148: James Whitehead, W. W. Blair, and the Dangers of Cherry-Picking

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Links

Orson Pratt, The Seer
Jennie Anderson Froiseth, Women of Mormondom

1869 Affidavits (Emily and Eliza Partridge)

Blair’s Memoirs

Whitehead Autumn Leaves Sermon

Newspaper Report of RLDS Conference

James Whitehead Obituary

D Michael Quinn Dialogue Article

Elder Hinckley 1981 Conference Talk

William Smith 1845 Warsaw Signal Article

RLDS Affidavits, Saints Advocate 1885

Joseph Fielding Smith on Hyrum

Transcript

[00:00] Michelle: Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon Polygamy. I thank you so much for being here. I want to again ask people to please consider donating, subscribing, and helping this channel in any other way you can. We have so much to get into in this episode, so we are just going to dive right in to WW Blair’s 1874 journal entry. This is another episode dedicated to responding to one piece of evidence that polygamy affirmers recently have been using to claim that we do have plenty of evidence of Joseph Smith’s novel polygamy. We have a ton to get into in this episode, so I’m going to go ahead and let Brian Hailes describe this source.

[00:50] Brian Hales: Um, James Whitehead was a scribed for Joseph. He told William Blair in 1874 that Joseph did teach polygamy and practiced it too, and Emma knows it too, that she put hands of wives in Joseph’s hands.

[01:04] Michelle: So this is talking about WW Blair’s June 17th, 1874 journal entry. And um we, there is a lot to get into here. Brian does seem to put a lot of stock into this one small portion of this entry in WW Blair’s journal. As usual, I think there is much more that we should look at too with this source. Let me go ahead and introduce the people we’re going to be talking about. This is WW Blair, William Wallace Blair. He first encountered. Restoration in 1851 and was baptized by William Smith but quickly became disillusioned by him and continued to seek until he joined the reorganization in 1857. He quickly became a high priest and the following year an apostle. So a couple of reminders, he joined the church in 1851. So that was um six years after Joseph Smith had died. He never knew Joseph Smith and wasn’t involved in Navu polygamy. Also, I want to point out that It wasn’t until 1860 that Joseph Smith III finally joined the reorganization and assented to be their president. And so William WW Blair was a member of the church before Joseph III or Emma were. People like to call the RLDS Church, Emma’s Church and imply that she organized it and put her son in charge. That is deeply mistaken. I talk about that in my episode on the RLDS Church, if anybody wants a refresher. Blair became an intrepid missionary and brought many people. to the restoration, the Book of Mormon, and the reorganization throughout his life. And I also will introduce or remind everybody about James Whitehead. He was Joseph Smith’s clerk or or personal secretary who gave important testimony at the Temple Lot trial. Among many other things, he said he turned all of the church records over to Brigham Young and the 12 at Winter quarters and then didn’t know what happened to them after that. He also testified of many things about. Polygamy, some of which we will get into. Some claim that Whitehead has credibility problems, which we will also look at. So this journal entry is interesting and it is on the surface potentially difficult to understand. I want to try to steel man the argument that the polygamy affirmers make. We appear to have a man, James Whitehead, who was in Joseph Smith’s office in Navvo and spent a lot of time with him, who became an anti-polygamist. Member of the RLDS Church who should theoretically be committed to the claim that Joseph Smith was not a polygamist and who gave fervent testimony that he wasn’t at the Temple Lot trial, we have him privately telling a leader of the RLDS Church, WW Blair, that Joseph Smith was a polygamist, which Blair recorded in his journal the next day. What’s more, this seems to be backed up by Alexander Hale Smith’s journal, where he says Whitehead. Told him things he could not understand. I’ll go ahead and read Mark Tinmeyer’s handling of this source in his paper, where Brian Hay is taking his information from. This is from Secret Covenants pages 85 and 86. Whitehead is best known for his frequent denunciations of polygamy as an invention of Brigham Young and for his witness statements about the ordination of Joseph Smith III by his father as his successor. He testified to both these things in the. case and in particular testified that in 1846 Newell K. Whitney showed him a revelation from Smith on monogamous ceilings. When the plural marriage revelation was published in 1852, he claimed he could tell it was the document Whitney showed him years before, only it had been altered to authorize polygamy. This is the really important part. Privately, Whitehead would tell RLDS leaders that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. RLDS apostle. WW Blair wrote in his journal on June 14, 1874. The book says, um, June 14th. I think that that is a mistake, a typo or just a mistake because it’s actually June 17th. That really mixed me up for a while, so I want to be sure to correct it. It’s his June 17, 1874, um, entry. He recorded that he had a conversation with Whitehead in which Whitehead told him of many developments in Navvo, including the Council of 50, the conferral of the second anointing. The ordination of Joseph Smith Jr. uh, the ordination by Joseph Smith Jr. of Joseph III to be his successor, and the presentation of the latter as heir apparent at a large public meeting. This next part uses just an initial for the first word, Whitehead, I mean, Blair seems not to want to write the full words, so I’m going to read it as we interpret it. Hopefully you’re looking at the source and you can read what it actually says. Whitehead also said that Joseph did teach polygamy. And practice too that Emin knows it too, that she put Hand of wives in Joseph’s hand. Whitehead further said that he told all this to Alexander Hale Smith when the latter stayed the night at his house. Alexander Smith’s journal does not directly state Whitehead told him his father was a polygamist, but it gives circumstantial support to the account in the Blair Journal. The entry from May 14, 1864 says that he stayed at Whitehead’s home that night, and Whitehead gave him some useful. Information told me some things that I did not know and cannot understand. Smith also included an account of the ordination of Joseph Smith III, similar to Whitehead’s telling of the event in Blair’s journal. OK, so that is a long entry. There is a lot to get into here. I have several important points to make that I think shed a very different light on this entry and especially how it is being used and presented and the terrible problems it supposedly poses for monogamy. Affirmers. First, let’s look at the entry in Blair’s journal. We’ll go ahead and add it. This is the first page that we’re going to be talking about, and then we’ll go on from there. Tuesday, the 16th, called at Brother Forscutts, visited with Brother James Whitehead at Brother James Anderson’s. Wednesday, the 17th. Yesterday, Brother Whitehead told me that in the winter or spring of 1843-944, Joseph organized the Kingdom of David with 50 counselors and the And that on the Sunday following, he brought young Joseph on the stand in the public meeting and putting his hand on his, on his head, said, Brothers and sisters, I am no longer your prophet. This is your prophet. I have finished my work and I’m going to rest. Brother Whitehead said, young Joseph was ordained by Joseph and Hiram in the, um, in the council room in the brick store, and that Hiram was appointed his guardian until he should become of age. He said he was Joseph’s clerk at this time and After that he did not see the ordination take place but heard it freely talked over in the office. Brother Whitehead says he heard Joseph say in public that if Brigham Young had the lead of the church, he would lead it to ruin or to hell, says Joseph did teach polygamy and practice too, that Emma knows it too, that she put the hands of wives in Joseph’s hand. Um, Whitehead also says Alex H. Smith, that’s Alexander Hale Smith. Um, asked him when sleeping with him at his house in Alton if Joseph did practice and teach polygamy, and he, Whitehead told him he did. Whitehead says William Marks and Hyrum by command of God ordained Joseph King and priest, says David will yet be a prince, so it was predicted by Joseph Smith. OK. I hope the first thing that jumps out at you is the fact that Whitehead said a lot of things that Blair recorded in this journal entry, not just about polygamy. Using this one part of this entry while ignoring and omitting everything else is a perfect example of cherry picking. I am often accused. of cherry picking as we’ll go into in a little while, which I find amusing since I spend so much time digging into the arguments and evidence against my position like I’ve been doing in all of these episodes, and my tendency is to over-investigate things and include too much information. So it’s a bit galling to be constantly accused of cherry picking. By the people who are cherry picking, right? This is exactly what seems to be happening on the other side. So as we dig into this document, I of course have to start by saying that this is a 2nd or 3rd hand report um recorded 3 decades after Joseph’s death. So there is plenty of room for error and misunderstandings. We don’t know for sure that Whitehead said or meant exactly what Blair recorded. We don’t know. Blair understood him correctly and recorded it all correctly. These are the reasons late, second and thirdhand accounts like this tend to be less trustworthy. But let’s go ahead and assume that Whitehead did make these statements and that Blair accurately recorded them. Whitehead’s testimony was, is considered important because he was in Joseph’s office in Navvo and spent a lot of time with him. Therefore, he would supposedly be sharing. Firsthand information, things he witnessed himself, not merely things he heard about after the fact. The first thing we need to do is go through each part of this entry and investigate all of Whitehead’s claims to see if they stand up to scrutiny, and we need to pay extra attention to what Whitehead actually knew and how he knew it. That will be an extremely important part of our investigation. So the first claim, Whitehead said is that in winter or spring of 1843, 1944, Joseph organized the kingdom of David with 50 counselors. This is obviously referring to the council of 50. I haven’t yet read through the entire council of 50 minutes, and I have a lot of questions about them. That will be a very interesting topic to dig into at some point. But for now, there is only one critical piece of information we really need. All we need to know is that Whitehead was never part of the Council of 50. We actually have quite good records showing who was involved, and we can look right here on the Joseph Smith papers, the members of the Council of 50, to see that Whitehead was not. If you scroll down, you can see all of the members alphabetized. And here we get to the Ws, and we can see Watson, Whitney, White, Woodruff, Woodworth. There is no. Whitehead. Whitehead was never part of the council of 50. On February 14, 1845, when the council reconvened after the martyrdom, Whitehead was one of 18 men recommended as potential members to fill the 10 vacancies. But still, he never he was never admitted to the council even then. And as you’ll recognize this was 1845, so he wasn’t even recommended to be added to it until after Joseph’s death. The Council of 50 was a secret organization. Ben Park describes it as the secretive council of 50, a clandestine assembly whose minutes were sequestered from public access since their creation in 1844 and were only made available in September 2016. The only people who were at all likely to know about the Council of 50 and Joseph’s Day were those who were part of it. Whitehead was not a participant in the Council of 50. So wherever he got the information that he shared with Blair, it was not from his own firsthand experience. It was likely. Based on things he heard from other sources and came to believe. So Whitehead’s first claim goes in the category of things he heard about but did not witness himself, which lessens the weight of his statement since he was really only sharing rumors he had heard. Now we can go on to the next claim in the journal. It says, the next, uh, the Sunday following the organization of the Council of 50, Joseph Smith brought young Joseph on the stand in the public meeting, put his hands on his head, and said, I am no longer your prophet. This is your prophet. I have finished my work and I’m going to rest. This one seems to be a bit different from the first. Again, from the journal alone, it’s it’s difficult to know whether Whitehead was speaking from his personal experience. But or from something he had heard. But since he claimed this happened in a public meeting, it is entirely possible that he witnessed it, and his temple lot testimony supports that. He testified about it more than once, and he consistently said that it happened after the ordination at the east end of the temple in Navvo and that there were 2 or 3 1000 people there that saw it, including him. The question is, were you present on that occasion? I was present, sir. Trying to nail down the veracity of this claim is a bit tricky. On the one hand, it seems like this would have been a notable event to have Joseph publicly step down as prophet and tell the people that his 11 year old son was now their prophet. And if it happened in the public meeting, it would seem that somebody might have recorded it. Whitehead said that it was the Sunday after the Council of 50. We know that that council of 50 was organized on March 11th, so we can look at the following Sunday, March 17th, which happens to be the day after Emma’s last of her two Voice of Innocence meetings. But I really don’t think it is, it is at all likely that it happened this day. We can look at a couple of sources that we have Joseph Smith’s journal, well we call it Joseph Smith’s Journal, Willard Richard’s record of Joseph Smith, um, it is a rather nonchalant entry that just talks about the weather and mentions that there was a prayer meeting that evening. Nothing about a crowd of 2 or 3 1000 an announcement of Joseph stepping down or any other notable events at that meeting. So we also don’t have many. Other sources to look at if William Clayton recorded a journal entry for that day, we don’t have it. Wilfred Woodruff is a good a good resource to look at. He recorded most days, but it also doesn’t show much evidence that this of this happening. It actually says that he, that I met with some of the saints and gave a lecture on experience. So it’s not much help. It also mentions the snow. Storm, but it shows that there wasn’t a big meeting that day because Wilfred Woodruff as an apostle wasn’t there. So there really doesn’t seem to be much to support the claim that this happened the Sunday after the Council of 50 was organized. But remember, Whitehead didn’t, didn’t actually know about the Council of 50, and he wasn’t able to nail the day down at all that it was formed. He said sometime winter or spring of 43. Or 44. So he may very easily have gotten the day wrong. The best support I have found for Joseph Smith III being publicly presented to the people is Joseph III’s own testimony at the Temple lot trial. He testified, I was also present at a meeting in the in the grove near the temple, and I remember my father laying his hands on my head and saying to the people that this was his successor or was to be his successor. This is a bit different from Whitehead’s claim, which is to be expected in varied testimonies given decades after the event. But it does lend credence to Whitehead’s claim that Joseph Smith publicly announced Joseph Smith III as his successor and that Whitehead witnessed it. The other part of this claim that Joseph was stepping down seems to be less well supported. Joseph did not step down from his positions of leadership and authority. There’s no evidence that he was going to. Rest as the journal entry said. He continued in his position as president of the church, delivering many servants, overseeing the temporal affairs of the church, signing deeds, etc. He was the head of the, he continued as the head of the Navo Legion and as the mayor, and he continued to be called President Smith until his death, and he was referred to as the prophet long after his death, I think until after Brigham Young’s death. Plus we can simply look at Joseph Smith. 26, 1844 sermon to see that he absolutely still considered himself the prophet and leader of the church. He said, I have prophesized things that have come to pass, and I can still. He claimed to still be a prophet. He said, I am at times willing to give up everything that is wrong, for I wish these people to have a virtuous leader so he can still considered himself to be their leader. But this is interesting. There’s a, there is quite strong evidence that Previous summer, July 16, 1843, Joseph had told the people to look to Hiram as their leader with somewhat similar wording. The Joseph Smith history reports said, I would not prophesy anymore and proposed Hiram Smith to hold the office of prophet of the church as it was his birthright. I am going to have a reformation, and the saints must regard Hiram, for he has the authority that I might be the priest of the Most High God. So in his statements in this journal, Whitehead said that Hiram was appointed his guardian until he should become of age, speaking of Joseph III. I can’t help but wonder if Whitehead might have unintentionally conflated these two events in his mind by the time he made this statement to Blair. It was 20 years later, so this is entirely possible. But since we have Multiple witness witnesses of Joseph III being presented in the public meeting as Joseph’s successor, and since I don’t see terribly strong evidence to the contrary, I’ll put this claim in the list of things Whitehead was himself a witness to. OK, now looking at the next part of the journal entry which builds on the last might provide more clarity. Um, Whitehead claimed or Blair recorded that Joseph Smith III was ordained to this position by Joseph and Hiram in the red brick store. This is another complicated claim to sort through, but one aspect of it gives us the most explicit evidence that in at least some of these claims, Whitehead was talking about things that he was not part of and did not personally witness, but heard about from other sources. Whitehead told Blair that he did not see the ordination take place. But heard it freely talked over in the office. This makes it completely clear that in his statements to Blair, Whitehead included things that he did not witness, so did not have firsthand knowledge of. It sounds to me like his admission that he didn’t witness the ordination himself was likely in response to Blair explicitly asking him. Otherwise, he may not have added that clarification, just as he did not add it to any of his other claims. But clearly, we can go ahead and add this to our list of. At the hand information right now and then look into whether he was accurate in his claim. There is some supporting evidence of Joseph III being ordained or at least set apart. WW Blair’s memoir was published in 1908 by his son, and it records that on May 15, 1865, Blair visited Emma and Alexander, and that Emma quote, stated that in the spring of 1844, a council composed of a number of the leading authorities of the church was held in Navu. And at its close, Elder GJ Adams came and said to her, rejoicing greatly, that one matter was now settled. They now knew who Joseph’s successor would be. It was little Joseph, for he had just seen him set apart under the hand of his father and others. I don’t know that this is a great source. It is published very late and is at least a 3rd or 4th hand. Blair’s son publishing what Blair recorded from what he said Emma told him that GA Adams told her. I tend to think the most likely possibility, especially since GA Adams was never included on any other list of those present for the ordination, was that this was most likely referring to the public meeting where Joseph Smith III himself testified that his father laid his hands on his head. And not the private ordination that Whitehead heard people talk about. It again shows how stories could be conflated and altered over time and telling, which is again why firsthand contemporary evidence is so important. Other than this one rather questionable source, the strongest support by far of Joseph Smith the TII being ordained comes from Whitehead himself. He testified of the ordination of young Joseph many. Times throughout his life. And while I believe he was sincerely saying what he genuinely thought to be true, that Joseph Smith III was formally ordained, there is also reason to believe he may have somewhat misunderstood what he heard. We’ll look at his testimonies. So first, on May 20, 1877, Whitehead gave a sermon to the youth, which was published in the RLDS periodical Autumn Leaves. In it, he said, Joseph Smith, the son of Joseph the martyr, our present Joseph, was anointed, ordained, and set apart to be a prophets here and revelator to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by his father and his uncle. Joseph, the son of Joseph the martyr, was called. He was appointed by direct revelation from heaven, for his father told us so. Joseph told us that God had commanded him to do it. In most of his statements, just like this one, he focuses quite a bit on his belief that Joseph III was called by revelation. And interestingly, he says here again that he was told these things. He gave the same testimony at the Temple Lot trial. The question is, you stated in your examination in chief that Joseph Smith was ordained by his father in pursuance of a rev. which he had, which he had received. Yes, sir. A revelation from God. That is so. Now then, I want to inquire as to how you know he received a revelation from God. I know it. I know it was from God. Were you present when the revelation was made? No, sir. He again admits that he was not there when the revelation was given. He claims that he had seen it. So, um, I’m not sure. you know, what to, what to think about that, but he does admit that he wasn’t there when he, when it was given. Joseph Smith III’s ordination came up repeatedly during his Temple lot examination. Whitehead gave very consistent details, saying that Joseph was ordained and anointed at that meeting. Hiram Smith, the patriarch, anointed him, and Joseph, his father, blessed him and ordained him. And Noe K. Whitney held the horn and poured the oil on his head, and he was ordained to be his father’s successor in the office holding all the blessings and powers that his father held. In this part of his testimony, there is some clear exaggeration. After naming some of those who were present at the ordination in question 53, he adds, and I was there too. This is the only time I have seen when Whitehead explicitly claimed that he was at the ordination. In every other case, he testified that it happened but did not specify that he was present and witnessed it personally. This is one of the main reasons people say that Whitehead has credibility problems. We’ll get to that more, as I said. But there is another question from his testimony that that I think is also important to pay attention to. Much later in his examination, in question 722, he was asked how he knew that Joseph Smith III had been ordained by his father. And he said, Why, man, there was, there was scores talked to me about it. There was a great many talked to me about it. In fact, they were in the office all the time talking about it. While Whitehead did one time falsely say he, he was at the ordination, he went on to later say he knew about it because he heard it talked about in the office just as he had told Blair. Whitehead did continue to testify of Joseph III being Joseph’s successor. His obituary published by the RLDS Church August 3, 1898, said he was present at Navvo in 1843 when the Prophet Joseph Smith formally blessed and appointed his eldest son Joseph, the president of the reorganized church, to be his successor as the president of the church. Of that important event he ever bore a clear and faithful testimony regarding himself as under special obligation to recount and bear witness to the incidents connected with that historic transaction. There’s a very important distinction in that obituary that seems to me to be the responsibility of Joseph Smith III. But while Whitehead did give consistent testimony about the ordination of Joseph III based on what he has heard, there is also some pretty important evidence that seems to refute what he said. Just as was the case about the public presentation of Joseph III as Joseph’s successor, there are also no journal entries I have seen to support the ordination. Joseph Smith or Willard Richard’s Journal, William Clayton, Wilfred Woodruff, Brigham Young, anyone else that I have seen, maybe we wouldn’t expect any of them to report it. But there are some other sources that we should look at. First, this amazing proclamation, let me get it, this amazing proclamation from William Smith that covered the entire front page plus a column and a half on the last page of the October 29, 1845 Warsaw signal. This is a very early source in these conversations, 1845, and this is an important article for many reasons that will come up other times as we are doing these um episodes. The reading it makes it very clear that William believed Joseph the Third should be Joseph Smith’s successor, but it also implies that William did not seem to know about the ordination. of Joseph Smith III. After making his case that the 12 were not appointed as presidents of the church and that Brigham Young as president of the 12, only by virtue of age was not Joseph’s successor, William went on to say, quote, the church is hereby warned against any such pretensions as little Joseph, the son of Joseph Smith, is the lawful. Heir to the officer, being the oldest son of the deceased prophet, William didn’t say he was the lawful heir because he had been ordained, but by virtue of lineage, which point he made several times. He went on to write, According to our book of covenants, the priesthood must be handed down from father to son, plus other statements, including So long as the sun, moon, and stars perform their successive revolutions, shall I have faith in the doctrine of legal dissent, lineage, and blood? I will point out that William was a bit of a wildcard and as a member of the Smith family seemed to be highly motivated to claim his own position by lineage. So I generally take him with a grain of salt, but it is interesting that in making his case for Joseph the Third being the rightful successor. He didn’t say anything about Joseph ordaining him, which would have strengthened his case, right? It would have been stronger evidence than he provided. So if Williams’ article is trustworthy, it does reveal that Brigham Young did not take the threat of Joseph Smith III’s place in the succession lightly. And Williams says Brigham, quote, stated that Joseph Smith had revealed to him a mystery concerning the royal blood, that none of the rest of the brethren knew any. Thing about that little Joseph, his eldest son, was not the prophet of the church, nor ever would be. And if he were to say so, it would be aiming a dagger at his life’s blood. And even more menacing, quote, While this Brigham Young was pampering the church with the idea that although little Joseph was the rightful heir to the president and the office of his father as prophet Cyr and revelator, that it would not be prudent to mention this for fear of the Little child’s life. According to William Smith, Brigham Young made threats to keep Joseph Smith III or anyone else on his behalf from making this claim, but it still sounds like both Brigham Young and William Smith recognized that any claim Joseph Smith III had to be his father’s successor was based on lineage, not necessarily that he had been ordained, at least William doesn’t say anything about Brigham Young saying anything about that, right? And then there is the Jason Briggs revelation, which I’ll just talk about really quickly. Those who have studied the history of the RLDS Church or or who have watched my episode, I think it’s number 56 on the RLDS Church, will be familiar with the story that on November 8, 1851, Jason Briggs received. The revelation which would be the catalyst for the reorganization. The revelation included that succession had to be lineal. You would think that if it was so clear that Joseph III had been ordained, they wouldn’t have had the question about who was supposed to be the next leader, and they wouldn’t have needed this revelation. The revelation talks about William Smith and why he had been allowed to appear to be the heir or the leader, and it said that it was quote, to respect the law of lineage by which the holy priesthood is transmitted in all generations when organized into quorums. And then it goes on to say, quote, and in my own due time I will call upon the seat of Joseph Smith and will bring one forth to be the leader. So like William Smith, Briggs’ understanding that Joseph III should be the leader was based on the idea of lineage, and it made no mention of him being ordained. And then we have the testimony of Joseph Smith III himself, which provides additional insight and clarification into both Whitehead’s claim that he was ordained and that he was publicly announced as Joseph’s successor. And I just have to say quickly, the more I have read of Joseph III, the more I like him and respect him, he does come across to me as a deeply thoughtful and incredibly honest person, even when people might have wanted him to say something other than what he said. Reading, um, his letters to Joseph F. Smith and now reading through his Temple Lot testimony made me think that he really was an exceptional, uh, an exceptional man. I want to learn more about him. But first I want to read a small part of his extensive testimony at the Temple Lot case to show how careful he was and the important distinctions he made based on his firsthand witness of these events that differed in some important ways from the secondhand testimony that Whitehead gave. Um, I’ll read just a little bit of the testimony. The question is, I will ask you now if you remember having been selected and and classed by your father as his successor prior to his death. I remember of having been called into the office or into a room adjoining his office and receiving the laying out of hands, and a prophetic blessing or setting apart, whatever it may be called, for I don’t know the term that the term. That were used. I remember that, and I also remember that just before the departure for Carthage with a number of others, I was called into a room in the mansion house and there again received the laying on of hands and the blessing. I was also presented at a meeting in the grove near the temple, and I remember my father laying his hands on my head and saying to the people that this was his successor or was to be his successor. Well, um, then the question, well, were you ordained as your father’s successor in all things? I was not ordained by my father. Well, how was it? According to my understanding of the meaning of the word ordained, I was not. You were not ordained by your father? No, sir. I was blessed by him and designated. Well, in a sense chosen, and the word ordained could not be applied in any other sense than by the act of pointing out or indicating only. And he indicated and designated me as his successor. Isn’t it interesting how careful and um specific he is being in these claims. Then the question, well, are you your father’s successor in this office office? Yes, sir. You are your father’s successor. Yes, sir. I understand I am. It is so understood by the church to which I belong that I am by his choice. Have you not claimed the office to which you now hold as from, or rather as succession from your father? And that you have a right to it by lineal dissent. I claim to be his successor by lineal dissent and by his blessing, and lastly by the right of selection and appointment. This testimony in the Temple lot and this careful rest rephrasing of Whitehead’s claim in his obituary, saying that Joseph Smith formally blessed and appointed him, not saying, as Whitehead had said, that Joseph anointed and ordained him, demonstrates why first. Hand accounts are so important. Joseph Smith III, as a personal witness to these events, despite only being 11 or 12, made critical distinctions that Whitehead’s secondhand testimony missed. He said he was blessed and chosen to be his father’s successor if it became necessary, but he was not anointed and ordained as Whitehead had understood from the people he had heard talking about it. The next part of the entry is that Whitehead was Joseph’s clerk. I don’t know that this was Really a claim so much as an explanation of why he had the information he had, but I think it is worth looking into. In later years, Whitehead claimed that he had been Joseph’s secretary, so this entry made me wonder if this was another area where Whitehead may have exaggerated and maybe lacking credibility. I wondered if being a clerk was like somehow lower status than being a secretary. It might have meant that he had lower access to Joseph Smith and less familiarity with him than maybe William Clayton. Mark Tinmeyer seems to point to this in his paper and explaining why Whitehead is considered as lacking credibility. Mark writes, Whitehead claimed to have been Joseph Smith’s private secretary and that William Clayton had been dismissed, but there is no documentation that this was the case. I have started digging into the question of Whitehead and Clayton, and I’m really excited to invest. Investigate it much more deeply and especially to share what I have found, but I, uh, it was painful. I had to cut all of that out from this episode because it’s going to have to be its own full episode for now I will just point out that my concern about Whitehead telling Blair he had been Joseph’s clerk and then later saying he had been Joseph’s secretary was completely unfounded. The words clerk and secretary were not clearly defined in this context and were somewhat interchangeable. A clerk could be used to refer to a secretary. William Clayton was hired as a clerk and was often described that way as well, and I’ve never seen any case in the Joseph Smith papers where William Clayton is referred to as a secretary. And Joseph described all of his scribes, secretaries, and historians as clerks. In Joseph’s May 26, 1851844 speech, he said, quote, I have kept several good faithful, and efficient clerks in my constant employee. They have accompanied me everywhere and carefully kept my history, and they have written down what I have done, where I have been, and what I have said. So Whitehead does not lose credibility for describing himself as both a clerk and a secretary. And again, OK, I, I have a lot of of information that I will present when I do the episode on Whitehead and Clayton so we can look forward to that. For now we can just go ahead and add that um Whitehead’s claimed that he was Joseph Smith’s clerk to his firsthand information, obviously. So now for the next part of the journal entry, this is a fascinating one. And is the only one that Whitehead explicitly states in this entry that he had witnessed. Whitehead said that quote, he heard Joseph say in public that if Brigham Young had the lead of the church, he would lead it to ruin or to hell. This one is a very big deal when it comes to cherry picking. Most polygamy apologists like Brian Hailes would tend to find. This part of Blair’s journal entry to be extremely inconvenient, but it is part of this document. So if they want to use the part of this document to defend their position on Joseph Smith’s polygamy, they get this part as well. We already know that White had claimed to be an eyewitness, an eyewitness to this part, so we can just already go ahead and add it to that part of our list. And now we’ll go. and investigate whether there is any additional support for this claim that Joseph said if Brigham led the church he would lead it to hell. And it turns out there is additional support, a lot. I think it is worth taking the time to quickly go into it. The first source for this that I have seen was in the same proclamation that William Smith published in the October 29th, 1845 Warsaw Signal. Um, William wrote, quote, In noticing the claims of Brigham Young to superior power and authority, I would here observe that I heard my brother Joseph declare before his death that Brigham Young was a man whose passions, if unrestrained, were calculated to make him the most licentious man in the world. And should the time ever come, said he, that this man should lead the church, he would certainly lead it to destruction. William Smith repeated this claim in a March 25th, 18. 9 letter he wrote to Joseph Smith III. He told him about a breakfast he had been out with Joseph and Emma after the April 1844 conference. This is what he wrote. One other point I wish to notice in the conversation that took place while I was eating at your father’s table, and that was, as the conversation turned upon Brigham Young, your father remarked that with regard to the charge brought against those brethren that they were involved in polygamy, that he expected that they, that they would have, that he would have trouble with Brigham Young, especially, and added, quote, that should the time ever come that this man B Young should lead the church, that he would lead it to hell. And these words I remember as plainly as though they were spoken by yesterday, as at this time I had not known that there could have been a charge of fault brought against the man. My association with this man, Brigham Young for nearly 3 years previous had been limited in consequence of our different localities and fields of labor. Then we get the mother lode of these claims in a series of affidavits published in the Saints Advocate January 1885. OK, there are quite a few here. I’m just going to go over them quickly. Um, we have Joseph Thorne who said Joseph approved Brigham Young for taking church money, then said, quote, if Brigham Young ever leads. This church, he will lead it to hell. We have David Dixon who said that he saw and heard the prophet Joseph Smith say, Here is Brigham Young. If he ever leads this church, he will lead it to hell. Catherine Huntington said that she several times heard the prophet Joseph Smith say, if he, if ever Brigham Young leads the church, he will lead it to hell. Hannah Little remembered. Um, Joseph’s prophecy, quote, If ever Brigham Young leads the church, he will lead it to hell. Plus we have several others, one from James Whitehead, from Priscilla and John Conyers, from Mary Ralph. I think the next one is SL Crane, who said he, um, he heard him say to and of Brigham Young that if he was left to lead the church, the pride of his heart would lead them to hell. I think it is also worthwhile to read the short article preceding all of these affidavits in this newspaper. This is what it says. Hundreds of men and women who read this article will well remember hearing that the seer made the statement prophecy, if you will, which is the caption of this article concerning the late Brigham Young. The article is called He Will Lead the Church to Hell. um. The late William Marks stated to many that he heard the seer say, quote, If Brigham Young ever leads the church, he will lead it to hell. David Whitmer said the same thing. Brother E. Robinson says he often heard of the same thing. The article goes on to give several reports of other times that Joseph said of Brigham. If that man ever leads the church, he will lead it to hell. The writer says. 1860, at different times and places heard many different ones who lived at and near Navo relate that they well remembered hearing the seer say the same things. That statement, which was followed by the affidavits I just summarized, was written by none other than WW Blair, the very same Blair whose journal entry these polygamy affirmers are cherry picking. Now, as many of you should know, I am not one to claim that we have to automatically believe decades late motivated affidavits telling of decades earlier events, although I will point out that unlike most of the Utah affidavits, it is clear that these were not boilerplate pre-written affidavits, all with the same wording. These were gathered from a variety of sources in a variety of states speaking in their own words. Still. I can definitely see a possibility that the idea that Joseph said this could have arisen from something like William Clayton’s 1845 newspaper article and grown into a sort of collective memory, where it was repeated and repeated by everyone until everyone had heard it so many times they came to believe it as if they had actually heard Joseph say it. So I don’t necessarily see this as a lockdown case just because we have so many affidavits attesting to it. However, whether people want to believe this happened or not, they cannot on the one hand say we need to believe late affidavits, and then on the other hand say just not these late affidavits. They need to honestly and fairly deal with all affidavits. And those who want to claim Blair’s journal entry as a valid source of Joseph Smith’s polygamy need to include all of it and also recognize the full collection of records and sources he left. Those Want his testimony of what Whitehead said about polygamy, also get his testimony of what Whitehead and so many others claimed to hear Joseph Smith say about Brigham Young. OK, now the next part of the um journal is about polygamy, but I want to save that and skip over to the last two claims that we can handle quite quickly. The first is that Whitehead said William Marks and Hiram by command of God ordained Joseph King and priest. This one is very easy. The evidence for it is recorded on April 11th, 1844 in the Council of 50 Records. William Clayton, recording Erastus Snow’s remarks, said he concluded by offering a motion that this honorable assembly received from this time henceforth and forever, Joseph Smith as our prophet, priest, and king, and uphold him in that capacity. In which God has anointed him. So the evidence, whatever evidence we have that Joseph Smith was ordained as a king comes from the Council of 50, where it would have happened. Again, remember, Whitehead was never part of the Council of 50, so he clearly was not speaking from his own experience and thus was just again passing on things he had heard. This is even more evident because of what he said about William Marks, claiming that William Marks had ordained him. But we have William Marks’ sentiments on the matter that he published in this newspaper Zion’s Harbinger and Benimi’s Organ. I think it’s pronounced Benimi’s, if I got that wrong, forgive me. But William Marks wrote, I was also witness of the introduction secretly of a kingly form of government in which Joseph suffered himself to be ordained a king, to reign over the house of Israel forever, which I I could not conceive to be in accordance with the law of the church, but I did not oppose this move, thinking it none of my business. William Marks did not openly oppose the things he didn’t like, but he also certainly did not participate in them. Whitehead saying that Marxx ordained Joseph Smith as king again reveals the problem with second late hand information. It just wasn’t accurate. And So it is abundantly clear that Whitehead’s statement about Joseph being ordained as a king was based on rumors he heard in connection to the Council of 50 and not anything he witnessed. And so now the final part of the entry that David will yet be a prince, so it was predicted by Joseph Smith. I again dug way too much into this topic to include here. So I will do a future episode. On the idea of the Davidic king or servant, that will be a fun one that I think people may find interesting and surprising. For now, it is clear that his report of Joseph predicting that his son David would be a prince is another allusion to things he heard about from rumors regarding the council of 50 and the kingly form of government, which he was not part of. So we can already know that Whitehead was again not speaking from firsthand information. While White had connected this to the Council of 50, there’s actually nothing about this in the Council of 50 Minutes. But I did find a source that makes it very evident that this was part of the rumor mill in Nauvoo after Joseph’s death. Oliver Huntington wrote in his retrospective journal. This is the same journal where he recorded the Masonic cipher that they were using in Navvo. He wrote this as well. At the time of his birth, it was intimated by old Mrs. Durphy and others. That Joseph the prophet had said that he, David Smith, which name Joseph gave him before his death, was to be the David the Bible speaks of to rule over Israel forever, which David spoken of most people took to to be old King David. I would again, love to go into this way more, but I have to restrain myself here and save the rest for the episode on this topic. For now, we can just be assured that yet again, Whitehead’s conversation. to Blair consisted in large part of things he heard rumored about after Joseph’s death, including his claim that Joseph, predicted that David would be a prince. And now we finally come to the part of the journal entry about polygamy, the most important part of this entire episode. It says, Joseph did teach polygamy and practice too, that Emin knows it too, that she put hands of wives in Joseph’s hands. I Hoping that because of the other claims we’ve gone over, this source has already lost a lot of its shine for LDS historians. But I believe that digging into what Whitehead says here should take this source completely off the table as evidence of Joseph Smith’s polygamy. Yet again, we need to ask the question whether this claim was based on things Whitehead, as Joseph’s clerk, saw and experienced himself, or it was based on stories and rumors he heard after Joseph’s death. The first and easiest thing to look at is whether Whitehead was ever at a ceiling where he would have witnessed Emma putting another woman’s hand in Joseph’s hand. The answer is a very clear no, he wasn’t. If you read through every single polygamy affidavit and every testimony in the entire Temple Lot case and all other writings defending Joseph’s polygamy, you will see that nobody ever claimed that James Whitehead witnessed anybody being, quote, Wedded or sealed to Joseph Smith. He never claimed he was present at any ceilings, and nobody else did either. If Whitehead had ever been present at any ceiling, he, it would have been extremely useful to point that out since Whitehead was such an important figure, having been Joseph’s clerk and such a vocal witness that Joseph didn’t practice polygamy. So already, just from that one point, it is quite clear that Whitehead’s concerns about Joseph practicing and teaching polygamy were not based On his own knowledge and experience. The next piece we’ll look at is Whitehead’s statement that Emma put the hands of wives in Joseph’s hands. The inclusion of this detail leaves no doubt that his information about polygamy could not be coming from his own experience in Navvo but was from later sources. This statement makes perfect sense in 1874 when Whitehead said it and Blair recorded it, but it would be extremely anachronistic during Joseph Smith’s life. There are a variety of sources we can look at to verify that the practice of the first wife putting the hand of the new wife in her husband’s hand did not yet exist in Navvo. I should first explain this practice of hand placing. It came from the law of Sarah mentioned in Section 132. I talk about it briefly in the episode I did on the Law of Sarah. I think that’s episode 39. As a quick recap, verse 34, section 132, verse 34 hints at the law of. Sarah, where it says, quote, Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to wife. And why did she do it? Because this was the law. Then it is spelled out further in verses 64 to 65. And again, verily, verily I say unto you, if a man have a wife who holds the keys of this power and he teaches unto her the law of my priesthood as pertaining to these things, then shall she believe and administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed, sayeth the Lord your God. For I will destroy her, for I will. Magnify my name upon all those who receive and abide in my law. Therefore, it shall be lawful in me. If she received not this law, for him to receive all things whatsoever, I, the Lord his God, will give unto him, because she did not believe and administer unto him according to my word, and she then becomes the transgressor, and he is exempt from the law of Sarah, who administered unto Abraham according to the law when I commanded Abraham to take Hagar to wife. The law of Sarah is the truly awful teaching that a woman must give the next wife to her husband, as Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham, or she will be destroyed. There really are so many problems with this. Uh, it’s way too much to explain here, so I hope that anyone who hasn’t yet watched my episode on the Law of Sarah will do that because it’s killing me to have to skip over all of that. But the practice of the first wife placing the new wife’s hand into her husband’s hand grew out of these verses. It came about after the polygamy revelation was made public, and Brig. Yang assigned Orson Pratt to come up with a scriptural and doctrinal defense for it. So the first time we see anything about the practice of hand placing comes from Orson Pratt in the ear that he wrote and published in 1853 and 1854. This was the periodical or pamphlet that Pratt wrote when Brigham Young sent him to Washington DC immediately after publishing the revelation. To start making the case to the government about Utah about the Mormons having their religious freedoms. So the SER is where people throughout the country, including the RLDS Church, gained most of their earliest information about polygamy. Emma said the first time she ever saw the supposed revelation on polygamy was in the SER. I’ll read from page 31. When the day set apart for the solemnization of the marriage ceremony has arrived, the bridegroom and his wife and also the bride, together with their relatives and such other guests as may be invited, assemble at the place which they have appointed. This was several decades before any temple was completed, and even before they had built the endowment house, so they would just have to choose or appoint a place for these marriages. The president, who is the prophet seer and revelator over the whole church throughout the world and who alone holds the key. of authority in this solemn ordinance as recorded in the 2nd and 5th paragraphs of the revelation on marriage, calls upon the bridegroom and his wife and the bride to arise which they do, fronting the president. The wife stands on the left hand of her husband while the bride stands on her left. The president then puts this question to the wife, Are you willing to give this woman to your husband to be his lawful and wedded wife for time and all eternity? If you are, you will manifest it by placing her right hand within the, within the right hand of your husband. Ah, this is hard, hard to read. The right hands of the bridegroom and the bride being thus joined, the wife takes her husband by the left arm as if in the attitude of walking. I’m sorry, it’s getting to me because I’ve heard cases of women talking about how horrible it was to have to go through the ceremony or face destruction. The president then proceeds to ask the following question of the man. Do you, brother, calling him by name, take sister, calling the bride by her name, by the right hand to receive her unto yourself to be your lawful and wedded wife? It is so interesting that Orson Pratt wrote up this completely novel marriage ceremony when they already had a marriage ceremony canonized in their scriptures, which Conflicts with Pratt’s ceremony in important ways. I won’t do the full analysis here, but I do recommend reading through both sources side by side and comparing and contrasting them. They’re very different in, as I said, very important ways. The statement on marriage said, We believe that all marriages in this church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints should be solemnized in a public meeting or feast prepared for that purpose. And that the solemnization should be performed by a presiding high priest, high priest, bishop, elder, or priest, not even prohibiting those persons who are desirous to get married of being married by other authority. Marriage should be celebrated with prayer and thanksgiving, and at the solemnization, the persons to be married, standing together, the man on the right and the woman on the left, shall be addressed by the person of officiating. As he shall be directed by the Holy Spirit, and if there be no legal objections, he shall say, calling each of them by their name, you both mutually agree to be each other’s companion, husband and wife, observing the legal rights belonging to this condition, that is keeping yourselves holy for each other and from all others during your lives. And when they have answered yes, he shall pronounce them husband and wife in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by. Virtue of the laws of the country and authority vested in him. May God add his blessings and keep you to fulfill your covenants from henceforth and forever. Amen. The seer, which was based on the revelation, now Section 132, does seem to be where this new marriage ceremony, including hand placing first originated. I have not found any earlier account or source, and certainly nothing from Navu. But it did become the accepted practice for a few decades in Salt Lake. The Endowment House was built in 1855, just a year or two after the year was published, and it became ubiquitous with the hand placing practice. There are many sources that show this. I’ll just show this one from Jenny Anderson Frey’s The Women of Mormonism, or the story of polygamy as told by the victims themselves. This is from pages 11 111 and 112. There is a lady living at present in Salt Lake City, and one of the best and most lovable of women she is too, who was induced by methods which we dare not even mention to make the last and most cruel sacrifice with this which this barbarous faith demands of women, that of placing the hand of the new bride and that of her husband. On their way to the endowment house, she said to him, I am going to lie to you, lie to the president, and lie to God, for I must say I consent to this marriage when I had rather die 1000 deaths than have it take place. Of course, polygamy was not forced upon this wife, nor upon the thousands of others who have felt as she did. And yet the advocates of the doctor will state unblushingly that it is never enforced in any case, but is the voluntary choice of all who are living in it. So we can show the origination and development of this practice, starting with the idea that it was based on the law of Sarah first published in 1852, then the practice itself being described in the SER in 1853 and 1854, then the full embodiment of this practice in the endowment House starting in 1855. And since Jenny Anderson Freud’s book was published in 1882 and Talks about it in the past tense we can also see that it was rather short-lived and had died out by that point. This is already very good documentation to show that this practice was not yet developed and thus did not exist in Navvo. But in addition, we have solid evidence from Navvo to further substantiate this and help us trace the development even more. We have reasonably decent records of. Plural marriages in Navu after Joseph’s death, compiled by Lyndon Cook. His transcription of the original records gives us just enough description to gain some important insight into what was and what was not happening. The vast majority of plural marriages or ceilings don’t say anything about the first wife. She is not listed as a witness or even being present. So there was no law of Sarah happening in general. At Navvo. However, we do have two extremely interesting records of ceilings involving Violet Kimball and Here C. Kimball that help us trace the beginnings of this practice before it fully emerged. I need to thank Cheryl Bruno for pointing this out to me. This is, this was very helpful. So from page 2 of Cook’s transcript, he records ceiling number 4 on January 12, 1846. I’ll read the actual wording of this because it is so interesting. Sarah Anne Whitney and Joseph Smith, deceased, were sealed husband and wife for time and all eternity. Hubert Chase Kimball, acting proxy for Joseph Smith’s deceased by Brigham Young, her parents having given her her to him for that purpose. So again, it’s the parents that gave um Sarah Anne Whitney for that purpose, which is how it should be, right? Um, she was also sealed to HC Kimball for a time, his wife Violet Kimball, having presented her to him at the altar by President B. Young in the presence of John Taylor, AP Rockwell, Amasa Lyman, and Joseph Yang. The inclusion of Violet, the first wife, presenting the new wife at the altar is the first inkling we get of this emerging practice of acting out the law of Sarah. There is nothing about placing hands, but Violet is the is the one first wife in Navu, at least in this and the next example, who presents the new wife to her husband at the altar. Um, on page 28, ceiling number 2 occurred on January 2. 6, 1846. Hebrew C. Kimball stood proxy for Joseph Smith and was sealed to three wives at one time. It says Hebrew C. Kimball, acting proxy for for President Smith deceased, and Martha McBride, Sylvia Porter Sessions, Sarah Lawrence were sealed husband and wives for time and all eternity. Martha Smith, Sylvia P. Smith, and Sarah Smith were also sealed to HC Kimball for. Time. His wife Violet, presenting them to him at the altar for that purpose. Um, OK, of all of the polygamous ceilings in the Navu Temple, those appear to be the only examples we have of a wife presenting the new wife to her husband, and all the rest of the transcripts, there’s nothing mentioned about it at all. So this was definitely not the rule for polygamous ceilings in the temple. We also can’t know for sure that there was yet any idea. Of the law of Sarah or if this was attempting to fulfill it. The word presenting, which is used in these records, is not found in Section 132 or in Pratt’s later description of the practice. So I think it is fair to wonder which came first. Did Here and Violet get the idea for this from the revelation, or did the idea for the law of Sarah and the revelation come from what Heber and Violet were already doing? In either case, these two ceiling records. Fantastic sources because they not only provide even more confirmation that there was no hand placing happening in Navvo and certainly not during Joseph Smith’s life. These ceilings were in 1846. They also serve as a bridge to show us the very beginnings of the development of the practice of the wife giving another woman to her husband. Hopefully we can agree that the evidence is more than sufficient to show that there was no hand placing. Happening in Navo, but we can still put in a few final touches. Emily Partridge was asked about the practice of hand placing on the stand in the Temple Lot case. I’ll read a small portion. Now recall she and Eliza had two separate sets of affidavits with separate wedding dates. Eliza had passed away, so she didn’t have to testify. Poor Emily explained the two decades, the two dates by saying they were married to Joseph twice. The The second time was, quote, pretended to deceive Emma into believing it was the first time. She was asked, Well, who was present the 2nd time? The 2nd time we were married, Emma Smith was present, and my sister Eliza, and I do not remember anyone else who was present except James Adams, who performed the ceremony. Everyone she claimed was there had died, so nobody could substantiate her testimony. Emma confirmed the same information when she was asked again a second time. Who were Present when you were married the second time, my sister Eliza and Emma Smith and James Adam. Additional reminder, Emily’s affidavit says this second marriage was on May 11, 1843. On that day, Emma was out of town. Judge Adams was not yet in town, and Joseph Smith’s journal records a very full day which would not allow time for a group marriage. Emily claimed to remember the dates of both marriages to Joseph Smith until she was proven wrong, but could Not say the day she married Brigham Young, although, as the lawyer pointed out, she actually had children with him. She also could not remember what time of day she was married to Joseph or the day of the week, or any other memorable details. When Emily was questioned about a claim in her autobiography, she admitted that she had written it, but said, I did not make any affidavit that it was true, though. In general, her testimony tends to leave much to be desired in terms of credibility. But we do get this about hand placing. Did Emma take your hand and place it in Joseph Smith’s hand? I think she did. Well, are you willing to swear on your oath that she did? Well, no. It seems to me that way, but then I think she did, but I could not swear to it at all. You cannot swear that she did? No, sir. This is the strongest confirmation we have from anyone about Emma participating in plural marriage and certainly about placing hands in Joseph’s hand, placing wives’ hands in Joseph’s hand. It goes on. Did not Brigham Young’s wife do that with you when you were married when you married Brigham Young? No, sir. Why did she not do it? She was not present. Well, did she give her consent to you marrying Brigham Young? No, sir, not to my knowledge, for she was not there. This part of the testimony was the one time in all of the affidavits and all of the Temple Lot that this practice came up at all. Emily’s acknowledgment that not only did Brigham Young’s wife not put her hand in his hand, but that she was not even there and did not give her consent provides further evidence that this law of Sarah practice was not happening in. Vu, where Emily and Brigham were married but began later in Utah. I don’t think there should be any doubt that the practice of hand placement did not begin until well after Joseph’s death. So Whitehead, including it in his statement, proves that he was not speaking from his own knowledge. In his paper, Mark Tensmeyer mistakenly assumes that Whitehead’s mention of this practice strength. Since the veracity of this source, but that is based on multiple errors. He writes, Whitehead’s account of Emma’s being present at some ceilings and taking the hands of plural wives and placing them into Smith’s hands occurred before he could have known about the 1869 affidavits, none of which had been published before 1879. A few of the affidavits discussed for the first time in writing. Emma putting the hand of plural wives and smiths. Now that we’ve gone over it, you are probably catching the multiple mistakes here. First, the assertion that some of the 1869 affidavits contained claims about Emma placing hands is not true. The closest we could possibly get would be Emily and Eliza Partridge’s second set of affidavits where they say Emma was present. Mark may have been mistaking the portion of Emily’s Temple Lot testimony that we read where she says that she can’t say that Emma put her hand in Joseph’s and that Brigham’s wife did not put her hand in Brigham’s. He may have been conflating that with the affidavits, mistaking one for the other. He’s um Mark says, since none of the affidavits were published until 1879, the idea was not public, but we’ve already shown that the idea was published much earlier than. In Orson Pratt’s The SE in 1853 and 1954. While the SER fully established and explained the hand placing practice, it didn’t say anything specifically about Emma herself participating in it. However, the SE was not the only public source of information that would have influenced what Whitehead had heard. There was at least one other source that did explicitly claim that Emma put plural wives’ hands in Joseph’s hand. That was published and available well before 1874, when Whitehead made the reported statement. There are very possibly others, but this is the one I have found so far. Over 15 years after writing and publishing this year, Orson Pratt gave a general conference talk on October 7, 1869, which was immediately published in the conference report in the Deseret News and included in volume 13 of the Journal of Discourses, which was published the next year, years before. Whitehead’s statement to Blair. Among many other things, Pratt said in regards to the revelation on plurality, it was only a short time after Joseph’s death that we published it, having a copy thereof. But what became of the original? An apostate destroyed it. You have heard her name, the same woman in destroying the original thought she had destroyed the revelation from the face of the earth. She was embittered against Joseph. Husband, and at times fought against him with all her heart. And then again, she would break down in her feelings and humble herself before God and call upon His holy name and would then lead forth ladies and place their hands in the hands of Joseph, and they were married to him according to the law. That’s Journal of Discourses, volume 13, page 194. Anyone who wants to look it up. Both Whiteheads and Orson Pratt Claims that Emma participated in placing hands would be completely anachronistic to 1840s nouveau. But Pratt’s claim fits perfectly in 1869 Utah, where both the hand placing practice and the claims against Emma were in full swing. As a reminder, Emma’s and Joseph’s sons had recently come to Utah on missions, so more emphasis had been placed on both defaming Emma and Doubling and tripling down on their claims about polygamy, that was the purpose of this entire section of Orson Pratt’s talk. His next sentence was, that same woman has brought up her children to believe that no such thing as plurality of wives existed in the days of Joseph and has instilled the bitterest principles of apostasy into their minds to fight against the church that has come to these mountains according to the predictions of Joseph. This this talk, which again was published and available several years before Whitehead’s statements to Blair, provides a very clear source for where Whitehead’s idea that Emma placed hands in Joseph’s hand likely came from. So at this point, we can very confidently add Whitehead Whitehead’s claims about Joseph’s polygamy to the secondhand rumors camp. There is simply no way Whitehead was speaking. From his own experience in Navvo, but we can easily see where this information for every part of his statement came from. As I said, those who have used this source as evidence of Joseph’s polygamy have made several critical errors. They have either not been aware of or have misremembered or have not considered the implications of other extremely important sources the SER, the contents of the affidavits in Temple Lot case, Orson Pratt’s talk, Navo Temple. Records and on and on everything we’ve presented here, these errors are understandable, but they do call into serious questions several of the conclusions that have been made about this document. The most obvious one is the assumption that this journal entry is evidence of Nu polygamy. It clearly is not. It is only evidence that Whitehead, like so many others, had heard and apparently come to believe many of the rumors and claims that had been spread about Joseph Smith. This shows how compelling these rumors could be that people who had known Joseph Smith well in Navu and knew nothing about these things then could be so completely convinced that they were true. Another equally important conclusion that needs to be reevaluated is the claim that Whitehead had credibility issues and told one story in public and another story in private, which is often used to impugn his reliability and discount his Temple Lot testimony. To again quote from Mark 10. Meyer’s paper, it should be noted that James Whitehead had a number of credibility issues that call into question any of his claims. I actually strongly agree with Mark on one point, that Whitehead said some things to Blair that he simply did not see, and that we should view those portions of his testimony with skepticism. I hope it is now clear that this includes his statements on Joseph’s polygamy. Where I disagree is the assumption that Whitehead was disingenuous and said one in public and another in private. And I also don’t agree that we should throw Whitehead out as a witness and disbelieve his statements on things that he did have firsthand knowledge of. I want to propose what I believe may be a far better and more accurate way to understand James Whitehead, not as someone who was dishonest and said different things publicly versus privately, or who was willing to flip flop or lie, but as a man of faith, who, like so many others still today. Despite his own experience, came to believe the rumors and stories he had heard about Joseph’s polygamy after his death, but who was willing to change his mind as he gained better information, even on the difficult topic of Joseph Smith’s polygamy, an admirable quality I wish more of us had in common with Whitehead. Just as interpreting this entry in Blair’s journal as evidence of Joseph’s polygamy was based on an incomplete assessment of the documentation and looking at additional sources clarified. That it is actually not evidence of Joseph’s polygamy. I think the same thing happens when we look at additional sources about James Whitehead’s testimony. The main thing we need to add to the conversation to understand this view of Whitehead is the timeline of his beliefs and statements. As we get into this, the first thing we can bring up is the one remaining portion of Blair’s journal entry that we still need to cover, the conversation he reported having had with Joseph and Emma’s Third Living. So Alexander. Whitehead says Alexander Hill Smith asked him when sleeping with him at his house in Alton if Joseph did practice and teach polygamy, and he, Whitehead, told me he did. D. Michael Quinn tied this to an entry in Alexander’s complicated journal entry for May 14, 1864. It says, I spent the day in visiting some of the old Latter-day saints in the evening, went to town, got my satchel, then went to see old brother Whitehead, stayed all night with him. He gave me some useful information, told me some things that I did not know and cannot understand. I won’t take time to go into the details, but Quinn’s assessment of this journal included some mistakes that Mark Tensmeyer did great work to correct. I’ll link his footnote about it in the show notes in the description box. I don’t think we can say with any certainty that this is the day where Whitehead would have talked to Alexandra about polygamy, because in the Temple Lot trial we learned that Alexander’s staying at Whitehead’s house and Having very important conversations was not a one-time event. Whitehead said that Alex had been at my house different times when I lived there and that they had had many important conversations on many topics. Also, the conversation Alexander mentioned was in 1864, while Whitehead’s conversation with Blair was in 1874. It might have been the same conversation, but 10 years does seem like a rather long time back to report a conversation. Plus, Blair’s memoir records what Alexander told Blair about this. Conversation that he had with Whitehead, and it doesn’t say anything about polygamy. But let’s assume this May 14th, 1864 entry in Alexander’s journal was when Whitehead talked to him about polygamy. There are several things we need to consider. First, we have evidence to show that Alexander did not believe Whitehead. Just a few years after this conversation, Alexander wrote and published this pamphlet, Polygamy. Was it an original tenant of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint. The pamphlet is not dated, but reading it reveals that it was written in 1870. In it, he makes his very clear arguments that polygamy was not part of the church his father founded and that his father was not the author of polygamy. Perhaps the reason Alexander did not believe Whitehead was because he was not speaking from personal experience. While people who were much closer to Alexander, like Emma and Joseph Smith the Third, and many others were. This may very possibly be the reason. Alexander said he could not understand what Whitehead was saying. He couldn’t understand it because it didn’t align with the more reliable information he had from more trusted and better informed sources. So now that we’ve looked at the last piece of Blair’s journal entry, we can construct the timeline of Whitehead’s testimony and statements and see what we can learn. In 1847 or 1948, Whitehead left the church. In his Temple Lot testimony, he said he went to Far West, where he turned over the Church records to Brigham and the 12th, but then declined going west with them because, as he said, the church had become corrupt. When I went to Winter quarters at Omaha, I saw such work carried on there as I was sick from seeing it, and I determined to get out of it as quick as I could, and I did get out of it too. Quinn wrote a different scenario in his paper that I again don’t have time to go into, but I will link below. May 14, 1864, Whitehead tells Alexander Smith that his father Taught and practiced polygamy, assuming Alexander’s cryptic entry corresponds to this to this conversation. September 1865, James White had joined the reorganization. I think this is very much worth noting. At the time, White had shared the shared his concerns about Joseph’s polygamy with Alexander. He was not a member of his church, and he would not join the reorganization until almost a year and a half later. The fact that he didn’t join the RLDS Church until 186. 5 implies that something seemed to be keeping him back. From his Temple Lot testimony and many other testimonies he gave, he made it abundantly clear what he thought about polygamy. We could choose from dozens of his statements. I’ll just read a few. He said, I believe that polygamy was from the devil from the beginning, and that is my opinion, and I don’t care who knows it either, sir. Do you know what the doctrine of polygamy is? I have heard it taught, and I despised it, and I hate it. I have no doubt of That. I hate that. That’s what the lawyer said. I hate and despise it. It is a doctrine of the devil. There is no question about that. I do not believe in it or uphold it or countenance it in any way, for I believe in the words of the book, Thou shalt have one wife. All my life from my childhood up, I hated and despised the cursed theme. Many people oppose polygamy, but Whitehead seems to have had an exceptionally strong aversion to it. It almost makes me wonder if perhaps his father was not faithful, was not a faithful mono. husband to his mother, and he saw the fallout of that for his family, or maybe somebody else close to him, just something I’ve wondered about with how strongly he felt about it. Of course we can’t know, but it may be fair to at least speculate whether with his extreme antipathy to polygamy, perhaps part of his reluctance to join the RLDS Church might have stemmed from his belief that the reports he was hearing about Joseph were true, that Joseph did teach and practice polygamy. But his concerns about Joseph not yet being resolved maybe in part because of his conversations with Alexander Smith and possibly other events, he finally decided to join the RLDS Church after all. Then in June 1874, we have Blair’s journal, which provides evidence that 9 years later he still believed the stories about Joseph were true and that he was involved in polygamy or perhaps perhaps he became came to believe them again after seeing more things published from Salt Lake. In 1881, so 1874 is the last time we have him making a statement about Joseph Smith’s polygamy. Then in 1881 we have the first record of Whitehead making a public statement about Joseph Smith, at least the first one I have been able to find. It was an interview he gave with an RLDS elder. I haven’t been able to track down the text, just the mention of the of the interview. Then and I. March 6, 1884, Whitehead swore out his affidavit about Brigham Young. April 20th, 1885, Whitehead gave another interview with Joseph Smith III that I also haven’t yet been able to see, but that Joseph Smith III recorded in his journal. Um, John Hayazek has the record of that interview, but I’m, I’m hoping that at some point he’ll, um, let us all see it. I think that would be amazing. Then in 1887, why Whitehead gave his sermon to the youth published in Autumn Leaves, and in 1892, Whitehead gave his powerful testimony at the Temple Lot trial. There may also be other sources of Whitehead’s sermons, testimonies, and affidavits after 1881, but this is the important point. I have looked extensively and asked several very knowledgeable people, but I have found no testimony from Whitehead claiming Joseph was not a political. or publicly testifying of him in any way until years after his last private statement when he believed Joseph was a polygamist. His private statements do not at all overlap his public testimonies. This shows that Whitehead did not testify that Joseph was a polygamist during the same time period that he held and privately shared his concerns to the contrary. In addition, there is no indication. that White had continued to believe Joseph had been a polygamist during the time period that he did begin testifying publicly about him and saying otherwise. Therefore, it is not fair or accurate to say he said one thing privately and another thing publicly because he made no public statements when he shared these private concerns. I also want to point out that the fact that White had told Alexander and Blair that he thought Joseph had been a polygamist. Shows that he was a man of integrity who was extremely honest and forthright and not afraid to say what he believed despite what might be in his best interest or what others might want to hear. This is a big point in favor of his credibility and should not be overlooked. Based on the timeline, which seems to have been neglected in the work that has been done so far about Whitehead, I do not believe there is sufficient evidence to show that his Public statements were in conflict with his private statements and beliefs. Instead, I believe the evidence is better interpreted to show a man who genuinely changed his mind, who, when presented with better evidence, as I said, was willing to recognize and acknowledge that he had believed things about Joseph Smith that simply were not true. This could have happened in many ways. Hearing from others who had known and been close to Joseph, very possibly including Emma and Joseph Smith III. Testify of Joseph’s innocence and realizing that his own experience with Joseph and Emma in Navu did not align with the stories he had heard and that meant maybe he should trust his own experience over the rumors that have been spread. I believe we can find insight about this from the line of questioning for the council for the RLDS Church that they chose to take on Whitehead’s direct examination. They focused heavily on asking him about his own personal experience as a clerk and secretary for Joseph Smith in the office of. These questions the lawyer chose to ask could have been the very thing that helped convince Whitehead that his concerns about Joseph had been wrong. Question, what do you know about the doctrine of polygamy ever having been taught in the church by Joseph Smith at any time prior to his death? I never heard him teach it at all, sir, neither privately nor publicly. He never said a word to me about it, and I never heard him, and I never heard it taught either, privately or publicly before his death. Did you have an opportunity of knowing if it had existed? Yes, sir. I was there in his office and I was there with him continually, and I was well acquainted with his family and was well Acquainted with Sister Emma, and I never heard of any such thing being taught there in Navvo prior to the time of the death of the prophet. I never even heard of it one way or the other. Did you ever hear him say anything about plurality of wives? No, sir. Well, how, how many wives did the prophet have? He had one. What was her name? Emma. Do you know of any other woman? And who claim to be the wife of the prophet? No, sir, I do not. I don’t know of any other. Do you know of any other woman who claimed to be the wife of Joseph Smith there at Navvo? No, sir, I don’t know them. or anywhere else other than Navu. No, sir. You don’t know of any wives he had other than Emma at any time or at place? No, sir, I never heard of such a thing. Did any woman ever come to you or to Joseph in your presence during this time of your employment for money, claiming that she was the wife of, of Joseph Smith? Never. They never did. Never. Was any entry of that kind ever entered on the books by you? Was any claim or any money paid out by you or by him? And any entry made of it having been paid to any woman claiming to be the wife of Joseph Smith? No, sir. You mean no woman other than Emma Smith? Yes, sir. Of course, except. his wife Emma, of course that is another thing. There was no other woman, no, sir, that is all. I think it is a mistake to ignore the passage of time between Whitehead’s two earlier private statements to Alexander Smith and WW Blair and his later fervent and consistently shared testimony that Joseph never had anything to do with polygamy. In his later years, he seemed to eagerly testify of Joseph Smith at any given opportunity. Here’s what a friendly non Mormon reporter wrote about him in the newspaper called the Kansas City Daily Journal in 1895, a few years after the Temple Lot trial. Elder Joseph, he got his name wrong. It’s not Joseph, but he writes, Whitehead is another inspiring figure in the church, aged and infirm, he is still as enthusiastic in his love for the church as ever and is invariably found at conferences. Probably no one in the church knows personally so much of the church work and. Of the organization as he, especially in the earlier and stormy days of the faith. He possesses a wonderful memory of names, incidents, and events, and loves to point out to others the strong points of the ear of the church as he saw them under distressing circumstances and in the saddest hours of his life. He clings with unswerving faith to the teachings as he received them a pure from the first ear of the church. I hope that going forward, nobody will try to disregard Whitehead by Pointing to the contradiction between his private versus public statements without taking into account the timing and progression of his statements, I believe that is an essential part of the analysis and the consistency and and integrity that emerged from Whitehead’s statements on Joseph’s polygamy, when viewed in that light, give us a much clearer picture of both him and the veracity of his many testimonies about Joseph Smith and polygamy. And the final thing I will say on the credibility issue. is that it really does seem illogical and hard to explain why there is such bias against Whitehead and such a strong perception that he has credibility problems when he did actually give so much remarkably consistent and sound testimony, while at the same time, people appear to completely ignore the far more glaring credibility problems of so many of, many of the LDS witnesses. Whitehead is presented as somebody who’s And one thing in private private and something very different in public. I believe I’ve shown that not to be the case for Whitehead, but it absolutely is the case for many of the Utah polygamist wives in particular. We have examples from women like Emily Lott and Emmeline B. Wells, who wrote much and publicly testified of the truthfulness of polygamy while privately recording the agonizing heartache, loneliness, lack, and sorrow they struggled through as a result of polygamy. Unlike Whitehead, these women’s public testimonies of polygamy do overlap their private sentiments. If people thought it was reasonable to disregard Whitehead because of the supposed incongruence between his public and private statements, shouldn’t they apply the same standard to the testimonies of Utah polygamists where this incongruence actually does exist? Also, we should compare the consistency and clarity of their testimonies before anyone wants to claim Whitehead has credibility problems. I should read first through the his entire Temple Lot testimony, and then read through the testimonies of people like Joseph Fates Noble, Emmeline Emily Partridge, Mercy Thompson, Melissa Lott, and so many others. I would be curious to know if anybody could do this, and then honestly say with a straight face that James Whitehead is the one whose testimony should be rejected because of credibility problems. To wrap this all up, I wondered if I should only focus on the polygamy portion. Of Whitehead’s statement to Blair, because honestly, that was enough to show that this source is not good evidence of Joseph’s polygamy. But despite it being such a long episode, I decided to cover all of it because there is another essential point that must be made about how polygamy affirmers are using this source. One of the things again my critics love to accuse me and those who share my perspective of is cherry picking evidence. I’ll let Jacob and Brian Has explain.

[1:27:03] Brian Hales: But they identified 5 methodologies that that I could just briefly mention. Um, one is cherry picking of evidence.

[1:27:12] Jacob Hansen: Yeah. And I, I, it’s funny, the, the cherry picking of evidence. So, so one of the things that I’ve done is I’ve sort of analyzed this whole, this whole question, cause I, I had to ask, you know, you know, do they have something here? Do they have a, do they have a good point? And what I’ve found is that if you cherry pick certain things that you want from the historical record without accounting for the whole thing, you can paint a compelling picture that makes you think, whoa, wait a minute here. But when you get the entire picture, what you find is that what they’re picking are the anomalies, not The, you know, and I’ve, the way that I’ve approached this entire subject is, OK, or in any historical sort of analysis, is which the so you have the historical data, all the records and and different points of information that are out there, and the best theory is the one that accounts for the most data. And I think what I’ve noticed with the people in the polygamy denial camp is that They end up, they, their theory that they posed does not account for the most data. It only accounts for very limited pieces of data in a very specific way, and then they ignore the other data.

[1:28:36] Michelle: OK, I have to respond to this here because it really is almost unbelievable. I am honestly stunned to see this accusation made when this is such a clear example of them doing exactly what they are accusing me and other monogamy affirmers of. It would be difficult to find a more extreme example of hypocrisy and of cherry-picking. While it is possible to understand polygamy affirmers missing the sources that show that White has own Statements about polygamy proved that he was not present for any ceilings and failing to consider the timeline of Whitehead’s statements that show that his views likely changed over time, it is far more difficult to understand what appears to be willful cherry picking, using one portion of this source that seems useful, despite it being by far the weakest and ignoring and omitting the far stronger claims Whitehead made. We have spent this long episode. Going through every part of this source to show how complex it is, and to show how deeply problematic and frankly dishonest it is for polygamy apologists to cherry pick one part of this record to try to make their case while ignoring all the parts they really don’t want to talk about at all, like Joseph Smith III being ordained and publicly announced as as Joseph’s successor, or Joseph saying that if Brigham ever led the church, he would lead it straight to hell. All of those Claims are far better supported by additional evidence and far more consistently testified to by Whitehead than his statements about polygamy, which are by far the weakest part of this record. So I find myself wondering what polygamy apologists who use this source might think of all of Whitehead’s other claims that Blair recorded from this exact same conversation. I want to play one more clip that I think is extremely pertinent to this source and this discussion.

[1:30:25] Brian Hales: There’s a saying that you, when you pick up a stick, you pick up both ends.

[1:30:31] Michelle: That is definitely true with this document. It does not show that Whitehead is a good source about novo polygamy, but it certainly does open Pandora’s box to a whole lot of other claims. So I think a better move for people wanting to promote the church’s unquestionable line of authority would be to not draw attention to this document on a. if they hadn’t focused on this document, I have no idea when I or anybody else in this discussion would have seen it. Probably not for a very long time, if ever, which we might think those using this document would see as a good thing. But instead of letting it sit in obscurity, as they would have been wise to do, because there was one statement they found useful. And thought they could cherry pick from it, they brought it out to the public where we are all now very aware of it and have to deal with it. This is an important lesson for all of us of the dangers of cherry picking. The biggest problems is that even when you don’t pick them, all the other cherries are still hanging there on the tree. We can’t do this. We can’t cherry pick. We have to demand better from our historians and from both, but from everybody involved in these conversations. We each have an inclination to want to believe and focus on things we like and disbelieve and ignore the parts we don’t like, but that isn’t the best way to find truth. It is the definition of bias and motivated reasoning. If we want to come closer to finding actual truth, we need to deal with all of it without cherry picking. Thank you so much for sticking along for this episode. I hope it was worthwhile and useful to you, and I will see you next time.