Copied From "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" by James B. Allen
Utah History Encyclopedia from the Utah Government services.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints ("Mormons") was founded by Joseph Smith, who was born in Sharon, Vermont, on 23 December 1805. In 1816 he moved with his family to western New York state, sometimes known as the "Burned-over District" because of the waves of religious revivalism that periodically swept over the area. Young Joseph attended revivals in the vicinity of Palmyra and became a devout believer in Christ, but he was also confused at the conflicting doctrines he heard. In the spring of 1820 he prayed for guidance as to which church was right and received a vision in which two persons (whom the Latter-day Saints accept as God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ) appeared to him, told him that he was to join none of the existing churches, and assured him that "the fullness of the gospel" would be made known to him at some future time.
Three years later in 1823, Joseph Smith claimed to receive a series of visits from another heavenly messenger, Moroni, who informed him of an ancient record, buried in a hillside near Palmyra. Joseph found the record, written on metal plates that had the appearance of gold, and later translated it "by the gift and power of God," and through the medium of two stones, the Urim and Thummim. It told the story of three groups of people who had migrated to America in ancient times, focusing primarily on one that arrived about 600 B.C., flourished for a thousand years, and received a visit from Jesus Christ shortly after His resurrection.
The translated record was called the Book of Mormon, after the prophet-warrior who had compiled it anciently, and it was published early in 1830. Its primary purpose, as stated in the preface, was to be another witness to the divinity of Christ. It soon became the major missionary tool for the Church.
Joseph Smith, meanwhile, became the object of scorn and criticism; but despite the harassment he gained a number of followers. On 6 April 1830 he and five other men organized themselves under the name of the Church of Christ. The church officially took its present name eight years later.
Mormonism came forth at a time when numerous "restorationists" were seeking to reestablish the original gospel of Christ, when "seekers" were moving from church to church in their quest, and in a religious atmosphere charged with millennialism and Christian perfectionism. Its restorationist message, along with the Book of Mormon appealed to many and the new church grew rapidly. One early convert was Sidney Rigdon, a restorationist minister. The conversion of Rigdon and most of his congregation paved the way for Joseph Smith to move to Kirtland, Ohio: Rigdon himself soon became a counselor to the Mormon leader.
Less than a year after the organization of the church, Joseph Smith led most of the Mormons from New York to Ohio, where there were already more than a thousand converts.
In Kirtland, a beautiful temple was dedicated in 1836. It was used mainly as a meetinghouse and schoolhouse, but it also became the scene of a various heavenly visions and intense spiritual experiences for the Mormons. Church leaders were also deeply involved in the economic development of the area, including the founding of the Kirtland Anti-Banking Society bank. Serious economic problems beset them, however, which contributed to a growing hostility against the Mormons as well as extensive dissatisfaction and apostasy among church members themselves. The bank failed amid the national panic of 1837, and this along with other problems eventually compelled Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, one of the most prominent of the Twelve, to flee for their lives to Missouri.
The Mormons were no more popular as a group in Missouri than they were in Ohio. Their seeming exclusiveness, their apparent liberal attitude toward free blacks, and old settlers' fears that the Mormons would soon dominate the area both economically and politically all led to their forcible expulsion from Jackson County in 1833. They found refuge in adjoining counties, but similar problems plagued them everywhere. By 1838 the conflict had reached a state of virtual civil war as mobs beat, pillaged, and murdered the Mormons. The state militia entered the fray to keep the peace but was clearly in sympathy with the older settlers, and Governor Lilburn W. Boggs issued his infamous "Extermination Order" requiring that the Saints either leave Missouri or be exterminated. Finally, in the winter of 1838-39, they were driven from the state.
The next place of refuge was western Illinois where, on the banks of the Mississippi, the Mormons purchased land and began to build the city of Nauvoo. Eventually some 12,000 people lived in this well-planned, industrious community of Saints, and hundreds of Mormons lived in other surrounding communities. Joseph Smith envisioned Nauvoo as a grand cooperative enterprise where all citizens would work for the well-being of the community and toward building the Kingdom of God. The spiritual and the temporal were so closely interrelated in the minds of the Saints that there was little distinction between religious and secular affairs. In the political realm, for example, Joseph Smith was able to obtain a charter for the city that made it practically independent of the state. He became mayor of Nauvoo, newspaper editor, and lieutenant general of the Nauvoo Legion. He promoted the economic development of the city and even became a candidate for the presidency of the United States in 1844, though he was murdered more than four months before the election by an angry mob.
The Saints built a magnificent temple in Nauvoo, intended not just for meetings but also for the introduction of the sacred ordinances now performed in all Mormon temples. Other distinctive Mormon teachings and practices were introduced in Nauvoo, but none was more controversial, or fraught with more far-reaching consequences for the church as an institution, than plural marriage. It began after Joseph Smith received a revelation in answer to his query about why ancient biblical prophets had more than one wife, and he was commanded to institute the same practice among the Latter-day Saints. In Nauvoo it was practiced secretly, and limited to a relatively small number of selected church leaders. It was first preached publicly in 1852, after the Saints were securely settled in the Great Basin.
Problems similar to those they encountered in Missouri continued to plaque the Mormons. Their growing political and economic strength, and rumors of polygamy, eventually alienated many of their neighbors and led to the threat of civil war in western Illinois and the intervention of the governor to try to avert such a catastrophe. Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were taken to jail in Carthage, Illinois, and there, on 24 June 1844, they were murdered by a mob. Some controversy ensued over who should succeed Joseph Smith as leader of the church, but by the end of August the large majority of Saints were convinced that the Quorum of the Twelve, under the leadership of Brigham Young, were the proper successors.
Persecution continued, and even as Brigham and the other leaders were pushing the temple to completion they were also planning the move to the West earlier envisioned by Joseph Smith. The exodus from Nauvoo began ahead of schedule when mob activity forced the Saints to begin crossing the ice-covered Mississippi River in February 1846.
This is the History of Polygamy by Jessie L. Embry - Utah History Encyclopedia
When establishing the LDS Church, Joseph Smith recorded numerous revelations he claimed to receive, often in answer to questions about the Bible, which are now included in the Doctrine and Covenants, part of the LDS canon. In answer to his question as to why many of the Old Testament leaders had more than one wife, Smith received what is now known as Section 132. Although the revelation was not recorded until 1843, Smith may have received it in the 1830s and married his first plural wife, Fanny Alger, in 1835. Polygamy was not openly practiced in the Mormon Church until 1852 when Orson Pratt, an apostle, made a public speech defending it as a tenet of the church. From 1852 until 1890, Mormon Church leaders preached and encouraged members, especially those in leadership positions, to marry additional wives.
A majority of the Latter-day Saints never lived the principle. The number of families involved varied by community; for example, 30 percent in St. George in 1870 and 40 percent in 1880 practiced polygamy, while only 5 percent in South Weber practiced the principle in 1880. Rather than the harems often suggested in non-Mormon sources, most Mormon husbands married only two wives. The wives usually lived in separate homes and had direct responsibility for their children. Where the wives lived near each other, the husbands usually visited each wife on a daily or weekly basis. While there were the expected troubles between wives and families, polygamy was usually not the only cause, although it certainly could cause greater tension. Since polygamy was openly practiced for only a short time by Mormons, there were no established rules about how family members should relate to each other. Instead, each family adapted to their particular circumstances.
Reactions from outside the church to statements about polygamy were immediate and negative. In 1854 the Republican party termed polygamy and slavery the "twin relics of barbarism." In 1862 the United States Congress passed the Morrill Act, which prohibited plural marriage in the territories, disincorporated the Mormon Church, and restricted the church's ownership of property. The nation was in the midst of the Civil War, however, and the law was not enforced. In 1867 the Utah Territorial Legislature asked Congress to repeal the Morrill Act. Instead of doing that, the House Judiciary Committee asked why the law was not being enforced, and the Cullom Bill, an attempt to strengthen the Morrill Act, was introduced. Although it did not pass, most of its provisions later became law. Out of a number of other bills introduced during the 1870s against polygamy, only the Poland Act passed, in 1874. It gave district courts all civil and criminal jurisdiction and limited the probate courts to matters of estate settlement, guardianship, and divorce.
The Mormons continued to practice polygamy despite these laws, since they believed that the practice were protected by the freedom of religion clause in the Bill of Rights. To test the constitutionality of the laws, George Reynolds, Brigham Young's private secretary, agreed to be tried. In 1879 the case reached the Supreme Court, which upheld the Morrill Act: "Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinion, they may with practices."
In 1882 Congress passed the Edmunds Act, which was actually a series of amendments to the Morrill Act. It restated that polygamy was a felony punishable by five years of imprisonment and a $500 fine. Unlawful cohabitation, which was easier to establish because the prosecution had to prove only that the couple had lived together rather than that a marriage ceremony had taken place, remained a misdemeanor punishable by six months imprisonment and a $300 fine. Convicted polygamists were disenfranchised and were ineligible to hold political office. Those who practiced polygamy were disqualified from jury service, and those who professed a belief in it could not serve in a polygamy case. All registration and election officers in Utah Territory were dismissed, and a board of five commissioners was appointed to direct elections.
Because the Edmunds Act was unsuccessful in controlling polygamy in Utah, in 1884 Congress debated legislation to plug the loopholes. Finally, in 1887, the "hodge-podge" Edmunds-Tucker Bill passed. It required plural wives to testify against their husbands, dissolved the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company (a loan institution that helped members of the church come to Utah from Europe), abolished the Nauvoo Legion militia, and provided a mechanism for acquiring the property of the church, which already was disincorporated by the Morrill Act. The Cullom-Struble Bill with even stricter measures was debated in 1889, but the Mormon Church helped to prevent its passage by promising to do away with polygamy.
All of these pressures had an impact on the church, even though they did not compel the Latter-day Saints to abolish polygamy. Church leaders as well as many of its members went into hiding--on the "underground" as it was called--either to avoid arrest or to avoid having to testify. Mormon Church President John Taylor died while in hiding. His successor, Wilford Woodruff, initially supported the continued practice of polygamy; however, as pressure increased, he began to change the church's policy. On 26 September 1890 he issued a press release, the Manifesto, which read, "I publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriages forbidden by the law of the land." The Manifesto was approved at the church's general conference on 6 October 1890.
Rather than resolving the polygamy question, however, according to one historian: "For both the hierarchy and the general membership of the LDS Church, the Manifesto inaugurated an ambiguous era in the practice of plural marriage rivaled only by the status of polygamy during the lifetime of Joseph Smith." Woodruff's public and private statements contradicted whether the Manifesto applied to existing marriages. As a result of the Manifesto, some men left plural wives; others interpreted it as applying only to new marriages. All polygamous general authorities (church leaders including the First Presidency, Council of the Twelve Apostles, church patriarch, First Council of Seventy, and Presiding Bishopric) continued to cohabit with their wives. Based on impressionistic evidence in family histories and genealogical records, it appears that "most" polygamists followed the general authorities' example.
Neither did all new plural marriages end in 1890. Although technically against the law in Mexico and Canada, polygamous marriages were performed in both countries. Mormon plural families openly practiced polygamy in Mexico; the Canadian government allowed Mormon men to have only one wife in the country, so some men had a legal wife in the United States and one in Canada. In addition, a few plural marriages were performed in the United States.
During the Senate investigation in 1904 concerning the seating of Senator-elect Reed Smoot, a monogamist but a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Mormon Church President Joseph F. Smith presented what historians have called the "Second Manifesto" on 7 April 1904. It included provisions for the church to take action against those who continued to perform plural marriages and marry plural wives. Matthias Cowley and John W. Taylor, both apostles, continued to be involved in performing or advocating new plural marriages after 1904, and, as a result, Cowley was disfellowshipped and Taylor excommunicated from the church. In 1909 a committee of apostles met to investigate post-Manifesto polygamy, and by 1910 the church had a new policy. Those involved in plural marriages after 1904 were excommunicated; and those married between 1890 and 1904 were not to have church callings where other members would have to sustain them. Although the Mormon Church officially prohibited new plural marriages after 1904, many plural husbands and wives continued to cohabit until their deaths in the 1940s and 1950s.
Fundamentalist groups who believe that the church discontinued polygamy only because of government pressure continued the practice. As they were discovered by the LDS Church, they were excommunicated. Some of these polygamists have appointed leaders and continue to live in groups, including those in Colorado City (formerly Short Creek), Arizona, and Hilldale, Utah. Others, such as Royston Potter, practice polygamy but have no affiliation with an organized group.
Who were the wives of Brigham Young and how many were there
The oft asked question about the practice of polygamy in early Mormon history is: How many wives did Brigham Young have? The question isn't as easily answered as asked. When polygamy was a part of Mormon culture, there were different types of marriages or "sealings."
It is hard to determine how many wives Young actually lived with in the normal sense of husband and wife because of the practice of "sealing." Sealings, meaning a ceremony performed by Mormon church authorities that link a man and a woman, could be of two types. The most common, and the only one currently practiced by the Mormon church, is a ceremony that seals a man and a woman for time (mortal life) and eternity. A second form could seal a woman to one man for time and another for eternity. Such ceremonies usually occurred when a widow was sealed to her dead husband for eternity and to a living husband for time in the same ceremony. It was understood that any children by the second husband would be considered the progeny of the first. In the early days of the Mormon church, these relationships were commonly called proxy marriages.
According to Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) historical records, Brigham Young was sealed to as many as 56 women. Many of the wives to whom Young were sealed were widows or elderly women for whom he merely cared or gave the protection of his name.
When asked by Horace Greeley in 1859, Brigham Young said that he had 15 wives, "but some of those sealed to me are old ladies whom I regard rather as mothers than wives. . ." This answer reflects the complicated nature in the definition of "plural wife." As to the number of wives with whom it is known that he had conjugal relations, sixteen wives bore him 57 children (46 of whom grew to maturity). Several of his wives lived in the Lion House or the Beehive House; others had separate residences.
At the time of his death on August 23, 1877, Young had married 56 women--19 had predeceased him, 10 divorced him, 23 survived him, and 4 are unaccounted for. Of the 23 who survived him, 17 received a share of his estate while the remaining 6 apparently had non conjugal roles.
As forceful and dominant a figure as was Brigham Young, when it came to marriage he was as vulnerable as the next man. Some husbands are forever henpecked--others are assuredly lords of the manor; Brigham, it seems, was some of both.
As an exponent of polygamy, the Mormon prophet had more to answer to than most men. The quantity and quality of the Mmes.Young had made a handsome and lucrative career for professional wits of the period such as Artemus Ward and Mark Twain. Ward once remarked in a lecture, "I undertook to count the longstockings, on the clothesline in [Brigham's] back yard one day, and I used up the multiplication table in less than a half an hour." After his 1864 visit to Utah, Ward said, "I saw his mother-in-law while I was there. I can't exactly tell you how many there is of her--but it's a good deal. It strikes me that one mother-in-law is about enough to have in a family--unless you're very fond of excitement."
The precise number of Brigham's wives remains a matter of debate for some scholars, but insofar as the church record is recoverable, he is credited with 27 spouses and 56 children. (One popular anecdote of the day held that a geography teacher asked her class to name the principal means of transportation in Utah and a boy answered, "Baby carriages.")
Harriet Amelia Folsom was Wife No. 25 and had the reputation of being his true love, much to the chagrin and mortification of the youthful Ann Eliza Webb Dee Young, No. 27 on the list. When Amelia became part of the Young family in January 1863, she did not immediately move in with her sister-wives. In the only interview she ever granted a journalist--and that 14 years after Brigham's death--she told The Salt Lake Tribune reporter Eugene Traughber that she remained at home for three weeks after which she "took up residence at the Lion House. His wives and children all lived there, and each wife, including myself, had her separate room. At that time, there were 75 of us in the family, including the hired help." Amelia also dropped Harriet as her first name, since there were two other Harriets wed to the church leader.
In his 1894 copyrighted story, Traughber told how he found "the former queen of Mormon society" in the "Junior Gardo," a handsome and comfortable two-story house at No. 6 South 1st West street in Salt Lake City. Armed with a letter of introduction from Apostle George Q. Cannon, the newspaperman called on a cold winter day and was granted an audience. "An interview is almost as difficult to obtain from Mrs. Amelia Young as from the President of the United States, as she is daily besieged by curious tourists, both in person and by letter, and when admitted these morbid curiosity-seekers always subject their hostess to humiliating and often insulting questions and comments."
Traughber was careful not to make that mistake in framing his questions. He described Amelia as "tall and symmetrical of form, dignified and graceful of manner and a brilliant conversationalist. The silvery locks which tell of the fifty and five years of her eventful life, are mingled with the threads of gold, reminiscent of the beauty of former years, and the large blue eyes have lost nothing of their fire and expressiveness." It was easy for him to believe she had been the most popular of Brigham Young's wives, he said.
Brigham was in the habit of meeting incoming parties of pilgrims, Traughber said, and in October 1860 when the Folsoms reached the outskirts of the city in a company of Mormon immigrants, the church president and his first counselor, Heber C. Kimball, came out in a carriage to welcome them. Amelia Folsom was then 22 years of age, and in full bloom of her beauty, while Brigham was 59," Traughber wrote. "Beautiful women were not plentiful in this then desert valley, the number of men greatly predominating in the small settlements."
It seems, the newspaperman continued, to have been a well established case of love at first sight. If other writers are to be believed, then Traughber was guilty of understatement. M.R. Werner, a Brigham Young biographer, insists the church leader was lovesick. "Amelia could play the piano, and she could sing Fair Bingen on the Rhine. He was captivated by both her appearance and by her accomplishments; none of his other wives was so tall, so handsome and so refined, and none of his other wives could sing Fair Bingen on the Rhine."
Then there was Fanny Stenhouse, an English convert who came to Utah in 1857 with her Mormon husband, newspaperman T.B.H. Stenhouse. In her unfriendly book, Tell It All, she writes that she was personally acquainted with 19 of Brigham's wives, and well remembered Amelia's arrival in Zion.
Her opinion of their romance? "One thing is very certain--he was as crazy over her as a silly boy over his first love, much to the disgust of his more sober brethren, who felt rather ashamed of the folly of their leader." Amelia's version is less colorful. The courtship, she said, began immediately after her arrival in Great Salt Lake Valley, and it lasted for two years, until August 1862 "when we were engaged." The marriage took place the following January After the marriage, was she immediately accepted into the "family?"
"No," Amelia replied, "I remained at home three weeks, when I took up residence in the Lion House We all dine at the same table, over which President Young presided. Every morning and evening all gathered in the large room for prayers, and here also my husband presided, I afterward took up quarters in the Beehive House, but returned to the Lion House later, and remained there until the death of President Young, August 29, 1877."
But in her notorious expose of polygamy Brigham Young-style, Wife No. 19, (the title implied she was the 19th living spouse), Ann Eliza complained that Amelia had established certain ground rules before becoming another Mrs. Young. Among them was the condition that she did not have to live as did the other wives.
From the day of their marriage, it became clear that Amelia ruled the roost. For instance, Ann Eliza said, in the dining room Amelia and Brigham sat by themselves while the rest of the family occupied a large table, and that the couple shared delicacies which were not served to the rest of the general multitude. "Polygamist, as he professed to be, he is, under the influence of Amelia, rapidly becoming a monogamist in all except the name," she said. Clearly, Amelia was his favorite, Ann Eliza sniffed.
Amelia had jewelry, fine clothes, a carriage of her own and she played the piano. She also was allowed to travel. Whenever they went to the theater, she occupied the seat of honor next to her distinguished husband in the box, while the other wives sat in the special row of chairs reserved for them in the parquet. Ann Eliza pointed out that when Amelia was ensconced in her "beautiful new elegantly furnished house," Brigham nearly deserted the Beehive, except during business hours, spending most of his time at Amelia's. That home, the Gardo House, was Amelia's pride and joy, her palace. She planned it herself, as she did the Junior Gardo which became her residence after Brigham's death.
As for being his favorite, she skirted the question with Traughber. "I can't say he had any favorites. He was equally kind and attentive to all in his lifetime, and left each surviving wife an equal legacy. I was absent from home at long intervals during the 15 years of my married life, having visited several times in the East, and having taken an extensive tour of Europe."
Then Traughber asked the question: "Do you still believe in polygamy?"
"Certainly I do. If polygamy was once right, it is still right. There is no reason why a polygamous marriage may not be as happy as the ordinary marriage, if it is entered understandingly." That was not quite the way Ann Eliza felt about it when she fled Utah and slapped Brigham with a major divorce action.
In Wife No. 19, she reveals that Brigham wanted their marriage to be kept as secret as possible out of concern that federal officers would find out. But it was Amelia's reaction he feared. "She had raised a furious storm a few months before when he married Mary Van Cott and he did not dare so soon encounter another such domestic tornado."
"Amelia and I rarely spoke to each other," Ann Eliza said. "Since Amelia's marriage, she ruled Brigham with a hand of iron. She has a terrible temper and he has the benefit of it," Ann Eliza remarked. "On one occasion he sent her a sewing machine, thinking to please her; it did not happen to be the kind of a one which she wanted; so she kicked it down stairs, saying, What did you get this old thing for? You knew I wanted a Singer.' She got a Singer at once."
Once Ann Eliza bolted and dragged Brigham Young's name through the courts in the late 1870s, newspapers around the world played hob with the story. After seven years of polygamous marriage, Ann Eliza charged Brigham with neglect, cruelty and desertion. She asked for huge alimony. "He is worth $8 million," she announced, "And has an income of $40,000 a month!" Balderdash, retorted the church leader, his fortune did not exceed $600,000 and his income was but $6,000 a month.
He offered to pay her $100 a month to settle. When she refused, he retaliated by pointing out his marriage to the former Miss Webb was not legal because in the eyes of the law he was the husband of Mary Ann Angell [first wife]. . .unless, of course, the courts would recognize Mormon plural marriage, something it had stubbornly refused to do for lo, these past 30 years!
Ann Eliza, Brigham railed, was nothing but an extortionist and that was that. The case dragged on through the courts, but in the end it was found that Ann Eliza was not legally married to Brigham Young, so there could be no divorce--and no alimony. A judge tried to force Brigham to pay $9,500 alimony in arrears while the suit was being adjudicated, but he refused. Ann Eliza settled for court costs and $100 a month, Brigham's original offer.
Source of this material: Jeffery Ogden Johnson, "Determining and Defining `Wife': The Brigham Young Households," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol. 20, No. 3, Fall 1987; Leonard J. Arrington, Brigham Young: American Moses, Knopf, New York, 1985.
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