Reluctant Polygamist: Preface

[JulieM]

59 minutes ago, ALarson said:

Oh....so if John C. Bennett said it, it must be true 

Do you also believe what he stated about Joseph Smith?

If he's the only source and if Glenn has no other to support his claim, that's pretty weak, IMO.  I'm not too trusting of most (all?) of what John C. Bennett stated.

.

Seems like a perfect example of what julian was stating in her last post.  Using Bennett as a source is not very reliable.

[Meg Stout]

47 minutes ago, ALarson said:

Oh....so if John C. Bennett said it, it must be true 

Do you also believe what he stated about Joseph Smith?

If he's the only source and if Glenn has no other to support his claim, that's pretty weak, IMO.  I'm not too trusting of most (all?) of what John C. Bennett stated.

.

It was delightful seeing the banter back and forth on this discussion of Mrs. Swindle as a disinterested observer.

I was aware of Mrs. Shindle's accusations against Joseph Smith, as anyone would be who has flipped through Bennett's History of the Saints. But as ALarson points out, there are reasons to suspect the veracity of her accusations, given the timing and the circle of individuals associated with her statement.

We who look at the history in 2016 tend to forget that when Mrs. Shindle's accusation was made, the handwritten copy of the women's testimonies before the High Council were not common knowledge. In the excerpt of Catherine Laur Fuller Warren's testimony that was published in the newspaper, the Shindle portion was not included. It's not like it was excised, it just wasn't in the part that implicated Chauncy Higbee of having illicit intercourse with Catherine.

On June 25, 2016 at 4:17 PM, Calm said:

If your core thesis is simply that Joseph was commanded to institute plural marriage with the intent of establishing a celestial family structure here on earth, there is nothing controversial about that or that the results were confusing because family can be messy.  Iirc, Bushman discusses in Rough Stone Rolling the premise of Joseph trying to recreate a celestial version of life on earth (though Bushman leaves the question of God's actual involvement open in keeping with the rest of his book).

I don't see the need to bring in the claims of specific women being seduced by Bennett's group or Emma and Joseph running their own behind the scenes investigation ring.  And neither of those claims actually supports your core thesis if I understand it correctly.

I thi k you need to either flesh out what your core thesis is or rethink how you go about exploring it.

Hi Calm,

There are multiple audiences who would be reading this book.

The audience here requesting CFRs is aware of the history, might be willing to pay for a book that extended to thousands of pages, and is heavily vested in the idea that certain individuals were honorable (e.g., Brigham Young, Heber Kimball, Eliza Snow).

Most reading the book, however, would not have an understanding of the history. They would not have the patience to read thousands of pages (e.g., would not have purchased or read Hales' Joseph Smith's Polygamy, Compton's In Sacred Loneliness, or Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling, much less the biographies of William Smith and John C. Bennett).

They would have been exposed to they pithy declarations everywhere that suggest Joseph Smith necessarily slept with many women with no known provocation for covenanting with dozens of women.

There are two research questions that drove my approach to this subject, in light of the non-controversial belief Mormons hold that Joseph was establishing a system of Celestial marriage that could link together the entire family of mankind:

1) Why did the salacious accusations arise?

2) Why has the Church hidden "the truth" about how the core doctrine that differentiates Mormonism was introduced to the faithful by Mormonism's founding prophet?

One problem is that I have been assiduously attempting to develop a narrative that accounts for all the events. Thus I had to account for the story that Eliza Snow had fallen and lost a child. I had to account for Brigham's attempt to persuade Martha Brotherton to participate in an extra-monogamous partnership. I had to account for George A. Smith's story about Joseph washing his hands. And I similarly had to account for the thousands of other facts and events and affidavits. I didn't leave specific mention of each item in my book, because (as my family can attest, with rolling eyes and sarcasm), I can go on for hours about each one of these thousands of facts and events.

Anyway, back to responding to the multitudinous CFRs.

[Calm]

History is messy, sometimes things aren't accountable by other theories and must stand on their own as anomalies.  Insisting that everything that happened in Nauvoo must fit into your theory is likely going to be even less successful than attempts at the Theory of Everything.

If the story about Eliza's fall is false, then do you agree you can dump the entire section of her being pregnant due to fornicationfrom your work?

Did you assume the story was true first without looking into the reservations expressed based on significant evidence, such as her appearance in her teaching job during the time period where it is claimed it would have happened, which she wouldn't have been able to do if she had been so injured as to lose the child?

[Calm]

MegS, I am not sure we are talking about the same thing when we use the term "core these".  It seems to me that what you stated as your core theses was simply the general, non controversial statement about plural marriage.  But your work is about your questions, so your thesis should be framing how you are going to be answering those, IMO.

This site reflects how I view thesis statements.

It doesn't matter what audience you are writing for except for avoiding technical or less well known language if you are writing for a general audience.  Your thesis statement about what you are going to demonstrate in your work or try to demonstrate can be very short, even ifyou were to provide a huge amount of data to back it up.

[Calm]

Autocorrect...that's core thesis, not these.

[juliann]

32 minutes ago, Calm said:

History is messy, sometimes things aren't accountable by other theories and must stand on their own as anomalies.  Insisting that everything that happened in Nauvoo must fit into your theory is likely going to be even less successful than attempts at the Theory of Everything.

If the story about Eliza's fall is false, then do you agree you can dump the entire section of her being pregnant due to fornicationfrom your work?

Did you assume the story was true first without looking into the reservations expressed based on significant evidence, such as her appearance in her teaching job during the time period where it is claimed it would have happened, which she wouldn't have been able to do if she had been so injured as to lose the child?

As far as I am concerned, pushing Eliza down the stairs has been resoundingly disproved. It was physically impossible given the real life configuration of the house vs what the folk tale related. I'd be surprised to hear of anyone else holding onto it. 

[Calm]

Megan's, page 146 is blacked outin the pdf

[Calm]

Autocorrect...that is not Megan's, but MegS 

[Eek!]

On ‎6‎/‎26‎/‎2016 at 6:55 PM, Meg Stout said:

There are multiple audiences who would be reading this book...

Most reading the book, however, would not have an understanding of the history. They would not have the patience to read thousands of pages (e.g., would not have purchased or read Hales' Joseph Smith's Polygamy, Compton's In Sacred Loneliness, or Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling, much less the biographies of William Smith and John C. Bennett).

They would have been exposed to they pithy declarations everywhere that suggest Joseph Smith necessarily slept with many women with no known provocation for covenanting with dozens of women.

There are two research questions that drove my approach to this subject, in light of the non-controversial belief Mormons hold that Joseph was establishing a system of Celestial marriage that could link together the entire family of mankind:

1) Why did the salacious accusations arise?

2) Why has the Church hidden "the truth" about how the core doctrine that differentiates Mormonism was introduced to the faithful by Mormonism's founding prophet?

One problem is that I have been assiduously attempting to develop a narrative that accounts for all the events. Thus I had to account for the story that Eliza Snow had fallen and lost a child. I had to account for Brigham's attempt to persuade Martha Brotherton to participate in an extra-monogamous partnership. I had to account for George A. Smith's story about Joseph washing his hands. And I similarly had to account for the thousands of other facts and events and affidavits. I didn't leave specific mention of each item in my book, because (as my family can attest, with rolling eyes and sarcasm), I can go on for hours about each one of these thousands of facts and events.

I fall into the category of "definitely interested, but not an historian".  About twenty years ago I read a bunch of books on Joseph Smith, and have looked at a few since. 

My observation is that most writers on the subject of Joseph Smith's polygamy have a very strong agenda, and usually fall into one of three camps:  

1)  Joseph Smith engaged in polygamous marriages to satisfy his lust.  This approach of course condemns Joseph Smith and the Mormon Church along with him.

2)  Joseph Smith engaged in polygamous marriages that included sexual relations because God commanded him to.  This approach exonerates both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and exonerates the mainstream Mormon church (at least up until the Manifesto, where some groups see a fork in the road).

3)  Joseph Smith did not engage in polygamous marriages; rather, polygamy was an invention of Brigham Young.  This approach exonerates Joseph Smith but condemns Brigham Young and the mainstream Mormon church.

The fact that agendas 1) and 2) above both use essentially the same information and arrive at almost the same conclusions as to WHAT happened, although they are strongly divided as to WHY, hasn't led to much re-examination of the WHAT outside of those who embrace agenda 3).  Re-examining the WHAT, but without embracing agenda 3), is imo a vital part of Meg's contribution.  And I think it is a terrific contribution.  

I haven't finished Meg's book yet, but to this point (page 149) she has enormously widened my perspective on the relevant events of that time - the WHAT - and, when I've finished her book, I may need to re-assess my thinking about the WHY. 

Edited June 28, 2016 by Eek!

[Calm]

As far as events go, you should go to original sources as her interpretation on what happened IMO goes beyond and sometimes way beyond what is actually stated.

You should always go to original sources, but there are some cases where it is a necessity and unfortunately because I think she is trying very hard and is passionate about the subject, I think this is one of those cases (see my posts over in the polyandry thread if I haven't said enough here to explain why...I have lost track of where I said what).

[jkwilliams]

8 hours ago, Calm said:

As far as events go, you should go to original sources as her interpretation on what happened IMO goes beyond and sometimes way beyond what is actually stated.

You should always go to original sources, but there are some cases where it is a necessity and unfortunately because I think she is trying very hard and is passionate about the subject, I think this is one of those cases (see my posts over in the polyandry thread if I haven't said enough here to explain why...I have lost track of where I said what).

Just a note to say how much I appreciate your taking the time to go through all of this. I don't have much time at the moment, and you're doing a more thorough job than I would have done. If nothing else, readers are being given an object lesson in how real historiography is done. 

[ALarson]

10 hours ago, Eek! said:

My observation is that most writers on the subject of Joseph Smith's polygamy have a very strong agenda, and usually fall into one of three camps: 

I hope you can see that Meg Stout also has a "very strong agenda" and is even willing to represent her theories as fact when what we're seeing here (by Calm and others) is that she does not have evidence to support her strong agenda.

[Eek!]

3 hours ago, ALarson said:

I hope you can see that Meg Stout also has a "very strong agenda" and is even willing to represent her theories as fact when what we're seeing here (by Calm and others) is that she does not have evidence to support her strong agenda.

I think Meg has strong ideas, but I don't think she's defending or attacking a particular religion, which is a nice change of pace. 

[Calm]

5 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

Just a note to say how much I appreciate your taking the time to go through all of this. I don't have much time at the moment, and you're doing a more thorough job than I would have done. If nothing else, readers are being given an object lesson in how real historiography is done. 

Please, not a historian by any means.  What I do have was excellent English teachers in high school and college who were never reluctant to criticise and a degree with a strong research emphasis and a stronger background in having to prove and disprove positions due to being in a family that interacts mostly by dissecting each other's ideas, lol.  And a very obsessive nature.

[jkwilliams]

Just now, Calm said:

Please, not a historian by any means.  What I do have was excellent English teachers in high school and college who were never reluctant to criticise and a degree with a strong research emphasis and a stronger background in having to prove and disprove positions due to being in a family that interacts mostly by dissecting each other's ideas, lol.  And a very obsessive nature.

I'm not saying you're a historian, just that you are showing how a careful and fair person approaches history. And doing a darned fine job, if I may say so.

[Calm]

50 minutes ago, Eek! said:

I don't think she's defending or attacking a particular religion.....

Since she is assuming that Joseph received revelation and thus was indeed a prophet and this appears to be a fundamental filter for how she is interpreting the evidence, I am not getting how you are concluding this.  Sorry.

[ERayR]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

Since she is assuming that Joseph received revelation and thus was indeed a prophet and this appears to be a fundamental filter for how she is interpreting the evidence, I am not getting how you are concluding this.  Sorry.

She is definitely working from the premise that Joseph was indeed a prophet but I think that is alright because she is not denying her biases. 

[ALarson]

1 hour ago, Eek! said:

I think Meg has strong ideas, but I don't think she's defending or attacking a particular religion, which is a nice change of pace. 

This does not justify her coming up with scenarios that have no supporting documentation and then writing it up as fact.  That actually does more harm than good (especially when people read her material and believe it's accurate and then later learn that it's fiction.)

.

Edited June 28, 2016 by ALarson

[Calm]

On June 26, 28 Heisei at 6:48 PM, juliann said:

As far as I am concerned, pushing Eliza down the stairs has been resoundingly disproved. It was physically impossible given the real life configuration of the house vs what the folk tale related. I'd be surprised to hear of anyone else holding onto it. 

To be clear, MegS does not believe Eliza was pushed down the stairs.  Her appraisal of Emma does not match the description of a woman who could do this.  However, she believes Eliza fell down the stairs at the Red Brick Store, shifting time (can't remember her justification for this beyond evidence it couldn't happen when claimed) and location (since the other stairs do not fit the description, she assumes the store stairs do based on the idea/possible fact freight would have been carried up them) so she can use the fall as an explanation for a miscarriage, which requires a pregnancy, which she shifts from JS to JCBennett as the father.  Iirc, this is also where she uses the story of Joseph washing his hands of blood after helping with a delivery, though the child is still born.

She paints quite a detailed description, even imagining the scene with Emma horrified, Joseph rushing to the rescue and gently carrying her upstairs and later the poor infant is placed into the arms of her mother, who gives the little girl her own name of Eliza.

The switching back and forth between the pure fiction and her attempted factual reconstruction is one of the things that led me to hyperfocus on making sure she actually had sources for her claims.  Too much of what was supposed to be nonfiction came really close to her storytelling.  The Alger-Holmes claim where the only evidence of a romantic relationship is proximity, both being residents in the same house at the same time, crosses the line imo to pure fiction that appears to be for the sole purpose of telling a good story (why does Emma get angry enough to boot Fanny Alger out but stays deep, personal friends with Johnathan until after Joseph dies?).

I don't know if the book is significantly different.  Unless I have missed it MegS has not responded to my question whether she has altered her conclusions in any significant way from her blog positions and so far I haven't found anything, so I feel comfortable just to point people to "Eliza and the Stairs" if they want to read MegS's own words to see if I have misremembered/misinterpreted...which is very possible.

[Calm]

Just to be clear, I see MegS having the habit of dispensing with all the parts of a claim that she doesn't want while still retaining those she does.  The fall story is an excellent example.  The description of Emma's face doesn't fit her view of Emma, Emma as villain is removed and it is merely Eliza falling on her own down the stairs.  Since the location can't work, that is dispensed with and replaced with one that might.  Since the timing won't work, that too is altered.  What remains from the original story is a fall and she accepts that fully even though there is no additional support besides rumours probably based on the claim she tears apart herself.

[Calm]

Another issue is constructing scenarios based on memories of her research and not actual documentation.  For example, she constructs the whole Brotherton timeline based on a 22 week turnaround for gossip to move from Nauvoo to England and back again (using an 11 week travel time from England to Nauvoo, possibly by Clayton iirc) when there is no evidence cited in her work that it was being discussed during that time period and a reference to the 1842 affidavit  (I think I got it from Hales' response, will find it if asked) being discussed in both the local paper (Times and Seasons iirc) and the England one, whose name escapes me.

The fact that I am using memories of my own research to pick on her is an example of my laziness, but I am also not trying to prove a radical claim at this point.

If the 22 week timeline is based on a faulty memory, her whole argument for it happening in early December collapses....and there are other problems such as a letter placing her father's family in Warsaw (Warren) during that time, not in Nauvoo, though it is possible her sister's family (which I recall she stayed with for a time) had moved directly to Nauvoo but as far as I can tell at this point, there is no direct evidence of that.

Unfortunately, given that she is careless with footnotes and citing sources throughout her work, it becomes impossible to know what she has based a claim like the 22 weeks timeline on and instead we are required to simply accept it.

There is another example of this but my own memory is too vague, so going to find it before using it as 'data'...

Edited June 28, 2016 by Calm

[Eek!]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

Since she is assuming that Joseph received revelation and thus was indeed a prophet and this appears to be a fundamental filter for how she is interpreting the evidence, I am not getting how you are concluding this.  Sorry.

If her agenda was "defend the Mormon church", I don't think she'd have seen discrepancies between how Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage and how Brigham Young practiced it.  She may resolve those later in her book, I don't yet know. 

3 hours ago, ALarson said:

This does not justify her coming up with scenarios that have no supporting documentation and then writing it up as fact.  That actually does more harm than good (especially when people read her material and believe it's accurate and then later learn that it's fiction.)

.

I think I've been able to differentiate between what Meg is stating to be part of the historical record and what she believes the implications are.  Maybe she should have used more disclaimers.  Maybe I should too. 

Imo, ime, ymmv, etc.   

Edited June 28, 2016 by Eek!

[juliann]

A book review highlighting some of these issues would be really, really helpful......

[Meg Stout]

On 6/26/2016 at 8:10 PM, Calm said:

History is messy, sometimes things aren't accountable by other theories and must stand on their own as anomalies.  Insisting that everything that happened in Nauvoo must fit into your theory is likely going to be even less successful than attempts at the Theory of Everything.

If the story about Eliza's fall is false, then do you agree you can dump the entire section of her being pregnant due to fornicationfrom your work?

Did you assume the story was true first without looking into the reservations expressed based on significant evidence, such as her appearance in her teaching job during the time period where it is claimed it would have happened, which she wouldn't have been able to do if she had been so injured as to lose the child?

Hi Calm,

The reasons for dismissing the tale about Eliza having miscarried are addressed in my book. But to recap here:

1) Eliza couldn't have been pregnant after 1838 because of the rape that reportedly rendered her infertile according to Alice Merrill Horne circa 1930 based on conversation she says she overheard as a child dandling on her grandmother's knee in the 1870s.

2) It is presumed Eliza's fall took place in February 1843 when she departed the Smith household, and that date is impossible because of the journal entries and school records demonstrating that she at that time did not miss any days at school, as would be expected had she fallen and suffered a miscarriage.

3) Neither the staircase at the Homestead or the Mansion House is possible for the reported scene.

4) Charles C. Rich couldn't have seen a fall where a plural wife miscarried a child in 1842, because he didn't learn about plural marriage until 1844.

In response we have:

A) It is unlikely even Eliza could have had reason for declaring herself infertile, even had the reported rape occurred. A decades-late memory from a child based on conversations she overheard, specifically when her own record makes it clear the adults were trying to obfuscate the lurid details of their conversation, cannot be considered a primary source. This is not to denigrate Alice Merrill Horne, who indeed was widely honored later in life,

B) I hypothesize that Eliza's fall took place in mid-November, a time when her poetry suggests she endured two weeks of retirement where she wrote about death, the New and Everlasting Covenant, betrayal by a vile wretch, and casting herself on Christ's atonement despite being despised by former friends. It is only after this period of retirement that Eliza commences teaching school. Those who have placed the fall in February did so specifically because they presumed that the fall was caused by an Emma would was so jealous that she would cause bodily harm to her friend and colleague. But it is known that the Smith household was rearranging things that day in February 1843 to allow for Mother Smith to be situated differently, and Eliza only relocated herself to the home of Jonathan Holmes, which was just two blocks away. Those who have hypothesized that the fall occurred in February have taken as a foundational tenet that Emma was uninformed and would therefore have entirely rejected an Eliza who was found to be pregnant and the wife of Joseph Smith. However an Emma Smith who was not ignorant of plural marriage would have proceeded to assist in the delivery of the miscarried child (a possibility for the report we have from George A. Smith via Lucy Messerve) and would have continued to welcome Eliza.

C) I hypothesize that the scene of the fall was the Red Brick Store, where Charles C. Rich would understandably be coming to consult with Joseph, who had an office at the top of the staircase. Emma and Eliza would naturally have been present at the head of those stairs, as the upper room of the Red Brick Store was where Relief Society had been meeting the prior year and would reasonably continue to serve as a useful meeting point for Emma and other Relief Society officers. Though the original configuration of the staircase of the Red Brick Store is not confidently known, it had to permit goods to be transported up to the upper storage room from the river that ran along the back of the building, so it would naturally have been broad and unenclosed.

D) One needn't be informed of plural marriage to see a single woman fall and begin to miscarry. The version of the story we have was told to Ben Rich, who wasn't born until after his father both knew of plural marriage and was himself married to multiple wives. There is no reason to expect Charles C. Rich to report the version based solely on what he knew as of 1842/1843. Ben Rich and Aird MacDonald similarly could have transformed the tale in light of their lack of knowledge of Nauvoo buildings and their understanding that Emma Smith was opposed to plural marriage. But when we take away extrapolation, we have a mature and honored man reporting that a single women he knew well fell down a flight of steps and began to suffer a miscarriage, that she reportedly lost the unborn child and in later years suffered from weakness in that leg that he believed was attributable to that fall. Ben Rich conveyed the story as a Mission President to a 19-year-old elder serving in the Mission office (Aird MacDonald). Therefore the provenance of the tale is strong and there is no reason to suspect that the basic story was invented.

[JLHPROF]

Just now, Meg Stout said:

Hi Calm,

The reasons for dismissing the tale about Eliza having miscarried are addressed in my book. But to recap here:

1) Eliza couldn't have been pregnant after 1838 because of the rape that reportedly rendered her infertile according to Alice Merrill Horne circa 1930 based on conversation she says she overheard as a child dandling on her grandmother's knee in the 1870s.

Talk about hearsay instead of history. 
And that recent paper stating Joseph married her out of pity due to this is without any historical evidence, and frankly, an insult to Eliza.
I actually agree with you that:
"A) It is unlikely even Eliza could have had reason for declaring herself infertile, even had the reported rape occurred. A decades-late memory from a child based on conversations she overheard, specifically when her own record makes it clear the adults were trying to obfuscate the lurid details of their conversation, cannot be considered a primary source. This is not to denigrate Alice Merrill Horne, who indeed was widely honored later in life."

As for the story of the miscarriage.  It may be true, it may not.  It's pure speculation but there are huge problems with the story in general.