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Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 1a
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Response to claims made in "Chapter 1" (pp. 26-51)
| Chapter 1 (pp. 1-25) | A FAIR Analysis of: Nauvoo Polygamy: "... but we called it celestial marriage", a work by author: George D. Smith
|
Chapter 2 (pp. 52-107) |
Response to claims made in Nauvoo Polygamy, "Chapter 1" (pp. 26-51)
Jump to details:
- Response to claim: 27 - Isaac Hale not being allowed to look at the plates was a "clumsy subterfuge"
- Response to claim: 28 - "Joseph's personal charisma was working its effect where he needed to rely on others for help"
- Response to claim: 28 - The author refers to a talisman that Joseph "is said to have worn while digging"
- Response to claim: 28 - The author notes that Emma "was nevertheless forbidden to see the plates herself"
- Response to claim: 28 - For Joseph and Emma, "Married life was not easy. In fact, it was riddled with doubts, rumors, and deception from the start"
- Response to claim: 28 - Joseph was haunted by the suspicion, which followed him from place to place, that he crossed moral boundaries in his friendship with other women"
- Response to claim: 28-29 - The author claims that Joseph had an affair with Eliza Winters in 1828
- Response to claim: 29 - When Emma's mother, Elizabeth Hale, was asked about the purported seduction of Eliza Winters "in an interview forty-six years later, she declined to comment"
- Response to claim: 29 - The author claims that in the revelation that became D&C 132, that Emma was promised "annihilation if she failed to 'abide this commandment'"
- Response to claim: 29 - The author notes that D&C 132 "did not invoke the Book of Mormon's justification for taking more wives—the call to raise a righteous seed"
- Response to claim: 29 - "The same year he married Emma…Joseph also probably had met Louisa Beaman, then only twelve years old"
- Response to claim: 29 - The author speculates that Joseph's relationships in Ohio "with various families and their daughters...allowed him to invite the young women into his further confidence when they were older"
- Response to claim: 30 - The author notes that "In most cases, the women were adolescents or in their twenties when he met them. About ten were pre-teens, others already thirty or above"
- Response to claim: 30 - "Whitney's daughter Sarah Ann would become one of Joseph Smith's wives, although at the time she was only five years old"
- Response to claim: 31 - Mary Elizabeth Rollings is described as "an excitable and impressionable young woman…at age thirteen…had interpreted words spoken in tongues…."
- Response to claim: 31 - "It was eleven years after the Smiths roomed with the Whitneys that Joseph expressed a romantic interest in their daughter, as well"
- Response to claim: 31 - "Another future wife, Marinda Johnson, was fifteen when she met Smith in Ohio"
- Response to claim: 32 - "The seven-year-old daughter of Apostle Heber C. Kimball was still another future wife"
- Response to claim: 32–33 - "How relevant is it that in many instances he had lived under the same roof as his future wife prior to marrying her?"
- Response to claim: 33 - "probably by 1842," Lucinda Harris "became one more of the prophet's plural wives"
- Response to claim: 34 - The author claims that in Illinois Joseph "was still hunted by law officials for old offenses"
- Response to claim: 35 - Smith's unchartered bank, called the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-banking Company, collapsed
- Response to claim: 37 - "Missourians were alarmed by the influx of Mormons"
- Response to claim: 38 - Joseph and the other prisoners "escaped to join their people in Illinois, where they proceeded to found a theocratic society"
- Response to claim: 38n81 - "I hesitate to concur with Compton's interpretation of their relationship as a marriage"
- Response to claim: 39 - "Joseph had been 'found' in the hay with his housekeeper"
- Response to claim: 39 - Warren Parrish said that Joseph and Fanny were discovered together "as a wife"
- Response to claim: 39 - Oliver Cowdery referred to Joseph's relationship with Fanny Alger as a "dirty, nasty, filthy affair"
- Response to claim: 39–41 - The William McLellin claims
- Response to claim: 40–41 - William McLellin sometimes claims there was also a "Miss Hill" involved with Joseph
- Response to claim: 41–42 - "'Fanny Alger as a wife' employs a Victorian euphemism that should not be construed to imply that Fanny was actually married to Joseph"
- Response to claim: 42 - "There is no evidence to corroborate the claim that Fanny was pregnant"
- Response to claim: 42–43 - Five "primary accounts" of the Fanny Alger relationship
- Response to claim: 44 - "Rumors may have been circulating already as early as 1832 that Smith had been familiar with fifteen-year-old Marinda Johnson"
- Response to claim: 44 - Lucinda Harris is said to have claimed that she was Joseph's 'mistress' four years before an 1842 conversation with Sarah Pratt
- Response to claim: 45 - "Smith introduced members…to the ordinances of…eternal marriage (1841)"
- Response to claim: 44–45 - ""Civil marriage" was claimed to be "an outdated marriage contract"
- Response to claim: 48 - "an otherworldly being Smith called 'the Lord' defends polygamy…."
- Response to claim: 48-49 - D&C 132 "contravenes the Book of Mormon passage where polygamy is said to be allowed under certain conditions but is likely an indication of wickedness"
- Response to claim: 49 - The author speculates that a revelation received by Joseph seemed "to recall Smith's teenage concerns about sinful thoughts and behavior, reiterated this standard: 'Thou shalt not commit adultery….'"
- Response to claim: 50 - "…in 1841, Joseph Smith and Luisa Beaman participated in the first formal ceremony to legitimize a plural coupling"
- Response to claim: 50 - The author suggest that Joseph engaged in "perilous anti-social behavior by indulging in sexual relations with the daughters and wives of close friends"
- Response to claim: 51 - The author states that "…LDS leaders denied violating Illinois law…."
- Response to claim: 51 - Although polygamy has been repeatedly condemned by the modern Church, "the Nauvoo beginnings of the practice remain in LDS scripture as Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants and in the church's temple sealings"
Response to claim: 27 - Isaac Hale not being allowed to look at the plates was a "clumsy subterfuge"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The author suggests that Isaac Hale not being allowed to look at the plates was a "clumsy subterfuge."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
This, of course, is based upon the assumption that Joseph was performing a deception.
Response to claim: 28 - "Joseph's personal charisma was working its effect where he needed to rely on others for help"
The author(s) make(s) the following claim:
* Author's quote: "Joseph's personal charisma was working its effect where he needed to rely on others for help. He elicited sympathy and created a sense of urgency; his enterprises bore a strange significance."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
The author assumes that only charisma could get others to help Joseph. Those involved bore witness that they were convinced by God of the importance of Joseph's work. "Strange significance" is loaded and prejudicial.- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
Response to claim: 28 - The author refers to a talisman that Joseph "is said to have worn while digging"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The author refers to a talisman that Joseph "is said to have worn while digging."Author's sources:
- D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, revised and enlarged edition, (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), 68 ( Index of claims )
- Van Wagoner and Walker, "Joseph Smith Gift of Seeing," 2.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources
The talisman Joseph was "said to have worn"—was only said by someone selling it after his death. The author again ignores all the problems with Quinn's thesis, and acts as if it is proven. He ignores all the difficulties with the so-called "Jupiter talisman."- Joseph Smith/Occultism and magic/Jupiter talisman
- Joseph Smith and "magick"
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/"Magick"
Response to claim: 28 - The author notes that Emma "was nevertheless forbidden to see the plates herself"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The author notes that Emma "was nevertheless forbidden to see the plates herself."Author's sources:
- Van Wagoner & Walker, "Joseph Smith Gift," 50.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event
She explained this didn't trouble her. Emma insisted that she was not forbidden to see them, but that she was convinced that it was the work of God, and that this sufficed for her. The author also does not report Emma's witness about the tangible reality of the physical plates.Response to claim: 28 - For Joseph and Emma, "Married life was not easy. In fact, it was riddled with doubts, rumors, and deception from the start"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
Author's quote: "Married life was not easy. In fact, it was riddled with doubts, rumors, and deception from the start."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
This claim is the author's supposition. He provides no citations. Emma was faithful to Joseph through much—this is difficult to explain if she did not share his religious convictions, and if their relationship was constantly plagued by doubt and deception from the beginning.- Emma on Joseph's prophetic role
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Historical errors
Response to claim: 28 - Joseph was haunted by the suspicion, which followed him from place to place, that he crossed moral boundaries in his friendship with other women"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
Author's quote: "…Joseph was haunted by the suspicion, which followed him from place to place, that he crossed moral boundaries in his friendship with other women."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
How does the author know that Joseph was "haunted by the suspicion"? He is attempting to read Joseph's mind. The only evidence he has provided are late, hostile attacks from the Hurlbut-Howe affidavits. The specific claims do not hold up to scrutiny (see below).- Did Joseph say polygamists_are_to_go_beyond_normal_"bounds"?
- Psychobiographical analysis of Joseph Smith
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
Response to claim: 28-29 - The author claims that Joseph had an affair with Eliza Winters in 1828
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The author claims that Joseph had an affair with Eliza Winters in 1828.Author's sources:
- No source provided
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources
This hostile report is belied by other primary documents.Eliza Winters (edit)
Response to claim: 29 - When Emma's mother, Elizabeth Hale, was asked about the purported seduction of Eliza Winters "in an interview forty-six years later, she declined to comment"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
Author's quote: "When Emma's mother, Elizabeth Hale, was asked about this [the purported seduction of Eliza Winters] in an interview forty-six years later, she declined to comment. Whatever she might have known went with her to the grave in February 1842…."Author's sources:
- Vogel, Early Mormon Documents 4:296–97, 346–60; see also Frederick G. Mather, "The Early Mormons: Joe Smith Operates at Susquehanna," Binghamton Republican (29 July 188).
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
The author does not tell us that the same author interviewed Eliza (see above), she likewise said nothing about Joseph's attempted seduction. This is even stranger when we know that Eliza sued Martin Harris for slander because he accused her of loose morals; she lost the suit. She had no reason, then, to favor the Mormons—yet she never complained of Joseph's attempted seduction.- The author even makes the absence of evidence from Mrs. Hale sound suspicious.
- Eliza Winters
Eliza Winters (edit)
Response to claim: 29 - The author claims that in the revelation that became D&C 132, that Emma was promised "annihilation if she failed to 'abide this commandment'"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The author claims that in the revelation that became D&C 132, that Emma was promised "annihilation if she failed to 'abide this commandment.'"Author's sources:
- D&C 132 (no verses provided).
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim is false
The term "annihilation" is nowhere used in D&C 132 or any LDS scripture.Response to claim: 29 - The author notes that D&C 132 "did not invoke the Book of Mormon's justification for taking more wives—the call to raise a righteous seed"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The author notes that D&C 132 "did not invoke the Book of Mormon's justification for taking more wives—the call to raise a righteous seed."Author's sources:
- D&C 132 (no verses provided).
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources
This calls into question, then, the author's theory that Joseph wrote the Book of Mormon and had been concocting the whole polygamy idea since his teen years. If the Book of Mormon is Joseph's initial rationale for polygamy, why not use its best argument?Early preoccupation with polygamy (edit)
Response to claim: 29 - "The same year he married Emma…Joseph also probably had met Louisa Beaman, then only twelve years old"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
Author's quote: "The same year he married Emma…Joseph also probably had met Louisa Beaman, then only twelve years old."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
The author commonly exploits the presentist fallacy in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages, or differences in their ages from his.Ages of wives (edit)
Response to claim: 29 - The author speculates that Joseph's relationships in Ohio "with various families and their daughters...allowed him to invite the young women into his further confidence when they were older"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The author speculates that Joseph's relationships in Ohio "with various families and their daughters...allowed him to invite the young women into his further confidence when they were older."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
The author commonly exploits the presentist fallacy in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages, or differences in their ages from his.Ages of wives (edit)
Response to claim: 30 - The author notes that "In most cases, the women were adolescents or in their twenties when he met them. About ten were pre-teens, others already thirty or above"
The author(s) make(s) the following claim:
*The author notes that "In most cases, the women were adolescents or in their twenties when he met them. About ten were pre-teens, others already thirty or above."Author's sources:
The author commonly exploits the presentist fallacy in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages, or differences in their ages from his.
<h4>Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
- No source provided
Ages of wives (edit)
Response to claim: 30 - "Whitney's daughter Sarah Ann would become one of Joseph Smith's wives, although at the time she was only five years old"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
Author's quote: "Whitney's daughter Sarah Ann would become one of Joseph Smith's wives, although at the time [1831] she was only five years old."Author's sources:
- No source provided
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
The author commonly exploits the presentist fallacy in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages, or differences in their ages from his.Ages of wives (edit)
Response to claim: 31 - Mary Elizabeth Rollings is described as "an excitable and impressionable young woman…at age thirteen…had interpreted words spoken in tongues…."
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
Mary Elizabeth Rollings is described as "an excitable and impressionable young woman…at age thirteen…had interpreted words spoken in tongues…."Author's sources:
- No source provided
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
The author commonly exploits the presentist fallacy in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages, or differences in their ages from his.Ages of wives (edit)
Response to claim: 31 - "It was eleven years after the Smiths roomed with the Whitneys that Joseph expressed a romantic interest in their daughter, as well"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The author points out that "[i]t was eleven years after the Smiths roomed with the Whitneys that Joseph expressed a romantic interest in their daughter, as well."Author's sources:
- No source provided
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
The author is again pushing his "romantic" version of the letter to the Whitneys. The author commonly exploits the presentist fallacy in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages, or differences in their ages from his.
- Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Whitney letter
- Use of sources—Letter to Whitneys
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Romance
- Age of wives
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Presentism
Whitney "love letter" (edit)
Womanizing & romance (edit)
Response to claim: 31 - "Another future wife, Marinda Johnson, was fifteen when she met Smith in Ohio"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
Author's quote: "Another future wife, Marinda Johnson, was fifteen when she met Smith in Ohio. She said when he looked into her eyes, she felt ashamed. At the time, the Smiths were living with Marinda's family…."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
What is the author trying to imply? Joseph made her ashamed? This is false—she felt ashamed for doubting Joseph's prophetic call once she'd met him. Note also that the author does not tell story of Marinda's mother being healed of a palsied arm by Joseph (See Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 230).
- "she felt ashamed..."
- Marinda Nancy Johnson
- The author commonly exploits the presentist fallacy in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages, or differences in their ages from his.
- Age of wives
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Presentism
Response to claim: 32 - "The seven-year-old daughter of Apostle Heber C. Kimball was still another future wife"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
Author's quote: "The seven-year-old daughter of Apostle Heber C. Kimball was still another future wife…When she married Smith a few years later in Nauvoo at the age of fourteen, it was with her father's encouragement."Author's sources:
- No source provided
FAIR's Response
- Helen Mar Kimball
- The author commonly exploits the presentist fallacy in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages, or differences in their ages from his.
- Age of wives
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Presentism</h4>
FAIR's Response
Response to claim: 32–33 - "How relevant is it that in many instances he had lived under the same roof as his future wife prior to marrying her?"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The author speculates on the nature of Joseph Smith's relationships with these young women "from the time he first met them," and asks: "How relevant is it that in many instances he had lived under the same roof as his future wife prior to marrying her?"Author's sources:
- No source given.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
Ah, now we see why it's brought up! But, the author explores none of these matters in detail—he just leaves it up to the readers' imagination. It does raise some questions, such as:- wouldn't it be hard to hide anything inappropriate in the close quarters of 19th century home?
- doesn't this mean that these women and their families knew both the public and private Joseph very well—they were not merely 'seduced' by his public persona?
Womanizing & romance (edit)
Response to claim: 33 - "probably by 1842," Lucinda Harris "became one more of the prophet's plural wives"
The author(s) make(s) the following claim:
*It is noted that Lucinda and George Harris lived across the street from the Smith family, and that "at an unspecified time, but probably by 1842, Lucinda became one more of the prophet's plural wives."Author's sources:
- No source given.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources
Compton dates the marriage to 1838 (In Sacred Loneliness, 4). The author addresses none of the issues around the date's uncertainty.Lucinda Harris (edit)
Response to claim: 34 - The author claims that in Illinois Joseph "was still hunted by law officials for old offenses"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The author claims that in Illinois Joseph "was still hunted by law officials for old offenses."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
The language presumes Joseph was guilty, and that such tactics were not simply an excuse to seize him. This point should be argued and supported with data, not asserted.- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
Response to claim: 35 - Smith's unchartered bank, called the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-banking Company, collapsed
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The author notes that "[d]uring the 1837 recession, Smith's unchartered bank, called the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-banking Company, collapsed. Angry Ohioans could not be repaid for loans they had made to Mormon merchants and some church members lost their savings."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event
We are not told that loans were made because the Saints (including Joseph) were considered good credit risks. The economic collapse caught everyone by surprise.Response to claim: 37 - "Missourians were alarmed by the influx of Mormons"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
Author's quote: "Missourians were alarmed by the influx of Mormons…and met to decide what to do about the intrusion. Sidney Rigdon warned that if they lifted their hand against the church, they would be 'exterminated.' In response to this incendiary speech, violence erupted on both sides, and Governor Lilburn Boggs soon declared in an echo of Rigdon's rhetoric that 'the Mormons…must be exterminated,' 'treated as enemies,' and 'driven from the State if necessary' to protect 'the public peace.'Author's sources:
- History of the Church 3:42, 175.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event
Note that the author tells us nothing of the 1833 violent dispossession of the members in Jackson County, Missouri. The next paragraph says only that "Mormons found strife wherever they settled…this was true first in Jackson County….then to a succession of other counties."
Response to claim: 38 - Joseph and the other prisoners "escaped to join their people in Illinois, where they proceeded to found a theocratic society"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The author claims that Joseph and the other prisoners "escaped to join their people in Illinois, where they proceeded to found a theocratic society."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources
This distorts the facts. Mormons were in the majority, but others lived there. Joseph did not rule by fiat, but government was conducted democratically under a charter granted by the Illinois legislature.Response to claim: 38n81 - "I hesitate to concur with Compton's interpretation of their relationship as a marriage"==
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The author notes that Todd Compton "has assembled the most complete documentation regarding Joseph and Fanny's relationship. However, I hesitate to concur with Compton's interpretation of their relationship as a marriage."Author's sources:
- Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 25–42. ( Index of claims )
- Fanny Alger (edit)
- Ignoring Hancock autobiography (edit)
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
Note that the author does not engage or do more than mention Compton's strongest evidence: the Hancock autobiography. (He says only "Compton…draws from a late reminiscence by Mosiah Hancock to suggest that Smith married Alger in early 1833."[41 n. 90] But, we are nowhere told that this witness claimed to have performed the marriage ceremony.- Initiation of the practice
- Fanny Alger—affair or marriage?
- Fanny Alger—William McLellin account
- Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)
What do we know about Joseph Smith's first plural wife Fanny Alger?
There are no first-hand accounts of the relationship between Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger
One of the wives about whom we know relatively little is Fanny Alger, Joseph's first plural wife, whom he came to know in early 1833 when she stayed at the Smith home as a house-assistant of sorts to Emma (such work was common for young women at the time). There are no first-hand accounts of their relationship (from Joseph or Fanny), nor are there second-hand accounts (from Emma or Fanny's family). All that we do have is third hand (and mostly hostile) accounts, most of them recorded many years after the events.
Unfortunately, this lack of reliable and extensive historical detail leaves much room for critics to claim that Joseph Smith had an affair with Fanny and then later invented plural marriage as way to justify his actions which, again, rests on dubious historical grounds. The problem is we don't know the details of the relationship or exactly of what it consisted, and so are left to assume that Joseph acted honorably (as believers) or dishonorably (as critics).
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. Mosiah Hancock (a Mormon) reported a wedding ceremony; and apostate Mormons Ann Eliza Webb Young and her father Chauncery both referred to Fanny's relationship as a "sealing." Ann Eliza also reported that Fanny's family was very proud of Fanny's relationship with Joseph, which makes little sense if it was simply a tawdry affair. Those closest to them saw the marriage as exactly that—a marriage.
Did Joseph Smith marry Fanny Alger as his first plural wife in 1833?
Joseph Smith met Fanny Alger in 1833 when she was a house-assistant to Emma
Joseph Smith came to know Fanny Alger in early 1833 when she stayed at the Smith home as a house-assistant to Emma. Neither Joseph nor Fanny ever left any first-hand accounts of their relationship. There are no second-hand accounts from Emma or Fanny's family. All that we do have is third hand accounts from people who did not directly observe the events associated with this first plural marriage, and most of them recorded many years after the events.
Joseph said that the "ancient order of plural marriage" was to again be practiced at the time that Fanny was living with his family
Benjamin F. Johnson stated that in 1835 he had "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."[1]
Joseph asked the brother-in-law of Fanny's father to make the request of Fanny's father, after which a marriage ceremony was performed
Mosiah Hancock discusses the manner in which the proposal was extended to Fanny, and states that a marriage ceremony was performed. Joseph asked Levi Hancock, the brother-in-law of Samuel Alger, Fanny’s father, to request Fanny as his plural wife:
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 [Fanny’s mother] about it. Twill 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.[2]
How could Joseph and Fanny have been married in 1831 if the sealing power had not yet been restored?
There is historical evidence that Joseph Smith knew as early as 1831 that plural marriage would be restored
There is historical evidence that Joseph Smith knew as early as 1831 that plural marriage would be restored. Mosiah Hancock (a Mormon) reported a wedding ceremony in Kirtland, Ohio in 1833.
Apostate Mormons Ann Eliza Webb Young and her father Chauncery both referred to Fanny's relationship as a "sealing." Ann Eliza also reported that Fanny's family was very proud of Fanny's relationship with Joseph, which makes little sense if it was simply a tawdry affair. Those closest to them saw the marriage as exactly that—a marriage.
Joseph and Fanny's marriage was a plural marriage, not an eternal marriage
Some have wondered how the first plural marriages (such as the Alger marriage) could have occurred before the 1836 restoration of the sealing keys in the Kirtland temple (see D&C 110). This confusion occurs because we tend to conflate several ideas. They were not all initially wrapped together in one doctrine:
- plural marriage - the idea that one could be married (in mortality) to more than one woman: being taught by 1831.
- eternal marriage - the idea that a man and spouse could be sealed and remain together beyond the grave: being taught by 1835.
- "celestial" marriage - the combination of the above two ideas, in which all marriages—plural and monogamous—could last beyond the grave via the sealing powers: implemented by 1840-41.
Thus, the marriage to Fanny would have occurred under the understanding #1 above. The concept of sealing beyond the grave came later. Therefore, the marriage of Joseph and Fanny would have been a plural marriage, but it would not have been a marriage for eternity.
Perhaps it is worth mentioning that priesthood power already gave the ability to ratify certain ordinances as binding on heaven and earth (D&C 1:8), that the sealing power was given mention in earlier revelations such as Helaman 10:7, and that the coming of Elijah and his turning of the hearts of children and fathers was prophesied in 3 Nephi 25:5-6. This supports the view that it is unlikely that Joseph was just making up the sealing power and priesthood power extemporaneously to justify getting married to Fanny and having sexual relations with her.
Did some of Joseph Smith's associates believe that he had an affair with Fanny Alger?
Oliver Cowdery perceived the relationship between Joseph and Fanny as a "dirty, nasty, filthy affair"
Some of Joseph's associates, most notably Oliver Cowdery, perceived Joseph's association with Fanny as an affair rather than a plural marriage. Oliver, in a letter to his brother Warren, asserted that "in every instance I did not fail to affirm that which I had said was strictly true. A dirty, nasty, filthy affair of his and Fanny Alger's was talked over in which I strictly declared that I had never deserted from the truth in the matter, and as I supposed was admitted by himself."[3]
Gary J. Bergera, an advocate of the "affair" theory, wrote:
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…Smith’s doctrine of eternal marriage was not formulated until after 1839–40. [4]
There are several problems with this analysis. While it is true that sources on Fanny are all retrospective, the same is true of many early plural marriages. Fanny's marriage has more evidence than some. Bergera says that all the sources about Fanny's marriage come "from a point of view favoring plural marriage," but this claim is clearly false.
Even hostile accounts of the relationship between Joseph and Fanny report a marriage or sealing
For example, Fanny's marriage was mentioned by Ann Eliza Webb Young, a later wife of Brigham Young's who divorced him, published an anti-Mormon book, and spent much of her time giving anti-Mormon, anti-polygamy lectures. Fanny stayed with Ann Eliza's family after leaving Joseph and Emma's house, and both Ann Eliza and her father Chauncey Webb [5] refer to Joseph's relationship to Fanny as a "sealing." [6] Eliza also noted that the Alger family "considered it the highest honor to have their daughter adopted into the prophet's family, and her mother has always claimed that she [Fanny] was sealed to Joseph at that time." [7] This would be a strange attitude to take if their relationship was a mere affair. And, the hostile Webbs had no reason to invent a "sealing" idea if they could have made Fanny into a mere case of adultery.
It seems clear, then, that Joseph, Fanny's family, Levi Hancock, and even hostile witnesses saw their relationship as a marriage, albeit an unorthodox one. The witness of Chauncey Webb and Ann Eliza Webb Young make it untenable to claim that only a later Mormon whitewash turned an affair into a marriage.