Far be it for me to speak ill of the dead (that seems to be the job of historians, at least when it comes to Joseph Smith) but I have to again say how often I am truly astonished at what appears to me to be incredibly shoddy work of highly respected historians. D. Michael Quinn is often given near godly status, with his word being unquestionable. Citing him seems to be as good as citing actual evidence. I have seen this time and time again. While I am certain he did a lot of excellent historical work, I object to the status he is given and I refuse to put him on a pedestal and take his claims as good enough. (Recall as just one example, he knowingly cited a known Hoffman Forgery in his 1994 book, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power. I discussed this in this episode. See also this Fair Mormon article)
Here is just the latest of many examples. One of the many rabbit holes I’m currently going down involves the marriages of Newel K. Whitney. The note from Joseph to Newel and Elizabeth is the one piece of contemporaneous evidence relied on to prove Joseph’s polygamy. That in conjunction with the forged Whitney revelation is what many historians think of as the most certain proof of Joseph’s polygamy.
But, if the Whitneys were taught “the principle” in 1842, and gave their 17 year old daughter to the 38 year old Joseph (even sneaking with her to his one room, where they stood by watching their daughter’s first sexual encounter) I wondered why Whitney didn’t yet have his own plural wife. After all, Heber C. Kimball had married Sarah Peak Noon two years before, supposedly giving his teenage daughter to Joseph.
In contrast, I found that Whitney married his first plural wife, Emmaline B. Wells, a year after Joseph’s death (when he could be convinced of “the principle” by the already polygamist apostles.) However, I started to see claims that he had married a plural wife named Olive Bishop in 1844 (no date given.) When I tracked this to its source, I found it came from a 1978 Ensign article by D. Michael Quinn. “The Whitneys gave their daughter into the system of plural marriage and received into their family other plural wives. Newel K. Whitney was almost fifty years old when he entered plural marriage. He subsequently married Olive M. Bishop in 1844; Emmeline B. Woodworth Harris, Almira Elizabeth Pond, Abigail A. Pond, Elizabeth M. More, and Henrietta Keyes Whitney in 1845; and Ann Houston in 1846.”
Wow! That is a long list of wives for a man who died only a few years after Joseph, and who only had children with his first wife and Emmaline B. Wells. In trying to track down this list of wives, I came across a variety of marriage dates for each of them, for example, here. What I didn’t find was any evidence at all for any of them. The ultimate source seems to be Quinn’s 1978 Ensign article.
Here’s the problem, Quinn provides no citation. The entire paragraph quoted above has a single footnote at the end of it. Here is what it says, “Newel K. Whitney, Account Book-Diary, 1833–45; Emmeline B. Wells, Diary, 1844–47, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.”
There is no page number (not even a book number – both kept multiple record books.) The only way to try to track down the evidence Quinn relied on to compile this list of wives is to read through many hundreds of pages, through many dozens of volumes, of old account books and journals, trying to find whatever snippet of something or other Quinn interpreted as evidence of marriages. After wasting too many hours on it, I decided to throw in the towel, and write this blog post instead.
This is NOT good history. This is not how historians cite their sources, which is necessary to make sure others can verify their claims. This is either sloppiness and laziness, made possible because nobody ever checked on his work, or, it is idea smuggling, sneaking “facts” into the historical record, by making claims that can’t be verified because the sources are hidden. Either way, it is unacceptable.
Despite the many false claims and errors (including family search listing their marriage year as 1849, making their children illegitimate) the best information I have found so far shows that Newel K. Whitney married his one plural wife, Emmaline B. Wells, in February 1845, 8 months after Joseph’s death, fathered two children by her, and then died himself. Elizabeth Ann Whitney and Emmaline B. Wells were known to be sister-wives (in fact, Emmaline actually wrote Elizabeth’s “autobiography” at the request of Eliza R. Snow.) I have yet to see any other sister-wives mentioned in any source. There may be other wives (I certainly haven’t read every possible source from all of church history) but if so, it would be great to see some actual evidence, rather than just relying on D. Michael Quinn’s unsubstantiated claims.