I am curious as to the story I read several years ago. It goes like this: Elder Pratt went to Arkansas to visit one of his eternal wives, to whom he had been sealed in the temple. This wife was also married, in the state-sanctioned lawful sense, to another man. Something went wrong in Arkansas and the jealous husband put Elder Pratt on the wrong end of a gun and ended his life. That's all I remember of the story. If true, it illustrates some quite interesting attitudes of a Man of God regarding the law of the land, the institution of marriage, and maybe just entitlement.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2021 03:43PM by metatron.

Hector Hugle McLean, the still legally-married husband of Pratt’s polygamous wife, Eleanor McComb McLean Pratt. McLean stabbed Pratt three times in the chest, then returned and shot him in the neck

I first read this in about 1954
I believd it then I believe it now

And it was Pratt's death that partly led to the Mountain Meadow Massacre. The victims had come from Arkansas and someone spread the idea among the southern Utah saints that these Arkansans were responsible for killing Pratt.

Misinformation, delusions and hysteria in action.

Ugh. Never underestimate the craziness of Mormons.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2021 04:37AM by babyloncansuckit.

The "someones" who spread that false rumor were the members of the Fancher Train themselves, who were upset that the Mormons wouldn't trade with them (under edict from Young) as they had expected.

Your source for that howler?

Vortigern wrote:

>>The "someones" who spread that false rumor were the members of the Fancher Train themselves...

Given that all of the accounts for these events came from the murders themselves (other than the surviving children), this claim is strictly specious.

This is at the courthouse in Harrison, Arkansas. I remember going there in my teens and reading this. I had no historical context for it. My Dad read it and said it was a bunch of anti-Mormon propaganda. It is really awful that the chain of events that led to that occured. Parley should have kept it in his pants and not tried to disrupt a family unit. Lots of blood on his head for that along with the other mormons.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/courthouselover/2355053722

Now PPP (Sorry, I couldn't resist) is now a martyr for polyg as well as for MoMism...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2021 12:29PM by GNPE.

Thing is, I never even heard of this until I was in my mid-thirties or even older, after having grown up in Mormonism.

Metatron wrote,

>...and the jealous husband put Elder Pratt on the wrong end of a gun and ended his life.

Doesn't strike me as the WRONG end of the gun. Lethal end, sure, but not the "wrong" end!

How thoroughly Old Testament Biblical this opinion of yours. Brigham would approve of it if it were Parley with the other end of the gun.

And murderous as well. Pretty much an advocation for murder here.

...and make her your concubine. After all, you're an apostle!"

McLean's wife had already rejected her erstwhile husband and married Pratt. Saying that McLean had the right two years later to kill Pratt for that is the same as saying that
Eleanor was McLean's property irrespective of her wishes.

Pratt was in many ways a prat, but he was also murdered. Eleanor had every right to reject a wife-beating drunk and move away.

Did she know she was entering a plural marriage, or did Parley save that for later?

Why does this matter?

EB is obviously correct: whether her subsequent marriage was a step up or a step down, McLean had no property rights over her and no right to kill the man for whom she left him.

Putting that more important point aside, I don't know when she learned about polygamy. It was probably early on, since Pratt was one of the foremost publicizers of the practice when she encountered him in, I think, San Francisco. But in any case, she married Pratt in Utah and then later traveled to the Southeast on her own to collect her children and take back to Utah. She clearly thought her life was better and safer with Pratt than with the brutal and alcoholic McLean.

Sexism is so pervasive that it is probably invisible to most people. Pair it with murderous desires and it is just as bad in my opinion as things on the long list of bad things from Mormonism.

Like much abusiveness it lives in a larger context and draws strength from it.

Agreed.

Mormonism is a set of myths, which are no better or worse than most other myths except when they lead to misogynistic, racist, and other abusive behaviors. Those behaviors are much more widespread than just Mormonism, as we see often on this board, and do not become more palatable simply because they are divorced from that faith.

Speaking of which, the moment Eleanor McLean left her husband he lost all right to interfere in her life in any way. End of story.

parley parker pratt ~



went back to visit his cat ~



her husband fixed that ~

"oldelder" wrote:

>>Elder Pratt went to Arkansas to visit one of his eternal wives, to whom he had been sealed in the temple.

That's inaccurate. Pratt was traveling under an alias (because of an old murder warrant; that's a long story by itself) to help Eleanor Mclean "kidnap" her children whom Hector Mclean had placed with her parents. Eleanor claimed she'd "come back to her senses," but her actual agenda was to get the children, meet up with Parley, and return to Utah.

Pratt's "cover" was that he was serving a mission; Brigham Young's journal noted, "Parley's gone a whoring," He was captured, however, and charged with "stealing the children's clothes" (since Eleanor couldn't be charged with kidnapping).

BTW, if one reads PPP's Wiki biography. the bias of "Mormonites" (Internet LDS sorts) is apparent. Will Bagley's "Blood of the Prophets" is much more accurate, of course.

Hector Mclean caught up with Pratt in Arkansas after he was released and murdered him as noted. A hysterical Eleanor wound up back in Salt Lake after a high speed buggy ride accompanied by no less than Orrin Porter Rockwell (per Will, who did some outstanding research to uncover this historical tidbit).

Pratt's murder occurred in May, 1857. Four months later, the Fancher-Baker wagon train, whose members were from Arkansas), met its grisly fate in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

I was not cognizant of the relatively close relationship in time between the first murder and then the 9/11 murders. So thanks for that.