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Joseph F. Smith Reminiscence (re Cornelius Lott)
Like a Fiery Meteor (Biography of Joseph F. Smith)
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Nauvoo Sealings, Adoptions and Anointings
Letter from Rebecca Fausett’s Father
Sealing Letter re Rebecca Fausett
Malissa Lott Married to John M. Bernhisel
Malissa Lott 1869 Affidavits:
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Link 2
Malissa Lott Temple Lot Testimony
Joseph Smith III Temple Lot Testimony
Joseph Smith III Memoir (middle of page on first link, and next two links):
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon polygamy. Today, we are getting back into the documents. I am excited to dive into another source that is often used to claim that we have contemporaneous evidence of Joseph Smith’s polygamy. So, thanks for joining us as we take this deep dive into the Lot family Bible. I am excited to get into this document and share the research I have been doing. I have really fallen in love with this Bible. It is such a cool document, and there is so much to learn about it. I actually thought I’d be able to prepare this episode relatively quickly because I had already covered this Bible in very, uh, just a very cursory overview of it. But that was very deep in a very long episode. I think it was like an hour and a half into a 2+ hour episode, and I was talking about many different things. So I thought it warranted an episode. all on its own. And I, as I said, I thought I’d be able to do it quickly. I had no idea how much there was to study and learn about this document. So we are really going to get into it. First, I’ll just quickly show it to you. This will just be a quick overview because we’re going to get into all of the details. This is in the church history library, and you can see it’s, it’s the family Bible. And the important page, the most important page is right here, if you can see the family record page where it records marriages, and it records. Cornelius and Cornelia’s marriage, and then it records another entry of them being sealed. And then below that, um, it has a record of Melissa being married, and it doesn’t include the groom. And then at the top of the next column, it lists Melissa’s next marriage, and it calls her Melissa Smith. And so you can see why this is seen as very strong evidence by the polygamy affirmers. And then, um, but off, I have to just show you a few other pages because it’s important to get into the entire document. After that page of marriages, we have 2 pages of births, and then we have a page of deaths that are also all recorded in this Bible. So I know I went over that really fast. It probably looks really messy, but I, I think you will like the research that, that, um, I’m going to share on this. I think it’s exciting. So, as I said, at first glance, I can totally understand how this is interpreted by polygamy affirmers to be a strong evidence of Joseph Smith’s polygamy. It looks straight. Straightforward, and it is easy to make that assumption. So, I’ll quickly read what, um, Mark Tensmeyer wrote about it in his paper in Secret Covenants. And I have to say, I actually am so thankful that we have that Mark did that paper because it does such a good job of giving us an outline of the documents that, um, are seen to be important in this discussion, that are seen to be strong evidence of Joseph Smith’s polygamy. I’m, I’m not reading this in any way to pick on him. I’m reading it because it’s very Useful and helpful. I will read this first now, and I’ll read it again at the end, so we can kind of see how, um, you know, what people catch in what is written about this Bible when we don’t know much about it yet. So, he wrote, The Lott Family Bible’s records section lists Melissa Lott’s parents, Cornelius and Premilia, being married for time and eternity on September 20,
[00:03:20] 1843 by Hiram Smith with the seal of Joseph Smith. The Very next entry in the same handwriting and style as the first, we’re going to get into all of this, states that Melissa’s parents gave her to wife on that same date. Curiously, the entry does not identify the groom to whom the elder lots gave their daughter to wife on the day that the Smith brothers sealed their civil marriage. We’ll get into that as well. However, in the next column, an entry lists Melissa’s last name as Smith when she marries her second husband in 1847. Notably, Joseph Smith the 3rd was convinced by this evidence that a ceiling ceremony had occurred between Melissa and his father. OK. There’s a lot there. As I said, we’re gonna get into each, each part of this document, so you will understand that very differently, I think, when we read it again at the end. Also, another reason that I’m doing this episode, there was a Facebook post from one of our favorite polygamy promoters, not just a polygamy affirmer, a polygamy um, promoter. Who, um, she was writing a post responding to what she says is the quote false claim that they’re, oh, you know what, I can just go ahead and put this up. Here’s the post. Um, what she says is the false claim that there are no contemporary sources for Joseph Smith’s polygamy. The Lot family Bible, she says, is a contemporary source that records the marriage of Melissa to the Prophet Joseph Smith. And so, um, this post reading, it actually made me think, oh, I just need to do an episode on this Bible, because it became, there were many, many Comments on this post. And a lot of people, even people who are, um, share my perspective and I think listen to my podcast, many, uh, at least have listened to many episodes, didn’t seem to really understand what the response could be about, about this document. So I thought, OK, I’m going to go ahead and do a full episode on it, because there, there’s a lot to be said about it. I did comment on the post, letting her and her friends know that I would do a full episode. And unfortunately, when I went back to, when I tried to go back to see it, I The post was deleted. So I hope that this friend and her friends see this episode anyway, even though she deleted the post. So I will say, what I learned early on in this complicated record is that it deserves more investigation and critical analysis from all sides. I think it is too easy for one side to say, it’s clear evidence of Joseph Smith’s polygamy, and the other side to just assume it’s a forgery or, or something like that. So I think we need to be very, um, very meticulous. As we investigate this document, which is what I’ve tried to do. So first, let me introduce the Lot family, whose bible this is.
[00:05:57] This is Premilia and Cornelius Lott. So Perilia Darrow, she was a bright student who received an excellent education at the best schools and then became a school teacher. Her histories all say she rode 20 miles each way to school. Now, I, I’m going to share some of the things that are written in the histories, but it’s always kind of up in the air because, you know, the stories get passed down. So, but, um, Then she married Cornelius Lott. She is always described as a very, this is true, she is always described as a very sweet tempered and rather quiet woman who was very kind and loved. She was, she and Cornelius joined the church in 1834 when their 6th child was less than a year old. So they had a big family. That’s part of why he was known as Father Lot. It’s because they had so many children. They experienced with the saints the losses of the bank collapse in Kirtland and the persecutions and mobbings and exodus from Missouri. And, um, all of that before moving to Navu, where beginning in 1842, they lived on Joseph Smith’s farm that was about 3 miles out of town, I believe, and rented the large 8 bedroom farmhouse. And, um, while Joseph and his family, they were living in the big, um, farmhouse, while Joseph and his family were living in the tiny homestead house. They didn’t move into their in the Navvo mansion until 1843. So I’ll read what one history records. Quote, Between the Smith and Lott families, a warm and neighborly feeling existed. The children attended the same school, that school in the, um, upper room of the red brick store that started the day that, um, the revelation was supposedly written. So that’s kind of fun to read. Um, Melissa chaperoned the younger Smith children, and at times made her home with the Prophet’s wife. Now, all of that that I read is backed up by other sources, except that last sentence, which I’m not quite sure of. I don’t know if she actually lived with the Smiths. It doesn’t sound to me like she did. But, um, there’s another part of the story that’s been passed down that I want to share. Here’s one of the stories, and I’ll quote from the, the histories again, this is actually recorded in all of their histories. It says, at one time, um, the prophet Joseph Smith, at one time he came into the lot home as Pamilia was making her bed and said, Sister Lot, you must hide me. The mob is after me. And see, I don’t know if this kind of act thing actually happened. It sounds like a fanciful story. But who knows? It’s a fun story in any case. It says, Premilia shook her straw tick up, then part of the straw in the middle, pushing the straw well to the sides. She then told him to climb inside the tick and to not move. And whatever he did, do not sneeze. She then put a little straw over him and made up the bed. The men came running in and asked if she had seen him. Then they asked if they could search her home. Premilia said, Certainly if you would like. Then they Ask her if that was the first bed she had made this morning, and she answered,
[00:08:40] Yes. Do you want me to take it apart so you can see it? They looked a little embarrassed and said, No, never mind. But they did look in the other rooms while Premmilia stood guard by the bed. When they were satisfied the prophet was not there, they left, and the prophet came out of his hiding place. Again, now that I know how, well, I mean, we know how family members make up stories to pass on for the children. So I’m not quite sure if this story is true, especially because we get another story passed down in the same family histories, and this was a story from August 8th, 1844, the meeting during the succession crisis, and this is also recorded in their history, which I think is not likely to be true based on other sources we have. It says when he first arose to speak, speaking of Brigham Young, the saints were greatly astonished. President Yang stood transfigured before. For them. And they beheld the Prophet Joseph Smith and heard his voice as plainly as ever they did when he was living among them. Cornelius and Premio Lot were among the saints gathered there. Al Zainilot, their young daughter, 11 years of age, turned to her mother and said, Mama, I thought the prophet was dead. Her mother answered and said, He is Alzaina, and this is the way our heavenly Father has told us who is to be our next leader and prophet. So again, um, we know that this, this is an exaggerated account, so we can read all of these stories just for fun to understand their family history of who these are. So, but these, the next parts of what I’m going to share about Premilia and Cornelius are well documented. They lost their 3 month old infant son in Navu in 1845. He was their 10th, and then less than 2 years later, they lost 2 more children 10 days apart in winter quarters. They lost their 11-year-old daughter and their 9-year-old son. And then less than a year after that, they crossed the plains, and Premilia at this point was pregnant. It with her 11th child in her 40s. She, uh, reached the valley less than 6 weeks, um, before delivering her baby. And I think it’s probably hard for most people to understand that the way I do, or someone else who has had that many pregnancies into their 40s would understand that. I just about cried when I read that, what, what Pamia. Went through. So, during the exodus, Brigham Young put Cor Cornelius in charge of the church’s cattle, and he was again put in charge of the church farm in Salt Lake until his untimely death from dysentery in the still harsh and lacking conditions in Utah in 1850. He passed away in 1850. So that’s a little overview of who they are, but this is a fascinating connection. That I think you are going to want to hear. Corne Cornelius Lott was actually Joseph F. Smith’s villain. And so many of you will remember the, um, documents I, I mean, I showed the books where Joseph F. Smith compiled the affidavits that he kept, and he had another book where he wrote his reminiscence at the same time, it’s the exact same kind of book that’s match, matching. And so that is what this book is, and this is where he wrote his reminiscence, and I want to read what just a part of what he writes about Father Lot, Cornelius Lot, Melissa’s father. He actually has a lot to say about him,
[00:11:51] so I’ll just read a portion of it. I now return to the spring of 1848. As I have remarked, we were anxious to go with the church to the valley. Many of our cattle and horses, having died during the winter, we were in a very helpless condition in regard to traveling. But notwithstanding, Mother was determined to make a start, trusting in God for help, for it was out of the power of the saints to do it. Accordingly, we loaded up our wagons, 7 in number. loaded up our old wagons, 7 in number, including a large family carriage or spring wagon. Most, if not all, of the wagons was made at the wagon shop at Navvo out of green timber, soaked or boiled in brine, and, and, um, soaked or boiled or brine and brine, green timber is means that these were not high quality wagons that were, that were likely to break down. And fastening two wagons together and yoking up the cows or calves or young steers and what oxen we had, we hitched up and commenced to roll out toward Elkhorn, where the companies were encamped, making the distance 27 miles in 3 days. Um, here we camped for some little time as we had to send back to hire and buy on credit cattle for the journey. Here, a circumstance occurred, I shall never forget and have not yet even forgiven. President Kimball one morning brought Cornelius Pilott to my mother and informed her that she would travel in his 50, provided she could get teams to go on, to go with the companies. Brother. inquired as to the number of our family wagons and teams and on. Being informed, he replied in the presence of Brother Kimball that it was folly for widow Smith to attempt the journey, and said he, go back to winter quarters and remain till another year so that you can get assistance. For if you start out in this manner, you will be a burden on the company the whole way, and I will have to carry you along or leave you on. The way to this disconsolate harangue, Mother calmly replied, Father Lot, I will beat you to the valley, and I will ask no help from you either. At this, he seemed quite nettled, and he said sharply, You can’t get there without help, and the burden will be on me, and turned on his heel and went away. I was then a little boy, and I felt grieved and hurt at the harsh and discouraging manner of Father Lot. And the cold bluff he gave my mother, who was struggling against hope as as it were, and the most forbidding obstacles, trusting with the most implicit faith in God for deliverance from the jaws of death, for winter quarters was a most sickly whole at that time and was being deserted by the saints. This is so interesting. I’ll just point out, Joseph F. Smith was an apostle when he was recording this, decades later, and I um want to also point out one thing first, before I go into that, I need to make this point. That um Mary is known as is referred to as widow Smith when she was supposedly married to Hebrewy. Kimball, just as her sister Mercy is always referred to as widow Thompson, despite the later claim that she had married Hiram. This was the polygamist Cornelius Lott talking about Mary to her supposed husband, Hebrew C. Kimball, and they call her widow Smith. I think that that is actually something to pay attention to. People like to point, point out that Mary went west, and they like to say that is evidence that she supported polygamy, and they use that as evidence that Hiram was a polygamist. But it is clear from Mary’s life that she never in any way considered herself a white. of Hebrew or a plural wife.
[00:15:21] It’s also interesting that her husband, supposedly Hebrewy. Kimball, didn’t in any way help out for outfit her to cross the plains and didn’t stand up for her to Father Lot or make sure that she was cared for. It’s also interesting that Joseph F. Smith’s anger is directed at Lot, rather than at her mother’s supposed new husband, who, it seems, did nothing to help or defend her. So I want to Read this from like a fiery meteor, page 38. This is an excellent biography of Joseph F. Smith. He, um, it says, Mary, for her part, had little to do with Kimball and managed affairs mostly on her own. Joseph F. Smith’s memory of the period between his father’s murder and evacuation of Navu left no doubt about that. Quote, By the massacre at Carthage, he recalled, she was left the sole guardian of a large family of children. and dependants for whom by her indefatigable exer exertions she provided the means of support. Joseph F. Smith remained fiercely protective of the memory of his mother as a completely independent woman for the rest of his life. When Kimball’s son Solomon showed Joseph F. Smith a draft of a biography of his father, Joseph F. Smith expressed outrage at the implication that Mary might have received some material assistance from Kimball. No man supported my mother from her widowhood to her death, Joseph F. Smith fumed, and anything to the contrary is not true. So, wow, right? That tells us a lot about Mary’s supposed marriage to in polygamy to Hebrewy Kimball. So, in addition, just to speak a little in defense of Cornelius Lot, keep in mind. That he himself had a large family. They had recently lost lost several children in winter quarters, but they still had a large family, plus his wife was 4 months pregnant with their 11th before they even left. He knew he would have his hands more than full with just his own family, in addition to all of his other responsibilities. I don’t know that he was necessarily trying to be discouraging and trying to be a villain as much as just trying to keep people safe, possibly. So, um, Joseph F. Smith records several other dramatic stories about Father Lot and his insults to them personally. He talks about his anger and accusations when a woman from the group was thought to have gone missing. And then he says that he was very insulting and angry at Mary when her oxen fell fell sick, and then he tells the story of her miraculously healing them one by one in front of him. But then says that this made Father Lot very angry, which seems unlikely to me. I think if you are leading a wagon train and you’ve lost some of your animals and then they’re healed, you would be happy about that. So who knows? He just makes it into this grudge match. Maybe that’s how he’s seeing it more than the reality. I don’t know. He includes several other stories, including this one that I’ll go ahead and read. So this is from Another page in, um, Joseph F. Smith’s journal. He he wrote, on reaching the last crossing of the Sweetwater, to the best of my recollection, 3 of Captain Lot’s ablest st oxen and his best mule laid down near the campground and died. This was a a sore trial to the old man and was a Very great loss, as he was obliged to get help in order to to proceed. I heard him say, it looks suspicious that 4 of my best oxen should lie down in this manner all at once and die, and everybody’s cattle but mine escape,
[00:18:53] and insinuated that somebody had poisoned them through spite, all of which was said in my presence for my especial. Benefit, which I perfectly understood, although he did not address himself directly to me. Isn’t that interesting? We can always think we’re being insulted, right? And Joseph F. Smith is a very troubled, um, traumatized 9-year-old who was so protective of his mother, might have heard it this way, but it’s interesting to not gain different perspective on that over time. It was well for Father Lot. I was only a stripling of 9 years of age and not a man. Even 4 years later, such an occurrence would have cost the old man dearly, regardless of his age and perhaps been a cause of regret to myself. My temper was beyond boiling. It was white hot, for I knew his insinuation. She was directed or aimed at my mother, as well as I knew that such a thing was beyond her power, even if she had been as well as I and all the camp. Mary was always sickly. At this moment, I resolved on revenge for this and the many other insult insults and abuses this old fiend had heaped upon my mother and should most certainly have carried out my resolution had not death come timely to, to my relief and rid the earth of so vile and despicable an encumbrance. Wow. So this, Joseph Smith F. Smith recorded this journal over 20 years after these events occurred and 18 years after Lot’s death. This was an apostle writing about another stalwart member of the church who had sacrificed much for the gospel and to come west, and who had been a friend of Joseph Smith, but he was apparently never able to see Father Lot through any other lens. So I thought that was an interesting. And it’s fun to make these connections. So another thing about Cornelius Slott, however, is that he was a Navvvo polygamist, but not until, well, after Joseph Smith’s death, when polygamy exploded. He was part of that explosion in polygamy when it was taught after Joseph Smith was killed. His marriages are very interesting and I think worth going into, especially because one of them is a bit troubling and just fascinating to read about. So I have to Tell the crazy story. So, the only compilation of Temple Records we have access to that I have had a lot of questions about, Lilot being sealed to three women, January of 46 and one more in February of 46, and then two more in March of 47. So those are the sealing records that we have. January 21, 1846, the 54-year-old Elizabeth Davis Brackenbury Durphy was supposedly Um, married to Cornelius Lott, who was 47. She was again, supposedly Joseph Smith’s polyandrous wife. I have looked more into her story. I’m excited to do an episode on it. The more I look into her, the less I think there’s evidence that she was actually ever married to Joseph Smith. Um, the next day after that, January 22, 1846, um, the 47-year-old lot was also sealed to the 69-year-old Cher. Dickinson Pratt. And this is interesting because she was a mother of five sons who included Parley P. Pratt and Orson Pratt. So I am not sure why she was sealed to Cornelius Lott. And then the same day, January 22, 1846, the 47-year-old Lot was also sealed to 15-year-old Rebecca Narcissus Fawcett. This is the amazing story to go into this. Not a picture of her when she was 15. Obviously, this is a later picture. But at the time of their marriage, she was 15 and younger than 4 of Premiya’s and Cornelius’s children.
[00:22:34] To make things even cringier, Cornelius’s 20-year-old son, John, married Rebecca’s younger sister 2 months later, 2 months after his father married the 15-year-old sister, he married the 14-year-old sister, Mary Anne. That was his first wife. So, um, this is the story of Rebecca Fawcett that I need to tell you. Her 19 year old fiance had recently died and she was inconsolable. It says that she cried on his, um, grave night and day. So she married Cornelius based on his promise that he would seal her to her fiance. She moved in with them, but only stayed a very short time before going back to her family. And then she gave birth to His son 9 months later. And, and, um, she named him for her fiance, Isaiah Barkdah, but she still gave him the last name Lot. Cornelius never met this son, according to the histories. After coming to the valley with her parents, not with Cornelius, she never had anything else to do with him or his family. Rebecca married another man who was partially Native American. This is a cool picture of him. That’s him over on the side in the suit. Um, he, they had 3 daughters together before he went back to live with his Native American people. So this story is one of the most complex stories of ceilings I have seen. So I think it is interesting to go into. Rebecca died in 1884, but this letter was written by her father in 1894. It’s, I, I’ll just go ahead and read it cause it’s fascinating. October 13, 1894, to whom it may concern. This is to certify that I am the father of Rebecca Fawcett Lot, now deceased, who was married to one Cornelius P. Lot, now deceased, who was married in Navu in the year 1845. And I hereby certify that he deceived her and that I never gave her to him to be sealed for eternity. But on the contrary, he asked to have her sealed to him for time, to which we consented with the understanding that he would act as proxy and have her sealed for eternity to. Isaiah Barkdahl, to whom she was engaged, but he died before the contract could be consummated. She, being young and inexperienced, did not inform her parents of this until after she came to this territory. She was then sealed to Isaiah Barkdahl, his brother Peter Barkdahl, acting as proxy. And we suppose that contract is now all right, and it is now desired that her children be sealed, sealed to her and Isaiah Barkdahl, William M. Fawcett. OK, isn’t that fascinating? It sounds like Cornelius did the whole trading. If you’ll marry me, I’ll steal you to somebody else being. Um, he told her that if she would marry him, she could be sealed to eternity, to the man, for eternity to the man she loved. Uh, it’s just so awful. But as if that wasn’t bad enough, he apparently didn’t keep his end of the bargain and instead sealed her to himself. She still, she lived, as I said, with them for a few months.
[00:25:42] I became pregnant. She moved in with the family with Premilia. I cannot imagine how awful and devastating and confusing. This entire situation would be for a 15 year old girl. She finally left, but she was pregnant with his child, and she gave birth a little while later and then left the child with her parents while she went to work and tried to make until she was settled and could have little Isaiah come back with her. It’s just an interesting story. But, um, one of the reasons I want to go into it is because it is fascinating. That Rebecca was able to be sealed to two men, Cornelius and then later, Isaiah Barkdahl, both during her lifetime. This is a very unusual situation and did cause some confusion that had to be sorted out at the highest levels of the church. This is a letter that was sent to one of Rebecca’s descendants, Mrs. George Shores, talking. About this problem and it’s so interesting. I think I’ll go ahead and read at least part of it. It says, Dear sister stores, your letter of the 5th of July 1865 addressed to President David Omaa has been forwarded through channels to the Genealogical Society for Necessary Action. I have been directed to give you a reply to your letter. Your problem pertains to the ceiling of Rebecca Fawcett and the status of her children, both by Lot and by her husband Louis Sansoy, that that’s the Native American man. This matter has been reviewed by President Howard W. Hunter of the Quorum of the 12, and the following decisions were established. By virtue of the action of President Brigham Young, there would be no question but that Rebecca Fawcett should be considered as having been sealed for time and all eternity as a wife to Isaiah Barkdahl, the man to whom she had been engaged but was prevented from marrying because of his early death. So that’s fascinating because that shows Brigham Young himself allowed Rebecca to be sealed to Isaiah Barkdahl. It goes on to say that because was sealed to lot. Her children were born in the covenant, so they don’t need to be sealed to parents. And then it says, Children born in the covenant belong to the parent who is most worthy if there is a separation between the parents. Isn’t that interesting? I, maybe I’ve misunderstood this, but I thought they were sealed to the father, generally. This is a matter that would be settled by the Lord. If they followed the mother, which is usually the case, then they would automatically be sealed to Rebecca Fawcett and Isaiah Bar. fascinating, right? So Rebecca can choose who she wants to be sealed to and the children, if they go with her, are free to go with her. All other factors remaining the same. That, that is so interesting to me. The last two paragraphs, however, make it quite clear that the descendants of her children from either father, either Lot or, um, Sanosi, are still considered to be sealed in the lot line and would need special permission to do work for the back up. Barkda line. So I think that this whole thing is so interesting to see how ceilings were happening. So then, going forward, February 7, 1846, Cornelius Pilot was sealed to 16-year-old Jane Rogers. She also didn’t stay with him. I can’t find records of her. I haven’t been successful. And, um, I want to say though, that since we know that Rebecca got pregnant, I think it is fair to assume that maybe Jane was Also a literal marriage. So, um, I, I don’t know whether she had a child. I can’t find her.
[00:29:14] But anyway, so he married a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old. Then on March 30th, 1847, um, a few years later, or the next year, I guess, in winter quarters, he was sealed to two more women. Um, so these ceilings were not at the temple. He was sealed to Phoebe Crosby, the widow of Joseph Knight Sr. who was about his age, and Eleanor Eleanor Wayman. No. Information about her other than her birthday. She was 6 years older than Cornelia. So there’s no indication that any of these older women ever lived with him at any point. I do have to wonder if his marriage, at least to 15-year-old Rebecca and maybe 16-year-old Jane, if she already moved, if she moved in, hurt Cornelius’s and Premilia’s relationship. I imagine that would be very difficult. Remember, they were younger than almost half of their children. Um, there was no child born to Permila between the end of 1844 and 1848. And in that time, as I mentioned before, her baby died, her husband took on 6 wives, two of whom were teenage teenage girls younger than her own children, at least one of whom moved into the house and was impregnated by him. She also lost her home in Navvo, and then two more of her children in winter quarters. I am just, I, I’m guessing these were unbelievably difficult years for Premilia. She finally did get pregnant again in 1848, and then when she was 4 months along, she had to start crossing the plains. Again, she was 7.5 months pregnant before reaching the valley in her 40s with her. 7th child. So that is the story of Peril Lot during these years. And then they came to the valley and her husband passed away just a little while later. So, OK, that is a good introduction to the family. So now, let’s go back to the Bible. I’ve gone through all of the Lott family records and compared them to the entries in the Bible. This was very cumbersome. But it did reveal a lot and helped me and understand this Bible better. I’ll go through all the records recorded. It has Cornelius and Pamilia’s wedding, their original marriage, and then it has the marriages of all eight of their living children. So I’ll skip ahead past the ones that we’re going to come back and talk about the ceiling record and Melissa’s mystery ceiling. And then we have John, John Lot’s marriage and Mary Lot’s marriage to Abraham Lossy. Um, Melissa Lott’s marriage to Ira Willis, and then, um, um Myya Lot’s marriage to John Riggs Murdoch. Alzaina’s marriage to William Willis, that’s the younger brother of Ira, of Melissa’s, um, husband. They married brothers. And then we have Premilia Lot, that’s the daughter named after her mother. Her marriage to Abraham Hatch, and Peter Lot’s marriage to Soraya Snow. And finally, Benjamin Lott. He’s the baby that was born, the first baby that was born in Salt Lake just after they arrived, and it records his marriage. So it actually is a good record of this family’s Marriages, which is something I think that people, from my perspective need to pay good attention to. We can’t just say that this is some sort of a forgery because I don’t think that’s accurate. I don’t think it’s a good argument to say that all of these later
[00:32:30] marriages were added in after the fact as an attempt to create evidence. That doesn’t seem to work for to me. So we do still have the question of the record of Premilia and John’s being sealed by Hiram, and then the mystery. Wedding to the mystery group for Melissa. And so one thing that I, though, that I do want to point out that’s interesting about this Bible, is that it doesn’t include any of the polygamous marriages. Cornelius Lott, again, was sealed to 6 women other than his wife, including the one he had a child with, but none of them were recorded as marriages in the Bible. And his son John, who married Rebecca’s little sister, went on to marry 3 more women. And again, although he had 2 Children, and he had children with 2 of them. He had children with 3 of his 4 wives. None of those marriages were recorded either. And so I’ve thought about why this might be. It, it is, it can’t be that it’s because polygamous marriages were seen as not valid or not noteworthy, or they were being kept secret because most of the daughters married into polygamy, and those marriages were all recorded. But what is also very interesting is that while none of the polygamous marriages were recorded, The child that that Cornelius had in polygamy was recorded. This is amazing. On the next pages where it records the births, out of order, we find his polygamous child, Isaiah Barchdahl. He first recorded his grandchild, son of John Lot, born in 1847, and below that, Um, although he was born a year earlier in 1846, is Isaiah Lott, Rebecca’s child, who Cornelius never met, who was named for Isaiah Barkdahl, her dead fiancee. It’s interesting that it was put out of order as if it was either an afterthought or, you know, these were clearly recorded at the same time. So it’s very interesting to see that, that at least one polygamous child was recorded in the Bible. Um, I think that was the only The child that Cornelius had in polygamy, so his child is recorded. John, he didn’t have any children after the pages of births were filled up. So I don’t know if any of his children might have been recorded, even though his marriages weren’t. So, in order to say anything about the entries about Melissa in the Bible, we first need to spend a little more time on the full Bible, trying to understand how the entries were made and try To understand what we can about them. From the slides I’ve already shown, you should have been able to see the different writing styles and implements that were used. That helps us to be able to investigate and learn some things to know when the entries were made. The same writing, um, writing style and same writing size and pen indicates that the entries were made at the same time. So let me show you some examples. But first, it’s, I, I’ll, I’ll point out again. We have 1 page of marriages and 2 pages of births, and a page of deaths. That’s very helpful to understand because we can look at all of these different pages and compare the writing style and the pen and the size and all of that to, to, um, try to learn what we can about when these entries were made. So
[00:35:39] here I’ll show you an example. It is easy to see that William Sydney Murdoch’s birth and death were recorded at the same time. They forgot to list the year of his death, possibly because they had just entered it for his birth. So sometimes when we see um years missing, that can also be an indication of things being entered at the same time. But we know that these entries were not listed before October 15, 1857, when William died. But they were listed before October 1st, 1858, the birth date of the next child listed. And these two children, Ace Salo and Louis Salo, were listed at the same time, which which was not before December 4th, 1858. And this is in Interesting because Louisa is the only grandchild I haven’t been able to find a record of. So I don’t know who she is. All the rest matched up pretty well except for her. But you can see that those entries were made at the same time, which is the point I want to show. It’s also, you can look at little hints like listing 1858, but accidentally writing a 0 in their 1850, and then either later changing it to 8 and crossing out the zero or just entering it. We can see little idiosyncrasies like that that are interesting as well. So here is a very long list of births of grandchildren born between February 12, 1852 and April 25th, 1855 that were all entered together. So they were entered sometime between April 25th, 1855, when the last child entered was, um, born, and September. 1857, the date of the next birth that was entered. So hopefully you get an idea of how this, how this works. I know I’m just showing it easily. This has taken a lot of work to figure out. So I’m making you sit through a little bit of it so you can understand it as well. Here, I’ll just show you one more quick example. This is the last entry made into the Bible. It’s the deaths of Premilia, the mother Pamilia, not the daughter, and Melissa. Um, although those deaths occurred 16 years apart, the entries were recorded at the same time. We could show many, many more examples because this is how many of the entries in this Bible were made, multiple entries at a time, and you can get a pretty good sense of how and when they were made. So none of the examples I have shown so far are in the handwriting of Cornelius, because they were all entered after his death. But he actually wrote most of the entries before his death. We have plenty of samples of his Writing. I’ll show you this. This is a 200+ page daybook where he kept his records for the farm he supervised in Navu. So we have a pretty good sense of his writing, and we can recognize it. But even though we have this good sample of his writing, it’s important to recognize that even a single person’s writing style and size can, uh, can be different at different times, right? We all know this when you’re writing, sometimes it looks different than when you’re writing other times. And so another, that’s why it’s also important. To pay attention to things like size and slant and the the pen being used or the pencil being used to be able to tell when entries were made at different times. So we can be fairly certain of how that works. So let me show you an example. This is the initial entry in the book, uh, in the Bible of Cornelius and Premilius Lot. It records their 1823 marriage, and this was written by Cornelius Lot, but at a very different time. This is very possibly when they were given the Bible,
[00:39:02] and maybe he recorded. His marriage, right, then maybe it was given them to, to them as a wedding gift. I, I, I think that’s at least a reasonably good, um, good guess. And then we have the next entry, that is their ceiling by Hiram Smith. So you can see, I, I don’t know if you are able to see how the pen color is slightly different. The size is slightly different. I’ll put them both on the screen. It’s easier to see if you can look at them both at the same time, so you can compare the difference in the pen color and the size and some of the other factors. I will, of course, Of course, link this, have the Bible linked below, so you can look at them if you want to close up. I have spent hours and hours with multiple screens open on computers, comparing these entries. It’s actually been a lot of fun. It is fascinating. It’s cumbersome, but it is very fun. And so then you can see that after this entry, the next 3 entries were all made at the same time, which was again, different than the previous entry. So these are the entries of Melissa being given with no groom. Listed and no year that was made the same time as John’s April 5th marriage to Mary Anne Fawcett, which also has no year. It was 1846, the same year his father married her sister, which is the polygamist marriage he didn’t record, and maybe he didn’t record that marriage because maybe the reason Cornelius’s marriages aren’t listed is because all of his wives had already left him before he recorded these marriages. And then at the same time, it’s It’s recording Mary’s November 12, 1848 marriage to Abraham Lossy. So that helps us date when this entry was made. It was not before November 12, 1848. That’s very important to know. I’ll again show these, um, records together with the entry above it so you can see it a little bit more easily by looking at them at the same time. Cornelius actually made many entries in the Bible this day, the same day that he recorded. These three marriages is the same day that he recorded the birth of his first grandson and his polygamist son Isaiah, this entry that we already talked about. You can see that this was made with the same pen, the same size. It looks exactly the same. Again, if you have it on the screen at the same time, it’s a little easier to see. And the same day, he also entered the deaths that they had incurred at Winter quarters. He lists it, if you, if you read through it, that says, Winter Quarters, Omaha Nation. It took me a little while to figure that part out. He lists their two children, Harriet, Amanda, and Joseph, and the same grandson, Cornelius, who only lived 11 weeks. And it makes sense that there would be this much to enter at this on this day that he made these entries, because these were the first entries he had made since leaving Navu, going to winter quarters and crossing these these planes. So based on the dates, all of these entries were most likely made between November 12th and November 16th. 1848. We can date it this precisely because the marriage record, the last marriage recorded, was November 12th, 1848,
[00:42:07] and their last son that was born, the one that, um, Premilia was carrying while crossing the plains, was not entered at the same time, despite being born four days after that marriage. Here is the entry of that last baby, Benjamin, and you can see that it was clearly. recorded later at a different time, using a different pencil or pen than the others. So this was the last entry Cornelius made before passing away a year and a, and a year and a half after this last son was born. OK. So this is the extremely important point that needs to be made. This is the reason we’ve had to go into all of these entries and why investigating this Bible as carefully as I have tried to do, has proven to be important. These records, the records of um Melissa being sealed or being married to the groomless marriage along with the other records, these were made after the Lott family had arrived and settled in the Salt Lake Valley. That marriage of Melissa’s was not recorded the same day that Cornelius recorded his ceiling to Premila by Hiram. That was not made the same day. It was not made until years later, at least November 1848, after they were already in Salt Lake. This really is a big deal. I, um, I, I think that’s something that people need to seriously pay attention to regarding the source. If they still want to use it, that’s OK. But this needs to be addressed and acknowledged before we claim that it was made the same day, because if you look at the record, it’s clear that it wasn’t. It was made with the next 3, with the next 2 records that were all recorded that same day in that small time frame that we had. And so, in that small time frame between that last ceiling and the next baby being born 4 days later. And so, I am not sure why this was added to the Bible at this point, especially when it was supposed to have happened the same day as Pamelia’s and Cornelius’s ceiling, which was recorded earlier. It looks like those were recorded at different times, as at least we can at least say That much. So I have thought about that. Like, why would this have been added to the Bible at this point? Uh, it, it is a mystery, and, you know, in either case, it’s a mystery why if it happened, it wasn’t recorded the day that it happened when when Cornelius did record that he and Premilia had again been married and sealed by Hiram. That’s a mystery. We, we, um, we can’t, it does take away the argument that they recorded the Marriage of Melissa, but they couldn’t record the groom because it was so secret. That argument doesn’t work because that record was not made in Navu. It was made in Utah, when many polygamist records were being created and made all over the place. And also, though, we have to wonder why it would be made if it wasn’t true. What would make Cornelius write that if, if, um, Melissa hadn’t been sealed as it claims. So one Thought I’ve had, I think that these are questions that all of us need to ask. It’s quite a mystery, but this might be relevant to the point. It might not. But I also have the question of why Kingsbury wrote his reminiscence at this point that that talked about his pretended marriage to Sarah Anne Whitney. I think it might be important that these were made at very nearly the same time.
[00:45:36] And I think we can fairly ask why these records were being made at this point. What inspired them? What inspired Kingsbury at this point to write his reminiscence? What, if any, conversations might have been had. The reason I’m asking is because the women’s reminiscences were usually written by request from either Eliza Snow or sometimes Emily B. Wells. She was Emmeline B. Wells. She was trying to do her newspaper. But it was usually Eliza who was trying to get the women to write their reminiscences. Specifically, I can bring up Elizabeth Whitney. We’ve talked about her in the past, and we’ve recorded where Eliza asked, um, um, asked Emmeline Wells to write, uh, Elizabeth’s, um, history. And then also, we, I’ve talked before about Helen Mar Kimball and how they visited her and asked her to write. write her history. This is really important to recognize. Neither of them just chose to write their mini reminiscences independently or organically. They were orchestrated and assisted by at least Eliza Snow, but Eliza and Emmeline. So, I think it’s fair to wonder if something similar was probable to have been happening with Kingsbury and Lot. And so I think that that’s interesting to think that that is at least a possibility that, um, that we could talk about. I, I would be curious to hear other people’s ideas, but that does look interesting to me. And then this is a little bit off topic, but I wanted to put this, point this out here because I, I realized that while I was digging into to Kingsbury’s reminiscence again. That I had an important, I had an important realization about the timeline of the development of the narrative based on Kingsbury’s Journal. So Kingsbury’s Journal does talk very openly about the pretended marriage, but it says nothing about the polygamy revelation that 4 years later shows up in his handwriting. That is fascinating. Again, we can’t claim that he was being protective of a narrative or that it was. Safe because he was writing about pretended marriages and scandalous things like Sarah and Whitney being married to him, traveling with him while pregnant, giving birth to a son, but then going to her real husband, Heber, right? All of that would have been extremely scandalous. So we can’t say, I can’t come up with a reason that Kingsbury wouldn’t have written anything about the revelation that he supposedly recorded. I’ll quickly show you just the one relevant page in his journal where he goes directly from recording a blessing that he says Joseph Smith gave him March 3, 1843. He skips right from that over to I remained with NKW Newe K. Whitney until the 24th of 25th of July, 1843. So that entire time period when the revelation would supposedly have been given. And written down and copied by him, he skips over without a word. That’s what I’m talking about. I actually think this is an important thing to, to, um, take notice of. He, I, I’ve tried to think of what the arguments could be, and, and one could be that it was secret, it couldn’t be written down.
[00:48:46] That can’t be the case. Another could be, well, maybe it wasn’t noteworthy enough that he didn’t think of including it. I also say that cannot be the case at all. This was known from the beginning. Be extremely, extremely important. The entire history of Nu, the novel expositor, everything shows us that if Kingsbury had written this revelation, he would have known it was important enough to record in his reminiscence written five years later, right? And so I think the best interpretation of this being passed by in his journal without a word, is that that part of the narrative had not yet been developed. Either He had not yet written his copy of the revelation, or if he had written, written it by at this point, he wasn’t yet sure if it was supposed to be known that he had written it, or what the story around it was supposed to be. I think that’s another interesting fact, little fact that I wanted to, to put in here, because it’s another point that needs to be dealt with. But back to the lot Bible, the fact that Cornelius recorded this mystery ceiling so much later and in Utah, And when other records telling portions of this of this polygamy narrative were also being created, does raise questions. Was this a legitimate record of a ceiling between Joseph and Melissa, or was this another attempt to create evidence to falsely claim that Joseph was married or sealed to Melissa? This is the question that everybody needs to answer for themselves, but again, The fact that it was recorded in Utah needs to be acknowledged in this discussion. So, a couple of interesting things about it, the record being so obscure, not including a groom’s name. Seems to me to be a little bit messy for either narrative. If it was created later as evidence of Joseph Smith’s polygamy at around the same time that Kingsbury wrote his reminiscence, then why wouldn’t Cornelius have made it more explicit and listed the groom. But the same could be asked if it was recording a true event, since it was recorded in Utah when other histories about polygamy were being made. Why would he fail to record Joseph’s name? Another problem With interpreting this entry as evidence that Joseph Smith married Melissa that day, is that the original entry about Cornelius and Premilia’s September 20th, 1843 ceiling implies that Joseph wasn’t there. It says they were sealed, quote, by President Hiram Smith with seal of President Joseph Smith. Hiram performed the ceiling and used Joseph’s seal. What does that mean? It sounds like a way of saying he used Joseph’s authority. It really doesn’t sound like Joseph was there. If he were there, he could have performed the ceiling himself, or at least approved it, and the record wouldn’t need to record that Hiram used his seal. It also seems to me that having Joseph there for the ceiling would be noteworthy and something they would want to record. I think if Joseph had been there, they would want to write that he was there. This record as it is, would actually make far more sense if they had later claimed that Melissa had been. That they had given Melissa to Hirum to be married instead of Joseph. It’s, it’s very strange. And then there is the question of Melissa being listed as Melissa Smith. Despite these marriages happening before his death, these two entries were clearly entered at the same time and are clearly not in Cornelius’s handwriting. In addition to just looking at the writing and easily seeing that it is not his, we can also clearly see that these were entered at the same time and by the same person as the record of Cornelius’s death the following year. So, I’m not sure whose writing this is. It doesn’t look to me like either Pamilia’s or Melissa’s, and I don’t see any other entries made in this writing. It is so interesting that she is recorded as Melissa Smith. This raises so many questions as to who did this and why they did it. Her name being listed as Melissa Smith is very important to the claim that this Bible is evidence of Joseph’s polygamy, especially since no groom is listed. But again, it raises serious problems for this record because Melissa’s name was never Melissa Smith. We actually have a lot of evidence for this.
[00:53:10] I’ll go. Through some of it. First, she was endowed in the Navu Temple January 24, 1846, and she is listed as Melissa Lott. This was several years after she would have supposedly been married to Joseph Smith. And it was on the Temple Records, where they were performing and recording many polygamist ceilings. If her name was ever Melissa Smith, it should certainly show up here. But there is another big reason We know her name was not Melissa Smith, and certainly not in 1849, when this entry was written in the Bible. At this point, I need to introduce you to John Milton Bernheisel. So I’ll tell you about him really quickly. He was converted and baptized in New York in 1840 and came to Navvo by 1843. Bern Hyel is an interesting case. He was a confirmed bachelor until the age of 46, when he Married his first wife, a widow with 6 living children in the temple, December 19, 1845. So again, year, a year and a half after Joseph had been killed. I really quickly want to explain the only sources we we seem to have available to try to figure out ceilings in the Navo Temple. I’m going to go into these because I sometimes have frustration when I say they were sealed, and I’m not absolutely sure if that was. True. So I’ll talk about these really quickly. First, the book on the left is the, um, this is the book that the Church History Library uses and points me to when I have questions about ceilings and Navu. It’s Navvo ceilings, anointings and adoptions and anointings. This record was made by Lyle G. Brown using various sources, and I am so happy that it is available on archive.org. So it’s very easy to use and search in that way. So I’m glad that we have it, but I have a ton of questions about it, and I’m not always sure how reliable it is. For just one thing, he uses later sources that I questioned to document Navvo ceilings. For example, he includes the ceilings of Joseph Smith to his supposed wives, often based on the later sources, but it is the best record that we have. I wish that the people at the Church History Library could check the original records that Lyle Brown used to. Pile this record. The other one I know of is Navu Marriage Proxy Ceilings by Lyndon Cook, which, while it isn’t the original record, at least has many transcripts of the Book of Ceilings or Book of Proxy from the Navu Temple. So that’s helpful as well. So the only entry in the record, um, the only record of Bernheisel in the books of Book of Proxy is his adoption to Joseph Smith, February 3, 1846. He became Joseph’s son by the law of adoption and became legal heir to the blessings bestowed upon Joseph pertaining to exaltation. This is interesting because we don’t have a lot of these. Someone could tell me if there are more people being adopted to Joseph and the Temple, but I think his is quite unique. And so this is interesting because then Bern Hyel, after being adopted to Joseph Smith, and that’s, again, the only record we have in the book of Proxy, but in Lyle Brown’s book, he lists Bern Hyel being sealed. To many women, and all of those top ones in brackets were his deceased relatives. That he seemed to be doing something very different than many than the other polygamists. It looks to me like he believed in the welding chain idea, the welding link, that he could, he was, he linked himself to Joseph Smith so that he could be saved.
[00:56:43] And then whoever he linked to himself could also be saved by being linked through him to Joseph Smith. That’s what Most of these ceilings were that that Bernheisel, most of the women he sealed himself to the in the temple. That’s what it seems to be. However, in addition to those deceased friends, women’s friends, aunts, sisters, sister-in-law, I think those are the people on his list. He was also sealed to 7 living women, although only one of those marriages seemed to last. So, similar to Lot, he was sealed to 5 older. Women, 33 widows, 2 married women, and then also two younger wives. So the 5 older women were the 3 widows and the 2 married women, and then he was sealed to 2 younger wives. His first wife, the widow Julia H Van Orden, was sealed to him in December 45 and gave birth to his child in winter quarters. But she is listed in the Utah census as taking back her her first married name, Van Orden, and living with her daughter. So she didn’t stay with him. The footnote says the ceiling of Julia Anaheit to JM Bernheisel was canceled by President Woodruff, the 13th of April 1873. That’s very interesting, that happened after her death, her ceiling to Bernheisel was was broken. And in 1893, she was sealed by proxy to her first husband, William Van Orden. The other two widows were Fannie Stafford, a widowed mother of six children who died a few months later, and Bernheisel didn’t care for her children. They all went to New Hampshire. They didn’t stay with him. And then Katherine Pat Payne Black. We don’t seem to have much information about her. So, um, the two married women he was sealed to, who both had living husbands were Dorothy, Dolly, Ransom Meeam. She was a member of the original relief Society, and Catherine, Catherine Burgess. At least one, if not both of their husbands went on to take a younger wife. We have a very interesting letter from Dolly Burgess about her husband’s young wife. Not Sure why either of them was sealed to Bern Hyel. And the two final ceilings were to 15-year-old Elizabeth, who he went on to have 9 children with. That’s his one marriage that lasted. And finally, the reason we’re going into him, 22-year-old Melissa Lott. She was sealed for time to John Bernheisel, February 8, 1846 by Brigham Young in the Navu. Temple. So, again, this poses a big problem for the Bible as evidence of Melissa being married to Joseph Smith. Her name at the time of her marriage to John Bernheisel, several years after supposedly marrying Joseph Smith, was listed as Melissa Lott. Her name at the time of her marriage to Ira Willis, if not still Melissa Lott, would have been Melissa Bernheisel. If anything were going to be entered. In the temple, I mean, entered in the Bible record, other than Melissa Lott, it should have been Melissa Bernheisel, but she never took that name either. She was recorded as Melissa Lott, not Melissa Bernheisel or Melissa Smith when she crossed the plains in 1848. She also didn’t travel with her new husband. Bernheisel traveled with his first wife and her now seven children, the widow with 6 children who he got pregnant and who left him when they got to the valley.
[01:00:10] He traveled with her and her children and his 15-year-old wife. Melissa traveled with her parents and siblings. We can’t assume that this marriage was not literal, since Bernheisel did have children with two of his other wives, including his 15-year-old wife. But it does seem to me, I suppose that I, I am supposing that Melissa was not very happy about this marriage. Again, she never took Name, and the record also states that she had a church divorce from Bern Hyel in 1849. I assume it was before her marriage to Ira Willis. I’m not sure why she needed a church divorce for a marriage for time before remarrying. See how this opens up, brings up so many questions about what these records might actually say. I, I don’t know if her ceiling record actually said for time. I’m curious about it. Whether it did or not. But, um, just like Cornelia sealed himself for eternity to someone he was only supposed to be sealed for time to. I, it’s all very confusing. It really was the wild west as far as ceilings went. So who knows. But in any case, the divorce serves as additional evidence that she was, in fact, married to John Milton Bernheisel. And knowing about her failed marriage to Bernheisel and her subsequent divorce raises an interest. possibility about the record. I’ve tried to think of why she would have been entered as Melissa Smith, what the possibilities are. And one idea I’ve come up with it is it could be that she was listed as Smith, not because she had been his wife during his life or had ever gone by that name, but because she had divorced Bernheisel. And since, according to the records, she had in that ceiling also been sealed to Joseph Smith by proxy at the same time. She may have used the name Smith instead of Bern Hyel. Does that make sense? Like, she had been married to Bern Hyel, so that should be her last name. She did not want to be married to Bern Hyel, but since she’d also been married to Smith, maybe she decided to take that name at that point. That’s the best argument I can think of to support this entry as being legitimate and not a fraudulent attempt to create evidence of Joseph’s polygamy. But in either case, her being listed as Melissa Smith here, either because she had been sealed to him by proxy and chose that name over Bern Hyel, who she had divorced, or because whoever created the record wanted to imply that she had been married to that she had been Joseph Smith’s wife, this entry is not evidence that she was married to Joseph Smith during his lifetime. It is not evidence of Joseph Smith’s polygamy. Again, the original marriage record of Melissa to the Unnamed groom was not listed until at least November of 1848, the same time the other records were being created. And then her, her being listed as Melissa Smith does not in any way mean that she was married to Joseph Smith because she never used that name, she never went by that name, she never took that name. This is not evidence that she was married to Joseph Smith. So going forward, Melissa married Ira Ira Willis in 1849, right after the divorce, I suppose, and shows up in the 1950 and all subsequent census records and all other records as Melissa Willis or Melissa Lott Willis. She is never listed anywhere as Melissa Smith. For example, we can even see this on the on the two copies of the 1869 affidavits. Joseph F. Smith wrote for her and that she appears to have signed. Her name is listed as Melissa Lott Willis, and she signed them Melissa Lott Willis. Even though some later, some in some of the, um, affidavits, someone later went back and added Smith to some of the names, that didn’t happen with Melissa. Her name was very clearly Melissa Lot Willis.
[01:04:00] It is interesting, I, to, to think about. I wonder, it’s interesting to realize. Joseph F. Smith wrote these affidavits around the same time that he recorded his memories about her father in his reminiscence. I wonder if she knew what he thought about her father or if that came up. I, I just thought that was very interesting. Maybe seeing her when she came to sign these triggered him and made him think of those memories. I have no idea. I just thought that was an interesting connection. But aside from these affidavits, not saying Melissa Smith, there is actually a big bigger problem with them. They get the year wrong. The date is consistent with the Bible, the 20th of September, but the year is mistakenly listed as 1842. So I want to know, these affidavits were already signed and sealed with the year 1842, and then later someone seemed to have a doubt about that and sort of tried to change one and put a question mark on the other one. That’s just more evidence that is through Out these affidavits that they are not, they were not the solid evidence people want to claim that they are. These affidavits are filled with problems and funny business similar to this. Um, this may be understandable that the affidavits get the date, the year wrong, because remember, the record in the Bible doesn’t list a year when it records, um, this, the supposed ceiling that was added. At least in 18, I mean, it, no earlier than November 1848. So they were probably just doing their best. But what does seem clear is that these two records, the Bible and the affidavit, should not be seen as independent records that can confirm one another. Since it’s, since it seems far more likely that the affidavit was made based on the Bible record. So we already have very strong evidence that Melissa Lott never Had the name Melissa Smith. But there is more because the question of Melissa’s name came up explicitly in the Temple Lot trial. We’re going to go into that. But first, I want to go over some of the lesser known but very important documents in chronological order that will give context and insight to the other sources. The first document we have is a letter that Joseph Smith III sent to EC Brand January 26th. 1884. Brand was a leader in the RLDS Church who had come to Utah, and Joseph Smith III asked him to look for claims and evidence about his father’s polygamy. This is a letter he wrote in response to the information Brand had sent him thus far, including a list of supposed wives and a copy of Helen Mar Kimball’s new book, Why We Practice Plural Marriage. That’s a fun book, which, among other things, argues that monogamy is a great evil. A hypocritical and tyrannical system that enslaves mankind and will destroy civilization and the world. I’ll read one quick quote of far, far too many that I could choose from. This is quoting Helen Mar Kimball’s book. It is a notorious notorious fact where the system of monogamy prevails. The most common cause of murder is unhappy marriages. Husbands murder their wives, and wives murder their husbands or incite others to do it almost every week. Jose, you could just do a quick Google search to see if that’s true, if that’s the most common cause of murder is being married in monogamy. Joseph III had a good sense of humor. His critique of Helen’s book was amusing. This is what he wrote. Why did they allow such crack brains as she to write a thing like that to circulate? It is as full of holes as a skimmer. Brand had sent Joseph the 3rd a list of 20 supposed wives. Joseph the 3rd wrote back in his customary sarcastic, good humor. Now you will discover that while you have furnished me names, I would like particulars and proofs. And if you find any more mothers Or ants and can do and can do so just get proofs,
[01:07:54] proofs, anything that is offered. I will be mighty easy to suit. Only I want the proofs they offer. Joseph the Third listed the wives and asked specific questions about each one in a numbered list that he sent. In response to the information Brand had sent about Melissa Lott, Joseph Smith wrote, listing her as number 18, I knew Melissa well, a bright, good girl. I am glad that she was only sealed for eternity or adopted into the family, but she was plenty large and old enough to be any man’s companion in cohabitation when I knew her, and about the only one of the entire outfit named by, by you, whom I would be inclined to believe if she should tell me herself that Father did cohabit, cohabit with her. I Ira Willis well. Any children to Joseph Smith? Joseph III was already certain by this time, through his own studies, research, interviews, etc. that his father had not been a polygamist. This was 5 years after he had recorded and published his mother’s final testimony. Interpreting this letter to try to claim that Joseph Smith III knew his father was a polygamist is badly mistaken. We should especially pay attention to the line, I’m especially glad that she was only Sealed for eternity or adopted into the family. This is in response to what Brand had written to Joseph Smith after talking to Melissa. The clear implication is that Melissa had told Brand that she was not a literal wife, but was only sealed for eternity or adopted. I don’t think this should be interpreted to believe that she had indeed been sealed to Joseph Smith. There is no better evidence for ceilings with any of these women than there is for marriages. And Joseph Hiram and a special Emma all denied that there had been anything like that. So it’s strange to me that we want to claim that Joseph didn’t practice polygamy, but then say that he did seal himself to women for eternity. I think a far better explanation is that this was Melissa’s way of walking the middle ground, telling a manageable lie rather than a huge one. So this is really interesting. Studies into human honesty have shown that people will cheat or lie, but ideally just a little bit. People prefer to tell smaller lies rather than bigger lies when possible. Further studies have shown that telling smaller lies leads people over time to gradually begin to tell bigger and bigger lies. It seems that as our brains habituate to the smaller lie, it allows us to more comfortably stretch the truth further and further over time. I think we see these dynamics playing out in polygamy with several of the supposed wives, including Melissa Lott. For example, in 1869, she was willing to sign a paper saying she had been married or sealed to Joseph. That was very broad and ambiguous. Wasn’t, she wasn’t at all claiming she lived with Joseph as a wife or had sex with him. She didn’t claim any of that at that point. She just claimed that she had been sealed to him, which she could have rationalized in a dozen ways, including that she actually supposedly had been sealed to him by proxy in the temple. She was still telling that same version when EC Brand came to gather information for Joseph Smith III, but gradually and as needed and as she was pressured in the Temple Lot case after many years of staying with that story and acclimating to it, by the time it comes to her Temple Lot testimony, she is able to stretch her story further as. Needed to fulfill the purposes she was sent there to serve. I think that’s how we can interpret these sources. So in 1885, the year after writing this letter, is the next piece of evidence we have. Joseph the 3rd came to Utah himself and met with many members, including Melissa Lott. And I am so thankful to have This source. This is the journal that he recorded about that visit that day, Tuesday, October October 20, 1885, went and called on Mrs. Ira Willisnelo, had a chat about about sealing father, children, etc. Mary Melissa Alzina, I assure me that father had no children.
[01:12:01] This is a fantastic source. It is the earliest document of their meeting, recorded on the day it occurred and gives us a brief overview view of the meeting, which is completely consistent with Joseph Smith III’s later reminiscence. As always, I’m so thankful to the community of Christ library and archivist for sharing with me and for their archive allowing me to show that. Then we skip ahead 8 years and go to Melissa’s 1893 Temple Lot testimony. She had a very long time on the stand, 269 questions and answers. I think it is worthwhile to read all of it, but I’ll highlight quite a bit of it right now here. I’m omitting many of the parts that are deal with scriptures or marriage laws or mar marriage ceremonies or other theological questions the lawyer. Goes into. And I’m just focusing on some of her claims about her marriage to Joseph Smith, the question of her children and her meeting with Joseph Smith III, the things that seem most relevant to this topic of the family Bible record, which seems to possibly have motivated some of these questions. To begin, it is clear from the very first page of the record that her name, as always, is Melissa Law. Willis. And I’ll go ahead and show you the slides if you want to read along. This is beginning the cross-examination. What was your name when you was in Missouri? My name was Melissa Lott. And after you went to Navu, what was your name? Well, I have given you my name. It was Melissa Lott until I was married to Joseph Smith. Who did you say you were married to Joseph Smith by? By Hiram Smith? Then what was your name? It was Melissa Willis when I married Ira Willis. What was your name after you was married in Nu at the time you speak of. It was Melissa Lot Smith. It was Melissa Lott Smith, you say, Yes, sir. Did you pass by the name of Melissa Lot Smith there at Navvo? By those that knew I did. Did you pass by the name of Melissa Lot Smith in Navu? Well, I was called that in Navvo. Where? In Navo? By who? By Mr. Smith and his brother? By anybody else? Yes, sir. Who? My folks. So, According to her testimony, her husband and brother-in-law didn’t call her by her name, but called her sister Smith, and her parents stopped calling her Melissa, and instead started calling her sister Sister Smith. And nobody else could know, so they could only call her that in secret. So really, the answer to the lawyer’s question, if she was known as Melissa Smith in Navu, is clearly no. No, I didn’t go by Melissa Lot Smith, but she seems to be trying desperately to find a way around that. The lawyer continues. By anybody else? Well, I can’t enumerate everyone that I knew of, not expecting to be called on to give these things. I didn’t come, I didn’t keep a particular record of it. This is a common tactic that she goes into a lot. Did the church in Navvo know that was your name? Well, I think they did. You think they did? Yes, sir. Do you know? I can’t say, but I think so. Was it placed upon the church records? I could not say whether it was placed there or not. I couldn’t say yes to that. From my memory,
[01:15:07] don’t serve me as well as it did a few years ago. We can answer that for, for her very easily. We have already shown how her name was entered in the temple as Melissa Lott. Again, the answer is a very clear, no. So now I’ll skip ahead and just read a couple of questions from this segment. You’ll recall that the Bible says September 20th with no year. The affidavit says September 20, 1842, and now we get this date. What time were you married? Well, I was married on September 27, 1843. September 27, 1843. Yes, sir. Now we’ll go to these couple of questions. Well, who else were you ever married to besides Mr. Joseph Smith? I married Mr. Willis and had a family of children by him. Were you ever married to anybody else? No, sir. We have already shown clearly that she was, in fact, married to and divorced from John Milton Bernheisel. Again, going we’re just skipping. Around to read the relevant parts. So this is again about her supposed marriage to Joseph Smith. Now, was this marriage public or private? There was a number. There was quite a number present. Answer the question. Was it public or private? It was not very private. Who was present? I can’t remember all who were there. Well, give us the names of the parties who were present as well as you can remember them. My father and my mother were there, and several others, and they, and they are all in their graves today, but myself. We’ve talked about this before, how often they call on witnesses who are dead. That’s another common tactic we see. Well, who else was present besides yourself, your father and your mother? Joseph Smith was there. Well, I know that, but who else was there? Well, some of my brothers and sisters, one of my brothers, and, and the witnesses that were necessary. Now, we’ll skip ahead to where this topic comes back, back up. And, um, we’ll read this portion. You have stated all the parties who were present at the time of your marriage with Joseph Smith. Yes, sir. That was your father and mother and Joseph and Hiram. Yes, sir, they were there. Anybody else? Yes, sir. My brother or sister too, that is dead and gone. Can you name these brothers and sisters? Just name them. Joseph and Amanda Lott. OK, these were her two younger siblings who died at winter quarters. They would have been 5 and 7 years old at the time of her supposed ceiling to Joseph Smith. She had several older siblings, several siblings older than these two that she could have chosen. She had
[01:17:34] John, who was, who would have been 19, Mary would have been, oh, let’s see, she, no, I’m sorry. Melissa was 19. John would have been 17, Mary would have been 15, uh, Myra would have been 13, Premilia 10, and Alzheina. 9. She claims none of those were there, but that the 5 and 7 year olds who passed away years ago were the two that she was sure that were there. This actually this kind of upset me seeing her use her dead siblings this way. It kind of made me angry that that was her claim. I know that she’s under pressure. She’s trying to defend her story, but Come on, that’s, that’s not great. So, OK, we’ll go on to a few more questions. Well, those all that were present, were those all that were present at the at the time? Yes, sir. As near as I can remember, that was all that were there. There might have been others, but if there were, I can’t remember them. There was quite a good many around my father’s house at that time, but I can’t remember all that were there. But now, um, but I know that these that I have named were there, and they are all dead. Yes, sir. Emma Smith was not there. No, sir, she wasn’t. The main reason for Joseph Smith 3rd’s visit to her was his attempt to locate any claims of children from his father’s polygamous marriages. That is what he recorded from his visit with Melissa and her sister. So it is no surprise that that was what she was asked about on the stand. So let’s go to that portion of her testimony. How many children were born to you by Joseph Smith? Not any. There were not any, there was not any children born to you by Joseph Smith? No, sir. Have you ever borne any children since that time? Yes. I have, who was the who was the husband at that time? Well, sir, the father of the, of my children is Mr. Willis, skipping down to 92, and you bore children by him? Yes, sir. State now the reason why you never bore any children by Joseph Smith. Well, that’s that is impossible to do. That is something I can’t tell. Objection from the counsel for the defendant. Did you ever, did you live with Joseph Smith as his wife, or were you just simply sealed to him for eternity? I told you before, I have answered that question to Best of my ability. She had already been asked in direct examination, question number 17, if she was, quote, a wife of Joseph Smith in all that word implies. She answered, Yes, sir. Now, we’ll read the part of her testimony about the visit she had with Joseph Smith III eight years earlier.
[01:19:57] I’m editing all of this down because it’s so long. I don’t want to take too much time reading it. You’re welcome to read the whole thing for yourself. I’m editing only for, um, time, not, I’m trying to be completely accurate with what the documents say. So, we’ll To this part. You remember his son Joseph Smith, so this is speaking of Joseph Smith III. Yes, sir. Were you acquainted with him? Yes, sir. Very well. I had a visit from him not many years ago. It is not very long since I had a visit from him, and I always took him to be a gentleman. Where did you live when he called in to see you? I live in, I lived in Lehigh, the place where I live today. Did you ever see any any children of Joseph Smith in the territory of Utah, or do you know of any of his children being in Utah at the time, at any time? I don’t know anything about his affairs. Objection. She says again, I don’t know anything about his affairs. I attend to my own business. Um, Joseph Smith, who lived at Navvo at the time you say you married him and who was president of the church, has he any children in the territory of Utah, or did he ever have any children to your knowledge? I don’t know anything about that. I can’t swear to anybody’s children, only my own. This is a new tactic that she starts when she’s being asked why Joseph doesn’t have any polygamous children. We’ll continue on with this. You were acquainted with quite a number of these women that claimed to be the wives of Joseph Smith. Yes, sir. And they were very nice, respectable ladies, too. Were you acquainted with any of the children of Joseph Smith? Objection. All the objections seemed to be overruled. And, um, unless they were, there were different rules back then because the test, the witness just keeps answering. Beyond the objection. So, were you acquainted with any of the children of Joseph Smith? Yes, sir. Mention the names of them. Well, there was Joseph and Frederick and Alexander and David and Hiram. She, I’m assuming she meant David Hiram. You met all these? Yes, sir. Whose children were they? Well, they were supposed to be Emma Smiths and Joseph’s. They were supposed to be. Um, these were all children of Joseph Smith that he had with by his first wife, Emma. Yes, sir. How many other children have you met? I told you that I couldn’t swear to anybody else’s children, but only my own. But I understand these were his children. Well, now, do you swear to these four? I was there in the house many a time and saw them, but I can’t swear to them. Well, have you met any other children of Joseph Smith besides those you have mentioned? I couldn’t swear to anything of that kind. No one person is supposed to swear to anything of that kind, only what belongs to them. Can’t you say if that is all the children he had, that is, that Joseph Smith had? I can’t swear to anything about whose children they are.
[01:22:30] I can only swear to my own children and who their father is. Another objection to the full line of questioning, claiming it’s not cross-examination. Um, now I will ask you to state again what or who, if any other children of Joseph Smith’s you ever met. I don’t know that I ever met any. Yet you were acquainted with all these parties that claimed to be his wives. Did you not so state that you were acquainted with them? I was acquainted with them, but I can’t swear that they were his wives, for I couldn’t swear to. Anybody else, only myself. I can’t swear to anyone else, only myself. And that is what I was called here to do. And that is what I have sworn to do. I only swear to what I know, and I do that to the best of my ability, for there is a lot of things that have happened that I can’t remember now. OK, we’ll skip ahead to another section. Now you have said that there were no children born of that marriage. I said I had none. Um, you had none by Joseph Smith? Yes, sir. And you asked me why I hadn’t, and I told you I couldn’t tell you that you would have to go to some higher authority than, than I to tell you that. Well, you said, I believe that Emma Smith had children by Joseph. Yes, sir, I told you that I suppose she had. They looked like their father, but as to their being his, I can’t say. I can’t swear to anything. Anything, only Melissa’s affairs. Did you ever room with Joseph Smith as his wife? Yes, sir. How often did you room with Joseph Smith? Well, that is something I can’t tell you. Well, was it more than once? Yes, sir, and more than twice. We’ll skip down a little. Well, how many times? I could not say. Did you ever at any other place room with him other than the Navvo House? Yes, sir. At what places? At my father’s house, and again, skipping forward to 259. Now, at the times you roomed with him, did you go have it with him as his wife? Yes, sir. And you never had any children? No, sir. I answered that question before and I told you no. They adjourned for lunch and then they came back to the last set of questions I’ll read. I will ask you, Mrs. Willis, what time it was, if you can state that you met the President Joseph Smith down at Lehigh, another huge objection to the line of questioning. The attorney then claims Melissa should have been done testifying at lunch and shouldn’t be asked any more questions. Hearing about this meeting, at my rating, it, it seems to stress him out. So I’ll skip to her answer in question 264. Well, I think it was about 4 years ago, but I wouldn’t say It was then, because I do not remember just when it was. But he was here at the time and was over at my house, and then he went down to Beaver by himself. And then he came back and called at my house again. Was this at your house that,
[01:25:05] um, was it at your house that he, that he had the conversation with you that you referred to? Yes, sir. I will ask you now, if he did, if he did not state, if you did not state to him, I should say, at that time. And place and in that conversation that you were not married to Joseph Smith, but sealed to him for eternity, and that he never, Melissa, I think here interrupts, and that he never knows, sir. I don’t think I told him any such thing. I answered him just exactly as I, as I have answered you here today about it. Sealed or married, whatever you have a mind to call it. And I quoted over the very ceremony as near as I could to him at that time. So this is a funny claim because her Confusion about the ceremony comes from the lawyer asking if she was sealed to Joseph Smith according to the ceremony in Section 101, the statement on in on marriage, or according to the section of the ceremony in 132 and the ear where Emma would need to have been present and put her hand in Joseph’s hand, etc. She got very tripped up on all of that. She did not say anything. It it’s very clear that she wouldn’t have said. Anything about the ceremony to Joseph Smith III. So she says, um, uh, but today, I can’t do it, for I am nervous here today, and I can’t remember it. But I told him then all about it. I told him the same story I’ve told you here about me being married to his father. And did you not tell him further that at that time and place and on that occasion that his father never solicited, never solicited you to have anything to do with him? I didn’t tell him anything of the kind. I told him the same as I have answered you here today, and he wouldn’t say, but what I told him the same as I have told you here today, if he was here either. He would not say I’ve, I told him anything different if he was here today. You did not tell him that? No, sir, I didn’t. And I say, if he was here, he wouldn’t tell me that I told any, told him. Anything different from what I, um, from what I have told you today. Well, that is all. I am done at this time. The witness was paid a fee of $4.70 for her mileage paid by the defendants. OK, that was so interesting. Every time I read it, I just think it’s quite delightful to read. And after the testimony, however, there is another Affidavit signed by Melissa Lott dated August 4th, 1893. It seems pretty clear that the counsel for the defendant, who had been so unsettled by the questioning about the meeting with Joseph Smith III, had had her fill this out and then entered it into evidence for the trial, which is, I assume is why this says copied. I think the original was likely submitted to the court. What is interesting about this is that out of all the many, many affidavits that had been created since 1869, this was the only one I know of that was ever actually used in court. It is so strange that Joseph Joseph F. Smith collected and created so many affidavits, but when an actual trial came, he didn’t use them. It seems that having over 100 affidavits that testified to Joseph Smith’s polygamy would have been very useful in a trial, primarily about whether Joseph Smith was a polygamist.
[01:28:10] But obviously, I think because of the many problems with them, like the wrong year, the later changes on Melissa that we’ve just shown, so many other problems, it was well understood that they would that they were not proper legal documents. I would not be admissible in court. They were useful for printing in newspapers and pamphlets where nobody could see the originals or go through all of them like we can now, but they would not work in court. That’s another thing that we need to pay attention to. So Melissa’s affidavit says, I’m going to read the whole thing. I know this is a lot of reading of these documents, but they are fascinating and I think important to the claims that are being made. Mr. Joseph Smith Jr. of La Mona, Iowa, called upon me at my house, at my home in Lehigh, and we conversed upon the subject of his late father, the Prophet Joseph Smith, having had more wives than his mother in his lifetime. I told him that I was married to his father, the Prophet, on September 20th, 1843. That’s the first time she gets the date and The year consistent with what with what the story is now. I was by Hirum Smith at Navvo in the presence of my parents and Joseph and Hiram Smith. Interesting how different this affidavit, when she could have help with it is to her former testimony when she was alone on the stand. Now she’s not claiming that her dead brother and sister were there. My age at that time was 19 years and 9 months, and I lived with him as his wife until his death. Mr. Joseph Smith Jr. asked if I would, and when she says Joseph Smith Jr. she means Joseph Smith III. She just means the son of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Asked if I would answer him a few plain questions for his own special benefit. I told him I would do so with pleasure. In her testimony, she couldn’t remember with any accuracy, even how long ago this meeting had occurred. I don’t know if I read this part, but she said it was 4 years ago when it was actually 8 years ago. But now she has perfectly memorized the exact conversation they had, including the exact list of questions he asked her well enough to number them. Question 1. Were you married to my father? Answer Yes. Question, when? Answer. I handed him the family Bible in which is recorded by my father at that time, the records of my said marriage and told him. He would find it there. That is actually confirmed by Joseph Smith. So that part is true. Question. Were you a wife in very deed? Answer Yes. Why was there no increase, say, in your case, through no fault of either of us, lack of proper conditions on my part, probably, or it might have been in the wisdom of the Almighty that we should have none. The prophet prophet was martyred 9 months after our marriage. Did you know of any brother or sister of mine by my father’s plural wife? I did not know of any. Did my father give his consent for you to marry Ira J. Willis? Certainly not. Your father was dead a number of years before I married Mr. Willis. I married Mr. Willis May 13, 1849 with a full understanding it was for time only. Mr. Smith then told me of his of his mother having denied to him of his father having more wives, um, having had more wives than her in the presence of witnesses. Yes, I said to him, you took your mother before Mr. Bideman, a bitter enemy of our people, and then asked such questions of her as you wished in his Bidetaman’s presence. And she may have answered you as you have now told me. I further said to him,
[01:31:26] I have no doubt your mother told the truth so far as she could under the circumstances. But if you had taken her by herself, as you have done me and asked your questions, she would probably have answered you as I have done. This part is there are so many parts I’m just going past, but this is amazing how she now has the perfect explanation ready to go. I still, still hear this excuse today that Emma only said what she did because of vitamin. First, she is on record with at least 7 separate explicit testimonies after Joseph’s death that he never taught or practiced polygamy. That’s in addition to the things that she did during his life. Vitamin was Actually supportive of her faith and testimony. He’s on the record encouraging what she’s saying about the um the translation of the Book of Mormon. She was perfectly free to testify to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and the translation process, and her husband’s calling as a prophet, as well as that he was never a polygamist. These excuses are quite desperate and nonsensical, but they’re also quite sophisticated. They’re much more sophisticated than Melissa Lott has. been able to come up with in any actual conversation. So I think it’s quite obvious that she is having help and being able to, to, um, that this isn’t just her own words coming through here. It goes on to say, Mrs. Mrs. Melissa Willis further deposes and says that I do not know of any person by the name of Steven Maloney and never met him nor his wife or sister. But I do know that I never told him or any other person in 1850. 7 or at any other time that I was not the wife of the late Prophet Joseph Smith, signed Melissa Willis. OK, this was so interesting. I looked through the entire temple lot trying to find anything about Steven Maloney. I found records of him and his wife, Mary Jane Hewitt, crossing the plains in 1856 and living in Ogden in 1860, and then having left Utah by by 1870. So the timing for this claim that in 1857, Melissa Lott told them that she wasn’t married to Joseph Smith works out very well. That’s interesting. There is nothing that I could find about him in the Temple Lot testimonies. So I’m guessing maybe something was published, claiming that Melissa told him and his and his wife and sister that in 1857 that she was never married to Joseph Smith. I hope someone can find the source. This is Responding to. But what’s interesting is that Melissa’s affidavit actually tells us that there is yet another source, along with EC Brand, of her admitting earlier on that she was not the literal wife of Joseph Smith. So now we have this Stephen Maloney and his wife and his sister, and EC Brand and Joseph Smith the Third, all saying that Melissa that Melissa Lott earlier said that she was not the wife. Of Joseph Smith. That’s very important to pay attention to. So the final two sources that we are going to talk about are from Joseph Smith III. The first is his August 5th testimony at the Temple Lot trial. This is the 2nd time he was on the stand, and it is fascinating to me that it was the day after Melissa Lott swore out that affidavit that comes up in this. I’ll just read the parts about his visit with Melissa Lot. So we’ll start with question 127. Were you acquainted with what was known as the Lot family there? Yes, sir. Where, where did they live? They lived 2 miles. a half east of that on my father’s farm, which they rented from my father. What was their father’s name? Cornelius Pilott. Did he have any daughters? Yes, sir. Did he have a daughter by the name of Melissa? Yes, sir. Did you know her? Yes, sir. I knew the whole family. How many was there in the family? Well, there was John and Mary and Martha and Melissa, and Elzaa and Peter, and I’m not sure about what there was another one, but I’m not sure as to what her name was,
[01:35:17] for I don’t remember it. Have you seen Melissa a lot within the last few years? Yes, sir. I saw her about 6 or 7 years ago. Well, when did you see her? When did you see her? I saw her in the fall of 1885. Where did you see her? I saw her in the town of Lehigh in Utah territory. What is her name now? Her name is is Willis. That is her married name, Willis, down to 141. In the testimony of Mrs. Willis, formerly Melissa Lott, taken in the Salt Lake in Salt Lake City, she makes a statement that in a conversation with you at Lehigh in the territory of Utah, Some years ago, she claimed that she was married to your father and lived with him in as his wife in Navvoo, Illinois. Now, what are the facts with reference to that conversation, if there ever was such a conversation? Objection. What, what, if any, such a conversation was ever had? The court takes time for everyone to read the testimony of Mrs. Willis, skipping down to the third line of 143. In my crusade against polygamy, there has been, this is what Joseph Smith III said after they’d read her um her testimony. In my crusade against polygamy there, it had been stated that I would not dare to face Mrs. Willis. And when I went to Lehigh preaching there, she was in the congregation on the first evening, and I secured an introduction to her and asked her for an interview. And I went the next day at 10 o’clock by appointment to see her. That was in Lehigh? Yes, sir. Please state when this was. This was In 85, in the latter part of October, and skip down to 148. What was your reason for calling on her? Well, sir, having known her in my boyhood, I was anxious to see her and especially anxious to find out if I could, about what was stated in regard to her alleged connection with my father. And I went there and saw her and had a conversation with her in which she did state that she was married to my father. But she stated also that she did not live with him as his wife. Is that all she stated in that connection? No, sir. After she had made that statement, I asked her the reason why she had not, and she said she did not think it was necessary. I asked her a number of questions with regard to it, with the intention of ascertaining what the facts were in connection with, with it as near as I could. And she did not state that she had lived with him as his wife, but on the contrary, distinctly affirmed that she did not live with him as his wife. I asked her also if he had ever treated her as a wife, and she suggested that he did. Once, but nothing came of it. And I asked her why, if she was not properly married, why the relationship was not continued. And she said she did not think it was right. I asked her then if this took place in the mansion house or in the old house. And she said, no, that it was not in the mansion house, that nothing ever went on in the old house or in the mansion house. She said that nothing of the kind ever took place there. And then I asked her, or stated to her that it was said that, um, that he had several wives living there with him in the mansion house. And she said it was not so, that nothing of the kind was carried on there or permitted at all. Now, of course, it is impossible for me to remember all that was said or passed between us, but that was the substance of what passed between us at that time and place.
[01:38:23] Well, state anything and everything that was said in that conversation. Objection. Well, of course, I mean upon that subject. Another objection. What, if anything, was said in those conversations with reference to your mother? Well, after, after asking heard these questions, I asked her if my mother knew of this marriage that she alleged had taken place. What marriage do you refer to now? The marriage that she alleged had taken place between herself and my father. I asked her if my mother knew that it had taken place or was aware of it in any way. And she said that mother was, that she had given her consent to it. And then I asked her the question as to whether my mother was a truthful woman, whether she was a woman that would tell the truth. And she said she would. That was, that that was Character. And then I said, Suppose my mother should make me a statement in answer to a question. Could I rely on what she said? And she said, You can, Joseph, you can. For if your mother told you anything, you can believe it to be true. Then I told her that my mother, in answer to my question I had asked her, had stated positively that my father had no wife but my mother Emma, and that he had never had any other woman in any sense as his wife with her knowledge and consent. And then this woman, Willis, looked at me and said, Well, Joseph, if your mother told you that, she knew nothing about it. Now, that was the same conversation. And then I told her that my mother had made this statement to me specifically, and she said, You can rely on it then. Your mother knew nothing about it. This was the conversation you had with Mrs. Willis, formerly known as Melissa Lott. Yes, sir, who was present during this conversation. Soon after that, her sister Mary and her sister Alzane came into the room, for they heard that I was there and was visiting Melissa, I suppose. And they came into her room to see me. Well, what was said then? Well, we fell into a general conversation. Of course, I did not question the women directly anymore, but in the course of the conversation, I turned to Mary and asked her if she knew where I could find any brothers or sisters there in the territory, for it was reported that I had a good many mothers there in the territory. And I would like to find some brothers and sisters, for it was kind of, for I was kind of lonesome. And Mary remarked that she had hunted the whole territory over for them. And went every place when, when there was any report of the kind, and she could find no children. And then Alzaina spoke up and said, No, brother Joseph, I do not believe there’s any chance for any. And then I turned to Melissa Willis and I said, Now you hear what your sister say, What have you to say to it? Big objection here. Wait just a moment. This is what the lawyer says. This line of evidence given in the answers of the witnesses objection. on legal grounds, I think. However proper it may seem on other grounds, it is objected to for the reason that it does not come up to the requirements of testimony and rebuttal or direct testimony, and it is objected to for the reason that it is so very clearly incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial to any issue on this case.
[01:41:15] They’ve said that a lot. A lot of their objections are based on the terms that it is incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial. Um, they proceed, proceed Mr. Smith. Well then, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Willis immediately remarked, in answer to my question, that she thought the girls were right. Well, what did she say about it? She said, Joseph, I expect they are right. And then I said, I thank you for that for, I think that gives the case away. That was in effect what I remarked. OK. I know that was a lot to read, but I think it’s important to know that we have these competing testimonies, Melissa Lott and Joseph Smith the TII, and people need to become familiar with them enough to decide which is likely to be closer to the truth. A few things to keep in mind that people need to acknowledge when talking about these sources. Melissa’s Temple Lot testimony was her talking about this on her own. Her Telling the truth as she knew it, or as she claimed to be telling it. Her later affidavit was created with a lot of forethought. It was not just her straightforward testimony on the stand, and as I said, it seems quite clear she had a lot of help with it. This is one of the reasons the affidavits are considered less trustworthy and authoritative in test than testimony in court. In her testimony, she was rather befuddled on many points, but in her affidavit she remembered each question word for word, enough, as I said, to actually list them um verbatim. And Joseph Smith III’s account was very clear, and it was his own testimony in court, not a later written statement made with the help of church leaders and lawyers. And we also, again, have Joseph Smith III’s contemporary journal, which, while brief, is more consistent with his testimony than hers. And we have his letter to EC Brand, which is another important piece of evidence consistent with his testimony. that Melissa did not claim to be Joseph’s literal wife. In addition, the reference to Steven Maloney, another person claiming that Melissa said she had not been married to Joseph Smith. That is a lot of sources on one side to put up against the very problematic 1869 affidavits Joseph F. Smith prepared for her with the wrong year and her confused Temple Lot testimony, and later prepared with assistance affidavit. That’s kind of how Looks to me like it balances out. So people do need to decide which, if either version they think sounds more truthful. But again, testimony is far more authoritative and reliable than a later prepared affidavit. So I know how it looks to me so far, which one I think seems more reliable. But we still have one more source to toss into the mix. Joseph Smith III made a more extensive record at the of, of this meeting. In his memoirs. This is the latest source. He dictated it to his children near the end of his life around 1913. He dictated his entire memoirs. And then it wasn’t published until his memoir was published serially serially in the Saint’s Herald, long after his death, not until 1936. So this source isn’t as good as his earlier journal entry and Temple Lot testimony, in my opinion. But it is another So that provides more information, and it is delightfully written. So I think it is very much worth reading. I had wanted to read it, but this is already getting quite long. So I think I will just include it, include the links below so you can read it.
[01:44:40] I will show that it is, it is, um, reported in the April 28th and May 5th issues of the Saints Herald. So this is the, um, it starts, there’s, there’s the precursor to it of him. Meeting Melissa at the meeting, um, before his visit on this page. And then on this page is, um, where he has the Lot Sisters. You can see it right there, that he records the visit. And then it is continued in the next episode, I mean, the next edition on, I believe this is May 5th. And so those are the links that I’ll put below where you can read about Joseph Smith the 3rd’s later. Innocence of his visit with the Lot Sisters. It starts out, well, it’s, it’s not at the beginning, but it includes a great story about Ira Willis, Melissa Lott’s husband, back in Navvo long before they were married, helping Joseph Smith III when he got his tongue stuck on a frozen ax. It’s like something right out of a Christmas story. It was such a fun story to read. So I really hope people will go read that because it does give us a little bit of more information. But other than reading that through, we have gone over the full body of evidence we have regarding Melissa Lott Willis being married or sealed to Joseph Smith. We have the temple ceiling, very questionable, looks to me like it’s based on other evidence, but it claims that she was sealed for time to burn Heisel and for eternity to Joseph Smith, although I can’t find the original record to know if that’s actually what the temple record says or if that’s Based on the claims that she was sealed to Joseph Smith. I’m not sure of that at this point. So we have that questionable Temple lot temple ceiling record. Then we have the Bible, considered by many to be the strongest evidence we have. I think we have just shown that it, at the very least, cannot be said to be evidence of Joseph’s marriage to Melissa, but it could be seen another way to be as, as part of the effort to Create some evidence with that initial, um, record that that Cornelius Lott wrote into it. Then we have her 1869 affidavits with the wrong year and um, that Joseph Smith, Joseph F. Smith wrote out for her. And then we have her 1893 Temple Lot testimony where she says the wrong day and is filled with so many other problems. Of course, I will link to that a transcript to that below as well for anyone who wants to read that full testimony. And then we have her 1893 affidavit trying to repair her testimony about the meeting with Joseph Smith III, which gives us that other account of Steven Maloney saying that she said she was not married to Joseph Smith. And then we also need to consider Joseph Smith III’s letter to EC Brand, which is not evidence of Melissa being married to Joseph Smith, although some people try to use it that way. No, it’s quite the opposite. And His Temple Lot testimony, his journal, and then his later report of their interview, which very well, but I didn’t read it, but it does match very well the contemporaneous journal, um, that he and his Temple Lot testimony. So there is a lot of consistency there. So we are left to ask, is the Bible evidence, is the family Bible evidence of Joseph Smith’s polygamy? Like so many of the sources on this topic, people can choose to see it from perspectives. But it is important for all of us from every perspective, to acknowledge that the way it has been talked about so far
[01:48:04] is not accurate. And so at the very least, it needs to be rethought. I’ll again read the entry in Mark Tensmeyer’s book about it, and we’ll kind of go through it. The Law of Family Bible’s records section lists Melissa Lott’s parents, Cornelius and Premilia, being married for time and eternity on September 20, 1840. 3 by Hiram Smith with the seal of Joseph Smith. That is accurate. The very next entry in the same handwriting and style as the first, that is a problem. It is the same handwriting. It’s Cornelia’s Lot. But if you look at the Bible, as I have shown you, it is very clearly made with the next bunch of ceilings. It is not made at the same time as the ceiling of Cornelius and Premilia. It is made later when the next, um, where 3. marriage records are recorded together, not before November of 1848. So that is not accurate there. It says that this entry states that Melissa’s parents gave her to wife on that same date. Remember, it doesn’t include the year, which is interesting, but the the entry made right below it also doesn’t include the year. So it seems when Cornelius was entering those, he just forgot to enter the years on those two entries. Curiously, the entry does not identify the groom to whom the elder lots gave their daughter to wife on the day that the Smith brothers sealed their civil marriage. That is a big problem right there. He says on the day that the Smith brothers sealed their civil marriage. Do you see how that is stretching what the Bible says? It says, Hirum sealed them, but all of a sudden, because we need to have Joseph Smith there, we turn it into the Smith brothers. That is not accurately represented here. However, in the next column, it Lists Melissa’s last name as Smith when she marries her second husband in 1847. That is also inaccurate, probably just an error there, because Melissa’s second husband was John Bernheisel. Ira Willis was Melissa’s, well, I would say second husband, because I think John Bernheisel was her first husband. But if we want to claim that she was married to Joseph Smith, then Ira Ira Willis would have been her third husband. Notably, Joseph Smith the 3rd. I was convinced by this evidence that a ceiling ceremony had occurred between Melissa and his father. And for that, he cites his letter to EC Brand that I just read that I just read through. That is also completely false, very, uh, a very bad misreading of that letter. And so that is how this source has been used, but we’ve gone through it well enough to hopefully let you see that it cannot be used that way. So if people want to argue that, well, I guess we can look at the Bible and hash it out and talk about why it was created, how it was created, what it might mean, what we can take from it. But I think what we cannot do is claim that it is evidence of Joseph Smith’s polygamy. If someone disagrees with me, I’m happy to continue that discussion. I think it is, it can be seen as, um, we can all wonder what it’s about, why it was made, right? What, what is this? But there are too many problems with To say this is a solid source to show that that Melissa Lott was married to Joseph Smith. Much, much better arguments would have to be made about it. And as I have done here, we need to go into things like the Temple Lot testimonies and so
[01:51:19] many of the other complications and inconsistencies and problems with the body of evidence about Melissa Lott being married to Joseph Smith. So that was a lot to get into. I hope you found it worthwhile. I will see you next time.
