1 Purpose of plural marriage
2 Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation
3 Plural marriage in early Christianity
4 Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon
5 Plural marriage and the Bible
6 Initiation of the practice of plural marriage
7 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy
8 Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife
9 Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership
10 Divine manifestations to plural wives and families
11 Plural marriage and the law
12 Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?
13 Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma
14 Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages
15 Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage
16 GregSmith/Articles headings links tables/Plural marriage

Purpose of plural marriage

Num	SeeAlso	#REDIRECT	Jump to
1	{{SeeAlso\|Purpose of plural marriage#''Gospel Topics'': Latter-day Saints do not understand all of God’s purposes for instituting, through His prophets, the practice of plural marriage during the 19th century\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Purpose of plural marriage#''Gospel Topics'': Latter-day Saints do not understand all of God’s purposes for instituting, through His prophets, the practice of plural marriage during the 19th century]]	jump to
2	{{SeeAlso\|Purpose of plural marriage#What do the scriptures say about plural marriage?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Purpose of plural marriage#What do the scriptures say about plural marriage?]]	jump to
3	{{SeeAlso\|Purpose of plural marriage#The only scriptural explanations given from the Lord for approved plural marriage are found in Jacob 2:30 and D&C 132\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Purpose of plural marriage#The only scriptural explanations given from the Lord for approved plural marriage are found in Jacob 2:30 and D&C 132]]	jump to
4	{{SeeAlso\|Purpose of plural marriage#Raise Up A Faithful Seed\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Purpose of plural marriage#Raise Up A Faithful Seed]]	jump to
5	{{SeeAlso\|Purpose of plural marriage#Restoration of All Things\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Purpose of plural marriage#Restoration of All Things]]	jump to
6	{{SeeAlso\|Purpose of plural marriage#Making Marriage Available to Everyone\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Purpose of plural marriage#Making Marriage Available to Everyone]]	jump to
7	{{SeeAlso\|Purpose of plural marriage#Multiply and Replenish the Earth\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Purpose of plural marriage#Multiply and Replenish the Earth]]	jump to
8	{{SeeAlso\|Purpose of plural marriage#Abrahamic Test\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Purpose of plural marriage#Abrahamic Test]]	jump to
9	{{SeeAlso\|Purpose of plural marriage#Plural marriage can be a difficult historical fact for people to understand, both members and nonmembers alike\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Purpose of plural marriage#Plural marriage can be a difficult historical fact for people to understand, both members and nonmembers alike]]	jump to
10	{{SeeAlso\|Purpose of plural marriage#If the only purpose of polygamy was to .28raise up seed,.28 then why did Joseph not have children by his plural wives?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Purpose of plural marriage#If the only purpose of polygamy was to .28raise up seed,.28 then why did Joseph not have children by his plural wives?]]	jump to
11	{{SeeAlso\|Purpose of plural marriage#Polygamy was not permitted ''only'' for the purpose of procreation\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Purpose of plural marriage#Polygamy was not permitted ''only'' for the purpose of procreation]]	jump to
12	{{SeeAlso\|Purpose of plural marriage#Joseph was also sealed for eternity to some women who were already married, but these women continued to have children by their current husbands\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Purpose of plural marriage#Joseph was also sealed for eternity to some women who were already married, but these women continued to have children by their current husbands]]	jump to
13	{{SeeAlso\|Purpose of plural marriage#What purposes could plural marriage possibly serve?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Purpose of plural marriage#What purposes could plural marriage possibly serve?]]	jump to
14	{{SeeAlso\|Purpose of plural marriage#Save for scriptural accounts, any other .28reasons.28 which we attach, in retrospect, to plural marriage can only be based on supposition and intellectual deduction\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Purpose of plural marriage#Save for scriptural accounts, any other .28reasons.28 which we attach, in retrospect, to plural marriage can only be based on supposition and intellectual deduction]]	jump to

Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation

Num	SeeAlso	#REDIRECT	Jump to
1	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#''Doctrine and Covenants and Church History Seminary Teacher Manual'': "Do not speculate about whether plural marriage is a requirement for the celestial kingdom"\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#''Doctrine and Covenants and Church History Seminary Teacher Manual'': "Do not speculate about whether plural marriage is a requirement for the celestial kingdom"]]	jump to
2	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#''Gospel Topics'': "During the years that plural marriage was publicly taught, all Latter-day Saints were expected to accept the principle as a revelation from God"\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#''Gospel Topics'': "During the years that plural marriage was publicly taught, all Latter-day Saints were expected to accept the principle as a revelation from God"]]	jump to
3	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#Charles W. Penrose (''Improvement Era''): "it is not stated that plural marriage is thus essential"\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#Charles W. Penrose (''Improvement Era''): "it is not stated that plural marriage is thus essential"]]	jump to
4	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#Did early Mormon leaders teach the plural marriage was a requirement for exaltation?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#Did early Mormon leaders teach the plural marriage was a requirement for exaltation?]]	jump to
5	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#Some 19th century Church leaders taught that plural marriage was a requirement for those wishing to enter the highest degree of the celestial kingdom\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#Some 19th century Church leaders taught that plural marriage was a requirement for those wishing to enter the highest degree of the celestial kingdom]]	jump to
6	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#Because Mormons do not currently practice plural marriage, does this mean that early leaders who taught that is was required were wrong?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#Because Mormons do not currently practice plural marriage, does this mean that early leaders who taught that is was required were wrong?]]	jump to
7	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#The purpose of modern prophets is to give the Saints the will of God in their particular circumstances\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#The purpose of modern prophets is to give the Saints the will of God in their particular circumstances]]	jump to
8	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#Bible examples\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#Bible examples]]	jump to
9	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#John Taylor\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#John Taylor]]	jump to
10	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#If early Church leaders taught that plural marriage was required, does this mean that current members are not capable of achieving exaltation?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#If early Church leaders taught that plural marriage was required, does this mean that current members are not capable of achieving exaltation?]]	jump to
11	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#There is no doctrine in the Church that states that plural marriage is the norm, or that it is something that will be required for exaltation\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#There is no doctrine in the Church that states that plural marriage is the norm, or that it is something that will be required for exaltation]]	jump to
12	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#Does D&C 132 state that polygamy is required for our exaltation?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#Does D&C 132 state that polygamy is required for our exaltation?]]	jump to
13	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#The verse that is cited as supporting this cannot be logically read as a support of polygamy being required for exaltation\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation#The verse that is cited as supporting this cannot be logically read as a support of polygamy being required for exaltation]]	jump to

Plural marriage in early Christianity

Num	SeeAlso	#REDIRECT	Jump to
1	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage in early Christianity#How did early Christians view plural marriage?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage in early Christianity#How did early Christians view plural marriage?]]	jump to
2	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage in early Christianity#The perspectives of early Christians demonstrates the plural marriage was not the absolutely forbidden idea that some modern sectarians might wish it to be\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage in early Christianity#The perspectives of early Christians demonstrates the plural marriage was not the absolutely forbidden idea that some modern sectarians might wish it to be]]	jump to
3	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage in early Christianity#Paul\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage in early Christianity#Paul]]	jump to
4	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage in early Christianity#Tertullian\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage in early Christianity#Tertullian]]	jump to
5	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage in early Christianity#Justin Martyr\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage in early Christianity#Justin Martyr]]	jump to
6	{{SeeAlso\|Plural marriage in early Christianity#Augustine\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Plural marriage in early Christianity#Augustine]]	jump to

Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon

Plural marriage and the Bible

Initiation of the practice of plural marriage

Num	SeeAlso	#REDIRECT	Jump to
1	{{SeeAlso\|Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#When did Joseph Smith receive the revelation on plural marriage?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#When did Joseph Smith receive the revelation on plural marriage?]]	jump to
2	{{SeeAlso\|Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#Joseph's first introduction to the concept of plural came during the 1829 translation of the Book of Mormon\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#Joseph's first introduction to the concept of plural came during the 1829 translation of the Book of Mormon]]	jump to
3	{{SeeAlso\|Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#Evidence points to a 1831 date for the revelation to Joseph regarding plural marriage\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#Evidence points to a 1831 date for the revelation to Joseph regarding plural marriage]]	jump to
4	{{SeeAlso\|Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#Joseph was probably teaching the idea of plural marriage to a limited circle by the end of 1831\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#Joseph was probably teaching the idea of plural marriage to a limited circle by the end of 1831]]	jump to
5	{{SeeAlso\|Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#Did Joseph Smith actually teach and practice polygamy?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#Did Joseph Smith actually teach and practice polygamy?]]	jump to
6	{{SeeAlso\|Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#When and how did plural marriage begin in the Church?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#When and how did plural marriage begin in the Church?]]	jump to
7	{{SeeAlso\|Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#Of the little we do know, much comes from later reminiscences\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#Of the little we do know, much comes from later reminiscences]]	jump to
8	{{SeeAlso\|Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#The first specifically-LDS encounter with plural marriage was the 1829 Book of Mormon\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#The first specifically-LDS encounter with plural marriage was the 1829 Book of Mormon]]	jump to
9	{{SeeAlso\|Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#There are no contemporaneous records which tell us when Joseph first taught plural marriage, or when he first had a revelation endorsing it\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#There are no contemporaneous records which tell us when Joseph first taught plural marriage, or when he first had a revelation endorsing it]]	jump to
10	{{SeeAlso\|Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#Evidence also points to an 1831 date for receipt of the revelation on plural marriage\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#Evidence also points to an 1831 date for receipt of the revelation on plural marriage]]	jump to
11	{{SeeAlso\|Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#Joseph's First Mention of the Doctrine in 1831\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Initiation of the practice of plural marriage#Joseph's First Mention of the Doctrine in 1831]]	jump to

1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy

Num	SeeAlso	#REDIRECT	Jump to
1	{{SeeAlso\|1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#Why did the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants include a statement of marriage that denied the practice of polygamy at a time when some were actually practicing it?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#Why did the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants include a statement of marriage that denied the practice of polygamy at a time when some were actually practicing it?]]	jump to
2	{{SeeAlso\|1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#Polygamy was not being taught to the general Church membership at that time\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#Polygamy was not being taught to the general Church membership at that time]]	jump to
3	{{SeeAlso\|1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#The statement itself was not changed between the 1835 and 1844 editions of the D&C\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#The statement itself was not changed between the 1835 and 1844 editions of the D&C]]	jump to
4	{{SeeAlso\|1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#The available evidence suggests that Joseph Smith supported its publication\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#The available evidence suggests that Joseph Smith supported its publication]]	jump to
5	{{SeeAlso\|1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#The statement was not a revelation given to Joseph Smith - it was written by Oliver Cowdery\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#The statement was not a revelation given to Joseph Smith - it was written by Oliver Cowdery]]	jump to
6	{{SeeAlso\|1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#Was Oliver Cowdery aware that some in the Church were practicing polygamy in 1835 at the time he authored the "Article on Marriage"?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#Was Oliver Cowdery aware that some in the Church were practicing polygamy in 1835 at the time he authored the "Article on Marriage"?]]	jump to
7	{{SeeAlso\|1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#Oliver Cowdery, the author of the 1835 "Article on Marriage," was aware that some in the Church were practicing polygamy at the time that the statement was published\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#Oliver Cowdery, the author of the 1835 "Article on Marriage," was aware that some in the Church were practicing polygamy at the time that the statement was published]]	jump to
8	{{SeeAlso\|1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#Was the practice of polygamy general knowledge among Latter-day Saints in 1835 when the "Article on Marriage" was published?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#Was the practice of polygamy general knowledge among Latter-day Saints in 1835 when the "Article on Marriage" was published?]]	jump to
9	{{SeeAlso\|1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#Knowledge of the practice of polygamy among the Saints was limited prior to the 1840s\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#Knowledge of the practice of polygamy among the Saints was limited prior to the 1840s]]	jump to
10	{{SeeAlso\|1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#Charges of polygamy or "free love" or having wives in common were often made against new or little-known religious or social groups\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy#Charges of polygamy or "free love" or having wives in common were often made against new or little-known religious or social groups]]	jump to

Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife

Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership

Divine manifestations to plural wives and families

Plural marriage and the law

Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?

Num	SeeAlso	#REDIRECT	Jump to
1	{{SeeAlso\|Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Were plural wives forced into the marriage?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Were plural wives forced into the marriage?]]	jump to
2	{{SeeAlso\|Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Plural wives were not forced into marriage\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Plural wives were not forced into marriage]]	jump to
3	{{SeeAlso\|Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#How many Mormon women refused offers of plural marriage?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#How many Mormon women refused offers of plural marriage?]]	jump to
4	{{SeeAlso\|Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Did any woman suffer consequences for turning down Joseph's proposal?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Did any woman suffer consequences for turning down Joseph's proposal?]]	jump to
5	{{SeeAlso\|Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Two women afterward attacked Joseph's character and misrepresented his offer, to which Joseph responded. Those who did not were left strictly alone\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Two women afterward attacked Joseph's character and misrepresented his offer, to which Joseph responded. Those who did not were left strictly alone]]	jump to
6	{{SeeAlso\|Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Were women put under "tremendous pressure" to accept a proposal of plural marriage?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Were women put under "tremendous pressure" to accept a proposal of plural marriage?]]	jump to
7	{{SeeAlso\|Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Given that the Saints believed Joseph was a prophet, any command from him would carry significant weight\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Given that the Saints believed Joseph was a prophet, any command from him would carry significant weight]]	jump to
8	{{SeeAlso\|Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Did Joseph Smith give a woman only one day to decide about entering a plural marriage, and would refusal mean terrible consequences?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Did Joseph Smith give a woman only one day to decide about entering a plural marriage, and would refusal mean terrible consequences?]]	jump to
9	{{SeeAlso\|Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#One woman was told that the opportunity for plural marriage would expire in twenty-four hours. She was not threatened with damnation or physical consequences\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#One woman was told that the opportunity for plural marriage would expire in twenty-four hours. She was not threatened with damnation or physical consequences]]	jump to
10	{{SeeAlso\|Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Did Joseph claim that an angel threatened him with a "drawn sword" or "flaming sword" if a woman refused to marry him?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Did Joseph claim that an angel threatened him with a "drawn sword" or "flaming sword" if a woman refused to marry him?]]	jump to
11	{{SeeAlso\|Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#The references to the "angel with a sword" refer to Joseph's postponement of the initiation of polygamy\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#The references to the "angel with a sword" refer to Joseph's postponement of the initiation of polygamy]]	jump to
12	{{SeeAlso\|Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Were women "locked in a room" in order to convince them to accept plural marriage?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Were women "locked in a room" in order to convince them to accept plural marriage?]]	jump to
13	{{SeeAlso\|Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#While Nancy Rigdon and Martha Brotherton were likely approached about plural marriage in private, it is unlikely that they were locked in rooms or confined against their will\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#While Nancy Rigdon and Martha Brotherton were likely approached about plural marriage in private, it is unlikely that they were locked in rooms or confined against their will]]	jump to
14	{{SeeAlso\|Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#The claim that Martha was locked in a room for "days" is likely an exaggerated rumor: It was more likely "about ten minutes" while Joseph was summoned\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#The claim that Martha was locked in a room for "days" is likely an exaggerated rumor: It was more likely "about ten minutes" while Joseph was summoned]]	jump to

Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma

Num	SeeAlso	#REDIRECT	Jump to
1	{{SeeAlso\|Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#Did Joseph hide his plural marriages from Emma, his first wife?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#Did Joseph hide his plural marriages from Emma, his first wife?]]	jump to
2	{{SeeAlso\|Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#Joseph did not always tell Emma immediately about some of his plural relationships\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#Joseph did not always tell Emma immediately about some of his plural relationships]]	jump to
3	{{SeeAlso\|Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#Emma had periods where she accepted plural marriage, and then later rejected it\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#Emma had periods where she accepted plural marriage, and then later rejected it]]	jump to
4	{{SeeAlso\|Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#Ultimately, Joseph had to choose between obeying Emma and obeying God\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#Ultimately, Joseph had to choose between obeying Emma and obeying God]]	jump to
5	{{SeeAlso\|Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#Was Emma aware of the possibility that Joseph could take additional wives even without her consent?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#Was Emma aware of the possibility that Joseph could take additional wives even without her consent?]]	jump to
6	{{SeeAlso\|Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#Emma was warned about the possibility that Joseph could take wives even without her consent\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#Emma was warned about the possibility that Joseph could take wives even without her consent]]	jump to
7	{{SeeAlso\|Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#The Law of Sarah: Wives were to be first taught the revelation to see if they would accept it. If they accepted it, then they elected new wives for their husband. If they rejected plural marriage, then the Lord picked wives for the man\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#The Law of Sarah: Wives were to be first taught the revelation to see if they would accept it. If they accepted it, then they elected new wives for their husband. If they rejected plural marriage, then the Lord picked wives for the man]]	jump to
8	{{SeeAlso\|Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#If Emma rejected the teaching, then Joseph was exempt from the Law of Sarah\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#If Emma rejected the teaching, then Joseph was exempt from the Law of Sarah]]	jump to
9	{{SeeAlso\|Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#We can and should have considerable sympathy for Emma, since she was in a very difficult situation\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#We can and should have considerable sympathy for Emma, since she was in a very difficult situation]]	jump to
10	{{SeeAlso\|Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#Emma believed in Joseph as a prophet but could not bear plural marriage\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#Emma believed in Joseph as a prophet but could not bear plural marriage]]	jump to
11	{{SeeAlso\|Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#What possible modern lessons can we learn from Emma and Joseph's struggle with plural marriage?\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#What possible modern lessons can we learn from Emma and Joseph's struggle with plural marriage?]]	jump to
12	{{SeeAlso\|Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#Joseph Smith: "it is quite as necessary for you to be tried [even] as Abraham and other men of God"\|l1=the_visual_title}}	#REDIRECT[[Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#Joseph Smith: "it is quite as necessary for you to be tried [even] as Abraham and other men of God"]]	[[Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma#Joseph Smith: "it is quite as necessary for you to be tried [even] as Abraham and other men of God"\|jump to]]

Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages

Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage

V

Articles about Plural marriage

Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage	Purpose of plural marriage Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation Plural marriage in early Christianity Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon Plural marriage and the Bible
Introduction of plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Plural marriage and the law
Questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Joseph Smith's marriages to young women Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage Polyandry Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage Marrying other men's wives? Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages Emma Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 132 Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy? Did Joseph Smith send men on missions in order to steal their wives? Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy for the purpose of monetary gain?
John C. Bennett and Nauvoo polygamy	Bennett before Nauvoo Bennett and Prostitution Brothel at Nauvoo Rise and Fall of Bennett Sarah Pratt Nancy Rigdon Sidney Rigdon
Plural wives of Joseph Smith	Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Emma Smith Fanny Alger Louisa Beaman Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee Esther Dutcher Hannah S. Ells Olive Grey Frost Desdemona Catlin Wadsworth Fulmmer Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris Clarissa Reed Hancock Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes Sarah Maryetta Kingsley Howe Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde Vienna Jacques Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Almera Johnson Helen Mar Kimball Maria Lawrence Sarah Lawrence Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Malissa Lott Sylvia Sessions Lyon Martha McBride Eliza Partridge Emily Partridge Rhoda Richards Ruth Vose Sayers Patty Bartlett Sessions Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman "Miss Smith" Mary Heron Snider Eliza R. Snow Lucy Walker Sarah Ann Whitney Nancy Maria Winchester Flora Ann Woodworth Fanny Young
Plural marriage in Utah	Difficulties with plural marriage Brigham Young's statements regarding plural marriage John Taylor's statements regarding polygamy Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century Prevalence of plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage	The First Manifesto Official Declaration Number 1 Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto The Church of Jesus Christ and plural marriage today

GregSmith/Articles headings links tables/Plural marriage

The Prophet said...that it [plural marriage] would damn more than it would have because \so many/ unprincipled men would take advantage of it, but that did not prove that it was not a pure principle. If Joseph had had any impure desires he could have gratified them in the style of the world with less danger of his life or his character, than to do as he did. The Lord commanded him to teach & to practice that principle.

—Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, Letter to Mary Bond, n.d., 3-9 quoted in Brian Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy: History, Vol. 1, 26-27. off-site

∗ ∗ ∗

Now nothing can be more idle, nothing more frivolous, than to imagine that this polygamy had anything to do with personal licentiousness. If Joseph Smith had proposed to the Latter-day Saints that they should live licentious lives, they would have rushed on him and probably anticipated their pious neighbors who presently shot him.

—George Bernard Shaw, The Future of Political Science in America; an Address by Mr. Bernard Shaw to the Academy of Political Science, at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, on the 11th. April, 1933

∗ ∗ ∗

Can you summarize what we know about whether or not Joseph Smith fathered any children by his plural wives?

The record is frustratingly incomplete regarding the question of which marriages were consummated, it is likewise spotty with regards to whether Joseph fathered children by his plural wives

The record is frustratingly incomplete regarding the question of which marriages were consummated, it is likewise spotty with regards to whether Joseph fathered children by his plural wives. Fawn Brodie was the first to consider this question in any detail, though her standard of evidence was depressingly low. Subsequent authors have returned to the problem, though unanimity has been elusive (see Table 1). Ironically, Brodie did not even mention the case of Josephine Lyon, now considered the most likely potential child of Joseph.

Table 11‑1 Possible Children of Joseph Smith, Jr., by Plural Marriage

Key:

NM = Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 2nd edition (1971);
Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy" (1975);
VW=Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 2nd edition (1989);
Fo = Foster, Religion and Sexuality (1984);
Co = Compton, In Sacred Loneliness (1997);
Be = Bergera, "Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists," (2005);
Ha = Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy (2013).

Notation:

Y – indicates the author considers the child a possible child of Joseph Smith, Jr.

N - indicates that author argues against this child being Joseph's child, or lists someone else as the father.

Ø - indicates that author does not mention the possibility (pro or con) of this being Joseph's child.

Endnote links for above table

^[1] ^[2] ^[3] ^[4] ^[5] ^[6] ^[7] ^[8] ^[9] ^[10] ^[11] ^[12] ^[13] ^[14] ^[15] ^[16] ^[17] ^[18] ^[19] ^[20] ^[21] ^[22] ^[23] ^[24] ^[25] ^[26] ^[27] ^[28] ^[29] ^[30] ^[31] ^[32] ^[33] ^[34] ^[35] ^[36]

Did Joseph Smith father any children through polygamous marriages?

Science has eliminated most of the possibilities that had long been rumored to be descendants of Joseph Smith. There are a couple for which DNA can tell us nothing either way and that rest on dubious historical reasoning. Thus critics cannot claim in honesty that Joseph had any children by his polygamous wives.

It is claimed that Joseph Smith fathered children with some of his plural wives, and that he covered up the evidence of pregnancies. It is also claimed that Joseph Smith had intimate relations with other men’s wives to whom he had been sealed, and that children resulted from these unions.

Critics of Joseph Smith have long had difficulty reconciling their concept of Joseph as a promiscuous womanizer with the fact that the only recorded children of the prophet are those that he had with Emma. Science is now shedding new light on this issue as DNA research has eliminated most of the possibilities that had long been rumored to be descendants of Joseph Smith. In the case of at least two, however, DNA cannot tell us either way. The historical reasoning for justifying that Joseph had children by these wives is dubious.

Did Joseph Smith produce any children by his plural wives?: The case for children

Josephine Fisher (Josephine Lyon)

DNA analysis has determined that Josephine Fisher is not a descendant of Joseph Smith, Jr., ^[37] but for many years she appeared to be the strongest possibility. The resolution of this question was difficult to resolve until the appropriate DNA analysis techniques became available. These findings have been replicated in non-Latter-day Saint, peer-reviewed, reputable journals.^[38]

The case of Josephine Fisher relied on a deathbed conversation:

Just prior to my mothers death in 1882 she called me to her bedside and told me that her days were about numbered and before she passed away from mortality she desired to tell me something which she had kept as an entire secret from me and from all others but which she now desired to communicate to me. She then told me that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith….^[39]

Perhaps significantly, Josephine's name shares a clear link with Joseph's. Whether this account proved that she was his biological daughter had long been debated:

Rex Cooper…has questioned the interpretation that Smith was Fisher's biological father. He posits that because Fisher's mother was sealed to Smith, Fisher was his daughter only in a spiritual sense…More problematic is whether there is a discrepancy between what Fisher understood and what her mother meant. That is, did Fisher interpret her mother's remarks to mean she was the biological daughter of Joseph Smith and thus state that with more certitude than was warranted, when in fact her mother meant only that in the hereafter Fisher would belong to Joseph Smith's family through Session's sealing to him? Because Sessions was on her deathbed, when one's thoughts naturally turn to the hereafter, the latter is a reasonable explanation.^[40]

As Danel Bachman notes, however, there seems to be relatively little doubt that

[t]he desire for secrecy as well as the delicacy of the situation assure us that Mrs. Sessions was not merely explaining to her daughter that she was Smith's child by virtue of a temple sealing. The plain inference arising from Jenson's curiosity in the matter and Mrs. Fisher's remarks is that she was, in fact, the offspring of Joseph Smith.^[41]

However, DNA evidence now disproves this theory. It is possible, then, that Fisher misunderstood her mother, but this seems unlikely. Any unreliability is more likely to arise because of a dying woman's confusion than from miscommunication. No evidence exists for such confusion, though we cannot rule it out.

Josephine's account is also noteworthy because her mother emphasizes that "…she [had] been sealed to the Prophet at the time that her husband Mr. Lyon was out of fellowship with the Church."^[42] This may explain her reasoning for being sealed to Joseph at all—her husband was out of fellowship. Todd Compton opines that "[i]t seems unlikely that Sylvia would deny [her husband] cohabitation rights after he was excommunicated," but this conclusion seems based on little but a gut reaction.^[43] These women took their religion seriously; given Sylvia's deathbed remarks, this was a point she considered important enough to emphasize. She apparently believed it would provide an explanation for something that her daughter might have otherwise misunderstood.

There is also clear evidence that at least some early members of the Church would have taken a similar attitude toward sexual relations with an unbelieving spouse. My own third-great grandfather, Isaiah Moses Coombs, provides a striking illustration of this from the general membership of the Church.

Coombs had immigrated to Utah, but his non-member spouse refused to accompany him. Heartsick, he consulted Brigham Young for advice. Young "sat with one hand on my knee, looking at my face and listen[ing] attentively." Then, Young took the new arrival "by the hand in his fatherly way," and said "[Y]ou had better take a mission to the States…to preach the gospel and visit your wife…visit your wife as often as you please; preach the gospel to her, and if she is worth having she will come with you when you return to the valley. God bless and prosper you."^[44]

Coombs did as instructed, but was not successful in persuading his wife. His description of his thoughts is intriguing, and worth quoting at length:

I may as well state here, however, that during all my stay in the States, [my wife and I] were nothing more to each other than friends. I never proposed or hinted for a closer intimacy only on condition of her baptism into the Church. I felt that I could not take her as a wife on any other terms and stand guiltless in the sight of God or my own conscience…I could not yield to her wishes and she would not bend to mine. And so I merely visited her as a friend. This was a source of wonder to our mutual acquaintances; and well it might be for had not my faith been founded on the eternal rock of Truth, I never could have stood such a test, I never could have withstood the temptations that assailed me, but I should have yielded and have abandoned myself to the life of carnal pleasure that awaited me in the arms of my beautiful and adored wife. She was now indeed beautiful. I had thought her lovely as a child—as a maiden she had seemed to me surpassing fair, but as a woman with a form well developed and all the charms of her persona matured, she far surpassed in womanly beauty anything I had ever dreamed of.^[45]

Coombs' account is startlingly blunt and explicit for the age. Yet, if this young twenty-two-year-old male refused marital intimacy with his wife (whom he married knowing their religious differences), Compton's confidence that Sylvia Sessions would not deny marital relations to her excommunicated husband seems misplaced. Sessions may, like Coombs, have seen her faithfulness to the sealing ordinances sufficient to "eventually either in this life or that which is to come enable me to bind my [spouse] to me in bands that could not be broken." Like him, she may have believed that "[My spouse] was blind then but the day would come when [he] would see."^[46]

More importantly, however, is Brian Hales’ more recent work, which demonstrates that Sylvia Sessions Lyon may well have not been married to her husband when sealed to Joseph Smith, contrary to Compton’s conclusion. Thus, rather than being a case of polyandry with sexual relations with two men (Joseph and her first husband) Lyons is instead a case of straight-forward plural marriage.^[47] Given that Joseph has been ruled out as Josephine's father, it may be that Sylvia's emphasis to Josephine about being Joseph's "daughter" referred to a spiritual or sealing sense, and she wished to explain to her daughter why Josephine was, then, sealed to Joseph Smith rather than her biological father.

Other possible children

Olive Gray Frost is mentioned in two sources as having a child by Joseph. Both she and the child died in Nauvoo, so no genetic evidence will ever be forthcoming.^[48]

Did Joseph Smith produce any children by his plural wives? The case against children

Angus M. Cannon seems to have been aware of Fisher's claim to be a child of Joseph Smith, though only second hand. He told a sceptical Joseph Smith III of

one case where it was said by the girl's grandmother that your father has a daughter born of a plural wife. The girl's grandmother was Mother Sessions, who lived in Nauvoo and died here in the valley. Aunt Patty Sessions asserts that the girl was born within the time after your father was said to have taken the mother.^[49]

Clearly, Cannon has no independent knowledge of the case, but reports a story similar to Josephine's affidavit. Cannon's statement is more important because it illustrates how the LDS Church's insistence that Joseph Smith had practiced plural marriage led some of the RLDS Church :to ask why no children by these wives existed. Lucy Walker reported [the RLDS] seem surprised that there was no issue from asserted plural marriages with their father. Could they but realize the hazardous life he lived, after that revelation was given, they would comprehend the reason. He was harassed and hounded and lived in constant fear of being betrayed by those who ought to have been true to him.^[50] Thus the absence of children was something of an embarrassment to the Utah Church, which members felt a need to explain. It would have been greatly to their advantage to produce Joseph's offspring, but could not.^[51]

Anxious to demonstrate that Joseph's plural marriages were marriages in the fullest sense, Lucy M. Walker (wife of Joseph's cousin, George A. Smith) reported seeing Joseph washing blood from his hands in Nauvoo. When asked about the blood, Joseph reportedly told her he had been helping Emma deliver one of his plural wives' children.^[52] Yet, even this late account tells us little about the paternity of the children—Joseph was close to these women (and their husbands, in the case of polyandry), and given the Saints' belief in priesthood blessings, they may have well welcomed his involvement.

George Algernon Lightner and Florentine M. Lightner

Even by the turn of the century, the LDS Church had no solid evidence of children by Joseph. "I knew he had three children," said Mary Elizabeth Lightner, "They told me. I think two of them are living today but they are not known as his children as they go by other names."^[53] Again, evidence for children is frustratingly vague—Lightner had only heard rumours, and could not provide any details. It would seem to me, however, that this remark of Lightner's rules out her children as possible offspring of Joseph. Her audience was clearly interested in Joseph having children, and she was happy to assert that such children existed. If her own children qualified, why did she not mention them?

Orson W. Hyde and Frank Henry Hyde

Two of Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde's children have been suggested as possible children. The first, Orson, died in infancy, making DNA testing impossible. Compton notes, however, that "Marinda had no children while Orson was on his mission to Jerusalem, then became pregnant soon after Orson returned home. (He arrived in Nauvoo on December 7, 1842, and Marinda bore Orson Washington Hyde on November 9, 1843),"^[54] putting the conception date around 16 February 1843.

Frank Hyde's birth date is unclear; he was born on 23 January in either 1845 or 1846.^[55] This would place his conception around 2 May, of either 1844 or 1845. In the former case, Frank was conceived less than two months prior to Joseph's martyrdom. Orson Hyde left for Washington, D.C., around 4 April 1844,^[56] and did not return until 6 August 1844, making Joseph's paternity more likely than Orson's if the earlier birth date is correct.^[57] The key source for this claim is Fawn Brodie, who includes no footnote or reference. Given Brodie's tendency to misread evidence on potential children, this claim should be approached with caution.

Frank's death certificate lists Orson Hyde as the father, however, and places his birth in 1846, which would require conception nearly a year after Joseph's death.^[58] A child by Joseph would have brought prestige to the family and Church, and Orson and Nancy had divorced long before Frank Henry's death.^[59] It seems unlikely, therefore, that Orson would be credited with paternity over Joseph if any doubt existed. Without further data, Brodie's dating should probably be regarded as an error, ruling out Joseph as a possible father.

Ruled out by DNA Evidence: Oliver Buell, Mosiah Hancock, John Reed Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, Moroni Llewllyn Pratt, and Orrison Smith

Scientific ingenuity has also been applied to the question of Joseph's paternity. Y-chromosome studies have conclusively eliminated Orrison Smith (son of Fanny Alger), Mosiah Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, John Reed Hancock, Moroni Llewellyn Pratt, and Oliver Buell as Joseph's offspring.^[60]

Two additional children—George Algernon Lightner and Orson W. Hyde—died in infancy, leaving no descendants to test, though as noted above Lightner can probably be excluded on the basis of his mother's testimony.

The testing of female descendants' DNA is much move involved, but work continues and may provide the only definitive means of ruling in or out potential children.

The case of Oliver Buell is an interesting one, since Fawn Brodie was insistent that he was Joseph's son. She based part of this argument on a photograph of Buell, which revealed a face which she claimed was "overwhelmingly on the side of Joseph's paternity."^[61] A conception on this date would make Oliver two to three weeks overdue at birth, which makes Brodie's theory less plausible.^[62]

Furthermore, prior the DNA results, Bachman and Compton pointed out that Brodie's timeline poses serious problems for her theory—Oliver's conception would have had to occurred between 16 April 1839 (when Joseph was allowed to escape during a transfer from Liberty Jail)^[63] and 18 April, when the Huntingtons left Far West.^[64] Brodie would have Joseph travel west from his escape near Gallatin, Davies County, Missouri, to Far West in order to meet Lucinda, and then on to Illinois to the east. This route would require Joseph and his companions to backtrack, while fleeing from custody in the face of an active state extermination order in force.^[65] Travel to Far West would also require them to travel near the virulently anti-Mormon area of Haun's Mill, along Shoal Creek.^[66] Yet, by 22 April Joseph was in Illinois, having been slowed by travel "off from the main road as much as possible"^[67] "both by night and by day."^[68] This seems an implausible time for Joseph to be meeting a woman, much less conceiving a child. Furthermore, it is evident that Far West was evacuated by other Church leaders, "the committee on removal," and not under the prophet’s direction, who did not regain the Saints until reaching Quincy, Illinois.^[69]

Brodie's inclusion of Oliver Buell is also inconsistent, since he was born prior to Joseph's sealing to Prescinda. By including Oliver as a child, Brodie wishes to paint Joseph as an indiscriminate womanizer. Yet, her theory of plural marriage argues that Joseph "had too much of the Puritan in him, and he could not rest until he had redefined the nature of sin and erected a stupendous theological edifice to support his new theories on marriage."^[70] Thus, Brodie argues that Joseph created plural marriage to justify his immorality—yet, she then has him conceiving a child with Prescinda before being sealed to her. By her own argument, the paternity must therefore be seen as doubtful.^[71]

Despite Brodie's enthusiasm, no other author has included Oliver on their list of possible children (see Table 1). And, DNA evidence has conclusively ruled him out. Oliver is an excellent example of Brodie's tendency to ignore and misread evidence which did not fit her preconceptions, and suggests that caution is warranted before one condemns Joseph for a pre-plural marriage "affair" or other improprieties. Since Brodie was not interested in giving Joseph the benefit of the doubt, or avoiding a rush to judgment, her decision is not surprising.

John Reed Hancock is another of Brodie's suggestions, though no other author has followed her. The evidence for Joseph having married Clarissa Reed Hancock is scant,^[72] and as with Oliver Buell it is unlikely (even under Brodie's jaded theory of plural marriage as justification for adultery) that Joseph would have conceived a child with a woman to whom he was not polygamously married. DNA testing has since confirmed our justified scepticism of Brodie's claim.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag As Compton notes, such an admission is implausible, given the mores of the time.^[73]

Besides being implausible, Ettie gets virtually every other detail wrong—she insists that William Law, Robert Foster, and Henry Jacobs had all been sent on missions, only to return and find their wives being courted by Joseph. Ettie then has them establish the Expositor.^[74] While Law and Foster were involved with the Expositor, they were not sent on missions, and their wives did not charge that Joseph had propositioned them. Jacobs had served missions, but was present during Joseph's sealing to his wife, and did not object (see Chapter 9). Jacobs was a faithful Saint unconnected to the Expositor.

Even the anti-Mormon Fanny Stenhouse considered Ettie Smith to be a writer who "so mixed up fiction with what was true, that it was difficult to determine where one ended and the other began,"^[75] and a good example of how "the autobiographies of supposed Mormon women were [as] unreliable"^[76] as other Gentile accounts, given her tendency to "mingl[e] facts and fiction" "in a startling and sensational manner."^[77]

Brodie herself makes no mention of John Hyrum as a potential child (and carelessly misreads Ettie Smith's remarks as referring to Oliver, not John Hyrum). No other historian has even mentioned this child, much less argued that Buell was not the father (see Table 1).

= Scant evidence: Sarah Elizabeth Holmes, Hannah Ann Dibble, Loren Walker Dibble, Joseph Albert Smith, and Carolyn Delight

A few other possibilities should be mentioned, though the evidence surrounding them is tenuous. Sarah Elizabeth Holmes was born to Marietta Carter, though "No evidence links her with Joseph Smith."^[78] The Dibble children suffer from chronology problems, and a lack of good evidence that Joseph and their mother was associated. Loren Dibble was, however, claimed by some Mormons as a child of Joseph’s when confronted with Joseph Smith III’s skepticism.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag No textual or documentary evidence is known for her at all.

Fanny Alger and Eliza R. Snow: Miscarriages?

We have elsewhere seen the tenuous basis for many conclusions about the Fanny Alger marriage (see here and here). The first mention of a pregnancy for Fanny is in an 1886 anti-Mormon work, citing Chauncey Webb, with whom Fanny reportedly lived after leaving the Smith home.^[79] Webb claimed that Emma "drove" Fanny from the house because she "was unable to conceal the consequences of her celestial relation with the prophet." If Fanny was pregnant, it is curious that no one else remarked upon it at the time, though it is possible that the close quarters of a nineteenth-century household provided Emma with clues. If Fanny was pregnant by Joseph, the child never went to term, died young, or was raised under a different name

A family tradition—repeated by anti-Mormon Wyl—holds that Eliza R. Snow was pregnant and shoved down the stairs by a jealous Emma before being required to leave the Smith home.^[80] The tradition holds that Eliza, "heavy with child" subsequently miscarried. While Eliza was required to leave the home and Emma was likely upset with her, no contemporary evidence points to a pregnancy.^[81] Eliza's diary says nothing about the loss of a child, which would be a strange omission given her love of children.^[82] It seems unlikely that Eliza would have still been teaching school in an advanced state of pregnancy, especially given that her appearance as a pregnant "unwed mother" would have been scandalous in Nauvoo. Emma's biographers note that "Eliza continued to teach school for a month after her abrupt departure from the Smith household. Her own class attendance record shows that she did not miss a day during the months she taught the Smith children, which would be unlikely had she suffered a miscarriage."^[83] Given Emma's treatment of the Partridge sisters, who were also required to leave the Smith household, Emma certainly needed no pregnancy to raise her ire against Joseph's plural wives.

Eliza repeatedly testified to the physical nature of her relationship with Joseph Smith (see Chapter 9), and was not shy about criticizing Emma on the subject of plural marriage.^[84] Yet, she never reported having been pregnant, or used her failed pregnancy as evidence for the reality of plural marriage.

In the absence of further information, both of these reported pregnancies must be regarded as extremely speculative.

What did the husband of Sylvia Sessions know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?

Sylvia was married to Windsor Lyon by Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, and was sealed to Joseph Smith at some point after she was married

Sylvia was married to Windsor Lyon by Joseph Smith in Nauvoo. She was sealed to Joseph Smith at some point after she was married. Brian Hales notes that , "This marriage triangle is unique among all of the Prophet’s plural marriages because there is strong evidence that Sylvia bore children to both men. She became pregnant by Windsor Lyon in October of 1838, September of 1840, and April of 1842. Then a year later became pregnant with a daughter (named Josephine—born February 8, 1844) that was purportedly fathered by the Prophet." Sylvia's daughter, who had the intriguing name "Josephine," made the following statement

Just prior to my mothers [Sylvia Sessions Lyon] death in 1882 she called me to her bedside and told me that her days on earth were about numbered and before she passed away from mortality she desired to tell me something which she had kept as an entire secret fro me and from others until no but which she now desired to communicate to me. She then told me that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith, she having been sealed to the Prophet at the time that her husband Mr. Lyon had was out of fellowship with the Church.

Daughter Josephine was proven not to be a daughter of Joseph Smith, Jr. through DNA analysis

For many years, Josephine appeared to be the only viable candidate as a child of Joseph Smiths "polyandrous" sealings. However, DNA analysis ultimately disproved the paternity claim: Josephine was not a descendant of Joseph Smith, Jr.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag The sealing to Joseph occurred after Windor's excommunication. Andrew Jenson, in his historical record, referred to Sylvia as a "formerly the wife of Windsor Lyons." ^[85] There is no known evidence that Windsor lived with Sylvia after he returned to Nauvoo, but Sylvia did "rejoin" Windsor after he was rebaptised in 1846. Hales states, "No details are available to clarify what authority was used to reconfirm the marriage relationship between Sylvia and Windsor after their previous marital separation. Most likely the couple consulted with Brigham Young or Heber C. Kimball, who authorized their rejoining. Whether a private religious marriage ceremony for time was performed or the couple resumed observing their legal marriage is unknown. Importantly, even with the renewed conjugality between Windsor and Sylvia after Joseph Smith’s death, no evidence has been found to support her involvement in sexual polyandry at any time." ^[86]

See Biography:

A biography of Sylvia Sessions may be viewed on Brian and Laura Hales' website "josephsmithspolygamy.org".

Did Prescindia Buell (or Sarah Pratt, or Mrs. Hyde) not know who was the father of her son?

The source for this claim is a notoriously unreliable anti-Mormon work. It makes several errors of fact in the very paragraph in which the claim is made

It is claimed that Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell admitted that she did not know who was the father of her child—Joseph Smith or her first husband. Sometimes Sarah Pratt (wife of apostle Orson Pratt) is mistakenly identified as the woman in this story. ^[87] Others sometimes mention Orson Hyde's wife as the source of this rumor. ^[88]

The source for this claim is a notoriously unreliable anti-Mormon work. It makes several errors of fact in the very paragraph in which the claim is made.

It is implausible that the supposed admission upon which the claim is based would be made. There are major historical problems of geography and timeline for Joseph to have even been a potential father of Buell's child.

The claim cannot be substantiated.

See also: Prescindia Buell's sealing to Joseph Smith, Did Joseph send men on missions to steal their wives?, and Is there any evidence that Joseph fathered Presendia Buell's child?

Is the source reliable?

This book was written by Nelson Winch Green, who reported what estranged member Marry Ettie V. Coray Smith reportedly told him

Even other anti-Mormon authors who had lived in Utah regarded it as nearly worthless. Fanny Stenhouse wrote:

Much has already been written on this subject much that is in accordance with facts, and much that is exaggerated and false. Hitherto, with but one exception [Mrs. Ettie V. Smith is noted in the footnote as the work referred to] that of a lady who wrote very many years ago, and who in her writings, so mixed up fiction with what was true, that it was difficult to determine where the one ended and the other began no woman who really was a Mormon and lived in Polygamy ever wrote the history of her own personal experience. Books have been published, and narratives have appeared in the magazines and journals, purporting to be written by Mormon wives; it is, however, perhaps, unnecessary for me to state that, notwithstanding such narratives may be imposed upon the Gentile world as genuine, that they were written by persons outside the Mormon faith would in a moment be detected by any intelligent Saint who took the trouble to peruse them. Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag

Errors of fact

As might be expected, then, there are many claims in this passage that are in error. We know that the following are false

Ettie Smith claims that William Law, Robert D. Foster, and Henry Jacobs were on missions and that Joseph had proposed plural marriage to them. Law and Foster, in fact, never served missions. Henry Jacobs did serve a mission, but he was not gone on a mission when Joseph discussed plural marriage.
Foster and Law did participate in publishing the Nauvoo Expositor, but Henry Jacobs did not. He was and remained a faithful member of the Church.
The destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor was undertaken by the Nauvoo city council. Some members of that council were not members of the Church—it seems implausible to think that they would bow to a "revelation" to Joseph requiring its destruction. The decision was made, instead, after 8 hours of discussion and after consulting legal references.

Thus, in the single paragraph we have several basic errors of fact. Why should we believe the gossip of what Mrs. Buell is claimed to have said?

Such an admission would be out of character for a believing Utah woman of the 19th century

Furthermore, such an admission would be out of character for a believing Utah woman of the 19th century. As Todd Compton notes

Talk of sexuality was avoided by the Victorian, puritanical Mormons; in diaries, the word 'pregnant' or 'expecting' is never or rarely used. Women are merely 'sick' until they have a child. Polyandry was rarely discussed openly by Mormon women. ^[89]

It is difficult for Joseph to have even had contact with her at the proper time to conceive a child

Fawn Brodie painted a fanciful scenario in which Joseph would have been able to potentially father a Buell child. However, she misread the historical information, and it is difficult, as Todd Compton has demonstrated, for Joseph to have even had contact with her at the proper time to conceive a child. ^[90] This would suggest that there were no grounds for Mrs. Buell—or a modern reader—to conclude that Joseph might have been the father.

Main article: Joseph could not have fathered Presendia Buell's child

Did Joseph Smith father children by polyandrous plural wife Prescindia Buell?

All those who have been definitively DNA tested so far—Oliver Buell, Mosiah Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, Moroni Pratt, and Orrison Smith—have been excluded as children of Joseph Smith

Nauvoo Polygamy author George D. Smith tells his readers that "until decisive DNA testing of possible [Joseph] Smith descendants—daughters as well as sons—from plural wives can be accomplished, ascertaining whether Smith fathered children with any of his plural wives remains hypothetical" (pp. 228–29, cf. p. 473). This is true, but G. D. Smith fails to tell us that all those who have been definitively tested so far—Oliver Buell, Mosiah Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, Moroni Pratt, and Orrison Smith—have been excluded. Would he have neglected, I wonder, to mention a positive DNA test?

The consequences of George D. Smith's less-than-rigorous approach to sources becomes clear in the case of Oliver Buell, son of Presendia.^[91] Huntington Buell, one of Joseph’s polyandrous plural wives. Fawn Brodie was the first to suggest that Oliver Buell was Joseph’s son, and she was so convinced (based on photographic evidence)^[92]Fawn Brodie to Dale Morgan, Letter, 24 March 1945, Dale Morgan papers, Marriott Library, University of Utah; cited by Todd Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives and Polygamy: A Critical View," in Reconsidering No Man Knows My History: Fawn M. Brodie and Joseph Smith in Retrospect, ed. Newell G. Bringhurst (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1996), 166.</ref> In a footnote, G. D. Smith notes that Todd Compton "considers it improbable that Joseph and Presendia would have found time together during the brief window of opportunity after his release from prison in Missouri" (p. 80 n. 63).^[93]

The geography

This slight nod toward an opposite point of view is inadequate, however. G. D. Smith does not mention and hence does not confront the strongest evidence. Compton’s argument against Joseph’s paternity does not rest just on a "narrow window" of opportunity but on the fact that Brodie seriously misread the geography required by that window. It is not merely a question of dates. Brodie would have Joseph travel west from his escape near Gallatin, Davies County, Missouri, to Far West in order to meet Lucinda, and then on to Illinois toward the east. This route would require Joseph and his companions to backtrack while fleeing from custody in the face of an active state extermination order.^[94] Travel to Far West would also require them to travel near the virulently anti-Mormon area of Haun’s Mill, along Shoal Creek.^[95] Yet by April 22 Joseph was in Illinois, having been slowed by traveling "off from the main road as much as possible"^[96]^:320-321 "both by night and by day."^[96]^:327 This seems an implausible time for Joseph to be conceiving a child. Furthermore, it is evident that Far West was evacuated by other church leaders, "the committee on removal," and not under the Prophet’s direction. Joseph did not regain the Saints until reaching Quincy, Illinois, contrary to Brodie’s misreading.^[96]^{:315, 319, 322-23, 327} Timing is the least of the problems with G. D. Smith’s theory

Despite Brodie’s enthusiasm, few other authors have included Oliver on their list of possible children.^[97] With so many authors ranged against him, G. D. Smith ought not to act as if Compton’s analysis is merely about dates.

The DNA

G. D. Smith also soft-pedals the most vital evidence—the DNA.^[98] He makes no mention in the main text that Oliver’s paternity has been definitively ruled out by DNA testing. This admission is confined to a footnote, and its impact is minimized by its placement. After noting Compton’s disagreement with the main text’s suggestion that Oliver might be Joseph’s son, G. D. Smith writes, "There is no DNA connection," and cites a Deseret News article. He immediately follows this obtuse phrasing with a return to Compton, who finds it "‘unlikely, though not impossible, that Joseph Smith was the actual father of another Buell child,’ John Hiram, Presendia’s seventh child during her marriage to Buell and born in November 1843" (p. 80 n. 63). Thus the most salient fact—that Joseph is certainly not Oliver's father—is sandwiched between a vicarious discussion with Compton about whether Oliver or John could be Joseph’s sons. Since G. D. Smith knows there is definitive evidence against Joseph’s paternity in Oliver’s case, why mention the debate at all only to hide the answer in the midst of a long endnote? That Brodie is so resoundingly rebutted on textual, historical, and genetic grounds provides a cautionary lesson in presuming that her certainty counts for much.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag As Compton notes, such an admission is implausible, given the mores of the time.^[99]

Besides being implausible, Ettie’s account gets virtually every other detail wrong—insisting that William Law, Robert Foster, and Henry Jacobs had all been sent on missions only to return to find Joseph preaching plural marriage. Ettie then has them establish the Expositor.^[100] While Law and Foster were involved with the Expositor, they were not sent on missions. Jacobs had served missions but was a faithful Saint unconnected to the Expositor. He was also, contrary to Ettie’s claims, present when Joseph was sealed polyandrously to his (Jacobs’s) wife.

Even the anti-Mormon Fanny Stenhouse considered Ettie Smith to be a writer who "so mixed up fiction with what was true, that it was difficult to determine where one ended and the other began,"^[101]^:618 and a good example of how "the autobiographies of supposed Mormon women were [as] unreliable"^[101]^:x as other Gentile accounts, given her tendency to "mingl[e] facts and fiction" "in a startling and sensational manner."^[101]^:xi-xii

Brodie herself makes no mention of John Hiram as a potential child, going so far as to carelessly misread Ettie Smith’s remarks as referring to Oliver, not John Hiram. No other historian has argued that Buell was not the father.^[102] There is no good evidence whatever that any of Presendia’s children were Joseph’s. It is not clear why G. D. Smith clings to the idea.

What is the current state of the evidence for proving or disproving that Joseph Smith had children by his plural wives?

As always, we are left where we began—with more suspicions and possibilities than certitudes

Few authors agree on which children should even be considered as Joseph's potential children. Candidates which some find overwhelmingly likely are dismissed—or even left unmentioned—by others. Recent scholars have included between one to four potential children as options. Of these, Josephine Lyon was the most persuasive, until her relationship to Joseph Smith was ultimately disproven through DNA testing. Orson W. Hyde died in infancy, and so can never be definitively excluded as a possible child, though the dates of conception argue against Joseph's paternity. Oliver Gray Frost is mentioned in two sources as having a child by Joseph. Both she and the child died in Nauvoo, so no genetic evidence will ever be forthcoming.^[103]

Table 2

Table 11‑2 Possible Children of Joseph Smith, Jr., by Plural Marriage

This table is in the same order as Table 1.

Key:

NM = Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 2nd edition (1971);
Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy" (1975);
VW=Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 2nd edition (1989);
Fo = Foster, Religion and Sexuality (1984);
Co = Compton, In Sacred Loneliness (1997);
Be = Bergera, "Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists," (2005);
Ha = Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy (2013).

Notation:

Y – indicates the author considers the child a possible child of Joseph Smith, Jr.

N - indicates that author argues against this child being Joseph's child, or lists someone else as the father.

Ø - indicates that author does not mention the possibility (pro or con) of this being Joseph's child.

Endnote links for above table

Brodie;^[104] Bachman;^[105]; and Compton.^[106]

Conclusions

As always, we are left where we began—with more suspicions and possibilities than certitudes. One's attitude toward Joseph and the Saints will influence, more than anything else, how these conflicting data are interpreted.

The uncertainty surrounding Joseph's offspring is even more astonishing when we appreciate how much such a child would have been valued. The Utah Church of the 19th century was anxious to prove that Joseph had practiced full plural marriage, and that their plural families merely continued what he started. Any child of Joseph's would have been treasured, and the family honoured. There was a firm expectation that even Joseph's sons by Emma would have an exalted place in the LDS hierarchy if they were to repent and return to the Church.^[107] As Alma Allred noted, "Susa Young Gates indicated that [Brigham Young] wasn’t aware of such a child when she wrote that her father and the other apostles were especially grieved that Joseph did not have any issue in the Church."^[108]

In 1884, George Q. Cannon bemoaned this lack of Joseph's posterity:

There may be faithful men who will have unfaithful sons, who may not be as faithful as they might be; but faithful posterity will come, just as I believe it will be the case with the Prophet Joseph's seed. To-day he has not a soul descended from him personally, in this Church. There is not a man bearing the Holy Priesthood, to stand before our God in the Church that Joseph was the means in the hands of God, of founding—not a man to-day of his own blood,—that is, by descent,—to stand before the Lord, and represent him among these Latter-day Saints.^[109]

Brigham and Cannon, a member of the First Presidency, would have known of Joseph's offspring if any of the LDS leadership did. Yet, despite the religious and public relations value which such a child would have provided, they knew of none. It is possible that Joseph had children by his plural wives, but by no means certain. The data are surprisingly ephemeral.

Was the only purpose of polygamy to "multiply and replenish the earth" and "bear the souls of men"?

Doctrine and Covenants states that polygamy is for the purpose of multiplying and replenishing the earth

Doctrine and Covenants 132꞉63 states,

But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they 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.

The institution of the practice of polygamy was part of the "restoration of all things"

Polygamy was not permitted only for the purpose of procreation. Joseph established the practice of plural marriage as part of the "restoration of all things," (D&C 132: 40, 45) and introduced it to a number of others within the Church. This alone may have been the purpose of Joseph's initiation of the practice. The establishment of the practice ultimately did have the effect of "raising up seed"...just not through Joseph Smith.

As Brian Hales writes:

Joseph Smith dictated what is now Doctrine and Covenant section 132 on July 12, 1843. This revelation, along with his other statements, provide several reasons why he believed plural marriage could be introduced among the Latter-day Saints. The earliest justification mentioned by the Prophet was as a part of the "restitution of all things" prophesied in Acts 3:19–21. Old Testament prophets practiced polygamy, so it could be a part of the restoration of "all things" (see D&C 132:40, 45).
Several members who knew Joseph Smith left accounts of him referring to a connection between the two during the Kirtland period.
Benjamin F. Johnson recalled in 1903: "In 1835 at Kirtland I learned from my Sisters Husband, Lyman R. Shirman,^[110] 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."^[111]
A few years later in 1841, Joseph Smith attempted to broach the topic publicly. Helen Mar Kimball remembered: "He [Joseph] astonished his hearers by preaching on the restoration of all things, and said that as it was anciently with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, so it would be again, etc."^[112] Joseph Smith was a prophet-restorer, which helps to explain why the command to practice plural marriage has been labeled a "restoration," even though it is not a salvific ordinance.^[113]

The institution of the practice of polygamy made available the blessings of eternal marriage to everyone

Brian Hales addresses one aspect of D&C 132 that may be overlooked in casual readings:

The fourth reason Joseph Smith gave for the practice of plural marriage dwarfs the other three explanations in significance because it deals with eternity. The message of D&C 132:16–17 states that men and women who are not sealed in eternal marriages during this life (or vicariously later) "remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to all eternity." In other words, "exaltation," the highest salvation, requires eternal marriage. No unmarried person can be exalted according to Joseph Smith’s teachings. Doctrine and Covenants section 132 seems to anticipate more worthy women than men as it approves a plurality of wives^[114] and disallows a plurality of husbands.^[115] Verse 63 states that a plurality of wives is "for their [the wives] exaltation in the eternal worlds." Section 132 supports that eternity was the primary focus of the Joseph’s marriage theology rather than plurality or sexuality. Eternal, rather than plural, marriage was his zenith doctrine. It appears that the crucial objective of polygamy on earth was to allow all worthy women to be eternally sealed to a husband and thus obtain all the ordinances needed for exaltation. According to these teachings, a plurality of wives in some form may be practiced in eternity, but not by all worthy men and women. We know that polygamy on earth is unequal and difficult, but we know nothing about how eternal marriage or eternal plural marriage might feel in eternity. Brigham Young acknowledged that eternal marriage (not plural marriage) is "the thread which runs from the beginning to the end" in God’s plan for His children:

The whole subject of the marriage [not plural marriage] relation is not in my reach, nor in any other man’s reach on this earth. It is without beginning of days or end of years; it is a hard matter to reach. We can tell some things with regard to it; it lays the foundation for worlds, for angels, and for the Gods; for intelligent beings to be crowned with glory, immortality, and eternal lives. In fact, it is the thread which runs from the beginning to the end of the holy Gospel of salvation—of the Gospel of the Son of God; it is from eternity to eternity.^[116]^[117]

Can this be included in the interpretation of D&C 132: 63?

Another author commenting on this verse made a compelling case for this theology being put into D&C 132: 63:

Here is the text in its entirety, from verse 62: "for they 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." [Emphasis added.] You want to get legalistic? Let’s get legalistic. Just for fun, let’s parse the living snot out of this.This clause begins with multiplying and replenishing as a primary justification. Then we get the word "and" thrown in there. You’re reading this as if it says "they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, in order to fulfil the promise…" But that’s not what it says.
"And" suggests we’re about to get a second reason, not a clarification of the first. In fact, a tight, strict-constructionist reading of this verse reveals three different and distinct reasons for plural marriage, not "only" the replenishment of the earth, [. . .]So let’s review the three reasons:

1. Multiply and replenish the earth.
[. . .] D&C 132 is unequivocal on this point, just as it is unequivocal on the two points that follow.

2. Fulfil [sic] "the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world."

What promise? This seems to have reference to the "restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." (Acts 3:21) Joseph cited the need to restore ancient practices to prepare for the Second Coming as a justification for polygamy, and this verse provides a credible scriptural context for him to do so. So just relying on this phrase – plural marriage is acceptable because it fulfills God’s promises – would be justification enough for the practice, at least according to D&C 132.
3. For "their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men."

Oh, this one’s my favorite. Notice the emphasis I added on the "that." The word appears there to create a conditional clause. You claim the bearing of souls is the same thing as multiplying and replenishing the earth, but the actual text insists that the bearing of the souls of men will only be made possible by "exaltation in the eternal worlds." This is a promise of eternal increase, of bearing souls after the earth is no longer around to be replenished. Big, big difference.
And right here, with Reason #3, we have a clear rationale and justification for Joseph being sealed to women with whom he made no attempts to multiply and replenish the earth – i.e. no sex.^[118]

See also Brian Hales' discussion

Common Inaccurate Explanations for Joseph Smith’s Polygamy	Both modern and 19th century members of the Church have proposed a variety of explanations for the practice of plural marriage. Not all of these suggestions can be supported by the available data.
Doctrinal summary	Joseph identified four reasons for the restoration of plural marriage.
Joseph Smith’s Personal Polygamy	Many are quick to declare that Joseph's polygamy sprang from religious extremism and/or sexual desire. This article explores the difficulties that Joseph had with plural marriage, and evidence for what truly motivated his acts.
The Faith of the Nauvoo Polygamists	Why did early members of the Church practice polygamy? Were they all dupes? Easily manipulated? Religious fanatics who believed Joseph could do no wrong? This article explores the initial reactions and eventual decisions made by the first generation of polygamists in Nauvoo.

See also Brian Hales' discussion

Joseph Smith’s Personal Polygamy	Many are quick to declare that Joseph's polygamy sprang from religious extremism and/or sexual desire. This article explores the difficulties that Joseph had with plural marriage, and evidence for what truly motivated his acts.

⍗

Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources	Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), Chapter 24. ( Index of claims ) Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson, Mormonism 101. Examining the Religion of the Latter-day Saints (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2000), Chapter 17. ( Index of claims ) MormonThink.com website (as of 28 April 2012). Page: http://mormonthink.com/joseph-smith-polygamy.htm George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: "...but we called it celestial marriage" (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008), x, xii, 1, 21-22, 31, 44, 49, 54, 116, , 198, 227, 237. ( Index of claims , (Detailed book review)) Search for the Truth DVD (2007) Resources Watchman Fellowship, The Watchman Expositor (Page 3)

Notes

↑ Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 43–44, and 43n43.
↑ Lawrence Foster, Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community, Illini Book Edition ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984 [1981]), 157–158.. Foster notes that "there are a number of family traditions in Utah of children by plural wives of Joseph Smith, I have not been able to investigate them closely enough to determine their possible validity" (311n116). Foster then cites Brodie for examples of such allegations. Foster's work cannot be considered an independent examination of the evidence for or against the paternity of specific individuals.
↑ Bergera writes that four "may or may not" have been fathered by Joseph, citing Todd Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives and Polygamy: A Critical View," in Reconsidering No Man Knows My History: Fawn M. Brodie and Joseph Smith in Retrospect, ed. Newell G. Bringhurst (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1996), xxx. as the authority. See Gary James Bergera, "Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists, 1841–44," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 38/ 3 (Fall 2005): 49–50n115. Interestingly, Compton's article lists only one of these four (Josephine Fisher) as a likely child of Joseph's—Bergera's reference does not support his claim.
↑ Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy Vol. 1, 298–299.
↑ Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 345. ( Index of claims )
↑ Danel W. Bachman, “A Study of the Mormon Practice of Polygamy Before the Death of Joseph Smith,” (1975) (unpublished M.A. thesis, Purdue University), 140.
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 172.
↑ Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 301–302, 345–346, 470–471.
↑ Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 140.
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 172.
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 167–168. gives the following data which argue for the 1840 birthdate: Prescinda's genealogy records, Essom's Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, "A Venerable Woman," Women's Exponent, Prescinda's holographic autobiography. Only Augusta Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret mentions the 1839 date, saying merely, "About this time' her son Oliver was born" (italics added). Clearly the 1840 date has much better attestation.
↑ Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 301–302, 345, 460–462. Brodie was so convinced of Joseph's paternity, that she wrote "If Oliver Buell isn't a Smith them I'm no Brimhall [her mother's family]." - Fawn Brodie to Dale Morgan, Letter, 24 March 1945, Dale Morgan papers, Marriott Library, University of Utah; cited by Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 166. Compton devastates Brodie's circumstantial case for Buell as a child of Joseph (166–173), and DNA has definitively vindicated his skepticism.
↑ Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 137–138.
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 166–173.
↑ Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 139. suggests that this child is more likely than Oliver to be Joseph's, but he remains skeptical.
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 167.
↑ Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 345, 464.
↑ Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 139.
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 164.
↑ Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 465.
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 164.
↑ Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 345, 467.
↑ Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy", 140}}
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 165.
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 165.
↑ Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 345, 464.
↑ Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 139.
↑ Compton points out that "It is striking that Marinda had no children while Orson was on his mission to Jerusalem [15 April 1840–7 December 1842], then became pregnant soon after Orson returned home. (He arrived in Nauvoo on December 7, 1842, and Marinda bore Orson Washington Hyde on November 9, 1843). – Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 165.
↑ Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 345, 464.
↑ Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 139–140.
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 165.
↑ Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 140–141.
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 172.
↑ Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 345, 464.
↑ Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 139–140.
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 165.
↑ R. Scott Lloyd, "Joseph Smith apparently was not Josephine Lyon's father, Mormon History Association speaker says," Deseret News (13 June 2016)
↑ See Ugo A. Perego, Martin Bodner, Alessandro Raveane, Scott R. Woodward, Francesco Montinaro, Walther Parson, and Alessandro Achilli, "Resolving a 150-year-old Paternity Case in Mormon History Using DTC Autosomal DNA Testing of Distant Relatives," Forensic Science International: Genetics, June 6, 2019. doi:10.1016/j.fsigen.2019.05.007.
↑ Josephine R Fisher, affidavit, 24 February 1915, LDS Archives.
↑ Kathryn M. Daynes, More Wives than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840–1910 (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 30. ISBN 0252026810.; citing Rex Eugene Cooper, Promises Made to the Fathers: Mormon Covenant Organization (Publications in Mormon Studies), (University of Utah Press, 1990), 143n1}}
↑ Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 142.
↑ Josephine R Fisher, affidavit, 24 February 1915, LDS Archives.
↑ Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 183. ( Index of claims )
↑ Kate B. Carter, ed., Isaiah M[oses] Coombs from His Diary and Journal (Salt Lake City, Utah: published by Daughters of Utah Pioneers through Utah Printing Company, n.d.), 345}}
↑ Carter, ed., Isaiah M[oses] Coombs from His Diary and Journal, 350–351.
↑ Carter, ed., Isaiah M[oses] Coombs from His Diary and Journal, 339.
↑ See Brian C. Hales, "The Joseph Smith-Sylvia Sessions Plural Sealing: Polyandry or Polygyny?" Mormon Historical Studies 9/1 (Spring 2008), 41–57. [41–57] and Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy Volume 1: History (Salt Lake City, Utah: Greg Kofford Books, 2013), 349–376.
↑ Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy Vol. 1, 293, 297–298.
↑ Angus M. Cannon, Statement of an Interview with Joseph Smith, President of the ‘Reorganites,’ October 12, 1905," LDS Archives; cited by Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 44n43}}
↑ Lucy Walker Kimball, "Recollections," LDS Archives, 41; cited in Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 139.n165}} from Rodney W. Walker and Noel W. Stevenson, Ancestry and Descendants of John Walker [1794–1869] of Vermont and Utah, Descendants of Robert Walker, and Emigrant of 1632 from England to Boston, Mass. (Kaysville, Utah: Inland Printing Co., 1953), 35. Portions also cited by Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 44n43
↑ This need remains to the present. Despite the fact that most RLDS historians have accepted that Joseph Smith did teach and practice plural marriage, some members remain unconvinced. Reorganization conservative and voice for many "fundamentalist" members of the Reorganization Richard Price continues to insist that "The truth [that Joseph did not teach plural marriage] is found in Joseph's denials, and the fact that he had no children by any woman but his wife Emma." – Richard and Pamela Price, Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy—Vision Articles [from Vision Magazine, Vol. 32–46, 48–51, 53–56], vol. 2 (E-book: Price Publishing Company, n.d.)
↑ Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 140–141.; citing Lucy M. Smith, written statement (18 May 1892), in Papers of George A. Smith family, Special Collections, Marriot Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. Bachman notes that a second, undated, signed statement exists which tells "essentially the same story" in the Wilford C. Wood Museum in Bountiful, Utah. (See Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 140–141n175.)
↑ Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, "Remarks," given at BYU 14 April 1905, typescript, BYU.
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 165.
↑ Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 345, 464. gives his birth as 1845, though there is no footnote indicating her source. Frank's death certificate lists his birth in 1846}} Compton follows the date of 1846, citing Howard H. Barron, Orson Hyde: Missionary-Apostle-Colonizer (Salt Lake City: Horizon, 1977), 134 and Ancestral File.
↑ Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 volumes, edited by Brigham H. Roberts, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957), 6:286. Volume 6 link Times and Seasons 5 (15 September 1844): 651}}
↑ Andrew Jenson, LDS Church Chronology: 1805–1914 (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Co., 1914), entry for 6 August 1844. GospeLink.
↑ Frank H. Hyde, State of Utah—Death Certificate, State Board of Health File No. 967300}} Online at <http://wiki.hanksplace.net/index.php/Image:FrankHHyde.jpg>
↑ Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 249.
↑ Ugo A. Perego and Scott R. Woodward, "Reconstructing the Y-Chromosome of Joseph Smith" (paper presented at the Mormon History Association Conference, 28 May 2005); see also Ugo A. Perego et al., "Reconstructing the Y-Chromosome of Joseph Smith Jr.: Genealogical Applications," Journal of Mormon History 32/ 2 (Summer 2005); Carrie A. Moore, "DNA Tests Rule out 2 as Smith Descendants," Deseret Morning News 10 November 2007): Michael DeGroote, "DNA solves a Joseph Smith mystery," Deseret News (9 July 2011). Don Alonzo Smith was likewise ruled out; see letter from Perego to Hales on 6 December 2011 cited in Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy Vol. 1, 296, note i.
↑ Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 301. Brodie includes the picture between 298–299}}
↑ Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 138.
↑ Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 volumes, edited by Brigham H. Roberts, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957), 3:320–321. Volume 3 link
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 168–171.
↑ See Clark V. Johnson, "Northern Missouri," in S. Kent Brown, Donald Q. Cannon, Richard H. Jackson (editors), Historical Atlas of Mormonism (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 42}}
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 170.
↑ Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 volumes, edited by Brigham H. Roberts, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957), 3:320–321. Volume 3 link
↑ Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 volumes, edited by Brigham H. Roberts, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957), 3:327. Volume 3 link
↑ Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 volumes, edited by Brigham H. Roberts, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957), 3:315, 319, 322_323, 327. Volume 3 link
↑ Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 297.
↑ Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 138 makes similar points.
↑ See Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 164–165.
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 166.
↑ Green, Fifteen Years Among the Mormons, 34-35.
↑ Mrs. T.B.H. [Fanny] Stenhouse, "Tell It All": The Story of a Life's Experience in Mormonism (Hartford, Conn.: A.D. Worthington & Company, 1875 [1874]), 618, the footnote confirms the identity of the author as Ettie V. Smith..
↑ Stenhouse, "Tell It All", x.
↑ Stenhouse, "Tell It All", xi-xii.
↑ Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy Vol. 1, 298.
↑ Wilhelm Wyl, Mormon Portraits Volume First: Joseph Smith the Prophet, His Family and Friends (Salt Lake City: Tribune Printing and Publishing Co., 1886), 57. Ann Eliza Young, 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 (Hartford, Conn.: Custin, Gilman & Company, 1876), 66–67. Discussed in Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 140. Also in Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 34–35.
↑ Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 314–315.
↑ This bit of folklore is explored in Maureen Ursenbach Beecher et al., "Emma and Eliza and the Stairs," Brigham Young University Studies 22/ 1 (Fall 1982): 86–96}} RLDS author Richard Price also argues that the physical layout of the Mansion House makes the story as reported by Charles C. Rich unlikely, in "Eliza Snow Was Not Pushed Down the Mansion House Stairs," in Richard Price. "Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy: How Men Nearest the Prophet Attached Polygamy to His Name in Order to Justify Their Own Polygamous Crimes." (n.p.: Price Publishing Company, 2001), chapter 9 <http://restorationbookstore.org/jsfp-index.htm > Price's dogmatic insistence that Joseph never taught plural marriage, however, cannot be sustained by the evidence.
↑ See discussion in Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 140n73.
↑ Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, 2nd edition, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 136.
↑ See, for example, Eliza R. Snow, Woman's Exponent 8 (1 November 1879): 85: "So far as Sister Emma personally is concerned, I would gladly have been silent and let her memory rest in peace, had not her misguided son, through a sinister policy, branded her name with gross wickedness [by quoting her as denying plural marriage]."
↑ Andrew Jenson Papers, MS 17956, CHL, box 49, folder 16.
↑ Brian and Laura Hales, "Sylvia Sessions," Note 28 josephsmithspolygamy.org off-site
↑ This type of error is not new in later anti-Mormon documents. An 1884 document claiming to be by Sarah Pratt (who was by then antagonistic to the Church) describes her as the wife of "Orson Hyde," rather than "Orson Pratt." This error is corrected three times, but the error stands in three other cases. See discussion in Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy Volume 1: History (Salt Lake City, Utah: Greg Kofford Books, 2013), 577. The document cited is [Anonymous], "Workings of Mormonism Related By Mrs. Orson Pratt," typescript of holograph, MS 4048, LDS Church History Library. Sarah Pratt's role, if any, in creating the document is not known. (See Hales, 2:462).
↑ Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 298–299, 308, 345. ( Index of claims ); Nelson Winch Green, Fifteen Years among the Mormons: Being the Narrative of Mrs. Mary Ettie V. Smith, Late of Great Salt Lake City; a Sister of One of the Mormon High Priests, She Having Been Personally Acquainted with Most of the Mormon Leaders, and Long in the Confidence of The "Prophet," Brigham Young (New York: H. Dayton, Publishers, 1860 [1858]), 34–35.; George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: "...but we called it celestial marriage" (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008), 82. ( Index of claims , (Detailed book review))
↑ Todd Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives and Polygamy: A Critical View," in Reconsidering No Man Knows My History: Fawn M. Brodie and Joseph Smith in Retrospect, ed. Newell G. Bringhurst (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1996), 166.
↑ Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 670–673. ( Index of claims ) Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 166–170.
↑ Presendia’s name is also spelled Presenda or Prescindia in contemporary documents. We here use the spelling adopted by her autobiography, also followed by Compton and G. D. Smith.
↑ Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 301. Brodie includes the picture between 298–99. ( Index of claims ) that she wrote, "If Oliver Buell isn’t a Smith then I’m no Brimhall," which was her mother’s name.
↑ Citing Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 670, 673. ( Index of claims )
↑ See Clark V. Johnson, "Northern Missouri," in Historical Atlas of Mormonism, ed. S. Kent Brown, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard H. Jackson (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 42.
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 170.
↑ ^96.0 ^96.1 ^96.2 Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 volumes, edited by Brigham H. Roberts, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957). Volume 3 link
↑ The following all fail to include Oliver Buell as a potential child of Joseph’s: Danel Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 137–38; Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 43–44 and 43 n. 43; Lawrence Foster, Religion and Sexuality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 157–58; Gary James Bergera, "Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists, 1841–44," Dialogue 38/3 (Fall 2005): 49–50 n. 115.
↑ Carrie A. Moore, "DNA tests rule out 2 as Smith descendants," Deseret Morning News, (10 November 2007), off-site (accessed 2 December 2008); Ugo A. Perego et al., "Resolving the Paternities of Oliver N. Buell and Mosiah L. Hancock through DNA," The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 28 (2008): 128–36. For background information, see Ugo A. Perego and Scott R. Woodward, "Reconstructing the Y-Chromosome of Joseph Smith" (paper presented at the Mormon History Association Conference, 28 May 2005); Ugo A. Perego et al., "Reconstructing the Y-Chromosome of Joseph Smith Jr.: Genealogical Applications," Journal of Mormon History 32/2 (Summer 2005): 70–88.
↑ Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith’s Plural Wives," 166.
↑ Green, Fifteen Years, 34–35.
↑ ^101.0 ^101.1 ^101.2 Mrs. T.B.H. [Fanny] Stenhouse, "Tell It All": The Story of a Life's Experience in Mormonism (Hartford, Conn.: A.D. Worthington & Company, 1875 [1874]), The footnote confirms the identity of the author as Ettie V. Smith.
↑ See Bachman, "Plural marriage," 139; Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 43–44 and 43 n. 43; Lawrence Foster, Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 157–58; Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith’s Plural Wives," 167; Gary James Bergera, "Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists, 1841–44," Dialogue 38/3 (Fall 2005): 49–50 n. 115.
↑ Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy Volume 1: History (Salt Lake City, Utah: Greg Kofford Books, 2013), 298.
↑ Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 345, 464.
↑ Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 139.
↑ Compton points out that "It is striking that Marinda had no children while Orson was on his mission to Jerusalem [15 April 1840–7 December 1842], then became pregnant soon after Orson returned home. (He arrived in Nauvoo on December 7, 1842, and Marinda bore Orson Washington Hyde on November 9, 1843}}) – Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 165.
↑ See, for example, Brigham Young, "I have a Few Times in My Life Undertaken to Preach to a Traveling Congregation, but My Sermons have been Very Short, and Far Between," (7 October 1866) from Brigham Young Addresses, 1865–1869, A Chronological Compilation of Known Addresses of the Prophet Brigham Young, edited by Elden J. Watson (Salt Lake City), Vol. 5; cited in The Essential Brigham Young, 187–191; Brigham Young, "Increase of the Saints Since Joseph Smith's Death, &c.," (24 August 1872) reported by David W. Evans, Journal of Discourses Vol. 15 (London: Latter-day Saint's Book Depot, 1873), 136}}
↑ Alma Allred, "Review of Todd Compton's In Sacred Loneliness," (6 December 1999) (no pages).
↑ JD 25:369. (19 Oct 1884). wiki
↑ Sherman was a close friend and devout follower of Joseph Smith. He was called as an apostle but died before learning of the appointment. See Lyndon W. Cook, "Lyman Sherman—Man of God, Would-Be Apostle," 121–24.
↑ Dean R. Zimmerman, I Knew the Prophets: An Analysis of the Letter of Benjamin F. Johnson to George F. Gibbs (Bountiful, Utah: Horizon, 1976), 37–38.
↑ Helen Mar Whitney, Plural Marriage as Taught by the Prophet Joseph: A Reply to Joseph Smith [III], Editor of the Lamoni Iowa "Herald," (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1882), 11; see also Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, eds., A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History (Provo, Utah: Bookcraft, 1992), 142–43. See also Joseph A. Kelting, "Affidavit," March 1, 1894, images 11–16a; see also Kelting, "Statement," Juvenile Instructor 29 (May 1, 1894): 289–90.
↑ Brian Hales, "Plural Marriage Teachings" <http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/theology/joseph-smiths-teachings/#back_ajs-fn-id_4-56> (accessed 18 December 2018)
↑ See vv. 34, 37–39, 52, 55, 61–65.
↑ See vv. 41–42, 61–63.
↑ Brigham Young, October 6, 1854 Journal of Discourses, 2:90. Important in Brigham Young’s comments is his observation that the "marriage relation," referring to eternal marriage, not exclusively plural marriage, comprises the "foundation for worlds … and for Gods."
↑ Brian Hales, "Plural Marriage Teachings" <http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/theology/joseph-smiths-teachings/#link_ajs-fn-id_16-56> (accessed 17 December 2018)
↑ Jim Bennett "A Faithful Reply to the CES Letter from a former CES Employee" <https://canonizer.com/files/reply.pdf> (accessed 30 December 2018)

=End of page=

[1] Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 43–44, and 43n43.

[2] Lawrence Foster, Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community, Illini Book Edition ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984 [1981]), 157–158.. Foster notes that "there are a number of family traditions in Utah of children by plural wives of Joseph Smith, I have not been able to investigate them closely enough to determine their possible validity" (311n116). Foster then cites Brodie for examples of such allegations. Foster's work cannot be considered an independent examination of the evidence for or against the paternity of specific individuals.

[3] Bergera writes that four "may or may not" have been fathered by Joseph, citing Todd Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives and Polygamy: A Critical View," in Reconsidering No Man Knows My History: Fawn M. Brodie and Joseph Smith in Retrospect, ed. Newell G. Bringhurst (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1996), xxx. as the authority. See Gary James Bergera, "Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists, 1841–44," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 38/ 3 (Fall 2005): 49–50n115. Interestingly, Compton's article lists only one of these four (Josephine Fisher) as a likely child of Joseph's—Bergera's reference does not support his claim.

[4] Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy Vol. 1, 298–299.

[5] Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 345. ( Index of claims )

[6] Danel W. Bachman, “A Study of the Mormon Practice of Polygamy Before the Death of Joseph Smith,” (1975) (unpublished M.A. thesis, Purdue University), 140.

[7] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 172.

[8] Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 301–302, 345–346, 470–471.

[9] Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 140.

[10] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 172.

[11] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 167–168. gives the following data which argue for the 1840 birthdate: Prescinda's genealogy records, Essom's Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, "A Venerable Woman," Women's Exponent, Prescinda's holographic autobiography. Only Augusta Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret mentions the 1839 date, saying merely, "About this time' her son Oliver was born" (italics added). Clearly the 1840 date has much better attestation.

[12] Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 301–302, 345, 460–462. Brodie was so convinced of Joseph's paternity, that she wrote "If Oliver Buell isn't a Smith them I'm no Brimhall [her mother's family]." - Fawn Brodie to Dale Morgan, Letter, 24 March 1945, Dale Morgan papers, Marriott Library, University of Utah; cited by Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 166. Compton devastates Brodie's circumstantial case for Buell as a child of Joseph (166–173), and DNA has definitively vindicated his skepticism.

[13] Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 137–138.

[14] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 166–173.

[15] Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 139. suggests that this child is more likely than Oliver to be Joseph's, but he remains skeptical.

[16] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 167.

[17] Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 345, 464.

[18] Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 139.

[19] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 164.

[20] Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 465.

[21] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 164.

[22] Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 345, 467.

[23] Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy", 140}}

[24] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 165.

[25] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 165.

[26] Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 345, 464.

[27] Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 139.

[28] Compton points out that "It is striking that Marinda had no children while Orson was on his mission to Jerusalem [15 April 1840–7 December 1842], then became pregnant soon after Orson returned home. (He arrived in Nauvoo on December 7, 1842, and Marinda bore Orson Washington Hyde on November 9, 1843). – Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 165.

[29] Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 345, 464.

[30] Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 139–140.

[31] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 165.

[32] Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 140–141.

[33] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 172.

[34] Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 345, 464.

[35] Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 139–140.

[36] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 165.

[37] R. Scott Lloyd, "Joseph Smith apparently was not Josephine Lyon's father, Mormon History Association speaker says," Deseret News (13 June 2016)

[38] See Ugo A. Perego, Martin Bodner, Alessandro Raveane, Scott R. Woodward, Francesco Montinaro, Walther Parson, and Alessandro Achilli, "Resolving a 150-year-old Paternity Case in Mormon History Using DTC Autosomal DNA Testing of Distant Relatives," Forensic Science International: Genetics, June 6, 2019. doi:10.1016/j.fsigen.2019.05.007.

[39] Josephine R Fisher, affidavit, 24 February 1915, LDS Archives.

[40] Kathryn M. Daynes, More Wives than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840–1910 (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 30. ISBN 0252026810.; citing Rex Eugene Cooper, Promises Made to the Fathers: Mormon Covenant Organization (Publications in Mormon Studies), (University of Utah Press, 1990), 143n1}}

[41] Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 142.

[42] Josephine R Fisher, affidavit, 24 February 1915, LDS Archives.

[43] Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 183. ( Index of claims )

[44] Kate B. Carter, ed., Isaiah M[oses] Coombs from His Diary and Journal (Salt Lake City, Utah: published by Daughters of Utah Pioneers through Utah Printing Company, n.d.), 345}}

[45] Carter, ed., Isaiah M[oses] Coombs from His Diary and Journal, 350–351.

[46] Carter, ed., Isaiah M[oses] Coombs from His Diary and Journal, 339.

[47] See Brian C. Hales, "The Joseph Smith-Sylvia Sessions Plural Sealing: Polyandry or Polygyny?" Mormon Historical Studies 9/1 (Spring 2008), 41–57. [41–57] and Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy Volume 1: History (Salt Lake City, Utah: Greg Kofford Books, 2013), 349–376.

[48] Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy Vol. 1, 293, 297–298.

[49] Angus M. Cannon, Statement of an Interview with Joseph Smith, President of the ‘Reorganites,’ October 12, 1905," LDS Archives; cited by Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 44n43}}

[50] Lucy Walker Kimball, "Recollections," LDS Archives, 41; cited in Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 139.n165}} from Rodney W. Walker and Noel W. Stevenson, Ancestry and Descendants of John Walker [1794–1869] of Vermont and Utah, Descendants of Robert Walker, and Emigrant of 1632 from England to Boston, Mass. (Kaysville, Utah: Inland Printing Co., 1953), 35. Portions also cited by Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 44n43

[51] This need remains to the present. Despite the fact that most RLDS historians have accepted that Joseph Smith did teach and practice plural marriage, some members remain unconvinced. Reorganization conservative and voice for many "fundamentalist" members of the Reorganization Richard Price continues to insist that "The truth [that Joseph did not teach plural marriage] is found in Joseph's denials, and the fact that he had no children by any woman but his wife Emma." – Richard and Pamela Price, Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy—Vision Articles [from Vision Magazine, Vol. 32–46, 48–51, 53–56], vol. 2 (E-book: Price Publishing Company, n.d.)

[52] Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 140–141.; citing Lucy M. Smith, written statement (18 May 1892), in Papers of George A. Smith family, Special Collections, Marriot Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. Bachman notes that a second, undated, signed statement exists which tells "essentially the same story" in the Wilford C. Wood Museum in Bountiful, Utah. (See Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 140–141n175.)

[53] Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, "Remarks," given at BYU 14 April 1905, typescript, BYU.

[54] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 165.

[55] Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 345, 464. gives his birth as 1845, though there is no footnote indicating her source. Frank's death certificate lists his birth in 1846}} Compton follows the date of 1846, citing Howard H. Barron, Orson Hyde: Missionary-Apostle-Colonizer (Salt Lake City: Horizon, 1977), 134 and Ancestral File.

[56] Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 volumes, edited by Brigham H. Roberts, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957), 6:286. Volume 6 link Times and Seasons 5 (15 September 1844): 651}}

[57] Andrew Jenson, LDS Church Chronology: 1805–1914 (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Co., 1914), entry for 6 August 1844. GospeLink.

[58] Frank H. Hyde, State of Utah—Death Certificate, State Board of Health File No. 967300}} Online at <http://wiki.hanksplace.net/index.php/Image:FrankHHyde.jpg>

[59] Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 249.

[60] Ugo A. Perego and Scott R. Woodward, "Reconstructing the Y-Chromosome of Joseph Smith" (paper presented at the Mormon History Association Conference, 28 May 2005); see also Ugo A. Perego et al., "Reconstructing the Y-Chromosome of Joseph Smith Jr.: Genealogical Applications," Journal of Mormon History 32/ 2 (Summer 2005); Carrie A. Moore, "DNA Tests Rule out 2 as Smith Descendants," Deseret Morning News 10 November 2007): Michael DeGroote, "DNA solves a Joseph Smith mystery," Deseret News (9 July 2011). Don Alonzo Smith was likewise ruled out; see letter from Perego to Hales on 6 December 2011 cited in Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy Vol. 1, 296, note i.

[61] Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 301. Brodie includes the picture between 298–299}}

[62] Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 138.

[63] Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 volumes, edited by Brigham H. Roberts, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957), 3:320–321. Volume 3 link

[64] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 168–171.

[65] See Clark V. Johnson, "Northern Missouri," in S. Kent Brown, Donald Q. Cannon, Richard H. Jackson (editors), Historical Atlas of Mormonism (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 42}}

[66] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 170.

[67] Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 volumes, edited by Brigham H. Roberts, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957), 3:320–321. Volume 3 link

[68] Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 volumes, edited by Brigham H. Roberts, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957), 3:327. Volume 3 link

[69] Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 volumes, edited by Brigham H. Roberts, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957), 3:315, 319, 322_323, 327. Volume 3 link

[70] Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 297.

[71] Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 138 makes similar points.

[72] See Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 164–165.

[73] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 166.

[74] Green, Fifteen Years Among the Mormons, 34-35.

[75] Mrs. T.B.H. [Fanny] Stenhouse, "Tell It All": The Story of a Life's Experience in Mormonism (Hartford, Conn.: A.D. Worthington & Company, 1875 [1874]), 618, the footnote confirms the identity of the author as Ettie V. Smith..

[76] Stenhouse, "Tell It All", x.

[77] Stenhouse, "Tell It All", xi-xii.

[78] Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy Vol. 1, 298.

[79] Wilhelm Wyl, Mormon Portraits Volume First: Joseph Smith the Prophet, His Family and Friends (Salt Lake City: Tribune Printing and Publishing Co., 1886), 57. Ann Eliza Young, 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 (Hartford, Conn.: Custin, Gilman & Company, 1876), 66–67. Discussed in Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 140. Also in Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 34–35.

[80] Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 314–315.

[81] This bit of folklore is explored in Maureen Ursenbach Beecher et al., "Emma and Eliza and the Stairs," Brigham Young University Studies 22/ 1 (Fall 1982): 86–96}} RLDS author Richard Price also argues that the physical layout of the Mansion House makes the story as reported by Charles C. Rich unlikely, in "Eliza Snow Was Not Pushed Down the Mansion House Stairs," in Richard Price. "Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy: How Men Nearest the Prophet Attached Polygamy to His Name in Order to Justify Their Own Polygamous Crimes." (n.p.: Price Publishing Company, 2001), chapter 9 <http://restorationbookstore.org/jsfp-index.htm > Price's dogmatic insistence that Joseph never taught plural marriage, however, cannot be sustained by the evidence.

[82] See discussion in Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 140n73.

[83] Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, 2nd edition, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 136.

[84] See, for example, Eliza R. Snow, Woman's Exponent 8 (1 November 1879): 85: "So far as Sister Emma personally is concerned, I would gladly have been silent and let her memory rest in peace, had not her misguided son, through a sinister policy, branded her name with gross wickedness [by quoting her as denying plural marriage]."

[85] Andrew Jenson Papers, MS 17956, CHL, box 49, folder 16.

[86] Brian and Laura Hales, "Sylvia Sessions," Note 28 josephsmithspolygamy.org off-site

[87] This type of error is not new in later anti-Mormon documents. An 1884 document claiming to be by Sarah Pratt (who was by then antagonistic to the Church) describes her as the wife of "Orson Hyde," rather than "Orson Pratt." This error is corrected three times, but the error stands in three other cases. See discussion in Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy Volume 1: History (Salt Lake City, Utah: Greg Kofford Books, 2013), 577. The document cited is [Anonymous], "Workings of Mormonism Related By Mrs. Orson Pratt," typescript of holograph, MS 4048, LDS Church History Library. Sarah Pratt's role, if any, in creating the document is not known. (See Hales, 2:462).

[88] Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 298–299, 308, 345. ( Index of claims ); Nelson Winch Green, Fifteen Years among the Mormons: Being the Narrative of Mrs. Mary Ettie V. Smith, Late of Great Salt Lake City; a Sister of One of the Mormon High Priests, She Having Been Personally Acquainted with Most of the Mormon Leaders, and Long in the Confidence of The "Prophet," Brigham Young (New York: H. Dayton, Publishers, 1860 [1858]), 34–35.; George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: "...but we called it celestial marriage" (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008), 82. ( Index of claims , (Detailed book review))

[89] Todd Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives and Polygamy: A Critical View," in Reconsidering No Man Knows My History: Fawn M. Brodie and Joseph Smith in Retrospect, ed. Newell G. Bringhurst (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1996), 166.

[90] Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 670–673. ( Index of claims ) Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 166–170.

[91] Presendia’s name is also spelled Presenda or Prescindia in contemporary documents. We here use the spelling adopted by her autobiography, also followed by Compton and G. D. Smith.

[92] Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 301. Brodie includes the picture between 298–99. ( Index of claims ) that she wrote, "If Oliver Buell isn’t a Smith then I’m no Brimhall," which was her mother’s name.

[93] Citing Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 670, 673. ( Index of claims )

[94] See Clark V. Johnson, "Northern Missouri," in Historical Atlas of Mormonism, ed. S. Kent Brown, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard H. Jackson (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 42.

[95] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 170.

[hc-96] 96.0 ^96.1 ^96.2 Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 volumes, edited by Brigham H. Roberts, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957). Volume 3 link

[97] The following all fail to include Oliver Buell as a potential child of Joseph’s: Danel Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 137–38; Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 43–44 and 43 n. 43; Lawrence Foster, Religion and Sexuality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 157–58; Gary James Bergera, "Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists, 1841–44," Dialogue 38/3 (Fall 2005): 49–50 n. 115.

[98] Carrie A. Moore, "DNA tests rule out 2 as Smith descendants," Deseret Morning News, (10 November 2007), off-site (accessed 2 December 2008); Ugo A. Perego et al., "Resolving the Paternities of Oliver N. Buell and Mosiah L. Hancock through DNA," The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 28 (2008): 128–36. For background information, see Ugo A. Perego and Scott R. Woodward, "Reconstructing the Y-Chromosome of Joseph Smith" (paper presented at the Mormon History Association Conference, 28 May 2005); Ugo A. Perego et al., "Reconstructing the Y-Chromosome of Joseph Smith Jr.: Genealogical Applications," Journal of Mormon History 32/2 (Summer 2005): 70–88.

[99] Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith’s Plural Wives," 166.

[100] Green, Fifteen Years, 34–35.

[tell_it-101] 101.0 ^101.1 ^101.2 Mrs. T.B.H. [Fanny] Stenhouse, "Tell It All": The Story of a Life's Experience in Mormonism (Hartford, Conn.: A.D. Worthington & Company, 1875 [1874]), The footnote confirms the identity of the author as Ettie V. Smith.

[102] See Bachman, "Plural marriage," 139; Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 43–44 and 43 n. 43; Lawrence Foster, Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 157–58; Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith’s Plural Wives," 167; Gary James Bergera, "Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists, 1841–44," Dialogue 38/3 (Fall 2005): 49–50 n. 115.

[103] Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy Volume 1: History (Salt Lake City, Utah: Greg Kofford Books, 2013), 298.

[104] Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 345, 464.

[105] Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 139.

[106] Compton points out that "It is striking that Marinda had no children while Orson was on his mission to Jerusalem [15 April 1840–7 December 1842], then became pregnant soon after Orson returned home. (He arrived in Nauvoo on December 7, 1842, and Marinda bore Orson Washington Hyde on November 9, 1843}}) – Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," 165.

[107] See, for example, Brigham Young, "I have a Few Times in My Life Undertaken to Preach to a Traveling Congregation, but My Sermons have been Very Short, and Far Between," (7 October 1866) from Brigham Young Addresses, 1865–1869, A Chronological Compilation of Known Addresses of the Prophet Brigham Young, edited by Elden J. Watson (Salt Lake City), Vol. 5; cited in The Essential Brigham Young, 187–191; Brigham Young, "Increase of the Saints Since Joseph Smith's Death, &c.," (24 August 1872) reported by David W. Evans, Journal of Discourses Vol. 15 (London: Latter-day Saint's Book Depot, 1873), 136}}

[108] Alma Allred, "Review of Todd Compton's In Sacred Loneliness," (6 December 1999) (no pages).

[109] JD 25:369. (19 Oct 1884). wiki

[110] Sherman was a close friend and devout follower of Joseph Smith. He was called as an apostle but died before learning of the appointment. See Lyndon W. Cook, "Lyman Sherman—Man of God, Would-Be Apostle," 121–24.

[111] Dean R. Zimmerman, I Knew the Prophets: An Analysis of the Letter of Benjamin F. Johnson to George F. Gibbs (Bountiful, Utah: Horizon, 1976), 37–38.

[112] Helen Mar Whitney, Plural Marriage as Taught by the Prophet Joseph: A Reply to Joseph Smith [III], Editor of the Lamoni Iowa "Herald," (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1882), 11; see also Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, eds., A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History (Provo, Utah: Bookcraft, 1992), 142–43. See also Joseph A. Kelting, "Affidavit," March 1, 1894, images 11–16a; see also Kelting, "Statement," Juvenile Instructor 29 (May 1, 1894): 289–90.

[113] Brian Hales, "Plural Marriage Teachings" <http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/theology/joseph-smiths-teachings/#back_ajs-fn-id_4-56> (accessed 18 December 2018)

[114] See vv. 34, 37–39, 52, 55, 61–65.

[115] See vv. 41–42, 61–63.

[116] Brigham Young, October 6, 1854 Journal of Discourses, 2:90. Important in Brigham Young’s comments is his observation that the "marriage relation," referring to eternal marriage, not exclusively plural marriage, comprises the "foundation for worlds … and for Gods."

[117] Brian Hales, "Plural Marriage Teachings" <http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/theology/joseph-smiths-teachings/#link_ajs-fn-id_16-56> (accessed 17 December 2018)

[118] Jim Bennett "A Faithful Reply to the CES Letter from a former CES Employee" <https://canonizer.com/files/reply.pdf> (accessed 30 December 2018)

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

[29]

[30]

[31]

[32]

[33]

[34]

[35]

[36]

[37]

[38]

[39]

[40]

[41]

[42]

[43]

[44]

[45]

[46]

[47]

[48]

[49]

[50]

[51]

[52]

[53]

[54]

[55]

[56]

[57]

[58]

[59]

[60]

[61]

[62]

[63]

[64]

[65]

[66]

[67]

[68]

[69]

[70]

[71]

[72]

[73]

[74]

[75]

[76]

[77]

[78]

[79]

[80]

[81]

[82]

[83]

[84]

[85]

[86]

[87]

[88]

[89]

[90]

[91]

[92]

[93]

[94]

[95]

[96]

[97]

[98]

[99]

[100]

Main navigation

User:GregSmith/Articles headings links tables/Plural marriage

Contents

GregSmith/Articles headings links tables/Plural marriage

Can you summarize what we know about whether or not Joseph Smith fathered any children by his plural wives?

The record is frustratingly incomplete regarding the question of which marriages were consummated, it is likewise spotty with regards to whether Joseph fathered children by his plural wives

Table 11‑1 Possible Children of Joseph Smith, Jr., by Plural Marriage

Endnote links for above table

Did Joseph Smith father any children through polygamous marriages?

Did Joseph Smith produce any children by his plural wives?: The case for children

Josephine Fisher (Josephine Lyon)

Other possible children

Did Joseph Smith produce any children by his plural wives? The case against children

George Algernon Lightner and Florentine M. Lightner

Orson W. Hyde and Frank Henry Hyde

Ruled out by DNA Evidence: Oliver Buell, Mosiah Hancock, John Reed Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, Moroni Llewllyn Pratt, and Orrison Smith

= Scant evidence: Sarah Elizabeth Holmes, Hannah Ann Dibble, Loren Walker Dibble, Joseph Albert Smith, and Carolyn Delight

Fanny Alger and Eliza R. Snow: Miscarriages?

What did the husband of Sylvia Sessions know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?

Sylvia was married to Windsor Lyon by Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, and was sealed to Joseph Smith at some point after she was married

Daughter Josephine was proven not to be a daughter of Joseph Smith, Jr. through DNA analysis

See Biography: A biography of Sylvia Sessions may be viewed on Brian and Laura Hales' website "josephsmithspolygamy.org".

Did Prescindia Buell (or Sarah Pratt, or Mrs. Hyde) not know who was the father of her son?

The source for this claim is a notoriously unreliable anti-Mormon work. It makes several errors of fact in the very paragraph in which the claim is made

Is the source reliable?

Errors of fact

Such an admission would be out of character for a believing Utah woman of the 19th century

It is difficult for Joseph to have even had contact with her at the proper time to conceive a child

Did Joseph Smith father children by polyandrous plural wife Prescindia Buell?

All those who have been definitively DNA tested so far—Oliver Buell, Mosiah Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, Moroni Pratt, and Orrison Smith—have been excluded as children of Joseph Smith

The geography

The DNA

What is the current state of the evidence for proving or disproving that Joseph Smith had children by his plural wives?

As always, we are left where we began—with more suspicions and possibilities than certitudes

Table 2

Table 11‑2 Possible Children of Joseph Smith, Jr., by Plural Marriage

Endnote links for above table

Conclusions

Was the only purpose of polygamy to "multiply and replenish the earth" and "bear the souls of men"?

Doctrine and Covenants states that polygamy is for the purpose of multiplying and replenishing the earth

The institution of the practice of polygamy was part of the "restoration of all things"

The institution of the practice of polygamy made available the blessings of eternal marriage to everyone

Can this be included in the interpretation of D&C 132: 63?

Footer

Our Friends

Follow Us

Donate to FAIR

See Biography:

A biography of Sylvia Sessions may be viewed on Brian and Laura Hales' website "josephsmithspolygamy.org".