Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 4

FAIR Answers—back to home page

Response to claims made in "Chapter 4" (pp. 241-324)

Chapter 3 (pp. 159-240)

A FAIR Analysis of: Nauvoo Polygamy: "... but we called it celestial marriage", a work by author: George D. Smith

Chapter 5 (pp. 325-351)

Response to claims made in Nauvoo Polygamy, "Chapter 4" (pp. 241-324)

Jump to details:

• Response to claim: 243 - John Bennett's marriage record "may have been deleted" after his disagreement with Joseph Smith
• Response to claim: 244 - Joseph Smith and William Clayton were "conspiring to alter" his wife's "marital status"
• Response to claim: 245 - Instead of waiting for his wife Sarah's arrival, William Clayton married his legal wife’s sister Margaret on April 27
• Response to claim: 247 - William Clayton wrote on October 19 about needing to protect "the truth" by telling untruths
• Response to claim: 247 - William Clayton was personally suspected of "having had unlawful intercourse with women"

Response to claim: 243 - John Bennett's marriage record "may have been deleted" after his disagreement with Joseph Smith

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

The book speculates that John Bennett's marriage record "may have been deleted" after his disagreement with Joseph Smith.

Author's sources:

1. No source provided.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources

There no evidence that Bennett's relationships were ever sanctioned, much less recorded.

• John C. Bennett

John C. Bennett (edit)

Response to claim: 244 - Joseph Smith and William Clayton were "conspiring to alter" his wife's "marital status"

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

The book speculates that Joseph and Clayton were "conspiring to alter" his wife's "marital status."

Author's sources:

1. No source provided.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader

There is no evidence to support this speculation.

• Loaded and prejudicial language
• Polygamy/William Clayton
• Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)

William Clayton (edit)

Response to claim: 245 - Instead of waiting for his wife Sarah's arrival, William Clayton married his legal wife’s sister Margaret on April 27

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

 Author's quote: "…instead of waiting for [Sarah’s] arrival, [Clayton] married his legal wife’s sister Margaret on April 27. This was before Sarah’s ship had even set sail from England."

Author's sources:

1. Smith, Intimate Chronicle, 94, 99, 107, 556.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader

The author strives to paint Clayton as unfaithful to both his first wife (having already had an inappropriate level of emotional intimacy with another woman and the woman against whom he "conspired" with Joseph.

• Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)

William Clayton (edit)

Response to claim: 247 - William Clayton wrote on October 19 about needing to protect "the truth" by telling untruths

The author(s) make(s) the following claim:

*The author states:

…Clayton wrote on October 19 about needing to protect "the truth" by telling untruths, in this case the strategic charade of publicly rebuking someone while privately embracing them. Clayton wrote about Smith's advice: "Says he[,] just keep her [Margaret, his plural wife] at home and brook it and if they raise trouble about it and bring you before me I will give you an awful scourging and probably cut you off from the church and then I will baptise you and set you ahead as good as ever." [Italics and quotation marks as in The author's original.]

Author's sources:

1.  Citation errorThe author's source is given as "Smith, Intimate Chronicle, 122 (emphasis added)." No italics have been added by the author to any portion of Clayton's journal. All italicized material is G.D. Smith's words, not Clayton's.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources

The full text from the primary source is the material from "Says he..." to "...good as ever." The emphasis in italics with quotation marks is all the author's—none of the material about protecting "the truth" by telling untruths derives from Clayton or Joseph Smith. Yet, the use of quotation marks and italics, which George D. Smith says have been added to the primary source, makes it appear as if these are Clayton's or Joseph's words, not the author's.

William Clayton (edit)

Response to claim: 247 - William Clayton was personally suspected of "having had unlawful intercourse with women"

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

The author then describes Clayton’s 1853 mission to England, during which, “instead of persuading the flock of the correctness of [polygamy], Clayton contributed to defections and was personally suspected of ‘having had unlawful intercourse with women.’”

Author's sources:

1. Smith, Intimate Chronicle, xlviii-l.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader

Two hundred pages later, we learn that this suspicion was only because of his [Clayton’s] “discussion of plural marriage” (p. 445), and his [Smith’s] own introduction to Clayton’s journals tell us that the charge was actually raised by an “apostate Mormon,” whom Clayton claimed had maliciously distorted his words, leading to what he called his life’s most painful experience.

• Polygamy/William Clayton
• Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)

William Clayton (edit)

249

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

 Author's quote: "The prophet went on to ask Benjamin [F. Johnson] for his sister Almera [in plural marriage], provoking his protégé to comment that if Smith did anything to 'dishonor or debauch his sister, he would have Benjamin to contend with. As Smith casually deflected this threat, his 'eye did not move from mine,' Johnson reported."

Author's sources:

1. Johnson to Gibbs, Apr.-Oct. 1903, 28–29.

FAIR's Response

• The author downplays Benjamin's actual threat:

"Brother Joseph This is Something I did not Expect & I do not understand it—You know whether it is right. I do not. I want to do just as you tell me, and I will try. But if I [ever] should Know that you do this to Dishonor & debauch my Sister I will kill you as Shure as the Lord lives"

• Joseph does not "casually deflect" as is claimed. He promises revelation:

"while his eye did not move from mine He Said with a Smile, in a soft tone ‘But Benjamin you will never know that. But you will know the principle is true and will greatly Rejoice in what it will bring to you…"

• Plural marriage spiritual manifestations—Benjamin_Johnson

250

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

Benjamin Johnson is said to have been "[i]mpressed by the prophet's inner calm but not fully convinced."

Author's sources:

1. Johnson to Gibbs, Apr.-Oct. 1903, 28–29.

FAIR's Response

• The author fails to tell us that Joseph promised Benjamin that he would know for himself. He is not impressed by Joseph's calm, but by Joseph's prophetic assurance of revelation directly to Benjamin:

"But.how I asked. Can I teach my Sister when I mYself do not understand…'But you will See & underStand it' he Said and when you open your mouth to talk to your Sister light will come to you & your mouth will be full. & your toung lose."

• By not telling us this, The author hides the true reason for Johnson's decision to approach his sister, and the fact that his conversion (as recounted by the author) was a fulfillment of Joseph's prophetic promise.
• Plural marriage spiritual manifestations—Benjamin_Johnson

252

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

The author claims that Joseph "was able to wrap himself in the authority of the Bible…."

Author's sources:

1. No source provided.

FAIR's Response

• Joseph appealed to Biblical models, but always insisted that his authority was his own, from God, not derived from a Bible reading.
• Loaded and prejudicial language

252

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

The author speculates: "In a theological explication, perhaps partly inspired by convenience, Smith saw the church hierarchy as an extended family that would continue to live together in an afterlife community."

Author's sources:

1. Quinn, Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, 212; Extensions of Power, 163–97; Herbert R. Larsen, "Familism in Mormon Social Structure," Ph.D. diss., U of Utah, 1954.

FAIR's Response

• The author here suggests that Joseph's motivations were mercenary and pragmatic, rather than of sincere conviction. Smith ignores the literature on Joseph's deep-felt need and commitment to binding friendship in his personal life and theology. Such a pervasive theme in his personal and scriptural writing argues against "convenience" as his motivation.
• Loaded and prejudicial language

Joseph Smith: cynical motivations (edit)

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253

The author(s) make(s) the following claim:

*Benjamin F. Johnson is claimed to be "representative of the mainstream in LDS practice" because he married seven wives…

• The publisher's response to this original claim generated a new claim: That Joseph "justified taking a monagamist's wife and giving it to a man who already had ten."

  Author's sources:
  

1. No source provided.

FAIR's Response

• In fact, Johnson had more wives than even the average Nauvoo-era polygamist, and these were a small, highly selected group compared to polygamists in Utah.
• Polygamy/Prevalence of in Utah
• Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)
•  The author or publisher responds: The publisher indicates that the reviewer of Nauvoo Polygamy neglected to explain that this comment was intended to illustrate Joseph Smith's interpretation of the New Testament parable of the talents, and that this was used as justification for taking a monagamist's wife and "giving it to a man who already had ten." The publisher indicated that the author "did not mean to imply" that a man had to have ten wives in order to "qualify for such a program."

Statistical problems (edit)

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259-260

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

 Author's quote: "We do not know how long Joseph Smith had been contemplating polygamy, but the earliest conversations in which he explicitly addressed the topic were in late 1840 and early 1841."

Author's sources:

1. No source provided.

FAIR's Response

• Joseph reportedly specifically addressed the matter in the first half of the 1830s.
• Initiation of the practice

263 n. 54

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

The author quotes Ann Eliza Young regarding events that happened in 1842: "She wrote that some of the events she related depended upon the 'experience of those so closely connected with me that they have fallen directly under my observation.'"

Author's sources:

1. Wife No. 19, 74.

FAIR's Response

• Ann Eliza Young was born in 1844 in Nauvoo. It is thus impossible for her to have been a witness of events in 1842.

274

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

John C. Bennett is claimed to have "publicized Young's clumsy attempt to entice [Martha] Brotherton" into plural marriage.

FAIR's Response

• The author again tacitly assumes that Bennett's account is reliable and truthful.
• John C. Bennett

John C. Bennett (edit)

276

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

Brigham Young is claimed to have had an "overall materialistic theology."

Author's sources:

1. No source provided.

FAIR's Response

• Loaded and prejudicial language
• Compare with a more informed treatment, which displays a proper grasp of the nuances in both Latter-day Saint and non–Latter-day Saint applications of the term, in Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 419–21.
• Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)

277

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

Brigham Young is claimed to have ridiculed geologists who "tell us that this earth has been in existence for thousands and millions of years."

Author's sources:

1.  Citation error Journal of Discourses 12:271 [Smith provides the wrong citation: should be 14:115.]

FAIR's Response

• This is a major misreading of the text. It completely inverts Brigham's meaning. Brigham endorses the idea of an old earth, and criticizes Christian teachers who insist on a young earth.
• Brigham Young/As Young Earth Creationist
• Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)

281

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

 Author's quote: "In part, Smith's organizational labyrinth helped keep the church together…."

Author's sources:

1. No source provided.

FAIR's Response

• Loaded and prejudicial language

281 and 281 n. 86

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

Brigham Young is claimed to have "worked out a scheme" in which church members were organized into companies of 'tens' and 'fifties'….[footnote] The author then notes that "[t]he first LDS divisions of this kind were in Missouri, where Samson Avard….told men it would soon be their privilege to "….take to yourselves spoils of the goods of the ungodly gentiles."

Author's sources:

1. Andrew Jenson, "Caldwell County, Missouri," Historical Record 8 [Jan 1889]: 701.

FAIR's Response

• The author seems unwilling to let any anti-Mormon trope go unmentioned—we have to have the Danites!
• Avard has nothing to do with plural marriage, but Smith seems unwilling to let an opportunity to make the Saints look bad pass by. The comment from Avard, without adequate context and an understanding that his teachings were criticized, is prejudicial and misleading.
• Loaded and prejudicial language

282

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

 Author's quote: "a history of the Mormons in the West would be … a history of a mad prophet's visions turned by an American genius into the seed of life."

Author's sources:

1. Bernard DeVoto, The Year of Decision: 1846 (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1942), 92-101, 469.

FAIR's Response

• Loaded and prejudicial language

285

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

 Author's quote: "When the opposition newspaper appeared and devoted space to polygamy, Smith and the ruling councils had it destroyed."

Author's sources:

1. No source provided.

FAIR's Response

• The author gives the false impression that this destruction was the act of the Church—it was not; it was done by the civil government, including non-Mormons. The "council" was the Nauvoo City council.
• Smith also presumes that the concern was only about polygamy. He fails to inform the reader about concerns regarding its libelous nature and consequent risk of mob violence.
• For example, Joseph was said to be a “blood thirsty and murderous…demon…in human shape” and “a syncophant ^{[check spelling]}, whose attempt for power find no parallel in history… one of the blackest and basest scoundrels that has appeared upon the stage of human existence since the days of Nero, and Caligula.” He was also accused of causing the death of young women. The author acts instead as if the paper spoke only of polygamy.
• Nauvoo Expositor

Nauvoo Expositor (edit)

289

The author(s) make(s) the following claim:

* Author's quote: "…since institutional histories have minimized the incidence and profile of polygamy (see chapter 1), it is easy to imagine that most men who entered polygamy did so in a cursory way." "In reality, the typical Utah polygamist whose roots in the principle extended back to Nauvoo had between three and four wives, with a higher incidence of large families."

Author's sources:

1. No source provided.

FAIR's Response

•  Internal contradiction: vi: "...these same polygamists continued marrying to the point that they had acquired an average of nearly six wives per family. This model became the blueprint for forty years of Utah polygamy."
• Smith also fails to note that polygamists "whose roots…[went] back to Nauvoo," were a tiny minority.
• Two thirds of polygamous men in Utah had only two wives, >80% had no more than three. Probably 15-20% practiced polygamy at all.
• Polygamy/Prevalence of in Utah
• Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)

Statistical problems (edit)

295

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

The author states that as Nauvoo was gradually depopulated, it became increasingly lawless.

Author's sources:

1. No source provided.

FAIR's Response

• The lawlessness of Nauvoo was in part due to the collapse of any police force when the Illinois legislature rescinded the Nauvoo charter.
• Primary sources/Thomas Kane on the decline of Nauvoo

297

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

It is noted that "Mormons brought about 100 black slaves with them to Deseret, representing two percent of the total population, from 1847 to 1850" and that "[s]lavery and polygamy formed a witch's brew that isolated Deseret from the rest of the U.S. through its territorial period to he 1890s."

Author's sources:

1. No source provided.

FAIR's Response

• Race issues and the Church

303

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

 Author's quote: "No doubt, [Heber C. Kimball's] hesitation [in further plural marriages] had been similar to Young's, due to the weight of responsibilities involved in running church operations and because of the adverse publicity from Bennett's disclosures."

Author's sources:

1. No source provided.

FAIR's Response

• When the relevant documents are examined, it becomes apparent that Kimball was reluctant to practice plural marriage partly because he knew this was difficult for his first wife, Vilate.
• (Smith mentions these documents subsequently on pp. 304-305, but prefaces them by telling the reader that Kimball's hesitation was all about pragmatic or public relations issues. Yet, the documents strongly suggest that personal and family issues occupied much of Heber's concern.)

309

The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:

The author speculates that there would have been six plural husbands in Nauvoo by 1842 if John Bennett "had not been expelled…."

Author's sources:

1. No source provided.

FAIR's Response

• The author again presumes (with no evidence, and against a great deal of evidence) that Bennett's adulteries were ever sanctioned.
• John C. Bennett

John C. Bennett (edit)

Notes