The collection often referred to as “the Whitney documents,” which includes contemporary sources written in Joseph’s own hand, is generally considered to be the strongest evidence of Joseph’s polygamy. Recently multiple historians I have engaged with have gone directly to the Whitney documents to explain to me why the history of Joseph’s polygamy is settled.
I strongly disagree with them. But, I realized I needed to directly address the Whitney documents to explain why I and many others (hopefully including those who watch this episode) do not see the Whitney collection as evidence of Joseph’s polygamy — but instead as evidence of something very different.
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Links
Short: Joseph’s October 5, 1843, Journal Entry
Elizabeth Ann Whitney Affidavit published in Women’s Exponent, A Leaf From an Autobiography:
Women’s Exponent
Affidavit
Joseph C. Kingsbury Reminiscent Autobiography
Orson F. Whitney biography of Newel K. Whitney
Joseph Smith Letter to Newel and Elizabeth Whitney
Sarah Ann Whitney, Joseph C. Kingsbury Marriage Receipt
Nauvoo Marriage Registry, Sarah Ann Whitney/Joseph C. Kingsbury Entry
Nauvoo City Council Minutes 2/17/42
Newel K. Whitney Account Book (pg 100)
Strange Marriage of Saran Ann Whitney
October 1, 1842 Times and Seasons Affidavits:
Affidavit 1 | Affidavit 2
Emmaline B. Wells Journals:
Link 1 | Link 2
Edward Tullidge, Women of Mormondom
Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon polygamy, where we explore the scriptural, theological, and in this case, historical evidence for plural marriage. In this episode, we are going to take a deep dive into some of the documents that are considered the most certain evidence that Joseph Smith did indeed practice polygamy. However, I happen to see them in a very different way. Thank you so much for joining us, and let’s get into the Whitney documents. I am really hoping that more historians and other critics will engage with this episode and the information presented in it. I know that you won’t agree with me on everything, but I’m really hoping that you can understand a different way of seeing these documents that sheds a very different light on the discussion. So, and I hope that you’ll respond. And I think that back and forth really helps move truth forward. It helps sharpen all of us. So that’s what I’m hoping for. If you are a historian or you know historians, please share this episode with them and let’s have a conversation about it. So since I am hoping that more people will engage, I want to quickly just lay out the basics of the two models as I see them. This isn’t a perfect explanation. It’s just a quick one so you can kind of get an idea. So the first model is that Joseph Smith originated polygamy and led a conspiracy to try to hide it during his lifetime. The conspirators consisted of at least 25 families who were also involved, plus many others who weren’t, for example, the entire high council, plus dozens of others based on claims and affidavits that Joseph taught polygamy publicly. In this model, everything Joseph, Hiram and Emma said, wrote, taught, published, or did on this topic was a lie, including their canonized scriptures. And in this model, Joseph’s control of the people was so complete that he got dozens of men and women to swear false testimonies and lie on his behalf, as well as to not leave a single shred of evidence of his involvement in polygamy. The reliable sources are those who opposed Joseph Smith and actively worked to see that he was killed, for example, John Bennett and William Law, and the other reliable sources are the still never released deeply suspect novo journals of William Clayton, of which we only have partial transcripts, and of which the transcriber says are not representative and should not be relied on to form a narrative. And we also have the large collection of decades later test. collected in polygamist Utah, plus a tiny handful of highly interpreted contemporary documents, many of which we will go over in this episode. So if I’ve left anything out, let me know. The second model is that Joseph Smith fought polygamy, and after his death, polygamy conspirators worked to manufacture evidence to claim he had been a polygamist. In this model, Joseph, Emma, and Hyrum and other members of the church leadership were truthful in their consistent. testimonies which aligned with their canonized scriptures and revelations, as well as the Navo City and Illinois state laws and all of the physical evidence. The accusations against Joseph during his lifetime, those by Bennett and Law, etc. were what the doctrine and Covenants, Section 122 verse 3 calls the testimonies of traitors. Both those and the decades later Utah testimonies were highly motivated lies that cannot be substantiated. And the small handful of contemporary sources have not been critically examined, but have been misunderstood and misrepresented to claim to tell a story that they actually do not tell. So again, a quick overview. I hope I didn’t leave anything out, but I hope you’ll recognize that either model involves conspiracy. I personally believe the second model requires fewer knowing conspirators, but I’ll have to say that for Another episode. But more importantly, I believe the second model far better explains the full body of evidence.
[00:04:10] So, of course, there are all kinds of peripheral topics. I’m just saying this because of some of the ways that we’re try that people try to throw us out. There are other topics, um, that, that could stem out from this discussion, but aren’t directly involved in it. So those are things like the martyrdom or whether the church was right or. Wrong to end polygamy and they can branch out from either model but I don’t generally get into those so I’d like to leave those out of the discussion specifically on the topics I’m looking at today because the subject of Joseph’s polygamy on its own is plenty big enough to warrant vigorous study and discussion on its own merits. The question for me is which model better explains and accounts for the documents and that is the context for this discussion so. Let’s get into the Whitney documents. From what I have seen, Sarah Anne Whitney is not only by far the best documented supposed wife of Joseph Smith, she is also the one where we actually have what are seen as contemporaneous records. Therefore, her marriage to Joseph is where we find the very strongest evidence that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. The main pieces of what Ben Park claims is. The undeniable overwhelming proof that Joseph Smith was a polygamist and that the polygamy deniers or the monogamy affirmers are completely ridiculous. I will do a part two on these topics and we’ll get into um the video where Ben says those things. Therefore, the Whitney documents, the documents regarding Sarah Anne’s marriage to Joseph, is the evidence that experts go to first to make the strongest case for Joseph’s polygamy. So these documents are definitely worth addressing. I hadn’t addressed that before because several other people have done excellent work on them. Whitney Horning covers them in her book, and Rob Fotheringham has done a great video on them. There are also several blog posts and other videos addressing them, so I assumed the work on them was sufficient. But after multiple conversations with various historians, I realized that I need to address them as well. And I’m actually really glad that I dove into them because after my own. Search, I have several insights to add that, um, in addition to what has already been done. And I think that they’re worthwhile. So first, let me lay out the documents we have that are most often brought up in this conversation. And I’m actually going to do my best to present that the way I usually see them presented, so I can try to steel man the case people make to use these documents as the irrefutable evidence of Joseph’s polygamy. After that, I will show what I see as the serious problems with how these documents are represented and interpreted. And I’ll bring up the relevant documents that are far too often neglected and omitted from the conversation or simply dismissed out of hand, and I’ll explain why I think that is a huge mistake. Now I will acknowledge that many historians who have done work on these documents have talked about the pieces that I’m going to bring up, but again, I think that they dismissed them too easily without a good enough explanation. And I also do want to say that most of the time, I would say pretty much all of the time. That I see people making the case of Joseph’s polygamy to, you know, just try to prove it in common discourse. This is really how it’s presented. So according to the traditional narrative, Sarah Anne Whitney was married to Joseph Smith on July 27, 1842 when she was 17. and he was 36. So let me show some of the things that we have. First, we have Joseph F. Smith’s form letter affidavits from both Sarah and her mother, Elizabeth Ann Whitney, and um they both say that she was married to Joseph Smith July 27, 1842. In addition, we have an autobiography from her mother, Elizabeth Ann Whitney, Sarah’s mother, Elizabeth Ann Whitney, an autobiography plus several affidavits from her pretend husband, we’ll get into that, Joseph C.
[00:08:03] Kingsbury, a biography of her father from her nephew Orson F. Whitney, plus additional other sources that we will cover. But all of those pale in comparison to these three documents about Sarah. And for those already aware of these documents, please remember, I am trying to steal man the polygamy argument we usually hear. So please be patient with how I present these here. First, we have this July 27, 1842 revelation from Joseph Smith, where he dictated the very words Newel K. Whitney, Sarah’s father, should use when he performed their ceiling. Here’s a quote from it. Verily thus sayeth the Lord. Unto my servant, Noel K. Whitney, the thing that my servant Joseph Smith has made known unto you and your family, and which you have agreed upon is right in my eyes and shall be crowned upon your heads with honor and immortality and eternal life to all your household, both old and young. These are the words which you shall pronounce upon my servant Joseph and your daughter as a Whitney. They shall take each other by the hand, and you shall say, you both mute. Will we agree calling them by name to be each other’s companion so long as you both shall live, preserving yourselves for each other and from all others and also throughout eternity reserving only those rights which have been given to my servant Joseph by revelation and commandment and by legal authority in times past. If you both agree to covenant and and do this, I then give you SA Whitney, my daughter, to Joseph Smith to be his wife. To observe all the rights between you both that belong to that condition. So pretty good source. Next, we have this letter from Joseph Smith dated August 18, 1842, just a little less than a month after they were married, I think 3 weeks. Um, written in Joseph’s own hand, begging Sarah to come visit him secretly at night, but warning her to to avoid Emma so they can be safe. Here’s a quote from this one. My feelings are so strong for you since what has passed lately between us that the time of my absence from you seems so long and dreary that it seems as if I could not live long in this way. I have a room entirely by myself. The whole matter can be attended to with the most perfect safety. I know it is the will of God that you should comfort me now in this time of affliction or not at all. Now is the time or never. The only thing to be careful of is to find out when Emma comes. Then you cannot be safe. But when she is not here, there is the most perfect safety. Only be careful to escape observation as much as possible. Burn this letter as soon as you read it. Keep all locked up in your breast. My life depends on it. One thing I want to see you for is to get the fullness. Of my blessings sealed upon our heads. And you will pardon me for my earnestness on this subject when you consider how lonesome I must be. Your good feelings know how to make every allowance for me. I close my letter. I think Emma won’t come tonight. If she don’t, don’t fail to come tonight. I subscribe myself your most obedient and affectionate companion and friend, Joseph Smith. Another incredible source, right? And then I will add this one. We have this blessing that Joseph Smith gave Sarah, his wife, again written in his own hand. And here’s a quote from this Crown her with a diadem of glory in the eternal worlds. Oh. be sealed this day on high that she shall come forth in the first resurrection to receive the same, and verily it shall be so, sayeth the Lord, if she remain in the everlasting covenant to the end and also all her father’s house shall be saved in the same eternal glory. So just from those sources, you can see how the evidence is so clear that anybody who knows anything about the documents can easily see how ridiculous it is for polygamy deniers to claim Joseph wasn’t a polygamist.
[00:11:56] These documents alone make it just as obvious that Joseph was a polygamist as Joseph’s October 5th, 1843 journal. where he wrote, According to the law, I hold the keys of this power in the last days, for there is never but one on earth at a time on whom the power and its keys are conferred. And I have constantly said that no man shall have but one wife at a time, unless the Lord directs otherwise, right? Those of you who have been engaged in this topic for a while know exactly what I’m referring to. These Documents are also as certain as Joseph’s own July 12, 1843 revelation, now recorded as Section 132 in our doctrine and covenants, which says, among many other things, verily thus sayeth the Lord unto you, my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And also Moses, David, and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines. Behold and lo, I am the Lord thy God and will answer thee as touching these matters. These are actually the perfect comparisons because just like them, the case seems clear cut until you. Dig deeper, evaluate the credibility of the sources, examine the full context of the sources that are credible, and include the sources that have been omitted from the discussion, at which point they paint a very different picture. I’m not going to go into those sources, um, again, the journal entry and Section 132. I’ve covered them extensively. If anyone has any questions about them. Please, um, let me know or ask questions and people can help, help resolve this for you because we have done a lot of work on those two sources to show that they absolutely are not authentic. Well, I guess I can’t say absolutely to everyone to we have provided evidence to show, to make an extremely strong case that many people find completely convincing that those, uh, um, that those documents are not authentic. from Joseph Smith. So let’s get into now the documents for Sarah and Whitney and see if the same thing happens. First, let’s look at the confusing list of Sarah’s marriages. We’re going to do this before we get into those documents because again, we need to provide the background and the context for these documents and help people have a little bit under a little better understanding of the situation in, in, um, full. So according to the Affidavits that both Sarah and her mother signed. She was married to Joseph Smith July 12th, 1842. There is no record for that marriage, only the later affidavits, and then the supposed revelation that we will get into. The marriage that we do have very good records for is her April 29, 1843 marriage to Joseph C. Kingsbury, the same Joseph C. Kingsbury who made the only copy of the polygamy revelation. He was actually her uncle. She was 18 and he was 31 at the time of their marriage. He had been married to her aunt who passed away several months before, and they had no living children. So for that marriage, we have the actual marriage certificate. This is a pretty big deal. You can see what it says. I hereby certify that I have upon this day, on this, the 29th day of April 1843, joined together in marriage, Joseph C. Kingsbury and Sarah Anne Whitney in the city of Navvo signed by Joseph Smith, the Elder,
[00:15:24] and I believe that’s in his own hand. In addition, we also have where this marriage certificate was entered into the official Navvvo marriage record book. It’s the 3rd record there you can see it, which is in perfect keeping with both their canonized scriptures. This is the original 1835 section 101, which says, the clerk of every church. should keep a record of all marriages solemnized in his branch. All legal contracts of marriage made before a person is baptized into this church, should be held sacred and fulfilled. So, and then we can go to this next slide, which shows that it also aligns with the Navvo marriage ordinance. Here I’ll quote, quote from the beginning of the marriage record book. A a record of marriages in the city of Navu. Illinois kept and made agreeable to the city ordinance bearing the date 17 bearing the date the 17th day of February 1843 entitled An Ordinance Concerning marriages. Certificates whereof have been duly received and filed, signed by James James Sloane City Recorder, and we actually also have this actual ordinance where it was passed. These are the city council records from that day. An ordinance concerning marriages in Section 1, it says, be it ordained by the city council of the city of Navvo that all male persons over the age of 17 years and females over the age of 14 years may contract and be joined in marriage. That’s actually a really important thing to take note of the ages that are required as we go forward in this conversation, or the ages that are allowed. And from section 3, we have any person solemnizing a marriage as aforesaid, shall make return therefore thereof to this. The recorder accompanied by a recording fee of 50 cents within 30 days of the solemnization thereof, and it is hereby made the duty of the recorder to keep an accurate record of all such marriages. The penalty for the violation of either of these provisions of this ordinance shall be $20 to be received as other penalties or forfeitures. OK, so this is Joseph’s Navvo City Council passing these ordinances. I just want to point out a couple of things. First, people like to say that polygamy was illegal in in Illinois and use it as an excuse that there is no evidence of polygamy, as if search parties or SWAT teams were going through people’s personal journals and correspondences looking for evidence of polygamy, despite the fact that there is plenty of evidence of other polygamist antics in Navo, especially after Joseph’s death, and there’s no evidence that there was any attempt at prosecution or even investigation. But what is far more important to recognize is that the city of Navvo intentionally passed an ordinance to make polygamy illegal, right? So we can’t talk about the, um, Illinois law without talking about the Navvo law that Joseph was involved in, greatly involved, and I would assume. He was, at this point, Bennett was the mayor, but Joseph was, what’s it called, the vice mayor, he was 2, he was 2nd in city command, right? And so they intentionally passed this ordinance to try to assure that no secret or spiritual marriages could occur legally without being able to be prosecuted by the city. Keep it, like, I want you to realize this would not interfere with John Bennett’s spiritual wifery since he was not claiming to marry his conquests. But it would mean that Joseph Smith was intentionally setting things up so that, so that if he were secretly marrying women, he would be breaking the laws of his own city. I think that’s fascinating. And the record keeping that we can find in the um Sarah Anne Whitney and Joseph C. Kingsbury marriage is also consistent with Joseph’s letters teaching the absolute necessity of records being kept that were um put in put into the doctrine and Covenants of Section 127 and 128. Those were written two months after Joseph’s supposed unrecorded marriage to Sarah Anne. So here is, here is that letter. This is the letter that became section 128.
[00:19:32] It says, it was declared in my former letter, that was section 127, that there should be a recorder who should be eyewitness, and also hear with his ears that he might make a record of a truth before the Lord. And then he goes on to say that in all your recordings, it may be recorded in heaven. Whatsoever you record on earth shall be recorded in heaven, and what so you do not record on earth shall not be recorded in heaven. He’s directly equating records to ceilings. So I think it is. Fair to claim that in every regard other than his supposed plural marriages, Joseph felt strongly about keeping careful records. It would be hard to explain why he would push record keeping so hard, only to violate his own statutes and regulations. So what we know so far is that Sarah married Kingsbury and was his wife both legally and in appearances. She took his name, she moved into his house and lived with him. She crossed the plains with him and gave birth to a son while crossing the plains with him. All of this happened while she was married to him, while she was pretending married to him, I guess, from Kingsbury after the fact reminiscent journal, we get this. I, being prepared, took my journey west on the 28th of February 1846 with Sarah, my supposed wife, and Lowenza, my wife. On the 8th of March, Sarah was delivered of a son. On the 4 part of May, Sarah went to live with President Kimball, her husband for time. And I was left with my real wife Lonza to journey by ourselves. So that’s the situation with Sarah and Kingsbury. Well, Sarah and Kingsbury, that’s correct. Sarah Anne and Joseph Kingsbury. So while we don’t have evidence of Sarah being secretly married to Joseph Smith, it seems we do have evidence that she was apparently secret secretly married to Hebrewy. Kimball, who she finally went to live with in May of 1846. So this gets Even more confusing because we apparently have two separate marriage dates for Sarah’s and Heber’s secret marriage. The date cited by Andrew Jensen, the first church historian to gather and compile a list of supposed wives and marriage dates, who Brian Hays actually heavily relies on, is January 12, 1846. Um, Jensen wrote, Sarah Anna Whitney, afterwards, the wife of President Hebrewy. Kimball, married to Joseph. July 27, 1842, and her father, her father Noel K. Whitney officiating. And I want you to, again, let me just point out that many, if not most, I believe most of the women who signed affidavits claiming to be Joseph Smith’s wives were actually the wives, the plural wives of, um, Hebrew C. Kimball and Brigham Young, who they were taught to look at, look to and obey as their God, as their Lord, right? That was how they achieved their Salvation was being good and obedient polygamist wives. So this, this date is based on the date that Brigham Young sealed Sarah to Joseph by proxy after his death with Hebrewy Kimball standing proxy in the Navo Temple, when she was also sealed for time to Hebrewy Kimball. I still have no idea what sealed for time is supposed to mean. And even less idea why it needed to be done in a temple,
[00:22:57] right? I know that people are, are married for time in the temples now because they want to have a temple marriage. But I think that we all well understand that it isn’t necessary to have a four-time wedding, um, performed in a temple. So anyone new to this, I just want to take a minute to point out and hope that you realize that these proxy ceilings for Joseph, done after his death in the Navo Temple, and I think they were done December of 45 through mid February. of 46. They actually strongly support the model that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist, but that after his death, Brigham Here and the rest of them, the, the rest who were involved in the conspiracy, the conspirators, tried to paint him as a polygamist. If, according to Doctrine Covenants 132 and other later alterations to Joseph’s words, he was supposedly the one on earth at a time to have the power to seal, why were his ceilings not valid. Why would Joseph’s ceilings, while he was the one with the power to seal, why would his ceilings need to be redone after his death, which is the only time a record was made of them, which was while they were still in Navvo and in fact, in more danger, as Brigham Young said himself, we had to build the temple with a trowel in one hand, and I didn’t he say a rifle and a gun in the other, right? That’s, that’s how he said the situation was. So why was it safe to keep records at this Point. Why weren’t records kept before when Joseph himself said that records equate to eternal ceilings, and why would his ceilings need to be redone at all? I think these are really good questions. And if people try to argue that these ceilings had to be redone in the temple, which is actually a religious argument, they would still need to explain why Joseph would perform invalid ceilings. If ceilings couldn’t be valid outside of the temple, then why would Joseph be performing them? And they would need to explain how repeating repeating Joseph’s ceilings in a still unfinished temple would make them valid based on Doctrine Covenant’s 124. And even if the temple had been finished, which it wasn’t, why weren’t all of Joseph’s ceilings to all of his wives redone? Why only some of them? Why wasn’t his ceiling to Emma ever redone if ceilings needed to be done in the redone in the temple to be valid? I think that’s a pretty, pretty important question to answer. Also, please note that Brigham Young wouldn’t become the president of the church until late 1847. So if this, if people are holding to these ideas of, of Section 132, who was the one on earth at a time with ceiling power to assign and perform the many plural marriages that happened right after Joseph’s death? There are so many questions and so few reasonable answers. And this is why I hope that people will spend some time. I’m really thinking about how these Navu temple records should be interpreted and which model they better fit in. I think it is very much the model that polygamy was a creation by later leaders that Joseph Smith had nothing to do with other than to fight it. So, but let’s go back to Sarah Anne. The problem with this date, the date claimed that She was um the January 46th date that that she was sealed by proxy to Joseph Smith. Um, the reason it’s a problem is because Sarah was actually seven months pregnant at the time. The baby, who didn’t live, was claimed to be Hebers, but again, she was living with her legal husband, Joseph Kingsbury this entire time. And so I don’t know how we really know whose baby it was. And the only husband, I, I will point out the only supposed husband we can rule out as the father is Joseph Smith. Who died before she got pregnant. So again, if she was living with Joseph C. Kingsbury and Heber was the father,
[00:26:52] how did that happen? And how was he so successful and so short of time? Well, Joseph wasn’t successful before he died, right? I think he had, what, 2 years to impregnate Sarah, and yet Heber had no problem at all, even though she was living with Joseph C. Kingsbury, unless was Joseph C. Kingsbury’s child, which is not what was claimed. So how can we know? So, um, perhaps at least in part because of this, this, um, unexplained pregnancy, we have another wedding date that has been proposed, which is March March 17, 1845. And here is the source used to, to say that. It’s the Extremely cryptic entry in, um, in, um, Noel K. Whitney’s account book. And this is, this, this, it’s very difficult to read, but right there you can read it says Monday evening, March 17, 1845, Sarah was LAV to HCK. I’m not sure if that says EV. I think that was my best guess because it’s very cryptic. It might be morning, it might be something else. Monday being March 17, 1845, but it says Sarah was LAV to HCK. I just want to point out, this is the level of evidence we rely on regarding these topics. I did spend a few hours looking through this book while talking to, um, Uh, a historian who has done a lot of work in this book, he actually helped me track this down because it was very difficult. Um, and nobody seems to have a clue what most of these entries were about. I have no idea what LAB might mean, and I haven’t seen anywhere where anybody else proposes what it might mean. Um, the best I could come up with as I was, like, thinking about it was maybe linked and vowed if people want to claim. That this is about polygamy or marriage. But since I don’t agree that WAS from other cryptic journal, um, from other cryptic entries in other journals, I, since I don’t agree at all that that means wedded and sealed, but is far more likely to mean washed, anointed, and sanctified based on Exodus 40, um, versus 12 to 13, which perfectly fits the context of what it was talking about Tele work. And thou shalt bring Aaron and his sons onto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation and wash them with water and anoint, oh, and shall put upon Aaron the holy garments and anoint him and sanctify him, that he may be minister unto me in the priest’s office. We are familiar with those from the temple work that was being recorded, right? But, um, some people say it might be, it might be washed, anointed, and sealed because people were being sealed up to eternal life. That’s what sealing meant during Joseph’s lifetime from From his own words. So since I don’t agree with WAS as evidence of marriage, I obviously don’t think that using LAV is is evidence of marriage, but I can understand why if people are
[00:29:54] willing to accept WAS as certainty of marriage, then it’s not a stretch to say LAV must be the same thing, even though nobody knows what it means. So who knows? Um, based on these dates, I’m sure it could be an either date, you know, either it’s this earlier LAV date. And that justifies how, um, Sarah was pregnant with Hebrew’s child despite still living with Joseph C. Kingsbury, which, by the way, this wasn’t really uncommon. We have other records of people becoming pregnant with children as polygamous wives before they had any sort of a ceremony. So it seems that there was a lot of just weirdness going on that we wouldn’t, um, be find very kosher in our modern LDS theology and understanding and culture. So, Anyway, so it could be either date. However, an additional problem with this March 1745 date, in addition to the later ceiling for time in the temple, which means nothing other than marriage with his life, which wouldn’t need to be redone in the temple, as I said. And with Sarah living with Kingsbury, another problem is that Sarah is listed as Sarah and. Kingsbury in the July 1846 Temple records. So in 1846, she was not only still living with Kingsbury, she also still bore his name. So I’m not sure when she finally took Hebrew C. Kimball’s last name, but we know she went to live with him. And according to Kingsbury, she went to live with Hebrew in May with Hebrew’s family in May of 1846, but In the 1850 census records, so several years after that, despite the fact that it was done in Utah and that she had been living with Kimball for several years, she is listed basically as an unwed mother, simply as Sarah Anne Whitney, with her child listed below her. That’s interesting. Um, by the 18. 60 census, she and her child are finally listed as part of Hebrew’s family, and she is as as she is on her 1873 death record. So sometime between 1850 and 1860, it seems that she began to take Hebrew C. Kimball’s last name. So maybe she was still living some in some degree of um secrecy. While she was in Utah. Frankly, this entire situation is so bizarre. It is hard to, hard to make any sense of it. But what we can know is that we have no record of any marriage to Joseph Smith. We do have abundant records to show that she was married to Joseph C. Kingsbury, and that while she was legally married to him and living with him, she was taken as a spiritual or plural wife by Hebrew see Kimball. They called it either one and both. And um she gave birth to the son of one of them while crossing the plains with the now plurally married Joseph C. Kingsbury. Days of Our Lives has nothing on this. This evidence that I just went through is all pretty solid, but again, there is no evidence other than the later claims to support the idea that she was the wife of Joseph Smith. But it gets even better. The record I read from above Kingsbury’s autobiography, which he wrote at some point after living in Utah for several years, that is where he for the first time claimed that his marriage to Sarah. And had been a sham. So that’s the first time we get this story. So in Utah, many other similar res reminiscences were requested by historians or leaders such as Andrew Jensen, Joseph F. Smith, Eliza Snow,
[00:33:20] and others. I haven’t seen a request like this for Kingsbury’s reminiscent autobiography, but which is called his journal. But I am curious why Kingsbury chose chose to write his history at this point. Here it is, and according to Kingsbury’s Utah reminiscent History, on the 29th of April 1843, I, according to President Joseph Smith’s counsel and others, agreed to stand by Sarah Anne. So that’s interesting. It wasn’t just Joseph Smith that counseled him. He has to include that there were others who counseled him. I would say there were others who counseled him instead of Joseph Smith, but in any case, he says, I agreed to stand by Sarah Anne Whitney as supposed to be her husband. And had a pretended marriage for the purpose of bringing about the purposes of God in these last days. And as spoken by the mouth of the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and also Joseph Smith. He doesn’t explain what purposes of God are spoken by the mouths of these prophets he is talking about or how a pretended marriage was supposed to bring them about, but that’s the record we have and that’s the first time we get any kind of explanation of what’s going on here and he’s claiming. That this was a pretend marriage. I think you can see, um, some idea of why I think the best explanation for these sources is that after the fact they were trying to explain away the sources so that they could claim that Joseph was a polygamist. Um, I want to add this other source that it comes, I believe, from D. Michael Quinn’s notes. Brian Hailes includes this on his website, so that’s where I pulled this from. November 23, 1880, Joseph C. Kingsbury asked John Taylor that an 80. A1000 dollars debt to the church be remitted in consideration of services he had rendered to Navu and after leaving there to the Prophet Joseph Smith and keeping one of his wives, Sarah Whitney, daughter of Bishop NK Whitney. So again, this was how many years later, right, almost 40 years later, and somehow Kingsbury found himself $8000 in debt to the church, would be, which would be the equivalent of almost $250,000 today. And all of a sudden, claiming that this was a pretend marriage became very profitable, so he used that to say, please don’t make me pay this. And I don’t know if he was working from the church and sort of embezzling because it was just seen as a slush fund, or if it was like the, um, tithing that was being required with some, the thread of thumbscrews. I don’t know exactly what the story is there, but it is very interesting. And there’s another piece of evidence of how the polygamy narrative was used to be profit. So anyway, despite how crazy this all sounds, this is the story that those supporting the traditional polygamy, polygamy narrative go with. They claim that since Sarah had turned 18, she needed to be fake married to be kept, kept off the market. And that seems implausible for several reasons. First, from the Navvo City marriage ordinance we just read, girls could be legally married as young as 14. And there were many. young women that were not married until their 20s. That was not at all common. So if someone wants to make this claim that all of a sudden she turned 18, and now it’s a problem, they need to provide some evidence for that, because it just sounds like an excuse. I have looked,
[00:36:41] and I personally haven’t seen any evidence that 18 was some sort of magical age when girls were expected to be married or suspicions would arouse. And in fact, I have found evidence to the con to contradict that assumption. And also I haven’t seen any evidence that anyone was threatening to expose Joseph’s and Sarah’s secret marriage to justify the pretend marriage, or of any young men coming courting that that posed a specific problem that we have and we have those things happening in other supposed marriages, right? So. It’s hard to justify why this pretend marriage would need to be would be necessary. I am not aware of any other case where Joseph had someone pretend to marry any of his other wives. So that’s also a problem. We can’t point to a pattern where Joseph Smith was doing this, right? Um, I am not aware of any time the marriage certificate of an entry into the city register was ever used to show people Sarah was not available. So why would this need to have the official’s marriage certificate and be entered if it was just pretend, they wouldn’t need to go to all do all of those steps to make it legally binding in accordance with the laws of Navu, right? That’s just Additional deception that no one was going to go check. I, I don’t think. So, in so many ways, this story just doesn’t make sense. Joseph supposedly wed several young unmarried girls. This is speaking to the pattern. So why did only this one need to get legally married with all of the records, then move in together and share a home and a last name? Why did Jose To focus so much on record keeping if he was doing this on the side. It would have just made things harder for himself. There are so many illogical parts to this story. I think we should just ask whether it is more likely that this crazy convoluted story that makes no sense and turns Joseph Smith into some sort of lunatic is true, or is it more likely that Sarah Anne was legit. Legitimately married to Joseph C. Kingsbury, but then for some reason decided to marry Hebrew C. Kimball instead, which was totally possible in polygamy, um, especially, it could be due to the promises of a higher glory due to Hebrew’s higher calling, which was totally possible under the polygamist doctrine of marrying up that Brigham actually taught in Utah. And then, um, so that was, I think, what actually was, what, what actually occurred in Navvo and then attempts were made later on to explain these records away in order to claim Sarah as one of Joseph Smith’s wives. That seems to make way more sense to me, and that’s why we get Joseph C. Kingsbury claiming that it was a pretend marriage. It is interesting to compare Sarah’s story to Flo. And Woodworth, who was also married, who also married another man just after supposedly marrying Joseph Smith. We might be tempted to believe it was another sham pretend marriage, but in that case, Helen Mar Kimball claims that the marriage happened after Joseph’s death. That was her way of explaining it away. But as I’ve shown in previous episodes, we know that isn’t the case because we have found her marriage. So again, another marriage that was tried to explain away but is being exposed. The best explanation for both of these cases, like so many others, seems to clearly be that these girls were never married to Joseph Smith. Their marriages to other men were legitimate and later efforts to paint them as polygamist wives of Joseph Smith got messy because of the actual records. So people needed. To try to come up with excuses for the inconsistencies and contradictions, which is what people are still trying to do today as we discover more and more records. That was a lot of craziness to sort through, but now we can move on to something much more straightforward, an extremely important and relevant contemporary source that also seems to be frequently omitted when people discuss the Whitney documents. Two months after Sarah’s supposed marriage to Joseph, in response to John Bennett’s claims that Joseph was a practicing that Joseph was practicing polygamy,
[00:40:52] this was printed in the Times and Seasons. Here it is. This was printed in the October 1st, 1842 Times and Seasons. So you can see just two months after the supposed pretend marriage. Joseph again published the entire canonized statement on marriage, which is section 101, and in the 1835. Doctrine and covenants which says inasmuch as this Church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication and polygamy, we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife and one woman but one husband, except in case of death when either is at liberty to marry again. That was followed by this statement. We have given the above rule of marriage as the only one practiced in this church. This was supported by the following certificates. We, the undersigned members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and residents of the city of Navvo, persons of families, do hereby certify and declare that we know of no other rule or marriage than the one published from the book of. Doctrine covenants. And we give this certificate to show that Dr. JC Bennett’s secret wife system is a creature of his own make. And we know, as we know of no such society in this place, nor never did. And again, I think it’s interesting that they call it the secret wife system because even those who wanted to claim that Joseph wasn’t doing what John Bennett was doing, if Sarah Anne had been His wife, she was absolutely a secret wife in a secret life system. And she was for a fact, um, Hebrewy. Kimball’s secret wife, right? But what I really want to highlight here is the signature that I’ve underlined, Newell Kay. Whitney’s New K Whitney’s signature. So two months after performing this marriage with his 17-year-old daughter, Supposedly, he signed this certificate. And then we have this next that comes right after it. It says, We, the undersigned members of the Ladies Relief Society and married females do certify and declare that we know of no system of marriage being practiced in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, save the one contained in the book of doctrine and. Covenants and we give this certificate to um to the public to show that JC Bennett’s secret wife system is a disclosure of his own make. And again, look, prominently right there is Elizabeth Ann Whitney’s signature. This is amazing. To restate, in addition to the constantly repeated denial. and rejections of polygamy from Joseph, Emma, and Hiram Smith, and many others. This contemporaneously signed and printed affidavit contains both Newell’s and Elizabeth’s signatures, where they disavow any form of marriage other than the strictly one man and one wife version contained in their scriptures. This has both of Sarah and Whitney’s parents’ signatures on it, and it was published two months after they supposedly gave their daughter to Joseph Smith in plural marriage. This source should never be omitted from any conversation of Sarah Anna Whitney or the Whitney documents. And I, I do want to just spell out, I personally believe that Newell and Elizabeth and the rest of the signers of these affidavits were sincere in their 1842 testimonies that we just looked at. While several of them did go on to enter polygamy after Joseph’s death, none of them were polygamists when they signed these affidavits in 1842, so I don’t think they had been convince. of it yet at this point. At least that’s, that’s what makes the most sense to me. People may disagree, or if other if other evidence comes forward, we can look at it. But I think it’s important to look at what the contemporary evidence says, right? And as people say, to take historical actors at their word, the best we can and then look into the evidence, which is what we’re trying to do.
[00:44:50] So I will point out, New K. Whitney died in Utah in 1850 before Section 132 was even presented and long before evidence of Joseph’s polygamy was. Gathered or manufactured in earnest. So while he did marry additional wives a few years after Joseph’s death, I tend to believe that he, along with many others, were convinced of it based on the word of Brigham Young and Brigham and Hebrew and the other leaders that were involved. I don’t know of any statement from him claiming that Joseph practiced polygamy or anything of him testifying of polygamy on, um, in his own voice or in his own hand. It’s all the later reminiscences, right? So, but we do have later contradictory testimony from Elizabeth. So that’s where things get tricky. We know for a fact that she lied at some point, either in 1842 or decades later in Utah. That is undeniable. Supporters of the polygamy narrative act appalled at the thought of disbelieving the testimonies of women. But the testimonies of Elizabeth Whitney and Eliza Snow and others make it impossible not to, because their Salt Lake testimonies directly contradict their novel testimonies. Many people, including historians, also reject and even mock the idea that Brigham could have power to influence people to lie. Let me play just this one recent clip. There’s just not enough evidence to support this idea that women like Eliza. Snow and Zy Deoung, Mary Elizabeth Raws Leitner, Sarah Anne Whitney, Helen Mark Kimball, that they were all being forced to say these things, to say that they had been married to Joe Smith, that they are Joe Smith’s plural wives, um. So I, you know, I’m sure Brigham Young wished he had that kind of power in Utah. Um, but he just, there’s no evidence to support the fact that he did. So, to, to ascribe this kind of power to Brigham Young is unreasonable. I’m going to do a full episode dedicated to these claims made by this historian in this podcast because I think that they are not sound and actually quite troubling. But in the meantime, these same people apparently have no such problem ascribing that kind of power to Joseph Smith. Right, that he could get all of these people to lie, especially, I, well, I won’t go into the details, but even just look at proximity of where people lived and their, um, manner of, of governing their people, right? I teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves. That was Joseph Smith. Brigham Young had a very different situation going on. And so that inconsistency needs to be acknowledged and dealt with. And it doesn’t work to simply claim that people had to lie in Navo because it was a legal or whatever supported reason. I’ll go into some of those reasons a little bit in the next episode as well, um, in part two on the Whitney documents. But you can’t claim that without acknowledging that they were at least as motivated to lie in Utah as they could have possibly been in not. I would argue that they were far more motivated for a variety of reasons. Plus, just from a historical standpoint, the decades later claims should be considered a, a lower class of evidence than the contemporary claims. They should be prioritized less for a variety of reasons. So this October 1 times and seasons, also just happens to be the same edition that includes Joseph Smith’s Sep 6,
[00:48:17] 1842 letter about ceiling equaling records, right? Section 128, which I cited above. So learning that there were no records of any of Joseph’s supposed ceilings to any of his plural wives, and reading this was a, a big part of what finally tipped the scales for me to start actually becoming convinced that Joseph was not involved in polygamy. So I think that that That’s an important source to recognize as well. Now, we’ll get into what are called the Whitney documents. Now that we’ve set a little bit of the background stage, and these are considered to be the strongest contemporaneous evidence of Joseph’s polygamy. First, we have the, well, the earliest one, as I said, is the July 27th, 1842 revelation. That’s the only one we’re going to talk about in this episode, because I think there’s enough here that will save the rest for a part two. And so this by itself would completely seal the deal on Joseph’s polygamy, a purported revelation from Joseph Smith telling Newell K. Whitney the exact words he should say when he performed the time and eternity ceiling between his 17-year-old daughter and himself. But as always, there are major problems with this source. First, the provenance is terrible. It’s really terrible. We have 3. Versions. The first known version was this typewritten version. Remember, there weren’t typewriters in 18 in the 1840s, but, um, this is the first version that we have. This is from the Joseph Smith papers. The original revelation was in the possession of the Whitney family, they claim, right? And is apparently no no longer extant. So again, I don’t know how they can claim that. So they, they tell us what the provenance is, but they don’t have it and they don’t have a source for that other than Or Orson Whitney’s claims. So here, well, I’ll continue. Years later, Orson F. Whitney apparently received a copy of the revelation from his father, Horace Whitney, which Orson believed may have come from his grandfather, Newell K. Whitney. Orson F. Whitney made a type script of the revelation at the request of church president Joseph F. Smith, probably in early 2012, and gave the typescript to Smith on April 1st, 1912, the first of April 1912. So this is so interesting. They admit that Orson F. Whitney maybe received this from his father or Claimed to receive this from his father, and believed it may have come from his grandfather. And yet they are free to say this was in the, the possession of the Whitney family, right? And, and, and the, the original was a possession of the Whitney family. It is no longer, it doesn’t exist any longer. So we’re gonna go into this a little bit more. But we have two other versions. These two handwritten copies, um, they’re just identified as unidentified handwriting A and and unidentified handwriting B,
[00:51:16] um, of the same revelation. So, um, let’s see, nobody knows who wrote these or when or where they came from. This is also from the Joseph Smith papers historical introduction. Two manuscript copies of the revelation in unidentified handwriting are also extant. They appear to have been created in the 19th century prior to Orson Whitney producing the typescript copy. However, the provenance of these manuscript copies is unknown. They may have been passed down through the Whitney or Kimball families and were apparently donated to the historian office in the 1920s. These are all just guesses. Nobody knows. Anything about these two copies other than they were at a file at the at the church history library. They were found and this is what’s what’s being decided about them. So the 1912 typed version from Apostle Orson F. Whitney, well, to be apostle Orson F. Whitney, who was the grandson of Newell and Elizabeth and the biographer of Newell Kate Whitney, that came later as well. This is the earliest and most reliable version we have, and we don’t know what source Orson might have used to make his typescript, or what might have happened to that original source, or why he didn’t just submit that version instead of only this type. Script. Maybe he only had the same mystery handwritten copies, or maybe there was an earlier copy that despite how carefully all of the Whitney um collection was preserved, was somehow lost. So let me just show you what we do have. It’s hard to explain why we don’t have that original copy of this all important revelation if this were legitimate, because the Whitneys kept everything. To demonstrate how carefully the Whitney family preserved their documents. I want to show you again what we do. We have this extremely rare original copy of a deed from Joseph Smith with Joseph’s signature on it. This was a deed to Sarah. And if anybody wants to claim that this is evidence of polygamy, please go back and watch my deeds episodes because I have thoroughly covered that topic, and I think You would be very hard pressed to claim that the deeds from Joseph Smith, either as trustee in trust or from Joseph and Emma, have anything to do with polygamy. But next, we have this even more rare and seemingly hard to keep track of original wedding receipt that was written and signed by Joseph. Um, this, this is really, really rare to have. And then, and also it’s just a little small scrap of paper, so it had to be preserved. Very carefully. Plus, we have the letter from Joseph that Joseph himself and the letter asked them to burn, which we will get into in the next episode. And we have this one of a kind blessing written in Joseph’s own hand. So I find myself having to wonder why in the world this crucially important revelation from God given directly to the Whitneys by the Prophet Joseph Smith, telling them incredible things about their family and the promises to them. And directing Newe of the exact words to say on the implementation of this highest and holiest principle of celestial marriage involving their 17 year old daughter. How was that either lost or destroyed when all of these others were preserved? That seems highly unlikely and would need to be explained. So at this point, it seems very probable that this purported revelation was a later creation, and whoever wrote it would almost certainly have had access to the Whitney letter, which we will discuss in the next episode, which could very likely be a central reason why the revelation. Was created in the first place to bring that letter into the polygamy discussion and shape it into something it wasn’t. That’s the argument I’ll make next time. I find it fascinating that just like the original polygamy revelation, what became Section 132, this Whitney revelation is an extremely important document with a ton writing on it. It shapes much of the traditional polygamy narrative, and it is shocking that it is so unreliable. We should all admit that based on provenance alone, this document should be considered deeply suspect
[00:55:34] unless it can be substantiated by better sources. It really shouldn’t be used in our narrative. Uh, again, unless it can be substantiated. And that’s where we get into even more trouble. Let’s look into some additional sources. Sarah Anne Whitney Kimball died September 4, 1873. She herself said and wrote. Nothing about being married to Joseph, um, other than perhaps her signature on one of Joseph F. Smith’s form letter affidavits. I just wanted to point out this right here. We’ll look more into these strange squiggly signatures, which I have found on many of these 1869 affidavits. In the future episode, we do on the affidavits, and I’ll explain why I find these to be quite suspicious. We see them on more than just Sarah and. And Kimball’s affidavit. So in any case, we know that these affidavits were not the women’s own words. They were form letters pre-filled out for them. And so it’s questionable. I mean, even if that were her signature, it wouldn’t tell us a whole lot and with, with the situation going on at Utah at the time. But I find it questionable whether that is even her signature. So that means that Sarah Anne died without leaving us much testimony, only this at the most. And, um, Newell died. In 1850 without any testimony, right? So the only one involved who left extensive testimony was Elizabeth Anne Whitney. And here’s the story behind that. On January 21, 1875, Eliza Snow asked Emmeline B. Wells to write an autobiography for Elizabeth Ann Whitney. Emmeline had been Elizabeth’s much younger sister wife when Newell finally took plural wives after Joseph’s death. And she would later become the general general relief. Society president. So this is from her journal on January 21, 1875. Speaking of Eliza Arsenal’s birthday celebration by the relief Society, she wrote, I was not able to to attend, for which I was very sorry. Eliza R and Elizabeth Harrison Goddard, I’m just filling in the name for you, called on me after meeting when Eliza R proposed to me to write out an autobiography of Mother Whitney to publish in Tulidge’s new book, which I promised to do. An important thing to recognize is that this is the reason pretty much all of this evidence was created to serve the purpose of creating and supporting the Joseph Smith polygamy narrative. Eliza Snow wanted Elizabeth’s story about Joseph’s polygamy to be included in Edward Tulidge’s upcoming book, The Women of Mormondom, in order to promote their version of LDS history and advance the narrative of Joseph Smith’s polygamy. And we have many other sources of people being requested to provide, um, to provide affidavits or reminiscences to serve this purpose. This is just one of them. So it sounds like this autobiography was a collaborative effort with Emmaline interviewing Mother Whitney, as she called her, and ghostwriting the, um, the autobiography and then checking back with her at least. That’s the impression I get. Let me show these next two. I couldn’t find these original journals, but they are, and the transcripts of them are the church historian press. So Thursday, April 15, 1875, she wrote, um, went to our relief society meeting, took Mother with me. In the evening,
[00:58:58] read Mother Whitney’s autobiography to her. And then on May 10th, she said, she was still working on it. I have been for some time now engaged upon Mother Whitney’s autobiography, and it really seems interminable. But she finally finished the autobiography, and Tulid did indeed include the portion about Joseph’s marriage to her now deceased daughter, Sarah Anne Whitney in his 1877 book Women of Mormondom, with a few editorial changes. Um, here’s how he introduced it. He said, A very proper one to speak here is Mother Whitney, for it is her husband, Bishop Whitney, who preserved the revelation on polygamy. Speaking of the time when her husband kept store for Joseph, 1842 to 1843, she says it was during this time that Joseph received the revelation and it goes on from there. So I think that it’s very interesting to note that Eliza wanted the entire, like Emmeline did write an entire biography from her mother-in-law, but the only portion that was useful to Eliza and to Tulidge was the part about Joseph Smith’s polygamy. Um, but then the entire autobiography was published serially in the Women’s exponent from August 1878 through February 1879 under the title A Leaf from an Autobiography. You can see it right there. That’s the first, um, the first installment, and, um, the. This so so it was published in the Women’s exponent in a whole and long after it was published in Tulli’s book, or at least a year later. So that is the only firsthand, well, ghostwritten firsthand testimony we have of Joseph’s marriage to Sarah Anne. And I have one more very interesting source that I want to add to this. This shocked me when I saw it. This is a November 13th, 1879 deed to Elizabeth Ann Whitney. It is $5 for a very nice plot of land from Brigham Young’s estate. Just after he died, and no, this was the um autobiography was published to the women’s exponent in ’78 and ’79, and this, this deed was given just after that in ’79. I haven’t seen an explanation for this. I’m um It is, it is certainly not evidence of some sort of generalized charity for widows, right? The widows in Utah did not tend to do very well. Among many other stories of widows dying of poverty and awful destitution, including in my own my own family. According to Wikipedia and some other sources, Edward Tulidge’s widow and the mother of their 10 children, many of whom died in infancy, it says she became poverty stricken after the death of Tulidge, and 8 years after his death, she committed suicide. Her body found in a tent with frayed blankets and little to protect her from the cold ground. So that’s how um many widows were doing in Utah, but Elizabeth and Whitney received this very underpriced deed. I’m not necessarily claiming this deed to Elizabeth was a direct payout in exchange for writing her history. But I haven’t yet seen any other explanation for it. And with the way people automatically attribute things to Joseph Smith’s deeds with no evidence, in fact, with abundant evidence to the contrary, which I provided in my multiple episodes on deeds, as I said, I think this is at least a very fair hypothesis. And it does align with the additional evidence we have that shows how women who went along with the desired narrative tend To be taken better care of. I’ll address, um, more of these letters that I’m going to talk about.
[01:02:48] I’ll address them much more extensively in in the future episode I do about Brigham Young’s power in Utah, but let me just share one example here. um, we have the, well the example I’ll talk about is the many letters we have from Mary Elizabeth Rollins Leitner or letters on her behalf such as this one calling on the church leaders to provide for her because of her status as a as a widow of Joseph Smith. And you can read right here. Helen Mar Kimball says, but I consider her worthy of your attention and that she, as the prophet’s wife should be should be relieved and provided for for the remainder of her days, your sister in the covenant. So if you were the prophet’s wife, there were definitely blessings to be had. And as you can see from the, um, Kingsbury $8000 debt that we. Referred to before, there there were incentives to go along with this polygamy narrative, right? So it’s important to note that Elizabeth Elizabeth Whitney’s autobiography with its version of Joseph Smith’s marriage to Sarah Anne can be considered official church history at the time. It was requested and assigned by the current Relief Society president. Snow to a future relief Society president, Emmeline B. Wells, and it passed muster for Elizabeth Ann, Emmeline B. Wells, Eliza Snow, Edward Tulidge, and apparently anyone else who read it. And it was published not only in Tulidge’s book, but in the official women’s newspaper of the church, the Women’s exponent. So that would have been the standard narrative of the church at that time. And here is the main reason this is so relevant. Elizabeth Ann Whitney’s autobiography, which talks in detail about her daughter’s marriage to Joseph Smith, that was arguably the entire reason the biography was created, and it was the it was the only portion that was included in Edward Tulidge’s book. It does not say anything about the Whitney revelation. This one of a kind revelation, the earliest source of actual information about the doctrine of polygamy and Joseph’s involvement in it, which is supposed to be God speaking directly to the Whit Whitney family about their own daughter with instructions for the ceiling, wasn’t even worth mentioning and beyond. That, the version of the story that Elizabeth told doesn’t match up at all with the version the supposed revelation tells. They tell two very different stories. So speaking of the their introduction and conversion to the doctrine, let me go to the next slide. Um, Elizabeth’s autobiography says it was during this time that Joseph received the revelation concerning celestial marriage, right? So it was during the time that Joseph received the revelation concerning celestial marriage. That was July 12, 1843. He had been strictly charged by an angel who committed these precious things and to keep into his keeping that he should only reveal them to such ones as were pure and full of integrity to the truth and worthy and capable of being entrusted with divine messages, and that the most profound secrecy was to be maintained. Again, all of these claims come up later as ways to explain away the evidence or lack of evidence that we find from Nadu. Until the Lord saw fit to make it known publicly through his servants. They also noticed building all kinds of, um, um, glorifying the family is built into these. So both the excuses about why nobody knew about polygamy is built into these narratives, as well as the, the, um, glorifying the families that, that are writing them, right?
[01:06:23] Joseph had the most implicit confidence in my husband’s uprightness and integrity of character. He knew him capable of keeping a secret, and So he confided to him the principles set forth in that revelation and also gave him the privilege of reading and making a copy of it, believing it would be perfectly safe with him. Again, there can be no doubt that she’s talking about the revelation that became Section 132. That’s the only revelation she talks about. And it gives us the timeline for when she claims the marriage to her daughter occurred, as well as the, um, the order that these things occurred in, right? It was this. Veritable copy which was preserved in the providence of God for Emma, Joseph’s wife, afterwards becoming indignant, burned the original, thinking she had destroyed the only written document upon the subject in existence. Again, these are all just stories that were handed down. How would Elizabeth have any firsthand knowledge of that, right? Or Emmeline. They were just told these things and repeating them, because this was the way to explain all of this. But again, what is so important here is, is that it could not be more clear that she is speaking. The revelation that became Section 132, which was supposedly written down July 12, 1843 and copied by Kingsbury that evening or the next. Interesting how all of these are the same players, right? That it was Newell K. Whitney who was allowed to keep it. He had his, um, his, I think, brother-in-law and, um, clerk make a copy of it for him. This is the story that we’re told, and those are the same people involved in the Sarah and Whitney situation. It’s so interesting. So she had already signed, um, Elizabeth had already signed the form letter affidavit saying Sarah’s marriage date was July 12, 1842. Well, again, if those are, if that was her signature. But it is hard to keep all of the elements of these stories straight for this many years, especially if they didn’t actually happen. And Joseph F. Smith had never published his affidavit. So, um, Elizabeth and Emmeline couldn’t double check to see if their story aligned. With what the what was written on those affidavits. So we are supposed to believe that she perfectly remembered Sarah’s wedding date in 1869, 27 years after it happened, but she couldn’t remember the story accurately 7 or 8 years later. This is a problem because in general, stories are far more accurately accurately remembered than dates, as Todd Compton explained to me in our interview. as you say, in retrospective evidence, often you get dates wrong. It’s just like I, my example of that is when I was in 3rd grade, I was in Central, Central School in Alamosa, Colorado, and my teacher was Mrs. Lovato and I had heard before I got in her class that she yelled at her students, so I was terrified that she would yell at me, and one day she yelled at me. OK, but you can’t say the date. — I year that was, but I remember it. So if we were to believe either of these sources,
[01:09:34] the form written affidavit, which included nothing but the date, or the autobiography written with written with Elizabeth’s input, and which included the actual story, we should absolutely prioritize the autobiography. However, I strongly believe the evidence shows that neither the affidavit nor the autobiography are true. Elizabeth’s autobiography continues. My husband revealed these things to me. We had always been united and had the utmost faith and confidence in each other. We pondered upon the matter continually, and our prayers were unceasing that the Lord would grant us some special manifestation concerning this new and strange doctrine. The Lord was mer was very merciful to us, revealing unto us His power and glory. We were seemingly wrapped in a heavenly vision, a halo of light encircled us, and we were convinced in our own bosoms that God heard and approved our prayers and intercedings before Him. Our hearts were comforted, and our faith made so perfect that we were willing to give our eldest daughter. Only 17 years of age to Joseph in the holy order of plural marriage, laying aside all our traditions and former notions in regard to marriage, we gave her with our mutual consent. She was the first woman ever given in plural marriage by or with consent of both parents. Again, this raises so many problems. They always have the Every single time they described that the heavens opened and they knew that this was true, but they never are given any understanding or explanation or even direction. And that is not my experience with how God works, but it is definitely my experience with how these later reminiscent testimonies of polygamy work. They can never give us information, just Glorified claims of, um, confirmation, right? And it’s interesting that Newell didn’t take that, and, and Elizabeth didn’t take that confirmation to say Newell needs to take a plural wife. They decided to sacrifice their 17 year old daughter, which is the same story about Helen Mar Kimball, and I just don’t think is credible, that that’s what, anyway, I don’t, I don’t think there’s evidence to support these stories. So in Elizabeth’s version, this is what I want to back up and and show clearly. Um, in Elizabeth’s version, the 1843 revelation came first. It was after seeing and reading the revelation that they prayed and had their answer and then agreed to give their 17-year-old daughter as a wife to Joseph. Let me restate what restate what the problem is. The Whitney revelation and Sarah’s Sarah’s supposed ceiling to Joseph is dated July 1842, a year before the polygamy revelation. People may try to wiggle out of this claiming that since this was decades later, she might have gotten the order wrong, which is why we should prioritize the contemporaneous sources where in 1842 she signed an affidavit that polygamy was not happening. But if people still want to ignore the contemporary sources or just disregard them and claim that she, she knew the story, she just got the order wrong. Even if you want to claim that, it is still much more difficult to explain her completely failing to mention the revelation, right? The revelation again, that was given directly to her husband from the prophet. A much, much better explanation is that she and Emmeline didn’t know to work this revelation into their story because they hadn’t ever seen it, since the first mention of it didn’t come until 8 years later. So, which happened to be 3 years after her death. So Elizabeth, well, Emmeline wrote this on behalf of Elizabeth after Newell’s death and after Sarah’s death, right? This was written and then Orson Whitney will get into wrote his version of the story 3 years after Elizabeth’s death. So far, looking at this revelation,
[01:13:28] the provenance is just terrible, truly terrible. And it is apparent that Elizabeth did not know about it when she recorded her autobiography, since she didn’t mention it, and the stories do not line up. Therefore, I think it is already fair to assume that this was likely a forgery written sometime after the fact, for the purpose of providing additional evidence or testimony of Joseph’s polygamy, which would confirm the model that I think better explains this evidence, that the, the polygamist. Um, went on to create a series of evidence to try to show that Joseph Smith was a polygamist when he wasn’t. So there are more problems that make it challenging to claim this is authentic. Um, I just wanna go over a couple of them quickly. Joseph’s revelations address people in familiar terms using their first name. Here are the examples from the original version of every revelation that mentions Newell K. Whitney. The, um, first one from section 63 is the only one that even mentions mentions his last name that says, let my servant Newell Whitney retain his store. In all the rest, the revelation refers only to my servant Newell. In Section 64, these aren’t necessarily in order. I just tried to fit them on the page the best I could. But in section 64, it says, it is not me that my servant Newell and my servant Newell and Sydney should Their store and their possessions here, Section 78, or in other words, that my servant Noel and my servant Joseph and my servant Sydney sit in council with the saints who are in Zion. I’m now, I’m saying the sections that these are recorded in the doctrine of Covenants, but what I’m showing are the original writings of the Revelations. I believe the doctrine of Covenants has gone through, like, like they’ve gone in and added the last names, but I’m showing you what was originally said. So, um, in section 82, it is expedient for you, my servants, Edward and Newell, Sydney Gilbert and Sidney Rigdon, and my servant Joseph and John and Oliver and William and Martin be bound together in a body and covenant that cannot be broken. Um, plus there are many other examples, uh, other examples in sections 93, 96, and several from Section 104. The only exception is section 117, which the Joseph Smith papers says was probably a later copy of the original. So that’s the only case that’s different. I think that the manner that people are addressed in Joseph’s revelations is quite consistent, as you can see from these examples. However, this is Is the supposed revelation. It says, My servant NK Whitney. And worse when it mentions Sarah, the girl Joseph is supposed to be marrying, it calls her SA Whitney. The is, here’s what it says. These are the words which you shall pronounce upon my servant Joseph. It does that correctly, and your daughter, SA Whitney. So the revelation calls Joseph, my servant Joseph, that spells out to Newell that his daughter’s name is SA Whitney. Then, in the words Newell is supposed to speak, it says, I then, so this is Newell speaking.
[01:16:42] I then give you SA Whitney, my daughter, to Joseph Smith to be his wife. He’s supposed to address his own daughter as SA Whitney in her wedding ceremony. How does this make any sense? Um, we do have, let me skip forward, we do have one example of a revelation from Joseph to his wife, that’s section 25, and it doesn’t call her E. Smith, right? It’s a revelation to Emma. Calling Sarah S A Whitney is not in keeping with any of Joseph’s revelations and makes no sense at all in a legitimate revelation. It makes far better sense in a faked revelation from someone not careful enough about the tone and wordings of Joseph’s genuine revelations, but who wanted to create evidence that the Whitney’s daughter, Sarah had been Joseph’s plural wife. Um, again, maybe as a way to utilize the letter they had, which we will cover in the next episode. So, as I said, there are several more problematic elements to this revelation, looking at the internal. Predictions and the wordings and many other things. There’s, there’s more than what we’ve gone into, just like section 132, it has a lot of that, that, um, that make it seem very invalid. But I’m concerned that going into them right here might make this episode too long and feel bogged down. So I’m going to skip them for now, and I’ll plan to go into them either in more depth into the wording and ideas of this revelation, either in, um, at the end of part two, if it’s shorter or in as a bonus. Episode. So I’ll just wrap up this episode by explaining this one last thing that I already alluded to. Elizabeth, as I said, passed away in 1882, 3 years after that, her grandson, Orson F. Whitney, published his 1885 biography of his grandfather, Newell K. Whitney, Elizabeth’s husband, and The Contributor, which was the first time the supposed revelation was ever mentioned. Um, I’ll quote from it. The revelation commanding and consecrating this union is in existence, though it has never been published. It bears the date of July 27, 1842 and was given through the prophet to the writer’s grandfather, Newe K. Whitney, whose daughter Sarah on that very day became the wedded wife of Joseph Smith. For time and all eternity. So the first mention ever of this revelation, and not the revelation itself, didn’t come until 3 years after Elizabeth’s death, the last one involved in this. Joseph, Sarah, Newell, and Elizabeth, the 4 actors in this, were all dead before it was ever even mentioned. And so, Orson, let me just tell you a little bit about Orson Whitney, because he’s very involved in this as well. He was born in 1855 in Utah, 13 years and 1300 miles away from where these events supposedly took place. Yet, he must have had access to the supposed revelation that Elizabeth and Emmeline hadn’t seen and didn’t know. About when they created the version of the story for Elizabeth’s autobiography. Again, everything else was carefully preserved,
[01:19:52] but not this revelation. And so we should be wondering why Elizabeth wouldn’t have had access to it. Was it created after that point? Was it created by someone earlier but not given to the family? It’s impossible to know for sure. We just know that it doesn’t seem to be Valid. In any case, Orson seems to have been the first to recognize the problem between the two sources, the revelation and his grandmother’s autobiography, because he actually reworked that portion of Elizabeth’s autobiography to make the story of Sarah’s marriage to Joseph fit with the supposed revelation that he claimed to have, but didn’t include. In his book written 441 years after this event. So this is the same Orson F. Whitney, who 27 years later, after that, typed up the typed up and delivered the Whitney revelation to Joseph F. Smith on April 1st, 1912. I don’t know why he didn’t ever do anything with it sooner or why nobody did anything with it sooner. I have no idea when it was created or why it sat there so long. Maybe there were known problems with it. I, like, maybe, um, Rob Fotheringham hypothesizes that it may have been in Hebrew C. Kimball’s handwriting, which is one reason they couldn’t release it and had to destroy it. I have no idea. So, but what we do know is that Orson F. Whitney is the only source for this revelation. And, um, his willingness to alter his grandmother’s version of of of the events she was alive to experience might call his credibility into question, at least to some extent. So again, just like with William Clayton being the only source for so many of these claims that we don’t have his journal to look at and his credibility should be called into question. And I think the same is true with Orson F. Whitney, who serves that who’s the only source for this revelation. So it is both amusing and perhaps appropriate that, um, it was April 1st when Orson F. Whitney delivered his typewritten revelation to um to Joseph F. Smith. I, I think that It’s amusing to me that it happened to be April Fool’s Day. So even without yet going into the additional problems of the revelation itself, the evidence to show that the Whitney revelation is not genuine, is not a genuine revelation from Joseph Smith, should be very compelling. So here’s this mystery revelation seems to me to fit nicely into the category of Altered and forged records to paint Joseph as a polygamist. I don’t see how people can credibly claim this revelation should be considered legitimate without first understanding, acknowledging, and then adequately addressing and responding to all of these problems. So that’s going to wrap it up for today. In the next episode, we will look at the rest of the Whitney documents. Starting with the infamous Whitney letter, and I think again you will be very interested in what we can learn about them. So thank you for joining us again. Please share this and historians, I hope you will engage and I would welcome responses. I don’t claim to have everything right, but I, I think everything in this episode is pretty darn close, so I will look forward to engaging more on these topics. Thanks for joining me. I will see you next time.
