things we shall be made rulers over many things. If we improve upon the small things, greater will be given unto us.

I have said that a man cannot be baptized for a woman, nor a woman for a man, and it be valid. I have not used any argument as yet; I want now to use an argument upon this subject, it is a very short one; and I will do it by asking this congregation, if God would call a person to commence a thing that would not have power and ability to carry it out? Would he do it? (no.) Well then, what has been our course on former occasions? Why, here goes our beloved sisters, and they are baptised [baptized] in the river or in the fount for their uncles, for their fathers, for their grandfathers and great grandfathers.

Well, now I will take you and confirm you for your uncles, for your fathers, for your grandfathers, and let you go; after a while here comes our beloved sisters, saying. I want to be ordained for my uncle, and for my grandfather, and great grand-father; I want my father ordained to the high priesthood, and my grandfather, I want to be patriarch, and you may ordain me a prophet for my uncle! What would you think about all that, sisters, come now you have been baptised [baptized] and confirmed for your father, wont you be ordained for him? You could cast on a stocking and finish it.-You could take wool and card and spin it and make it into cloth, and then make it into garments. A person that commences a work and has not ability and power to finish it, only leaves the unfinished remains as a monument of folly. We will not commence a work we cannot finish: but let us hearken to the voice of the spirit and give heed to his teachings and we will make ourselves perfect in all things.

The John Whitmer Conference (2017)

Posted on September 25, 2017 by grindael

I was privileged to be a presenter at this year’s John Whitmer Historical Association Conference, which just wrapped in Nauvoo, Illinois. I drove in from New York, and it was an exhausting drive, but when I arrived on Wednesday night, I was treated to a BBQ at the home of Joseph Johnstun in Fort Madison, Iowa, just across the Mississippi River from Nauvoo. There, I was in good company, as the Historical Luminaries Mike Marquardt, Bill & Diane Shepherd, Brent & Erin Metcalfe and Joe Geisner had already arrived. (The pulled pork was out of this world)!

Joseph Johnstun (on right)

Mulholland Street, Entering Nauvoo

84 Degrees! (And this was in the morning)

View from West End of Mulholland Street (The Temple is to the right)

Nauvoo Temple

The Conference opened for Registration on Thursday afternoon, and I got to meet some more great people. I had never been to Nauvoo, and having my own vehicle I got to drive around and see the sights. It was like going back in time.

Joseph Smith Mansion House

It was very hot! As I drove into town on Thursday , it was 84 degrees and it got much hotter as the day progressed. Storm clouds gathered in Thursday night, and there was a little rain, but it cleared up by Friday Morning which was another scorcher! On Saturday it was close to 100 degrees outside. I was sure glad I drove and when I got too hot could go sit in my SUV and blast the air and cool off! And the Visitor’s Center was air conditioned of course.

Community of Christ Visitors Center

The Outside “Tabernacle” (The Joseph Smith Homestead is in the background)

There I met the two women who were instrumental in making this Conference a success, Rachel Killebrew and Cheryle Grinter. Cheryle was very kind to me, but had a no nonsense way about her that I knew I would not want to get on the wrong side of. The Staff and volunteers there were pleasant and informative, and eager to help if you had any difficulties. And the Red Brick Store Rootbeer was tasty.

Rachel Killebrew (Awards Committee Chair) & Cheryle Grinter (Executive Director JWHA)

Shuttle to the COC Camp Nauvoo Lodge

Dr. Michael Van Wagenen gave the Richard P. Howard Lecture on Divergent Memories of the Restoration Movement at the COC Camp Nauvoo Lodge.

Bill Morain (Editor JWHAJ) & his wife Sherry Mesle-Morain (President-Elect) They are leaning forward.

Joe Geisner, jack of all knowledge

H. Michael Marquardt, Historian, Author, Researcher and friend

As I was leaving Nauvoo on Thursday night, four deer pranced across the road and I almost hit them, but since it was in town and I wasn’t going very fast, I stopped in time.

I was struck with how eerie and quiet Nauvoo is at night, (probably why it attracts the deer) and even though it’s lit up, it feels almost like a ghost town. So many of the residences are empty and silent, no Saints making these beautiful buildings their homes now.

Joseph Smith Gravesite & Homestead

Driving back to the condos where I was staying, I was struck by how dark it was on the highway and took a picture. I guess I was just in a somber mood, contemplating the historical significance of the place I had spent the day at.

The Condo where I stayed (Courtesy of Bill Shepherd, Mike Marquardt & Joe Geisner)

I was pretty beat up from my drive in on Wednesday, and so I missed the Friday morning presentations, but made it in time for the Awards Luncheon.

The Lunch Line

Friday Awards Luncheon

Presenter Meg Stout

There I finally got to meet Don Bradley who was presenting in a few hours, which I was looking forward to hearing.

Researcher, Author & Historian Don Bradley just before his presentation

I met lots of people, and had many conversations about Church History. There was a lot of time in between presentations and that was great one on one time, to have discussions with various attendees and presenters. During one break, I got to hear Brent Metcalfe’s “Caractors” Presentation he gave to a past Conference. He was nice enough to put the Power Point on his computer and take me through it. There were lots of fascinating and informative moments such as this.

Mike Riggs & Mark Staker

Mr. & Mrs. Bruce Van Orden (The only place in town to get food, drinks & gas)

Ron & Anne Romig

I had fun tramping around with my friend Mike Marquardt, and we took some snacks and ate them by the Temple and then went to the Grove where Joseph used to preach. Mike took this picture of me hamming it up on the Stand.

Johnny at the Stand

So many presentations to see and you had to choose one out of many in each block, so it was kind of hard to decide. I chose Meg Stout and Don Bradley’s, and so missed Mark Staker’s presentation which I also really wanted to see. But that’s how it is.

As I was leaving Nauvoo on Friday night, four deer pranced across the road and I almost hit them, but since it was in town and I wasn’t going very fast, I stopped in time.

Leaving Nauvoo at Night

President Peter Judd (Presidents Banquet)

Awards Luncheon

The Richard P. Howard Lecture at Camp Nauvoo Lodge

I stayed up late Friday night to fine tune my presentation, and I followed Taunalyn Rutherford, who also presented on Emma Smith. I could not have asked for a better set up for my own presentation on Emma and the 1869 Utah Affidavits. Of course, the Auditorium was packed and I was nervous, but my Power Point saved me.

The Mansion at Night

As I walked back to my car on Saturday Night after the President’s Bauquet, Bryce Blankenagel interviewed me for a podcast about my presentation which he will be posting on his “Naked Mormonism” site.

Visiting Nauvoo is a great experience. The John Whitmer Conference was kind of a love fest, everyone was kind, smiling, and having fun. On my drive back to New York I stopped for Gas near Cleveland, Ohio and a man was in line in front of me whose car had gotten a flat on the Turnpike and he had to spend all his money to get it towed to the gas station and the tire repaired. He was just trying to get home, but had $5 and a ways to go. I was at first impatient to get waited on to be on my way, but listened as the attendant told him he had over $10 to pay in tolls. The man was distraught and didn’t know what to do. So I ponied up the money for his tolls, and he, with genuine surprise (and some feeling) thanked me and said, “God is good”. I told him that people were also good and to just pay it forward as I was doing. I guess I was still feeling the spirit of John Whitmer and that beautiful place, Nauvoo.

Dustin Phelps & The House of Lies He Built For Jeremy Runnells

Posted on August 25, 2017 by grindael

ANTI-MORMONISM (ad nauseam)

This article was written before Dustin Phelps changed his title and edited out some material. The original article may be found here.

There is an old adage that I’m sure all of you have heard at one time or another that goes, “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. “ No one wants to be fooled but really, it happens all the time especially when it comes to religious matters. The historical record is replete with false prophets and teachers who have duped people into believing their claims of a special connection to God, who then gives them special “authority” that puts them in positions of power over others. When men make religious claims though, they should have evidence to back up those claims. Let’s not fool ourselves that it isn’t all about the evidence. It is.

When it comes to Joseph Smith and his creation of Mormonism, there is an abundance of evidence that one can actually analyze to see if the claims that Joseph Smith made bear up under close examination. As Fawn Brodie astutely observed over 70 years ago,

In official Mormon biographies he [Joseph Smith] has been made a prophet of greater stature than Moses. Nineteenth-century preachers made him a lecherous rogue; and twentieth-century chroniclers have been bemused with what they diagnosed as paranoiac delusions. The reason for these disparate opinions is by no means lack of biographical data, for Joseph Smith dared to found a new religion in the age of printing. When he said “Thus saith the Lord!” the words were copied down by secretaries and congealed forever into print. (Brodie, Fawn M.. No Man Knows My History (Illustrated): The Life of Joseph Smith , )

The continuing scrutiny of the Mormon “prophet” and his Latter-day Kingdom of God is nothing new. It has been going on for almost two hundred years now. The word “anti-Mormon” is nothing new either; it has been wielded like a cudgel against anyone critical of Joseph Smith from the time that Eber D. Howe published Mormonism Unvailed in 1834 to the present. Even Joseph Smith made the term his own. For example, he used it when speaking of his plans for Texas if he were to win the 1844 Presidential nomination. His diary entry for March 7th reads:

On the annexation of Texas, some object. The anti-Mormons are good fellows. I say it in anticipation they will repent. Object to Texas [being admitted into the Union] on account of slavery. [Texas was pro slavery] Tis the very reason why she should be received.

“[Sam] Houston says, ‘Gentleman, if you refuse to receive us we must go to the British’ [who objected to slavery] and the first thing they will do will be to set the negroes and indians [against us] and they will use us up. British officers running all over Texas to pick a quarrel with us[. It would be] more honorable for us [as a nation] to receive them and set the negroes free and use the negro and indians against our foes.

“Don’t let Texas go lest our Mother and the daughters of the land will laugh us in the teeth. If these things are not so God never spoke by any prophet since the world began. I have been [two blank lines] south hold the balance of power &c. by annexing Texas – I can do away [with] this evil [and] liberate 2 or 3 states and if that was not sufficient, call in Canida – –

Send the negroes to Texas from Texas to Mexico where all colors are alike. Notice was given for the Relief Society to meet Saturday 2 P.M. to adopt “the voice of Innocence from Nauvoo” (Scott H. Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, p.456-7).

Even then, if others (even politically) didn’t agree with Joseph’s views, they were “anti-Mormons”. Smith thought that Houston would run to the British and that they would create problems for the United States (as he did in his Civil War “prophecy”), but it was the Mexicans who went to war with the U. S. over the annexation of Texas. Joseph simply wanted to free the slaves to use as cannon fodder for the U.S. in his imagined war with the British, and then instead of accepting them as citizens, send them to Mexico where he claimed “all colors are alike”. At least Joseph could joke about anti-Mormons being “good fellows” and call them that in the hope that they would repent; but he also said that about his enemies— that he was reluctant to ask God to kill them (because God told him he could have anything he asked for) perchance they did repent.

A month after calling his perceived political enemies anti-Mormons; William Law and other church members were unlawfully excommunicated for objecting to Joseph’s practice of polygamy and other doctrines that they would later publish in the Nauvoo Expositor. Joseph spoke about their activities and his scribe Willard Richards recorded that,

There was a meeting at Gen[eral] W[illia]m and Wilson Law’s near the saw mill of those who had been cut off from the Church and their dupes. Several affidavits were taken and read against Joseph and others. W[illia]m Law, Wilson Law, Austin D. Cowles, John Scott Sen[ior]., Francis M. Higbee, R[obert] D. Foster, and Robert Pierce were appointed a committee to visit the different families of the city and see who would join the new Church (IE) it was decided that Joseph was [a] fallen prophet &c. and W[illia]m Law was appointed in his place. Austin Cowles and Wilson Law Councillors. R[obert] D. Foster and F[rancis] M. Higbee to the 12 Apostles &c. as report says. El[der] James Blakely preached up Joseph in the A.M. and [in the] P.M. joined the anties . (Scott H. Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, p.475, April 28, 1844).

Of course believing Smith to be a “fallen prophet” is being “anti-Mormon” according to Smith, even though they were endeavoring to start a church based on Joseph’s early teachings.

And of course, my good friend Jeremy Runnells is characterized the same way in a huge banner by the fledgling Mormon Apologist Dustin Phelps who appears to be terrified of using Jeremy’s name:

INFLUENTIAL ANTI-MORMON CAUGHT SPREADING LIES ABOUT LDS CHURCH

Dustin and his sidekick Brittney claim they are only helping people by making such provocative claims. In their “About” section found on their website, (inexplicably called “Happiness Seekers”???) they claim they are providing “resources” to help Mormons “navigate the unique challenges of our times.” They then claim that, “Those challenges include: anxiety and depression, defining equality, pornography, same-sex attraction, faith and doubt, and religious liberty.”

This begs the question: In the long run, is being such meretricious apologists really helping anyone but themselves? Apparently they think so, and take their cue from the FAIRMORMON playbook (something Jeremy calls FAIRMORMON Repackaged, as they blatantly mischaracterize and lie about Jeremy.

George Bush doing his own “Repackaging”…

I really have to hand it to them. They certainly have a flair for the dramatic. Oh my God, Jeremy Runnells the “influential anti-Mormon” has been “caught” spreading lies about the Mormon Church! Stop the presses! Don’t they know (since they regurgitate their material constantly) that FAIRMORMON has been screaming this for years? In their blog article attacking Jeremy, the word “anti-Mormon” appears 19 times, and the word is prominently displayed in the Banner. They definitely get the knee-jerk award for predictability.

In the Encyclopedia of Mormonism they explain anti-Mormonism as,

…any hostile or polemic opposition to Mormonism or to the Latter-day Saints, such as maligning the founding prophet, his successors, or the doctrines or practices of the Church. Though sometimes well intended, anti-Mormon publications have often taken the form of invective, falsehood, demeaning caricature, prejudice, and legal harassment, leading to both verbal and physical assault. From its beginnings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members have been targets of anti-Mormon publications. Apart from collecting them for historical purposes and in response to divine direction, the Church has largely ignored these materials, for they strike most members as irresponsible misrepresentations.

Few other religious groups in the United States have been subjected to such sustained, vitriolic criticism and hostility. From the organization of the Church in 1830 to 1989, at least 1,931 anti-Mormon books, novels, pamphlets, tracts, and flyers have been published in English. Numerous other newsletters, articles, and letters have been circulated. Since 1960 these publications have increased dramatically.

Wow. Few other religious groups in the U.S. have been subjected to such sustained, vitriolic criticism and hostility? How about the Catholics, the Jehovah Witnesses, the Seventh Day Adventists, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism? And let’s not forget Scientology. All religions get attacked and criticized. There have been so many anti-Catholic books written that they are virtually uncountable. Recently, the anti-Catholic book (as many Catholics claim) “The Da Vinci Code” and its two sequels, “Angels and Demons” and “Inferno”, were made into blockbuster movies. And two elections cycles back, there was a Mormon candidate for President, and his faith wasn’t really a major issue in his campaign. Would that be the case if there was a Muslim candidate for President? With the advent of the internet, all kinds of media have “increased dramatically”.

But even books with legitimate criticisms have been labeled as anti-Mormon. This characterization of making anti-Mormons out of anyone who asks any questions or disbelieves claims made by Joseph Smith and others is best showcased by Jeff Lindsay and his “My Turn: Questions for Anti-Mormons”. Among them are,

What other church better follows the Biblical model of emphasizing the bilateral covenant nature of the Gospel?

If there was no apostasy in the Church of Jesus Christ, then what happened to prophets?

What other Church better follows the Biblical organization given for the Church?

If Joseph Smith just made up the idea of vicarious baptism for the dead, why do numerous ancient documents validate the LDS claim that this was an authentic early Christian practice?

At a time when all Christian churches taught that temples were no longer needed, how did Joseph so effectively restore the ancient temple concept on his own?

What other church better corresponds with early Christianity in terms of teaching the true relationship between faith, grace, and works?

Why do the earliest Christian writings sound much closer to LDS theology than they to modern “mainstream” Christianity?

If the modern concept of the Trinity is true, then why does the different LDS view on the oneness of God find such strong support in the writings of the earliest Christians?

If it’s unchristian, unbiblical, and evil to believe that humans have divine potential, why do many Biblical and early Christian sources speak of the humans becoming “gods”?

If the Bible is infallible, by whose authority were the various books of the Bible selected in an infallible manner? By whose authority were the infallible translations made and approved?

Who authorized the changes in the ritual of baptism that occurred since the New Testament Church? And who in your church has true authority from God to perform baptisms?

If the Book of Abraham is a fraud, then how do you account for the details in the text that would later be given extensive support by numerous ancient documents that were not available to Joseph Smith?

These are all claims that Mormon apologists have been griping about for the last two centuries, because when critics bring them up, they are waved off as having been addressed already. But here is Lindsay taking his turn. Yawn. But what is Lindsay’s underlying purpose here? Lindsay writes under the title of “My Turn: Questions for Anti-Mormons”:

In my suite of “Frequently Asked Questions about Latter-day Saint Beliefs,” I’ve attempted to answer some of the endless questions that our critics throw out. Now it’s my turn to ask a few. I do this not to argue with them, but to point out to others that we don’t need to be on the defensive all the time. There are some meaningful issues that need to be considered beyond just the attacks of critics.

Again, these are all questions that critics themselves have brought up. See how he adroitly connects the word “critics” with “anti-Mormons? And yet Lindsay attacks the belief in the Trinity, when he and other apologists claim they never attack other’s beliefs. He characterizes the Catholic Priesthood as “a committee of philosophers” and “contentious committees steeped in Hellenistic thought”. This is how he describes the Bishops of the Catholic Church that met in Nicaea in that first ecumenical council that drafted the Nicene Creed. At least that is what I think he is doing, because he quotes the Athanasian Creed, and there was no “heated debate” over its use that I am aware of. The Catholics themselves admit that they are unsure of the origin of the creed, but that is of “secondary consideration” because it has been “approved by the Church as expressing its mind on the fundamental truths with which it deals.” There is nothing wrong with being a critic of any religion. Being a critic of anything is baked into our American culture. But there is definitely something wrong with villainizing critics when you are doing the same thing.

What I find interesting about Lindsay’s gaffe with the Athanasian Creed is that the Catholics claim that they don’t really know it’s origin yet it was approved and used by the Church as one of their creeds. Reminds me of the Mormon racist Priesthood Ban, which they claim they don’t know where it really came from, but it was Church doctrine for over a hundred years. They didn’t have any kind of “committee” debating the Priesthood Ban before they implemented it and they sure won’t acknowledge today that it came from God as Brigham Young did.

What is even more baffling is that because there are objections to the use of the term anti-Mormon as an epithet, FAIRMORMON claims that it is all the critics fault because some in the 19th century called themselves anti-Mormons!

They also claim that because the Tanners use the term in “The Changing World of Mormonism”, that makes it ok to call anyone who criticizes the church an anti-Mormon and characterized their arguments as attacks on the faith. You might hear a black person use the N-word, but go ahead and justify using it yourself on that basis and see where it gets you. This is not about using the word, but the repeated vitriolic use of the word by Mormon apologists, and Dustin and Brittney are prime examples. FAIRMORMON makes this claim:

FairMormon does not believe or argue that everyone who disagrees with the LDS Church is “anti-Mormon.” As one prominent scholar of anti-Mormonism put it:

The hallmark of anti-Mormonism is an agenda, whether covert or openly expressed, of combating the faith of the Latter-day Saints and opposing their church.

Yet that is what is being done. Here is Daniel C. Peterson (a FAIRMORMON Board Member and the “prominent scholar of anti-Mormonism” they quote above) speaking of George D. Smith, Dan Vogel and Signature books,

We have seen that George D. Smith and Signature Books reject the title ‘anti-Mormons’ … Are ‘anti-Mormons’ mere mythical beasts, the stuff of persecution-fixated Latter-day Saint imaginations? If not, how would we recognize an ‘anti-Mormon’ if we saw one?

Nobody would suggest for a moment that George D. Smith and Dan Vogel fit the traditional ‘anti-Mormon’ mold in all respects. There are a number of differences between them and the late ‘Dr.’ Walter Martin, and between them and the Tanners.

In the past, anti-Mormon attacks almost invariably came from outside the Church; for the most part, they still do. For the first time since the Godbeite movement, however, we may today be dealing with a more-or-less organized ‘anti-Mormon’ movement within the Church. With ‘anti-Mormon Mormons,’ as Robert McKay puts it.

Should we be concerned about the possibility of unwholesome opinions, even enemies, within the Church? Jesus certainly seemed to think that internal enemies were a possibility. ‘Beware of false prophets,’ he said, ‘which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves’ (Matthew 7:15)…. So the possibility of enemies among the membership of the Church seems established. (FARMS, Review of Books, vol. 4, pp. liv-lv, see Veneer Magazine’s article “Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing” found here).

Peterson is calling members who have different views anti-Mormons and “enemies”! And since when are historians “false prophets”? This is simply silly bullshit. No one can be a legitimate critic to these bigots. Louis Midgley called Brent Metcalfe and the authors contributing to “New Approaches to the Book of Mormon”, anti-Mormons:

The most imposing attack on the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon has been assembled by Brent Lee Metcalfe… the publication of New Approaches is an important event. It marks the most sophisticated attack on the truth of the Book of Mormon currently available either from standard sectarian or more secularized anti-Mormon sources, or from the fringes of Mormon culture and intellectual life. (Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1994, pages 211- 214).

Stephen E. Robinson, chairman of the Department of Ancient Scripture at BYU was livid over Dan Vogel’s “Word of God: Essays on Mormon Scripture” and called him “Korihor”, a villain from the Book of Mormon:

Korihor’s back, and this time he’s got a printing press. Korihor, the infamous “alternate voice” in the Book of Mormon, insisted that “no man can know of anything which is to come”…In its continuing assault upon traditional Mormonism, Signature Books promotes with its recent and dubiously titled work The Word of God precisely these same naturalistic assumptions of the Korihor agenda in dealing with current Latter-day Saint beliefs….this is a propaganda piece.

For years anti-Mormons have hammered the Church from the outside, insisting that Joseph Smith and the Latter-day Saints’ scriptures he produced were not what they claimed to be. Whether Signature Books and its authors will convince the Saints of the same hostile propositions by attacking from the inside remains to be seen….What the anti-Mormons couldn’t do with a frontal assault of contradiction, Signature and Vogel would now accomplish with a flanking maneuver of redefinition.

I suppose by now it is clear that I did not like this book….Give me a Walter Martin anytime, a good stout wolf with his own fur on, instead of those more timid or sly parading around in their ridiculous fleeces with their teeth and tails hanging out. Give me ‘Ex-Mormons for Jesus’ or the Moody Bible Tract Society, who are at least honest about their anti-Mormon agenda, instead of Signature Books camouflaged as a ‘Latter-day Saint’ press. I prefer my anti-Mormons straight up. (Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, vol. 3, pp. 312).

Brian Hales, another FAIRMORMON contributor, called John Dehlin an anti-Mormon and a “wolf” for allowing a historian to express his views on Joseph Smith’s polygamy and not rebutting him with material that Hales had provided to him. He’s been at the forefront of the attacks on Jeremy Runnells and works hand in hand with FAIRMORMON. Dustin and Brittney’s go to destination for propaganda to rebut critics is FAIRMORMON.

What Dustin and Brittney have concocted is nothing new. There is a long history of Mormon apologists vilifying any critic (even members of the church) as anti-Mormons. This is the fruit of FAIRMORMON. A whole new generation of bigots. If one goes to Happiness Seekers, they have (as of this writing) seventeen articles posted and three of them have the word “anti-Mormon” in the title.

The message here is clear, any critic of the church is an anti-Mormon and a villain, complete with an “agenda” to rip people from their faith, and their publications should be avoided at all costs. Jeremy himself has likened it to being identified as Voldemort, (the villain whose name was not to be mentioned in the Harry Potter novels) because Dustin never uses Jeremy’s name, but makes it obvious who he is talking about.

At least Jeremy is in good company considering that Signature Books and all of its authors (whether members of the church or not) are considered by members and contributors to FAIRMORMON as being anti-Mormon “false prophets”. Will they now raise Jeremy’s status to a false prophet? Nothing would surprise me at this point.

One observation about making it your mission to flush out and “expose” those horrible Anti-Mormons. Ever hear of S.P.A.M.? The Society for the Prevention of Anti Mormonism? Probably not. But they were a thing about ten years ago. Here is what the founder said when he closed shop:

This is the end of the line. I have decided to shut down the FRAM Report. I’ve been running it since 2009 with a few breaks in between. Two or three times, I’ve set it aside and moved on to other things, only to have some new development pull me back in. Thus, I’ve learned never to say never, but it’s time to give it a rest.

We started out just tracking numbers of anti-Mormon posts and we embarrassed Jim Robinson. We watched as he banned the Mormon Caucus and purged Mormons from the site. We identified the haters and published their pseudonyms. We made our point numerically: Free Republic was being used as a platform by anti-Mormons to bash the Church and its members with the support of its owner, Jim Robinson. The last few months have seen our posts degenerate into a tit-for-tat response to the seemingly endless attacks of their one primary, one-topic poster: Colofornian. We have demonstrated how obsessive, hateful, dishonest, and uninformed she actually is. There is no more doubt and there is nothing more to say on the matter.

The number one attribute of anti-Mormons is obsessiveness. They can’t not be anti=Mormon. They’re so full of hate that they can’t let it go. That’s not the case here. As my Internet pal Timothy Berman used the phrase in a different context recently, it’s time to stop “feeding the weeds.” Life is full of too many wonderful blessings to continually focus on anti-Mormonism.

Wow, what a list of accomplishments. This is what obsessing about “Anti-Mormons” under every rock and hiding behind every bush gets you. Nowhere.

FIRST… PHELPS’ CONCLUSION

I would like to start with their conclusion, where the word anti-Mormon appears three times in four paragraphs,

The critics ask why we call it “anti-Mormon information”. They say it’s just the plain facts. They argue that Latter-day Saints are afraid of the truth and that we are just brainwashed.

Who is “they”? Not Jeremy Runnells. But by all means carry on:

We call it anti-Mormon information because it consists of twisting “the facts”, fabricating “the facts”, and decontextualizing “the facts”.

We’re not afraid of the truth, but we are cautious about the way that anti-Mormons have shamelessly misrepresented the truth since day 1 of the Restoration.

What we know is that “…calumny may defame, mobs may assemble, and persecutions may rage. But the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.”

Where has Jeremy ever claimed that Mormons are “brainwashed”? You will search in vain for any such statement. Though some critics might make that claim, he’s not one of them and really, this is just the transparent tactic of broad brushing anything they don’t like into one convenient phrase, “Anti-Mormon information” that the mysterious “they” are in charge of distributing to the world.

And of course we have these typical derogatory words used to describe the “information”, like “twisting”, “fabricating” and “decontextualizing”, or taking “the facts” (what’s with the quotes anyway) out of context. And speaking of brainwashing, one of the techniques used is repeating things over and over again. Perhaps if they don’t want people to think they have been subjected to such a technique, they should tone down the misguided and vitriolic rhetoric.

And if we are talking FACTS or ACCURACY here, the quote that Dustin uses isn’t what Joseph Smith actually wrote. The quote by Joseph Smith to John Wentworth reads,

Our missionaries are going forth to different nations, and in Germany, Palestine, New Holland, the East Indies, and other places, the standard of truth has been erected: no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing, persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done.

I’m not sure where Dustin Phelps got his garbled quote from, but it isn’t from any original source. If you are going to put something in quotes, perhaps you should make sure that what you are quoting is accurate. Do you really have confidence that these fledgling apologists are qualified to judge what is accurate, or twisted, fabricated or decontextualized if they can’t even quote Joseph Smith correctly or blindly repeat and repackage everything they read from FAIRMORMON?

And though Joseph took credit for writing this letter to John Wentworth (also known as “Church History”), he actually plagiarized material from Orson Pratt and others. (At least that is what the Joseph Smith Papers indicates though they characterize it as a group effort that Joseph simply took credit for). But using someone else’s work and claiming it as your own is still plagiarism. For example, here are the two accounts of Joseph’s claimed “first vision”, one by Orson Pratt in 1840 and the one that Smith claimed to write in 1842 in the Wentworth letter:

Pratt (Remarkable Visions 1840)

When somewhere about fourteen or fifteen years old, he began seriously to reflect upon the necessity of being prepared for a future state of existence

Wentworth Letter (Joseph Smith? 1842)

When about fourteen years of age I began to reflect upon the importance of being prepared for a future state

Pratt

If he went to the religious denominations to seek information, each one pointed to its particular tenets, saying—“This is the way, walk ye in it;” while, at the same time, the doctrines of each were, in many respects, in direct opposition to one another.

Wentworth Letter

if I went to one society they referred me to one plan, and another to another; each one pointing to his own particular creed as the summum bonum of perfection: considering that all could not be right, and that God could not be the author of so much confusion I determined to investigate the subject more fully, believing that if God had a church it would not be split up into factions, and that if he taught one society to worship one way, and administer in one set of ordinances, he would not teach another principles which were diametrically opposed.

Pratt

he was enwrapped in a heavenly vision, and saw two glorious personages, who exactly resembled each other in their features or likeness.

Wentworth

I was enwrapped in a heavenly vision and saw two glorious personages who exactly resembled each other in features, and likeness

Pratt

He was also informed upon the subjects, which had for some time previously agitated his mind, viz.—that all the religious denominations were believing in incorrect doctrines; and, consequently, that none of them was acknowledged of God, as his church and kingdom

Wentworth

They told me that all religious denominations were believing in incorrect doctrines, and that none of them was acknowledged of God as his church and kingdom.

Pratt

And he was expressly commanded, to go not after them; and he received a promise that the true doctrine—the fulness of the gospel, should, at some future time, be made known to him

Wentworth

And I was expressly commanded to “go not after them,” at the same time receiving a promise that the fulness of the gospel should at some future time be made known unto me.

Joseph writes a letter about his own claimed “vision” and has to plagiarize material from someone else to describe it? But perhaps I’m only taking things out of context? Joseph also plagiarizes material for his claimed 1823 visit of the angel “Moroni” from Pratt’s published work:

Pratt

And it pleased God, on the evening of the 21st of September, a.d. 1823, to again hear his prayers. For he had retired to rest, as usual, only that his mind was drawn out, in fervent prayer, and his soul was filled with the most earnest desire, “to commune with some kind messenger, who could communicate to him the desired information of his acceptance with God,” and also unfold the principles of the doctrine of Christ, according to the promise which he had received in the former vision. While he thus continued to pour out his desires before the Father of all good; endeavouring to exercise faith in his precious promises…

Wentworth

On the evening of the 21st of September, A. D. 1823, while I was praying unto God, and endeavoring to exercise faith in the precious promises of scripture

Pratt

“on a sudden, a light like that of day, only of a purer and far more glorious appearance and brightness, burst into the room. Indeed, the first sight was as though the house was filled with consuming fire. This sudden appearance of a light so bright, as must naturally be expected, occasioned a shock or sensation visible to the extremities of the body. It was, however, followed with a calmness and serenity of mind, and an overwhelming rapture of joy, that surpassed understanding, and, in a moment, a personage stood before him.” Notwithstanding the brightness of the light which previously illuminated the room, “yet there seemed to be an additional glory surrounding or accompanying this personage, which shone with an increased degree of brilliancy, of which he was in the midst

Wentworth

in a moment a personage stood before me surrounded with a glory yet greater than that with which I was already surrounded

Pratt

This glorious being declared himself to be an Angel of God, sent forth, by commandment, to communicate to him that his sins were forgiven, and that his prayers were heard; and also, to bring the joyful tidings, that the covenant which God made with ancient Israel, concerning their [p. 6] posterity, was at hand to be fulfilled; that the great preparatory work for the second coming of the Messiah, was speedily to commence; that the time was at hand for the gospel, in its fulness, to be preached in power unto all nations; that a people might be prepared with faith and righteousness, for the Millennial reign of universal peace and joy.

He was informed, that he was called and chosen to be an instrument in the hands of God, to bring about some of his marvellous purposes in this glorious dispensation.

Wentworth

This messenger proclaimed himself to be an angel of God sent to bring the joyful tidings, that the covenant which God made with ancient Israel was at hand to be fulfilled, that the preparatory work for the second coming of the Messiah was speedily to commence; that the time was at hand for the gospel, in all its fulness to be preached in power, unto all nations that a people might be prepared for the millennial reign.

I was informed that I was chosen to be an instrument in the hands of God to bring about some of his purposes in this glorious dispensation.

And at the end of the Wentworth letter appears what were later called “The Articles of Faith” which were later canonized by the Church and Joseph plagiarized much of those too, from Orson Pratt and others.

So why mention all this about the Wentworth letter? Well, I was curious about it after I saw that Dustin Phelps had garbled up what Joseph wrote. And being curious, I took a little time to research it. Of course, this is known to many historians, and they have their point of view about it. At the Joseph Smith papers, they write,

No manuscript copy [of the Wentworth letter] has been located, and it is not known how much of the history was originally written or dictated by JS. “Church History” echoes some wording from Orson Pratt’s A[n] Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions, and of the Late Discovery of Ancient American Records. Pratt’s summary of church beliefs, upon which JS drew for the list of thirteen church beliefs in “Church History,” was in turn based on a theological summary written by Parley P. Pratt. Other individuals may have been involved in compiling the essay, including Willard Richards, who wrote extensively as JS’s scribe during this period. Because William W. Phelps revised and expanded the text of “Church History” a year later in answer to a request from editor Israel Daniel Rupp, it is possible that Phelps helped compose the original essay. However, Phelps’s active role as scribe and composer for JS apparently did not commence until late 1842.

And so the reader will have to make up their own mind. Was this plagiarism? Joseph Smith took a published work, copied from it, and published it under his own name without giving any credit to the original author. The “Articles of Faith”, from the Wentworth letter have been canonized, Joseph Smith’s name at the end of them as sole author, and that is how they appear today in Mormon scripture. This “Church History” that Smith claimed to write, doesn’t just “echo” some wording from Orson Pratt’s published work, it lifts whole passages from it. What that is, is plagiarism.

What are the ethical ramifications of this? Again, you readers must decide for yourself.

SECOND: THE INTRODUCTION

And what brought all this on concerning Jeremy? It took four years to finally catch Jeremy Runnells “lying” about the Mormon Church? They claim their involvement was spurred on from “a heart-felt letter from a mother”. They write,

She [the anonymous mother] helped me realize that by taking the most popular piece of anti-Mormon literature (which summarizes just about all the claims against the Church) and exposing several blatant lies, I could prove an important point:

“If there’s far more to the story in regards to these major claims, how do you know that the same isn’t true of other criticisms made against the Church?”

What “major” claims is Phelps speaking of here? He gives five examples, 1) “there were major [changes to the Book of Mormon that] reflect Joseph’s evolved view of the Godhead.” 2) “Many Book of Mormon names and places are strikingly similar to local names and places of the region [where] Joseph Smith lived.” 3) Joseph Smith’s Polygamy is “Warren Jeffs territory” 4) Joseph wrote four contradicting versions of the First Vision 5) There are striking parallels between the Book of Mormon and several other books

I have to ask… why is his “point” (If there’s far more to the story…) in quotes? Is he quoting himself? And he is going to PROVE this point by using five examples? Tell us the “far more to the story” in a short blog article? Well, I can’t wait. But before I get into that, let’s go over the introduction. They claim,

For many generations, Latter-day Saints have insisted that anti-Mormon literature isn’t worth reading. This attitude appears to be validated by on-going discoveries that the most influential anti-Mormon of recent years has been caught spreading blatant falsehoods and misinformation about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

If you know someone who has struggled with doubt, chances are that they happened upon this man’s work. His infamous 80-page document has been downloaded nearly 1 million times—primarily, it would appear, by Latter-day Saints and former members.

Many ex-Mormons use this document, as a “missionary tool” in the hopes that it will lead their friends and family members away from the LDS Church.

The author’s success has a lot to do with the way he constructed the document.

He frames himself as a well-intentioned Latter-day Saint who merely has a few innocent questions about the Church—questions that he genuinely wants answers to. He puts LDS readers at ease by beginning with a quote from President J. Reuben Clark who said, “If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed.”

By using this seemingly innocent narrative the author has successfully persuaded countless members to trust the information he provides. As a result, many unsuspecting Latter-day Saints have found his claims to be so damaging that they either find themselves stuck in a crisis of faith or they abandon their faith altogether.

But it’s time for this house of cards to come tumbling down.

There’s a lot to unpack here. First they claim that Mormons “for generations” have insisted that anti-Mormon literature isn’t worth reading. True, some have. But other Mormons have told us things like this,

“The truth will cut its own way.” (Joseph Smith Jr.)

“To Latter-day Saints there can be no objection to the careful and critical study of the scriptures, ancient or modern, provided only that it be an honest study – a search for truth.” (John A. Widtsoe)

“This book [“The Book of Mormon”] is entitled to the most thorough and impartial examination. Not only does [“The Book of Mormon”] merit such consideration, it claims, even demands the same.” (James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith)

“The man who cannot listen to an argument which opposes his views either has a weak position…” – James E. Talmage

“If we have the truth, [it] cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed.” (J. Reuben Clark, counselor in the First Presidency)

“If a faith will not bear to be investigated: if its preachers and professors are afraid to have it examined, their foundation must be very weak.” (George Albert Smith, Journal Of Discourses, v 14, page 216, thanks to MormonThink for these quotes)

But of course, any critic is labeled an “anti-Mormon” and their honesty is then questioned. See the circle jerk they perform here? Instead of just presenting Jeremy’s claims, they go to lengths to defame him and call him a liar before they present any of their so called evidence. This is a dishonest tactic and a favorite of Mormon Apologists. The CES letter is “infamous”. Dustin then gives us this confusing mess:

This attitude appears to be validated by on-going discoveries that the most influential anti-Mormon of recent years has been caught spreading blatant falsehoods and misinformation about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The attitude (of ignoring what they deem as “anti-Mormon literature’) appears to be validated by not ignoring what “the most influential anti-Mormon of recent years” wrote? How do you validate not reading something by reading it? So I guess those that ignore it actually aren’t ignoring it? Dustin claims,

I normally don’t bother responding to individual claims by anti-Mormons—because for every claim you debunk, another will be invented or repackaged.

Of course he doesn’t, because if what he wrote about Jeremy Runnells is any indication, he is too ignorant to make a coherent response. He would rather point the finger at those dreadful “anti-Mormons” and make false claims, and provide links to FAIRMORMON. And of course since this is all (as Dustin puts it) just “invented” or “repackaged” claims, why bother? And then there’s the irony of Dustin’s own repackaging of FAIRMORMON’s apologetic bullshit.

Dustin also gripes about how many times the CES Letter has been downloaded and that it is some kind of “tool” of ex-Mormons, and claim that its success is simply how the letter is constructed. Gee, If only everyone could construct a letter like that. We’d all get millions of views! Perhaps Jeremy should be out giving lectures on how to construct letters since this one has been so successful. Of course it has nothing to do with the content. It was just ingeniously constructed.

And Jeremy just appears to be trustworthy. So of course Dustin has to attack Jeremy’s honesty, and his real story, that he had a legitimate crisis about his faith (being a returned missionary, etc), and make it into a plot by Jeremy to dupe unsuspecting Mormons.

Dustin also totally mischaracterized what Jeremy claimed about the CES Letter. Jeremy never said they were “a few innocent questions” about the Church. Jeremy was totally upfront in the CES Letter and said he already had a crisis of faith BEFORE he wrote it. So all of this by Dustin is a blatant falsehood. Jeremy never duped anyone. In his INTRODUCTION, Jeremy wrote,

I’m just going to be straightforward and blunt in sharing my concerns. Obviously I’m a disaffected member who lost his testimony so it’s no secret which side I’m on at the moment. All this information is a result of over a year of intense research and an absolute rabid obsession with Joseph Smith and Church history. With this said, I’d be pretty arrogant and ignorant to say that I have all the information and that you don’t have answers. Like you, I put my pants on one leg at a time and I see through a glass darkly. You may have new information and/or a new perspective that I may not have heard or considered before. This is why I’m genuinely interested in what your answers and thoughts are to these troubling problems.

So who is being dishonest here? Dustin Phelps. He just can’t seem to admit to himself that people are reading the letter knowing that Jeremy wrote it when he was already disaffected and was honest and upfront about it. I mean, it must be troubling to Dustin’s apologetic mind that people are still reading the actual evidence for its own sake and not because of Jeremy Runnell’s ingeniously constructed letter. I doubt Dustin ever even read the CES letter. What he appears to have done is regurgitated material from FAIRMORMON. Took a few claims and made up his whopper about Jeremy being dishonest and a liar.

THIRD: THE SO-CALLED LIES?

I’ve been friends with Jeremy for about five years now, and I can tell you he’s a passionate guy. That much is obvious if one reads his rebuttal to Dustin Phelps. I really can’t blame him for being pissed off. He’s been attacked by Mormon Apologists over and over again and it must get rather old after a while. I just turned sixty, and I was a lot like Jeremy when I was younger and if you follow this blog, you know that I can be sarcastic and sharp in my responses to Mormon Apologists. So bear in mind all that Jeremy has been through as you read his response to Phelps.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s explore Dustin’s claims about what Jeremy wrote in the CES Letter and see if it is all “lies about the church”. And remember, Dustin claims that these are “major claims” against the church. Now, I am not going to do any kind of in-depth rebuttal here, Jeremy has done a great job with his response. I just want to make a few observations and analyze some of Dustin Phelps’ claims against Jeremy. And if these are not in order… you guessed it, Phelps changed the order when he repackaged his own blog entry.

Dustin Phelps original text (18 July 2017):

False Claim #3) Joseph Smith’s Polygamy is “Warren Jeffs territory”

Let’s cut right to the chase on this one. Polygamy is not what really bothers anyone. What bothers people is the possibility that Joseph introduced polygamy—not because of revelation but out of a desire to satisfy lustful feelings. They worry that maybe Joseph practiced polygamy in the same way that Warren Jeffs did: with unrestrained lust and insatiable sexual appetite.

This insinuation is common in anti-Mormon literature. And the particular document that we are discussing explicitly claims that Joseph Smith’s history is “Warren Jeffs territory.”

But is that claim at all true?

Dustin Phelps changed text:

False Claim #1) Joseph Smith’s Polygamy is “Warren Jeffs territory”

Look. Polygamy is a difficult subject for many of us—even if the Prophets of old practiced it too.

But what makes it difficult to move forward with faith is the possibility that Joseph introduced polygamy—not because of revelation but out of a desire to satisfy lustful feelings. Some people worry that maybe Joseph practiced polygamy in the same way that Warren Jeffs did: with unrestrained lust and insatiable sexual appetite.

This insinuation is common in anti-Mormon literature. And the particular document that we are discussing openly claims that Joseph Smith’s history is “Warren Jeffs territory.”

But is that claim at all true?

But what did Jeremy actually write? On page 31 of the CES Letter, we find,

One of the things that really disturbed me in my research was discovering the real origins of polygamy and how Joseph Smith really practiced it.

 Joseph Smith was married to at least 34 women.

 Polyandry: Of those 34 women, 11 of them were married women of other living men. Among them being Apostle Orson Hyde who was sent on his mission to dedicate Israel when Joseph secretly married his wife, Marinda Hyde. Church historian Elder Marlin K. Jensen and unofficial apologists like FairMormon do not dispute the polyandry. The Church now admits the polyandry in its October 2014 Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo essay.

 Out of the 34 women, 7 of them were teenage girls as young as 14-years-old. Joseph was 37-years-old when he married 14-year-old Helen Mar Kimball, twenty-three years his junior. Even by 19th century standards, this was shocking. The Church now admits that Joseph Smith married Helen Mar Kimball “several months before her 15th birthday” in its October 2014 Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo essay.

 Among the women was a mother-daughter set and three sister sets. Several of these women included Joseph’s own foster daughters. Some of the marriages to these women included promises by Joseph of eternal life to the girls and their families, threats of loss of salvation, and threats that he (Joseph) was going to be slain by an angel with a drawn sword if the girls didn’t marry him.

Every bit of this is true. So really, what Dustin Phelps has a problem with is Jeremy characterizing what Joseph Smith did as “Warren Jeffs territory”. This is something the individual must decide. But is this a false claim? No. It’s an opinion. The Rolling Stone wrote this about Jeffs:

The ambitious, twisted son of the previous FLDS prophet, Jeffs took control and became obsessed with the idea of “perfect obedience.” He started kicking people out of Short Creek that he deemed sinners: young men who came to be known as Lost Boys, teenage girls he considered too rebellious and men no longer “worthy of priesthood,” reassigning their wives and children to loyalists he felt he could trust.

Beginning in 2002, he came under investigation for child rape in Utah. He then began evading authorities while marrying off teenage girls to the sect’s leadership. He also ordered the construction of a new FLDS compound, the Yearning for Zion ranch, in the West Texas desert. In May 2006, he landed on the FBI’s 10 most-wanted list for multiple counts of sexually assaulting minors, and went on the run with his favorite wife, Naomi (code name: 91). With the help of Jessop, who ran the church’s security force – called the God Squad by detractors – Jeffs communicated through coded letters and burner phones and shuttled between the church’s “houses of hiding” scattered throughout the West (in particular, he often visited his favored brides at the compound in Texas). In August 2006, he was arrested during a routine traffic stop on the outskirts of Las Vegas, carrying 16 cellphones, three wigs and $56,000 in cash in the lining of a suitcase.

Joseph Smith declared and had himself ordained a king in Nauvoo. He “married” multiple teenaged girls, some as young as fourteen. He discarded women when being “married” to them was no longer in his best interest after having sex with them. As for “perfect obedience”, this is what Joseph Smith was reported to have said in Kirtland in 1836, that,

After that dedication [of the Kirtland Temple] the Mormons organized what they termed “the school of prophets.” A revelation prior to that time had given Oliver Cowdery the privilege of nominating the twelve apostles of the Church. About the time of this organization there was a good deal of scandal prevalent among a number of the Saints concerning Joseph’s licentious conduct, this more especially among the women. Joseph’s name was then connected with scandalous relations with two or three families. Apparently to counteract this he came out and made a statement in the Temple, before a general congregation that he was authorized by God Almighty to establish His Kingdom — that he was God’s prophet and God’s agent, and that he could do whatever he should choose to do, therefore the Church had NO RIGHT TO CALL INTO QUESTION Anything he did, or to censure him, for the reason that he was responsible to God Almighty only. This promulgation created a great sensation — a schism occurred and a large portion of the first membership, including the best talent of the Church, at once withdrew from it. This was during the summer of 1836. (Benjamin Winchester, Primitive Mormonism, The Salt Lake City Daily Tribune, September 22, 1889).

What Phelps does here can be characterized as the classic “bait and switch”. He claims that this is all about Joseph having “unrestrained lust and insatiable sexual appetite”. Yet, this is not what Jeremy claims at all. The fact is, we do not know how often Joseph had sex with his plural wives. If the testimony of Emily Partridge and Malissa Lott count for anything to Phelps, they claimed that they had sex with Smith on multiple occasions. Malissa Lott testified,

Q. I asked you how many times you had roomed there in that house with Joseph Smith? I do not expect you to answer positively the exact number of times, but I would like to have you tell us the number of times as nearly as you can remember it?

A. Well I can’t tell you. I think I have acted the part of a lady in answering your questions as well as I have, and I don’t think you are acting the part of a gentleman in asking me these questions.

Q. Well I will ask you the questions over again in this form,—was it more than twice?

A. Yes sir.

R. C. Evans, who was in the Presidency of the Reorganized Church interviewed the brother of Joseph F. Smith, (Patriarch John Smith) a nephew of Joseph Smith and while there his wife Helen told him that “Malissa Lott … said Joseph … desired her to have a child by him.”

Lott herself, when questioned about her lack of a pregnancy by Joseph answered it was,

Through no fault of either of us, lack of proper conditions on my part probably, or it might be in the wisdom of the Almighty that we should have none. The Prophet was martyred nine months after our marriage.

Emily Partridge testified,

Q. Did you ever have carnal intercourse with Joseph Smith? A. Yes sir.

Q. How many nights? A. I could not tell you.

Q. Do you make the declaration that you ever slept with him but one night? A. Yes sir.

Q. And that was the only time and place that you ever were in bed with him? A. No sir.

This is only two of Joseph Smith’s wives. Even they were baffled as to why they never got pregnant. To claim that Joseph just never had sex with his wives, or that he chose to “limit such relations” is ridiculous and ignores the actual evidence. According to Emily Partridge, she did not know why she got pregnant by Brigham Young and not by Joseph Smith:

Q. You were married to Brigham Young by the law of proxy? A. Yes sir.

Q. And while married to Brigham Young by the law of proxy you had children? A. Yes sir.

Q. You had children by Brigham Young? A. Yes sir.

Q. Then the law of proxy, -marriage by the law of proxy will raise children, while marriage by the law of the church will not? Is that it? A. I don’t understand your question?

Q. My question is this, -that when you were married by the law of proxy you had children? A. Yes sir.

Q. And when married under the law of the church you did not raise children? A. I did not have any, but I don’t know that that had any thing to do with it, for I might have had children married that way as well as under any other marriage relation.

Q. But you did not have any when you were married to Joseph Smith A. No sir.

Q. You did by Brigham Young though when you were married to him by proxy? A. Yes sir, but that did not have any thing to do with it. (395-402)’

Phelps makes the claim that “whatever intimate relations may have occurred—they were pretty close to non-existent,” but has absolutely no evidence to back up that assertion. He links to an article by Brian Hales that is full of his own speculations and apologetic mumbo jumbo. But one thing that is certain and Brian Hales admits this himself in the very article that Phelps links to:

It is impossible to accurately determine how often Joseph Smith spent time with his plural wives, either in conjugal visits or otherwise.

I can go one step further and with absolute confidence say that it is impossible to determine AT ALL, how often Smith spent time with his spiritual wives or had sex with them. Speculating about it is simply ridiculous, but this is what Hales, FAIRMORMON and Dustin Phelps do, because they will not admit that there was no teaching or evidence that anyone who was in a polygamous relationship could not have sex with the woman he was married to. So calling them “non-sexual eternity only sealings” is simply Brian Hales wishful thinking, extremely irresponsible and has no evidentary basis at all, except from late anonymous recollections and notes by Andrew Jenson who lied in his publication The Historical Record when it suited him.

What really surprised me though, was Phelps original statement:

Polygamy is not what really bothers anyone.

Huh? Polygamy doesn’t bother anyone? I beg to differ and most likely, Phelps got some blowback on this because he then changed his blog entry to read:

Look. Polygamy is a difficult subject for many of us—even if the Prophets of old practiced it too.

So which is it? It doesn’t bother anyone including Dustin Phelps? Or it is a difficult subject for many of us (including Phelps). Do you get the feeling that Phelps will just say anything to defend the church? Why then would he flip flop on this? Or is he mentally challenged and can’t make up his mind what he believes? Is this anyone you want helping you in times of crisis? Does he really have any answers and is he qualified to give you the historical truth? He doesn’t seem to know what it is. Do we really need more FAIRMORMON Repackaged? If you are having a crisis of faith, do you really need FAIRMORMON Repackaged? Wouldn’t you rather speak to qualified historians, or your Bishop, or research things for yourself and then make up your mind what to do? This was in fact what Jeremy Runnells was originally trying to do.

Another example that Phelps gives of Jeremy’s “lying” is the following:

3) “there were major [changes to the Book of Mormon that] reflect Joseph’s evolved view of the Godhead.”

Jeremy actually wrote,

The Book of Mormon taught and still teaches a Trinitarian view of the Godhead. Joseph Smith’s early theology also held this view. As part of the over 100,000 changes to the Book of Mormon, there were major changes made to reflect Joseph’s evolved view of the Godhead. (CES, 17)

Talk about context. He doesn’t once cite where he is getting his quotes from in the CES Letter. I find that odd. So how is Jeremy Runnells lying here? This is Dustin Phelps tortured logic:

As part of these changes, Joseph prepared an 1837 edition of the Book of Mormon that fixed some typos and included a few clarifications.

Ok, but they are still CHANGES. So all his blathering about punctuation is just a red herring. But here is what he says about what Jeremy calls “major changes”:

One of those minor adjustments has really excited anti-Mormons over the years. Why? Because if you remove the relevant context and place it in just the right light, it appears much more controversial than it really is.

So, here’s the change: There are four places where Joseph Smith added “Son of” to the 1837 edition of the Book of Mormon. These are places where Jesus Christ was initially referred to as “God” or “the Eternal Father” but were adjusted to read “Son of God” and “Son of the Eternal Father.”

Dustin blathers on about verses that do nothing to prove his point and this has been addressed in Jeremy Runnells response to Dustin, found here.

As far as the Trinity in Mormonism, there is some simple evidence to prove that this was taught in the early church. In the same year that Joseph penned his first account of his claimed First Vision (1832), we find this amazing commentary written in the Evening And Morning Star, under the title of ‘The Excellence of Scripture’:

“Through Christ we understand the terms on which God will show favour and grace to the world, and by him we have ground of a PARRESIA access with freedom and boldness unto God. On his account we may hope not only for grace to subdue our sins, resist temptations, conquer the devil and the world; but having ’fought this good fight, and finished our course by patient continuance in well doing, we may justly look for glory, honor, and immortality,’ and that ‘crown of righteousness which is laid up for those who wait in faith,’ holiness, and humility, for the appearance of Christ from heaven. Now what things can there be of greater moment and importance for men to know, or God to reveal, than the nature of God and ourselves the state and condition of our souls, the only way to avoid eternal misery and enjoy everlasting bliss!

“The Scriptures discover not only matters of importance, but of the greatest depth and mysteriousness. There are many wonderful things in the law of God, things we may admire, but are never able to comprehend. Such are the eternal purposes and decrees of God, THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY, the incarnation of the Son of God, and the manner of the operation of the Spirit of God upon the souls of men, which are all things of great weight and moment for us to understand and believe that they are, and yet may be unsearchable to our reason, as to the particular manner of them.” (The Evening And Morning Star, Vol. I, INDEPENDENCE, MO. JULY, 1832. No. 2. page 12, emphasis mine)

When one considers the Book of Mormon teaching, and looks at the Lectures on Faith, which were published in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants and voted on as binding doctrine by the Church, one can see the striking similarities and his change from Monotheism to Modalism. Take this verse from 1st Nephi:

“And he said unto me, Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh.”

Now compare this to Lecture Fifth, from the Lectures on Faith:

“There are two personages who constitute the great, matchless, governing and supreme power overall things…They are the Father and the Son: The Father being a personage of spirit, glory and power: possessing all perfection and fulness: The Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, a personage of tabernacle, made, or fashioned like unto man, or being in the form and likeness of man, or, rather, man was formed after his likeness, and in his image;–he is also the express image and likeness of the personage of the Father: possessing all the fulness of the Father, or, the same fulness with the Father; being begotten of him, and was ordained from before the foundation of the world to be a propitiation for the sins of all those who should believe on his name, and is called the Son because of the flesh.” (Lectures on Faith, 5:2, emphasis mine)

In the questions and answers, at the end of each lecture, we find clarification:

What is the Father?
He is a personage of glory and of power. (5:2.)
What is the Son?
First, he is a personage of tabernacle. (5:2.)…
Why was he called the Son?
Because of the flesh.
Do the Father and the Son possess the same mind?
They do.
What is this mind?
The Holy Spirit.

Thomas G. Alexander, writing for Sunstone in July of 1980 explained that,

“The Lectures on Faith differentiated between the Father and Son somewhat more explicitly, but even they did not define a materialistic, tritheistic Godhead. In announcing the publication of the Doctrine and Covenants which included the Lectures on Faith, the Messenger and Advocate commented editorially that it trusted the volume would give ‘the churches abroad…a perfect understanding of the doctrine believed by this society.’ The Lectures declared that ‘there are two personages who constitute the great matchless, governing and supreme power over all things–by whom all things were created and made.’ They are ‘the Father being a personage of spirit,’ and ‘the Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, a personage of tabernacle, made, or fashioned like unto man, or being in the form and likeness of man, or, rather, man was formed after his likeness, and in his image.’ The ‘Articles and Covenants’ called the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ‘one God’ rather than the Godhead, a term which Mormons generally use today to separate themselves from trinitarians.” (Sunstone 5:4/26 (Jul 80), emphasis mine)

In his “translation” of the Bible, sometimes called The Inspired Version (completed in 1833), Joseph Smith changed some verses in the New Testament to reflect his early Monotheistic teachings:

KJV: All things are delivered to me of my Father: and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.(Luke 10:22)

JST: All things are delivered to me of my Father; and no man knoweth that the Son is the Father, and the Father is the Son, but him to whom the Son will reveal it.(Luke 10:22

For a time, it seems, Joseph Smith was a Monotheist, and Mormons agreed with the Christian Trinity doctrine. Monotheism, (identified as the doctrine of the Trinity in light of New Testament revelation) is what is taught in the Bible, the most clearly in Isaiah 44:6-8:

“Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer, the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.”

For more on Smith’s early teachings on the Godhead, See Ronald V. Huggins article, Joseph Smith’s Modalism: Sabellian Sequentialism or Swedenborgian Expansionism?

Dustin Phelps also claims that Jeremy is “lying” about this:

2) “Many Book of Mormon names and places are strikingly similar to local names and places of the region [where] Joseph Smith lived.”

Dustin claims:

The author of this infamous anti-Mormon document provides a map of the cities and towns where Joseph grew up and then compares them to a proposed map of Book of Mormon geography.

He also compares these place names in a table.

He argues that the similarities are too powerful to ascribe to mere coincidence. And it’s not just that he’s telling people to think that. The way he constructs the comparisons makes it seem as though that is the natural conclusion.

But here’s what countless misled readers do not know:

Several of the towns on this author’s list were not even in existence at the printing of the Book of Mormon. Other locations were remote villages hundreds of miles away in places like Canada—hardly the land of Joseph’s youth.[9]

Plus, almost half of the names or locations are also found in the Bible—including Biblical names that few are aware of such as Lehi, Boaz, Ramah, and Sidon.

But you know what? As ridiculous as this claim may seem, it is also one of the most emotionally impactful parts of the whole document. Why? Because it starts to paint a picture in your mind of how Joseph Smith might have invented the Book of Mormon.

The author is trying to achieve the impossible: make a Book of Mormon fraud seem believable.

All of Dustin’s links go to FAIRMORMON. This section is no different. He offers the link as proof for his statement that “several of the towns … were not even in existence at the printing of the Book of Mormon.

At FAIRMORMON, they quibble about where these locations are in the Book of Mormon. Was one north of the other or south of the other, etc. This is irrelevant. What about the names? Let’s take just one example. They write,

Holley points out that the present day city of Angola, New York is a possible match for a Book of Mormon location. He notes the location of the city on “modern maps”. Holley states,

The present day city of Angola, New York, is located west of the Genesee (Sidon?) River and south [“in the borders”] of the proposed land of Zarahemla. This is another example of the many actual locations in the Great Lakes area that can be located on modern maps by following geographical information in the Book of Mormon. [4]

However, when one looks up the Wikipedia entry for Angola, New York, it becomes evident that the name “Angola” was not established until approximately 1854, twenty-four years after the Book of Mormon was published. Wikipedia notes,

The community was previously called “Evans Station.” In 1854 or 1855, a post office was established there, bearing the name Angola. [5]

Actually, FAIRMORMON is wrong. I happen to live in Upstate New York, and I know a little bit more about the history of this area. The Post Office in Angola was there before 1830:

The first town meeting for the town of Collins was held on June 9, 1821, a few weeks after the formation of the county. There was then no post-office in the town, but in 1822 one was established at Taylor’s Hollow, and a mail route opened through Eden to that point. THE OFFICE WAS NAMED ANGOLA and Jacob Taylor was appointed postmaster, a position which he held as late as 1840. This office was subsequently abandoned and the name given to one in the town of Evans. (Our County and It’s People: A Descriptive Wo.rk on Erie County, New York, Volume 1, 348, emphasis mine).

I’ve been to Taylor’s Hollow and Eden many times. Unless one knows the local history, they would not be aware that the Angola Post Office was there in 1822.

What is the Etymology for the word “Angola”?

The name Angola comes from the Portuguese colonial name Reino de Angola (Kingdom of Angola), appearing as early as Dias de Novais’s 1571 charter. The toponym was derived by the Portuguese from the title ngola held by the kings of Ndongo.

How in the world did this word get on to the gold plates in 400 A.D.? It didn’t. It was a Post Office a hundred miles from Smith’s house. And according to the 1826 examination minutes, Joseph Smith claimed to have gone to that area of New York:

Mr. [Joseph] Smith [Jr.] was fully examined by the Court. It elicited little but a history of his life from early boyhood, but this is so unique in character, and so much of a key-note to his subsequent career in the world, I am tempted to give it somewhat in extenso. He said when he was a lad, he heard of a neighboring girl some three miles from him, who could look into a glass and see anything however hidden from others; that he was seized with a strong desire to see her and her glass; that after much effort he induced his parents to let him visit her. He did so, and was permitted to look in the glass, which was placed in a hat to exclude the light. He was greatly surprised to see but one thing, which was a small stone, a great way off. It soon became luminous, and dazzled his eyes, and after a short time it became as intense as the mid-day sun. He said that the stone was under the roots of a tree or shrub as large as his arm, situated about a mile up a small stream that puts in on the South side of Lake Erie, not far from the Now York and Pennsylvania line. He often had an opportunity to look in the glass, and with the same result. The luminous stone alone attracted his attention. This singular circumstance occupied his mind for some years, when he left his father’s house, and with his youthful zeal traveled west in search of this luminous stone.

He took a few shillings in money and some provisions with him. He stopped on the road with a farmer, and worked three days, and replenished his means of support. After traveling some one hundred and fifty miles he found himself at the mouth of the creek. He did not have the glass with him, but he knew its exact location. He borrowed an old ax and a hoe, and repaired to the tree. With some labor and exertion he found the stone, carried it to the creek, washed and wiped it dry, sat down on the bank, placed it in his hat, and discovered that time, place and distance were annihilated; that all intervening obstacles were removed, and that he possessed one of the attributes of Deity, an All-Seeing-Eye. He arose with a thankful heart, carried his tools to their owner, turned his feet towards the rising sun, and sought with weary limbs his long deserted home.

On the request of the Court, he exhibited the stone. It was about the size of a small hen’s egg, in the shape of a high-instepped shoe. It was composed of layers of different colors passing diagonally through it. It was very hard and smooth, perhaps by being carried in the pocket.” http://richkelsey.org/1826_trial_testimonies.htm

So, what are we to make of this? Did Vernal Holley have a point to make about the Book of Mormon names? Absolutely. But since he is dead, we cannot know where he got his research from, so it is up to others to dig into this and find out, as I did with Angola. Knowing this, is it really so impossible that the Book of Mormon is a fraud? I’ll let you decide, readers.

Dustin then tries to tackle the claimed “First Vision” problems and writes,

False Claim #4: Joseph wrote four contradicting versions of the First Vision

This claim is very misleading.

Here are the facts:

First, as we would expect, Joseph told the story of the 1^st vision on multiple occasions. Second, because each account is conveyed to a different audience and for a different purpose, Joseph focuses on different details of the experience in each account.

What would really be weird is if he robotically gave the exact same, seemingly rehearsed account, every time he was asked. Instead, every time he tells of the First Vision experience, it is from a new angle, revealing an experience that is panoramic and authentic.

Contrary to the author’s assertion, the accounts do not contradict each other—they enrich one another. And they are on display in the Church’s history museum and were published by the Church over 50 years ago (shortly after the History Department discovered them). Click here to study each account for yourself on the Church’s website.

And consider the following:

Paul and Alma the Younger also retell their transformative spiritual experiences on multiple occasions—to different audiences and with different purposes. Each of their accounts differ on what they emphasize and include new details, but ultimately they in no way contradict each other. Just like with Joseph’s First Vision accounts, each perspective adds rich depth and power to their experiences.

And let’s not forget that overtime we all tend to reinterpret and recontextualize our past experiences which may lead us to focus on different themes of the same experience at different times.

This is simply apologetic mumbo-jumbo and does not address the real problems that Jeremy brings up in the CES Letter. I have addressed many of these myself here, in answer to Kevin Christensen’s (another FAIRMORMON apologist) rants against Jeremy.

The other claims that I haven’t addressed here Jeremy has answered well, and I doubt there will be any kind of reasoned, logical response from “Happiness Seekers”.

CONCLUSION

I’ll simply quote what Jeremy wrote to Dustin which seems an apt conclusion to his bizarre rant against “he who must not be named”:

In case you haven’t noticed by now, Dustin skips a lot of things. Dustin ignores a lot of details. Dustin ignores a lot of contradictions.

Dustin wants you to look at this tree over there while keeping your eyes and attention away from the forest of problems. Mormon apologists do not want you to see the forest. This is why they hate the CES Letter and me so much. This is why I am now the Mormon “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” with a “You-Know-What-Letter”. I show you the entire forest with just 2-hours of reading (what used to take people in the past, weeks and months to accomplish the same thing on their own). Instead of 1-5 problems that they can contain for a member awakening to the LDS Church’s truth crisis, they have to address 80-pages worth of problems they wish you didn’t know about. They want you to stay lost in the trees focusing on one tree at a time within the unreliable and unsupportable lens of “faith.”