Merina Smith graduated from the University of Colorado, raised five children, then returned to graduate school, earning a PhD from the University of California at San Diego in 2011.  She currently researches and writes as an independent historian.  She currently resides in San Diego with her husband, legal scholar Steven Smith.

Revelation, Resistance, and Mormon Polygamy

The Introduction and Implementation of the Principle, 1830–1853

By Merina Smith

University Press of Colorado

Copyright © 2013 University Press of Colorado
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-87421-917-3

Contents

List of Illustrations………………………………………………viiIntroduction………………………………………………………11. Mormon Millenarian Expectations: The Restoration of All Things and the
Resacralization of Marriage, 1830–1841……………………………….172. Nauvoo Secrets and the Rise of a Mormon Salvation Narrative, 1841–1842..583. Scandal and Resistance, 1842……………………………………..1024. Integration, 1843……………………………………………….1345. A Perfect Storm, 1844……………………………………………1696. Polygamy and the Succession Crisis, 1844–1846………………………1847. Living Openly in Polygamy: Customs and Mores Develop, 1846 and Beyond…210Epilogue………………………………………………………….246Bibliography………………………………………………………255Index…………………………………………………………….263

CHAPTER 1

Mormon Millenarian ExpectationsThe Restoration of All Things and the Resacralization ofMarriage, 1830–l1841

On October 10, 1883, Olive Amanda Smith Fullmer wrote a letter to hernamesake, Olive Amanda Fullmer Bulkley, informing her that “we have this dayconsigned to Mother Earth the mortal remains of your father.” In a curiouslyimpersonal letter that, with one exception, used only pronouns for her husbandafter the initial “your father,” Olive described to her daughter how her husband,John Solomon Fullmer, suffered during his last hours on earth. She was callednext door when the first and favored wife, Mary Ann (or Mamie), perceivedthat their mutual husband was in distress. Olive reported that John, thoughsuffering extremely, continued to exhort his wives and offspring through muchof the day. “He had his senses and could talk and did till the last breath; gavedirections, counseled, in fact preached the gospel to the last, but then wentas quick as you could blow a candle.” She described the funeral, mentioningthe speakers’ words of praise and their reassurances to the family that he hadreceived all possible blessings, and that in the due time of the Lord he would,in the words of John Taylor, the third president of the LDS church, “pass by thegods” and receive his exaltation.

Olive ended the report by telling her daughter: “Poor old Mamie like towent crazy, but I felt not to mourn; but she is so lonely. John lives in with her.”It is a sentence that conveys a world of meaning about Olive, John, and Mamieand their polygamous marriage. When Olive finally used her husband’s name,it was in connection with his first wife. Olive had apparently forgotten momentarilythat John was dead—not surprisingly, since he did not live at her house—becauseshe used the present tense in saying “John lives in with her.” That Olivewould inform her daughter of this indicates that the living arrangements hadnot caused the kind of resentment that would lead a mother to complain to herdaughter, but instead were accepted as a matter of course. If Olive had ever felta sense of deep attachment to her husband of thirty-six years—and, given theexistence of their ten children, it seems likely that she had—it was muted by thetime he died, since she “felt not to mourn.” The letter contains an odd sense offamiliarity, combined with resignation, distance, and emotional detachment, asthough Olive were simply reporting the death of a neighbor and the deep griefof his wife of many years.

Olive’s detachment is better understood in light of a letter she receivedfrom John nine years earlier, in 1874, the first line of which captures Olive’slesser wifely status and John’s attitude toward her: “I sent each of the otherwomen a good long and affectionate letter … and feel that I should send youone also.” In other words, duty had compelled him to correspond with her. Hewent on to remind Olive that, in keeping with their Mormon religious beliefsabout the necessity of marriage and the eternal nature of the marital connection,they could not be “redeemed and exalted … in a separate condition, … anincontrovertible fact which it is well for us both to understand and realize.” Inlight of this, John recommended that they should “cultivate for each other thatfriendship and affection” appropriate to Saints and their spouses, though their”interests, temporarily, appear to be distinct.” He admitted that he had beenaggrieved in the past, but now he wanted to “extend to you the hand of fellowship,and my affectionate regards as a husband.” He remembered “with muchsatisfaction the few happy years of our early married life” and hoped that theycould soon enjoy the “relations and endearments of life as in times past.” Butshould they fail in this by their own misconduct, “Wo! Unto the culpable party,with the displeasure of our Father in Heaven, which God forbid should be ourlot.” Intriguingly, John counseled, “Perhaps it will be wisdom in you to retainthis as a private and confidential letter, not that there is anything improperabout it; but it may save some feelings which had better sleep in oblivion withouta resurrection for all time to come.” Perhaps he was worried about theconsequences should his three wives compare their letters.

Olive must have complied with John’s desires to some degree, since shelived next door to him and Mary Ann at the time of his death, but the reservedrelationship demonstrated by John’s letter apparently remained cool, judgingby Olive’s reaction to his death. Their two letters nevertheless indicate a connectionthat was, in both their minds, related to nothing less than their jointpersonal redemption and exaltation. By marrying John polygamously in 1846,Olive had, in Mormon thinking, opened the door to salvation for her husband,his first wife Mamie, and all of their collective offspring.

One has to wonder why Olive would want to be tied to John in the eternitieswhen she did not seem to mourn his death on earth. The desire is moreeasily understood when it is seen not just as a connection to John, but to herchildren, to the other wives and their children, and indeed to all the righteousof the Mormon community. John’s admonition, beginning with “Wo!,” was astern reminder that she could lose her salvation by her own individual misconduct,but if she gained salvation, exaltation in the eternal worlds that followedwould be a group undertaking, a family narrative. Without salvation, however,she would be like the medieval thane who was locked out of the mead hall,doomed to wander the eternities alone.

Olive and John were both firm believers in a Mormon theological narrativethat explained the purpose of life, connected them to their family and the otherMormon faithful in this life and the world to come, and gave them a model bywhich they could live. It was a lifeline to which they could cling in the confusingworld of nineteenth-century populist religion and social upheaval. Theysought religious authority and they found what they were seeking in JosephSmith and Mormonism. But how did their firm belief in Mormonism leadthem to polygamy, a form of marriage they both appear to have found lessthan satisfying? Like other Mormons, they were surely horrified when they firstlearned about polygamy, because they had been steeped in monogamy fromchildhood. Somehow they came to believe that polygamy was right, but howdid this happen?

The storied nature of Mormonism (i.e., its presentation as a story) wasparticularly compelling to early converts, who were seeking to make sense ofChristian tradition and the amazing success of the American experiment. Thenarrative that Mormons found so convincing included the seeds of some innovativetheological concepts concerning marriage and family. This developingdoctrine (along with revelation and some practical problems that emerged withregard to marriage) led the church to resacralize and therefore control marriagepatterns among its members and assert its authority, in contradiction tothe civil authority of the state and the nation in which Mormons lived. Byintroducing polygamy secretly and, at the same time, openly introducing powerfulordinances that connected families and salvation, Joseph Smith was ableto build an infrastructure that supported polygamy and paved the way for itsacceptance after his death. In essence, Mormons became converted to a millenarian,narrative-based religious understanding that was extraordinarily effective,because it encompassed the grand sweep of religious history while incorporatingAmerican experience into a family-centered theology of salvation.Polygamy was a central part of that narrative.

The Nature and Scope of Mormon Belief

To understand why the Fullmers and other converts would accept polygamy,it is useful to look at the way Mormons believe. For the Fullmers, and for mostpeople who became Mormons after the church was organized in 1830, acceptingpolygamy was part of a process that began with a wholehearted embraceof an exciting new religion, one that fit exceptionally well with the religiousunderstanding of ordinary people in the wake of the American Revolution.Shortly after the Revolution, common people had begun to shape religion forthemselves in strikingly egalitarian ways. The Fullmers, and many others likethem, came to believe that amazing events and radical changes were possibleand necessary in their time—the last days. In this social and religious milieu,Mormonism was particularly successful, because it offered, as Marvin Hill hasdemonstrated, a refuge from the confusion of American religious pluralismthrough a compelling millenarian synthesis of traditional Christian and distinctivelyAmerican history and theology.

The theology was particularly attractive to common people, because it wasarticulated through canonic stories and interrelated action and policy. RichardBushman has said that “Mormonism is less a set of doctrines than a collectionof stories.” It is not surprising that this should be true for a religion that arosein a period of rapid democratization, when fast-growing denominations likeMethodists and Baptists self-consciously rejected codified theology and trainedministers in favor of more populist forms of worship that were accessible andcommonsensical. Nathan Oman has argued that for Mormons, stories andscripture gave rise to practices and institutions that created a structure on whichthe church could build, one that helped Mormons attract, socialize, and retainmembers. In addition, these practices and institutions served as a substitute forcodified theology.

Mormons adopted many practices and institutions from scripture—baptism,priesthood, the Lord’s Supper and, eventually, polygamy—that were usedto integrate Mormonism into its members’ everyday lives. These same conceptsinformed Mormons’ understandings of salvation and exaltation and allowedpeople to determine what they needed to do to be saved and exalted. Beyondthis, Oman has argued that Mormon belief in the authority of their leaders hasallowed them to see their history as “the accretion of many decisions in concretehistorical situations made by wise and inspired leaders. The result is a set of practicesand institutions that they regard as imbued with the divine, even when thepractices and institutions cannot be shown to be deduced in any unproblematicmanner from sacred texts, theological first principles, or dramatic moments ofcharismatic revelation.” In other words, besides being a collection of stories,Mormonism is also a social and physical framework, responding to the conditionsarising from the march of history through the authority of leaders whomthey trust to speak for God. Mormons’ beliefs about the trajectory of history andtheir place in the religious story could thus allow them to react to what actuallyhappened—as opposed to what they thought would happen, and even prophesiedwould happen—without diminishing the faith of the members.

Authority is central to Mormonism. The Mormon narrative was wovenaround the idea of religious truth and authority from God. Leaders were “calledof God”; practices and institutions were according to God’s commands. Inlight of the importance Mormons placed on authority and democracy, onemight be inclined to ask, how did democratic beliefs and religious authoritycoexist? The answer is that priesthood—power from God—was given to ordinarymembers in what they regarded as divinely inspired ways. Hence authorityand a form of democracy existed together in Mormonism from its earliest days.

Within this democratic and authoritarian structure, the process of sortingout how institutions and practices would interact with authority, narrative, andbelief to connect Mormons to the church and to each other was extraordinarilycomplicated. The various practices and institutions had to coordinate withscripture and belief to form a coherent story, what I call the Mormon theologicalnarrative. The importance of this story to Mormons cannot be overemphasized.People needed to understand why they did what they did, and what itwould mean for them both in earthly life and in the hereafter. Or, rather, theyneeded to believe that the story made sense in the eternal scheme of things, evenif they themselves did not understand the narrative perfectly. At the same time,ordinary members participated in the process, because priesthood was availableto all worthy males, and the church’s hierarchy was drawn from its lay membership—therewas no ordained ministry.

Forming such a structure, narrative, and basis of authority, however, wasa trial-and-error process that adherents nevertheless believed was infused withthe divine. Mormonism’s particular combination of story-based theology andongoing revelation made for a dynamic and nimble hierarchy, social organization,and body of belief. Through continuing revelation from modern-dayprophets, Mormon policies and institutions, such as polygamy, could respondto changing circumstances and conditions in a way that would best serve theinterests of the church and its membership. Since Mormons were not boundto a codified theology, practices and institutions could change in response towhat events had delivered and experience had taught them. In turn, what theylearned and experienced became part of the faith-promoting narrative that sustainedeach generation. Their migration west, for example, besides harkeningback to the Children of Israel’s escape from Egypt, became a faith-promotingnarrative of great power for the descendants of Mormon pioneers.

Religious Narrative, Marriage, and Family

The narrative aspect of Mormonism was instantly appealing to Johnand Mary Ann Fullmer when they joined the church in 1839.23 Mormonismexplained the sweep of religious history for them, gave them a tradition inwhich they could raise their two young daughters, and fulfilled John’s long-heldambition to be a minister of the gospel. Beyond this, John’s parents and threeof his siblings had already become Mormons, so they were increasing familyunity by adopting this new religion. Family and community ties were, in fact,central to Mormonism and to polygamy, and by the time the Fullmers becameMormons, a remarkable shift in Mormons’ understanding of marriage and familyhad begun, one that was surely appealing to the young couple. ThoughMormonism was initially in line with general Protestant and American valuesconcerning marriage and family—an understanding that regarded marriage asa civil institution—over time the church moved toward resacralizing marriagein a way that went beyond even the Catholic sacramental interpretation of marriage.Mormons also began to integrate family relationships into their theologicalunderstanding of salvation and the organization of the afterlife. Onecan imagine the comforting appeal of a doctrine that joined families together ineternity during a period of relatively high mortality among children and parentsalike. Related to this, a particular kind of Kingdom of God thinking developedthat encompassed families and communal relations and was to apply to bothearthly and heavenly life.

The resacralization of marriage was combined with a Mormon embrace ofan entire span of religious history that placed special emphasis on the ancientpatriarchs as models for creating an earthly and heavenly Kingdom of God,an interpretation that makes sense in light of the Mormon emphasis on family.The stories of the ancient patriarchs are, after all, essentially family andtribal stories. Likewise, the Book of Mormon is a family story. Ancient Israelhad grown and developed through a strict control of marriage patterns. TheChildren of Israel were not to marry unbelievers, and some practiced polygamy,which ensured that the most faithful and chosen produced numerous offspring.In a sense, then, the Mormon embrace of this aspect of religious history madepolygamy a natural part of their theological narrative.

But even if polygamy could be part of the developing theological narrative,it was not something early converts wanted or expected. There were, afterall, many practices mentioned in the Old Testament that Mormonism did notadopt. And though it had popped up now and again in various sects, most ofChristian history did not support polygamy. Moreover, polygamy is not partof the New Testament story in any meaningful way.
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