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Bruce mentioned in his comments this week that my last post was speculative. Someone else objected to my use of “midrash” in this Faithful Joseph series, saying my “midrash” was pure fiction. They particularly noted my speculation about Eliza’s poem: “[Meg] hasn’t look[ed] at the original document but… proposes that the journal has been altered (based upon what evidence, save that it doesn’t help her theory as is?)…”

This caused me to rock back on my heals, chin-stroking, and wonder how I had violated the rules of scholarly etiquette practiced by those trying to figure out Joseph’s motives and activities regarding plural marriage. Why is Alex Beam’s remix portraying a dangerously manipulative Joseph^[1] accepted while my methods are not? I was concerned in particular because if someone sufficiently orthodox to visit M* isn’t understanding my method, it’s a sure bet those not inclined to see Joseph as honorable will simply reject this reconstruction as the fevered imaginings of a deluded naive.

What you don’t know and I haven’t demonstrated, is the way I think, as a scientist. It’s similar to what we all do, but I suspect it is more rigorous in my case, and certainly rigorous in how I’ve treated the subject of Joseph and plural marriage. Continue reading Making it up versus the Scientific Method

1. ^[1]Alex Beam, American Crucifixion: The Murder of Joseph Smith and the Fate of the Mormon Church, April 22, 2014.↩

My husband and I have attended events in the home of Greg Prince for the past several years. It’s been interesting, and I feel an affection for Greg.

This Sunday Greg will be hosting a Study Group at his home featuring Alex Beam, author of American Crucifixion, a book recounting many events associated with the life, death, and legacy of Joseph Smith. In preparation for Sunday, we have purchased the book.

Coincidentally, someone forwarded a link to an except from Alex Beam’s book posted on Salon. I suppose they thought that I would rise up from my leisurely repose and contradict Mr. Beam.

As I read the excerpt, which jams polygamy-related stories in a manner admitting only one interpretation, I found nothing that isn’t common knowledge. There is nothing in that excerpt that asserts anything new. Continue reading American Crucifixion: The Murder of Joseph Smith and the Fate of the Mormon Church

It appears many who read Millennial Star are tending to personal concerns on Saturdays and religious commitments on Sundays.

At least that’s my hypothesis for why relatively few individuals responded to my examination posted Sunday showing Eliza R. Snow’s own poetry indicates she was seduced by Bennett and places the death of the child that resulted in November 1842.

Then there’s the discussion I put up about Ordain Women.

So for those who are waiting for a Monday tweet to prompt them to read interesting content, here’s your tweet. For any who do not agree with me, this is also a formal challenge to tell me what facts inform your opinion that I am wrong. Opinions uninformed by facts will be found to be less persuasive, possibly ridiculous (literally inviting ridicule).

The game is on.

[This post is part of a series on Joseph Smith’s Polygamy. To read from the beginning or link to previously published posts, go to A Faithful Joseph.]

Eliza Snow is arguably the most prominent woman in early Mormon history. Though Emma was Joseph’s wife and help-meet, Eliza Snow would go west with the Saints. She was an adviser to Brigham Young, president of the Relief Society, and was influential in the formation of both the children’s ministry (Primary) and the youth ministry (now called Young Men and Young Women). Eliza was prominent in the campaign that won female suffrage in Utah in 1870 – fully fifty years before all women in the rest of the United States would receive the right to vote.^[1]

Besides all these accomplishments, Eliza Snow was regarded as a prophetess, and her hundreds of poems were treasured, whether they conveyed doctrine (e.g., the concept of a Mother in Heaven conveyed by the hymn “Oh My Father) or comforted those who had recently lost an infant.^[2]

Eliza as Deceitful Seducer

In 1984 Doubleday published Mormon Enigma, a biography of Emma Smith written by Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery. In 1984 there was great excitement about a number of previously undiscovered documents from early Mormon history, including documents painting Joseph Smith as a being committed to a magical worldview, telling of a vision of a white salamander, and documenting Joseph’s use of magic to dig for money.

As Linda Newell and Valeen Avery put together their view of Joseph’s wife, Emma, they used these new documents to inform their understanding of the man Emma loved. They found Joseph to be a flawed man who wedded and bedded women behind Emma’s back. The betrayal Val Avery felt Joseph had practiced caused her so much distress that she could only write about Joseph and these women for a few minutes before she would literally feel the gorge rise within her. Val would vomit, then go lay down to regain her composure enough to write for a few more minutes.^[3] The women Newell and Avery believed Joseph had bedded were anathema. Of all Emma’s friends Newell and Avery said bedded Emma’s husband, Eliza Snow was the worst. She was Emma’s confidante in the Relief Society. Emma had taken Eliza into her own home. In return, the authors believed, Eliza had betrayed Emma by sleeping with Emma’s husband under Emma’s own roof. Continue reading Eliza and the Stairs

1. ^[1]Wikipedia article on Eliza Rocxy Snow, available online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliza_Snow, retrieved April 15, 2014.↩
2. ^[2]Eliza R. Snow: The Complete Poetry, edited by Jill Mulvany Derr and Karen Lynn Davidson, 2009.↩
3. ^[3]Recounted by Jan Shipps in private conversation on May 23, 2010 in the home of Gregory Prince, documented in my post “Mormon Enigma (ex ante), available online at http://www.megstout.com/blog/2010/05/24/mormon-enigma-ex-ante/, retrieved April 15, 2014.↩

[This post is part of a series on Joseph Smith’s Polygamy. To read from the beginning or link to previously published posts, go to A Faithful Joseph.]

If Joseph uncovered Bennett’s evil doing by January 13, 1842, we would expect to see evidence to that effect. Last week I proposed the 1842 census of Nauvoo and the formation of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo were two such evidences, but both of these lag mid-January by several weeks.

However it is only five days after January 13th that we see William Marks, Nauvoo Stake President, suggesting the bishops should have “the Priests visit from house to house…”^[1]

A member of the High Council wondered what response should be given if the bishops were to refuse this request. Apparently Saints in Nauvoo were as overwhelmed as any of us in modern times.

Hyrum Smith replied that the High Council had authority to deal with them for such a refusal, “that the Council should call on the Presidents of the Lesser Priest-hood to attend the Council & receive instruction… That it was necessary for them to go from house to house, to his house, and to every house and see that every family done their duty…”^[2]

Apparently Joseph had nearly immediately set Hyrum Smith and William Marks on a path that might help find the wrong-doers. But Joseph had to walk a fine line. Neither Hyrum Smith nor William Marks had been read in regarding the New and Everlasting Covenant, nor had the vast majority of the members of the “Lesser Priest-hood” who would be conducting the house to house visits. Continue reading Arraigning the Band of Brothers

1. ^[1]Minutes of the High Council of the Church of Jesus Christ of Nauvoo, Illinois, 1840-45, entry for January the 18th 1842. The originals are currently in LDS church archives. Copies are available at various Utah and Western libraries.↩
2. ^[2]ibid.↩

[This post is part of a series on Joseph Smith’s Polygamy. To read from the beginning or link to previously published posts, go to A Faithful Joseph.]

On this 172nd anniversary of the founding of Relief Society, let me tell you of the manhunt I believe Joseph and Emma Smith conducted together, trying to identify those abusing the women of Nauvoo during the fall and winter of 1841/1842. The researchers before me have been certain the artifacts of this hunt were signs either of Joseph’s sexual cupidity or Emma’s hostility. And yet to my eye the man and his wife seem knit together in the same purpose.

As Emma and Joseph became aware of the activities of Bennett’s sex ring, I suggest that Joseph went from sealing women to himself for the purpose of obeying the commandment to sealing women to himself as part of either securing their loyalty or offering them protection. As some of these women were also working closely with Emma, I believe Joseph was keeping Emma informed of the situation. She had an absolute and clear need to know, particularly after March 17, 1842. Continue reading Hunt in the City Beautiful

[This post is part of a series on Joseph Smith’s Polygamy. To read from the beginning or link to previously published posts, go to A Faithful Joseph.]

Prior to the fall of 1841, an angel reportedly appeared to Joseph twice, commanding him to establish the principle of celestial marriage. But in the fall of 1841, the angel would return with sword in hand. Joseph had to establish the principle, or his position and very life were forfeit.

Something had changed. God could no longer permit Joseph to take his own sweet time establishing celestial marriage among members of the Church. In the final days of 1841 Joseph enlisted the aid of Dimick Huntington. Like Joseph Bates Noble, Dimick would remain true to Joseph beyond death.^[1]

The four women Joseph would marry in response to the angel’s threat were women who were married to other men.^[2] I believe Joseph did this because he had already contracted one marriage that did not involve sex. Perhaps he was already aware of how unhappy lack of intimacy had made Louisa Beaman. It would be unreasonable to expect other single women to be satisfied with a marriage that didn’t involve physical intimacy. But these married women would be relieved if the celestial marriage were purely ceremonial.
Continue reading The Angel, the Sword, and the Heron Seduction

1. ^[1]Dimick and his brother, William, were among the four men Emma would entrust with the secret reburial of Joseph’s remains in February, 1845. The other two trusted men were Jonathan Harriman Holmes and Gilbert Goldsmith, son of Elizabeth Durfee.↩
2. ^[2]In one case, Agnes Coolbrith Smith, the husband had died.↩