I am absolutely certain this has been discussed and there are probably some decent links. If it was a Dr. Peterson, why would anyone abort a Joseph Smith baby? I would think it would be a status symbol. And what if he was sterile and Emma's kids really weren't Joseph's?
Another's question. Why do some of the other brethren have real photos and Joseph we only have the death mask or a really doctored original or a supposed pic that looks nothing like him? Did he really exist? We have pics of Emma. Lots of them.

Edit: I meant Bennett. Not Peterson.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2013 06:52PM by snuckafoodberry.

somewhat of a mystery, I'm sure.
maybe one of the pre-eminent authors (Quinn, others) has a clue.

Polyg was 'to raise up seed', wasn't it?

would TSCC be 'glad' if descendants of Joe were found? IDK

Brigham had 54 wives and children with only 16 of them. So how come the others did not have children?

I have seen statements on this board that he had a doctor on "speed dial" to perform abortions. Don't have time to research it now, but perhaps others know.

It was rumored that John C. Bennett (JSJ's best bud and Assistant to the President for 13 months) performed abortions.

Not entirely sure if it was true or a smear. When people didn't keep JSJ's secrets they were smeared and condemned from the pulpit. John C. Bennett was a liability and needed to ostracized from the Nauvoo community.

Not that unbelievable that he just got "lucky".

Many of his brides may not have reached menses. Onset of Menses was later then, 17 years being average I believe.

He may not have slept with them often enough to impregnate them. He was getting a new wife every few weeks. It may have been a control issue. Once he deflowered/manipulated them he was off to the next conquest.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2013 02:22PM by crom.

We don't know that he didn't. I know at least one of his plural wives claimed her child was his.

From wiki ...

In her 1886 interview with "vitriolic anti-Mormon journalist W. Wyl",[23] Sarah Pratt alleged that Joseph Smith allowed Bennett, a medical doctor, to perform abortions on Smith's polygamous wives who were officially single.[24][25] In a public charge "that was likely true," according to author Andrew Smith, Bennett was accused by many of performing abortions,[26] including Hyrum Smith;[10] Zeruiah Goddard claimed Bennett told Sarah Pratt "that he could cause abortion with perfect safety to the mother at any stage of pregnancy, and that he had frequently destroyed and removed infants before their time to prevent exposure of the parties, and that he had instruments for that purpose."[1

snuckafoodberry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am absolutely certain this has been discussed
> and there are probably some decent links. If it
> was a Dr. Peterson, why would anyone abort a
> Joseph Smith baby? I would think it would be a
> status symbol.

It might have been a status symbol for a polygamous wife of Smith's to bear his child, but I doubt it would have been something Smith would have wanted widely known. Polygamy was illegal, and he was intent on keeping the practice secret from non-Mormon authorities. Also, didn't his real wife, Emma, not even know of some of the other wives' existence? Another woman's baby that looked like her husband would have blown the lid off of those "marriages."

Look up Josephine Lyon.

Even FAIR admits that the evidence makes it "plausible" that she was the daughter of Joseph Smith. (Whenever FAIR admits something embarrassing, it means the evidence for it must be absolutely ironclad!) Of course, the Morg has been very reticent to own up to that fact, since Josephine's mother Sylvia Sessions Lyon, was currently married to another man when Josephine was conceived... awkward.

“Just prior to my mothers death in 1882 she called me to her bedside and told me that her days were numbered and before she passed away from mortality she desired to tell me something which she had kept as an entire secret from me and from all others but which she now desired to communicate to me. She then told me that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith”
-Josephine Lyon (Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, p. 183)

As the quote shows, such things have always been among the Morg's best-kept secrets. (Notice that Sylvia said she had kept it a secret from "all others," presumably including even her poor husband!) Smith had many reasons to want to keep his polygamy and polyandry secret, so the women he slept with were almost certainly under strict vows of secrecy. He most likely has many other descendants that we are completely unaware of.

especially since the entire justification for plural marriage was ( SUPPOSEDLY) to raise up righteous seed/ Breed up more MORmONS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmhjgaB2Hi8

so here is the MORmON approach / *explanation* to the MORmON polygamy -really ADULTERY thing.

Joe implemented Polygamy, which is justified by the sore need for breeding, but when its too unpleasant to deal with sordid details of Joe's screwing around, MORmONS counter by saying that Joe Never actually had sex with his particular plural brides..... YAH! that makes sense ...... to MORmONS!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8j4QoewfLA

Stupid ass MORmONS!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2013 05:08PM by lucky.

Joseph was firing blanks and the kids with Emma he thought his own were her getting a little on the side out of revenge?

PLENTY of ways to have SEX that don't risk pregnancy...

think about it...

different holes you know...

they probably were aware of them back in the 1800s also.

Sarah Pratt provided plenty of info. about JS' dalliances with married and single women and teenage girls to writer Wilhelm Ritter von Wymetal (his pen name was W. Wyl). The following text are excerpts (on pp. 54-62) from his 1886 book "Mormon Portraits or the Truth About the Mormon Leaders From 1830 to 1886: Volume First, Joseph Smith the Prophet. His Family and His Friends. A Study Based on Facts and Documents":

"Everybody knew in Nauvoo that the Partridge girls lived with Joseph a long time before he got his celebrated revelation about celestial marriage [polygamy], dated July 12, 1843. The Partridge girls were very good-natured. After Joseph’s death one was sealed to Brigham and the other to Apostle Amasa Lyman. Joseph’s taste [for females] was of very large dimensions, he loved them old and young, pretty and homely. He sometimes seduced mothers to keep them quiet about his connection with their daughters."

-----

"The only ‘wives’ of Joseph that lived in the Mansion House were the Partridge girls. This is explained by the fact that they were the servants in the hotel kept by the prophet. But when Emma found out that Joseph went to their room, they had to leave the house."

-----

"I [Sarah Pratt] have told you [Wyl] that the prophet Joseph used to frequent houses of ill-fame [bordellos]. Mrs. White, a very pretty and attractive woman, once confessed to me that she made a business of it to be hospitable to the captains of the Mississippi steamboats. She told me that Joseph had made her acquaintance very soon after his arrival in Nauvoo, and that he had visited her dozens of times. My husband (Orson Pratt) could not be induced to believe such things of his prophet. Seeing his obstinate incredulity, Mrs. White proposed to Mr. Pratt and myself to put us in a position where we could observe what was going on between herself and Joseph the prophet. We, however, declined this proposition."

-----

"When Joseph had made his dastardly attempt on me, I went to Mrs. Harris to unbosom my grief to her. To my utter astonishment, she said, laughing heartily: 'How foolish you are! I don’t see anything so horrible in it. Why, I AM HIS MISTRESS SINCE FOUR YEARS!'

"Next door to my house was a house of bad reputation. One single woman lived there, not very attractive. She used to be visited by people from Carthage whenever they came to Nauvoo. Joseph used to come on horseback, ride up to the house and tie his horse to a tree, many of which stood before the house. Then he would enter the house of the woman from the back. I have seen him do this repeatedly.

"Joseph Smith [III], the son of the prophet, and president of the re-organized Mormon church, paid me a visit, and I had a long talk with him. I saw that he was not inclined to believe the truth about his father, so I said to him: 'You pretend to have revelations from the Lord. Why don’t you ask the Lord to tell you what kind of a man your father really was?' He answered: 'If my father had so many connections with women, where is the progeny?' I said to him: 'Your father had mostly intercourse with married women [pregnancies could be attributed to each woman’s husband], and as to single ones, Dr. Bennett was always on hand, when anything happened.'

"It was in this way that I became acquainted with Dr. John C. Bennett. When my husband went to England as a missionary, he got the promise from Joseph that I should receive provisions from the tithing-house. Shortly afterward Joseph made his propositions to me and they enraged me so that I refused to accept any help from the tithing-house or from the bishop. Having been always very clever and very busy with my needle, I began to take in sewing for the support of myself and children, and succeeded soon in making myself independent. When Bennett came to Nauvoo, Joseph brought him to my house, stating that Bennett wanted some sewing done, and that I should do it for the doctor. I assented and Bennett gave me a great deal of work to do. He knew that Joseph had his plans set on me; Joseph made no secret of them before Bennett, and went so far in his impudence as to make propositions to me in the presence of Bennett, his bosom friend. Bennett, who was of a sarcastic turn of mind, used to come and tell me about Joseph to tease and irritate me. One day they came both, Joseph and Bennett, on horseback to my house. Bennett dismounted, Joseph remained outside. Bennett wanted me to return to him a book I had borrowed from him. It was a so-called doctor-book. I had a rapidly growing little family and wanted to inform myself about certain matters in regard to babies, etc., -- this explains my borrowing that book. While giving Bennett his book, I observed that he held something in the left sleeve of his coat. Bennett smiled and said: 'Oh, a little job for Joseph; one of his women is in trouble.' Saying this, he took the thing out of his left sleeve. It was a pretty long instrument of a kind I had never seen before. It seemed to be of steel and was crooked at one end."

-----

"You hear often that Joseph had no polygamous offspring. The reason of this is very simple. Abortion was practiced on a large scale in Nauvoo. Dr. John C. Bennett, the evil genius of Joseph, brought this abomination into a scientific system. He showed to my husband and me the instruments with which he used to 'operate for Joseph.' There was a house in Nauvoo, 'right across the flat,' about a mile and a-half from the town, a kind of hospital. They sent the women there, when they showed signs of celestial consequences [a swelling womb, chiefly]. Abortion was practiced regularly in this house."

-----

"Bennett was the most intimate friend of Joseph for a time. He boarded with the prophet. He told me once that Joseph had been talking with him about his troubles with Emma, his wife. 'He asked me,' said Bennett, smilingly, 'what he should do to get out of the trouble?' I said, 'This is very simple. GET A REVELATION that polygamy is right, and all your troubles will be at an end.'"

Note: If interested in purchasing a copy of Wyl's volume, Abebooks.com lists two used ones.

I was just going to mention John C. Bennett. Always pays to have an abortionist on the first presidency. Especially one who goes around with a folded hook device up his coat sleeve, so he can perform impromptu "coat hanger style" abortions when called upon by the spirit.

1. Some of his wives were very young and I doubt they had started to be able to conceive. Typical age then was 16-17 to start having her period.
2. A mature woman is fertile about 1 1/2 days per month, so you have to hit it just right. If you are having sex 2-3 x per week, you have a 60% chance of conceiving in a year. Smith was on the road/run much of the time, and would not have the chance to spend much time with any specific "wife". Not surprising there were not more.

But he did. One woman late in life told her daughter that she was the natural child of Smith, according to the woman's mother. I think it happened more than we think, but without the means to check paternity, who would know, so long as the baby could have been the product of the real father? Besides, there was always that guy, John Bennett, to help him out.

Helen Mar Kimball was a child from a different wife, pretty sure Joseph had her....

Helen Mar was Joseph's 14-year-old wife.

He may have, and we don't know about them.

I think it is interesting that DNA testing has eliminated any likely sons born to JS's wives who were married to other men and would not have called on the services of Dr Bennett. I believe Sylvia Sessions Lyon's daughter Josephine (name may indicate something???) and one other woman are considered likely progeny, but the DNA testing I read about followed male traits and couldn't confirm that. For the modern LDS church, if they can prove he had no other offspring they can argue for asexual spiritual wifery more easily. I guess, though, that nutrition during hardship times would have reduced fertile days even beyond what the poster above noted. Plus, JS was a tricky guy. I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to time his visits for less likely days.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2013 10:55AM by vh65.

I think its facinating that the Morg holds up DNA like its infallible evidence when it suits them, but then shrugs it off as "unreliable" when it proves them wrong. (still looking for that elusive "Lamanite" DNA)

I don't imagine he slept with each one that many times. He just kept adding more wives.

Who knows how many wives he'd have ended up with if he hadn't been killed.

I was gonna say, if he was a typical player-type, in it for the sex, he probably only had sex once with a lot of these women. He made his conquest and moves on. A lot of guys are like that. They obsess with getting it with a particular girl, but once he nails her, he's no longer interested in her and he moves on to the next woman. I see it all the time, if Smith was a horndog, then that's probably what he was doing too. That's probably why he had so many wives. He wasn't satisfied after he finished with one. He just wanted to move on, but used the "marriage" as justification, and kept a tight lid on it all.

He bagged it.

Condoms were readily available, and if he had any faulty ones, he had an abortionist as one of his counselors.

It is true that rubber rubbers were not invented until about 20 years after he died, but condoms themselves (made of animal intestines, skins, chemically treated cloth, etc. etc.) were in common use during his lifetime. Condoms are as old as recorded history, including on 12-15K year old cave paintings in France.

Mormonis interruptus.