Grant Palmer And The Laws

[WalkerW]

Grant H. Palmer, "Why William and Jane Law Left the LDS Church in 1844," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 32:2 (2012).

Thoughts?

[Bart Burk]

Grant H. Palmer, "Why William and Jane Law Left the LDS Church in 1844," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 32:2 (2012).

Thoughts?

I wonder how much of this is true and how much of this is simply Law not liking Joseph Smith and wanting more power. I suspect Law was simply jealous of Joseph's success and invented these tales to undermine him.

[Tacenda]

I wonder how much of this is true and how much of this is simply Law not liking Joseph Smith and wanting more power. I suspect Law was simply jealous of Joseph's success and invented these tales to undermine him.

I don't think that would line up with the fact that Law had a character in good standing.

[canard78]

I am no scholar and, as a member, my natural inclination is to be suspicious. But a few thoughts:

Although this interview is late, it’s not likely that William's memory would be dimmed with time

I work in consumer research. If I told my client 'it's not likely' they would snap right back with 'can you prove it?'

Besides the fact it's not likely to be dimmed... what about the fact that he's spent nearly 40 years feeling "embarrassed and humiliated they had been duped by Joseph Smith." That's quite likely to skew the memories.

The article also quotes heavily from the self-penned Adventures of Joseph Jackson.

http://www.truthandgrace.com/1846TheAdventuresofJosephJackson.pdf

He makes little effort to validate or the writings of JJ who sounds like a jack-the-lad with a story for every situation. The closest he comes to admitting this is the (unreliable?) account of one man is:

Joseph H. Jackson claimed...

According to Jackson, Smith said...

The whole story falls apart if the salacious Joseph Jackson's story is nothing more than pulp fiction tittle tattle. He and the aggrieved William Law are the only people to reference the relationship directly. This is then supported by a vague journal entry from Clayton and a badly misquoted and requoted D&C 132:51 scripture (as if they're two seperate revelations, when it's actually the same verse chopped about).

Overall he weaves fairly well established facts with single source gossip. And then he throws in speculation that not even Jackson states. The phrase "While Joseph and Emma Smith agreed to this sexual offer..." was not mentioned by even the unreliable sources. Jackson specifically mentions Joseph only seeking Jane "for a spiritual wife."

There's sufficient evidence for me to believe Joseph practiced polyandry. I don't understand why - but I hope it was a form of spiritual binding together of families, friends and perhaps creating dynastic connections. As such, I find it plausible that JS may have approached the Laws to add another to his list of eternal double dates, especially one so closely connected. It was around the right time of when the others were occurring and would have been the 9th polyandrous marriage in 18 months (if the evidence for all the wives is correct).

So yes, I believe it's possible that Joseph might have been seeking to establish a celestial seal to William and Jan Law around that time. If that proposal happened it may also have been the catalyst for the couple leaving the church and it provides a perfect set of events to hang a more scandalous version of them from the two men who had the motivation to dress up the reality of it.

As for the council of the 50. Yes, it sounds pretty trumped up and they seemed to be getting pretty grand ideas. Will Joseph be my judge at the pearly gates? I hope not. I'd rather leave that to the Lord. I hope that's another of BY's revelations that's been quietly repudiated.

[thesometimesaint]

Polygamy was a contentious issue for those early Saints. I sometimes wonder if it were reintroduced into Church practice if we wouldn't have more William Law's.

[canard78]

I don't think that would line up with the fact that Law had a character in good standing.

William Law had a lot to rationalise in the years after leaving the church. He must have left with the internal struggle of many who leave the church. "Am I throwing away the eternal blessings I thought I was qualified for?" "Am I deceiving mine own self?" However sure a person is when forsaking a religious commitment, it's unlikely he would have been able to leave without any uncertainty. As such, there was plenty of reason to need to justify his decision to himself. As I've gone through different fazes of self-questioning, there's always the underlying question of "but what if" that makes any decision skewed by concerns.

However good William Law's reputation might have been (and I don't think Hardy fully establishes that, he references Lyndon Cook and some pre-1844 letters to do this), this in know way guarantees that the possible anxiety over what he may have worried about forsaking didn't eat away at his perception of events and lead to his need to explain to himself and others why he left and was involved in a sequence of events leading to the Prophet's death.

I obviously can't know how William was feeling in the years after 1844 and taken on face value, his account is very troubling. If true, it undermines the credibility of Joseph Smith. But we have little in the way of corroborating evidence beyond the book written by Jackson. Given the latter's book was headlined as 'disclosing the depths of mormon villainy', it was always going to have a sensationalist edge to it

[canard78]

Polygamy was a contentious issue for those early Saints. I sometimes wonder if it were reintroduced into Church practice if we wouldn't have more William Law's.

Indeed. I'm very glad it's not a trial I will have to bear. For all the sniggers from male friends about multiple wives, I'm very happy with just the one. We work very hard to maintain a positive, balanced, loving relationship. I can't imagine attempting to create that with 2 or more.

[Kevin Christensen]

Good historians read all sources, evaluate each source for reliability and consistency, provide broad contexts in which to account for particular details, and use language that does not insinutate what has not been demonstrated. Then, on the other hand, there are historians who zero in on hot button sources without evaluating them for consistency and reliability, who lard their arguments with nudges in their reporting language like "made a play for", and who include comparisons with people who actually been found guilty of the crimes they want to convict Joseph Smith of have committed. Verbal association with guilty parties is not the same thing as actual demonstration.

$3000 to shoot Boggs? Seriously? To some guy off the street? You don't think that if Joseph had wanted it done, that he couldn't have found someone to do it for free?

Palmer strikes me as being operating in self-justification mode, not good historian mode. Anything to make Joseph look bad because that has the corollary effect of making Palmer look good.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

Edited December 10, 2012 by Kevin Christensen

[Hamilton Porter]

I thought linking the Orwellian Mormonthink website was not allowed here.

Linking to anything with temple content is what is not allowed but we need posters to report it.

[volgadon]

Just prior to the attempted assassination of the ex-governor, John C. Bennett said, "I was then on terms of close intimacy with Joe[ph] Smith, and asked him where [Porter] Rockwell had gone? 'Gone,' said he, 'Gone to fulfill prophecy.'" .7 Second counselor in the first presidency of the church, William Law, said Joseph had personally told him that he had sent Rockwell to assassinate Boggs. Law declared: "Let me tell you, that Joe[ph] Smith told me the fact himself. The words were substantially like this, 'I sent Rockwell to kill Boggs, but he missed him. It was a failure; he wounded him instead of sending him to Hell.'"8 Thus, two members closely associated with Smith in the first presidency of the Church report their first hand conversations with Smith about the Boggs assassination.

I'm not sure I find this reasoning at all convincing

[volgadon]

$3000 to shoot Boggs? Seriously? To some guy off the street? You don't think that if Joseph had wanted it done, that he couldn't have found someone to do it for free?

As well as someone more trusted.

[canard78]

Good historians read all sources, evaluate each source for reliability and consistency, provide broad contexts in which to account for particular details, and use language that does not insinutate what has not been demonstrated. Then, on the other hand, there are historians who zero in on hot button sources without evaluating them for consistency and reliability, who lard their arguments with nudges in their reporting language like "made a play for", and who include comparisons with people who actually been found guilty of the crimes they want to convict Joseph Smith of have committed. Verbal association with guilty parties is not the same thing as actual demonstration.

$3000 to shoot Boggs? Seriously? To some guy off the street? You don't think that if Joseph had wanted it done, that he couldn't have found someone to do it for free?

Palmer strikes me as being operating in self-justification mode, not good historian mode. Anything to make Joseph look bad because that has the corollary effect of making Palmer look good.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

$200 more than they paid for the entire Egyptian collection. That's some good money! And your first paragraph is a very good summary of why the entire account lacks any credibility.

Having said that, all Historians have some sort of motivation and agenda. I guess Palmer's just shows through more obviously than most.

[canard78]

I thought linking the Orwellian Mormonthink website was not allowed here.

I thought the same... but I can't see anything about linking off-site in the guidelines here:

http://www.mormondialogue.org/index.php?app=forums&module=extras&section=boardrules

I may have missed something though.

[Bart Burk]

I don't think that would line up with the fact that Law had a character in good standing.

Even honest people sometimes let an agenda sway their opinions.

[DBMormon]

Good historians read all sources, evaluate each source for reliability and consistency, provide broad contexts in which to account for particular details, and use language that does not insinutate what has not been demonstrated. Then, on the other hand, there are historians who zero in on hot button sources without evaluating them for consistency and reliability, who lard their arguments with nudges in their reporting language like "made a play for", and who include comparisons with people who actually been found guilty of the crimes they want to convict Joseph Smith of have committed. Verbal association with guilty parties is not the same thing as actual demonstration.

$3000 to shoot Boggs? Seriously? To some guy off the street? You don't think that if Joseph had wanted it done, that he couldn't have found someone to do it for free?

Palmer strikes me as being operating in self-justification mode, not good historian mode. Anything to make Joseph look bad because that has the corollary effect of making Palmer look good.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

Kevin Good point. Richard Bushman in Rough Stone Rolling tells me the Good and the bad... he lays out there. Is it unbiased... no, but I don't see him hiding anything. Palmer's works has very little nice to say and seems too heavy handed.

[Nevo]

Grant H. Palmer, "Why William and Jane Law Left the LDS Church in 1844," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 32:2 (2012).

Thoughts?

My first thought is, why is the John Whitmer Historical Association publishing this? Are they so hard up for submissions that they're now reduced to publishing amateur postings from an anti-Mormon website? Is Steve Benson's online oevre next?

As is painfully clear to anyone who has ever read Grant Palmer's work--or, worse, heard him speak--Palmer is no scholar. Several of Palmer's primary sources are highly problematic but he shows no awareness of this. He doesn't think to interrogate the motives of any of his informants. If they're critical of Joseph Smith, that's good enough for him.

Palmer also isn't above ignoring evidence that doesn't fit his thesis. For example, Palmer writes:

William wrote in his diary on May 13, 1844, that, "He [smith] had lately endeavored to seduce my wife, and had found her a virtuous woman." Alexander Neibaur, a close friend of Joseph Smith, recorded: "When Mr[.] Law came home [one evening,] he Inquired who had been in his Absence. she said no one but Br Joseph. he then demanded what had pass[ed.] Mrs[.] L[aw] then told [him] that Joseph wanted her to be Married to him."

Palmer neglects to mention that Neibaur's diary entry actually claims that it was Jane Law who propositioned Joseph, and that Jane was lying to her husband when she said it was the other way around.

"Mr Wm Law–wisht to be Married to his Wife for Eternity Mr [Joseph] Smith said would Inquire of the Lord, Answered no because Law was a Adultereous person. Mrs Law wandet to know why she could not be Married to Mr Law Mr S said would not wound her feeling by telling her, some days after Mr Smith going toward his Office Mrs Law stood in the door beckoned to him more the once did not Know wheter she bekoned to him went across to Inquire yes please to walk in no one but herself in the house. she drawing her Arms around him if you wont seal me to my husband Seal myself unto you. he Said stand away & pushing her Gently aside giving her a denial & going out. when Mr Law came home he Inquired who had been in his Absence. she said no one but Br Joseph, he then demanded what had pass[ed] Mrs L then told Joseph wandet her to be Married to him" (Alexander Neibaur Journal, 24 May 1844, Church Archives, in Lyndon W. Cook, “William Law, Nauvoo Dissenter,” BYU Studies 22:1 [Fall 1982], 65n82).

The primary sources are contradictory and admittedly difficult to interpret, but Palmer never attempts a careful, even-handed appraisal. His cuts the Gordian knot by giving the benefit of the doubt to Joseph's adversaries and assuming the worst about the Prophet. Joseph's opponents said he tried to have Gov. Boggs killed, therefore that establishes to Palmer's satisfaction that "Joseph Smith ordered the death of his enemies." Most historians would need a little more to go on before flatly stating this as fact.

Palmer maintains that William Law is a credible, trustworthy source because he "had the reputation of being a 'good man' during his entire life." But one need only read Law's post-1844 letters and interviews to see how embittered, angry, and contemptuous he was toward Joseph Smith and Mormonism to the end of his life. And Law's tales of Joseph's depravity became more numerous and detailed as he got older. Needless to say, no responsible historian would assume--as Palmer does--that Law's 1887 reminiscences (recorded at the height of national anti-Mormon sentiment by a crusading anti-Mormon journalist) paint a true picture of Nauvoo in the 1840s. But Palmer is not a responsible historian and his article is not legitimate scholarship. Shame on JWHA for publishing this dreck. I am glad I am not a dues-paying member.

[Tacenda]

My first thought is, why is the John Whitmer Historical Association publishing this? Are they so hard up for submissions that they're now reduced to publishing amateur postings from an anti-Mormon website? Is Steve Benson's online oevre next?

As is painfully clear to anyone who has ever read Grant Palmer's work--or, worse, heard him speak--Palmer is no scholar. Several of Palmer's primary sources are highly problematic but he shows no awareness of this. He doesn't think to interrogate the motives of any of his informants. If they're critical of Joseph Smith, that's good enough for him.

Palmer also isn't above ignoring evidence that doesn't fit his thesis. For example, Palmer writes:

William wrote in his diary on May 13, 1844, that, "He [smith] had lately endeavored to seduce my wife, and had found her a virtuous woman." Alexander Neibaur, a close friend of Joseph Smith, recorded: "When Mr[.] Law came home [one evening,] he Inquired who had been in his Absence. she said no one but Br Joseph. he then demanded what had pass[ed.] Mrs[.] L[aw] then told [him] that Joseph wanted her to be Married to him."

Palmer neglects to mention that Neibaur's diary entry actually claims that it was Jane Law who propositioned Joseph, and that Jane was lying to her husband when she said it was the other way around.

"Mr Wm Law–wisht to be Married to his Wife for Eternity Mr [Joseph] Smith said would Inquire of the Lord, Answered no because Law was a Adultereous person. Mrs Law wandet to know why she could not be Married to Mr Law Mr S said would not wound her feeling by telling her, some days after Mr Smith going toward his Office Mrs Law stood in the door beckoned to him more the once did not Know wheter she bekoned to him went across to Inquire yes please to walk in no one but herself in the house. she drawing her Arms around him if you wont seal me to my husband Seal myself unto you. he Said stand away & pushing her Gently aside giving her a denial & going out. when Mr Law came home he Inquired who had been in his Absence. she said no one but Br Joseph, he then demanded what had pass[ed] Mrs L then told Joseph wandet her to be Married to him" (Alexander Neibaur Journal, 24 May 1844, Church Archives, in Lyndon W. Cook, “William Law, Nauvoo Dissenter,” BYU Studies 22:1 [Fall 1982], 65n82).

The primary sources are contradictory and admittedly difficult to interpret, but Palmer never attempts a careful, even-handed appraisal. His cuts the Gordian knot by giving the benefit of the doubt to Joseph's adversaries and assuming the worst about the Prophet. Joseph's opponents said he tried to have Gov. Boggs killed, therefore that establishes to Palmer's satisfaction that "Joseph Smith ordered the death of his enemies." Most historians would need a little more to go on before flatly stating this as fact.

Palmer maintains that William Law is a credible, trustworthy source because he "had the reputation of being a 'good man' during his entire life." But one need only read Law's post-1844 letters and interviews to see how embittered, angry, and contemptuous he was toward Joseph Smith and Mormonism to the end of his life. And Law's tales of Joseph's depravity became more numerous and detailed as he got older. Needless to say, no responsible historian would assume--as Palmer does--that Law's 1887 reminiscences (recorded at the height of national anti-Mormon sentiment by a crusading anti-Mormon journalist) paint a true picture of Nauvoo in the 1840s. But Palmer is not a responsible historian and his article is not legitimate scholarship. Shame on JWHA for publishing this dreck. I am glad I am not a dues-paying member.

I could understand the bitterness if he held Joseph in great esteem only to find out some things that weren't conducive to his initial impression. It's no secret that Joseph asked many women who are married for their hand in marriage. This would make any sane man upset. Especially if they maintain that they had a testimony of the church. One tends to want nothing to blemish that.

[Bob Crockett]

So much seems to turn on the trustworthiness of William Law. He's the one who published the Nauvoo Expositor; he's the one who headed up a committee to get the Nauvoo City Charter repealed. William Law was present in Carthage on the day of the martyrdom.

[rongo]

I don't have my computer or my notes with me, but several brethren in Journal of Discourses told of anecdotes about William Law that accused him of dishonesty and immorality. One in particular centered around William Law's flour mill in Nauvoo, and that he routinely cheated people with the scales in buying and processing their wheat.

I know that critics of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young would attribute this to the Utah Church needing to "take down" such a lethal witness against Joseph Smith, but I don't think the Laws' (William or Wilson) reputations are nearly as above reproach as critics think. Even if one assumes for the sake of argument that the Laws' allegations against Joseph were "true," their behavior with the Expositor and in the events connected with Carthage do not reflect well on them (others who similarly believed Joseph was wicked reacted differently, etc.).

[Bob Crockett]

Kevin Good point. Richard Bushman in Rough Stone Rolling tells me the Good and the bad... he lays out there. Is it unbiased... no, but I don't see him hiding anything. Palmer's works has very little nice to say and seems too heavy handed.

Bushman does not lay it all out, nor is he unbiased. That doesn't mean that I don't read him and digest what he has to say.

[cinepro]

I don't have my computer or my notes with me, but several brethren in Journal of Discourses told of anecdotes about William Law that accused him of dishonesty and immorality. One in particular centered around William Law's flour mill in Nauvoo, and that he routinely cheated people with the scales in buying and processing their wheat.

Yes, and Oliver Cowdery's dissafection with the Church in 1838 was because he wanted to practice unauthorized polygamy.

Grant Palmer might not be much of a historian, but neither was Brigham Young.

[rongo]

Brigham Young wasn't the one making the claims. Among others, it was George A. Smith (Church historian).

As your link points out, there are plenty of competent historians who do support the charges that Cowdery practiced polygamy without authorization.

[Bob Crockett]

Yes, and Oliver Cowdery's dissafection with the Church in 1838 was because he wanted to practice unauthorized polygamy.

Grant Palmer might not be much of a historian, but neither was Brigham Young.

Contemporaneous witnesses (either with direct knowledge or hearing it from the mouths of eyewitnesses) are not "historians," trained or otherwise.

[canard78]

I could understand the bitterness if he held Joseph in great esteem only to find out some things that weren't conducive to his initial impression. It's no secret that Joseph asked many women who are married for their hand in marriage. This would make any sane man upset. Especially if they maintain that they had a testimony of the church. One tends to want nothing to blemish that.

I agree that Law might feel bitter if he thought the prophet had propositioned his wife. But if Neibaur's journal is correct (if), William would only have his wife to blame for that perception.

The fact I stamped on 9 people's foot doesn't mean I'll stamp on yours. But if your friend tells you I will, my track record will make you more likely to believe it.

[Tacenda]

delete

Edited December 11, 2012 by Tacenda