How would we know?

BYU is at the forefront of DNA lineage tracing. Isn't that like the fox guarding the henhouse? If a living descendant unrelated to Emma were found, they would be bought off thanks to the church's deep pockets.

We would know exactly how we know the vast majority of historical facts: through written documents and witness statements.

Ok so where are they now?

Or to take a more sinister view, did cleaners like Porter Rockwell tie up loose ends?

I know you don't like wild speculation, but it's so much fun.

This is a repeat:

According to Wikipedia, 12 individuals have been identified as "Kids of Joseph Smith." Wikipedia goes on to say:

"As of 2007, there were at least twelve early Latter Day Saints who, based on historical documents and circumstantial evidence, had been identified as potential Smith offspring stemming from plural marriages.

"In 2005 and 2007 studies, a geneticist with the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation stated that they had shown 'with 99.9 percent accuracy' that five of these individuals were in fact NOT Smith descendants . . .

"The remaining seven have yet to be conclusively tested, including Josephine Lyon, for whom current DNA testing using mitochondrial DNA cannot provide conclusive evidence either way. Lyon's mother, Sylvia Sessions Lyon, left her daughter a deathbed affidavit telling her she was Smith's daughter."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism_and_polygamy

As detailed in the other thread, those documents exist and their provenance is clearly established.

I have no problem with people challenging the consensus if they, like vahn421, formulate hypotheses and then scrutinize the evidence to see if it adds up. Rarely, but invaluably, such re-evaluations result in better conclusions.

And no, Porter Rockwell did not knock off the women who claimed to have been JS's plural wives. Many of them outlived him by years.

Step one.

How do we know all of Emma's children were fathered by Joseph?

Wow. That's a good question.

I don't recall anything about this either, but could there be a vasectomy done back then (with the right doctor wink wink). If you want to screw around, get fixed first!

I think women mostly got away with lying about who fathered who back then. There's no reason to presume Emma was a saint (pun intended).

I laughed when I read this, could be.

I may be reading too much into Heartless's post, but I inferred more than just that.

I thought he was calling into question the whole basis of our discussion. The truth is we don't know if Emma bore another man's children and it would be virtually impossible at this remove to disprove the possibility. By the same token, there's no way to identify all possible JS offspring let alone conclusively examine their DNA.

Proving a negative with DNA is damned hard. And meanwhile we have the contemporaneous evidence from the Laws, Thomas Marsh, the Expositor crowd, a number of the plural wives, the no-I-won't-be-your-plural-wives like Sarah Pratt, etc. Dallin Ox made the point well.

So yeah, for me Heartless's post simply and brutally indicated that we're largely dependent on traditional evidence to answer the question. The genetic piece could be helpful but we aren't even asking the proper questions.

gr gr (however many it is) grandmothers are all the first wives. So while DH has polygamous gr gr grandmothers...(everyone of his ancestors in the same generation except for one nevermo branch, were polygamous), they were all first wives; how can that be?

I mention this because I have serious doubts about family trees within Mormonism. In the case of our own family, a perusal of "familysearch" shows that numerous people have submitted genealogical files for DH's TBM father's ancestors. At some point, someone tied in a direct ancestor from the 18thc with absolutely no evidence (except first names)to connect them. Despite the fact that I and others have pointed out this error, it continues to be repeated with new trees submitted to multiple sites.

What a tangled mess.

Have felt for some time that no kids from Joeys Polygamous wives will show him as the father. Most likely Joe was sterile. Emma had kids fathered by her other lovers.

...Emma had other lovers who fathered her children attributed to Joseph. The work of raising children back then was much tougher than it is now (and now it's still pretty tough), and word of her own philanderous exploits would surely have been the gossip of the early Mormon church back then. One must also keep in mind that women back then did not have the wink, wink nudge, nudge that men had when it came to extramarital affairs. Finally, one must deal with the laws back then that viewed women as the property of their fathers and husbands. If Joseph ever found out that she did have an affair (and a careful eading of D&C 32 says she was thinking about it), he literally could have gotten away with murder in his efforts to suppress her activities.

+1

The latest estimate I can find for the number of wives JS had is 49 - although not all come with clear documentation. Forty of them were in the last 3 years of his life.

That works out to about 13 a year - or one a month.

My sense is that many of the women were one night stands. If JS was as popular as it seems, perhaps some of the gals jumped at a chance to be JS's "one and only", an aspiration something like Monica Lewinsky's elation at being chosen by a very important, high profile, influential man.

I picture a young polygamous wife waiting by the window, wearing her best frock, while she patiently but anxiously yearned, hoping for a letter suggesting a rendezvous.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2023 12:41PM by Twinker.

Using ChurchCo’s doctrine of “sealing”, Heber J. Grant is considered to be Li’l Joe’s son. BH Roberts, in his Comprehensive History, indicates that Grant’s mother, Rachel Ivins Grant, was sealed to Li’l Joe in 1855. Such sealing, according to Roberts - and the church, which approved the work - cuts Heber out of his father’s - Jedediah Grant - lineage and pastes him in Li’l Joe’s.

Rachel Ivins was born in New Jersey and was converted there by Jedediah Grant. At the age of 21, she left NJ and arrived in Nauvoo in 1842, but returned to NJ in 1844, citing differences with polygamy. She trekked to Utah with other Mo relatives in 1853, and then became a poly wife to Jedediah Grant.

While in Utah and suffering from dire poverty, Rachel petitioned ChurchCo for a stipend, claiming that as a more-than-sealed- to wife of Li’l Joe, she was entitled to such. In her appeal, I believe she told Utah Church leaders that she was made preggers by Smith, or at least did the conjugal with him.



My opinion:
Rachel is not listed as an Official poly wife - sealed to Smith while the latter was alive, as there is no documented proof. However, I believe she left Nauvoo after being approached by Smith to have a poly-affair-sealing with him. Maybe she did have a conjugal relationship with Joe, but left Nauvoo either out of guilt or pregnancy. If the latter is the case, she likely wanted the support of her NJ relatives when giving birth. Maybe the pregnancy - if there was one - ended in a natural or induced abortion. Maybe a child was born, then adopted out. Who knows?

More opinion: Utah Church leaders knew that Rachel was a -chosen-by-Smith, conjugal wife, and was therefore “special” or elect. Accordingly, The Presiding Brethren, selected Heber as a new apostle, as he was considered to be a direct-line Smith, despite his birth surname. The thinking then required a true Smith - not a re-org, apostate Smith - to be with other Smiths in the governing counsels, such as Jo F.and George Albert.

The last general authority Smith was Eldred G. Smith, who died at age 106, in 2013. He was church patriarch from 1947 to 1979.

Rachel originally left Nauvoo because she was appalled by the very idea of polygamy. I guess at some point she changed her mind, because she returned to Nauvoo.

When she returned, she agreed to marry Jedediah Grant. BY was supposed to marry them, but at the very last minute BY decided to seal Rachel to JS, who was dead by then. JJedediah would be her time-only husband, but all children of the marriage would really be children of JS. I think Rachel was his 14th wife.

HJG was Rachel's only child, and was born after Jedediah died, due to a cold brought on by all the baptizing he did during Reformation Fever.

After Jedediah died, BY decided that all of Jeddy's 14 wives should marry Jeddy's no-good alcoholic brother. Rachel described it as the worst period of her life. After a while even BY could see this just wasn't working, and the wives could go their own ways, and not have to sleep with that alcoholic creepy husband that was forced on them.

Anyway Rachel comes across as a hardworking, Puritanical spinster-ish New England lady. She didn't get any financial help from BY, but she was very close to her son, who helped her make a living sewing. He worked the sewing machine treadle while she guided the fabric. HJG inherited his mother's work ethic, and had a huge zeal for self-improvement.

HBJ Grant was a hard worker from the beginning, being particularly tenacious when learning a new skill. He grew up absolutely believing in polygamy, saying at one time that he would continuing marrying new wives until one of them gave him a son. With one exception, his wives just kept on producing daughters. And then, his only son died at age 11.

HJG wasn't particularly religious, but this was Utah, and he came from Mormon Royalty, and JS was his REAL father, and BY took an interest in him, so it was more or less destiny that he would rise in the church, which he did, becoming the youngest SP ever, and, of course, eventually becoming church president.

By that time two of his three wives had died and he was now a monogamist. His views on polygamy had changed, and he was now virulently anti-polygamy. I think it had something to do with respectability. He had figured out that much of the world thought polygamy was just plain tacky.

But there are tantalyzing hints that HJG had other wives, and had children by those other wives. On this very forum, someone posted that a man, bearing a striking resemblance to HJG, who had a distinctive look to him, claimed to be Grant's son, by his secretary, who was a secret plural wife. Who knows? This man came across as feeble-minded, which made me think of HJG's later dictum that the WORST children in the world came from polygamous unions. VERY unkind for HJG to say that, considering he had fathered many children by his three wives.

ANyway HJG's striking turnabout on the matter of polygamy is something I would like to know more about. Grant was a child of polygamy, and had at least three wives, probably more.

But one of Grant's goals was to make Mormonism respectable, and to do that, you needed to ditch polygamy.

Wish someone would write an in-depth biography of Grant. Grant was a compulsive journal-keeper, so should be plenty of primary material

Oh, to answer the original question, HJG, was a child of JS by someone other than Emma, by Mormon standards, if not by the world's standards.

Thanks everyone for the answers. I revisit my conclusions from time to time. Where can I read up on Joseph's skirt chasing?

Grant Palmer is a great source.

https://www.mormonstories.org/podcast/324-326-grant-palmer-on-sexual-allegations-against-joseph-smith-william-and-jane-law-and-his-resignation/

You can't beat "In Sacred Loneliness," which is very readable, and well documented.

It is also very respectful of the women he describes.

If the woman in question thought that being a plural wife of JS, was the most sacred wonderful celestial thing that ever happened to her, he makes that clear.

If she thought she was the victim of a hideous con, he also makes that clear.

Even though it is a VErY long book, I have read it twice, just because it is so fascinating.

One of the women, whose last name is Lightener, claimed there were many children of JS living in Utah, but they went by different names.

Many of JS's "wives" were already married (which mean JS wasn't espousing any "virgin") so if they got pregnant, everyone would assume that the father was her husband.

Sarah Pratt never married JS, but she gives an account of what it was like to be "courted" by him.

Oh, and JS wrote, by his own hand, a letter to Helen Mar Kimball setting up a romantic rendevous, with his latest and youngest wife.

So yeah, couple all that with Section 132, and there is no doubt at all that JS, was a proponent of Celestial Marriage, which would get you into heaven, but make the lives of women hellacious while they were here on earth.

So Emma and Joseph were swingers and Joseph shot blanks. Emma got pregnant from other men. I must say. It get’s creative in here.

Did Joseph and Emma ever get the clap?

All the affidavits that claim Joseph Smith practiced polygamy come from the Utah church and it would have an interest in saying Joseph Smith did because they practiced polygamy.

Emma Smith and Joseph Smith III denied Josep Smith ever practiced polygamy. The RLDS Church held that position until they wanted to mainstream and eject the Joseph Smith parts of the church. Then they sided with the LDS in Utah.

Church history is a real rabbit hole because people get so emotional about it and it does affect all the organizations involved. The LDS church has to protect Brigham Young or the church suffers. You protect Brigham Young by saying Joseph Smith practiced polygamy. So much of this is political.

I'm willing to believe church historians dragged in Joseph to justify Brigham Young's polygamy. You can't hide 56 wives and the Beehive House.

Joseph could have been fixated in pre-pubescence, like Michael Jackson. As a result, his relationships with his "spirit wives" weren't necessarily sexual.

However, Joseph's 1830s romp in the barn with Fannie Alger doesn't sound like innocent wrestling. It sounds like Joseph was a sicko.

I just don't understand why the statements of the women involved, and JS's male enemies, is treated as incredible while the statements of Emma and is regarded as genuine. William Law left the church over this. He did so expressly, during JS's life, and at great cost to him and his wife.

I am aware of no other historical question in which such a strange double standard is applied.