Don’t miss this one! The second half of my conversation with Whitney Horning. We respond in depth to several recent claims by Don Bradley and others, and demonstrate how to be a polygamy researcher. Stay tuned to the end for more bonus content revealing ongoing unbelievable discoveries.
Correction! In the bonus content I refer to the deed to Hyrum as “identical” to the deed to Emma and her children. I should have been more precise. The back side of the deeds are “identical” and there is much overlap on the front side, but the lots on the front side are not exactly the same. This does not in any way affect the conclusion that this deed to Hyrum is devastating to the William Clayton journal and the polygamy narrative, and I will clarify in future episodes, but I wanted to correct the record in the meantime.
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Whitney Horning – Presentation Slides
(Another link to try if the first doesn’t work — please let me know if you can’t access)
Whitney and Michelle on Jacob Isbell’s channel
Don Bradley on Ward Radio
Fair Mormon article on Hoffmann forgery D. Michael Quinn included in 1994
Franklin D. Richards Scriptural Items Notebook pg 38
Hyrum Smith July 12, 1843 Deed
* 2:16:12 — The source for the story of Emma and Joseph weeping together with Clayton serving as their mediator is from William Clayton’s extremely problematic July 13, 1843 journal entry.
Transcript:
[00:00] Michelle: Welcome to 132 problems revisiting Mormon polygamy where we explore the scriptural theological and historical case for plural marriage. This is part two of my discussion with Whitney Horning and part one. As you recall, we talked about that um face to face fireside, discussed that in depth and then went on to reveal some amazing sources that neither of us had known about before. There will be more sources revealed in this episode as we continue our discussion about historical malpractice and the fun and frustration of being a polygamy researcher. So thank you so much for being here as we take this deep dive into the extremely murky waters of the historical narrative of Mormon polygamy. OK. So the next traitor. Can you tell us about Oliver Olney? Because this is a lesser known one and I have some clips to play on this one. Do you
[01:12] Whitney: want to play those clips first? So people know why we’re bringing him up?
[01:16] Michelle: Well, now let’s talk about him first. Just give us an overview of who he was. So Oliver
[01:22] Whitney: Olney, let’s get like you said, he isn’t well known. And in fact, it was very surprising to me when his name came up in the clips you’re going to show. But Oliver Olney was excommunicated from the church in 1842. Um and he recorded, he has a journal where he recorded his reflections about events that happened in 1842. N um But he, he either his handwriting is so poor that it’s really hard to decipher or he wrote in some kind of shorthand, but it’s really difficult to, to understand it. But he started alleging that some of the members of the 12 were secretly engaging in illicit behavior with women. Um And then later, he referenced that there were rumors of plural wifey going on. Um And then at one point, he charged Joseph with being passionately fond of women after his excommunication, he published an anti Mormon pamphlet titled The Absurdities of Mormonism portrayed. And in that pamphlet, he accused Joseph of printing the document called the Peacemaker. So that’s the proof that only so was hearing rumors and there were rumors in Nabu about Joseph and the heads of the church doing polygamy. There were also rumors that members of the 12 were doing polygamy and we do know from actual accurate documents that there were members of the 12 to employ me. So that rumor was true.
[02:55] Michelle: But also, can I go ahead quickly add that also explains the rumors about Joseph because the 12 were saying Joseph said Joseph is doing this, Joseph taught us this, they were using Joseph’s name just like John Bennett had done. So there were a lot of people falsely implicated and that’s why all of the letters were coming in to, to hire or Joseph to verify. So it makes sense that these rumors were going around. And I think it’s interesting that only first accuses the 12 in his journal and then only later accuses Joseph.
[03:28] Whitney: And he so in this pamphlet, one of his, the proof he uses that Joseph was teaching and doing polygamy was a pamphlet titled The Peacemaker. And so then only later, again, later does another expose on polygamy in 1845 after Joseph has died um titled spiritual wri at Nabu exposed.
[03:55] Michelle: OK. So, oh, so now we can talk about the peacemaker, right? And like this one threw me for a loop when I first found it until someone showed me this notice that Joseph intentionally printed in the newspaper because Joseph was out of town when I think it was John Taylor was running the press at this time if I’m not mistaken and and published the priest maker under Joseph’s name, like listed Joseph as the, as the publisher. And Joseph flatly flat out denied it and called it. What do you call it a piece? Not a piece of trash but something rigmarole that such an unmeaning rigmarole of nonsense, nonsense, folly and trash. So we did call it trash. So, ok, so now I’m gonna try and get back here. You guys have to be a little patient with me because I have a lot of things I’m trying to um manage
[04:46] Whitney: just while you’re doing that just to clarify. So this pamphlet, the peacemaker John Taylor was the editor of the Times and Seasons. But a man named Adne Jacob is the one who actually wrote this. But when he wrote it, he put on there that it said, you know, printed in Nabu Illinois J Smith editor. So that’s where
[05:08] Michelle: I think a publisher or publisher says it’s hard to think its publisher.
[05:13] Whitney: So that’s where Joseph’s name gets brought into this as if he allowed it, he approved it, whatever. And that’s why then Joseph immediately is like I had nothing to do with this and publishes.
[05:25] Michelle: And I guess we should for anyone who doesn’t know what that is. It is horrible. Like Joseph described it accurately that it is nonsense, folly and trash. It’s so painful to read. I was actually so disappointed in Joseph when I read it because I was like, I didn’t, I’ve said this before. I didn’t think he was this. Just not smart, like it’s just so bad, it’s so bad, but it is a treatise on polygamy saying we need polygamy and it’s not religious at all. He wasn’t even a member of the church at the time. He changed the way to fix. I don’t know
[05:58] Whitney: if I ever joined the church. I don’t know if I need it. So I wanted to really quickly read this. So in 1851 Adne Jacob wrote a letter to Brigham Young and he stated that he was the author of the Peacemaker. And this is the letter that I wrote a pamphlet some years since entitled, The Peacemaker. You have certainly a wrong idea of that matter. I was not a member of this church and that pamphlet was not written for this people but for the citizens of the United States who professed to believe in the Bible. So it must have been his attempt at trying to explain biblical polygamy. You know, I don’t know, but I find it interesting that he wrote a letter to Brigham Young saying, hey, you know, so to me that says in 1851 he must have been hearing rumors that the church was starting to say Joe, you know, really saying Joseph did polygamy and, and here’s proof because of this peacemaker and he’s like, no, you guys have the wrong idea. It was all me.
[06:59] Michelle: So that is interesting because they were definitely trying to use it to um say Joseph supported it. So, OK, this is Ali, so I wanna give a little caveat to this for, I mean, a little disclaimer. So Da Bradley, this is Don Bradley, who is the one who did um the reason who Brian Hales hired to do his research. So he’s a historian who did all of the research for Don Brad you earlier. That’s what I wanted to say. You earlier said something about 13 to 1500 pieces of evidence. You were not saying there are 1500 pieces of evidence you were referring to Don Bradley’s claim. He has found 1500 pieces of evidence of Joseph’s polygamy that you weren’t validated yet. You were just referring to it. So Don Bradley did a series of, um, well, he just, he, he met with the guys that do what used to be Mormon Midnight Mormons. It’s now board radio. They, he met with them for two days and they released them piece by piece. And this is the final one that’s kind of about polygamy deniers, right? And um he asked them, he so Don is actually coming on my show. We’ve scheduled a couple of times, but he’s had to postpone, but he’s coming on. We’re supposed to be having an interview next week that I’ll re release in the next couple of weeks. And he um he told me when, when we first were talking before this piece had been released that he asked them not to release it. He did not want them to release this until after he had come on my show and we had done a discussion and released that. And so, and, and so he called me the day that this was released and let me know that he was not happy that they had released it and he said that he actually was, would have maybe asked them to not release it at all, which I don’t think he could, you know, I don’t think they’re gonna do that. So I do wanna cut Don Bradley a little slack that I think he maybe knows that this isn’t great, you know. So, um, but at the same time, like, and, and I’m excited that he’s gonna come on and talk to me and we’ll have a, I hope a much better conversation, you know, but at the same time, he did go on and say these things as kind of, you know, professed to be the foremost expert on the historical data about Joseph and I mean, about Joseph’s polygamy and he did say these things and they did release it and they all thought it was extremely compelling and now people are playing it all over the place thinking it’s very compelling. So I think we need to respond to it and, and talk about the claims that he makes. So I um so Whitney and I, sorry, I’m doing a little bit of a monologue, Whitney. We are um going to be going on another show this week to talk about, I’ll, I’ll put the link below. I think it will be released before this one. So Jacob Isabel asked us both to come on and talk about this video. So we’ll be doing a more in depth discussion on it. Um That that will also be available. So it’s probably already published. The link will be below for anyone that wants to watch it. So we’re just gonna touch on a couple of the claims he makes. But this is why we’re talking about Oliver Edney. I mean all of no Oliver Olney because Don um brought him up. So here they
[10:10] Don Bradley: have a document that on one side, on the front side of the document, it is Relief Society minutes from a certain day in 1843. And it says, so it says who was there for that particular Relief Society meeting? And so on. The document comes from Phoebe Wheeler. She was like a secretary for the League Society. Hey, on the back of the document is writing from her husband Oliver who was a Nol latter day saint, but who opposed polygamy. He knew that polygamy was being practiced, but he opposed it. And so he wrote on the back of the document, some things about polygamy and he wrote the names. Oh, I can’t remember like a dozen of Joseph Smith’s plural wives. This is
[11:00] Michelle: a, I’m going to pause it there again really quickly and ask how Oliver only was a polygamy insider who knew who Joseph Smith’s whites were because you
[11:11] Whitney: know, Joseph had to practice it in secret. That’s why there’s not really any, there’s
[11:15] Michelle: 00
[11:19] Whitney: documents from Joseph himself saying he did polygamy zero.
[11:25] Michelle: And
[11:26] Whitney: yeah, they say that’s because he had to keep a secret. But then here’s this guy Oliver Olney who somehow knows the way it’s
[11:33] Michelle: communicated. Right. Right. So, at his first in his journal, he’s accusing the elders. Then he hears the rumor and implicate and, and accuses Joseph and all of a sudden he knows like a dozen wives according to. Oh. And I should have said this when he’s, I, I should have started it a different way. Well, I guess I’ll show it in a minute. I’ll show video. But he says when he was researching at Yale, at the Beinecke Library at Yale and then he goes on to say they have this document and he’s telling us about the document that was Phoebe Olney. And on the back of it, Oliver Olney wrote the names of he can’t remember exactly but 12 wives. Ok. I’ll continue.
[12:11] Don Bradley: 43. Oliver only is an enemy of polygamy. He’s not in favor of it. He’s not trying to promote it. He’s opposed to it, but he writes the names of several of justice wives. These are women that where we later hear testimonies from Utah, from the women that they were married to Justice Smith. So if that’s all just being made up later in Utah, these women are pressured to say I was married to Justice Smith and yet somewhere off tucked away, far away from the Utah latter day saints like the only never came West, right? Nobody would know that this document was there, right? That they kept this document Oliver had been writing the names of these women down in 1843. And so this is not like if there’s some conspiracy to pin polygamy on Justice Smith, why isn’t it that both the people who are in favor of polygamy like Brigham and others out in Utah and the people from NAVOO who were opposed to polygamy both agreed that Joseph was practicing in it and who Joseph was marrying, we have patterns in the different sources where the sources line up with each other. They interlock like puzzle pieces.
[13:33] Michelle: OK? So that is Oliver at the Bee. So let me go, let me share this again. OK. So this is the Beinecke Library at Yale. I had to look up what he was talking about, right? So at the archives at Yale, you can see at the bottom is the Beinecke rare books and manuscripts. That’s where, that’s where he’s talking about that he was and there’s ad Michael Quinn collection of papers. So this is what he’s talking about. He was looking at the D Michael Quinn collection of papers. OK. So what I wanted to show you, I’m going to now share another screen. OK? Like, like some people have asked how to do research or you know, so I just want to take people through this little exercise of how I I researched Oliver. So this is the Joseph Smith’s Polygamy website. This is Brian Hill’s website that, that um um, Don um, John Bradley was the researcher for. So all of the sources here come from Don Bradley. Right. He found them. So, if we go and search, oh, you can see, I’ve already searched Oliver. Right. If we search that it will bring up everywhere that Oliver only is used on this website. And we can see Eliza Partridge evidences Emily Dow Parts. So it’s in the evidence of Eliza and Emily Partridge, Sylvia Eliza Snow Patty Bartlett Agnes Core, Louisa Beaman. So those are the wives that were listed, right? We don’t know if there were any other non like there could have been other wives listed because he says 12 who are not actual wives, right? But this is all we can find. So let’s click on say Eliza Partridge and it lists, this is just a list of all of the evidence that we should just go into this. Well, I I hope we will because I really want to start doing episodes on the women. But if you go down here, you can see, I’ll highlight it down here Oliver, right? And let’s look at what it says um uncatalogued manuscript. So UNCA it’s a manuscript that’s at the Beinecke Library folder labeled Navoo Female Society. Some of the writing on the document is dated October 8th 1843. So remember he said that on the front of it is Phoebe’s writing and on the back there is a list of names. Some of the writing somewhere is listed 1843. So first of all, he claims that there’s this document where Oliver only in 1843 listed Joseph’s plural wives and we don’t have any right. We don’t know who those are. So anyway, I think that’s interesting, but if you’ll see it has a little footnote label one. So let’s scroll down and look at the footnote shall we? Here? It is quoted in D Michael Quinn papers and it gives you where you can find it. Um um then look at what it says. I have been unable to find the original of this letter. So what we have is Don Bradley going on saying when I was at Yale, I have this doc they have this document that and, and he tells us what document was implying us, I mean, implying making us believe that he like had held this document. What it actually is is the D Michael Quinn papers where something in D Michael Quinn’s papers said that there’s this document maybe, right? And he describes what might be on it, but it doesn’t exist. The document doesn’t exist here. They’re on the website citing it as an evidence and Don Bradley just went on and said the Oliver only paper and the pages all fit together, right? First of all, we, even if the document existed, he acknowledges we don’t know what, well here they acknowledge, we don’t know what year those were added. But we can’t even look at it to see because it doesn’t exist. And D Michael Quinn didn’t even print it and didn’t include it in any of his many, many works. Right. In addition, is that amazing? That’s incredible. Right? And yet it’s an evidence that’s being used. So this is why people need to dig into this. And so what’s in it? Well,
[17:52] Whitney: I’m looking right here where it says some of the writings on the document are dated to October 18th, 1843. Some of the writings on the document. And here we’ve got Don Bradley saying, well, the front side has a date but the back. So that therefore, that means the writing on the back happened at the same day. No, it doesn’t. She could have turned out in a journal and you know, a few years later, 10 years later, 20 years later, you could have heard about some of the wives and he could have said, oh, I’m going to start making a list of the wives
[18:24] Michelle: he could have based it on any of these things that were written at any point. You can’t even find out when it was added to the library because it never was because all there is is that d Michael Quinn said it existed. May I point out that this is exactly the pattern that someone like, oh, I don’t know, my cousin Mark Hoffman would do, he would put out there, there’s a document and he would start describing it, right? So having notes of a document in someone’s notes is not the same as having the document by any stretch of the imagination. I also have to point out that even like no one is just like impervious to these problems, no historian. So I was talking to a friend a while ago and he told me that Demichael Quinn in his, in his book that was published, I want to say in 1994 he included a Mark Hoffman forgery in the footnotes, like he included it in this narrative and footnoted it. That was all
[19:29] Whitney: did he
[19:29] Michelle: know it was 94 it was 94. So like you, you have the obligation, you have the responsibility to know if you’re a credible historian. Some other, some other historians had published things before it was known and they printed like um like uh we didn’t know this, this was in like, what would it be of some? Yeah, there’s a name for it and I don’t remember it. But so, so I can look that up and include it in the notes. After recording, I went ahead and looked up the bad Demichael Quinn footnote and is actually quite well documented. So you don’t need to just rely on the word of me or my friend because you can see it for yourself. So the book is the Mormon Hierarchy Origins of Power published December 15th, 1994. The bad reference is on page 141 footnote 193 which references a paper written by historian Dean Jesse called Return to Carthage, which relied heavily on a Hoffman forgery. This is the, this is the page in question. The picture is not great, but my friend sent it to me and I was very thankful. It said at noon on the 26th of June Smith sent an order to major General Jonathan Denham to lead the naval legion in a military attack on Carthage to free the prisoners. And you can see footnote 193. So I actually found this fair Mormon article written on this exact question. Did Joseph order Jonathan Denham head of the navi legion to rescue him? I won’t go through the entire thing here. But it’s a very interesting read that will be linked below. This is the part I want to talk about the new wrinkle the Hoffman forgeries as they’re trying to find out if this is a valid claim or not. The claim that um Demichael Quinn writes into his book. And so this talks about the claims that Demichael made that were fraudulent and shows at the bottom what he cited the Dean Jesse paper. Here’s the interesting part. So Quinn actually partially retracted this but never fully retracted. It explains it in the paper. He still tried to keep making the claim. But the interesting thing is you can see how many times the um the error had been corrected. So an Arata sheet is what the word I was trying to think of. And the closest we could get to his retraction, you can see the Deseret book printed an Arata sheet about Dean Jesse’s paper in 18, in 1986 and 1987. So just a few years later and well, before the 1994 book that de Michael Quinn used, I’ll give you a little bit closer up version of this um Arata sheet. Even though it’s hard to see, you can see Mark Kaufman forgeries and personal writings of Joseph Smith edited by Dean C Jesse. So this clarifies all of the forgeries that had been included in that paper that was available in 1986 and 1987. So, yes. D Michael Quinn absolutely should have known that this was a forgery and absolutely should not have used it. And then after he found out, he absolutely should have fully retracted every claim he made based on it. He failed to do any of those things that’s good for us to know back to the conversation. And when my friend called D Michael Quinn on it, they were out to eat and he’s like, hey, what’s up with this? You use this Hoffman forgery? And his response was, well, it was a, it seemed like I can’t remember exactly what the word he was, but basically that’s probably what happened it’s probably accurate. And so therefore I can use it. So I just want to say that Hoffman’s work got into D Michael Quinn’s work. We have that he went to the library, found his notes and is now presenting it as an actual document to that, that provides us additional evidence. That’s strong evidence because it brings all these puzzle pieces together because it’s from the other part of the country from 1843. This is what we are talking about why people need to do their research. And I do wanna throw Don Bradley the bone of saying that he, well, he did initially want this to be published. But after talking to me and some others in, in our movement, that’s when he was like, hey, don’t publish that yet, you know. So um so I think that is quite amazing, like, like that is exactly what we’re talking about here. Exactly.
[23:57] Whitney: Finding more and more of that. And again, Oliver Olney admittedly is an enemy to Joseph Smith, which would be called a traitor. So again, here we have modern day historians using the testimony of a trader as evidence.
[24:14] Michelle: Exactly. Yes, exactly. So this is why it’s important that it’s the uh the archives at Yale, right? OK. So that, yeah, I’ll just highlight that some of the writing is dated 1843. So like maybe the front notes that Phoebe made, but there’s no date on the names if it even existed because he has been able to find it. So that’s amazing. So, ok, that’s, I think everything that I wanted to say about that one, I
[24:39] Whitney: believe. So. Then another traitor, another traitor, right that they’re now using as evidence and proof is the one that you are exposing in your amazing podcast about the expositor.
[24:54] Michelle: It’s been fun. Yeah. So yeah, so we won’t go into this one here because, and I still have part four to get to, I’m, I’m buried in topics. So that will be forthcoming as soon as I can get it done. So, ok, I guess nothing else we need to dwell on here. But this is another traitor that they are claiming is valid. Oh, and now you, yeah, you can go ahead and talk about another thing that happened during Joseph and Emma’s life,
[25:22] Whitney: right? And so, and we, again, our history on this has been a little bit altered, right? So, being members of the church, um we’ve been members being female, we’ve been members of the Relief Society. Um It was so, you know, we have the motto, you know, charity never faile. And it’s about, you know, service and taking care of the poor and the needy. Right? Well, that was one of the reasons that the Relief Society was organized. But um it was organized by Emma Smith on March 17th, 1842. And at the first meeting of that um organization, um they stated that the main reason for creating it was to correct the morals and strengthen the virtues of the community. So I find that very fascinating. That was actually one of its main goals. And so you have to remember March 1842 is a right about when all of the Bennett stuff starts coming out. So, um, oh,
[26:26] Michelle: that’s right. Ok. So it was to combat Bennett. Ok. Right.
[26:31] Whitney: And so, and I think one of the ways they thought, you know, was like, hey, it takes two to tango. So if we can strengthen the women who was coming forward to Joseph Smith, telling them about Bennett was the women saying, you know, he seduced me. He told me that it was OK that the heads of the church. And so Joseph and Emma, I’m sure put their heads together and said, ok, we need to strengthen the women to stand on their own 2 ft. So Joseph was often invited to come that first year and speak to the women. And a lot of the instruction he gave them was to be virtuous, to be pure, to be holy to one. I remember one of the um sermons I read the notes of he’s told the women to go learn the commandments of God so that they knew them and they could stand up to any men who tried to persuade them to disobey the commandments. God,
[27:23] Michelle: I love it can be deceived. Yeah. So I think you have a list of some of the,
[27:29] Whitney: yeah. So, you know, later, anybody who wants to go through this slideshow can read, it’s just a synopsis. It’s not by any means all of the sermons of Joseph or Emma Emma. Actually, it’s in the organization of this relief society that she, it is revealed why she’s considered an elect lady because it, um it’s revealed that she was called specifically to give instruction to the women and to teach them the scriptures and um strengthen their um understanding of the word of God. And so she actually gives a lot of really powerful um sermons herself to the women where she um talks a lot about um being virtuous to stand up to um for their virtue to be um women of. Um I don’t know what the word would
[28:23] Michelle: be a virtue of integrity and chastity. But let me ask you a question. So what evidence have you found that shows that this was duplicitous that Emma was doing this in opposition to Joseph. And he was really mad at her for doing it for like, you know, he was really mad at her for fulfill, for fulfilling the calling that he placed her in and ordained her in and sustained her in and told the women to listen to her and that he spoke to many times. But that they were, they were really, you know, she was just not supposed to be doing this as the relief society president and it caused so many problems for him and eventually led to his death other than Brigham Young’s claims, what have you found in Joseph and Emma’s life that would validate that story?
[29:11] Whitney: Nothing at all. In fact, Emma was a strong, powerful woman and I, uh everything I found is they had a deep, deep respect for each other. And we’re both people of strong integrity and strong moral fortitude. And they were a true partnership and everything. They did, an
[29:34] Michelle: absolute team and a team of equals. And that’s how they viewed and treated one another. OK. So, um we can go over this. I think I just highlighted some of the changes that you included.
[29:48] Whitney: So because we’re kind of this whole, you know, like we’ve mentioned on one of the earlier slides that the alteration of our history is not just about ply me, there’s so many other facets of our history that have been altered. And so one of them that a lot of women today don’t realize is that when the relief society was organized, originally, it was autonomous from Pries leadership. They had, it was their own organization completely ran by women. If Joseph spoke at it, it’s because he was invited by Emma to come and speak. Um So the women,
[30:26] Michelle: I believe, I believe Emma was the president because the women elected her. I made the mistake of saying that Joseph put her in that position. He didn’t, he, he um sustained her and advised the women to listen to their president, but the women elected her to be their president.
[30:42] Whitney: Correct. Yep. The women elected her. Exactly. Right. And so today though the release society functions under the umbrella of the priesthood, so we put this little picture to show how, you know, we have the first presidency in the form of the 12 and then the other organizations and the women or, you know, get a little spot there on the right hand side as one of the general presidencies, right? Um So it’s interesting too, is that the authors of Saints now say this, they say Joseph stated, I will organize the women under the priesthood after the pattern of the priesthood. I now have the key by which I can do it and the sword, they do have a source for that. But the source for that is a woman, one woman’s,
[31:32] Michelle: let me take that part. Is that OK? Because you wrote that quote. So I um I was like, OK, what’s that? Because, well, we should look at the next note really quickly, like it was an autonomous organization and Joseph said it was the church was never perfectly organized until the women were organized and they were independently organized. As you said, they held their own elections, they did their own, they did everything. So Brigham Young had no power to disband it because he didn’t oversee it in any way. And yet he disbanded it just by the sheer force of force. Right? OK. So I wanna share my screen here again because what I did was went on to um the Joseph Smith papers and I searched for some of those keywords in that quote that you cited about, I will organize, I think I searched organize under the priesthood or something like that. It brought up a total of one source. This was the only one that had any of that wording and it’s the minutes and discourses of 17th March, 1842. So this was that organizational meeting, right? Where it was organized. So if we go down to um down here, you can do view entire transcript. Let me um maximize this a little bit easier. View entire transcript. And you can search like, you know, control f you can search for organize, which is what I’m doing. And there are four instances of it that come up. So first, so we’re, we’re looking for, I will organize the women under the priesthood, right? So the first is President Smith further remarked that an organization to show them how to work would be sufficient. He proposed that the sisters elect a presiding officer to preside over them and that the presiding officer. So he suggested this right that the presiding officer choose two counselors to insist to assist in the duty of her, of office that he would ordain them over the society and let them preside just as the presidency preside over the church and if they need his instruction, ask him and he will give it from time to time. So that’s a great statement of just what you were talking about how autonomous they were. So that’s the first place we could possibly find the quote. So these are the minutes that were written during that meeting. These are the contemporaneous sources, right? So the next case is Jo President Joseph Smith said, I now declare this society organized with presidents and councilors a et cetera according to parliamentary usages and all who who shall hereafter be admitted to the society must be free from censure and received by vote. So in the original notes, they, so I guess what I’m saying is they did keep notes of these original organizational meanings, right? They kept very careful minutes. We have, we have what Joseph said. These are the only times he used any form of the word organized. And then after that, we have some irrelevant, less relevant ones. So elder Taylor, this is elder Taylor and he rejoices to see this institution organized according to the law of heaven, according to a revelation previously given to Mrs M to Mrs Emma Smith, right? So that’s pretty and appointing her to this important calling and to see all things moving forward in such a glorious manner. So there we have also John Taylor, acknowledging that this is a completely independent organization, right? This is why you go to the original sources? This, these were the minutes. Then the very last one is just a footnote and it’s irrelevant. It’s just talking about the broader temperance movement. OK. So I was like, OK, why did it bring up this as a source for this claim? That doesn’t make sense. But if you go here, let me, oh, let me scroll up. Sorry, I’ve been having a hard time working my mouse. You go here. You can look at this. These, this source note is very useful and historical introduction. Let’s click on the historical introduction, shall we? And so if you go here because this has to tell us, oh, so this is, it gives us this document, but this is how we’re supposed to think about the document. This is what the document means, right? And how we’re supposed to interpret it. So I’m going to go down to the second paragraph, I think um let’s see where I wanted to start reading. Oh, no, right here. Starting with, sorry, I’m a little bit slow.
[35:50] Whitney: Oh I see it right there. Decades later, decades
[35:53] Michelle: later. There it is. So yeah, let me highlight this. OK. So this is, this is the source. So it’s saying this happened at the original meeting. But decades later, Kimball, this is Sarah Granger Kimball, plural wife, right? Sarah Granger Kimball reminisced that when the constitution and bylaws were presented to Joseph Smith, he responded, this is not what the sisters want. There is something better for them. I have. So this is what’s in all of our manuals. I’ve heard this quote. I’ve never heard those other quotes that Joseph Smith actually said in the actual minutes of the meeting. But I’ve heard this many times and I’ve always, it’s always bothered me that she went to the work of writing this and he was like, no, this isn’t what you want. I’ll give you something better. I’ve never liked that. Well, it didn’t happen. Right? Anyway, this is not what the sisters want. There is something better for them. I have desired to organize the sisters in the order of the priesthood. So even this is different than what Saints quotes. Saints doesn’t even quote this accurately. They’re quoting it from another version, right? Because this is not as bad. I will organize the sisters in the order of the priesthood could sound like it will, it will peril, it will look like the priesthood, right? It wasn’t under, but I now have the keys by which I can do it. And then if you click on that little footnote. Yep, Sarah Granger, Kimball reminiscence, 17th of March 1882. So they were having some sort of a celeb 17th of March celebration of the organization of the Priesthood of the Relief Society. How many years later was this? 50 years later? For 40 years later, 42 to 82. So 40 years later, Sarah Granger Kimball, as an old woman said this and this is now the authoritative history and the authoritative history. It’s amazing. Let’s go back to your um to your Saints um, quote. I think you should read it again for us.
[37:54] Whitney: The which one?
[37:57] Michelle: Let’s see right here. There it is the Authors of Saints volume one and see how they put that. I will organize the women under the priesthood. See they even changed it again. She basically like in the order of the priesthood, this says under the priesthood after the pattern of the priesthood, I now have the key by which I can do it. Incredible.
[38:22] Whitney: Well, so yeah, I loved how you showed how you can go back and find the original source because that’s, that’s exactly what you and I have done. And, and that’s why we’re where we’re at today because we go and look at these original sources and, and so some of them, you can’t find an original source just like you couldn’t find the one on only,
[38:45] Michelle: only,
[38:46] Whitney: right? Because it doesn’t exist. And then, and so then I’m like, OK, well, I got to throw that out because there actually isn’t an original source. And then like this, you get to the original source and it says something completely different than what the narrative is being told to us today. So I’d also like to say that when I was um growing up, I, I think now they’re a little bit more forthcoming that the relief society took a little break. But for many years, they said this is, you know, the oldest women’s 42 continuously, right? So it was quite a surprise to me when I found out that Brigham Young disbanded it. And then I find it even more interesting that according to John Taylor. So years later he was asked, why did Brigham disband it? Because it didn’t get reorganized again until I think it was like in the 18 sixties in Utah. So it’s interesting that John Taylor says this sister, Emma made use of the position. She held to try to pervert the minds of the sisters and taught the sisters that the principle of celestial marriage as taught and practiced by Joseph Smith, the prophet was not of God. This he says was the reason why the Relief society did not continue. So now go back to why it was organized to strengthen the morals and the virtue of the community. Now fast forward a few years and Brigham’s disbanding it because those virtues and morals were causing the women to say no to polygamy.
[40:30] Michelle: Wow, that’s incredible. So it’s John Taylor where we get that story from that Emma was misbehaving as relief society president. She wasn’t like removed from the office. But you know, but she was a naughty, naughty girl because you know how dare we teach morals. So, ok. So should we go to the next topic? No, let’s do it. So I think I have a video clip again for this one. So this is, let’s see if I can find it. This is another. So I I want to read first what William Clayton’s journal actually says. So this is the infamous day July 12th, 1843. This is Revelation Day, right? This is when 132 was written down. So Wednesday the 12th, this am wrote a revelation consisting of 10 pages on the order of the priesthood showing the designs in Moses, Abraham David and Solomon, having many wives and concubines et cetera. After it was wrote, presidents Joseph and Hiram presented it and read it to Emma who said she did not believe a word of it and appeared very rebellious. Joseph told me to deed all the unencumbered lots to Emma and the Children. He appears much troubled about Emma. So this is where we get the entire claim that the deeds are about polygamy, right? So please remember the pieces. This is a very small journal entry, right? I wrote the Revelation. It was about polygamy and how that works. Joseph and Hiram, she took it to Emma, which is different from his later claims, but whatever, she did not believe a word of it was very and Joseph told me the deed unencumbered lots to Emma and the Children and he appears troubled. That’s, that’s the full content of it. So let’s listen. Ok. So I want to share this clip where Don Bradley is going to kind of summarize what that journal entry says. And again, he might not have read it recently, but he is, he’s brought in because he’s being considered the foremost expert. And see, II, I guess I like the difference between we’re bringing forward the document so you can see exactly what it says, right? We don’t have the original of the William Clayton document, but I brought forward the best we have. So here’s what he says. So
[42:46] Don Bradley: William Clayton’s journal under this exact date, he says he talks about the revelation that Joseph dictates. He says that it’s read to Emma that Emma does not believe it. Joseph and Emma have an argument about this and that then Joseph calls Clayton into the room to witness an agreement that Joseph and Emma make with each other. And that Joseph and Emma are both crying as they make this agreement, right? And then afterward, Joseph
[43:14] Michelle: and did it say that? Did it say that Joseph and Emma have this conversation and make this agreement? And they’re both crying. One of the big things I’ve talked about is where in the world are they going? What, what when in the world during this day are they going to make this agreement when they spend the entire morning into the afternoon, cloistered writing the revelation, then they spend the rest of the day. He’s meeting with people. He also, according to Clayton later is going around showing the revelation to different people. Having Whitney’s um clerk um Kingsbury make a comment copy of it, right? When is he having this heart to heart with Emma? And why is Clayton there watching it? But first of all, it doesn’t say that in the journal, right? Like this is, this is huge
[44:01] Don Bradley: instructs Clayton to deed most of his lots that he owns his real estate in the city of Navoo to Emma and ha his half interest in the steamboat they made of Iowa. Hi. So, um this revelation is saying Joseph, you know, don’t get rid of your property, don’t put your property out of your hands. Uh Joseph and Emma according to Clayton’s journal for that day are making,
[44:29] Michelle: I have to pause it again. The steamboat Iowa. He says that that’s written in the journal, right? That’s not even in the deed. And then he’s, he’s saying that he’s, he’s tying it to a verse in section 132 that says, don’t put the property out of your hands. So what I and he’s saying that since he gives Emma this deed, well, I guess I’ll go on and let him explain
[44:48] Don Bradley: making an agreement. Looks like a separation agreement. Emma wants to make sure that she’s gonna have property if they split up.
[44:58] Michelle: I again have to say, what kind of a separation agreement do you give your, you know, an unhappy wife, all of your property and all of the city’s property that you’re in charge of and all of the church property that you’re in charge of. And there’s so much more we’re gonna do an episode on this coming up soon and des please stay tuned for it because it’s gonna be good. But,
[45:17] Don Bradley: oh, right. So Joseph instructs Clayton to, uh, deed this property to Emma, who thinks we have the deed? Ok. Yeah. Ok. We have the deed. It is dated July 12th, 1843. And in this deed, Joseph Deeds, Emma exactly the things that Clayton’s journal for that day says he instructed Clayton to deed to Emma, uh his, his property, right? And so, um, if someone were making up DNC 132 later, they would have to be consulting exactly what’s going on in N VU on this particular day. Now, the claim that like Brigham Young is making,
[46:13] Michelle: ok, I wanna, I wanna just stop it there because it there, it’s, it’s like so many layers of ridiculous. But first of all, 132 that one verse that says, don’t put the property out of your hands, has nothing to do with July 12th. And it tells Joseph not to put his property out of his hands. So he immediately goes an hour later and puts all of his property out of his hands and that proves help me, help me here. What am I missing, right? Like what does that mean? First of all? And then beyond that like what he claims that it says is just completely like ridiculous.
[46:59] Whitney: Oh, that’s why we titled this one. Deeds, Deeds, Deeds, Deeds Deeds. Like come on, the Deeds are the magic thing that proves
[47:09] Michelle: it, right? So, so again, what he said that it said compared to what it actually says is pretty remarkable in my opinion, like pretty amazing. So now we can go to, um, let’s see. Now we can go to the next page and you can tell us what Saints claims, right? Because this is just as good as what Don Bradley claims. In fact, it’s the same narrative. It’s Don Bradley’s 1500 sources that Brian Hale spun into a carefully crafted narrative that now Saints is spouting at us as the authoritative official source. This is ultimate truth. Look no further. You have found truth in Saints,
[47:52] Whitney: right? And so I, yeah, exactly. So this has zero footnotes, zero sources to what I’m gonna read. Emma seemed especially worried about the future. What if Joseph’s enemies found out about plural marriage? Would he go to prison again? Would he be killed? She and the Children depended on Joseph for support, but the family’s finances were entwined with the churches. How would they get by if something happened to him? Joseph and Emma wept as they spoke. But by the end of the day, they had worked through their problems. Like just I want to just interject here. Your husband supposedly married to dozens of women and sleeping with them and you’re going to work through all that in a day. Just saying,
[48:41] Michelle: and her concern is that he might die, that he might be killed. Right. They’re all saying that she wanted to divorce him. Right. Right.
[48:50] Whitney: Exactly. Right. To provide Emma additional financial security. Joseph deeded some property to her and their Children. And after that fall, he entered into no more plural marriages.
[49:06] Michelle: And also this happened in a, in um July. So they say after that fall, as if after this meeting, he entered into no more plural marriages, right? He only had a couple more months of, he only got a couple more and then he was repentant. It was, I mean, it’s just from not a single footnote like talk about historical, this is terrible. So here we go, we do have the deed and I’m not gonna go into this in depth. Now, there is much to be said on this, but I will give away the huge, I think this is a huge, massive find. I’m working on a paper on it that I want to present. It’s a big deal. So this is the Emma that was written in to William Clayton’s forged fraudulent narrative of what happened that day, right? What they don’t tell you and I should, I would have a close up on this in my episode. I’ll go into it more. It’s, it’s $10,000. And according to the deed in exchange for $10,000. Joseph gives her these hundreds of lots. Right. It’s a very long deed with many, many lots. Here’s the thing that I found on the Joseph Smith papers. Totally by inspiration. The same day there is an identical deed to Hiram written the same day also for $10,000 also for hundreds of lots, different lots than Emma’s. But hundreds of lots. And they’re both in William Clayton’s handwriting. William Clayton filled out both of these deeds on the 12th and he incorporated the one to Emma into the false narrative. He spun in his later created journal and he hid the one to Hiram he did. So William Clayton was in charge along with um some others of, of putting all of the deeds into the trustees book of Deed of land deeds that I was using. This more. Emma’s is included. Hiram’s is not Hiram’s is hidden. Susan Easton Black put together a huge team to a an entire team to create a huge anthology of all of the Deeds of Navoo. It’s seven volumes each around 600 pages of land deeds. It includes Emma’s deed. It doesn’t include Hiram’s deed because she didn’t have access to it because it was still hidden. It wasn’t until the Joseph Smith papers came out and Hiram’s deed is included. It’s not linked to anything. It’s not anywhere other than the place that I happened to find it that I will show in my, um, episode on it. So I’m giving it this all away now without nearly enough context. So, so don’t like, think, you know everything about this yet. But what this should like as if we need more proof, this proves not only that Emma’s deed has nothing to do with polygamy, it proves that Clayton’s journal is a forgery is fraudulent that he intentionally drove this in. Right. And Joseph couldn’t have deeded all of the unencumbered lots to Emma has he needed at least half of them to hire him? Right? Like, well,
[52:33] Whitney: and you know, how do they explain that Joseph made his own wife pay for them?
[52:39] Michelle: Right? You charge $100,000 right? And, and, and, and his brother and how do they explain this is what I want to go into. He was under investigation like an, an agent, a federal agent had come to NAVOO to investigate him for, for, for fraud because he was trying to declare bankruptcy. And John Bennett got in the way of that. So this federal agent, the agent that ended up coming out, I think maybe I shouldn’t say federal. Was it state? I want to say it was federal, but I’ll, I’ll get into it in my deeds issue. It’ll be a lot more clear, but he was being investigated. He was not free to, well, he started out investigating and it sounds to me like he ended up advising him and defending him he was a lawyer, right? And um, and so he was not free to just go, oh, here wife take all of the property. He was not free to do that, but he was being advised in how to deal with these massive legal problems he had because of the sinking of the river boat because of this situation. Um the lost property and all of their previous locations. Right? And so anyway, this is another fun one. So he’s stating this as factual. We have the deed. Yeah, we have high rooms deed. This one is going to be blown out of the water in a really big way. I’m excited to be able to submit my paper on it.
[54:00] Whitney: Well, so my question is, will this still be on the Joseph Smith papers after this episode? And after your deeds episode,
[54:08] Michelle: I’ve screenshotted it. So I have it so. So I hope so. Yeah, you’re right. We better, I better, I better go do that before I air this because things have a way of things involving Hiram have a way of magically disappearing. We’ll get to that. They do. You know. So this, yeah, I don’t know if it, it was an oversight that they included it. But it is interesting because all of the Emma’s deed is everywhere in the historical notes, links to everything, you know, highlands is linked to one thing that there was one place I was able to find it. So it’s pretty amazing. I don’t like, I don’t know if they put together what it is or not, but I’m thrilled that they, at least
[54:49] Whitney: this is a, this is an amazing find.
[54:53] Michelle: Yeah. Thank you. I’m excited about it. So, ok, we’ll go on to, oh, we talked about this already. This was another amazing find. I’m so glad you brought this out like this. Uh This, this is a long double episode, but there’s a, there’s a lot in it. These are some huge, huge items.
[55:11] Whitney: This really bothers me quite a bit. So in the seminary manual, um they have on Jacob chapter two, um the whole like beginning part of it is all, there’s a lot in there about chastity and encouraging the youth of the church to be chased. But then all of a sudden they have to, you know, because they have to explain why the church does polygamy. They all of a sudden throw in this after Jacob taught the people not to have more than one spouse at a time. He explained the conditions when the Lord may authorize plural marriage. Plural marriage is authorized only when the Lord commands it through his prophet, the president of the church and through no one else at certain times and places in the history of the world, the Lord has commanded his people to practice plural marriage. So here we have this beautiful seminary teaching about Jacob’s sermon and then we got to go oh Well, wait, you know, because, you know, we don’t want them to realize that we shouldn’t have done polygamy. So let’s hurry and throw in this little polygamy loophole. If God commands it, then you can do it.
[56:29] Michelle: So I do want to mention because I covered the, I covered many of the manuals, including the seminary manual in episode 29. So if anyone’s interested in this, you can watch episode 29 it’s called truth or indoctrination because I think that’s exactly, I guess that’s exactly what this episode is as well. So, yes, ok, comparing what Hiram said about that. So I
[56:53] Whitney: just want to say that we’re gonna get to, eventually, we’re gonna get to hire the Hiram’s disappearing sermon. And it’s the one on when he calls it the damn foolish doctrine of polygamy. And in that sermon, he says, emphatically, God never commanded anyone to have more than one wife.
[57:13] Michelle: Yeah. And I do want to clarify because I asked you this, I was like, could that possibly be just different notes from that same sermon? But you said no, because they are completely separate sermons. There’s zero overlap. They talk about like he doesn’t talk about Jacob two in the disappearing sermon, right? And so, yeah, so the fact that this recorded sermon had to be found and isn’t included and then the other one was, was disappeared several times. So, ok, we’ll go on with now our next testimony of traitors, right? Yeah. So or the F Bostwick should I, should I talk about him? I I want you to. Yes, please. So this is actually for me what started this? This is when I sent Whitney a rather animated early morning uh Marco Polo message where I was, my voice was probably very high pitched because I was like, I cannot believe this, right? And Whitney was like, I know, I like, I think you told me you had actually thrown your book across the room at least one time, like feeling that same. So, OK, so Orus F Bostwick came to NAVOO most likely in November or just barely before the very first record we have of him in NAVOO was November of 1843. That’s the first time he was there. My best guess is that he was part of this criminal element because of who he was hanging out with what he was involved in, right? If that’s how, that’s what I’m seeing. I know that he had two wives and um not, I mean, it says in on the family search that his first wife had passed away, but there are zero sources to support that and he had a second wife and so he has Children with both of them and it never mentions them anywhere in his nfu experience. And so, so, you know, I don’t know if he’s abandoned wives or not anyway, but in any case, we have no idea of who this guy is other than he just barely got to NAVOO in November. And I guess part of the reason like, like the influx into NAVOO was Mormons and the criminal element mainly, right? Those were the people that were coming into NAVOO. So Orsamus never had anything to do with the church. We barely have him in NAVOO in November. And
[59:34] Whitney: the reason the reason there is such an influx of criminal just to remind the listeners is because the N Charter was written in such a way to help protect Joseph. Well, the because of all the false allegations, imprisonments he had gone through, it was to help protect them against ill unlawful proceedings. But it, the um
[59:59] Michelle: said you couldn’t, you couldn’t extradite criminals. It was going to be taken out of N and that was so that the Missourians couldn’t come and get Joseph. So
[1:00:09] Whitney: like anything you have, you know, things always have an opposite and the opposite was that then criminals found out, oh, hey, let’s all go live in N and no one can extradite
[1:00:18] Michelle: us. Right. Right. So, and so all of a sudden, Bostwick was here and he was pretty soon hanging out with h the Higby and some others. So here is the deposition against Orsamus Bostwick by John Scott. So, ok, so to fill everybody in, he gets to Navoo November or just barely before that’s the first record of him of NAVOO by February Jose. He is being charged Joseph is charging him with libel and slander against Hiram, right? So and accusing him of spiritual wifey. So, so um so he’s only been there a very short time, not even a Mormon. So I guess my question is, was he a polygamy insider? Right. And I want to read a little bit from the deposition that was used to charge him because he was found guilty and fined $50 plus court plus court costs. So this is from the John Scott deposition that is, is pictured on the screen. Um So John Scott is saying that he said, um that Orsamus said he was at the prophets last week and the prophet asked him if he thought he had any spiritual wives. Bostwick said, no. Um he, he did not think Joseph had any. So Bostwick does not think that Joseph has any spiritual wives. So was he a polygamy? And right? But I know by blank that your brother Hiram has Scott turned and asked him, do you believe that Hiram has got any of those spiritual wives? Bostwick said yes, by blank. I believe he has and can sleep with three or four every night. So this is what Bostwick is saying about Hiram, right? That he had and then he goes on Scott who was a member of the church insisted to know who they were as he could not fellowship such work. Bostwick said, Bostwick said they are all over the city by blank. Um Scott said he did not believe it. So I’m summing up that last part. The first was all quoted Boswick said he could take half a bushel of meal and get what accommodation he wanted with almost any woman in the city. I know of one w one a widow woman who has got her living that way for one or two years and has had no other way of getting um of getting her living living. He claimed that there were a number of English women in the city beyond the beyond the temple who got their living in that way. And women of good standing in the church too. Scott insisted that boss would tell him where the women lived and said he would soon tell whether they were in good standing in the church or not. Boswick refused to tell the names of any women but went on to tell of a young woman he knew at the East who joined the church and came here to navoo and was taken sick last summer or winter. And Hiram was sent to, to lay hands on her. And since that time, she was a damned whore that any, that any man could go there and be accommodated with whatever he wanted. The defendant had known her from a child and that she was a virtuous woman till the time that Hiram administered to her. So this is what Bostwick is saying, right? So according to Bostwick Hiram has spiritual wives all over the city. He can sleep with three or four a night, the entire city, they’re just prostitutes for half a bushel of meal. And Hiram is basically turning women into prostitutes by administering to them. So, so these are Bostwick’s claims. So again, I ask you, is Boswick a polygamy insider, right? So now I want to bring up this is from the Joseph Smith papers and this is the introduction. So this is one of those narrative parts written introduction to City of Navoo versus Bostwick. So this is when he was charged and found guilty of slander, right? And if we scroll down, you can see where it starts to tell us historical introduction. In late February 1844 Hiram filed a complaint before Joseph Smith asserting that Bostwick had used slanderous language concerning Hiram and certain females of navoo. The allegations stemmed from rumors surrounding Smith’s confidential practice of plural marriage. So how about that? Let’s just validate what Bostwick claims, you know, so Bostwick says that Joseph Smith doesn’t have any plural wives, but that Hiram is sleeping with three or four at night and he has them all over the city and the whole city is made up of prostitutes. And Hiram is turning women into prostitutes by administering to them, but it stems from the rumors of Joseph’s legitimate plural marriage. And now let’s click, shall we on that little footnote right there. Noted number two Smith, meaning Hiram Smith had married his wife’s sister, Mercy Fielding Thompson, widow of Robert B. Thompson and Katherine Phillips in August 1843. And then it goes on to give us the sources for that, which are the later affidavits. So Bostwick’s allegations are validated by the fact that there was legitimate practice going on. And here’s what we have that Hiram did have two plural wives that he had married a few months before this I about died that we are validating Orsamus Bostwick, right? Like, am I overstating this or this is what I screamed?
[1:05:48] Whitney: Yeah. Well, and think about Joseph and Hire and bring a case of slander against him. They, he is found guilty. I mean, talk about how hypocritical that is right. If, if Joseph really and Joseph and Hire had truly been doing polygamy, how dare they bring somebody forward who’s going around saying they did polygamy, right? And
[1:06:12] Michelle: they felt like it was worth, they felt like it was worth defending Hiram and they went on and did a lot more than just the court case, right? So that’s what we can go on and talk about next. But the fact that we like, ignore the fact that Joseph charged or like Hiram filed a complaint, Joseph prosecuted it, he was found guilty, right? And I mean, or I guess Joseph brought charges, he was found guilty and it caused such a, like it, it enraged Joseph and Emma so much that they had WW Phelps, like Phelps served as a ghostwriter, which it, which it acknowledges. So they like, this is basically Joseph and Emma’s own voice. They just assigned Phelps to write it. So, do you want to tell him about the voice of innocence?
[1:07:03] Whitney: Yeah. So Phelps did write it but Emma edited it afterwards. So she had the final say. So he wrote, you know, basically, like the first draft and then she, you know,
[1:07:15] Michelle: made it. But he did, he did write it by assignment from Joseph and Emma assignment from Joseph. Yeah, he works for Joseph. Not Emma. OK.
[1:07:27] Whitney: So it’s the voice of innocence from Nou, it’s a pamphlet that’s an anti polygamy pamphlet. And then it was read to the entire church body who all said amen to it, which was their way of saying they accepted it. And then it was presented to, I believe it was four different um 2344 different sessions of the Relief Society and each session was overflowing which they made note of they
[1:07:58] Michelle: had. I don’t even think it was just the release. I think it was all of the women of navoo because they, all of the sisters who wanted to come because they had intentionally four sessions so that every woman could come. Right.
[1:08:12] Whitney: Right. And so they read it out loud and then those women all accepted it unanimously. So I think that’s really important to point out that the saints did accept this document as um basically kind of like, yeah, yeah, binding on them and also kind of their statement to the world that this is what we stand for. So in that in Bostwick for slander, he had calls um the seducers, what ungodly wretches. It accused them of bringing defenseless women to ruin. It rebuked them for blasting the chastity of widows and wives and corrupting the virtue of our unsuspecting daughter. Um I wished that their, their putrid bodies may be carried off to be food for vultures and eagles. I find that, I mean, this is really when you know, WW Phelps and it’s pretty flamboyant in the language.
[1:09:14] Michelle: This is Phelps at his best at his most.
[1:09:18] Whitney: I love it referred to the unsuspecting women as miserable dupes. And then it ends with this. It says while the marriage bed undefiled is honorable, let pull bigamy, bigamy fornication, adultery and prostitution be frowned out of the hearts of honest men to drop in the Gulf of fallen nature where the worm dies, not, and the fire is not quenched. I don’t think you could be, you couldn’t be more clear than that how they felt about it,
[1:09:51] Michelle: right? So I’m gonna share my screen again because I wanna show one other place where they talk about this. Ok. So here this is the um church history. What’s it called? The Church Historian Press the 1st 50 years of Relief Society, right? So it gives us the dates and you can see everything that’s happening in nu relief Society. So this is right. You can like it’s, it’s an extensive, um, record and this is WW Phelps with Emma Smith. You know, the voice of this is the voice of innocence. So when we go down and read about it and I just want to read a little bit of this because, and I think you had something to read from Saints too. Did you, do you wanna do yours first? How, how they talk about the voice of Innocence? I’ll mind while you’re looking for,
[1:10:43] Whitney: I don’t think I put anything in about that from, we’ll just let you do
[1:10:48] Michelle: yours. OK? So I just wanna read a little bit of how they describe um um how the, the context they give us for the voice of innocence. This is how it starts Joseph Smith and a small group of his trusted associates who had privately entered into plural marriages, considered their relationships to be holy matrimony sealed or confirmed by divine authority and approval, no footnote for that. They’re just telling us. So, the very first thing about the voice of innocence which starts the voice of innocence starts by talking about Boswick. The very first thing it says is in response to the damned allegations of Boswick, it doesn’t say down but you know what I mean? So that’s the whole point. So the, the whole framing of this is Bostwick’s allegations against Hiram. And it starts out by saying Joseph’s trusted little merry band of polygamists, right? And so then there’s no footnote and then we’ll go on and read a little bit more. Let’s see. However, as knowledge of the practice of plural marriage spread, it prompted counterfeit practices and abuse such as John C. Bennett’s notion of spiritual wifey. Now, that foot footnote gives us nothing about it just talks about um spiritual wifey, but it doesn’t, it doesn’t ve verify the claim that it makes right that, that they were just copycatting. No, they were doing their own thing. So anyway, um publicly addressing these dan these dangers posed a significant challenge for relief society leaders in nu because Emma had to walk this fine line where she could support her husband’s plural marriage. But right. And so um it goes on how Emma emphasized the group’s responsibility to watch over the morals. But as the practice of plural marriage slowly expanded, the relief society was drawn into disputes involving the gap between public pronouncements against spiritual wifey and the private practice of authorized plural plural marriage. It just goes on and on spinning like you just read what the voice of innocence says about polygamy, right? We I just explained who Bostwick is and what the claims were and what this is responding to and they are validating all of it to say it was all just a lie because because it was, and they don’t even mention. And anyway, and it, yeah, it goes on, it gets a lot worse. Um In 1842 1919, relief society members published a statement refuting Bennett’s claims that the church promoted a spirit, a secret wife system. Over the next two, there’s more rumors of polygamy and spiritual wife re buzz through NAV and the surrounding areas. So it’s because of all of these rumors that Orsamus Bostwick started to say this. So I anyway, I think it is utterly, I I don’t know what the word is like, like not criminal but just seriously historical malpractice to frame the voice of innocence this way, made me furious.
[1:13:57] Whitney: Yeah, same here. That’s why I sat there at that desert book event when the historian says speculate responsibly and I wanted to stand up and say you guys don’t right responsible in that speculation they’re stating, making up facts, making up a story in a narrative,
[1:14:22] Michelle: right? There is just with nothing, with nothing to back it up. So I thought that was completely, yeah, all of this, I guess it’s when you see it for the first time, it’s like, ah you know, and then you just kind of get used to it, but it’s maddening. So, ok. Did you already talk about this one or? Oh, this is the um what Hiram had to say? Yeah, cool.
[1:14:45] Whitney: So this is um Hiram in April 8th, 1844. Um He and Joseph because they were so concerned Hiram was, um he said he spent countless hours answering foolish interrogations based on whether or not a men having a certain priesthood could have more wives than one. And so they called all the elders back for the, for the April conference in 1844. And on April 8th, Hiram gave a speech that Joseph made the statement that he was decidedly against polygamy in every form. And in that speech, Hiram, you know his sermon, he calls it the damn foolish doctrine of polygamy. And it is extremely clear where he stands on polygamy. That’s where he says men were not. Men have never been commanded. God has never commanded anyone. He talks about that any woman who is foolish enough to let her husband have another wife. Basically, she gets what she deserves being an unhappy marriage or whatever. So there’s no mistaking where Hiram stands in April 1844 on the issue of Pygmy. So I included this in my book on Hiram Smith. And then when you and I did our um interview where you interviewed me about that book, lo and behold, you started having um listeners contacting you saying that that doesn’t exist like, you know, basically wondering if I just made it all up because the,
[1:16:20] Michelle: that I included on the ID,
[1:16:24] Whitney: that’s what you get. Now you get a 404 page. It is not found anymore. So you reached out to somebody to figure it out do you want to share that?
[1:16:35] Michelle: So I actually found it. Yeah, I was up in the middle of the night doing research and I went to my good old trusty link and I got the 404 me error. So I was like, what’s wrong? And I don’t feel like I’m very technologically. I don’t have a lot of confidence in my technological skills. So I was like, what am I doing wrong? So I reached out on some social media and the Telegraph group and I was like, someone help me, I, I need this source right now. And so someone was like, oh, here it is and gave me. So the original source, the link says six through ninth, right? It’s April 6th through ninth. On the original source, the one he gave me was six through eight and I was like, oh, I must have made a mistake. So I clicked on the six through eight source which is on the, on the um Joseph Smith papers and lo and behold, it’s that whole, it’s the um what’s his name? Thomas Bullock Notes of that entire um meeting of that entire conference, but it didn’t include Hiram’s speech. It ends before Hiram speech. So I was like, OK, what is going on? Why, why isn’t it here? So I reached out again and then someone sent me a video and I will put it in the links, but it has a great video that says they’re still doing it and talks about that, they removed it from the Joseph Smith papers and that, um they did it because so he reached out to the Joseph Smith papers and they said they did it because it wasn’t included on that day. Right? So I um went and found it on, well, you can still find it on the church history library, but the description for it on the church history library says very clearly that he was speaking on the eighth. And why would you not include it? Just because it was the ninth? That makes no sense. A sense anyway, right. But what, so the, so you talk about the history of this? I, I like, like, what did Brigham Young do with this speech? Do you want to talk about that?
[1:18:33] Whitney: So a lot of people maybe aren’t aware that when Brigham Young got to Utah, they started writing the church’s history and so they have a draft, you can see it on Joseph Smith papers. It’s the draft history of the church. And in there they take this speech and they go through and they’re making and they i since it’s a draft copy, you can see the edits, the things they make. Hey, we want to add something here. We’re gonna take something out here and they basically um are trying to change Hiram this, this sermon, they’re trying to change it into a prop sermon and eventually it ends up getting cut out totally and not included in the final copy of the church history because they just couldn’t make it work.
[1:19:22] Michelle: So, yeah. So in the, in the, in the Thomas B block notes and I have some questions because apparently Thomas Bullock was also one of these polygamy insiders, not, I should call them polygamy conspirators, right? They were the ones that were conspiring. So I think that he fudged it a little bit from the beginning because it’s ambiguous about says it says that Hiram was concerned. Well, he’s saying, look, my wife Jerusha died and you guys are using that to claim this polygamy nonsense and you better knock it off. Stop doing that, stop blaming on me. So he says, here’s how it was. I had a wife, we were married, she died. I was concerned about how I could be sealed to her. Joseph told me I could be sealed to her the same way you could be baptized for the dead. So my new wife, Mary said that she would stand proxy for my wife Teresa. And I think that Thomas Bullock left it already a little bit fudgy because it’s not completely, it’s there’s some ambiguity there that if you read the rest of Hiram’s talk, there is zero room for ambiguity, right? He would not have left this ambiguous at all. But in any case, then when they did the draft copy, they change it and they have uh Mary fielding his second wife saying I love you so much. I will stand proxy and she could be sealed to you for eternity and I will be sealed to you for eternity too. So, yeah, we have an explicitly being sealed to both wives. So they try to make that change so that they can include it. But instead they decide to exclude it anyway, that is actually a huge deal. The fact that all of these like more and more we’re finding articles printed in newspapers by Joseph and Hiram sermons given by Joseph and Hiram that are intentionally excluded, which means they’re disappeared. They are erased from history and that is fraud, right? That is like fraudulent history. So they took this, this um talk away the first time, then it found its way onto the Joseph Smith papers and it disappears again a second time. And so I was um confused and frustrated. So I had, I reached out to Brian Hales and he was really nice and tried to help me, but I felt like he was more gas lighting. So I ended up um doing a Facebook post that he was engaged on and we were talking about it. So this was one of the comments I made after this had all happened and I felt very lied too. So I said, um I just said my experience over the past week and this is when this happened. One to my amazement, I find an extremely important link that I and others have utilized often to be broken. Two. This happens right after, well, it was right after Brian Hills had been on a, on a podcast implying that Hyro Smith might be a bald faced liar. He had just said that on a, on a podcast three, I posted to some of my groups and asked and, and one of them finds that updated link, the one posted April 6th through eighth instead of sixth through ninth, I breathe a sigh of relief thinking it must just be my lack of tech expertise. Sorry, I’ve explained some of this already. Four. I go to the new link and find it is missing the one talk I am looking for. I will confess, this is not even close to the first time this kind of thing has happened including repeatedly getting surveys. Why I, you know, it starts to feel like they’re doing this attention like you just asked if something is going to be disappeared, right? And so when I keep getting all of these surveys saying, why are you um why are you doing your research? You know. So anyway, five, I post to ask more people and I’m given um a link to this video which I’ll post below which explains the supposed very unconvincing reason for the retraction that it wasn’t given on that on the right day, right? And Joseph wasn’t at the conference on the sixth six. Brian responds and says, that it was a simple mistake. Broken link. So sorry they hate when that happens. Nothing to see here. Stop with the conspiracy theories. All you untrained dummies. That’s basically the message that I was given. Right? Seven, I checked the fixed link that you provide and it’s the same April 6th through eighth one that I that I had already been given that Emits Hiram sermon. So he was like, it’s just a broken lane stop. Here’s the new one. So that’s the first like trying to gaslight. This whole thing is trying to gaslight, right? I ask you, I ask Brian again and he responds with a longer explanation of the same very weak reason given in the video. This speech was only at the elders conference that is not related directly to Joseph Smith. I will say again, this is ridiculous along with more condescending, put downs and calling me a conspiracy theorist, et cetera. 10. I go yet again to the catalog, the church history catalog where this is included still and read the description and verify that. In fact, Hiram’s speech was given on the afternoon of the eighth as I already knew and not at the special elders meeting on the night, which was the implied reason for removing it from the new updated link as well as the reason that Brian gave me. It is shocking to see that this is still incur in um occurring. So I recommend to the entire I said this, I was incensed when this happened. You were too, I think because our links are broken. It’s like invalidating as they’re trying to and it gets worse because um I recommend reading the entire description, but here’s the one section this speech is given April 8th the morning. Anyway, it talks about where it was given. And um finally and most concerning of all the altered speech, the one prepared, the draft speech that was prepared for the church history that was changed, the altered speech prepared for potential publication in the official church history but still excluded, which is why it is crossed out with crucial and dishonest edits is still available on the Joseph Smith papers project. So the the original is taken off, but the altered one is still available that somehow applies even though it was not at the right meeting. And so and Brian Hall multiple times on my post was trying to pass it on as the original. He kept posting the edited one claiming, look, you’re being ridiculous here. It is. Look, people like everyone, it was, this was a big post. A lot of people were following it and he kept posting it to anyone that was voicing sort of saying, look, it’s still there. This is all, this is all like nothing to see here, right? So it feels to me like the real intent is clear. It’s just the same as it was 100 50 years ago. Barry Hiram’s and Joseph’s actual words and only allow the edited words that fit what Brigham called the new order of things. And that Brian and others continue to promote as the only option allowed to be visible. I was really angry and I, you know, I went on to strongly recommend that they stop doing this and fix it because they are losing all credibility with anyone who’s willing to look at it. So that was a bit of a splurge, but that was a big deal that it’s like a really
[1:26:15] Whitney: big deal. And as an, and as an author, when you publish a book, I mean, what do I do now? I mean, that, that link has been used as a source numerous times throughout my book. And so, you know, I don’t know, it just, so here’s like when you say when you first went to look at it and, and it was broken, you thought it was you. So I didn’t realize um that this was intentional the first time it happened and the first time it happened to me was with my Joseph Smith book and it was the link to Joseph’s October 5th, 1843 journal entry where he is very clear that he, you know, was walking up and down the street with my scribe. Um Basically, we’re gonna try all those who are doing polygamy, right? On this law, Joseph forbids it. So I had somebody reach out to me after that book was published and said, hey, you know, this link is broken. I can’t, I can’t find it. I thought it, I assumed it was the natural order when websites update things sometimes links get broken. And so I went and found it again. Put it, changed my book and edited it to put in the new link. Thought it was all me thought it was just how websites work. Yada yada. And then this happened and I went, oh, maybe that first time was intentional too, you know. Yeah. And it just burns me up because here we’re trying to give the truth to people. Right? And I’m so grateful we even have the Joseph Smith papers because without it, a lot of this wouldn’t have ever been found. But again, don’t be afraid of what we’re finding, allow us to have access, be transparent, be honest about it and let us then see the original sources and make up our own minds or, you know, like, why are you so afraid of this truth getting out?
[1:28:16] Michelle: Right. And if you are hiding sources, that really is an acknowledgment that you’re lying like it just is.
[1:28:23] Whitney: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s October
[1:28:26] Michelle: fifth. Yeah. Yeah. That was, that’s a huge, that was, that was like the hugest find ever. Like, that’s what, that’s part of what broke this completely open. This Joseph Smith, right? Because we went from no, look like Joseph F Smith. The one thing he could find that Joseph Smith said about polygamy, is that it was that journal entry? And then all of a sudden we find the perfect, the same, like here was the original, here’s the edited, here’s the final, right? And it, and so for that to disappear too. So anyway, that when people say like, oh, this is ridiculous, this many people couldn’t be in on the secret, this, how many church historians are there? How many people are there out presenting? Right? And they’re all still doing this? And I mean, like, like we said, this is, these are some sources. I like I could bring up so many this ha in my research, this is the constant, this is why I spend more time on footnotes than I do on the actual papers or books because it is, it is the standard fare is the spin and the dishonesty. And so often they’ll quote from a source which we’re gonna see going forward, they’ll quote from a source while they’re leaving another part of the same source out. So they know exactly what they’re doing. It’s just anyway, it’s maddening. So OK, should we go on or do you have more? Let’s go on. OK. So this is fun.
[1:29:53] Whitney: So these are, these are images of my actual Joseph Smith papers, book notes and writings in it and just this is just to show that um but in the actual um document, right? The truth is there and then in the footnotes, the historians put their spin on it and want to make sure that we know, oh, hey, you know, like in this one they’re saying because this is the journal entry of Joseph saying that Hiram was decidedly against polygamy in every way. Then in the footnotes, they basically allude to, well, no, Hiram just wanted to just was trying to caution the elders not to discuss this topic. Like that’s all it was like, just don’t discuss this in public. Right? Again, just an example. And then the next page just shows where I, you know, wrote lies,
[1:30:47] Michelle: lies, lies, lies, right? Because it is when you are, when you study and you know the source, like now when I’ve studied enough now that I know exactly what sources they’re talking about in their narrative. And I’m like, are you kidding me? That’s what you’re choosing. So um I might have skipped something. So you if, if I’m going, if, if you have other things you wanted to talk about. So now we
[1:31:14] Whitney: were going, so you and I were going to move into just this idea that not, it’s not just Joseph Smith. So, so many people want to accuse us of just oh polygamy, polygamy, right? Like that’s the alteration of history. And unfortunately, it’s not, it isn’t just limited to polygamy and it isn’t just limited to Joseph Smith. I mean, our historians and authors of books are also altering history about other church figures. And so we wanted you and I wanted to show some things about Brigham Young that have been altered. And um, so I don’t know if you want to go into that, but I was reading a book called Mary Fielding um by Don Corbett. And in that book just, this is just a few weeks ago. And in that book, he’s quoting a letter that Mary had written to her sister Mercy and I’m reading it and it’s, and it’s talking about Brigham Young and Joseph Smith hiding from Moers. And I’m like, wait a minute, I’ve read all of Mary’s letters when I was doing my book on Hiram and she never once mentioned Brigham’s name, never in any of her letters, never once mentioned his name. So I’m like, I must have missed this letter. So I went and found the original again on the church history library site and I’m reading it and lo and behold, Dawn Corbett is quoting a woman named Susie Gates, who’s the one who, so he’s quoting someone else. Instead of just going to the source himself, he quotes her and she had written this article in 19, I think in 1916 and she had changed the name from Joseph and Sidney Rigdon to Joseph and Brigham Young. And the only thing I can think is just trying to do this faith promoting, you know, because it makes Brigham Young, you know, in the, you know, the right hand guy to Joseph Smith and, and what not, but I, I’m just like, why? And then Don Corbett perpetuates it by again. The only thing I can do here is he goes and looks at the original source and he doesn’t like the narrative that it’s actually Sidney Rigdon. So then he uses her article so he can quote her instead of quoting the original source.
[1:33:41] Michelle: It’s just so amazing. They’re just always little factual errors to just kind of pad the history, right? So this one though is a big deal. So this is Analyze a Web, right? She wrote wife number 19 and she became quite famous going on her speaking tour. She got a gumption. She divorced Brigham Young, right? And that’s, that was a big deal. And I think she sued him, right? Didn’t she try to sue him for um, some sort of settlement? Maybe I’m remembering incorrectly, but I think she did. But anyway, and so, you know, they had, it’s just, it’s just sad. She was 24. He was 66. It’s just sad. Right? So I want to play, he
[1:34:23] Whitney: was forced by her parents to marry him, right?
[1:34:28] Michelle: Yeah, it’s not a good story. So I’m gonna share um this little clip right here because, and again, I’m not trying to pick on people, but these are the historians that everyone says they’re the historians, right? They’re the super historian class that we all have to kind of bow down to and, and so here’s this clip, this is talking about Fanny Alger. So he’s giving us the evidence of Fannie Alger and he’s, and his first one is analyze a Webb who lived in Kirtland and was about 8, 18 at the time of the alleged affair, right? And then he reads her later recollection from the time that she was 18 in NAVOO during the alleged affair, Whitney, you know exactly where I’m going.
[1:35:13] Unnamed Historian: Liza uh and Eliza Webb who lived in Kirtland and was about 18 at the time, she um talked about the alleged affair which she later recalled.
[1:35:25] Michelle: So Whitney, how old was analyze a web during the Fanny Alger affair?
[1:35:32] Whitney: She was not even born
[1:35:35] Michelle: yet analyze a web. You can see right here was born the 13th of September, 1844
[1:35:46] Whitney: 2.5 months after Joseph was murdered,
[1:35:50] Michelle: right? She was born 2.5 months after Joseph was murdered. So Joseph Smith papers also lists Analiza Webb as an evidence for Fannie Alger. I do not know why John Hamer claims that she was 18 years old during the Fannie Alger affair. I I like like a simple little search. It takes 10 seconds to find out when someone was born. So that does not make sense to me. And they are all using her as a source which I think is like, and these are the people that were saying, listen to them this is part of what I had wanted to talk to John Ha about in our interview, they ran out of time. So it’s maddening and everyone just listens to them and thinks, oh, this is the source, this is the story. Right. Right.
[1:36:42] Whitney: So it is a perfect example of why you need to go to the source yourself and do a little detective work. You know, just like you did, you went and looked up, how old was she? Right. And, and then you went, whoa, there’s no way she could be a, a witness to Fannie Alger.
[1:37:00] Michelle: No, all she is doing is repeating things that she has heard because other people are saying them because it goes along with the narrative. So to claim and, and you know, she does go into quite a bit of detail about it and write, write it in a narrative form. But that’s because she was a good writer, telling a good story, the power of a good story like a right? And so anyway, it’s ridiculous. Like, and, and I guess I just want to say we’re trying like you have to know what question to ask that could be tricky, but we’re here trying to help everyone in that process. And I think you can gain people’s trust. There are people that I don’t necessarily always check up on, but they always provide their sources. And a lot of times I do check up on them, right? So I think, I guess what I’m trying to say is integrity matters and trust matters and these people have not earned our trust. So, if there are people that you want to just take their word for it on things, that’s great. It shouldn’t be, it shouldn’t be these historians. They, they have not earned trust in my opinion. Right. Ok. So this one is fun as well. This was also a new one from Don Bradley. This is from that same book you were talking about that scriptural items, notebook that Franklin D Richards recorded Hiram’s um Hiram sermon on Jacob Jacob chapter two, right? So let me play the clip of what I learned about. He
[1:38:29] Don Bradley: has a little notebook that he keeps called scriptural notes where he writes down teachings of Joseph and Hiram and others. He writes down that Hiram said to the High Council um that the law practiced in ancient Israel where a man would marry his deceased brother’s wife to raise up seed to him would be practiced again in these last days. Well, um that is not something that is explicitly in DNC 132 right. DNC 132 doesn’t say anything about the lever law. And yet it would make sense that at the time that Hiram was teaching DNC 132 to the High Council, he would have talked about other things supporting polygamy.
[1:39:17] Michelle: OK. So do you hear the claim that he’s claiming that? So this is about Hiram and the High Council. And if he read 132. And so this is a new source that Franklin D Richards, the same undated um scriptural items, notebook. And he claims that he said to this high council that this would have to come back. So, so let me add this back again because I want to read the full quote. So again, it’s undated. So we have no idea this could be anywhere between eight 41 to 1844. Hiram said before the whole, before the High Council that no prophet ever did transgress but was limited by the impulse of the spirit involuntarily also that the law that a man shall take his brother’s wife and raise up seed unto him as it was in Israel must be again established. So, so this seems kind of damning, right? Because Hiram is saying, look Leverett marriage is going to have to come back. So clearly, he taught DNC 132 this day in the High Council. So a couple of points, first of all, Franklin was just a young man who was never on the High Council. So this would have been at best second hand or third hand or just based on rumors. But what I think is especially interesting. So and and it’s, you know, it’s like there’s nothing to this other than it actually validates what Joseph and Hiram both said about this revelation and this meeting, right? Because both like, do you want to, you can fill us in on this if you want to
[1:40:48] Whitney: in the Nabu City Council. A year later, they talked about that they had read a revelation but that it had nothing to do with polygamy and that it was about former times and not current times. So that would validate that Hiram’s probably in my mind he was trying to teach them what lover of marriage was. But um not that I had and he said it has nothing to do with our day. So,
[1:41:17] Michelle: right. Well, Joseph said, if I’m, if I’m remembering this correctly, Joseph said that the revelation he received on marriage was motivated or inspired by his questions based on the, the events in the New Testament. I can’t remember if it was Luke 20 or Matthew 22. Mark 12 is recorded a couple of times. Maybe I have Luke 22 in Matthew 20. But anyway, where the sadducees come before Jesus and there’s a woman who had seven brothers all tie. So who’s is she in the next life? And that’s when Jesus says, you know, and so Joseph says that that’s what motivated his revelation that was given on eternal marriage, which is what the revelation was. And so let’s see, Hiram Smith can, this is from the June 8th High Co um City Council meeting, Hiram referred to the revelation read to the High Council, but it was an answer to a question concerning things which transpired in former days and had no reference to the present time, right? And if people can take the blinders off enough that he was just lying about it, like and see how this lines up perfectly and that it and that Joseph, we have him in other teachings both at the High Council and in his sermon he gave on July 16th that he’s talking about this revelation. So he said on the 10th that he spoke to show the falsehood of Austin Cells in relation to the revelation referred to that it referred to former days, not the present times as stated by cells. Mayor. That’s Joseph said, he never preached the revelation in private as he had in public, had not taught it to the highest anointed the church in private which many confirmed on inquiry of the passage in the resurrection. They neither marry or are given in marriage I received for answer. Men in this life must be married in view to eternity. That was the amount of the revelation. And so actually this this undated record by Franklin D Richards who wasn’t there validates. And it’s another voice to verify the truth of what Joseph and Hiram said, you’ll note, it says absolutely nothing of. And if Hiram were speaking this at the High Council, it’s in the future tense. He said this would have to eventually someday come back. If they were already living polygamy, it would have already been there Right. It’s like future, not now. And I think it was a mistaken version of what Hiram actually said, which was based on this lever teaching, which doesn’t need, which is a former times. This is why we need to know that we have to be married in view to eternity. And they were like eternal marriage, like you’ve said, was a big deal. That was a big teaching, that kind of shook things up. right? And so so, but what I think is also interesting is if we look at this, the first half of it, he ignores which says Hiram said before the high council that no prophet ever did transgress but was limited by the impulse of the spirit involuntarily. So Hiram is giving us the doctrine that a true prophet of God, the spirit will restrict. Like first of all, I think their natures like, like I think that they hopefully prophets have somewhat reasonably good natures to be prophets, you know, but in any case, Hiram’s Hiram explicitly taught that that prophets would be involuntarily restrained by the spirit before they could transgress. So I think it’s especially interesting to consider that da takes the second half of that clip that entry to try to say somehow that that Hiram was teaching 132. He acknowledges that it says nothing about Leverett marriage. And, and I do have to again clarify. He also says in that clip that Hiram was married to mercy like he, he says it was the next day, it was actually the day before when this is supposed to have happened. And that was a love marriage because it was his sister, his wife’s sister, like like Da’s definition of Leverett marriage is so all over the place that everything qualifies as a Leverett marriage when the the Old Testament is very specific about exactly what it is. It is a childless woman, right? Mercy had a child, right? And so that doesn’t work and it has to be the brother of the dead brother. It can’t be a sister of a sister like none of it works. They didn’t raise Children like they didn’t have Children. There is, there is zero like as bad as the evidence for any of Joseph’s wives. The evidence for any of Hiram’s wives is so much worse like it’s just really bad. So, so anyway, the fact that he’s claiming that is ridiculous, but then he ignores this first part and, and doesn’t say anything and this, I just want to play this part of this what he has to say about prophet God
[1:46:15] Don Bradley: chose. So even if they want to say well, like um just a Smith line thing about this is wrong, let’s say that it is wrong. Um Does that mean a prophet can’t do it? I mean, Peter denied Jesus three times immediately after he said, I’ll never deny you or whatever, if, if it were the case that just has been lying about this were something wrong. Um The idea that, well, pro if I can’t do that kind of wrong, God wouldn’t choose someone who would lie about something or whatever. Have you read the scriptures?
[1:46:50] Michelle: So, so he says that right after he goes on about, he points out that Abraham practiced polygamy and his family was not a picture of domestic happiness, of domestic harmony. Isaac and Rebecca play favorites with their kids. Jacob takes Esau’s birthright. Jacob’s sons are a mess. He points out that Ruben has sex with Bill Haw and that um I can think of far worse examples you could talk about with Jacob Sons and that Judah has sex with Ta Tomorrow, which is another great thing, right? And um and the interesting thing with the Judah Tomorrow situation that he brings up, that’s because Judah failed to fulfill the law of le marriage, which was the exploitation at that time, right? So he’s missing that entire point, right? But anyway, so he ignores all of these problems that all of these things that he brings up first stem from bad cultural practices, mainly polygamy. And then he ignores Joseph’s and Hiram’s actual teachings and goes on to say, yeah, Joseph was sleeping with women and lying about it. So what prophets can do bad stuff and still be prophets? I think that’s so ironic when he’s also quoting the Levi Richards source that
[1:48:09] Whitney: they’ve got to figure out a way to cut off our oxygen. So they’re now having to create new apologetics. Right. Right. For the longest time it was, you know, Joseph Li for the Lord. So now it’s turned into well, yeah. So prophets lie, prophets do bad things because you know, that’s really gaining steam, right? That Joseph told the truth about what he was really doing. And they want to say Joseph was lying for the Lord. And that’s ok because a lot of people leaving the church today over the issue of Joseph and polygamy. One of the main reasons is why, how can if he lied about polygamy, then he lied about the book of Mormon. He lied about the book of Abraham. He, you know, he lied, lied, lied, right. So I find it interesting though that the examples that Don gives, I mean, he gives the example of Peter. Peter wasn’t a prophet when he denied the Lord. He was, he was called to be the prophet after the Lord was resurrected. And after Peter had asked for forgiveness and repented of it, right? And so to me again, the stories of the Bible, the stories of the book of Mormon, there’s stories of people, real people like you and me, like everyone in this world that are just trying to learn how um to follow the Lord. And so then we like Peter, he had a, he had a great learning experience where he was devastated that the Lord’s prophecy about him, denying him three times came true and then he repented of that and then he was solid after that. I mean, solid solid leader
[1:49:55] Michelle: Joseph giving the manuscript away. It was a learning experience.
[1:49:58] Whitney: Exactly. Right. And so, yeah. So it’s just this idea that, I don’t know that that part of their presentation bothered me to know when to, basically because they’re tearing down, um, men of God who are called as servants, they’re bringing them down to the base level of human nature. And God sends us servants to help our lift our eyes up and to inspire us to um greater um potential to greater heights than we would normally do as a person living in a fallen world. And so that, that this whole part of their presentation still, it just bothers me. It, I mean, I know what they’re trying to say. They’re trying to say it’s OK that Joseph lied. Well, no, it wasn’t and no, he
[1:50:52] Michelle: didn’t. And I also think it’s interesting that they’re focusing on the lying and that so I have so many thoughts about this. Like, the lying was not as big of a problem as the like, like being so manipulative and predatory with 14 year old and cheating on your wife. And like, like, like, so what if he lied? And they’re like, Peter denying the savior under that circumstance, which was really a learning opportunity for him just like Joseph giving the manu script away. Not equivalent with, with sexually pre predating, predating is that the word 14 year olds, 15 year olds, right. Other men’s wives doing these power plays that they accuse him of then. Not only Joseph, but Emma who was also chosen, who was his equal in any way gets turned into a screaming banshee, uh, unstable. We now have people saying that she had emotion that she was mentally ill that she, um, was a murderer. She tried to murder him. She was, you know, this jealous uh awful woman. So this is who we’ve turned them into in order to protect this narrative, which I think we do in order to protect both Brigham Young and people now who still like this doctrine for those same prideful self serving purposes, I believe. Right? I agree. Yeah, it’s like also he has to go to Old Testament stories which are also troubling and abstract. Like he didn’t even get into King David. Let’s go to King David, right. There are lots of troubling Old Testament stories, but I’m thinking of the book of Mormon. I’m trying to think of an evil prophet in the book of Mormon and I don’t have one.
[1:52:38] Whitney: Yeah, it’s a really good point.
[1:52:40] Michelle: Someone can comment below like I think if you have to go to the Old Testament to justify all this bizarreness. The book of Mormon adamantly decries polygamy consistently. Also it tells us that prophets are actually men and women of God, right? And so, so I think that that’s what we should pay attention to. So I feel that there is this need to like here’s the fact you can have, you can throw one prophet under the bus or you can throw two prophets under the bus, right? You cannot have both Brigham and Joseph. And so this is the clip that does um I think of this all the time and I decided to include it on this topic. Perhaps there has been some
[1:53:28] Movie Clip: terrible mistake. No, Jane that won’t do. You’ll never be able to make them both good. There is just enough merit between them to make one good sort of man.
[1:53:40] Michelle: That’s so funny. So really anyone who reads very much at all of Brigham Young or looks into his life or I’m going to be doing an episode soon on mountain meadows, who knows anything about mountain meadows knows that Brigham Young is not a good man in many, many ways. And if we study polygamy, so Brigham Young can’t be saved to be a good man without problems, Joseph. I mean, you know what I mean? Without massive problems, Smith can be, but we’re throwing Joseph Smith under the bus in order to save Brigham Young,
[1:54:22] Whitney: it just, it’s just confusion and it’s not clear. But if you say, OK, someone did lie. So, you know, we have to make a choice like look at the documents, study the facts. Don’t study what other people have interpreted as the facts. Like you don’t even need to take Michelle or I’s word for it. Like we are trying to teach you how to think for yourself how to search. I loved how, you know, Michelle opened up websites and showed you how to search and how to look for the original sources and how to start figuring out for yourself, what reliable sources are, what they’re not. But ultimately, I think the biggest thing that people are concerned about, you know, family members um like this word radio episode, they made the statement, you know that if, if Joseph was telling the truth and Brigham was lying is essentially they’re saying, then what does that mean about Brigham and then the church today and then they say they made the same and then we see people lose their testimonies. And then what? And I think, well, you know, if your testimony is built on like, like there’s in my head, there’s like this image of what they’re saying, our testimony should be built on. So it’s like a stool with three legs and you’ve got a leg that’s on the church, a lake, that’s the apostles and a lake, that’s the prophets, right? And so if you take those out, your stool falls over. But I just want to remind everyone that the Lord um commanded us and he commanded Peter on this rock, you shall build your church. So we need to build ourselves on the foundation of Jesus Christ. And then we can see what prophets and apostles and faithful leaders, faithful fellow saints, faithful family members are just appendages that just add to that. But our foundation should be built on Jesus Christ and then we’re solid and we can stay solid and we can stay firm. So I think that it’s a valid concern if your testimony is built on the wrong foundation. But if you can get your, your testimony built on the correct foundation, then you’ll stay solid. And it’s not that it’s not gonna be painful. I mean, learning these truths and, and finding out things can be very painful, very disconcerting can cause you to lose trust. But um you can get through it and just if you continue to rely on the savior to help you get
[1:56:57] Michelle: through it, I love that. Oh yes, I completely agree. And it is a matter of, in order to trust God, it says it in the lectures on faith, you have to know who God is and you have to know that God like like you cannot know who God is and believe that polygamy is of God or the blood atonement is of God, right? Or that lying for the Lord is of God, you have to like be willing to open yourself up and it is so so worth it. You can let go of all that uncomfortable confusion from the clip we played at the beginning. So I think we only have, oh go ahead. I
[1:57:35] Whitney: was just gonna say so yes to, to kind of bring it back to what at the very beginning of this, we talked about, you know, that people have these things on their shelf, you know, Vernon, and I would call it our spiritual shelf and we would put these things up there. And for us, once we started being able to separate the church narrative or the, the history or whatever, or even the things of men and started trying to really come to know God, like our shelf became empty, like those just came off, right? And so as we’re trying to get to know God, his, like you said, the lectures on faith, a prophet’s job, a servant of God’s job is to teach us the correct character, perfections and attributes of God. And so that’s what their job is. And if, if you’ve got somebody teaching you things that aren’t the correct character attributes and perfections, then, you know, maybe you should question that and then like get back to the scriptures and to those things that teach us of the correct character
[1:58:41] Michelle: of God and learn to trust what the book of Mormon teaches us is the way to discern truth, the inner guide the spirit, the discernment that we all have. If you’re feeling that uncomfortable, uh I’m going to laugh at women’s pain because I’m so uncomfortable. I don’t know what else to do here. Maybe you should consider a different narrative, right? Sometimes truth can be difficult. But it, it like plant the seed just like we talked about with you, plant the seed, see what starts to feel good. What grows that is what the Book of Mormon teaches us is the way to find truth. And so ultimately, that’s who you’re relying on is God. So OK, I wanna share Whitney’s last slide. Is, is there anything else you wanted to talk about before we go
[1:59:25] Whitney: over the slides? They’ll be in the show notes because there are some that we left out that are kind of fun and, and then some that are informative. But again, like go to the sources, go to the links and start learning how to find the documents for yourself and how to read them and how to interpret it and you know how to find truth for yourself.
[1:59:47] Michelle: I love that Whitney and I want to put up Whitney’s last slide because I think it was great. So this is the end of our presentation and we are praying that we are getting closer and closer to the end of L DS polygamy of Mormon polygamy. That would be great. It’s time for what would this be actually the fourth manifesto? It’s time for the fourth manifesto because we had 1890 1904. What was it? 1920 22 when they actually excommunicated the final apostle. And so So we’re ready for the fourth Manifesto. That would be great. And, and everyone, let’s just excise it from our hearts, from our spirits, from our testimonies first and then whatever happens beyond that, we’ve at least got truth. That’s what matters. Whitney. You’re amazing. This was so fun. I loved this. Thank you so much. And I, I’m hoping that we will be able to work together. Whitney and I, I think are hoping that we’ll be able to work together more going forward. So thank you everyone for joining us. We’ll see you next time. I want to again, give a huge thank you to Whitney Horning for all of the amazing work that she has done on this topic. She really was a pioneer in the research that she did and the book that she published, it’s been inc an incredible addition to um to our knowledge base and what we need to know and what we are learning. And I want to thank her for giving me so much of her time and being willing to come and share this journey. She really is a great one to go to, to ask questions. She just has so much knowledge and experience on this topic. It’s really fun to get to talk to her. I know that by the end it was getting really late, we were both getting tired. So hopefully, you found this episode as enjoyable as part one, as I promised, there is more bonus content at the end of this one as well. So stay tuned for that and I will see you next time for our Temple episodes. Thanks for joining us. So we’re back for our second bonus content. The other thing we found as we were releasing these episodes and this one is crazy. And I don’t Whitney remind me how we started finding this.
[2:02:20] Whitney: Yes, you had found Emma’s and you’d done Hiram’s and then you contacted me. I don’t know, maybe a week or so ago and said, look at the second page of Hiram’s deed.
[2:02:32] Michelle: So this is about the deeds that we talked about in this episode. This is Hiram’s deed. I wonder if I can blow this up so you can see it better. So this is that hidden July 12th deed of Hiram’s that we mentioned in this episode. So this is the second page of Hiram’s deed, this deed. And if you look at this, you can see right here right in the middle. Hiram Smith is crossed out and above it in pencil. Emma is written in which is crazy and then it happens right here as well said Hiram Smith and Emma, it’s crossed out in different, it looks like it’s originally written in pen and then it’s crossed out in pencil it looks like and it’s written in Emma, which now if I can get this back, I can show you that even in the transcript, they include that you can see right here it has Hiram crossed out and Emma written in and it changes his to there because it’s Emma and her Children. So somebody intentionally changed. You can see that this deed also was, oh, I’m trying to scoot it over again. Like you showed me this deed was notarized right there in that same marker. So this was a note finished and notarized and then changed and Emma written in. So that’s what I saw and Marco Polo Whitney, it was like, what in the world is this? And so now you take it from there.
[2:04:04] Whitney: Well, and when we got looking at it, we also, we also noticed that this second page of Hiram matches word for word and the second page. So all of the lot numbers, the block numbers like it’s an exact duplicate. So then we were like, well, what’s going on? So we looked into in the Joseph Smith papers like where this deed was because as you mentioned Michelle in the episode, you mentioned that this is a completely hidden deed that it’s not in the deed book wasn’t recorded in the deed book. So I wanted to look at the, you know, where did the Joseph Smith papers get it? And all they mention is Joseph Smith collection in the church history library. Well, all of the digitized, all of not digitized and non digitized in the church history library catalog have cataloging numbers. So on the Joseph Smith papers, they could have easily put the catalog number. So that would be and the hyperlink. So it would be super easy to find. But they don’t, which I find upsetting and frustrating for those of us who are trying to find and navigate to documents that they could and they do on most of theirs. So I don’t know why they don’t on this one. So it took
[2:05:21] Michelle: me, it is also suspicious that’s also suspicious.
[2:05:25] Whitney: It took me probably two hours going through the Joseph Smith collections because there’s numerous collections and this one was hidden in financial papers. A lot of the collection will say deeds and then you can go click through the deeds. But this group of deeds was hidden in something that the church history library labels financial papers. So I just happened to think, well, let me just look there because I’m not finding it and I started clicking through it and sure enough there it is July 12th 1843. Hiram Smith is first and it’s completely like you said, completely written out with the notary. And on that one, on the church history library, it does on the second page have Hiram’s name crossed off and Emma’s written. So it is exactly what shows on the Joseph Smith papers. The next deed right after that is to Emma and now show this one
[2:06:28] Michelle: here it is. Let me do the same thing. Get it blown up for you guys to see. This is crazy. This is what Whitney found that just blew me away. So this is the first page right here. You can see. And it looks perfect. It has this. They both have typed. So that was added later, obviously 12th July 1843 typed on later. Then if we go to the second page of this one, this is crazy. So you said that it’s exact, it’s, it’s an exact copy of Hiram’s with these lot numbers except it’s not
[2:07:05] Whitney: finished. Yeah, not finished. Not notarized on the Joseph.
[2:07:12] Michelle: Yeah. Go ahead. Well, it ends with block number 160. And then you can see it continues on in pencil together with all and then it stops and that last line is pencil, a later edition and it’s an unfinished copy of Hiram’s deed. What? So you go ahead with what you say. I don’t
[2:07:33] Whitney: know if to me that seems the most likely scenario. So, I don’t know. Yeah, I mean, I started looking into, um, whatever Mary Mary fielding Smith sold after Hiram’s death. There are some court cases where she petitions the courts to allow her to sell some of the land, to take care of the Children because she’s so poor after his death. And I, I haven’t been able to find anything that matches exactly. So I was hoping to find something in a will or some kind of probate information that would help us know if these are indeed hires. And if Mary then had ownership of them, I haven’t been able to find that yet. I’m still looking. But to me, what’s very interesting is that Emma’s supposed deed? The one that’s supposedly Emma’s says it’s a draft copy and, and the Joseph Smith papers I believe, say that it’s in the handwriting of William Clayton
[2:08:37] Michelle: draft.
[2:08:38] Whitney: And then does it say look under source note or historical, if it says anything about who wrote
[2:08:44] Michelle: it, does it say it says William Clayton’s handwriting of William Clayton right there? Ok.
[2:08:51] Whitney: So go back to Hiram’s if you can because I want to show what it says for his source note.
[2:08:56] Michelle: Ok. That will be a little tricky. But it does, I will just tell you that on the Joseph Smith papers, it says the handwriting of William Clayton. It’s exactly the same as um Emma’s. I’ll go back to it while you’re talking though if you want me to. But
[2:09:08] Whitney: because I find it interesting, I think in the church history library, I think it’s unknown handwriting.
[2:09:17] Michelle: Yes. So in the church history library, it says that Emma’s deed is in William Clayton’s handwriting and it says that Hiram’s is unknown and it’s identical handwriting. It’s William Clayton’s handwriting of both and the Joseph Smith papers admits that I can share.
[2:09:34] Whitney: So to me, I mean, I don’t, I think we need to do a lot more investigating to try and figure out exactly what this means but I do to me it makes the deeds that William Clayton uses. You know, you, Clayton uses this deed and the church uses it in the Saints book. And in other sources to claim that the deed to Emma is proof that she was upset about the revelation that purportedly was given on 12th of July 1843. And that therefore, this is an admission that he was doing plural marriage. So he’s giving her all this land. And then, you know, we’ve got other people now claiming that, that these deeds, this deed proves that he was doing plural marriage. And so then they go and find all these other deeds to women. But here we’ve got Hiram’s which you found Michelle and you stumbled on, um, that proves to me that he was just securing the land in the church and he was just, people were just buying land in nus so that it was owned by the members that they could have land. I mean, just to me, it takes out the whole deeds as a smoking it. In fact, it makes everything with William Clayton even more suspicious that he would take a deed to hire him and rewrite it in Emma’s name to support his story. That’s what it feels like we have here.
[2:11:04] Michelle: Absolutely. And I, as I am going to go into this in more in depth in my episode on deeds, um, also Will Emma’s was, was registered with the County Register and then was, um, include was rewritten in a finalized version. Hiram’s wasn’t. And then in the trustee’s Book of Landings, I’m gonna show all of this. It does have all of these lots given to Emma. And the fascinating thing is Hiram’s deed right here. You can see it was finished, it was notarized later on. Someone went back in pencil and changed it to Emma. And at some point, the fact is with Emma’s Emma’s deed also in William Clayton’s handwriting, we don’t even know what day that was because it wasn’t finished and dated like Hiram’s was right. I guess it says it at the beginning, but it wasn’t ever finished and it wasn’t finalized. And so it looks very much like Hiram’s was the actual deed and there’s some kind of funny business going on.
[2:12:08] Whitney: Yeah, I mean, it definitely looks like William Clayton who was the one who’s handwriting it’s in, you know, we don’t have maybe the actual original or maybe he did fill that one out for Hiram and then it, it did, it served his purpose, but it also has made me wonder, did it not just serve a purpose for their polygamy narrative? But was it also a way to steal land? I mean, Mary Fielding Smith was incredibly poor. She was embarrassed at her um circumstances how poor she was. And so was it a way if they had Joseph’s papers? Was it a way to um put land in the hands of the 12 and keep it out of the hands of the widow. I mean, I don’t know. That’s one of the thoughts of that too. So we just don’t know. But it, um, it is very suspicious.
[2:13:04] Michelle: Again. We’re showing this to show the, the journey the detective work that we want everyone to join in. Just like we said last week, these, we don’t have all of the answers. But before you can find the answers, it’s important to know the questions. It’s important to know the problems to be able to point them out. So this stuff is just there to find as each of us finds it. I want to share one more time. The, um, that chapter 40 that we were talking about of Saints last week. So let me see if I can find it because it also includes the, um, the um story of the deed in this. It’s right before. So Whitney read the part about, uh about Emma worrying about what would happen if something happened to Joseph, what would happen if, but in this, it has the story about them crying together that Don Bradley quoted that we talked about that. He claims William Clayton said that they wept together. I just have to find it really fast. A few minutes later. Ok. I was actually chapter 41. I found it. So, um it’s not just chapter 40 that has the problems and this one also God must be, the judge is so upsetting, but I want to look for where it says this. Ok. So I’ll scroll up a little bit right there right there. Yep. I’m just going to go back a little bit. So this is talking about Hiram reading that. So it comes again just from William Clayton’s journal when you, that’s what’s valuable about knowing the sources, you know, where these stories come from and you know how credible they are or aren’t. But the poor people reading them don’t know the sources. So they just take this as the factual narrative that it’s spun as it’s, it’s really terrible. So this is, and for some reason, it says it’s the next day, which also is not accurate. All that William Clayton’s journal says is spent most of the day with Emma on the, on the um 13 because this is so so 12th, as I told you, you do not know Emma as well as I did these come from late. Um Clayton’s later affidavits, right? That Emma was upset. And then it says the next day Joseph and Emma spent hours in heart wrenching discussions. It’s so gross. All it says is spent much of the day with Emma sometime before noon. Joseph called William Clayton into the room to help mediate between them. What now William Clayton is the mediator
[2:15:38] Whitney: who’s a marriage counselor. I did not know that,
[2:15:41] Michelle: that add that to the like he’s, he’s he’s a clerk. Right. Um, both Joseph and Emma seemed caught in an impossible dilemma. Each loved and cared deeply for the other and wanted, the honor, wanted to honor the eternal covenant they had made. But their struggle to keep the Lord’s commandment was splitting them apart because that’s what God always does. God always splits up marriage. Emma seemed, and then you read that part but we’ll, we’ll go to the next paragraph. Joseph and Emma wept as they spoke. I, where is this sourced from? I don’t even know where this is sourced from other than it’s the same claim Dodd Bramley made. Don Bradley made again with no source. But by the end of the day, they had worked through their problems. And so this is the next day, it said this is the next day the 13th and yet the deed was written in, in Clayton’s for the 12th, right? So that’s another weird thing. Um, they had work through their problems to provide Emma additional financial security deed. Joseph deeded some property to her and their Children. And after that fall, he entered into no more plural marriages is what they claim. And they say it so subtly after that fall because there are at least four more that they claim after that. Melissa Lott and Fanny Young was an older one. But um, oh, there’s, there’s Demona Fuller, I say who it is. There, there are several that are dated for certain after this plus all the uncertain ones that they think were sometime before 1844. So, so they try to make, they tried to make it sound like this conversation was where it ended, but it continued for several months beyond this. And I
[2:17:27] Whitney: love how they say deed did some property. He sold it to her. If the, if the deed is legitimate, she bought it with $10,000. So it wasn’t just like giving gifting it to her.
[2:17:43] Michelle: And obviously, since they were married it was just a,
[2:17:46] Whitney: it was like, it just goes, that deed goes on and on and on and on the amount of property. So, so first of all, I don’t, I don’t think it’s a legitimate deed like what you found or what you discovered. I just don’t think it’s legitimate.
[2:18:01] Michelle: Well, then, then you finding that Emma’s wasn’t finished because it goes, her final one goes on and on. But the draft doesn’t, it just stops because they never finished it. Which is hilarious. Yeah. And you know what, I’ll bet that’s why they note it as draft. I’ll bet you anything. That’s why it says draft because it’s not finished. There’s no reason that Hi Rooms should be listed as a draft because it is finished and notarized. It was the actual finished, finalized deed. Emma’s was a draft that’s really interesting that they have List Hiram as a draft as well.
[2:18:35] Whitney: But just, you know what I so many times I wonder what would have happened if Emma would have retained all of Joseph’s papers and belongings, you know, what, um, how much cleaner and clearer things would be? Absolutely.
[2:18:53] Michelle: Yeah. Ok. Oh, that’s a really good question. Oh, all of the, what ifs, I just, always, the more I study this, the more I, like, want to go back in time and talk to, you know, talk to them. But, but also at the same time, I almost feel like we are like, when we’re finding these things, it feels, in fact, I was, I was telling Whitney before we started recording that just we, uh my husband and I went to Salt Lake overnight for our anniversary just this week. And we went to the Church History Museum, the Family History Museum, I think it’s called. And it was just an incredible, incredible experience because they have this whole floor dedicated to the life of Jose, to this foundation, founding of the church. And you walk through these areas about Joseph’s life and about the different things that happened. They have a life size little scale room of the um liberty jail. So you can go in and see where they were in prison. It wasn’t cold like it should have been a wall, you know, but you can go in and see like it really gets you to see um the sacrifice that, that this family in particular paid, you know, because nobody paid a higher price than Joseph and Emma and Lucy and you know, and Hiram and, and um so you, so you go through and then all of a sudden you turn into the NUS section and um I was already touched, but as soon as I turned into the NUS section is when I just, I’m sure the missionaries thought I was overwhelmed by the spirit, but I was so upset because all of a sudden it’s about the struggle with polygamy. And um and the first thing I saw is this three pictures on the wall of Emma and Mary Fielding Smith and then Lucy and just um II, I probably should pay more attention to Mary. I don’t feel as connected to her because I haven’t studied her as much. But Emma and Lucy Mann, do they have my heart? You know, and it has the pictures of those three women and then a little placard below them. And Emma’s is all about her struggle to accept polygamy. And I just, I, I just, it was so hard to see how embedded this narrative is, you know, like, man, we’ve got our work cut out for us and I don’t know if, if the church will ever change. But um but I think the work we’re doing is important just the same.
[2:21:17] Whitney: I do too because, you know, the scriptures tell us, I mean, and you, and you’ve been um really, you’ve had an episode, you know, about records, right? And the scriptures tell us what’s recorded on earth is recorded in heaven. And so I very much felt like the books I wrote were writing and recording my beliefs and my testimony. I feel like your work you’re doing with these podcasts, you are writing your record, that will be your testimony in heaven. And I don’t, I can’t think of a greater work that we could be involved in than to defend the character of God because that, that really is, I mean, I know that we talk about that and I, I just don’t think people really, really maybe comprehend and get it that that’s really what we’re doing. And so I just feel so honored and grateful that you’ve invited me on and that we’ve become friends and that we get to labor in this work together. And I hope that we are, you know, the scriptures, tell us that if we labor all our days and we bring save one soul unto repentance, how great will be our joy. And I think if we’ve just made a difference, even in one person, let alone 1020 you know, 100 1000. I mean, I just, I feel so humbled to have this, um this calling placed upon my heart that I, and I know I don’t do it perfectly and I know I could do it a lot better. And I know that if I could rewrite some parts of my book today, I would because as this episode proves in this bonus content, more data continues to come forward, more evidence, more proof that helps us understand what really was going on in the real story. And I’m with you. I just think over time, I don’t know what it is about women who are powerful and godly that mankind wants to tear down and minimize and put in this little box. And so that’s what they’ve done to Emma. They, they had completely minimized the woman. She was the daughter of God, the um warrior, she was for truth and righteousness. And they’ve minimized her down to this little woman who wept because she couldn’t handle her husband committing adultery, right? Really? Really? You know, and so it’s just I, I am so grateful to be a woman called to defend the honor and the character of other women. It’s, it’s just I really appreciate you being the warrior by my side and all the work you’re doing like you, you just do incredible work. So thank you for everything you’re doing and the sacrifices you and your family are making so that you can bring us this content.
[2:24:16] Michelle: Thank you so much, Whitney. That means so much to me and I, and I want to tell all of our listeners how it is really fun to have a partner in crime, right? It’s really fun to have Whitney or Karen that I can Marco Polo or text and be like, oh my gosh, you know, like because when you see these things, it is like, it’s like too much to contain to yourself because every new discovery and so for those who are also engaged in this work, try to like even in the comments, wherever, try to meet up with people. If you at least have one or two, what, what is the scripture where two or three are gathered in my name? There will my spirit be also, of course, I did all of this on my own for years and years. But it’s so fun to have um people that you can, you know, that you can be engaged with in this. So, so try to meet up and at least get one other person that you can, you know, talk to or join the Facebook groups, join in the comments here because it’s really fun to share the discoveries to, you know, to have. So because every discovery that we’ve made, everyone else has to make, right? Whether they make it in your book or in my podcast, like you’re going to have constant discoveries along this journey. So, and then please show your discoveries with us, let us magnify them
[2:25:34] Whitney: because I love how everyone looks, things a little bit differently. And so I have learned so much. There’s been times when I wanted to be like, oh my gosh, how did I miss that when Michelle’s breath is not? And I’m like, oh, that was so obvious and I just never saw it in that angle. I still saw it as maybe an anti polygamy comment or document. But like, yeah, I, I love just the the community working together and how everyone approaches things in such a unique and individual way and God speaks to everyone. And so I just love the voices. I love the different ways to look at things and that it’s just beautiful. I just am so grateful
[2:26:18] Michelle: it is. This has been a fun j blood sweat and tears. It’s so much work, so little sleep, so many hours, but it’s wonderful. So I want to thank all of you for sticking with us. Thank you again, Whitney for both of these episodes and both of these bonus contents. And next week, finally, the Temple episode, which was going to be the fourth part, it’s now gonna be the third part. Everything gets mixed up with the fourth part will be coming. So stay tuned. It’s all gonna come in time. Thank you. And we’ll see you next time.
