I seem to remember that a respected polygamy researcher compiled a list of wives that Joe probably had sex with. Anyone know who that was and where I can find the list?

Not so long ago you used to be able to log onto family search dot org, punch in joseph smith jr and bam, there they were - all of his wives, marriage dates, birth dates, all of it. Haven't heard if it's still the case.

Yes, that is still the case.

I meant a list of wives that Smith actually had sex with. I have found evidence (not always equally strong) for the following booty list:

Emma Hale
Louisa Beaman
Eliza Snow
Fanny Alger
Sarah Whitney
Lucy Walker
Sarah Lawrence
Maria Lawrence
Helen Mar Kimball
Emily Partridge
Eliza Partridge
Almera Johnson
Hannah Ells
Olive Frost
Melissa Lott
Presendia Huntington
Sylvia Sessions

I would be interested in a list but with the references supporting each. As you state, some of the evidence is stronger than others.

There is a starting point on Brian Hales' website. Of course, you can only really use this as a baseline and not definitive as he interprets some evidence through his TBM lens and rejects some legitimate evidence that points to sexual relations. But here is what he has:

http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/faq/sexuality-2/

See the list under the title of "Sexual Relations are Documented In Less than Half of Joseph Smith’s Plural Marriages".

I combined Hales with i4m. I agree with Hales that single references are dubious but I agree with you that he is very quick to reject some pretty convincing evidence.

Unwittingly, Hales is clear about his agenda: he needs Joe to not have slept with teenies Helen and Nancy (the other teenagers he's OK with, never leave your teenage daughters alone with Mr. Hales) or with the married ones.

If you look at the list, it's obvious that Joe slept with his young and perky "wives" but with the older ones, not so much.

Yeah, once they hit 16, it's ok to admit to the sex. What a warped mind.

I would add Mary Rollins Lightner to the list. She does not come out and admit the deed, but her polygamy conversion story and various comments seem to make it clear enough.

Oh, and the fact that she was sealed to Joseph Smith for "time and all eternity".

Bingo.

Good old Brian Hales lists about a half dozen citations evidence supporting a "time" component to the *polyandrous* marriage to Mary Elizabeth Lightener. But one citation where she says "eternity" without mentioning "time" and he rejects all the other stuff because polyandrous sex is bad and JS cannot be bad. He does not even add it for consideration on his conclusion or summary. What an idiot!

It's a shame... because as far as apologists go, I think he has collected a great amount of information and is pretty open about the not-so-good facts. But he makes his work into an opinion piece by stretching the evidence to meet his conclusion.

Hales seems to have trouble interpreting evidence. For example, from his website:

[BEGIN EXCERPT]
Correspondence in 1892 between Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner and John Henry Smith, indicated that the sealing performed while Joseph was alive was for “eternity”:

I hope you will not think me intrusive, I am sure I do not wish to be- If I could have an oportunity of conversing with you, and Brother Joseph [F. Smith] I could explain some things in regard to my living with Mr L, after becoming the Wife of another, which would throw light, on what now seems mysterious – and you would be perfectly satisfied with me. I write this; because I have heard that it had been commented on to my injury. I have done the best I could, and Joseph will sanction my action – I cannot explain things in this Letter – some day you will know all. That is, if I ever have an oportunity of conversing with either of you.

Mary Elizabeth doesn’t explain what information would make John Henry Smith “perfectly satisfied” regarding the apparent “polyandrous” arrangements. Yet, if had she reported that she had experienced sexual polyandry with Joseph Smith, John Henry Smith would not have been “perfectly satisfied.” In 1892, Church members would have considered sexual polyandry to be adultery.
[END EXCERPT]


Hales misses the most important clue, "...I could explain some things in regard to my living with Mr L, after becoming the Wife of another...".

She is attempting to assure them that her living with Adam was okay, NOT that her sealing to Joseph Smith was simply for eternity. In her mind, the sealing to Joseph Smith is THE marriage that matters, "...after becoming the Wife of another...". For Pete's sake, she was ALREADY the wife of another [Adam Lightner] when she became the wife of another [Joseph Smith]. But the only question she thinks to be relevant is why she lived with this Adam guy after becoming the prophet's wife.

Why does she need to have the time to converse with them to explain the situation? If the answer was a simple, "It was an eternal sealing only," then there would be no need for a complex explanation.

Yes, this is exactly what I was referring to. And the kicker is that Hales even puts the evidence up where she refers to "time and eternity". But he somehow supersedes it with this. What a nutjob.

I have no idea (apart from Emma and Fanny), but let's be honest with ourselves, he probably didn't sleep with every single one of them. I bet there's at least a couple he never had sex with.

How many "wives" does Joe need to sleep with while practicing his Plural marriage/Polygamy/Spiritual Wifery for TBMs to internally think... Hey..Church, this is Bull$hit!! This information wasn't even in the Teaching of JS manual.

Probably the best reference is the new paper that Grant Palmer has written for the John Whitmer Historical Journal. He also going to post this on MormonThink. It is concise and well written, and obviously,being from Grant, is well documented.

Grant did a great job on this recent paper. Concise!

Do you guys have a direct link to it? I guess I can dig around on the JWHA page... but couldn't find it after a cursory look.

Maybe this is it?

http://mormonthink.com/grant6.htm

Thanks... I've read it recently, but just bookmarked it for reading again.

crathes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Probably the best reference is the new paper that
> Grant Palmer has written for the John Whitmer
> Historical Journal.

I'd be interested in an advance copy!

BTW, check out my version of the wives of Joseph Smith infographic:

http://www.mormonisme.nl/2014/01/de-vrouwen-van-joseph-smith.html

Underlined names = actual photo
Red names = hanky panky



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2014 03:55PM by rt.

Nice work...do you have an English version?

Nope, I ripped off my version from this one in English:

http://www.mormoninfographics.com/2012/09/the-many-wives-of-joseph-smith.html

That list is longer than my list before I got married, and I thought I was a player.

Just sayin'...

Interesting that this page on Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner is no longer available: http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/MLightner.html. I was reading it just last week, before the essay was released.

I can still see it, interesting read, thanks for the link.

Hmmm, must be something wrong on my end. Thanks for the heads up.

So in Grant Palmer's essay it says that Fanny Alger and her family left Kirtland for Dublin, Indiana in September 1836 and by November was married to a man there. Has anyone ever looked in the census records to see if she had a child in May 1836 or earlier? As someone on this forum mentioned last week, she might have fled Kirtland due to pregnancy.

If you can get a list of citizens in the towns where JS lived, (at the time slimy Joe lived there), just figure he screwed the female half of the citizenry above the age of 11. A list is not accurate because slimy Joe would have managed to have 2 or 3 behind the barn for every ONE on any list.

verilyverily Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you can get a list of citizens in the towns
> where JS lived, (at the time slimy Joe lived
> there), just figure he screwed the female half of
> the citizenry above the age of 11. A list is not
> accurate because slimy Joe would have managed to
> have 2 or 3 behind the barn for every ONE on any
> list.

That is about what I was going to say; similarly, it would be easier to make a list of who he didn't.

His list of badness would be so bad he would not get a Christmas present until Easter.

Were he honest, he would have left a list for posterity.

Wow

Well done Grant H. Palmer - excellent work!

Very nicely put together and presented. Also well written (i.e. the text doesn't get in the way).

I may be an idiot (and it's late here), but the Miss Hill story was not familiar to me. I think I'd have remembered it because of Emma's endorsement of it.

Or is it there hiding in one (or several) of Steve Benson's posts and I just must have skipped it ;-)

Tom in Paris

I wonder sometimes how many STDs JS had when he died.