Mormon Polygamy: A History - Hardcover

Wagoner, Van; Van Wagoner, Richard S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0941214354 ISBN 13: 9780941214353

Publisher: Signature Books, 1986

Synopsis

In this, the first comprehensive survey of Mormon polygamy—from nineteenth-century Ohio to twentieth-century Utah—Richard S. Van Wagoner details with precision and detachment the tumultuous reaction among Mormons and non-Mormons to plural marriage. Drawing heavily on first-hand accounts and recent scholarly research, the author carefully outlines the philosophical underpinnings of the practice, the institutional administration of policies regulating polygamy, the opposition from within and without the church, and the personal trauma often associated with plural marriage.

What emerges is a portrait of polygamy that neither discounts nor exaggerates the historical evidence but presents it as sympathetically as possible in the context of the times. Van Wagoner offers neither condemnation nor apologetics. All relevant contemporary accounts are examined and interpreted , and no period of Mormon history emphasized over another. Even present-day polygamous splinter groups are examined. The result is a systematic view unavailable in studies of isolated periods or repetitions of folklore which disguised the ubiquitous and fascinating story of polygamy as it is really was.

About this title

About the Author

 Richard S. Van Wagoner is a clinical audiologist and Lehi City Historian, author of Lehi: Portraits of a Utah Town and other acclaimed works, including Mormon Polygamy: A History and Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess (winner of Best Book Awards from the Mormon History Association and John Whitmer Historical Association). He is co-author of the biographical resource, A Book of Mormons, and has published in Brigham Young University Studies, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Sunstone, the Utah Historical Quarterly, and elsewhere. He is currently writing a biography of Joseph Smith.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

 Chapter 7

Following the Brethren

Some Mormon observers were convinced that the deaths of the Smith brothers was evidence of divine retribution, the act of an angry God. William Law, who had left Nauvoo after the destruction of his Nauvoo Expositor, wrote in a 20 July 1844 letter to a friend, “While the wicked slay the wicked I believe I can see the hand of a blasphemed God stretched out in judgment, the cries of innocence and virtue have ascended up before the throne of God, and he has taken sudden vengeance” (Law to Hill). And Sidney Rigdon wrote, “If Joseph sinned[,] which he did, the Lord has cut him off from his stewardship ... he contracted a whoring spirit and ... the Lord smote him for this thing” (Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate, Jan. 1845).

Contrary to the views of those who saw in it the doom of the Mormon movement, the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, though disruptive to the Mormon community for a time, actually unified the Saints.1 Sidney Rigdon, the only surviving member of the First Presidency, returned to Nauvoo shortly after the Smiths’ deaths and presented himself to the Saints as “guardian” of the church “to build [it] up to Joseph as he had begun it.” But he was rejected as an interim president by the majority of Mormons in favor of the leadership of the Quorum of the Twelve under Brigham Young. Rigdon’s continued efforts to make himself the rallying standard for Mormonism resulted in his excommunication in the fall of 1844. Returning to Pittsburg, he attempted to gather about him leaderless remnants of the Mormon community.

Rigdon began to publicly denounce polygamy in his Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate shortly after he left Nauvoo. Referring to the Quorum of the Twelve as the “Spiritual Wife Fraternity,” he reasoned in the 15 October 1844 issue that “it would seem almost impossible that there could be found a set of men and women, in this age of the world, with the revelations of God in their hands, who could invent and propagate doctrines so ruinous to society, so debasing and demoralising as the doctrine of a man having a plurality of wives.” Decrying the “transactions of the secret chambers,” he announced that “the Twelve and their adherents have endeavored to carry on this spiritual wife business in secret.” Moreover, he added, they “have gone to the most shameful and desperate lengths to keep it from the public. First, insulting innocent females, and when they resented the insult ... would assail their characters by lying.” Rigdon vented his dismay at the deceptive practices of church leaders: “How often these men and their accomplices stood up before the congregation, and called God and all the holy Angels to witness, that there was no such doctrine taught in the church; and it has now come to light.”

Church leaders in Nauvoo denounced Rigdon’s accusations. “Wo to the man,” the 15 November 1844 Times and Seasons warned, “who will thus willfully lie to injure an innocent people! The law of the land and the rules of the Church do not allow one man to have more than one wife alive at once.” But Rigdon knew better, and he was determined to make his knowledge public. On 6 April 1845, the fifteenth anniversary of the founding of Mormonism, he had himself ordained president of the Church of Christ. His call for a reformation based on the principles of the Kirtland church appealed to a few former Mormons, including his son-in-law George W. Robinson, former apostle William McLellin, Nauvoo dissenter Oliver F. Olney, and anti-polygamous Nauvoo Stake high councilman Austin Cowles.

Though the group was short-lived, its attack on polygamy was zealous. “Did the Lord ever tell any people,” Rigdon asked in the 15 February 1845 issue of the Messenger and Advocate, “that sleeping with their neighbor’s wives and daughters had any thing to do with preparing the way of the Savior’s coming[?]“2 His expose of Nauvoo polygamy was confirmed by former member of the First Presidency William Law in the spring of 1845 when Law and William McLellin arrived at a 16 February Kirtland conference of Rigdon’s followers. Addressing the congregation, Law “settled the question forever on the public mind,” Rigdon wrote, “in relation to the spiritual wife system, and the abominations concerning it.” Law reported that “Joseph Smith and others had attempted to get him into it, and in order to do so had made him acquainted with many things about it” (Messenger and Advocate, 15 March 1845).

Despite his long-standing opposition to polygamy, and published condemnations of the practice, Rigdon would be accused of introducing the system within his declining congregation. Apostle Parley P. Pratt turned Rigdon’s accusations against him in a 1 July 1845 letter in the British Millennial Star, warning the Saints to “beware of seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils, as first introduced by John C. Bennett, under the name of ‘spiritual wife’ doctrine; and still agitated by the Pittsburg Seer, and his followers under the same title.” Apostle John Taylor, editor of the 15 November 1844 Times and Seasons, published a letter from “An Old Man of Israel” which denounced the “sham quotations of Sidney Rigdon and his clique, under the ‘dreadful splendor’ of ‘spiritual wifery’ which is brought into the account as graciously as if the law of the land allowed a man a plurality of wives.”

There is no solid evidence that Rigdon ever advocated polygamy.3 His son John maintained that Rigdon “took the ground no matter from what source it came whether from Prophet seer revelator or angels from heaven [that] it was a false doctrine and should be rejected” (Rigdon, “Life Story,” 184). Yet accusations linking Rigdon to polygamy and insinuating that his daughter Nancy was a prostitute undermined his status as the only surviving member of the First Presidency. Few people took his leadership claims seriously; he never attained a large following. John Rigdon later noted that his father “was not a leader of men ... the Mormon church ... made no mistake in placing Brigham Young at the head of the church ... if Sidney Rigdon had been chosen to take that position the church would have tottered and fallen” (ibid.).

Rumors of polygamy followed another prominent leader of post-martyrdom Mormonism, James Jesse Strang, a multi-talented New Yorker with a background similar to Joseph Smith’s own. Though never a member of the Mormon hierarchy, the resourceful Strang claimed himself Smith’s successor on the strength of a 9 June 1844 letter he said he had received from the prophet. “If evil befall me,” the letter promised, “thou shall lead the flock to pleasant pastures.” Early in August 1844 Strang declared that an angel had appeared to him at the “very hour” of Smith’s death on 27 June 1844 and had ordained him the prophet’s successor. Several prominent followers of the prophet, impressed by the charismatic similarities of the two men, joined with the Strangites.4 Establishing his disciples on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan, Strang had himself crowned “King James the First” on 8 July 1850. Theatrically inclined George J. Adams placed a metal crown on Strang’s head and draped across the shoulders of the king-to-be a bright red robe which had served as a stage prop. Amidst the pomp and ceremony Strang read to the congregation for the first time his “Book of the Law of the Lord,” a portion of which he claimed was a translation of the “plates of Laban,” part of the Book of Mormon record.

Strang, like Joseph Smith, publicly denounced polygamy. The king’s private posture, however, also like the prophet’s, radically differed from his public position. Former Mormon apostle John E. Page, a follower of Strang, wrote, “We have talked hours, yea, even days with President Strang, and we find to our utmost satisfaction that he does not believe in or cherish the doctrine of polygamy in any manner, shape, or form imaginable whatever” (Fitzpatrick 1970, 74). To underscore his opposition, Strang published the following official denial in the 12 August 1847 Voree Herald: “I have uniformly and distinctly discarded and declared heretical the so-called ‘spiritual wife system’ and everything connected therewith.” Yet one year later he took his first plural wife, Elvira Eliza Field, who traveled about the country with him masquerading as his male secretary, “Charlie Douglass.” While the community on Beaver Island eventually reached seven hundred members, only about twenty families were polygamous. Strang himself had five wives and fourteen children. And like Smith, he too came to a violent end. On 16 June 1856, Thomas Bedford, a Beaver Island resident who had been publicly whipped on Strang’s direction, fatally shot the king.

Initially Joseph Smith’s family may have supported Strang’s succession claims. For example, the July 1846Voree Herald contained a certificate endorsing Strang, reportedly prepared by the prophet’s brother William and signed by the entire Smith family, except Emma, Smith’s widow. More than fifty years later the certificate was repudiated in the Saints’ Herald, the official voice of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS). Regardless of the authenticity of the Smith family statement, the Strangite movement proved to be the fertile soil in which the RLDS church germinated.5

Opposition to polygamy motivated three influential members of Strang’s congregation to withdraw from the group. Jason W. Briggs, Henry H. Deam, and Zenas H. Gurley, Sr., directed on 6 April 1853 the “New Organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,” which eventually became The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. For a period of seven years, from 1853 to 1860, Jason W. Briggs, as president of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, presided over the movement. In 1860, Joseph Smith III, the eldest son of Joseph Smith, Jr., became the first president of the RLDS church.

In his 6 April 1860 acceptance speech, delivered in the presence of his mother, young Joseph left no doubt as to where he stood on polygamy. “There is but one principle taught by the leaders of any faction of this people that I hold in utter abhorrence,” he announced; “that is a principle taught by Brigham Young and those believing in him.” Elaborating on his hatred of polygamy, the young prophet attested: “I have been told that my father taught such doctrines. I have never believed it, and never can believe it. If such things were done, then I believe they never were of Divine authority. I believe my father was a good man, and a good man never could have promulgated such doctrines” (Tullidge 1880, 608-11).

Opposition to polygamy and other militant theocratic innovations attributed to his father became the hallmark of the leadership of Joseph Smith III.6 His opposition to such practices probably originated with his mother. Though evidence indicates that Emma possessed intimate knowledge of not only polygamy but also Endowment Council and Council of Fifty matters, she did not pass this information down to her children. Robert Flanders, an RLDS historian, has pointed out that “while it seems evident that Emma taught her children Christian principles and virtues, she never talked much to them of the old church and its affairs. There is no indication that she prejudiced them in any way, although she did maintain in them respect for their father.” Flanders sees the “ignorance later shown by Joseph and Alexander about church history” as evidence that “their mother had been for the most part silent on the subject” (1954, 11).

The reality of her husband’s polygamous relations undoubtedly evoked painful memories for Emma. It may be that she refused to give tongue to memory simply because she could not face the shadows of the past. Emma, like her son Joseph, spent a lifetime struggling to bring honor and respectability to the Smith name. An admission that Joseph was a polygamist was impossible for both of them.

Emma, in an April 1867 interview with a Reorganite elder, Jason W. Briggs, would not even admit to a personal knowledge of her husband’s revelation on “celestial marriage” (Shook 1914, 185-86). Her sons, shying away from what must have been a very sensitive subject, apparently never asked her about their father’s involvement in polygamy, despite the urgings of many to “ask your mother, she knows.” In 1879, however, Joseph and Alexander “decided to present to her a few prominent questions, which were penned and agreed upon.” Emma responded to the questions as follows: “Q. What about the revelation on polygamy? Did Joseph Smith have anything like it? What of spiritual wifery? A. There was no revelation on either polygamy, or spiritual wives. There were some rumors or something of the sort, of which I asked my husband. He assured me that all there was to it was that, in a chat about plural wives, he had said, “Well, such a system might possibly be, if everybody was agreed to it, and would behave as they should; but they would not; and besides, it was contrary to the will of heaven.” No such thing as polygamy, or spiritual wifery, was taught, publicly or privately, before my husband’s death, that I have now, or ever had, any knowledge of. Q. Did he not have other wives than yourself? A. He had no other wife but me; nor did he to my knowledge ever have. Q. Did he not hold marital relation with women other than yourself? A. He did not have improper relations with any woman that ever came to my knowledge. Q. Was there nothing about spiritual wives that you recollect? A. At one time my husband came to me and asked me if I had heard certain rumors about spiritual marriages, or anything of the kind; and assured me that if I had, that they were without foundation; that there was no such doctrine, and should never be with his knowledge, or consent. I know that he had no other wife or wives than myself, in any sense, either spiritual or otherwise” (“Last Testimony,” 289-90).

Emma’s interview with her sons was not published until after her death. This led to speculation from some Utah Mormons that the entire interview was a sham. But the document accurately portrayed the public posture of both Emma and Joseph Smith. Irrefutable evidence in letters and journals of Smith’s closest Nauvoo associates, particularly William Clayton and Emily Partridge, portray the contradictory private and public positions of the prophet and his wife. Even statements by founding RLDS churchmen dispute the Smiths’ public posture by affirming the prophet’s practice of polygamy.

Some have admitted that Joseph Smith became involved in polygamy but later tried to disentangle himself from the practice. Brigham Young conceded in 1866 that “Joseph was worn out with it, but as to his denying any such thing I never knew that he denied the doctrine of polygamy. Some have said that he did, but I do not believe he ever did” (Unpublished Address). But Smith’s niece, Mary Bailey, writing in 1908 said that her uncle finally “awoke to a realization of the whole miserable affair [and] ... tried to withdraw from and put down the Evil into which he had fallen” (Newell and Avery 1984, 179). Prominent early leaders of the RLDS c...

Edition details

• Publisher: Signature Books
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0941214354
• ISBN 13: 9780941214353
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 307