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Writer's pictureEastin Hartzell

The CES Letter and Joseph Smith's Polygamy

A supplementary podcast to this letter can be read here.

To Truth Seekers,

The latest version of The CES Letter devotes ten pages (51–60) to polygamy and contains a lot of misinformation and misrepresentations. Through an assortment of accusations, it depicts Joseph Smith as a libido-driven liar. It also portrays the Latter-day Saints who accepted and practiced polygamy in Nauvoo as gullible dupes. Understandably, readers of The CES Letter might express concern about its polygamy-related claims. However, additional historical details show that for Joseph and other participants, plural marriage was a religious practice they believed God commanded. Their faith prompted their willingness to comply with that challenging directive.

The discussion below briefly addresses several issues brought up in The CES Letter, including:

  • Fanny Alger—the first plural wife

  • Polyandry—alleged dual husband marriages

  • Young wives

  • Emma Smith—Joseph’s legal wife

  • Denials of polygamy 

  • Joseph Smith’s General Practice 


FANNY ALGER

The CES Letter mentions Joseph Smith’s first plural marriage but misrepresents many details, including the timeline and the nature of the relationship. It says the ceremony occurred in 1833, listing her as 16. Born on September 20, 1816, Fanny Alger joined the Smith family as a domestic, probably in 1834. At some point, Joseph enlisted Levi Hancock to serve as an intermediary by introducing the proposal to Fanny and obtaining permission from Fanny’s parents for the plural marriage.(1) Levi Hancock then performed the ceremony, but the timing is uncertain. The only firm date is when Emma discovered the relationship, which occurred in the summer of 1836 when Fanny was nineteen.(2) Most likely, the plural ceremony occurred just weeks or months before.


In the aftermath of the marriage, those who heard about it from Joseph, like his wife Emma and Oliver Cowdery, did not accept his explanation and rejected its legitimacy.(3) In contrast, individuals who learned of the ceremony from Fanny, including the Webb family (with whom she boarded after leaving the Smith home in 1836), Eliza R. Snow (who also lived with the Smiths at that time), and Fanny’s parents and siblings, believed it to be a genuine God-authorized plural marriage. This first plural marriage created drama and rumors, but ample evidence shows it was not a secret tryst but complied with Old Testament patterns for plural marriages.


POLYANDRY

The CES Letter reports Joseph Smith was married to eleven women with legal husbands.(4)  The word polyandry has been used to describe these marriages, but the definition is often vague. Critics affirm these marriages created simultaneous husbands, with Joseph as the second, and with sexuality in both relationships. However, the women involved consistently described their sealing ceremonies as creating marriages “for eternity” only, meaning consecutive husbands, one on earth and another after death.(5) Other important observations include:

  • None of the fourteen women ever reported having two genuine simultaneous husbands or two simultaneous families.

  • Only one of the fourteen legal husbands, Apostle Orson Hyde, was on a mission when Joseph might have been sealed to his wife for eternity (two sealing dates exist). 

  • Polygyny (multiple simultaneous wives) was highly controversial. As it became more widely known, it generated repeated criticisms from outsiders and defenses from participants, including a revelation from Joseph Smith justifying the practice (now D&C 132).

  • The Bible and Joseph Smith’s teachings condemned simultaneous husbands or polyandry, calling it adultery (see Romans 7:2–3 and D&C 132:41–42, 63).

  • Joseph Smith’s sealings to legally married women were not kept secret.(6) Those sealings were known to dozens of polygamy insiders and alluded to in several 1842 publications.(7) 

  • Critics portray Joseph Smith as adding a practice of a plurality of husbands to the plurality of wives as easily as he expanded sacramental wine to include water (D&C 27:2). They depict the alleged participants as accepting it without question and critics knowing about it, but never complaining or using it as evidence against Joseph. Such representations are unrealistic.

  • If Joseph Smith had taught and practiced a plurality of husbands, as The CES Letter asserts, it would have been the most controversial thing he ever taught or experienced. It would have been an explosive teaching with vast repercussions. It would have predictably incited a backlash from critics. Equally, those involved would have felt compelled to defend the practice as divinely inspired.No antagonist (including John C. Bennett) or Latter-day Saint (including the women or their legal husbands) complained about or defended these sealings. No critic headlined the accusations in their opposition to Joseph. None of the participants tried to justify the practice of simultaneous husbands, but their speech and behavior support they would never have tolerated it. While silence proves nothing, the challenge and novelty of simultaneous husbands would have undoubtedly produced reactions that left traces in the historical record. That none are found, strongly supports that polyandry was never advocated or practiced by Joseph Smith or the Latter-day Saints.


It appears The CES Letter seeks to exploit ambiguities in the historical record by accusing Joseph Smith of simultaneous husband polyandry. In contrast, these ceremonies produced consecutive marriages, with the second beginning after death.


YOUNG WIVES

Joseph Smith was sealed to five women who were under 18 years: Lucy Walker (17), Sarah Lawrence (17), Sarah Ann Whitney (17), Flora Ann Woodworth (16), Nancy M. Winchester (14 or 15), and Helen Mar Kimball (14). At that time, marrying a 17-year-old was not unusual.(8) For example, William Clark (of the Lewis and Clark expedition) wed sixteen-year-old Julia Hancock in 1808. Jesse Hale, brother to Emma Hale Smith, the Prophet’s wife, married Mary McKune when she was fifteen and he was twenty-three.(9) Martin Harris, one of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, married his wife Lucy when she was fifteen.(10)  Illinois Governor Thomas Ford (1842-1846) married Frances Hambaugh when she was 15 and he was 28.(11)


It appears the plural marriages to the three younger wives resembled betrothals rather than actual marriages. Although Flora Ann Woodworth was sealed to Joseph Smith sometime in early 1843, she obtained a cancellation a few months later and married a non-Latter-day Saint (Carlos Gove) on August 23, 1843.(12) There is no known evidence that the original polygamous matrimony was ever consummated. If it represented only a ceremony without any marital intimacy, abandoning it to marry an acquaintance closer to her age might be easily rationalized. 


Nothing is known about Joseph Smith’s sealing to Nancy Maria Winchester, but she was a close friend of the third young wife, Helen Mar Kimball. The CES Letter calls Joseph Smith’s sealing to Helen “shocking” without acknowledging several essential details:

  • The union was arranged by Helen’s father.

  • Helen’s mother also approved of the sealing.

  • Multiple observations support that the marriage was not consummated.

  • Even though she was readily available, Helen was not called to testify in the Temple Lot case, where other plural wives corroborated full marriage relations with Joseph Smith.

  • No historical references refer to Joseph and Helen being alone together after the ceremony, although they once spent time on a boat deck with a chaperone.

  • From all indications, the relationship functioned more like a betrothal.

  • Years later, Helen defended Joseph Smith as a prophet in multiple books.


Although we have no firsthand accounts outlining Joseph Smith’s counsel on marriages involving teenage brides, a pattern started in Nauvoo became a standard in Utah. It taught that polygamous husbands should allow young wives to be mature physically before beginning a family with them.(13)


Sealings to young wives may look bad from a twenty-first-century perspective. However, the lack of evidence supporting sexuality with Helen Mar Kimball, Nancy M. Winchester, and Flora Ann Woodworth supports Joseph Smith’s instructions that it was a religious practice and not “Warren Jeffs territory,” as The CES Letter claims.


EMMA

Without providing supportive historical evidence, The CES Letter consistently claims Joseph Smith lied and deceived his legal wife, Emma. While Emma’s involvement with plural marriage in Nauvoo is difficult to fully ascertain, useful observations include: 


Purgatory: Joseph, Emma, and the Revelation on Plural Marriage, by Anthony Sweat.

  • Emma first learned of Joseph’s non-sexual (consecutive husbands) sealings before learning of the full practice of the plurality of wives.(14) By May 1843, she participated in four plural ceremonies and pledged support for the principle.(15)

  • Emma immediately struggled with the dynamics of living in polygamy. 

  • On July 12, 1843, Joseph dictated D&C 132 to explain the practice to Emma, who rejected it. 

  • Between July of 1843 and Joseph’s June 27, 1844 death, Emma and Joseph publicly lived a monogamous life, although privately, he maintained his polygamous relationships with Emma’s acceptance.

  • A few days before Joseph’s death, he encouraged Emma to write a blessing. She penned:

I desire with all my heart to honor and respect my husband as my head, ever to live in his confidence and by acting in unison with him retain the place which God has given me by his side . . . I desire to see that I may rejoice with them in the blessings which God has in store for all who are willing to be obedient to his requirements.(16)
  • Emma died in 1879, affirming her belief in Joseph Smith as a prophet.


In summary, section 132 admonishes Emma saying, “Forgive my servant Joseph his trespasses” (D&C 132:56). Apparently, Joseph could have handled things better. Still, whatever his offenses, Emma forgave him and continued believing in him as a worthy prophet of God. 


SECTION 132

The CES Letter misrepresents section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants, including verse 61. This verse describes one way to enter plural marriage. Specifically, the man must first desire a polygamous wife, then obtain the first wife’s consent, and the potential wife should be a virgin. However, nowhere does this revelation declare this is the only way a man can enter plural marriage or that variations from these guidelines are sinful.


The CES Letter also distorts verse 63 when it declares: “D&C 132:63 very clearly states that the only purpose of polygamy is to ‘multiply and replenish the earth.’” In fact, this revelation (section 132) gives three additional reasons: (1) As part of the restitution of all things (vv. 40, 45); (2) As a special trial at that time and place (vv. 34, 51); and (3) To allow all worthy members to marry and become candidates for exaltation (vv. 16–17). This last reason does not involve sexuality and is the most important. 


DENIALS

The CES Letter accuses Joseph Smith of “denying and lying to Emma, the Saints, and the world over” and asserts the alleged denying and lying is evidence “that he was a false prophet.” Yet it provides no evidence that he ever lied to Emma. And as seen above, whatever his weaknesses, Emma forgave him and believed in him as a true prophet throughout his life.


Accusations that Joseph Smith lied by denying polygamy in other settings have been analyzed by scholars.(17) By far the most often quoted denial was uttered on May 26, 1844: “What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one.”(18) Since Joseph had been sealed to over two dozen women, this might seem to be little more than a dodge. Yet legally, Joseph Smith had only one wife. He did not commit bigamy because none of the plural marriage ceremonies invoked legal authority.(19) Also, outwardly, Joseph only had one wife, having never publicly acknowledged his plural wives in any way. So, as he openly addressed the congregation that day, Emma was the only wife Joseph had legally or publicly acknowledged. Joseph Smith’s language is that of someone trying not to lie while not sharing details of a practice he believed God then commanded but the government would not tolerate. 


JOSEPH SMITH’S PRACTICE

The CES Letter complains about “the real origins of polygamy and how Joseph Smith really practiced it.” However, The CES Letter reflects little concern about accurately portraying how he introduced and experienced it. Instead, a random collection of often distorted historical vignettes about Joseph Smith’s involvement dominate its pages. In contrast, multiple evidences show:


  • For Joseph Smith and his plural wives, polygamy was a religious practice.

  • Multiple witnesses reported Joseph did not want to enter it, that he “had his doubts” and “put off the dreaded day” as long as he could.

  • Most of Joseph Smith’s first plural sealings in Nauvoo were non-sexual, eternity-only ceremonies.

  • “Multiply and replenish” was one of the reasons for plural marriage (D&C 132:63). But sexual relations were not experienced with all of his plural wives. Evidence for sexuality exists in up to 10 of the plural unions:

Plural Wife

Evidence of Sexuality

Emily Partridge

Strong

Lucy Walker


Malissa Lott


Eliza Partridge

Moderate

Louisa Beaman


Almera Johnson


Maria Lawrence


Sarah Lawrence


Fanny Alger

Weak

Mary Heron


All Other Plural Wives

Little or None

  • No children are known to have been born to Joseph and his plural wives, supporting sexual relations occurred rarely. DNA testing has disproven paternity in every suspected case. Many of Joseph’s wives were young and fertile, so offspring would have been expected if conjugality occurred often.

  • None of Joseph Smith’s plural wives, including the seven that left the Church, later accused him of abuse or declared that plural marriage was a coverup to justify lustful behaviors. None later accused Joseph of being a false prophet or insincere leader.


Comparing Joseph Smith to Warren Jeffs

The CES Letter compares Joseph Smith to Warren Jeffs, but distorts the data and ignores important behavioral contrasts.


Joseph Smith

Warren Jeffs

Total Sealings

34 (with 13 as non-sexual eternity-only sealings)

New evidence identifies 83 (not 78)

Age of youngest wife

(consummated marriage)

17 (not 14)

12 (barely 12 years old)

Other men’s wives

0 (consecutive husbands, not simultaneous husbands)

21

Taught more wives equals greater eternal rewards

No

Yes

Tightly controlled who married whom

No

Yes

Controlled property of church members

No

Yes

Controlled news and information sources of members

No

Yes

Dictated acceptable hair styles and clothing for members

No

Yes

Supervised extensive missionary work to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ

Yes

No

Summary

The CES Letter accuses Joseph Smith of immorality by practicing plural marriage. In contrast, statements from participants describe him as a hesitant polygamist who eventually embraced plural marriage as a commandment. His actions implementing the practice appear to be the efforts of a sincere prophet earnestly attempting to follow instructions he believed came from God through an angel. As if to respond to many of The CES Letter’s claims, he once declared: “I am no false Prophet; I am no impostor; I have had no dark revelations; I have had no revelations from the devil; I made no revelations; I have got nothing up of myself . . . God . . . [has] directed me and strengthened me in this work.”(20)


Sincerely,

Brian C. Hales


Sources and Notes

  1. Levi Ward Hancock Autobiography with additions in 1896 by Mosiah Hancock, 63, CHL; cited portion written by Mosiah, (Ms 570, microfilm).

  2. Don Bradley, “Mormon Polygamy before Nauvoo? The Relationship of Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger,” in Newell G. Bringhurst and Craig L. Foster, eds., The Persistence of Polygamy: Joseph Smith and the Origins of Mormon Polygamy (Independence, Missouri: John Whitmer Books, 2010), 22–23.

  3.  Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: History and Theology 3 vols., (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2013), 1:125.

  4. In fact, there were fourteen: Zina Diantha Huntington (Henry B. Jacobs), Presendia Lathrop Huntington (Norman Buell), Mary Elizabeth Rollins (Adam Lightner), Sylvia Sessions (Windsor Lyon), Patty Bartlett (David Sessions), Marinda Nancy Johnson (Orson Hyde), Elizabeth Davis (Jabez Durfee), Sarah Kingsley (John Cleveland), Lucinda Pendleton Morgan (George Washington Harris), Ruth Vose (Edward Sayers), Elvira Annie Cowles (Jonathan Holmes), Esther Dutcher (Albert Smith), Mary Heron (John Snider), and Sarah Ann Whitney (Joseph C. Kingsbury). See Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: History and Theology (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2013), 1:303–474.

  5. See Andrew Jenson Papers [ca. 1871-1942], MS 17956; CHL, Box 49, Folder 16, fifth document; John Wight, “Evidence from Zina D. Huntington Young,” Interview with Zina, October 1, 1898, Saints Herald 52 (Januray 11, 1905): 29; Oliver Huntington Journals, no.15, entry for February 18, 1883, HBLL, BYU; Donna Toland Smart, ed., Mormon Midwife: The 1846-1888 Diaries of Patty Bartlett Sessions, Logan, Utah: Utah State University, 1997, 276,-77; and Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, “Remarks” at B.Y.U April 14, 1905, copy of original signed typescript, Vault Mss 363, fd 6, HBLL, BYU, 7. See also the discussion in John A. Widtsoe, Joseph Smith: Seeker After Truth, Prophet of God (Salt Lake City, 1951), 240.

  6. See Brian C. Hales, “Joseph Smith’s ‘Polyandry’: Expanding the Narrative” Journal of Mormon History 50, no. 2 (2024): forthcoming.

  7. Multiple historical documents specify the names of individuals who participated in the priesthood ceremonies that sealed Smith to already-married women. Included are wives Ruth Vose, Mary Rollins, Presendia Huntington, Zina Huntington, Patty Bartlett, Elvira Cowles, and Marinda Johnson; officiators Hyrum Smith, Brigham Young, Dimick Huntington, Willard Richards, and Heber Kimball; witnesses Fanny Huntington, Sylvia Sessions, Vilate Kimball, Eliza Partridge, Emily Partridge, and Emma Smith; and others, like Edward Sayers, Oliver Huntington, Newell K. Whitney, and Eliza R. Snow, who were also aware. Besides these polyandry insiders, John C. Bennett wrote in his October 1842 book, History of the Saints, that several of Joseph Smith’s “spiritual wives” were legally married. (John C. Bennett, The History of the Saints: or an Exposé of Joe Smith and Mormonism (Boston: Leland & Whiting, 1842), 256.) Bennett also made similar accusations in an affidavit published in The Pittsburgh Morning Chronicle on July 29, 1842, which was reprinted in other newspapers.

  8. Kimball Young, Isn’t One Wife Enough? New York: Henry Hold, 1954, 177.

  9. Ancestral file.  Jess Hale was born February 24, 1792 and Mary McKune was born either September 3, or December 3, 1799.  The marriage occurred July 23, 1815.

  10. Susan Easton Black and Larry C. Porter, "For the Sum of Three Thousand Dollars," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14 (2005) 2: 4–11.

  11. J. F. Snyder, “Governor Ford and His Family,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 3 (July 10, 1910) 2: 46.  Thomas Ford and Frances Hambaugh Ford are currently buried in the Springdale Cemetery, Peoria County, Illinois.  Their tombstone reads:  “Thomas Ford / Governor Of Illinois / 1842-1846 / Born Dec 5, 1800 / Died Nov 3, 1850 / Frances, wife of Thomas Ford / Died Oct 12, 1850 aged 38 years.”  The Fords had five children together.  Despite some success as a lawyer and later as Governor, when Thomas left office, the family was destitute. Frances died in 1850 from cancer at age 38 and Thomas followed three weeks later from complications of tuberculosis.  Their children were left dependent on the charity of friends and neighbors.  Shortly before his death, Thomas finished his manuscript, History of Illinois From Its Commencement as a State in 1818 to 1847, (Chicago: S. G. Griggs & Co., 1854), which he hoped would be sold to generate sufficient income to support his children.

  12. Marriage of Flora Woodworth to Carlos Gove, August 23, 1843, in Marriage index of Hancock County, Ill., 1829-1849, Tri-County Genealogical Society, compiler (Augusta, Ilinois:Tri-County Genealogical Society, 1983, p. 19).  See also Andrew Jenson Papers [ca. 1871-1942], MS 17956; CHL, Box 49, Folder 16, document #14.

  13. Campbell, Establishing Zion: The Mormon Church in the American West 1847–1869, 198 note 5.

  14. See Lucy Meserve Smith, handwritten statement dated May 18, 1892, copy of holograph in Linda King Newell Collection, Marriott Library, University of Utah; Andrew Jenson Papers [ca. 1871-1942], MS 17956; CHL, Box 49, Folder 16, document #5.

  15. Emily Dow Partridge Young, “Incidents in the life of a Mormon girl,” undated manuscript, CHL, Ms 5220, pages 186, 186b; Emily D. P. Young, deposition, Temple Lot transcript, respondent’s testimony (part 3), page 350-51, question 24. See also Joseph F. Smith affidavit books, CHL, 1:11, 1:13; Emily D. P. Young, quoted in Andrew Jenson, “Plural Marriage,” Historical Record 6 (July 1887): 240, written February 28, 1887.

  16. Emma Smith blessing, 1844, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

  17. See, for example, Brian C. Hales, “‘Denying the Undeniable’: Examining Early Mormon Polygamy Renunciations,” Journal of Mormon History 44:3 (2018): 23–44.

  18. Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, eds. The Words of Joseph Smith: Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourse of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1980, 26, May 1844 (Sunday Morning), p.377;

  19. The Revised Code of Laws of Illinois: Enacted by the Fifth General Assembly (State of Illinois: Robert Blackwell, 1827), 180–81.

  20. Horace Cummings, “Conspiracy of Nauvoo,” The Contributor 5 (April 1884): 259. Although this quotation is late and second-hand, it seems to capsulize Joseph Smith’s demeanor toward his prophethood, even if it required him to reveal and restore plural marriage (D&C 132: 40, 45).


Biography:

Brian C. Hales is the author of seven books dealing with Mormon polygamy—most notably the three-volume, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: History and Theology (Greg Kofford Books, 2013). His Modern Polygamy and Mormon Fundamentalism: The Generations after the Manifesto received the “Best Book of 2007 Award” from the John Whitmer Historical Association. He has presented at numerous meetings and symposia and published articles in the Journal of Mormon History, Mormon Historical Studies, Dialogue, as well as contributing chapters to The Persistence of Polygamy series. Much of his research materials are available at www.MormonPolygamyDocuments.org.


During his polygamy research, Brian was sustained by the thought that Joseph Smith could not have produced the 269,320-word Book of Mormon without God’s help. Believing he was a prophet in 1829, Brian was confident Joseph remained worthy throughout the rest of his life. In 2015, Brian began to research the challenges Joseph Smith faced trying to dictate the Book of Mormon in three months. Some of his preliminary conclusions are summarized here. A book-length manuscript will hopefully be published exploring this topic.


Brian served a mission to Venezuela for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and sang with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for fourteen years. He was the 2015-1016 president of the John Whitmer Historical Association. He has worked as an anesthesiologist and served as the president of both the Utah Medical Association and the Medical Staff at the Davis Hospital and Medical Center in Layton, Utah.


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