Joseph Smith's Polyandry?

[Calm]

Relatively simple questions:

1) without any reason to assume something significant happened to drive her husband away, will you be removing Noon from your list?

2) where did you get the idea they were aware of the Brotherton episode in England before the 1842 affidavit  upon which you based your timing?  I can only find references post publication of that. 

[juliann]

10 hours ago, Meg Stout said:

 

Regardless of all my other hypotheses and methods, this modification to Eliza's original poem is worthy of study.

 

I have to rely on my memory which isn't always correct in every instance. But I remember enough to be aware that you have completely changed your claim....or you are pulling in t a different letter.  (I don't see the relevance of the above to what is being talked about so I am rather puzzled why you are including this rather than responding to CFRs as you said you would.)

My comment referred to your claim had something to do with Eliza being distraught over this marriage because she had expected to be the bride. You considered a possibly modified letter or two to be proof. You used this to support your construction of Eliza's immorality. I want to make it very clear that what you have presented above has nothing to do with what you had earlier written on Millennial*. You received enough skepticism even then for you to ask if any of your readers had the necessary training to analyze the document (or perhaps if they knew someone who did.) 

 

[Meg Stout]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Relatively simple questions:

1) without any reason to assume something significant happened to drive her husband away, will you be removing Noon from your list?

2) where did you get the idea they were aware of the Brotherton episode in England before the 1842 affidavit  upon which you based your timing?  I can only find references post publication of that. 

Hi Calm,

With respect to #2, I realized after publishing Wives of Sorrow that the rumor couldn't have made the round trip to England. I believe there was a mention that the rumor had a particularly negative impact on English converts, but that would have been referring to the English immigrants in the vicinity of Nauvoo.

As for #1, I am pointing out that the women who had been seduced per the testimonies were widows or daughters of widows or new immigrants. We see the same pattern among most of the women taken on as plural wives in 1842. Sarah Peak Noon is one of these women who fits the profile of women who were victimized, suggesting at the least that she was potentially vulnerable.

In three cases where the women didn't fit this profile, they were unusually valued female members of the community and it was suspected that key men in their lives were sympathetic to those promulgating the heretical doctrine that illicit intercourse was acceptable (Nancy Winchester, Sarah Ann Whitney, and Eliza Snow).

In two other cases, we have reason to believe plural wives were women named in testimony before the High Council regarding being pressured to engage in sex with a man teaching that illicit intercourse was acceptable (Mary Clift, Esther Dutcher Smith).

I'd be happy to change the title of the chapter, and would be happy to consider your proposed replacement. But I will not excise Sarah Peak Noon from the list of women who entered into plural marriage during the year when the illicit intercourse heresy appeared to put so many vulnerable women at risk.

[Meg Stout]

2 hours ago, juliann said:

I have to rely on my memory which isn't always correct in every instance. But I remember enough to be aware that you have completely changed your claim....or you are pulling in t a different letter.  (I don't see the relevance of the above to what is being talked about so I am rather puzzled why you are including this rather than responding to CFRs as you said you would.)

My comment referred to your claim had something to do with Eliza being distraught over this marriage because she had expected to be the bride. You considered a possibly modified letter or two to be proof. You used this to support your construction of Eliza's immorality. I want to make it very clear that what you have presented above has nothing to do with what you had earlier written on Millennial*. You received enough skepticism even then for you to ask if any of your readers had the necessary training to analyze the document (or perhaps if they knew someone who did.) 

 

Hi juliann,

i had hypothesized that the poem Conjugal had been altered. When I hadn't seen the poem, I suggested a possible way in which the poem could have been altered.

The actual alteration was not something I could have reasonably hypothesized, but is consistent with the primary thesis that this was not originally a romantic poem celebrating the love of two housemates.

My original hypothesis was that the original poem was written from Eliza to Jonathan in first person (use of "our" rather than "your"), which I liked better than it being written to Elvira and Jonathan. But that hypothesis, though better, was not satisfactory. Because the poem was still too sublime to match the situation I believe occurred.

The actual modification to the poem suggests the poem was originally written to Jonathan regarding his eternal union with his deceased wife, Marietta. This is a glorious possibility that deserves expression of every sublime yearning.

I was wrong in the prediction of how the poem had been modified, but not in the fact that it had been modified.

i assembled the 398 page PDF of the comments in this thread and have embarked on the CFRs. But in the hierarchy of responsibilities, eating, sleeping, working, commuting, and taking care of my family all take precedence over completing my response to all the CFRs. Most of them are already answered in the book, but it will still take a finite amount of time to formulate them in a manner that will appropriately address this audience.

[Calm]

 

46 minutes ago, Meg Stout said:

I was wrong in the prediction of how the poem had been modified, but not in the fact that it had been modified.

And what poet hasn't modified their poems?

Iirc, you stated your opinion the alteration was in the same ink as the original writing.  Is there any reason to not believe that on finishing writing the poem into her journal, Eliza proofed it, didn't like how it read and decided the more symbolic use of "rays" both flowed better and fit with the rest of the content better and she immediately changed it?  

And your current premise, that Eliza had written it to Johnathan about his dead wife and eternal marriage and then realised it could work for his new relationship...of what impact does that have on anything at all..besides being a nice thought?

[Calm]

From your book, page 162:

"On September 17, 1842, following a stirring sermon on the resurrection, Eliza composed the following:

Conjugal 36

Like two streams, whose gentle forces Mingling, in one current blend—
Like two waves, whose outward courses To the ocean’s bosom tend—

Like two angels 37 that kiss each other In the presence of the sun—...,

This is completely irresponsible to present your possible reconstruction as if it is a demonstrated fact even if later you are cautious enough to put "appears" to be "angels".  I will have to ask my sister who did her Ph.D on Emily ****enson how her professors would have reacted if she had done something similar.

[Calm]

By the way, "rays" is much more consistent with her other similes which are all nature related.  It makes much more sense to imagine that she started using a different word, stopped immediately because she fixed on the simile of the sun and changed it to "rays" and wrote the rest of the poem.  "angels" doesn't fit in with the rest of the theme, even if that was actually the word.  

You just read it off the digital image, right?  No under the microscope analysis of the inks?

[juliann]

1 hour ago, Meg Stout said:

Hi juliann,

i had hypothesized that the poem Conjugal had been altered. When I hadn't seen the poem, I suggested a possible way in which the poem could have been altered.

The actual alteration was not something I could have reasonably hypothesized, but is consistent with the primary thesis that this was not originally a romantic poem celebrating the love of two housemates.

 

I think this what you consider to be history and the research of it. You "suggest" "possible" ways data can be altered to fit your primary thesis.  I am going to repeat that.

You "suggest" "possible" ways data can be altered to fit your primary thesis.  And then you call it history.

I hope you are beginning to understand why so many are outraged when you are doing this to slur our Founding Mothers. I am curious why you haven't taken aim at Emma, as well.  You call these women vulnerable but the only vulnerability I see is what you are doing to them based on nothing more substantial than your desires.

[Jeanne]

32 minutes ago, juliann said:

I think this what you consider to be history and the research of it. You "suggest" "possible" ways data can be altered to fit your primary thesis.  I am going to repeat that.

You "suggest" "possible" ways data can be altered to fit your primary thesis.  And then you call it history.

I hope you are beginning to understand why so many are outraged when you are doing this to slur our Founding Mothers. I am curious why you haven't taken aim at Emma, as well.  You call these women vulnerable but the only vulnerability I see is what you are doing to them based on nothing more substantial than your desires.

Perhaps change the title of the book to "Possible Ways"  Actually, with this thread, I am getting confused on "what is" and "what is possible" Really confused.

[Glenn101]

15 hours ago, Nevo said:

I wouldn't hold my breath. This is almost certainly fiction (and very bad fiction at that). 

I am not holding my breath. The person that posted the articles says that he is a descendant of Sylvia Sessions (4th great grandmother) through the Clark marriage. It was given to him by his grandmother. He does not know the provenance of the information beyond that. That is the only thing that I know right now. However, Todd Compton in his book "In Sacred Loneliness" notes a second proxy sealing to Joseph in 1846, so that information is plausible.

Also, Ezekiel's reaction to finding out that his three children by Sylvia were also "born under the covenant" seems real.

16 hours ago, Calm said:

It reads rather modern (I thought that when I first read it), more relaxed than much of the formal reading of the time as I remember it.  Then there is the liberal use of "".  Is that consistent with the time period.

I am not a textual expert, so cannot render a qualified opinion as to whether the article is genuine or not. But the relaxed style and use of "" would not seem to be unusual. Consider the chapter on Phebe Clark which JulieM linked to at  http://mormonpolygamydocuments.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Phebe-Clark-chapter.pdf. Phebe puts "special heritage" and "special sealing" in quotes. Her style also seems quite relaxed.

Glenn

[Meg Stout]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

By the way, "rays" is much more consistent with her other similes which are all nature related.  It makes much more sense to imagine that she started using a different word, stopped immediately because she fixed on the simile of the sun and changed it to "rays" and wrote the rest of the poem.  "angels" doesn't fit in with the rest of the theme, even if that was actually the word.  

You just read it off the digital image, right?  No under the microscope analysis of the inks?

In no other prior instances in that journal does Eliza use scraping to edit. It is actually relatively rare for Eliza to make edits, and they are  made via interlineal addition in those first several months.

We have another widower who agrees to be a pretend husband. The explicit promise he was given regarding his willingness to serve as Sarah's pretend husband is theologically parallel to what we see in Eliza's poem as I propose it was originally written. The term angel had a specific theological meaning for Mormons in 1842/1842, as documented in D&C 129:

"Angels... are resurrected personages, having bodies of flesh and bones--"

My reasoning is that Eliza was aware of the promise Jpnathan had been given because originally she was to have been the pregnant woman given shelter by the surface appearance of a legal marriage. But then Eliza fell and miscarried, and declined to retain Jonathan as a pretend husband when there was no longer a child who needed a public father.

I would be delighted were someone who had undergone the scrutiny of producing a dissertation for a liberal arts PhD to wish to assist me in editing what I have done. I live in the world of engineers and scientists, where many of my colleagues don't understand the outer reaches of the vocabulary five generations of school teachers as ancestresses have gifted me.  As they say, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.

As far as doing microscopic analysis of the ink, I understand destructive testing would (very appropriately) not be permitted. I do not have the skill set required to make my examination of the record at such a level of material benefit. So the digital images of a poem which one researcher had assured me showed no sign of modification are sufficient to establish a possibility worthy of skilled examination.

[Calm]

But the problem is that you don't speak of it as a possibility.  You state this is what was " composed"as a fact.  Only later do you state your reading is what it appears to be. This state of possibility as a fact is irresponsible and if you did it as an academic, you would be fried.  I just checked with my sister, the former English professor, who cautioned she has been out of the field awhile, but that Emily ****enson is an excellent example because her work has been altered a lot when published and not always by herself, so it gets debated a lot...and what you have done does not come close to credible evidence.

She suggests altering the declaration to expressing it as a possible reading only.

She also asked why was it changed and when I told her your theory of the poem being repurposed from a man's dead wife to his new bride...wish I could produce her tone, but essentially her answer was Eliza was a prolific poet, why in the world wouldn't she have just written a new one?  My version:  how tacky is it to give a poem meant for the dead wife to his current one?

Edited June 27, 2016 by Calm

[juliann]

40 minutes ago, Meg Stout said:

In no other prior instances in that journal does Eliza use scraping to edit. It is actually relatively rare for Eliza to make edits, and they are  made via interlineal addition in those first several months.

 

But this has nothing to do with you rewriting her poems and presenting your words as hers.

[Nevo]

2 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

Phebe puts "special heritage" and "special sealing" in quotes. Her style also seems quite relaxed.

The autobiographical sketch attributed to Ezekiel Clark strikes me as an outright fabrication. Consider the opening lines:

Quote

Ezekiel Clark a Senator, prominent banker, founder and president of many great industries of the state of Iowa. That's what they say of me. How did I make that kind of a name for myself? I didn't aspire to it all, through my young years. No, I was happy growing up on my father, Icabod's large farm, in Richland, Ohio. My mother, Isabel, whose father's name was McQuade and mothers name was Kilgore, was as Irish as a shamrock. So, perhaps I just had the luck of the Irish with me, all through my life! Well, no, not all through my life, for there were several great sadnesses that I had to endure, but I got through them and life went on.

Here's Google's Ngram Viewer for the expression "Irish as a shamrock": https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=irish+as+a+shamrock&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CIrish as a shamrock%3B%2Cc0

Later, "Ezekiel" writes: "However, I felt real concern over Phebe Jane. She had a serious heart condition..." Here are the Ngram Viewer results for "serious heart condition": https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=serious+heart+condition&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cserious heart condition%3B%2Cc0

I'd say it's a fairly safe bet that the account was composed in the twentieth century, in the 1920s/30s or later.

I'm less certain that Phebe's recollection is a forgery, but at the very least there has been some editorial tampering since Phebe, who died in 1912, quotes Josephine's 1915 affidavit word-for-word. Assuming Phebe didn't dictate that portion of her recollection through a medium after 1915, I'm going to say that somebody else wrote that section.

Bottom line: I don't put any stock in either of these reminiscences. 

Edited June 28, 2016 by Nevo

[Meg Stout]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

But the problem is that you don't speak of it as a possibility.  You state this is what was " composed"as a fact.  Only later do you state your reading is what it appears to be. This state of possibility as a fact is irresponsible and if you did it as an academic, you would be fried.  I just checked with my sister, the former English professor, who cautioned she has been out of the field awhile, but that Emily ****enson is an excellent example because her work has been altered a lot when published and not always by herself, so it gets debated a lot...and what you have done does not come close to credible evidence.

She suggests altering the declaration to expressing it as a possible reading only.

She also asked why was it changed and when I told her your theory of the poem being repurposed from a man's dead wife to his new bride...wish I could produce her tone, but essentially her answer was Eliza was a prolific poet, why in the world wouldn't she have just written a new one?  My version:  how tacky is it to give a poem meant for the dead wife to his current one?

Hi Calm,

Did you ask her to look at the digitized journal? It is not as if I'm staring at my navel and opining without visual evidence that the poem was scraped and a longer word starting with "a" and ending in "s" was replaced by the shorter word "rays".

I have asked if there is any other possible word that could have originally been used.

As for the conversation with your sister, I doubt you were presenting this hypothesis as credible, though if you happened to have an audio recording I could be persuaded otherwise.

[Glenn101]

1 hour ago, Nevo said:

The autobiographical sketch attributed to Ezekiel Clark strikes me as an outright fabrication. Consider the opening lines:

Here's Google's Ngram Viewer for the expression "Irish as a shamrock": https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=irish+as+a+shamrock&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CIrish as a shamrock%3B%2Cc0

Later, "Ezekiel" writes: "However, I felt real concern over Phebe Jane. She had a serious heart condition..." Here are the Ngram Viewer results for "serious heart condition": https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=serious+heart+condition&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cserious heart condition%3B%2Cc0

I'd say it's a fairly safe bet that the account was composed in the twentieth century, in the 1920s/30s or later.

I'm less certain that Phebe's recollection is a forgery, but at the very least there has been some editorial tampering since Phebe, who died in 1912, quotes Josephine's 1915 affidavit word-for-word. Assuming Phebe didn't dictate that portion of her recollection through a medium after 1915, I'm going to say that somebody else wrote that section.

Bottom line: I don't put any stock in either of these reminiscences. 

I am waiting on further information to make any type of judgement. I would like to find out the basis, the original from which those documents were taken. There is nothing earth shattering in either article, but both evidently have had some editing.

There is a document purporting to be by Patty Bartlett Sessions loose on the internet also, but it is unlikely that she actually penned it herself. No dates are given, but relative dates seem seem all wrong.

As it is, they cannot be used as authoritative sources.

Glenn

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Meg Stout said:

Hi Calm,

Did you ask her to look at the digitized journal? It is not as if I'm staring at my navel and opining without visual evidence that the poem was scraped and a longer word starting with "a" and ending in "s" was replaced by the shorter word "rays".

I have asked if there is any other possible word that could have originally been used.

As for the conversation with your sister, I doubt you were presenting this hypothesis as credible, though if you happened to have an audio recording I could be persuaded otherwise.

What I asked her was what was needed to credibly demonstrate what an original word that was altered was in the case of it having been erased/scraped and written over.  I described it happening exactly as you stated.  We (you and me) agree there was an alteration.  What we don't agree on was the proper presentation of speculation on the word of original text.  That is all I am asking you to pay attention to, though I think it would still be wise to register the other problems I have expressed with it so as to not appear to put so much weight for your evidence on what is to me a very weak link for several reasons.

Seriously, please listen to me.  Just change that phrasing to "Eliza composed the poem "Conjugal" with this possible original phrase" or something along those lines.  This is not a hill to die on.  Your research will appear to be more credible if you are cautious until you can get someone who does this stuff for a living to look at the actual manuscript and possibly take high resolution pictures so that the actual layering of ink or whatever they call it can be examined.  You have to go in and edit that section anyway because of the next page not showing up as anything but black.

We have lots of examples in church history and elsewhere already where assumptions based on lower resolution photography were blown away by higher quality photos and actual examination of the items.  Please stop making this mistake.  You may be proved right in the end, but if you have presented it as already demonstrated it won't really matter to actual scholars, you will still be seen as an overeager amateur.

As to the possible original word, I am assuming it would follow most likely the pattern of the other three similies and be some sort of nature imagery as the final word choice was (waves, drops [of water], streams and the rays), but am happy to wait until someone can take a picture with higher resolution for us to speculate with or examines it in person (and knows the techniques to make a determination) and then they get it confirmed by another expert.

If you continue to present your speculation as fact for this minor matter (yes, poets alter their work all the time so it is not a big deal to discuss possibilities), then it indicates a rigidness that does not bode well for the rest of your work.

[Calm]

Someone once said "[f]ew scholars admit the extent to which underlying paradigms shape the soft science of interpreting the hard data".  

Do you believe yourself immune?

[Calm]

So I decided to see if better tech would help me persuade me your confidence was well placed, even if it inappropriate to state it as if it was confirmed and in no doubt.  So I went and pulled up the image on my husband's two week old computer screen (he loves his gadgets).

Let me suggest you get some better tech.  What you are claiming as an "s" at the end of "angels" crosses the line and actually appears to me to be identical to the "y" in rays and then something that might be her "s".  Plus while there seems to be letters erased in front of behind the "r" and "s", it seems like the "a" has no smears or lines behind it.

I speculate that this was originally two words, something descriptive that qualified "rays". Eliza decided she didn't like it and for some reason this time she just didn't strike out the offending word, but tried to remove both it and the original "rays" and then positioned the second writing of "rays" to fill the space formally occupied by two words.

Pure speculation by me that may be replaced in the next minute by someone using better tech.

[Calm]

Looking at the other "s"s at the end of words, she may have the habit of slightly crossing the line.  I would love to see a handwriting expert's opinion.  However, there are still two letters in front of "r" and whatever that last letter is, even if an "s"...which makes for a total of seven letters (four from rays).  The "y" in "rays" (which is the fifth letter in the seven letters I am postulating) is a real stretch to fit to a third letter "g" in angel.  There is just too much space taken up compared to her other writing.  You have her "ray" taking up half of an "n" and "g", you have the "g" tail going way longer than the "y" and the "l" extending up to where there isn't a hint of a line as well, even though there are definite faint lines fill the space.

It still may be two words, but I don't think the second word is "rays" anymore because it isn't long enough.  Or it could be a seven letter word, most likely ending in "s" which is kind of a given just from the rest of the poem.  I was definitely not paying attention to suggest it was something else.

[Calm]

I printed up the "rays" image and your suggested reconstruction and laid them on top of each other.  Using the lower lines of the "g" and "y" to line up throws off the rest of your letters.  The "two" and the "that" are offset.  Lining up those words sticks the top of the "g" between "a" and "y" of "rays" where there is no smudging.

Got to get my ruler out to compare the n's.

[Calm]

So I ended up using my compass instead of ruler since better to compare widths.  I measured from where the previous letter drops down to start the "n" to where the line of the "n" going down was the lowest so I could have a relatively similar starting and ending point.  Using only the n's on the reconstruction page, I measured all the n's that were legible to me.  While not identical as would be expected, they were in my opinion relatively consistent in size.  Until one gets to the reconstructed "n" in "angel" which eyeballing with my compass, looked to be a third to half again as big as the other n's.

Someone professional needs to look at her whole journal and not just the one page to get a more precise view of her handwriting variations, but I think I have found enough questionable markings...specifically too wide of an "n", too squished together "rays", smudgings in the wrong places, and offset "y" from the alleged "g" so as to demonstrate it is very premature to state "Eliza composed" this poem with "angels" anywhere in it even if one agrees unprofessional eyeballing by handwriting nonexperts is sufficient to state conclusions as demonstrated facts.

Edited June 28, 2016 by Calm

[Calm]

I have appointments for the next three days and family from down under in town as well I only get to see once a year, so while this has been fun, not likely to be repeated in the next while.  Might continue to read the book (taking notes elsewhere so as not to flood this and other threads more than already.  If MegS is planning chapter by chapter on the board as she has done with the preface that would probably work best for me and I won't just jump here and there depending on what catches my eye.

[Calm]

Man, I love tech (specially when I am high and everything goes wonky...you know the drill, complete amnesty from spelling and grammar and maybe even reason at times, lol.

http://www.morewords.com/wordsbylength/6a/

Need to see if I can narrow it by adding the variable "ends in s"

http://letterword.com/index.php/seven-letter-words-starting-with-a-and-ending-in-s/

This is an interactive post meaning those who choose the top 3 words I like best, I grant them 25 points each even if I have never repped you in my lifetime.  If you want to use other programs/apps? And you think they are better, more rep points for you.

[Calm]

Something nature oriented that can kiss...flowers, animals, wind, flames

"Acorns" is too short and only romantic for squirrels.

Two auroras kissing in the sun...no wonder she changed it!

Edited June 28, 2016 by Calm