Dark History Chapter Seven: Sodom and Debauchery on the Mississippi

SODOM AND DEBAUCHERY ON THE MISSISSIPPI

"Nauvoo is a Hebrew word, and signifies a beautiful habitation for man…"

-Dr. John Bennett

"I presume Nauvoo is as perfect a sink of debauchery and every species of abomination as ever were Sodom or Nineveh.”

-Reverend W. M. King

"This Bennett was probably the greatest scamp in the western country.”

-Gov. Thomas Ford of Illinois

"I've got a black spot on my life, which shall pain me to the very last minute of my existence."

-William Law

The little village of Nauvoo, Illinois is, for many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints, like an enchanted Shangri-la or a magical Camelot. Such is the nature of faith that a boom town on the Mississippi frontier could be imbued with a “holy golden era” quality. For the five years it was the headquarters of the Latter Day Saints, it was seen as a place of “miracles”, “revelations”, and heroic deeds of the righteous battling forces of evil.  That idealized version of Nauvoo became entrenched in folklore because the town was the last home of their revered prophet Joseph Smith, and has been enshrined in the lore of Latter Day Saint narratives ever since.  

However, here in this bustling raw village Joseph Smith, the founder of the various churches and sects of Mormonism, lied continuously and steadfastly about his extramarital relationships to the world; all the while vigorously protesting that he was a faithful, devoted, monogamous husband. This part of the history of Nauvoo, which was in the end the cause of the destruction of the Holy City, is rarely told. Histories that are not “faith promoting” rarely are among religious folk.

The Mormon Prophet was a conundrum in his own time and is even in ours.  Various biographers of Joseph Smith have used the Latter Day Saint Prophet’s words in order to either to prove or disprove he was teaching plural marriage as a doctrine in his life time. So secret were these teachings, concerning plural wives, that the Community of Christ, [formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints], was founded on Smith's public statements denying polygamy; supported by claims by Emma Hale Smith, the prophet's wife. In contrast, the branch of Mormonism which followed Brigham Young to Utah insisted that belief in "Celestial Marriage", or polygamy being essential for exaltation to godhood status, was taught secretly to church leaders whom Joseph Smith could trust. For years, enmity between these two largest Latter Day Saint factions was over which Mormon prophet was lying; Joseph Smith or Brigham Young.

One of the fundamental tenets of the Utah Latter Day Saint Church is the concept of eternal progression towards godhood by a man being "sealed" in a religious ceremony to a woman or women.  They base this dogma solely on the secret teaching of Joseph Smith which he never publicly acknowledged in his lifetime.  Few realize that it was President Brigham Young who announced to the world that polygamy was a doctrine of the Utah church by not until 1852.  Even then Joseph Smith's revelation on plural marriage was not even placed into the Doctrine and Covenants, a volume containing Smith’s visions,  as Section 132, until 1876 a year prior to Brigham Young’s death.

Those like the Community of Christ, who subscribe to the belief that Joseph Smith was an anti- polygamist, base their claims solely on the fact that Smith declared all rumors he was teaching plural marriage as lies, spread to harm the image of his church. Evidence show that it is true that the prophet viciously castigated and even smeared publicly the reputations of those who dared suggest that he was practicing plural marriage.

The dilemma, then for the Salt Lake City Latter Day Saint Church, is how to explain that Joseph Smith was a polygamist; when at the same time all his public comments were that he was not.  In order to justify and validate polygamy in Utah, the Utah church was forced to concede that Smith was “lying” about having monogamous relationships solely with his wife. Actually they could not do otherwise for Smith’s extramarital sexual activities in Nauvoo are well documented by overwhelming evidence found in diaries of prominent Nauvoo residents and sworn testimonies of Saints from the period.  These primary sources absolutely contradict Smith’s denials.  

This troublesome truth that Joseph Smith said one thing in public and did another in private is problematic to many Mormon historians. This is due in part to the “personality cult of the Prophet Joseph”; developed and fostered by the Latter Day Saint Church in Utah. It is impossible for most Latter Day Saint devotees to impugn the honor of Smith or even suggest anything other than that their prophet was always acting under divine guidance. A Latter Day Saint General Authority, Apostle Dallin H. Oaks, conceded that Joseph Smith was a liar, [1] and originated the phrase, “Lying for the Lord” to acknowledge the contradiction between the prophet’s words and his deeds. Elder Oaks instructed the faithful that to correctly interpret Smith’s contradictory statements was to place them in a divine context; that it is not a sin to lie as long as the falsehood protected the integrity of the church. As a church authority, Elder Oaks' position that lying can, in certain situations, be viewed as a “virtue” is given added weight among LDS faithful as a mean to justify dishonesty. Elder Oaks' doublespeak term, “Lying for the Lord” is presently often used by Latter Day Saint apologists, who would rather stand the concept of “lying” on its head rather than envision “their prophet” as anything but righteous and noble. [2]

This condoning of President Joseph Smith’s deceits and falsehoods however, have an unintended negative consequence. The veracity of all statements, comments and claims made by the “Prophet” and his defenders are now open to suspect and subject to scrutiny.  At best the notion of “Lying for the Lord”, touted as a positive attribute, stretches the credulity of his followers and gives added support to some of the claims by Mormon dissenters and dissidents who are mostly dismissed as simply being "anti-Mormon." These dissenting Saints often provided statements regarding misdeeds of the prophet misdeeds that are verifiable as opposed to those of faithful Saints who perjured themselves in order to protect the “mouth piece of the Lord”.

Church President Joseph Smith’s adulteries in Ohio and Missouri were a well kept secret among a select group of Kirtland church elders. In Nauvoo again, only the closest associates of Smith had knowledge of his straying from Emma Smith’s bed. Nonetheless, in Nauvoo, as the prophet began to indulge himself in numerous extra marital affairs, even ordinary Saints began to hear the whispers of misconduct, not only by Joseph Smith, but also on the part of other high ranking church officials. This gossip became so pervasive that it spread outside the city limits and the affect of it forced church missionaries to publicly deny the rumors. [3]

President Joseph Smith felt it was imperative to keep secret his assignations from all but a few of his most trusted devotees. Smith knew that any hint that, as church’s president, he was fornicating with married and single female Saints would expose him as an adulterer which would destroy his carefully constructed image of being a holy prophet. Therefore only those, with whom he had complete trust or with whom from a public scandal would have as much to lose as he, were aware of Smith’s sexual liaisons. President Sidney Rigdon was one such man who had as much to lose as Smith if a scandal were to bring down the prophet. Of all those senior church leaders in Nauvoo, only Smith’s long time counselor Sidney Rigdon, who served in the First Presidency; the highest office of the Latter Day Saint Church, knew of Smith’s womanizing. Smith's secret was safe though with President Rigdon because he had devoted ten years of his life and most of his reputation to the Latter Day Saint Church’s advancement. Sidney Rigdon kept quiet for many years over Smith’s sexual trysts, at least since 1832, until it affected his own household.

President Joseph Smith’s inner circle of policy makers, like his brother Hyrum and his counselor Dr. William Law, were unaware of his philandering, until it became so blatant that it could not be kept a secret any longer. Until then, Hyrum Smith and Dr. Law were among the most ardent supporters and defenders of Joseph Smith. They believed the prophet’s public denials of polygamy in the church and asserted passionately the prophets statements on the matter. [4] However as it became more evident that Joseph Smith was being false to his wife, his brother Hyrum had trusted informants follow the prophet and report back to him about the prophet's assignations. This came to an abrupt halt in 1843 when Hyrum accepted his brother's claims to have divine authorization to have multiple sex partners rather than give up his belief in his brother's gift of prophecy. It was Hyrum who insisted that the revelation on polygamy be produced to show Emma Smith that having multiple wives was not only sanctioned by God, but demanded by Him.

The attempt on the part of President Joseph Smith to create a theocratic kingdom also facilitated the doom of Nauvoo. By consolidating all civil and ecclesiastical powers unto him, this allowed Smith’s physical appetites and mania for power to go unrestrained.  The prophet envisioned himself as a king presiding over an empire that eventually would include not only America but the entire world. Smith organized a council of fifty men to help him realize this goal. Under his direction, this secretive Council of Fifty was given the responsibility of setting up this theocratic kingdom of which he as the Lord's Anointed was to be king. The prophet's recklessly drive to exercise autocratic authority over Saints and Gentiles eventually caused serious dissention within the church and within Nauvoo's surrounding neighbors.

Ultimately Smith’ failure to establish another Midwest Zion and Kingdom of God was accelerated by his embracing the friendship of Dr. John Cook Bennett, a “scoundrel” of similar appetites for power and “free love”. As much as anyone, Dr. Bennett contributed to the demise of Smith’s dream of a nineteenth century sexual and economic utopia on the banks of the Mississippi River as a base for world domination. 

Before all that, prior to the Nauvoo period, President Joseph Smith languished five months incarcerated in various Missouri jail cells waiting to be tried for treason.  In the fall of 1838 Smith had led the Saints in an insurrection against the state of Missouri by having his Danite army take up arms against the state's militia. Terms of surrender were that Joseph Smith and other high church officers had to be taken into custody and the body of church members were "exterminated" meaning forced out of the state.

After bribing a Missouri sheriff to escape, in April 1839, the 33 year old fugitive prophet, rejoined his exiled “Saints” regrouping in Commerce, Illinois. On the eastern shores of the Mississippi River, the village of Commerce was located in a swampy mostly uninhabited area of Hancock County. The place was not much more than a refugee camp for thousands of suffering Saints when President Joseph Smith arrived.

However, Smith envisioned the potential of cheap land on which to build a city and renamed Commerce, the new home of the Saints, "Nauvoo"; a word Smith asserted was Hebrew for "Beautiful Place". Here in Hancock County, Illinois, Smith and Sidney Rigdon signed personal loans on credit and with the money purchased the land and encouraged his Saints to build again a new Zion, and upon the bluff overlooking the Mississippi River; to rear a new Temple.  

The Latter Day Saints soon gathered in mass as before, and in the process made the church leaders wealthy as land speculators and developers. Within a year the former sleepy village of Commerce grew into the city of Nauvoo, with between 15,000 to 20,000 residents, and making it only second in size after Chicago. President Smith’s devotees referred to Nauvoo as the “City of Joseph”, which was to become Smith's last physical incarnation of his vision of the “Kingdom of God.”

The Nauvoo Era of early Latter Day Saint history is truly unique in that it differed from the Ohio and Missouri experimental periods where Joseph Smith developed his early theology. Gone now were the Kirtland dissidents who felt President Smith had swindled them. Gone were the millennial Zion revelations that claimed the Missouri frontier was the antediluvian land home of Adam and Eve.  Gone too were the original neophytes who claimed being eye witnesses to the authenticity of Smith’s “golden bible”.  In Nauvoo, Smith could reinvent his church, almost as a “do over”, freed from past associates who had formerly helped create the theological frame work for the early church.

In the 1830s Ohio Church, President Joseph Smith’s primary theological influences were from several former “Restoration Gospel” or Campbellite theologians [5]; in particular the Pratt brothers, Orson and Parley, and Sidney Rigdon. However by the 1840’s the Pratt brothers, now Latter Day Saint apostles, were sent away on extensive missions to Canada and Great Britain while Rigdon’s influence on Smith declined due to his descent into clinical depression and religious madness. Thus in Nauvoo, the narcissistic and inventive prophet was left unbridled to originate new religious themes, promote his political ambitions, and explore his amorous passions uninhibited.

From 1839 to 1844, Joseph Smith began to preach a radically different gospel than the one preached in Ohio and Missouri. As “the Lord’s Anointed”, Smith's Nauvoo period was dominated by a new theological creed he termed “The Dispensation of the Fullness of Time”. In this new dispensation, Smith claimed he held all priesthood authority of both the Old and New Testaments. As holder of the “keys to the kingdom" he stated he had the authority to bind on earth that which would exist in heaven and had God's authority to bless or condemn.  President Smith would “restored” in this new version of his church the ancient Hebrew customs of kingship, blood atonement, animal sacrifice, and polygamy. Besides these Old Testament practices, Smith developed distinctly new doctrines he said were based on New Testament lost teachings such as baptism for the dead, multiple heavens, and a plurality of gods.

The mystique of Joseph Smith being the “Lord’s Mouthpiece,” as well as the doctrine of absolute obedience to the prophet, permitted the Saints to accept these significant and somewhat drastic changes to formerly more traditional Christian doctrines and practices which had been taught in the 1830's. President Sidney Rigdon, Joseph Smith’s former preeminent “mouthpiece” in the church, is notably absence from being involved with Smith reshaping the church's during this period of Latter Day Saint history. In Rigdon's mind, 'the fullness of time" dogma betrayed the earlier teachings of a “restored gospel”, much of which he had formulated as a Bible scholar. "Repentance", "baptism for the forgiveness of sin" and most of all "acceptance of Jesus Christ as a savior of mankind" principles were becoming over shadowed by the prophet’s new Gnostic interpretation of the gospel, which President Rigdon was increasingly reluctance to embrace. Due to this hesitancy on the part of Rigdon, he was to exercise no real administrative or theological prominence in developing or shaping this new theological innovation.

Within the church in Nauvoo, Elder Sidney Rigdon had become simply a figurehead. It had not always been so. Other than the “Prophet” no other Latter Day Saint theologian had greater influence in developing basic doctrines and tenets of the early church. Sidney Rigdon, as one of the presidents of the early church was the originator of many of the original tenets of the Latter Day Saints. Such beliefs as an imminent Second Coming of Jesus Christ, the Word of Wisdom, the United Order, and even that of a “First Presidency” itself were conceived in the mind of Rigdon.

Not long after Sidney Rigdon was baptized a Latter Day Saint in 1830, the 37 year old former Campbellite preacher rose quickly to the top ranks of Joseph Smith’s early church leadership. Rigdon’s astute religious intellect was useful to the young inexperienced prophet and Smith chose him as well as Jesse Gause to be his first counselors, Mar. 8, 1832.[6] The 47 year old  Jesse Gause [7]  and Sidney Rigdon, 39 years old, were much older than the 26 year old prophet.  However Gause and Rigdon were easy to manipulate by the prophet, for as in his younger treasure seeking days, Joseph Smith was quite deft at using his charisma to charm older men for his benefit.  

Little is known about Joseph Smith’s first counselor Jesse Gause. After several months as a counselor to Joseph Smith, he became disillusioned with the young prophet and dropped away from the church. His suddenly departure caused Smith to alter the revelation supposedly given to Gause by the Lord. Smith had Guase name stricken and simply replaced it with Frederick G. Williams' name months later when Williams became a counselor to Smith. The revelation now found in Section 81 of the Doctrine and Covenants appears as if the revelation had been given to Frederick Williams in the first place.

It is believed that Smith chose Jesse Gause as his counselor due to his experience with the communal Shaker society in Ohio.  The prophet was beginning to initiate an economic “communal experiment” at this conjuncture which he called the “Law of Consecration”.  The purpose of Smith’s primitive communism was to initiate an economic equality among the Saints. Members would donate all their property to the church to be redistributed by Smith, as head of the church, as he saw fit. [8]

A serious turn of events happened to Elder Rigdon in less than a fortnight after his being ordained a counselor to Joseph Smith. A frenzied rabble broke into the house of John Johnson, of Hiram, Ohio in which they were lodging and attacked both the Prophet and his counselor. The pack of men consisted primarily of family members and friends of Nancy Marinda Johnson, the 16 year old daughter of John Johnson. Marinda's brother accused Smith of having sexual relations with her and others in the gang were angry over the rumors of the church defrauding locals out of their property.

Elder Sidney Rigdon was attacked primarily because of his association with the Latter Day Saints Church and was dragged out by his heels: “so high from the earth he could not raise his head from the rough frozen surface”. His head was severely lacerated. Both the prophet and his counselor were tarred and feathered. 

Sidney Rigdon, who was already afflicted with bouts of depression, was deeply affected by the outrage committed on him almost making him deranged. When President Joseph Smith, having recovered faster than Rigdon, visited his injured counselor, he “found him crazy”. Upon seeing Joseph Smith, the agitated Rigdon called for his wife to bring him his razor. When she asked what “he wanted of it”, the counselor replied, "to kill Smith". [9]  

For several months after the violent assault at Hiram, Ohio, Elder Sidney Rigdon had severe doubts regarding Joseph Smith’s moral integrity. These qualms brought “bouts of depression” to the Mormon theologian throughout the spring of 1832. Rigdon began to question whether Joseph Smith’s still had “divine authority” or whether due to his philandering he had lost the spirit of inspiration. At one point, in summer 1832, Elder Rigdon began to preach that the “keys of the kingdom” had been taken from Smith.  Upon hearing of Rigdon's skepticism, Joseph Smith publicly prophesied that “the devil” would get a hold of him. Later after what was probably an epileptic seizure, Sidney Rigdon felt the experience of him thrashing about his room was a fulfillment of Joseph Smith’s prophesy. Rigdon regained his confidence once again in Smith’s prophetic calling. The prophet, harboring no ill will against Rigdon, re-ordained him to the high priesthood and the Saints sustained him as counselor for the second time.  

Elder Sidney Rigdon proved his worth to the young “prophet”, during the next few years, by helping build up a thriving Latter Day Saint congregation in Kirkland, Ohio. Elder Rigdon’s abilities as an administrator and his loyalty to Joseph Smith were rewarded by the prophet, Apr. 19, 1834 when at the age of 41 he became second in command over the Latter Day Saint Church. Joseph Smith and his cousin Oliver Cowdery, as first and second Elders in the church, "laid hands upon bro. Sidney [Rigdon] and confirmed upon him the blessings of wisdom and knowledge to preside over the Church in the absence of brother Joseph."[10]  

Two years later, at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, Mar. 27, 1836, President Joseph Smith revealed he had reorganized the “ministry of the first presidency” into the office of the “First Presidency”. He asked the Saints to sustain Sidney Rigdon as a member of the church’s newly organized “First Presidency” and to recognize him as a "“Prophet”, seer, and revelator". In this position, President Rigdon supported Joseph Smith’s claims of seeing visions. "Joseph would, at intervals, say: 'What do I see?' as one might say while looking out the window and beholding what all in the room could not see. Then he would relate what he had seen or what he was looking at. Then Sidney replied, 'I see the same.' Presently Sidney would say 'what do I see?' and would repeat what he had seen or was seeing, and Joseph would reply, 'I see the same.' This manner of conversation was repeated at short intervals to the end of the vision" " [11]

President Sidney Rigdon’s devotion to Joseph Smith was demonstrated again in early January 1838 when he fled with the prophet from their financial problems and the Kirtland “apostates”.  However in Missouri, a rift developed between the youthful and sensual Joseph Smith and the older stodgy Sidney Rigdon. For some time there was evidence of an uneasiness growing between the two men.  Joseph Smith was by all accounts a convivial man of daring deeds, while the dour academic Sidney Rigdon was equally a misanthrope. However, as that the prophet’s oldest and closest supporters, like Oliver Cowdery, the Whitmer brothers, and Martin Harris, had fallen away from Smith, Elder Rigdon  was still his most zealous supporter in Missouri.

Nevertheless on one occasion during summer 1838, President Sidney Rigdon disastrously tried to usurp Joseph Smith’s authority at a Mormon militia encampment near Adam-ondi-Ahman, Missouri.  The middle aged Rigdon had observed the 32 year old prophet engaging in a wrestling match with his men on a Sunday. Indignant at the Saints breaking the “Holy Sabbath”, the fanatically pious Rigdon, “brandished a sword” and rushed into the circle of playful grappling and demanded that Smith and the men cease breaking the Sabbath.

Danite John D. Lee wrote of the incident noting that President Joseph Smith warned Rigdon to behave. He told his crazed counselor, “Brother Sidney, you had better go out of here and let the boys alone; they are amusing themselves according to my orders. You are an old man. You go and get ready for meeting and let the boys alone.” The prophet then knocked the sword from Rigdon's hand and, “dragged him from the ring, bareheaded, and tore Rigdon's fine pulpit coat from the collar to the waist.” When the humiliated Rigdon complained about damages to his fine coat, Smith replied, "You were out of your place. Always keep your place and you will not suffer; but you got a little out of your place and you have suffered for it. You have no one to blame but yourself.” Lee reported that Rigdon never again “countermanded the orders of the Prophet to my knowledge - he knew who was boss.” [12]

After the disastrous attempts to create a Latter Day Saint Kingdom in Missouri had failed, due partly to Sidney Rigdon’s fanaticism, the scholarly theologian’s influence on the Latter Day Saint “Prophet” in Nauvoo waned to the point that by fall 1843, Joseph Smith had asked the Saints to remove him from the First Presidency. It was obvious that after the failure to establish a Zion in Missouri, Smith was done with the “old man” as he called him once and for all.

The rift that developed in Missouri between Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith widened to a chasm in Nauvoo when Rigdon learned that the prophet was rebranding his illicit sexual encounters as a form of "spiritual wifery" and promoting this "virtuous fornication" by way of making it a divine command.  President Rigdon was aware of this because by 1843 Joseph Smith had introduced the practice to the highest officers in the church. Rigdon was aware of the prophet’s many assignations since at least 1831 when the prophet was having sexual intercourse with 16 year old Fanny Algar, his wife's servant. However in Nauvoo this “indulgence” deeply troubled Rigdon as he viewed “Spiritual Wifery” as Joseph Smith’s attempt to enshrine the practice of “free love”, sexual intercourse outside of matrimony, into a religious responsibility and obligation. Yet President Sidney Rigdon never took a public stand to denounce the practice of polygamy by Joseph Smith, even after the attempted seduction of his own daughter. He dared not risk it.

The taking of multiple wives was illegal in Illinois as per a state law enacted February 12, 1833 making it a crime punishable with a fine of $1000 or two years in jail. The practice was called "abominable before the Lord" by Jacob the Nephite as recorded in the Book of Mormon and it was even forbidden by the laws of Latter Day Saint Church as found in Section 101 of the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants [13].  Yet Joseph Smith felt safe in Nauvoo to seduce as many women as he desired because he had minions surrounding him sworn to protect his life and his secrets.

In summer 1838, the prophet had established in Missouri a cabal of men who had taken sacred oaths to defend the “Lord’s Anointed”, a title which he chose for himself from the Bible.[14] Most of these rough raw men were former battle hardened Missouri Danites. In Nauvoo these Danites were recruited for the city’s constabulary and to serve as Smith’s personal bodyguards. Their duty was not only to protect Smith from those who would harm him but also the reputation of the church. This slavish cult-like reverence for Smith as the “mouth piece of the Lord” and by extension the entire office of the first presidency, was very useful to Smith. It created a host of zealous pugnacious Saints dedicated to keeping the “prophet” and his "sordid secrets" safe.

President Sidney Rigdon’s exclusion from policy making at the highest echelon of the Latter Day Saint Church was due in part to an amoral interloper who arrived in Nauvoo fall 1840. When handsome and dashing Dr. John Cook Bennett appeared on the scene, what little influence Rigdon had left with Joseph Smith further declined. The arrival of Dr. Bennett brought about a “changing of the guard” of those influential with President Joseph Smith. With the appearance of the physician, the prophet could dismiss those associated with failures of the past, including Rigdon, and concentrate on reinventing a “new kingdom” on the shores of Mississippi River.

It has to be asked regarding Dr. John Bennett, why did he become, almost immediately, President Joseph Smith’s most trusted friend and confidante in Nauvoo? There are several possible answers. Perhaps it was that the doctor was nearly the same age as the prophet, or that the prophet was infatuated with Bennett’s portrayal of himself as a man of action and vision. Perhaps Smith sensed that the doctor was as rakish as he and could thereby confide in this man the prophets own physical wants and needs without the judgmental scowl of self righteous Rigdon. Whatever the intense attraction between the two men was, it was enough of an attachment that Joseph Smith took the doctor into his home and into his confidence. Eventually Joseph Smith discovered that Bennett’s penchant for sexual adventures and predisposition for power was equal to or even surpassed that of the Latter Day Saint Prophet.

Dr. John Bennett came to the attention of Joseph Smith in summer 1840 when the 36 year old Quartermaster General of the Illinois Militia wrote a series of ingratiating letters to the prophet. In these flattering messages, Bennett professed that "Wealth is no material object with me. I desire to be happy, and am fully satisfied that I can enjoy myself better with your people . . . than with any other."  Bennett went on to state that he hoped the time would soon come when your people will become my people, and your God my God.'' [15]

In these correspondences with President Joseph Smith, Dr. Bennett claimed that he would have shared the prophet’s persecutions in Missouri  “had not the conflict terminated so speedily. I should have been with you then. God be thanked for your rescue from the hand of a savage, but cowardly foe!'' [16]  Duly impressed by Bennett’s sycophancy, Smith wrote back and encouraged the physician to relocate to Nauvoo.  Dr. John Bennett’s correspondence to Smith was a contrivance, certainly a calculated attempt to gain the Latter Day Saint Prophet’s confidence, because it was evident that from his sordid background, he “pursued secular, not religious goals.”

This was not Dr. John C. Bennett's first encounter with Mormonism. In 1832 when the doctor lived in Ohio, the Dr. William McLellin, a Latter Day Saint Apostle,  had actually introduced Bennett to both Smith and Rigdon in Hiram, Ohio. Evidently the doctor was not impressed with the infant church. Dr. Bennett waited nearly eight years to decide whether the Latter Day Saints could be useful to as ambitious a man as Bennett was.

Dr. John Bennett arrived in late August 1840 and upon meeting him, Joseph Smith was taken by the physician’s demeanor and intellect. So much so, that knowing the doctor had no lodging, the prophet invited John Bennett to board with his family at their dwelling known as the “Homestead”. Here in Smith’s household Dr. Bennett would live for nearly nine months, evidently much of that time without paying for his room and board. During this period Dr. Bennett and the prophet became fast friends and President Joseph Smith's closest confidante, even though the prophet had received an anonymous letter in September warning of the doctor’s past.

Dr. John Bennett and the prophet, after some time, became intimate compatriots, and Bennett claimed to have known "Joseph better than any other man living." Dr. William Law, [17] who was in January, 1841 sustained as second counselor in the first presidency, acknowledged Bennett's evaluation of his relationship with President Joseph Smith. Dr. Law wrote that Bennett "was more in the secret confidence of Joseph than perhaps any other man in the city." [18] Certainly Joseph Smith admired sparring with such a man of Bennett’s intellect and probably discerned that the physician had a similar disregard for the moral conventions of the day.

While living with Joseph Smith at the Homestead, Dr. John Bennett was one of the first men that the “prophet” took into his confidence about his unorthodox views on marriage. [19] In guarded secrecy, the prophet explained his views of “free love” that he framed as “spiritual wifery”.  Dr. Bennett was an eager student of Smith’s views and soon began to practice “free love” almost immediately among both male and female Saints in Nauvoo, however without the prophet’s approval. Joseph Smith had his secrets and so did the physician.        

Evidence of Joseph Smith’s immediate confidence in Dr. John Bennett’s abilities to make things happen is demonstrated when Smith allowed the doctor to make a motion for a rule change at the Latter Day Saints’ fall 1840 General Conference. Although a novice Latter Day Saint of less than a month, the doctor proposed a new statute that provided how one could be judged guilty of a crime within the church.  Bennett proposed that no one could be accused of a transgression unless proven “by two or three witnesses.” Dr. Bennett may have made the proposal but President Smith had approved it as a perfect dodge to shield the prophet's sexual activities. By setting the measure for “burden of proof” so that only a few would be able to provide testimony, Bennett  not only shielded the prophet's extra-marital sexual activities but also his own with both females and males. [20]  The motion was sustained and adopted by the Saints on October 5, 1840.  

When Dr. John Bennett arrived in late summer 1840, Nauvoo was not much more than a teeming refugee camp on a peninsula jutting out into the Mississippi. It had no legal status and Joseph Smith was still a refugee from Missouri. The prophet was  subject to extradition by Missouri law men, if he could be caught. With the next service Bennett rendered for the prophet, he changed all of that. Joseph Smith and Dr. Bennett spent fall 1840 devising and writing a city charter fo Nauvoo in order to petition the state legislature for incorporation.  As Quarter Master General, John Bennett was familiar with dealing with the Illinois legislature. Bennet was a deft lobbyist and had even he cultivated figures like Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, two of its most powerful members. He assured the prophet he was willing to put his experience working with state legislators for the benefit of the Saints. [21]

Throughout the last months of 1840, Joseph Smith and John Bennett collaborated on drafting charters each with with the goal of establishing a city government, a university, a militia, and a municipal court. The final draft known as the "Nauvoo Charter" included enough explicit powers that in affect gave the “City of Joseph” autonomy from state control and perusal. As written, the document allowed the city council to disregard state laws and pass their own laws, as long as they did conflict with powers granted specifically to the federal and state constitutions.

The Charter asked for the state legislators to provide Nauvoo with its own Municipal Court which would be only the third such court in the state. As constituted Nauvoo’s municipal court would be significantly different from the other courts established at Chicago and Alton, Illinois. Those courts were convened under the authority of one judge. In Nauvoo, the city mayor would be the sitting chief justice of the municipal court, with the city’s aldermen serving as associate justices. The main objective for the establishing a municipal court in Nauvoo was to give Mormon justices the ability to issue writs of habeas corpus. These writs would allow city officials to negate extradition orders from any other judicial jurisdictions. This proviso would then allow President Joseph Smith to escape expatriation from Nauvoo back to Missouri, and kept the prophet from falling into the hands of his old Missouri enemies.  Nauvoo was to become “a safe haven with justice-of-the-peace courts and probate courts issuing such writs to free arrested people regardless of the jurisdiction in which they were arrested”. [22]

John Bennett and Joseph Smith’s potent charter called for the creation of a mayor who would control the combined three branches of government; the legislative, the judicial, and the executive. The mayor’s power over the municipal court not only helped “protect the Mormons from legal persecution, real or imagined, but also to make outside law enforceable in Nauvoo only if the city government concurred.'' [23] When finished Dr. Bennett constructed for Joseph Smith a legal compact that would make Nauvoo an independent city-state within Illinois.

Once finished, the grand charter was taken by Dr. John Bennett to Springfield where by “dangling the prize of a solid Mormon voting bloc before the legislators", Bennett was able to obtain a charter creating the City of Nauvoo, with its accompanying benefits. The Illinois General Assembly granted Nauvoo “corporate city status” Dec. 16, 1840. “And so in one fell swoop, in an effort to curry favor with the Mormons, the Legislature had placed in Joseph Smith's hands the legal and military power with which to create a secular dictatorship without rival in any other city in America.” [24] Through Dr. Bennett's efforts, Nauvoo was on it's way to be the second largest city in Illinois after Chicago.

Dr. John Bennett returned to the newly formed city-state a triumphant hero and President Joseph Smith rewarded the doctor’s daring accomplishments with many accolades, honors, and tributes.  With Smith's consent, Bennett was elected Nauvoo’s first mayor, Febr. 1, 1841. This singular honor demonstrated how completely the prophet trusted his friend at the beginning of 1841. The doctor was in effect now the chief justice of Nauvoo’s municipal court as well as mayor. Quickly more awards followed as Bennett was appointed chancellor of the University of Nauvoo, an institution that Bennett proposed, and was accordingly appointed “Major-General”, one rank below Joseph Smith who took the rank of lieutenant general, in the newly established Nauvoo Legion. [25] After his commission in the Nauvoo Legion, Bennett’s sobriquet was always "General Bennett" when addressed or made reference to in newspapers. In the militaristic Kingdom of God, "martial status" was almost as important as priesthood ranking as Joseph Smith was also referred to as General Joseph Smith.

Perhaps the greatest show of confidence in Gen. Bennett was expressed by Gen. Joseph Smith was when Bennett was called by the prophet to be his assistant in the church’s first presidency. 

Rank and file Latter Day Saints must have been puzzled by this newcomer’s spectacular ascendancy within the church. Gen. John Bennett was relatively unknown in the church until President Joseph Smith officially introduced him to the Saints. In a florid proclamation addressed to the Saints at large, Smith identified Bennett as "one of the principal instruments, in effecting our safety and deliverance from the unjust persecutions and demands of the authorities of Missouri, and also in procuring the city charter...and is calculated to be a great blessing to our community."[26]

Regarding Bennett’s new found status in Nauvoo, Don Carlos Smith, the prophet’s younger brother and editor of the “Times and Seasons”, wrote: “We would say if untireing [untiring] diligence to aid the afflicted and the oppressed, zeal for promoting literature and intelligence, and a virtuous and consistent conduct, are evidences of popularity, we venture say no man deserves the appellation of ‘popular and deserving’ more than Gen . J. C. Bennett.” [27]

         

      Not only were mere mortals praising Nauvoo's hero, John Bennett received also an extraordinary honor when the prophet included his trusted confidante in a revelation. given Jan. 19, 1841. Once again illustrating the eminence that Gen. Bennett had achieved in Joseph Smith’s estimation, the "mouth piece of the Lord said, "Again, let my servant John C. Bennett help you in your labor in sending my word to the kings and people of the earth, and stand by you, even you my servant Joseph Smith, in the hour of affliction; and his reward shall not fail if he receive counsel. And for his love he shall be great, for he shall be mine if he do this, saith the Lord, I have seen the work which he hath done, which I accept if he continue, and will crown him with blessings and great glory." [28] This revelation is remarkably curious in that Smith had in his possession a letter warning the prophet that Bennett had an unsavory past. However the statement “I have seen the work which he hath done,” had the Lord dismissing the doctor’s former adulteries and his “homo-libertine” [29] activities, apparently.

The Gen. Bennett’s meteoric rise within the social hierarchy of President Joseph Smith’s most trusted but small group of influential people is beyond simply “that he could deliver the goods”. It was also due to Bennett filling a “power vacuum” within the church left by the death, desertion, or absence of so many key players. Sidney Rigdon’s bouts of depression, the apostasy of his cousin Elder Oliver Cowdery, and the absence of most of the apostles left Joseph Smith without any close friends or trusted advisors except for the doctor.

On paper the first and second counselors in the office of the first presidency were Sidney Rigdon and Dr. William Law. Nonetheless, the prophet had supplanted these counselors by adding John Bennett and his brother, Hyrum as his “assistants” as the real policy makers for the church. At the spring General Conference, Gen. John Bennett was sustained as an assistant president to President Joseph Smith in the first presidency on Apr. 8, 1841. The Saints were told this was a temporary assignment until “President Rigdon's health should be restored." [30]

Although President Rigdon was still Smith’s first counselor, the prophet only allowed Rigdon to serve a perfunctory role in a decidedly more limited and titular position than previously in Missouri. Rigdon was still allowed to preach lofty sermons in the groves where the Saints gathered for worship and he was trotted out on high occasions; befitting his status. He even was permitted to give the dedicatory speech at the Nauvoo Temple’s ground-breaking ceremony. In order to maintain the illusion that Elder Rigdon still had relevancy, President Joseph Smith, June 1, 1841, ordained Rigdon as "Prophet, Seer and Revelator" of the Latter Day Saints.  The ecclesiastical titles were the same as held by Smith, but Rigdon’s was a veneer. To Mormon masses, it appeared that nothing had changed in the leadership of the church but it had dramatically.

During the winter of 1841, John C Bennett’s “time had arrived” and his star had risen over Nauvoo. By spring 1841, the physician was the mayor and chief justice, a major general, a university chancellor, and an assistant to the president of the Latter Day Saint Church. The Mormon publication Times and Seasons even was fending off criticism of Bennett by vigorously defending him.  "But General Bennett's character as a gentleman, an officer, a scholar, and physician stands too high to need defending by us,... He has, likewise, been favorably known for upwards of eight years by some of the authorities of the Church,... But being a Mormon, his virtues are construed into defects,..." [31] General John C. Bennett was arguably the one of the most powerful man in the city, second only to President Joseph Smith. However within a year, the once esteemed Dr. John Bennett would become in Mormon chronicles "an adder in the path, and a viper in the bosom.” [32]

Eventually in these Latter Day Saint histories, Dr. John Bennett role in as founder and mayor of Nauvoo will be dismissed and simply defined as a villain and a moral reprobate. A question never posed by these same accounts is that if Bennett was such “an irredeemable scoundrel”, how was it that Joseph Smith allowed such a malignant person “to ascend to such heights” within his kingdom? By all accounts, in the vernacular of the 19^th Century, Dr. John Bennett was indeed a charlatan and sexual “libertine”; someone who is “devoid of most moral restraints.” In fact Joseph Smith had evidence of this from the time he first met Bennett. The only honest answer is to why Gen. Bennett was received among Nauvoo’s highest echelons was that he was useful to Smith’s grand scheme of building the Kingdom of God and perhaps he had some leverage over the prophet himself.

Before spring 1841 was over, Gen. John C. Bennett’s "pinnacle had peaked" and his plummet was astounding. Much “as they [Smith and Bennett] had been close friends before, so now they became vindictive and bitter enemies." [33] Amazingly as quickly as Bennett had risen to power, he was cast out of the Mormon firmament in “Miltonian fashion”; an allusion to John Milton’s epic poem "Paradise Lost" where rebellious angels were cast out of heaven. John C. Bennett’s downfall became for Latter Day Saints like a morality play with an analogy comparing Bennett to Lucifer.

The dramatic estrangement between the prophet and Gen. John Bennett was probably brought on by the handsome doctor's popularity within Nauvoo. Throughout his career, Joseph Smith had never allowed anyone to supersede his authority, secular or sectarian. Smith rigorously protected his image as the “Lord’s Anointed” and in that role he would not subject himself to any man.  As the engaging doctor’s influence grew in the city, as mayor, chief justice, chancellor, major general and assistant to the presidency, Joseph Smith became jealous of Bennett and wanted some damaging information on his friend.   

As early as fall 1840, by his own admission, President Joseph Smith acknowledged that he had information that Gen. John Bennett had an “unsavory past”. Shortly after Bennett’s appearance in Nauvoo, the prophet had received a letter cautioning him to be wary of the doctor’s past. Yet even with this information, Smith went forward and placed all his trust and confidence in Bennett. Smith was a shrewd judge of character and history shows that as long as a man was loyal to him, Joseph Smith would not allow character flaws to interfere with his usefulness. As long as Bennett was useful, the prophet chose not to investigate the physician’s background. The prophet rationalization for not investigating his “trusted friend” was that he felt it was not uncommon "for good men to be evil spoken against." [34]

Most likely Joseph Smith’s affection for his friend began to wane when informants reported that word was being circulated that the mayor was engaging in scandalous “libertine” behavior. This information was not news to the prophet. Unaware of the secret “spiritual wifery” principle, spies told Smith stories circulating in Nauvoo of Bennett visiting the homes of wives whose husbands were away. There were also tales of young men being raised in rank in the Nauvoo Legion after providing Gen. Bennett with sexual favors.

What most alarmed the prophet from this intelligence was that Gen. Bennett “was recklessly practicing his own version of plural marriage without Joseph Smith's consent.” The prophet was concerned that if Bennett’s sexual antics became public knowledge and were connected with the doctor’s disreputable past this certainly would cause a scandal. These rumblings of the doctor’s flirtatious peccadilloes were potentially ruinous to the reputation of the prophet for his having placed so much confidence in Bennett. At some point in February 1841, President Joseph Smith began to doubt Gen. Bennett’s ability to keep secret the prophet's teachings on "Spiritual Wifery".

If Mayor John Bennett was found to be a lothario while in residency within the Smith family household, the ramifications would be injurious to Joseph Smith's reputation. It had to gall the prophet that the mayor's arrogant attitude towards gratifying his own physical pleasure was done without concern for the damage it might have caused Smith and his family. It became very apparent that it was necessary to secure some damaging information on the doctor in order curb the doctor’s libido. For this and other reasons, Joseph Smith had a change of heart about his trust in the city’s mayor, and he solicited the aid of a Latter Day Saint Bishop named George Miller [35] to get confirmed information on allegations about Bennett's sordid past. 

President Joseph Smith sent Bishop Miller on a mission to Ohio specifically to look into allegations made in the earlier accusatory letter. Miller's report to the prophet in a letter dated Mar. 2, 1841 contained information so ruinous to Gen. John Bennett’s character that Smith felt confident that he could now manage him completely.  Bishop George Miller discovered that Dr. Bennett had left a wife and small family in McConnelsville, Ohio. [36] The doctor’s “aggrieved wife” had left Bennett “under satisfactory evidence of his adulterous connections” and yet she had refused to give him a divorce. [37] Miller concluded that Bennett was "an impostor and unworthy of the confidence of all good men." [38]

Although Joseph Smith had evidence in hand that the mayor had a legal wife living in Ohio while at the same time Gen. Bennett was courting several young women simultaneously in Nauvoo, no church court action was taken against the doctor. Even more remarkable is that the prophet selected Bennett to be his assistant in the highest office in the church at April Conference after receiving Miller’s "damning" evidence. Bishop George Miller's investigation was never used against Gen. Bennett. He was not removed from high offices and no church tribunal was held. Clearly the letter was kept as blackmail to secure Bennett’s loyalty and to insure the safety of Smith’s secrets.  

Among Gen. John Bennett's sexual antics reported to the prophet was his frequenting the “brothel on the hill."  That a “house of ill repute” was allowed to ply its profession in the City of Joseph is a relatively unknown detail in many Latter Day Saint histories. Even though it was “scandalously” located only yards away from where the Nauvoo Temple was being erected, it continuation was secured by the fact that Mayor Bennett had it built. The Saints heading towards work constructing the “House of the Lord” had to pass within yards of the “cat house” until the brothel was closed by a city ordinance paased in May 1842 after John Bennett had been forced to resign.  [39]

As Gen. John C. Bennet’s influence in the City of Joseph increased and rumors of the Honorable Mayor’s colorful behavior began to circulate more and more in Nauvoo's rumor mills, it begs the question as to why John Bennett was still kept on as Joseph Smith’s confidante. [40] In a city full of spies and henchmen, it is beyond imagination to believe that Smith was not aware of the city mayor’s illicit activities.  The only plausible answer as for why Smith kept Bennett close to him was that he provided the prophet a type of invaluable service. What that service was is open to speculation but it probably dealt with Gen. Bennett being a surgeon, physician, and an abortionist.

From testimony by both friends and enemies of Joseph Smith, it is reliable information that Gen. Bennett provided abortions for Nauvoo women whose reputations would have been ruined by becoming pregnant through “illicit intercourse”. As a professor of obstetrics Dr. John Bennett was considered an expert in “women's issues” included eliminating unwanted pregnancies. Word soon circulated that as a physician, Gen. John Bennett was using his medical knowledge to perform abortions on well placed Latter Day Saint women. Bennett’s abortion skills would have been very useful to any “woman with child” whose husband was away serving missions, also for any unmarried “sister” who became in the “family way.”  So prevalent were these stories that while he resided in Nauvoo, Dr. John Bennett was repeatedly accused of "embryo infanticide.” [41]

That Dr. Bennett had knowledge to induce abortions is indisputable. Having been twice a professor of obstetrics in Ohio and Illinois, Bennett developed the necessary expertise to perform abortions. [42] In 1837, a medical class in Ohio even sought out the physician's skill and knowledge in “midwifery”. They wrote to Dr. Bennett requesting his lecture notes on abortion so they could publish them in pamphlet form, so "that the practice of obstetric medicine would be rendered much less onerous to the operator and safer for the female."[43]

Whether President Joseph Smith used Bennett’s services in order to keep his secret sexual encounters with the women of Nauvoo safe from unwanted pregnancies is speculative but not improbable. Gen. Bennett’s skills as a physician certainly would have allowed the licentious prophet to seduce women without consequence or embarrassment to his wife. From the sheer number of women that the Latter Day Saint Church claims were the “spiritual wives” of Joseph Smith, it is highly implausible that none of them were impregnated during the four years the fairly young prophet was sexually active in Nauvoo.  

Although the Utah Latter Day Church recognizes that President Joseph Smith had over thirty-three “Spiritual Wives”, it is also recognizes that he only had progeny by his wife Emma. [44] If the proposed purpose of polygamy is for a man to father as many children as possible in order to increase his kingdom and glory in the hereafter, as stated in the revelation Joseph Smith received and recorded in what is now Section 132 of the Doctrines and Covenants, where is Smith's progeny by his spiritual wives?

Joseph Smith's only offspring, other than the ones Emma Smith provided for him, was the fetus Eliza R. Snow lost in a miscarriage. The miscarriage was induced by a furious Emma Smith shoving Snow down a flight of stairs in a jealous rage after learning she was pregnant with her husband's baby.  Other than Snow, there are no known children fathered by Smith of the numerous women with whom he was having sexual intercourse. [45] That none of these "spiritual wives" were impregnated by Joseph Smith raises many questions. In an age without any effective birth control this is remarkable since there evidently was no medical reason why Smith should not have been fathering children by the score. Indeed, Emma Smith was four months pregnant with the prophet's youngest child, David Hyrum Smith, at the time of her husband's murder.  

According to at least three noted historians, President Joseph Smith had illicit sexual intercourse with nearly fifty women. Documents reveal that ten of these women were teenagers with two the girls as young as 14 years. Of the ten unmarried women he conjugal relations, only one was menopausal and she was Rhoda Richards the fifty-eight year old first cousin of Brigham Young. Out of the nineteen married women with whom Smith had sexual intercourse, only one claimed that the prophet had fathered her child. Mrs. Sylvia Porter Sessions Lyon, reportedly on her death bed, told her daughter that her biological father was President Joseph Smith. No definitive proof such as DNA samples has ever confirmed this claim however. Twelve of President Joseph Smith’s “spiritual wives” are women whose ages and marital status are unknown; however they did not bear any offspring either that could have been Smith’s. [46]

In Utah Territory, unlike Nauvoo where the practice of multiple wives was a guarded secret, the amount of offspring produced in Salt Lake City is staggering. A case in point is Brigham Young, who had somewhere between 57 and 61 children by 16 wives. Three of these children were even actually born while in Nauvoo to his “spiritual wives.” The polygamists after the death of President Joseph Smith were quite fertile unlike Joseph Smith who may have had more wives than any of the Utah Saints.  However virility and fertility probably were not the reasons behind Smith's lack of a prodigious progeny.  Dr. Bennetts' medical skills in all probability is the reason why the prophet had no children born out of wedlock.

The indomitable Sarah Pratt, ex-wife of Latter Day Saint Apostle Orson Pratt, in her senior years in Salt Lake City made the claim that the reason Joseph Smith had no illegitimate children from his sexual congress with the women of Nauvoo was that he used the services of Dr. John Bennett. "You hear often that Joseph had no polygamous offspring. The reason of this is very simple. Abortion was practiced on a large scale in Nauvoo. Dr. John Bennett, the evil genius of Joseph, brought this abomination into a scientific system. He showed to my husband and me the instruments with which he used to operate for Joseph.  There was a house in Nauvoo, 'right across the flat,' about a mile and a-half from the town, a kind of hospital. They sent the women there, when they showed signs of celestial consequences. Abortion was practiced regularly in this house." [47] .

Sarah Pratt made the same claim when she was a young woman in Nauvoo that John Bennett was an abortionist. Zeruiah Goddard, Sarah Pratt's confidante until she signed an affidavit meant to ruin Pratt's character, claimed that Sarah, "stated to me that Dr. Bennett told her, that he could cause abortion with perfect safety to the mother, at any stage of pregnancy, and that he had frequently destroyed and removed infants before their time to prevent exposure of the parties, and that he had instruments for that purpose &c.." [48]

On a third occasion, while a senior in Salt Lake City, Sarah Pratt was called upon by Joseph Smith's son and name sake Joseph Smith III, President of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now known as the Community of Christ). The RLDS president had requested a meeting with Mrs. Pratt to gather information from the few remaining people from that time in regards to his father’s life in Nauvoo. He wanted to clear his father's name from charges of being a polygamist as his mother Emma Smith has always maintained. Sarah said of this encounter, “I had a long talk with him. I saw that he was not inclined to believe the truth about his father, so I said to him, 'You pretend to have revelations from the Lord. Why don't you ask the Lord to tell you what kind of a man your father really was?'" Joseph Smith III finally in exasperation exclaimed "If my father had so many connections with women, where is the progeny?" Sarah Pratt bluntly replied, "Your father had mostly intercourse with married women, and as to single ones, Dr. Bennett was always on hand, when anything happened.” [49].  President Joseph Smith III however refused to believe his father had any moral failings and wrote an entirely different account of his visit and conversation with Sarah Pratt.

Mrs. Sarah Pratt had no love for Joseph Smith.[50]  Certainly her bias towards him may contributed to these inflammatory remarks that Smith was using Bennett’s abortion skills to insure that the prophet had no embarrassing evidence of his sexual dalliances. However much of what she claimed on other subjects in regards to events in Nauvoo can be verified as oppose to the public statements Smith had made at this time.

Dr. William Law, a former counselor to Joseph Smith and later sworn enemy, was also asked by an interviewer whether any abortions had been performed in Nauvoo during his time there.  Dr. Law simply answered, “"Yes. There was some talk about Joseph getting no issue from all the women he had intercourse with. Dr. [Robert] Foster spoke to me about the fact. But I don't remember what was told about abortion. If I heard things of the kind, I didn't believe in them at that time. Joseph was very free in his talk about his women. He told me one day of a certain girl and remarked, that she had given him more pleasure than any girl he had ever enjoyed. I told him it was horrible to talk like this." [51]

While the assertions of Sarah Pratt and Dr. William Law can be dismissed as inventions of Mormon apostates, Hyrum Smith, the brother of prophet statements cannot. President and Patriarch Hyrum Smith, while he does not acknowledged that his brother had used the services of Dr. Bennett to perform abortions on women he had impregnated, he does admit that abortions were performed by Dr. Bennett in Nauvoo. Patriarch Smith swore in an affidavit that Bennett, “endeavored to seduce them and accomplished his designs by saying it was right; that it was one of the mysteries of God, which was to be revealed when the people was strong enough in faith to bear such mysteries—that it was perfectly right to have illicit intercourse with females, providing no one knew it but themselves, …that he would be responsible for their sins, if there were any, and that he would give them medicine to produce abortions, provided they should become pregnant." [52].

       

 Mormon Catherine Fuller Warren also supported the statement of Hyrum Smith that Dr. Bennett gave medicine to women to terminate pregnancy. Catherine Warren had been involved with a young man named Chauncey Higbee who had convinced her to be his "spiritual wife" without Joseph Smiths consent or permission. Chauncey Higbee was a young associate of Dr. Bennett and at the May 1842 church trial of Higbee, Warren gave a deposition claiming that Bennett had wanted "unlawful intercourse" with her also. Catherine Warren relayed to the church court, "I told him I was not guilty of such conduct and thought it would bring a disgrace on the church if I should become pregnant. He [Bennett] said he would attend to that. I understood that he would give medicine to prevent it." [53]

Wary of Bennett’s growing influence within the Latter Day Saint community, the prophet was anxious that he might not be able to control such a powerful man.  Not that there was much Smith could do. For if the mayor made known all that he knew about the Latter Day Saint prophet’s own peccadilloes before Smith had the chance to smear Bennett’s reputation, the prophet would not have the upper hand. In effect Smith knew he needed more than a wife desertion letter to blackmail his vexing counselor if he wanted to keep him quiet.        

By May 1841, Joseph Smith’s confidence in the doctor had diminished to the point that he had Gen. Bennett leave the Homestead.  He had, however, arranged for the Mayor to lodge in the home of Stephen and Zeruiah Goddard, which was also the residence as Sarah Pratt.  Mrs. Pratt’s although the wife of an Apostle, had no permanent home of her own and her living arrangements for her and her children were that she was shuttled from place to place. The placing of Gen. Bennett with Sarah Pratt was simply a convenient cover. It was part of a planned arrangement whereby President Joseph Smith could visit the Goddard home on the pretense of conducting business with the Mayor without raising suspicion. All the while the prophet’s real intention was seducing the wife of the Orson Pratt. The dodge was perfect for if Sarah Pratt rejected the prophet’s lascivious solicitation, Smith could conveniently accuse her of committing adultery with the mayor.  

President Joseph Smith in June 1841 wrote to his counselors, Dr. William Law and Hyrum Smith, serving missions in Pittsburgh, and requested that they contact the doctor’s estranged wife Mary Bennett. Smith wanted additional proof of the Mayor’s immoral character; confirmation secured by impeccable Saints who could also serve as witnesses in a church tribunal. The investigations conducted by Hyrum Smith and Dr. William Law were essential to quell Gen. Bennett’s influence. In a letter dated June 15, 1841, his two counselors confirmed information gathered by Bishop George Miller.

The June letter was the beginning of the end for the libertine doctor after the first presidency counselors learned the truth of Bennett's adulteries and desertion of his wife and young family. The two counselors were the required “two or three witnesses” needed to testify against Bennett in church court if need be. After learning of Gen. Bennett’s sordid past, Dr. Law and Hyrum Smith, for their part, held Dr. Bennett in contempt and would never trust the other “assistant president” to the prophet again. Unsuspectingly, the pair of counselors was unaware that the head of the church, of whose orders they were obediently following, was seducing the sisters of the church under the pretext of divine direction. 

For much of the first half of 1841, the mayor was the subject of bawdy hearsay noting his being seen frequenting the whore house, rumored to be seducing married women and even being an abortionist.  All these tales paled in comparison to the salacious whispering that, as Major General of the Nauvoo Legion, Bennett was said to be promoting young brethren to high-ranking positions in the Nauvoo Legion for sexual favors.  These rumors were of course reported back to the Homestead where a troubled Joseph Smith pondered what to do with the reckless doctor.

 So for some time President Joseph Smith was informed of the rumors that Gen. John Bennett was sodomizing young Nauvoo Legionnaires who hoped for advancement in the city’s militia. In particular the name mentioned the most was 21 year old Francis [Frank] Marion Higbee [54] who was promoted to a colonel under Bennett’s command.          

However there was no proof of Bennett’s “homo-libertine” behavior until July 4th 1841, [55] When Smith witnessed firsthand the 37 year old doctor’s activity with a 21 year old colonel, Frank Higbee. John C. Cook’s influence, within the Latter Day Saint Church, came to a complete halt when Joseph Smith discovered Bennett in a compromising position with Frank Higbee.   

The fact that Frank Higbee rose so quickly within the ranks of the city’s militia, had tongues wagging and it was even gossiped that he was commissioned a colonel for sexual favors given to Bennett.  Higbee may not have been the only young “Brethren” in Nauvoo hoping to advanced in the militia by offering sexual favors to Bennett. [56] Brigham Young suggested that other men had sexual encounters with the major general when he stated, "one charge [against John Bennett] was seducing young women, and leading young men into difficulty—he admitted it—if he had let young men and women alone it would have been better for him."[57]

President Joseph Smith was well aware of Frank Higbee and his family and knew that the young man was known to be “rakish” or having a slightly disreputable reputation. Francis Marion Higbee known as Frank came from a solid Mormon family. He was a son of a devoted follower of Joseph Smith, Elias Higbee, an old Missouri Danite who served the prophet as the official church historian and recorder. Frank Higbee as an 18 year old was already a veteran from fighting in the Missouri Mormon War of 1838. He was ambitious and intelligent but in Nauvoo Frank Higbee was earning the reputation of living a dissipated life.  Informants reported that the young colonel was often seen in the company of Gen. John Bennett and accompanied the doctor to the only brothel in Nauvoo [58], where evidently Frank Higbee had contracted a venereal disease "a French woman from Warsaw” which caused Higbee to need "medical assistance. [59] Upon discovering he was diseased, Higbee went to both Joseph Smith, and John Bennett seeking a cure for his affliction.  Bennett gave the young man medical treatment while Joseph Smith administered a priesthood blessing in order to heal Higbee’s condition but complained that “it was irksome.”

On July 4^th, 1841, President Joseph Smith went to call upon Gen. Bennett to inform him of the incriminating letter Dr. Law and Hyrum Smith had sent him. Smith later claimed his intention in going to the residence was to administer another blessing to Higbee.  However, more than likely, the prophet deliberately sought out the pair after informants reported Bennett and Higbee being alone together. After appearing unexpectedly the prophet was shocked to find the General and the young Colonel in a compromising position. [60]. “I was called on to visit Francis M. Higbee; I went and found him on a bed on the floor. [Here follows testimony which is too indelicate for the public eye or ear; and we would here remark, that so revolting, corrupt, and disgusting has been the conduct of most of this clique, that we feel to dread having anything to do with the publication of their trials; we will not however offend the public eye or ear with a repetition of the foulness of their crimes anymore.” [61].

The act, which Joseph Smith witnessed, was described by him as “revolting”.  In nineteenth century parlance that meant the deed was so offensive that it could not even be described in print.  What possibly could have been the offense, committed by the John Bennett, that it could not be named? The newspaper ‘‘Times and Seasons’’ had at various time accused John Bennett of a variety of loathsome offenses, including “seduction, adultery, attempted murder, prostitution, and abortion”. The “only charge that could have been worse… was sodomy.”[62] It is not unreasonable to assume that anal sex was the offense called too “revolting, corrupt, and disgusting” as later Bennett would be accused of “buggery,” which is simply another term for sodomy.

Some historians refuse to believe that Dr. John Bennett committed sodomy in Nauvoo. Their logic is that since he was accused of seducing the “Sisters” of Nauvoo, Bennett could not have been a homosexual. [63] Bennett probably was not a homosexual in the modern sensebut rather polyamorous; open to a variety of sexual experiences.

The prophet was now in complete control of his former trusted confidante, having witnessed John Bennett “in flagrante delicto”. The prophet then summoned a church council to hear Smith's accusations of immorality against the physician and the colonel. Bennett pleaded with Joseph Smith not to shame him in front of a church high counsel but Smith, having the upper hand, was determined to humble him. When Gen. Bennett could not dissuade Smith from bringing him before a tribunal, the he attempted suicide by drinking poison.  It was a botched effort. The doctor was "discovered before it had taken effect." Smith claimed that Bennett at suicide was real and that he "very much resisted…an attempt …to save him". Only after he was administered the "proper antidotes" did Bennett recovered. Skeptics however suggested that as a physician, Bennett knew exactly how to avoid a lethal dose of poison and probably the act was an extreme attempt to solicit sympathy. Still, "the public impression was that he was so much ashamed of his base and wicked conduct that he had recourse to the above deed to escape the censures of an indignant community." [64]

Nonetheless, the drastic measure of taking poison is substantiation that the deed in which the mayor was caught with Higbee was so shocking and shameful to the customs and conventions of the nineteenth century, that if made public the dishonor and disgrace of it warranted suicide. “While fornication was frowned on, it was at least understood. For nineteenth century Americans—especially religious ones—homosexual behavior was beyond the pale.” [65]

Gen. John Bennett and the young colonel were brought before a church court for censure. Neither one denied the charges of immorality, but both were “filled with shame and remorse”. Brigham Young noted how “downcast” both Higbee and Bennett were, with Young commenting, "When I came into the room, Frank Higbee rather recoiled and wished to withdraw; he went out and sat upon a pile of wood. He said it is all true, I am sorry for it, I wish it had never happened…." [66]   Higbee's intense shame as recorded by Brigham Young gives added weight to the assurance that the doctor and he had been charged with committing sodomy.

Another reason to believe that the July 1841 ecclesiastical immorality trial of Gen. John Bennett dealt with sodomy is that the tribunal proceedings are suspiciously missing. The disciplinary action against Bennett and Higbee after pleading guilty to charges of immorality are absent from official Latter Day Saint church records confirming that they were guilty of the "infamous crime against nature", worse than rape, and "a crime not fit to be named." Furthermore, the Times and Season newspaper and other Mormon papers from that period did not carry any stories showing that Bennett or Higbee were ever publicly censored. Obviously the court proceedings were handled quietly and discreetly by President Joseph Smith with only a few church leaders knowing of the event.

This discretionary course of action is understandable only in the context that "the abominable crime of buggery” was involved. Joseph Smith would not have dared made record of “accusations of sodomy against Bennett for fear of destroying the reputations of the other young men whom the mayor had seduced.” Even more damaging, if the trial was made public, is the reaction to the information that the prophet had put a “sodomite” in high positions within the church. [67] Evidently, for Joseph Smith, it was enough having Bennett exactly where he wanted him, submissive to the prophet’s domination.

For nearly nine months Gen. John Bennett and Colonel Frank Higbee kept a low profile in Nauvoo, never challenging the prophet, but still smarting from the humiliation of a church trial.  It was during this stage of John Bennett’s career, while out of favor with Joseph Smith that the mayor gathered around him a clique of young people to whom he taught the principle of Spiritual Wifery.

Gen. Bennett managed to convince his supporters that Joseph Smith taught him the principle that it was alright to have sexual intercourse as long as no one knew of it and was kept secret. Bennett even related that the prophet himself was practicing it but it was kept quiet for Emma Smith's sake. John Bennett was so convincing that several Saints were having sex with him that it was said "that the pupil [Bennett] fairly outran the teacher,[Smith] … as special pleader for the system of Celestial Marriage.” [68] Among Bennett’s most active young protégée was Chauncey L. Higbee, the younger brother of Frank Higbee. Chauncey became one of most enthusiastic disciple of Bennett. [69]  

By November 1841, Gen. John Bennett, was smitten with the 20 year old Chauncey Higbee and appointed him his "aide-de-camp." This rank allowed Higbee to act as Gen. Bennett's personal and confidential assistant.  It is not known if Chauncey Higbee received his military rank in the same manner as his brother Frank had, but like his brother Chauncey became closely connected with the Bennett.

Aide-de-Camp Chauncey Higbee’s position as personal assistant to Gen. John Bennett allowed him intimate time with the major general to be instructed in “spiritual wifery” as a principle of the gospel. The young Aide-de-Camp applied his schooling and managed to convince at least four Latter Day Saint “sisters” to have sexual intercourse with him. After revealing to these women that President Joseph Smith and other heads of the Church also had “spiritual wives,” Chauncey Higbee persuaded them that “promiscuous intercourse was acceptable if kept secret.”

One of the few times, President Joseph Smith allowed John C. Bennett to speak church wide was at April 1842 General Conference. Smith absented himself the first day and surprisingly had Gen. Bennett serve as President pro tem in his absence. This was startling to many of the Saints for “Nauvoo was teeming with rumors not only of the practice of polygamy but of Bennett's debauched 'spiritual wife' system of promiscuity”[70] As to why Smith would have an adulterer and sodomite act as President pro tem is disturbing to LDS historians and they suggest that perhaps the prophet had Gen. Bennett speak because as second in command of the Nauvoo Legion, Smith wanted Bennett to emphasize the importance of the Nauvoo Legion. Or perhaps the prophet more likely Joseph Smith simply wanted Gen. Bennett preoccupied so Smith could attend to other matters like seducing Martha Brotherton and Nancy Rigdon.

President Joseph Smith's sexual compulsiveness had his roaming eye fall on the 19 year old daughter of his long time counselor Sidney Rigdon.  On Apr. 9, 1842, the prophet, on a pretense, summoned Nancy Rigdon to meet privately with him. After locking the girl in a room, Smith related his "spiritual wifery" proposition to her and then proposed a sexual liaison with her as a spiritual union. Grossly insulted, Nancy Rigdon refused the Latter Day Saint prophet’s advances and threatened to shout for help if not permitted to leave the locked room immediately.  

Fearing that the offended girl would circulated word of his attempted seduction and also to stave off any gossip surrounding his adulterous enticement of her, the next day, in a Sabbath sermon the prophet hypocritical declared, “We have thieves among us, adulterers, liars, hypocrites,” and he “pronounced a curse upon all adulterers, and fornicators, and unvirtuous persons, and those who have made use of my name to carry on their iniquitous designs.” [71] While the sermon was meant to deflect gossip away from him, three women hearing this sermon were deeply affected, each in their own way, and would cause the prophet, in the next several months, serious damage. These women were Martha Brotherton, Nancy Rigdon, and Sarah Miller.

Within two days of the indecent proposal to the teenager, Joseph Smith dictated a letter addressed to Nancy Rigdon written by his secretary, Apostle Willard Richards. The communication was an attempt to sway the teenager into committing adultery with him by justifying it as part of God’s grand design. Smith had wriiten, “Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; …That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another…Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire.” [72]

Nancy Rigdon, who had not told a soul of the prophet’s unwanted advances, now was “fearful she would be pressured into having sexual intercourse with President Joseph Smith.” The young woman showed the "epistle" not only to her father Sidney Rigdon but also to her close friend and suitor Col. Frank M. Higbee.

President Sidney Rigdon, infuriated by Joseph Smith’s improper conduct towards his daughter, confronted the prophet who vehemently denied having tried to seduce her.  When shown the letter Smith had sent his daughter, the prophet deftly claimed that “he was merely determining Nancy’s virtue”.[73]

After Joseph Smith’s affront to his family, President Rigdon’s relationship with Smith was almost irreconcilable and the first counselor became virtually absent from all important policy making within the church.  Rigdon had no part in formulating the doctrines of Smith’s “Last Dispensation of the Gospel” and he was bewildered by Smith's new teachings of a plurality of gods and wives. While Sidney Rigdon was not yet at the point where he believed Joseph Smith was a “fallen prophet”; he was more or less disillusioned with Smith’s role in the Last Dispensation.

Col. Frank Higbee persuaded Nancy Rigdon to give him Joseph Smith’s letter after recognizing the potential damage it could cause the prophet.  The colonel promptly handed the incriminating letter over to Gen. John Bennett. Embarrassed and humiliated, Rigdon’s daughter felt betrayed by Frank Higbee for using their friendship to obtain the "shameful" letter; the consequence of which the teenager ended her association with Higbee. However the jubilant John Bennett now had his own verification of Smith’s philandering, which he felt would even out the damning information that the prophet Smith had over him. Frank and Chauncey Higbee also now had evidence of Bennett’s truthfulness of Joseph Smith's involvement with spiritual wifery.

By 29 Apr. 1842 Gen. John Bennett and the Higbee brothers began to circulate word of Joseph Smith's “licentious intentions” towards Nancy Rigdon and other women in Nauvoo. Hearing these stories reported back to him, Joseph Smith was worried about the affect of this hearsay by Bennett and Francis Higbee on the people and he wrote in his journal “Friday 29 was made manifest a conspiracy again[s]t the peace of his household.” [74]

As these rumors surfaced about the prophet’s attempted seduction of the daughter of his first counselor, immediately, Latter Day Saint newspaper went to the defense of the Lord’s Anointed. Nancy Rigdon, in order to save Joseph Smith’s reputation, was viciously smeared and her character and virtue were attacked in Latter Day Saint publications for all to read. The full fury of the church was flung at the girl simply because she dared tell the truth about the prophet.

Joseph Smith’s attempt to seduce Nancy Rigdon, however, was not an isolated case. Prior to April General Conference or near the same time as the failed seduction of Rigdon, Joseph Smith tried to entice 18 year old Martha Brotherton, [75]  “a very good-looking, amiable, and accomplished English lady, of highly respectable parentage, cultivated intellect, and spotless moral character." [76] Smith, as he did with Nancy Rigdon, called for the English convert to meet him on some pretext where in the prophet told the young woman that a revelation from God said “that it is lawful and right for a man to have two wives." The prophet said to Brotherton, "if you will accept of me I will take you straight to the celestial kingdom; and if you will have me in this world, I will have you in that which is to come.”[77] Appalled upon learning the sham meeting with the prophet was simply a ruse to ask her to be a “spiritual wife,” Brotherton refused Smith’s solicitation for “holy” sex. In her assertions to her parents of Smith’s lechery, Brotherton told them that Hyrum Smith, Heber C. Kimball, Brigham Young were in collusion with him.

Martha Brotherton's claims spread rapidly and became so widespread that President Joseph Smith felt that it was necessary to have these “rumors” addressed at the April General Conference.  Smith had his brother Hyrum speak first. “He [Hyrum Smith] then spoke in contradiction of a report in circulation about Elder Kimball, B. Young, himself, and others of the Twelve, alledging [sic] that a sister had been shut in a room for several days, and that they had endeavored to induce her to believe in having two wives." [78] Then President Joseph Smith “spoke upon the subject of the stories respecting Elder Kimball and others, showing the folly and inconsistency of spending any time in conversing about such stories or hearkening to them, for there is no person that is acquainted with our principles would believe such lies, except [Thomas] Sharp the editor of the "Warsaw Signal." [79]

Martha Brotherton felt that she had been deceived by the very men she had considered “righteous” and had crossed the Atlantic Ocean to gather with them. Now feeling that her safety and that of her family was in peril, Martha Brotherton and her parents permanently left Nauvoo for Warsaw sometime prior to April 20^, 1842.  On that date Martha’ sister, Elizabeth Brotherton, wrote Parley P. Pratt who was over the Manchester, England Mission, "I suppose, by this time, you will have heard that my parents and sister have apostatized... my sister has told some of the greatest lies that ever were circulated."  [80]

Martha Brotherton by the summer of 1842, had relocated to St. Louis, Missouri. There she was visited by Dr. John Bennett who prompted her to file an affidavit stating her claims of Joseph Smith's attempted seduction.  On the “13th day of July, A. D. 1842,” Brotherton went before Du. Bouffay Fremon, Justice of the Peace for St. Louis county Missouri, and swore that Joseph Smith attempted to make her a second wife. The statement was published July 15, 1842 in the St. Louis newspaper, "The American Bulletin", where it was picked up by other national and international papers. Brotherton's statement, due to this wide circulation, was first to bring Mormon polygamy to national attention. [81]

Beside making the American newspapers, Martha Brotherton also wrote letters to the "Saints in England" which were then refuted by Apostle Parley P. Pratt. [82] As editor of the Latter Day Saint Church paper, the Millennial Star, Pratt answered Martha's charges by publishing that the principle of polygamy never had and never would exist in the Church. "Among the most conspicuous of these apostates, we would notice a young female who emigrated from Manchester in September last, and who, after conducting herself in a manner unworthy the character of one professing godliness, at length conceived the plan of gaining friendship and extraordinary notoriety with the world, or rather with the enemies of truth, by striking a blow at the character of some of its worthiest champions….She accordingly selected president J. Smith, and elder B. Young for her victims, and wrote to England that these men had been trying to seduce her, by making her believe that God had given a revelation that men might have two wives; by these disreputable means she thought to overthrow the Saints here, or at least to bring a storm of persecution on them, and prevent others from joining them; but in this thing she was completely deceived by Satan." [83]

Parley P. Pratt then made the startling claim about polygamy stating,  "that no such principle ever existed among the Latter-day Saints, and never will; this is well known to all who are acquainted with our books and actions, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants; and also all our periodicals are very strict and explicit on that subject, indeed far more so than the bible." [84]

Martha Brotherton's public comments were very challenging to Joseph Smith but she had left Nauvoo. The daughter of the church's first counselor, Nancy Rigdon, her accusations was the more immediate concern. During April and May, 1842, Gen. John Bennett, his Aide-de Camp Chauncey Higbee and Colonel Frank Higbee were busy circulating stories about Joseph Smith's indecent proposal to her.

In spring 1842, President Joseph Smith had information that Gen. Bennett had gathered around him several young followers, all who were practicing “spiritual wifery” without Smith’s permission or consent. Bennett "led the youth that he had influence over to tread in his unhallowed steps ... even to the seduction of the virtuous" [85] Earlier in the year Chauncey L. Higbee, Gen. Bennett's Aide-de-Camp had convinced four Mormon women to have sexual intercourse with him under the guise of it being a commandment of God.

Sarah Miller was one of these gullible young women of whom Chauncey Higbee was able to convince to give up her virtue.  Miller, while attending April Conference, one of hundreds who heard the prophet vehemently denounce polygamy and those who would use his name to engage in illicit sex. “Wracked with guilt” and convinced that Chauncey Higbee had led her down the proverbial Primrose Path, Sarah Miller went to her church authorities. In the process of confessing, it was quickly revealed to church authorities the names of Chauncey Higbee three other “wives”. The 21 year old Aide-de-Camp had managed to seduce the Nyman sisters, Margaret and Matilda, as well as a widow named Catharine Fuller Warren. [86]

Word was immediately bought to Joseph Smith's attention that Sarah Miller was about to spread the word that polygamy was being taught in Nauvoo even if not by him as she thought. The prophet had to control the damage that any public scandal about polygamy would be caused by Sarah Miller’s confession. Smith was already trying to curb the stories spread by Martha Brotherton and Nancy Rigdon about his sexual requests.

It’s been said that President Joseph Smith could overlook just about anything except disloyalty and by early May 1842, Gen. John Bennett, who was once deemed the “great blessing to our community”, was viewed as a traitor. The prophet knew that Gen. John Bennett was behind this new Sarah Miller crisis. Smith's former confidante had turned completely disloyal, as far as Smith was concerned, by disclosing the practice of plural marriage in Nauvoo to the uninitiated. It was also known that Gen. John Bennett had thrown his allegiance to Sidney Rigdon hoping to capitalize on the Nancy Rigdon scandal by widening the rift between Rigdon and the prophet. But when Joseph Smith suspected that Gen. John Bennett had planned to assassinate him at a military parade of the Nauvoo Legion on May 7, Smith knew he had to get rid of the mayor.  [87] The Mayor of Nauvoo had become a liability.

President Joseph Smith called for an investigation of Gen. Bennett by the Church High Council. The council's investigation disclosed that Gen. Bennett had seduced a number of women and that he been engaged in performing abortions. Gen John Bennett was discipline by the church on May, 11 1832 which withdrew its fellowship and released the Mayor from his church position as Assistant President of the First Presidency. [88] Gen. Bennett, who had not attended his court hearing, claimed that the disfellowship notice which was a forgery. He stated that signatures of John E Page, William Smith and Lyman Wright were forged because these three men were not even in Nauvoo but were away on official church errands.

Difficulties between the prophet and his first counselor escalated to the point that Joseph Smith on May 12, 1842 dictated a letter to "President Rigden concerning certain difficulties or surmises which existed," and requested a meeting. [89] The following day Smith received a reply from Rigdon agreeing to meet with the prophet. "Friday 13 Received answer from S Rigdon after a variety of current business, having been in his garden & with his family much of the day. Walked in the evening to the P[ost] office with the Recorder & had a private interview with Prest Rigdon  with much apparent satisfaction to all parties, concerning certain evil reports put in circulation by F. M. [Francis Marion Higbee] about Prest Rigdons family & others after which the Recorder waited on him to his gate." [90] 

After meeting with Sidney Rigdon, perhaps President Joseph Smith had hoped that his former assistant to the first presidency John Bennett would simply leave the city. However when it became evident that Bennett the Mayor had no intentions leaving Nauvoo, Joseph Smith, requested that he met with him in the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge on the pretense of important business. On May 17, Smith followed Bennett into the room, locked the door behind him, and "drew a pistol on him”.  Bennett claimed that Smith demanded that he sign a pre-written affidavit that would absolve Smith of saying or doing anything illicit with women for “the peace of his family”. [91]  Joseph Smith also demanded that Bennett resign his office of mayor at once and then make a statement before the city council, exonerating Smith “from all participation whatever, either directly or indirectly, in word or deed, in the spiritual wife doctrine”. If he did not do as Smith requested, the prophet warned Bennett, “I will make catfish bait of you, or deliver you to the Danites for execution to-night.” [92]

On the same day that Joseph Smith had forced Gen. Bennett to sign a prewritten affidavit, Chauncey Higbee also signed a nearly identical worded document. This affidavit was to testify that Joseph Smith had not taught Higbee “that illicit intercourse with women was justifiable under any circumstance.” The fact that the two affidavits are nearly identically worded proved that they were not authored by Gen. Bennett or his Aide-De-Camp Higbee but were written by someone else and that Higbee was coerced to sign probably under similar circumstances as to what Bennett claimed.

The next day May 18 the High Council of the church excommunicated Colonel Frank Higbee for apostasy and afterwards his brother Chauncey Higbee was brought before the council where testimony by the women he had seduced was heard. Chauncey was found “guilty of cohabitating with "several “spiritual wives” and was sentenced to a later Court hearing.

And now it was Gen. Bennett's turn to be humbled. Joseph Smith was now completely in charge of the situation which had just recently seemed to be spinning out of control with all the talk of polygamy in Nauvoo. May 19, 1842 the Nauvoo city council held a special session in the evening to elect a new Mayor after the resignation of Bennett.

Before the foregone conclusion that Joseph Smith would be elected as mayor and his brother Hyrum as vice mayor, Gen. John Bennett was brought before the aldermen and officially resigned from the office of mayor, which according to Smith, "the council most gladly accepted." Bennett speaking to the city council stated, "I publicly avow that anyone who has said that I have stated that General Joseph Smith has given me authority to hold illicit intercourse with women is a Liar in the face of God. Those who have said it are damned Liars: they are infernal Liars." [93] The city council, after learning that John Bennett later said he made the statements under duress, filed an affidavit themselves refuting Bennett's claims. [94]

The prophet disingenuously described Gen. Bennett's resigning in his journal as because "John C. Bennett having discovered that this whoredoms and abominations were fast coming to light and that the indignation of an insulted and abused people were rising rapidly against him, thought best to make a virtue of necessity, and try to make it appear that he was innocent, by resigning his office of mayor. "[95]

At the Nauvoo City Council meeting, while the election of a new mayor was taking place, Joseph Smith took the opportunity to jot down a note and then "threw it across the room" at Alderman Hiram Kimball. Upon retrieving the note, Kimball saw that the wadded up paper was a "revelation" directed at him. "Verily thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph by the voice of my Spirit, Hiram Kimball has been insinuating evil. & forming evil opinions against you with others & if he continue  in them, he & they shall be accursed for I am the Lord thy God  & will stand by thee & bless thee. Amen.” [96]  

The revelation made reference to an earlier event when Hiram Kimball's wife Sarah told her husband that she had been approached by the prophet who tried to teach her  "the principle of marriage for eternity, and the doctrine of plural marriage." [97] Mrs. Kimball, as was Sarah Pratt, was committed to her wedding vows and she refused Joseph Smith's invitation to become his spiritual wife. She told the prophet, "teach it to someone else." Unlike Sarah Pratt, Sarah Kimball had only confided the prophet's intentions to her husband and wisely kept quiet from spreading "gossip". Nevertheless  Hiram Kimball, [98]  who was a Gentile, took offense with Joseph Smith's proposal to take Sarah Kimball as a spiritual wife. Over the next few months as the Nancy Rigdon and Martha Brotherton talk was circulated, Kimball's confidence in Smith's leadership waned and he made some disparaging remarks about the prophet's character that were evidently reported back to him. Kimball, who was a wealthy merchant in Nauvoo, understood the threat behind the revelation and he quickly disassociated himself with anyone who was critical of the prophet. He even joined the Latter Day Saint Church in 1843.

While John Bennett lost the offices of Mayor and Assistant to First Presidency he still retained his military rank of Major General in the Nauvoo Legion and also he still held the chancellery position of the Nauvoo University that only existed on paper.

After having dealt with Gen John Bennett and Colonel Higbee, President Joseph Smith turned his attention back to Chauncey Higbee, whose conduct with four "sisters" of Nauvoo, had brought attention to the fact that polygamy being practiced within Nauvoo. Joseph Smith wrote in his journal for May 21, 1842, "I spent the day with the High Council of Nauvoo, investigating the case of Robert D. Foster, Chauncy L. Higby  and others" [99]

On May 24, 1842 Chauncey Higbee came before a church tribunal charged with adultery and attributing false doctrine to the President of the church. Depositions were taken from his "spiritual wives", who testified that he had committed adultery with them by convincing them that polygamy was sanctioned by President Joseph Smith as long as it was kept secret. Higbee argued in his defense that he could not be found guilty of the same offense in which Smith was engaging. Chauncey Higbee was found guilty and formally expelled from the church “for unchaste and unvirtuous conduct towards certain females, and for teaching it was right, if kept secret, &c.” [100]

President Joseph Smith's reaction to Chauncey Higbee was decidedly different than it was with Higbee's brother Frank and to Gen. Bennett. Those men had acted contrite and submissive to the prophet and therefore the prophet could well afford to act the forgiving and merciful man. Indeed it was part of Smith's nature to be generous to a man he had broken. On the other hand Chauncey Higbee acting as his own lawyer challenged Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith knew that the young man was placing the prophet in a difficult predicament.  Chauncey Higbee was excommunicated. [101]

Chauncey Higbee, by invoking the prophet's name in his defense at the church court, infuriated President Joseph Smith.  Additionally Smith was angry that Higbee had reneged on the affidavit he had signed regarding the prophet's character. The same day as Higbee's excommunication, Smith took the depositions of Higbee's "spiritual wives" before the city's Municipal Court and filed criminal charges against Higbee for slander. By doing so Joseph Smith made enemies out of the Higbee brothers for life. The brothers felt they were being punished for actions that differed little from that of Joseph Smith’s own Apostles. However Smith was desperate to put an end to all rumors of the polygamy in Nauvoo that was coming at him at all sides. He feared rightly so that it would ruin the reputation of the Latter Day Saint church and Smith’s growing political ambitions. 

Based on an affidavit from the new Mayor, Joseph Smith, Chauncey Higbee was arrested for slander the same day he was cut off from the church. Justice of the peace, Ebenezer Robinson, bound Higbee over with a $200 bond [$5000 in 2014 dollars] to insure his appearance at the October term of the circuit court in Carthage, Illinois. [102] Higbee was sued for “slander[ing] and defam[ing] the character of the said President Joseph Smith, and also the character of Emma Smith, his wife.” Higbee's "spiritual wives" Margaret Nyman, Matilda Nyman, and Sarah Miller were subpoenaed as witnesses. In turn, Chauncey Higbee initiated a counter civil action against Joseph Smith so as he could the subpoena the “Sister Saints”, who had rejected Joseph Smith’s unwanted advances. Both suits would be dismissed in the fall when President Smith went into hiding.

After filing the suit against Chauncey Higbee, the next day President Joseph Smith attention returned to Gen. John Bennett. Smith, determined to keep the pressure on Bennett to force him to leave Nauvoo, had met with the High Council of the church on May 25, 1842. The prophet knew that Bennett, now living in Sidney Rigdon's son-in-law home, was still inciting Rigdon's discontentment with Smith. At the High Council the "first Presidency, Twelve & Bishops" discussed publishing that they had "withdrawn fellowship" from Bennett.  When Bennett was informed of their intentions, fearing repercussion to his reputation, he pleaded with Smith not to take that course of action. Smith informed Bennett that the High Council would agree not to publish his "withdrawal", if he went before the members of Nauvoo's Masonic lodge and made a confession of his misdeeds.  Gen. Bennett "humbling himself" and agreed to meet with his Masonic brethren.

Unknown to John Bennett, the Nauvoo Masons had conducted an investigation of the general on their own. A letter had been sent to George Miller, the "Worshipful Master of the Nauvoo lodge", 7 May, 1842 from Grand Master Abraham Jonas of Columbus, Illinois The intent of the letter was to inform the Nauvoo lodge of the expulsion of Bennett from a lodge in Ohio. Miller then shared Jonas' letter with  members of the lodge, which led to an exchange of letters about the alleged expulsion. One such correspondence was from Joseph King of Decatur, Illinois. He reported that a “Bro Patterson,” had preferred charges against Bennett “in Pickaway Lodge, from whence he was Expelled,” [103]

The morning of May 26, according to Smith, Gen. Bennett, came before his Masonic Brethren and "acknowledged his wicked and licentious conduct toward certain females in Nauvoo.” After Bennett's declaration of guilt, the prophet, in order to show his magnanimity towards the defeated Bennett, told the Masons he had forgiven his former friend. [104] The prophet's pardon of Bennett's offenses was just a demonstration to his fellow Masons of his ability to be merciful. The official pardon also gave Bennett the opportunity to leave Nauvoo quietly without a dark cloud over his head. When the doctor failed to do so, Smith sought to put him out of the way permanently.

The recalcitrant Bennett presence in Nauvoo continued to annoy President Smith into June.  However Masonic correspondence, dated June 4, [105]  and June 16^th, gave the prophet the means to drive Bennett out of Nauvoo society and there for out of Nauvoo. Evidence received from various Masonic lodges showed that Bennett had been expelled from the Pickaway Lodge in Ohio. Expulsion is the most severe of all Masonic penalties and was sometimes called the "Masonic death." Expulsion deprived Bennett of all Masonic rights and privileges as "though he had never been admitted." He could also no longer demand the aid of his Brethren in times of distress. Additionally Bennett's expulsion from Pickaway lodge not only meant he could no longer be a member of that particular order but he was also forbidden to "unite in any of the public or private ceremonies of the Order." Indeed the Masonic Fraternity considered it "criminal in any Brother, aware of his expulsion, to hold communication with him on Masonic subjects." [106]

On June 15, 1842, with having no more Masonic ties or loyalties, a notice appeared in the "Times and Seasons" that Gen. John Bennett had been disfellowshipped. "The subscribers, members of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, withdraw the hand of fellowship from General John C. Bennett, as a Christian, he having been labored with from time to time, to persuade him to amend his conduct, apparently to no good effect. Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Wm. Law [107] This notice was followed three days later with Gen. John Bennett being formally excommunicated from the church on June 18, 1842. "Bennett, who had been disfellowshipped, was now excommunicated from the Church, officially dropped from all his offices in Nauvoo, expelled from the Masonic Lodge, and late in June the Prophet finally published in the Nauvoo papers a detailed though belated expose of the ex-mayor: ..." [108]

Joseph Smith used John Bennett's excommunication as an occasion to speak out publicly against Bennett's "false teachings." [109]. According to Apostle Wilford Woodruff, Joseph Smith "spoke his mind in great plainness concerning the iniquity and wickedness of Gen. John Cook Bennett, and exposed him before the public." [110] Bennett, upon hearing the abuse heaped upon him, confronted Smith over his public attack and threatened to "write a book" exposing Smith as a "pretender to the spirit of prophecy." In the newpaper "Iowa Hawk Eye", it was also reported that Sidney Rigdon was involved in the heated quarrel between Smith and Bennett. "Trouble among the Mormons. -- We understand by a private letter from Montrose, that Jo Smith has had a quarrel with Rigdon and Bennett, and that he has turned both of the latter out of the synagogue. Some hard swearing passed between these saints during the quarrel. Bennett threatens to write a book, for the purpose of exposing the rascality of the pretender to a spirit of prophesy. We hope the schism is incurable, as it is said to be." [111]

Gen John Bennett made good on his threats to expose Joseph Smith as a fraud when on June 22 he went to Springfield, Illinois to make a publishing agreement with the Sangamo Journal's editor, Simeon Francis.  Francis agreed to publish a series of letters written by Bennett which would expose the "alleged crimes" of Joseph Smith. [112]

Upon hearing that Gen. John Bennett had left the city for Springfield, the next day June 23, Joseph Smith penned a letter detailing Bennett's crimes and sins. The lengthy letter was published in The Wasp on June 25, 1842 and called Gen. Bennett "one of the most abominable and depraved beings which could possibly exist."  Smith claimed, his former assistant, "began to teach them that promiscuous intercourse between the sexes was a doctrine believed in by the Latter Day Saints, and that there was no harm in it; but this failing, he had recourse to a more influential and desperately wicked course; and that was, to persuade them that myself and others of the authorities of the church not only sanctioned but practiced the same wicked acts; and when asked why I publicly preached so much against it, said that it was because of the prejudice of the public, and that it would cause trouble in my own house." Smith ended the tirade against Bennett saying, "Thus I have laid before the Church of Latter Day Saints, and before the public, the character and conduct of a man who has stood high in the estimation of many; but from the foregoing facts it will be seen that he is not entitled to any credit, but rather to be stamped with indignity and disgrace so far as he may be known." [113] 

As for one last insult, an undated notice was published in "The Wasp", June 25, 1842. Bishop George Miller had it published, "Whereas John Cook Bennett, in the organization of the Nauvoo Lodge, under dispensation, palmed himself upon the fraternity as a regular Mason, in good standing; and satisfactory testimony having been produced before said Lodge, that he, said Bennett, was an expelled Mason, we therefore publish, to all the Masonic world, the above facts, that he, the said Bennett, may not again impose himself upon the fraternity of Masons. All Editors who are friendly to the fraternity of free and accepted ancient York Masons will please insert the above. George Miller Master of Nauvoo Lodge."

The following day after the scathing indictment of John Bennett's character was published, Joseph Smith called for a "meeting, & council". Present at his house was Hyrum Smith, George Miller, Newel K. Whitney, William Marks, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards. Noticeably absent from the council was first counselor Sidney Rigdon. After formal business was concluded, Joseph Smith led the Mormon Elders in "Solemn prayer". The prayer that Joseph Smith offered demonstrated the level of paranoia Joseph Smith felt. He saw himself surrounded by "evil designing persons" and prayed that God "would deliver his anointed" and the Saints from the "evil designs" of Governor Lilburn Boggs, "& the  powers of the state of Missouri." Added to the list of enemies were also Illinois' Governor Thomas Carlin, "& the  authorities of Illinois," "presidents, Govenors,[sic] Judges,  Legislators, & all in autho[r]ity"  as those from  which he needed divine protection. John C. Bennett was specifically mentioned in the prayer along with all "mobs  & evil designi[n]g persons". [114]

John Bennett returned to Nauvoo five days after he had left and boarded with George W. Robinson, Sidney Rigdon’s son-in-law on June 27. Robinson, whom Bennett had made a brevet major general in the Nauvoo Legion, was "devoted to Bennett".  Rigdon's son-in-law had also become disaffected with the leadership of President Joseph Smith over the treatment of Rigdon's after the prophet's indecent proposal to his sister-in-law Nancy. [115] Bennett felt that it was his life which was in danger. As soon as he returned to Nauvoo, the doctor wrote letters to the "Iowa Hawk-Eye" and Iowa Patriot", confirming that the schism between Smith and him was irreconcilable. He asserted that Joseph Smith wanted him eliminated and had "ordered some of his Danite band to effect [sic affect] the murder clandestinely." [116]  The same day that he wrote to the Iowa papers, Bennett sat down and began to write his "tell all" letter to the Sangamo Journal, one of a series of denunciation of Joseph Smith and his "nefarious practices." [117]  

While Bennett was residing with George Robinson, he claimed "twelve of the Danites, dressed in female apparel, approached my boarding house, in Nauvoo, with their carriage wheels wrapped with blankets, and their horses feet covered with cloths, to prevent noise, about 10 o'clock, for the purpose of conveying me off and assassinating me, thus prevent disclosures- but I was so admirably prepared with arms, as were also my friends, that after prowling around the house for some time, they retired." [118]

Although Joseph Smith believed that he had satisfied Sidney Rigdon's concerns, in May, actually the strain between the two intensified with the continuing attacks on Nancy Rigdon's character. President Joseph Smith and Bishop George Miller upon learning that John Bennett was lodging with George Robinson, called upon Sidney Rigdon and his family 28 June 1842.  The Rigdons were not at all happy to receive the prophet and "much unpleasant feeling was manifested". At the meeting Joseph Smith wrote later, "had much conversation about J. C. Bennet [John C. Bennett] & others".  However the main purpose of the visit was to persuade the Rigdons to have Nancy withdraw her public accusations of improprieties against the prophet. The family told the prophet they stood by Nancy Rigdon's accusations and at this disclosure that they would not submit to his authority Joseph Smith castigated the family of which he wrote later  "were confounded & put  to silence by the truth." [119] 

The following day, June 29, Joseph Smith asked Frank Higbee to meet with him  to gage where the young man stood. Higbee was angry with the prophet and "found fault with being exposed," and Smith countered that he only spoke of him in "self defense." At that Higbee appeared humble and the 22 year old promised to reform, [120] however the prophet warned Higbee to keep away from Bennett.  When the young man asked why, Joseph Smith simply said "John Bennett could be easily put aside or drowned and no person would be the wiser for it".[121]  Frank Higbee instead of heeding the prophet's warning, on the last day of June went before Nauvoo city Alderman Hiram Kimball and swore out a statement asserting that Gen. Bennett was the object of an assassination plot.

Dr. John Bennett last remaining association with the City of Joseph ended when he was cashiered out of the Nauvoo Legion in a court marshal held on June 30, 1842. While Nauvoo Legion records for this proceeding have not been located, Joseph Smith recorded that on this date he "was in the Court martial giving testimony concerning John C  Bennett &c..".[122] Before the day was over Joseph Smith wrote another scathing attack on Bennett calling him "an imposter and base adulterer.” However before Joseph Smith's vitriolic diatribe was published, John Bennett, knowing that the game was up, shook the dust off his feet, cursed Nauvoo and departed with his young friend Frank Higbee. John C. Bennett quit the place on the first day of July 1842 and from that moment on "the chief study of his life was revenge". [123]

When the doctor left Nauvoo, he traveled with Frank Higbee the sixteen miles to Carthage the county seat of Hancock County so as to be out of the reach of Joseph Smith and of the Saints. On their arrival in Carthage, however, they were informed that they had been followed by Porter Rockwell. The Danite had arrived late at night and "made strict enquiries" as to where Bennett and Higbee were lodging all the while claiming his "ostensible business" in the town was to post a letter.  

Sidney Rigdon's family was fully supportive of Nancy's allegations, with hard feelings towards the prophet, nevertheless, Rigdon, fearful for the safety of his family, sent Joseph Smith a reconciliation letter on July 1, 1842. In the letter Sidney Rigdon asked Joseph Smith "to go on a ride with him out onto the prairie where they could settle forever all difficulties, and be again at everlasting peace.” [124] Everlasting peace was never assured but Sidney Rigdon would finally bowed to the pressure Joseph Smith exerted to avoid further scandalous accusations against his daughter.  

In the meanwhile, Porter Rockwell was not the only Danite set on the elimination of Dr. Bennett. Captain John D. Parker also followed Bennett to Springfield, again with the pretext of delivering a letter there. In Springfield Bennett confronted Parker saying he was aware of his purpose and on Dr. Bennett's return, Parker met up with him again at a stage stop in Cass County. Bennett called to the attention of the stage driver that Parker was a notorious Danite intent on assassinating him. The driver then "put two additional balls into his pistol" and informed the doctor that he was "ready for him or any other person having the same object in view".

Frank Higbee, while he stayed in Carthage, collaborated with John Bennett and assisted the doctor with the first three letters written for the Sangamo Journal. Friends of the young Frank Higbee came to Carthage and warned him that leaders in Nauvoo were circulating word that Higbee must stop collaborating with the doctor in assaulting the character of the "Lord's Mouthpiece" or be destroyed. After that the pair who roomed together until July 10, went their separate ways. They never saw each other again. Bennett left Illinois for St. Louis Missouri and Higbee traveled back east to Cincinnati to attend law school.

Subsequently there was one more matter that Dr. John Bennett attended to before leaving Carthage. He filed for a divorce from his wife, Mary Barker Bennett, in the Hancock County Courthouse. The divorce was granted October 15, 1842.

All the letters authored by John Bennett, over the course of summer 1842, were meant to damage and ruin Joseph Smith's image as a "prophet" and to frame him in the context of being a fraud and charlatan. Bennett, "couched in the most vehement language", charged Joseph Smith not only with polygamy and seduction, but also the crimes of murder and treason.

The first of the series of attack pieces written for the Springfield Sangamo Journal appeared July 8, although it was composed on June 27 while John Bennett and Frank Higbee were still in Nauvoo. The first of John Bennett's sensational accusations was that Joseph Smith attempted to seduce the daughter of his first counselor and had ordered Orrin Porter Rockwell to shoot former Governor of Missouri, Lilburn W. Boggs. [125] The Sangamo Journal's article was taken as copy and republished in regional newspapers throughout Illinois and Iowa.

John Bennett wrote his second letter July 2, and the third one followed on July 4, 1842. Both letters were written in Carthage, both written with Higbee's assistance and both letters were printed July 15.

While Dr. John Bennett was writing his series of damaging letters for the Sangamo Journal, a small but important drama was being played out in Nauvoo involving Sarah Pratt and her husband Professor Orson Pratt. In Dr. John Bennett's letter July 2 letter, published July 15 in the Springfield, Illinois newspaper, he charged, that Joseph Smith had tried to seduce several women, which he named. These women were Martha Brotherton, Melissa Schindle, wife of Col. George Schindle, Nancy Rigdon, and Sarah Pratt, wife of the Professor Orson Pratt, also a Mormon Apostle. [126]

Whether Sarah Pratt committed adultery with Gen. Bennett, or with Joseph Smith or with neither is a matter of which one chooses to believe. Both Mrs. Pratt and Bennett made the claim that the prophet made an indecent proposal to Sarah Pratt while on the other hand Joseph Smith accused the pair of adultery with each other. It is the prophet’s word against theirs which made it easy for Latter Day Saints to choose to believe that Sarah Pratt was an adulterer rather than accept that Joseph Smith had lied. It seems unlikely that Mrs. Pratt would have refused the advances of "the prophet" only to succumb to those of Bennett. However by besmirching both their characters, Smith’s was able to discredit both Dr. Bennett and Mrs. Pratt as reliable witnesses if ever they should try to defame the character of the prophet

Sarah Pratt was "an educated woman of fine accomplishments" and she had attracted "the attention of the Prophet Joseph," while her husband was away serving a mission. Her disillusionment with the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith came in May 1841 when the prophet suggested that she become his spiritual wife. Mrs. Pratt's refused answering, "I care not for the blessings of Jacob, and I believe in no such revelations, neither will I consent under any circumstances. I have one good husband, and that is enough for me." [127] The prophet then warned her not to tell of their encounter. He said, "Be silent or I shall ruin your character!" Dr. William Law, Smith's second counselor, confirmed that this was the prophet's way. “He had his spies everywhere, and if a woman refused him, he sent his fellows out to whisper stories around about her." [128]

Sarah Pratt ordered the prophet out of the house and as Smith left, he swore at her using "obscene language." Mary Ettie Coray who lived across the street from the Goddard's house stated that she "saw and heard the whole uproar." [129]  Although she had refused the prophet, unlike Sarah Kimball wife of Hiram Kimball, Mrs. Sarah Pratt let Smith’s indecent proposal be known to others. Mrs. Pratt told her landlady Zeruiah Goddard, the wife of Lt. Stephen H. Goddard of the prophet's intentions.

President Joseph Smith, who could not abide rejection, attempted to persuade Sarah Pratt three more times to be his "spiritual wife", claiming the Lord had given her to him, each time without success.  Finally the prophet told Mrs. Pratt that her refusal was "sin" and an atoning "sacrifice" had to be made to keep the "destroying angel" away from her.  Smith ordered his "friend" Gen. John Bennett to procure a lamb from Nauvoo Legionnaire Capt. John T. Barnett, which was then slain by Lieutenant Stephen H. Goddard. The lamb's blood was sprinkled on the door posts and the gate of Goddard's residence after which the prophet proclaiming, "All is now safe -- the destroying angel will pass over, without harming any of us." Additionally the Lamb's "kidneys and entrails" were burnt on an altar of twelve stones as offering which process Joseph Smith stated "will save me and my priesthood." [130]

Upon Elder Orson Pratt’s return from England, he heard allegations made against his wife in his absence but he dismissed them. Finally the prophet's continual sexual harassment of the "highly offended" Sarah Pratt was too much for her and she told her husband that the prophet had "grossly insulted" her by kissing her. Orson Pratt, enraged confronted the prophet and told Smith to never "offer an insult of the like again." However, Joseph Smith became defensive and denied any improper behavior with his wife. He informed Pratt, "I did not desire to kiss her," but that Gen. Bennett "made me do it!" [131] Then the prophet went on the offense.

As wife of the prominent Orson Pratt, Apostle and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Nauvoo, President Joseph Smith realized that Sarah Pratt's accusations against him were potentially very damaging. In order to destroy her credibility, Joseph Smith accused Orson Pratt's wife of adultery with Gen. John Bennett. Smith claimed that once when he called upon Mrs. Pratt, he found Gen. John Bennett in bed with her.  Dr. William Law, however, disputed Smith's claim stating "the fact that Bennett visited her sometimes, was used by Joseph to ruin her character." [132]

Professor Pratt, upon hearing the prophet call his wife an adulteress, "told the Prophet to his face that he was a liar, AN INFAMOUS LIAR." [133] Orson Pratt and the prophet then quarreled with Pratt telling Smith that he believed his wife over him. The prophet countered telling Pratt, "if he did believe his wife and follow her suggestions, he would go to hell." [134]  Orson Pratt had this clash with Joseph Smith in the presence of Brigham Young, who reported on the heated conversation.  

After that fiery exchange, Prof. Orson Pratt distanced himself from the prophet for nearly six months and he refused to support any of Joseph Smith's motions. When Joseph Smith wanted the "withdrawal of fellowship" from Gen. Bennett, May 11, 1842, Orson Pratt was "the only member of the Twelve living in Nauvoo at the time", who didn't sign the document. [135] Additionally Orson Pratt refused to consent to Bennett being expelled from the Nauvoo Masonic lodge.

Unlike Martha Brotherton, Sarah Pratt had the support of her sister and her brother-in-law. William Moore Allred, [136] all of whom believed her allegations.  Although Nauvoo was in an uproar over the recent apostasy of Dr. John Bennett and his very public quarrel with the prophet, William Allred wrote to Dr. John Bennett as a friend requesting help. Allred was concerned over the health of his five month pregnant wife Orissa, Sarah's sister. In a letter dated July 8, 1842, Allred called Bennett "Dear Friend" and wrote, "Orissa's health is yet in a very critical situation.... We wish you to write your prescription in full, and send it to Sarah's where we shall remain until Orissa recovers." Allred goes on to say, in an effort to show Bennett that he still had friends in Nauvoo, "We All, with one accord, send you our best respects. Mr. Pratt would write, but he is afraid to. He wishes to be perfectly still, until your second letter comes out.... William M. Allred." [137]

William Allred's letter revealed that Prof Orson Pratt and his in-laws had been in contact with John Bennett and knew in advance of his forthcoming explosive July 2, "Second Letter". This letter to The Sangamo Journal contained the bombshell lobbed at the prophet, charging that he had tried to seduce Sarah Pratt and other named women. President Joseph Smith spies also learned of the rumor that Dr. Bennett was about to publish in the Sangamo Journal that the prophet had tried to seduce Orson Pratt's wife.

On Tuesday July 14, 1842, the prophet gathered the Saints in a grove near the temple in order to defuse the forthcoming sensational accusation. President Smith denounced Bennett exclaiming, "He wished Bennett was in Hell!; [that] he had given him more trouble than any man he ever had to do with." The many Danites among the congregants knew exactly what the prophet was implying.

Joseph Smith, after blasting Bennett with being the "author of blasphemy, lies and deceit", then made a public accusation that John Bennett had committed adultery with Prof. Orson Pratt's wife. The prophet scorned Sarah Pratt's moral character suggesting to the Saints in attendant that she was no better than a "lewd woman." Cruelly and falsely, the prophet venomously disparaged Mrs. Pratt in front of the large assembly of Saints pronouncing that she was "a whore from her mother's breast." [138]

The public humiliation of his wife, linking her sexually with the apostate Bennett, and besmirching Sarah's name as a whore, was devastating to the apostle and it led Orson Pratt to a type of nervous breakdown. Prof. Pratt was one of the pillars of Mormon theology and had devoted twelve years of his life to promoting the "restored Gospel". He had believed that Smith was the "Lord's Anointed" but now he was conflicted.  Orson's Pratt's the dilemma was which to believe of two equally repulsive stories; whether to believe a beloved and trusted wife or the man of whom he believed was the "Lord's Mouthpiece". Added to Orson Pratt's despair was the knowledge that John Bennett's charge involving Sarah accusations against the prophet was to be printed in the July 15 issue of the Sangamo Journal, giving rise to more attacks on him and his family.

Dr. John Bennett left Carthage, Illinois a few days before Smith slandered Sarah Pratt and traveled down the Mississippi to the city of St. Louis Missouri. He was making his way to meet with Missouri officials to file affidavits that Joseph Smith was accessory to the attempted murder of former Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs last May 6.  While in St. Louis, Dr. Bennett sought out Martha Brotherton and convinced her on July 13, to write a statement that Joseph Smith had asked her to become a "spiritual wife." Her testimony would then collaborate the Sangamo Journal's breaking story to be released July 15. Bennett helped the young apostate file an affidavit and when Brotherton's sworn statement was punished in a St. Louis newspaper in August, Joseph Smith's minions attacked her character with a slew of affidavits from faithful Saints. [139]

On July 15, 1842, while still in St. Louis, Missouri, Bennett sat down and penned his fourth letter to the Sangamo Journal which was not printed until July 22. Dr. Bennett had composed his fourth letter, without the aid of his young friend Frank Higbee who had moved east, and unaware of the excitement unfolding in Nauvoo over the disappearance of Prof. Orson Pratt.

Despondent, desperate, and half mad, after President Joseph Smith's blistering denouncement of his wife, Prof. Orson Pratt left her a note saying "that he was going away."  After sunset on the night of July 14, in a mental state of anguish, Pratt left his home with his farewell note in his pocket. He wandered aimlessly on the darken streets towards the city limits, south along the bank of the Mississippi River, agonizing that the next day, all the world would know of Smith's insulting behavior towards his wife. The letter tucked in his coat pocket illustrated the suffering and torment he was feeling from the charges and countercharges of his wife's unfaithfulness. As the dejected Orson Pratt wandered out of the city towards the banks of the Mississippi, he apparently dropped his letter on Munson Street, just east of Heber C. Kimball’s home.

Here the letter was discovered later and brought immediately to the attention of Joseph Smith who was wakened in the middle of the night. "I am a ruined man!," the letter began, "My future prospects are blasted! The testimony upon both sides seems to be equal: The one in direct contradiction to the other… how to decide I know not neither does it matter for let it be either way my temporal happiness is gone in this world. If the testimonies of my wife and others are true then I have been deceived for twelve years past--my hopes are blasted and gone as it were in a moment . . my long toils & labours have been in vain.. My future prospects are blasted! The testimony upon both sides seems to be equal:. . . .My sorrows are greater than I can bear! Where I am henceforth it matters not." [140]

 When it was determined that Orson Pratt was indeed missing, President Joseph Smith "summoned the principal men of the city and workmen on the Temple to meet at the Temple Grove where he ordered them to proceed immediately throughout the city in search of  him lest he should have laid voilent [violent] hands on himself." [141] Five hundred men were said to have turned out to search for Orson Pratt "but to no effect".   Justice of the Peace Ebenezer Robinson later wrote, "I remember well the excitement which existed at the time, as a large number of the citizens turned out to go in search for him, fearing lest he had committed suicide". [142] After failing to find Elder Pratt, the prophet gathered the men together in the grove again and proceeded to denounce John Bennett again.

 Sometime later on Monday July 15,  Prof. Orson Pratt  was discovered some five miles below Nauvoo on the bank of the Mississippi river, sitting on a rock staring into the muddy water. He had spent the night reflecting and ruminating over whether to believe his wife or his prophet. He chose his wife and was convinced to return home "more determined to begin that opposition" against Joseph Smith.

On July 17, Brigham Young wrote Orson Pratt's brother Parley, serving a mission in Liverpool, England,  blaming Sarah Pratt for her husband's "difficulties." He informed Parley P. Pratt, “Br. Orson Pratt is in trouble in consequence of his wife.  His feelings are so wrought up that he does not know whether his wife is wrong, or whether Joseph’s testimony and others are wrong, and do lie, and he [Orson[ deceived for 12 years or not; he is all but crazy about the matter.  You may ask what the matter is concerning Sister P.  It is enough, and Doct. J.C. Bennett, could tell all about himself and his [whore] enough of that.  We will not let Br. Orson go away from us.  He is too good a man to have a woman destroy him.” [143]

A week after the excitement of Orson Pratt "having gone missing", a public meeting of "somewhere about a thousand men" was held on the temple meeting grounds. The purpose of the mass meeting was to present a public reply to Bennett’s July 15 statements "calumniating the character of Pres. Joseph Smith", in the Sangamo Journal. [144]  A resolution was proposed to stand behind "our worthy and respected Mayor, Joseph Smith" affirming that Smith was "a good, moral, virtuous, peaceable and patriotic man, and a firm supporter of law, justice and equal rights; that he at all times upholds and keeps inviolate the constitution of this State and of the United States."

A voice vote was then called for affirmation of the proclamation and by an overwhelming majority the resolution was adopted with only two or three negative votes. One of the "nays" was by Orson Pratt.  The professor not only voted against Joseph Smith he got up and responded with his reasons for the no vote in front of the large assembly.  Several other of the Twelve refuted Pratt's assertions and afterwards Joseph Smith asked of Pratt, "Have you personally a knowledge of any immoral act in me toward the female sex, or in any other way?" Elder Pratt, "Personally, toward the female sex, I have not." [145] His strange reply has sometimes been seen as an admission of Smith's innocence however it also could be interpreted as Pratt saying he had never actually witnessed Smith's fornications.

Dr. John Bennett's fifth letter to the Sangamo Journal, dated July 23, was written while on board the river steamer "Importer" heading east on the Ohio River and was published August 19. He had just filed affidavits with Missouri officials that Joseph Smith had ordered Porter Rockwell to shoot former Governor Lilburn Boggs and because of his former preeminence in Nauvoo, as Mayor and Major General, weight was given to his allegations of wrong doing in the City of Joseph. Bennett informed the Missourians that he had personal knowledge that Smith had sent Rockwell to Independence to assassinate Boggs. Dr. Bennett had boasted in the Sangamo Journal about his involvement assisting with the warrant to arrest Smith. "I am now going over to Missouri to have Joe [Smith] taken to justice" [146]. Based solely on his allegation, a writ was issued for the arrest of Joseph Smith.

The series of damning letters, penned by Joseph Smith's once most trusted friend and confidante, prompted the prophet’s younger brother and editor of The Wasp [147], William Smith, to retaliate. He slung at Bennett's character the accusation that the doctor was guilty of the most "abominable and unspeakable crime" of the nineteenth century, buggery. [148] In comments published July 27, 1841, The Wasp's editor wrote that the doctor only saw Joseph Smith as "a great philanthropist as long as Bennett could practice adultery, fornication, and - we were going to say, (Buggery,) without being exposed." [149]

The charge of “buggery” against Bennett was design to "besmear him" with the taint of such a "loathsome crime" that if described in print, it would "crimson the face of the most barbarous of the human race". The "hellish" accusation was calculated to deprive Bennett of any moral standing and to even make his friends shun him, lest they became suspect of similar abominable acts. William Smith's intent was to make John Bennett a pariah.

It was after the sordid accusation of “buggery” was leveled at Dr. John Bennett, that he stepped up his attacks and accused Joseph Smith and his Saints of every “imaginary crime and moral offense” in Bennett's sixth and last letter to the Sangamo Journal.  The sixth and most vitriolic letter was written August 2, 1842, while the doctor was on the Nassau, a boat traveling on the Erie Canal, in upper state New York. It was published on Aug 19.  Bennett was traveling back to Massachusetts be as far away from Smith and the Saints as he could when the prophet was bound to be arrested on his affidavits.

In all his series of reports to the Sangamo Journal, Dr. Bennett had accused the Saints of a catalog of crimes, “infidelity, deism, atheism; lying, deception, blasphemy; debauchery, lasciviousness, bestiality; madness, fraud, plunder; larceny, burglary, robbery, perjury; fornication, adultery, rape, incest; arson, treason, and murder”.  Bennett wrote that the Saints had have "out-heroded Herod, and out-deviled the devil, slandered God Almighty, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Angels." [150]

After that public quarrel in late July, Prof. Orson Pratt became estranged from the church altogether and Brigham Young spent several days with the professor "laboring to get him to change his mind and retract some of his statements against Joseph Smith". [151] Other members of the Twelve also endeavored to persuade the professor that John Bennett was a charlatan and that Joseph smith was a true "Prophet of God,"  to no avail. Orson and Sarah Pratt were too deeply hurt and offended and after days of fruitless efforts at reconciliation, the Twelve excommunicated Professor Pratt for "insubordination" and Sarah Pratt for "adultery on August 20, 1842. On the same day Amasa Lyman replaced Orson Pratt as a member of the Twelve Apostles.  [152] Joseph Smith was not present at the Pratts' excommunication because previously two weeks earlier, law officials came to Nauvoo and charged Joseph Smith as an accomplice in the attempted assassination of Lilburn Boggs.

On Aug. 8, Deputy Sheriff Thomas King of Adams county, with two other officers, came into Nauvoo with a warrant from Governor Thomas Carlin for  the arrest of Joseph Smith and Orrin Porter Rockwell; "the latter being charged with shooting ex-Governor Boggs of Missouri with intent to kill on the evening  of the 6th of May last and Joseph with being accessory." [153]

The law officers were stymied in their attempt to arrest Smith and Rockwell by the city council which, acting in the capacity of justices of the Municipal Court, immediately issued a writ of Habeas Corpus to stop the sheriff.  The writ prevented the lawmen from taking the prophet and his "destroying angel" out of the jurisdiction of Nauvoo. The Deputy Sheriff, not knowing if the city had the authority to issue a writ of Habeas Corpus hesitated in arrest Smith.  Realizing they were unable to force the matter, the law officers agreed to leave their prisoners in the hands of the city marshal, Henry G. Sherwood until they could determine if the writ was valid. 

Deputy Sherriff King and his men returned to Quincy to ascertain from the Governor whether the Nauvoo charter gave the city jurisdiction over the case. They also took with them the arrest warrant. Marshal Sherwood, without the arrest warrant in his possession, refused to keep Smith and Rockwell in custody which allowed Rockwell to flee back east and the prophet to go into hiding. 

When Sheriff King returned two days later, Joseph Smith and Porter Rockwell, to no one's surprise, were nowhere to be found.  Furious the sheriff uttered threats to city officials that “they will tarry in the city a month but they will find him… that if they could not find Joseph they would lay the city in ashes.” However the law men only remained in the Nauvoo area for a few days before seeing their precarious predicament was hopeless with so many frantic Danites devoted to protecting the "Lord's Anointed".[154]

Following Dr. Bennett’s attacks and Prof. Orson Pratts’s apostasy, a flurry of affidavits were filed in Joseph Smith’s defense, in an effort to counteract Dr. John Bennett's "awful disclosures". Joseph Smith, although in hiding, ordered thousands of copies of what was entitled "Affidavits and Certificates Disproving the Statements and Affidavits Contained in John C. Bennett's Letters", [155] to be  published. On  Aug. 31, 1842, the double sided broadside was printed as The Wasp Extra and contained sworn documents certifying Joseph Smith's innocence of Dr. Bennett's claims. When Joseph Smith called for "volunteers" to go forth "to declare the truth" of his innocence, three hundred and eighty Mormon elders were sent out to distribute the Wasp Extra.

Included within the broadside were two which were aimed at damaging Sarah Pratt's reputation. They were by Lt. Stephen Goddard and his wife Zeruiah Goddard. Lt Stephen H. Goddard accused John C. Bennett of carrying on an adulterous relationship with Sarah Pratt.  "We went over several times late in the evening while she lived in the house of Dr. Foster, and were most sure to find Dr. Bennett and your wife together, as it were, man and wife, lying on the floor and the bed apparently reserved for the Dr. and herself." [156]

Mrs. Goddard also signed an affidavit that Sarah Pratt and John Bennett's "conduct was anything but virtuous, and I know Mrs. Pratt is not a woman of truth, and I believe the statements which Dr. Bennett made concerning Joseph are false, and fabricated for the purpose of covering his iniquities, and enabling him to practice his base designs on the innocent." Zeruiah Goddard also claimed, "On one occasion I came suddenly into the room where Mrs. Pratt and the Dr. were, she was lying on the bed and the Dr. was taking his hands out of her bosom; he was in the habit of sitting on the bed where Mrs. Pratt was lying, and lying down over her.”  [157]

Sarah Pratt, upon reading the slander, went to the Goddards and confronted her former friend Zeruiah. Mrs. Goddard "tearfully confessed" that the affidavits were concocted, and that she and her husband were forced to sign them or they would be "ruined".  [158]

Additionally "The Wasp Extra" printed an undated slanderous affidavit by Stephen Markham, Joseph Smith's body guard, to ruin Nancy Rigdon. Markham claimed "he was at the house of Sidney Rigdon in the city of Nauvoo, where he saw Miss Nancy Rigdon laying on a bed, and John C. Bennett was sitting by the side of the bed, near the foot, in close conversation with her: deponent also saw many vulgar, unbecoming and indecent sayings and motions pass between them, which satisfied deponant [sic] that they were guilty of unlawful and illicit intercourse, with each other." [159]

Sidney Rigdon upon reading the slur on a family member immediately sent a letter to The Wasp disavowing  Joseph Smith's purported letter to his daughter that was published by John C. Bennett.  In his letter to the editor, dated August 27, 1842, Rigdon claimed he was authorized to speak on behalf of his daughter. He asserted that the alleged letter, "purporting to have been written by Mr. Joseph Smith to her, was unauthorized by her, and that she never said to Gen. Bennett or any other person, that said letter was written by said Mr. Smith, nor in his hand writing, but by another person, and in another persons' hand writing." [160] Rigdon did not deny the authenticity of the letter just that his daughter had not given it to Dr. Bennett nor was it written by Smith because technically the letter was in the penmanship of Dr. Willard Richards, the prophet's scribe.

Days after Rigdon's letter was printed, Stephen Markham's affidavit was retracted. "We are authorized to say, by Gen. Joseph Smith, that the affidavit of Stephen Markham, relative to Miss Nancy Rigdon, as published in the handbill of affidavits, was unauthorized by him; the certificate of Elder Rigdon relative to the letter, being satisfactory." [161] Clearly President Joseph Smith had used Markham's affidavit to force Sidney Ridgon into writing the statement refuting the letter.  Rigdon's coerced statement published in The Wasp was "sufficient explanation to have his daughter's name withdrawn from saintly character assassination", for a while at least.

Nevertheless, the 1842 slander of Nancy Rigdon's morals was so damaging and prevalent among the leaders of Nauvoo, that even after the death of the prophet, the Apostle Orson Hyde called Nancy, a “poor miserable girl out of the very slough of prostitution,” and a common prostitute." [162] While Hyde's remarks were intended to harm Sidney Rigdon and not directed specifically at Nancy Rigdon; her bad morals were touted as a reflection of her father's failure as a parent and thus making it a commentary on Sidney Rigdon's inability to head the church.

Sarah Pratt, Nancy Rigdon, and Martha Brotherton, all had in a common, the fact that they were viciously disparaged by the Mormon Church.  "Inevitably, Nancy Rigdon, Sarah Pratt, and Martha Brotherton saw their reputations impugned by an avalanche of slander,” [163] for daring to report Smith’s lewd behavior towards them.  Martha Brotherton was branded a “mean harlot” [164]. Nancy Rigdon was called a "common prostitute" and Joseph Smith labeled Sarah Pratt a “whore from her mother's breast.” [165]

In September 1842, Dr. John Bennett made good on his threat to write a book about Smith’s “malignant conduct”. In an attempt to completely “sully” the reputation of his former "Latter Day Saint cohorts”, Bennett published "The History of the Saints, or an Exposé of Joe Smith and Mormonism." The Exposé became an immediate sensation going through three printings in 1842 alone. The only merit of Bennett’s book however was that the doctor was first to reveal in detail that the Latter Day Saint Church authorities were practicing polygamy at the same time Latter Day Saint missionaries were vehemently denying it existed in the church.

Bennett  passionately criticized “Joseph Smith and many other high church officials” in tome, naming them “adulterers, and murderers; whose aim was to form an independent government by a secret band of men called Danites organized to kill Smith's enemies.” [166] The book was a nineteenth century best seller.  It contained all the elements of a sensational pot boiler;  religion, politics, murder, sex.  

For two years after leaving Nauvoo, Bennett lived off royalties from his book and his popular lecture fees. [167] Much of his credibility was destroyed, however, when Dr. John Bennett asserted in his book and at lectures that he only pretended to convert to Mormonism; in order “to expose the crimes of its leaders to the world.” The public was able to see through that vain deception but because much of what the doctor wrote about was the true state of the state of affairs in Nauvoo, the public was fascinated by his revelations, which reinforced negative opinions in much of the country against Mormonism. 

FOOTNOTES

(1.)       Dallin H. Oaks, Apostle, "Gospel Teachings About Lying", Clark Memorandum BYU (Spring 1994 pg. 16-17) One month before he died, President Joseph Smith proclaimed to thousands of Saints gathered on Sunday May 26, 1844, that he was not a polygamist. He declared, "What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one" (LDS History of the Church 6:411).

(2.)       Dallin H. Oaks concurred: "My duty as a member of the Council of the Twelve is to protect what is most unique about the LDS church, namely the authority of priesthood, testimony regarding the restoration of the gospel, and the divine mission of the Savior. Everything may be sacrificed in order to maintain the integrity of those essential facts. (Inside the Mind of President Joseph Smith: Psychobiography and the Book of Latter Day Saint, Introduction p. xliii f28

(3.)       The Times and Seasons for Dec. 1, 1842, carried an article from the Baltimore Clipper. This article stated that a Mormon preacher by the name of Winchester absolutely denied John C. Bennett's charges of polygamy in Nauvoo: "He spoke of the various publications of Bennett and others, and of the prejudices which they had necessarily excited--that the Mormons were charged with sanctioning a community of wives and of goods, with polygamy, and various other enormities, not one word of which was true." (Times and Seasons, Vol. 4, page 28)

(4.)       Thomas B. H. Stenhouse, The Rocky Mountain Saints. New York, 1873 p. 205 "President Joseph Smith's secret practice of "polygamy" put him in conflict not only with Oliver Cowdery but also with every other member of the First Presidency including Sidney Rigdon and his own brother Hyrum Smith. Rigdon withdrew into sullen inactivity for two years after Smith first (unsuccessfully) proposed polygamy to his daughter Nancy Rigdon. Hyrum Smith hired Latter Day Saints to spy on his brother's adulterous affairs but later became reconciled to his brother's licentiousness when it was presented to him as having been a commandment of God."

(5.)       The Disciples of Christ Church (The Campbellite Restoration Movement) was a group arising during the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century. The most prominent leaders were Thomas and Alexander Campbell. The group was committed to restoring primitive Christianity of the New Testament following the creed “Speak where the Bible speaks, Be silent where the Bible is silent.” It merged with the Christian Church (Stone Movement) in 1832 to form what is now described as the American Restoration Movement or Churches of Christ. (also known as the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement). Many of the early theologians and prominent early leaders of the Latter Day Saint Church such Orson Pratt, Parley P. Pratt, Isaac Morley and Edward Partridge, were Campbellite members of Rigdon's congregations prior to their conversion to the Latter Day Saint Church founded by Joseph Smith.

(6.)       Journal Entry, 8 Mar. 1832, Revelation Book 2: Febr. 1, 1832 - November 1, 1834 (aka Kirtland Revelation Book), The President Joseph Smith Papers, p. 10-11] "[C]hose this day and ordained brother Jesse Gause and Broth[er] Sidney [Rigdon] to be my counsellors of the ministry of the presidency of the High Priesthood"

(7.)       Doctrine and Covenants 81 Quinn, D. Michael (Fall 1983), "Jesse Gause: President Joseph Smith's Little-Known Counselor", BYU Studies 23 (4): 487–493 Jesse Gause is little known to Latter Day Saints due to the fact that the “revelation” given to him Mar. 8, 1832 was altered by replacing his name with his replacement in the First Presidency, Frederick G. Williams. D&C 90:6 “And again, verily I say unto thy brethren, Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams, their sins are forgiven them also, and they are accounted as equal with thee in holding the keys of this last kingdom;” the original read Jesse Gause. Joseph Smith kept Rigdon in Ohio but took the senior Gause to Jackson County, Missouri, with him between Apr. and June 1832, in order to set up the Law of Consecration. Upon returning to Kirtland, Gause started on a mission to North Union, Ohio a Shaker community with 29 year old convert Zebedee Coltrin on August 1, 1832. Six days later Gause attempted to persuade his wife Minerva to leave the celibate Shakers and accept Latter Day Saintism, but she continued to refuse to join him. He then attempted unsuccessfully to take their daughter, but had to leave "very much [e]nraged." Within a short time Coltrin became ill and decided to return to Kirtland. The two men "parted in the fellowship of the gospel" on August 20. From this date Gause simply disappears from Latter Day Saint history. It is not known what occurred to sour him on Latter Day Saintism, but by the end of 1832 he had "denied the faith" and was probably the "Jesse" excommunicated on Dec. 3. By 1836, when he would have been 51 years old, he had died at Montgomery, Chester County, Pennsylvania. In that year his brother assumed the guardianship of Martha's children. However, his sister stated in 1873 that Gause "died away from his family", suggesting that he died estranged from his children.

(8.)       History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1805-1890, Volume 1 pg 243

(9.)       Dean C. Jessee, Papers of President Joseph Smith, vol. 2, pp. 31–32

(10.)     B.H. Roberts (ed), History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 2:417; see also Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate 2:277

(11.)     Recollections of the Prophet Joseph Smith," The Juvenile Instructor 27 (1892)

(12.)     Mormonism Unveiled Life of John D. Lee Chapter 5 pp 77-78.

(13.)     Doctrine and Covenants (1835 ed.), section 101, p. 251. Statement on Marriage  “In as much as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy: we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in the case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.”

(14.)     1 Samuel 26:9. “But David said to Abishai, "Don't destroy him! Who can lay a hand on the LORD's anointed and be guiltless?”

(15.)     Andrew F. Smith, The Saintly Scoundrel: The Life and Times of Dr. John Cook Bennett (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), p. 54

(16.)     Sunday, June 16, 1996 COME, COME, YE SAINTS - A REPRISE BY HAROLD SCHINDLER THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

(17.)     William Law was born September 8, 1809 in Tyrone County Ireland and immigrated to Canada with his family. He married 1833 Jane Silverthorn an English Canadian native and had at least 8 children. He was a convert to the Latter Day Saint Church and was 2nd Counselor to President Joseph Smith in the First Presidency from Jan. 24, 1841 – Jan 1844. Law apostatized because he felt Joseph Smith had corrupted the church by introducing false and damnable doctrines such as a plurality of gods a plurality of wives and the doctrine of unconditional sealing up unto eternal life.

(18.)     Smith. The Saintly Scoundrel p 56

(19.)     John J. Stewart Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet pp 147-148 Mormon historian Stewart states that Smith did not talk to Bennett about polygamy. "One leader to whom Joseph did not confide the matter was Dr. John C. Bennett, Nauvoo's mayor, whose moral conduct the Prophet had found questionable. Bennett, he learned, had deserted a wife and family in Indiana. Yet, professing to be Nauvoo's most eligible bachelor, he was enthusiastically courting the women of Mormondom. Joseph's admonition to him to from this was ill received, and from that hour Bennett became his secret enemy. Rumors of plural marriage in the Church had persisted almost since its beginning--and may well have been the chief reason for Bennett seeking to affiliate with the Church. It was, of course, impossible to keep the doctrine and practice of it in Nauvoo from becoming known, even though public denials of it were made by the church leaders--..." (by John J. Stewart, pp. 147-148)

(20.)     Joseph Smith recorded in his journal 19 May 1842 a reference to “John C. Bennett having discovered that this whoredoms and abominations were fast coming to light.”  Since whoredom obviously meant sex with women the use of the word abominations must have referred to sex with men. Leviticus 20:13 “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”

(21.)     Sunday, June 16, 1996 COME, COME, YE SAINTS - A REPRISE BY HAROLD SCHINDLER THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

(22.)     Schindler 1996

(23.)     Robert Flanders Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi 1975 Urbana Univeristy of Illinois p 99 Flanders felt that this consolidation of power in Nauvoo aroused the opposition of the gentiles around the city.

(24.)     Sunday, June 16, 1996 COME, COME, YE SAINTS - A REPRISE BY HAROLD SCHINDLER THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

(25.)     Schindler 1996 Until 1841, the only other military leader to hold such a high rank as Lieutenant General had been George Washington. The editor of the Sangamo Journal published a lengthy editorial critical of the Legislature and Smith's status as the highest-ranking military officer in America. The editor correctly pointed out that if war came, Smith would command the nation's armies, because Winfield Scott held a subordinate rank of major general.

(26.)     Times and Seasons Vol. 2 15 Jan. 1841 pp 275-27, “Proclamation to the Saints Scattered Abroad"

(27.)     Times and Seasons No 10 15 Mar. 1841 Don Carlos Smith Editor

(28.)     Doctrine and Covenants 124:16-17

(29.)     Historian and novelist Sam Taylor author of Nightfall at Nauvoo used the  term “homo-libertine”

(30.)     Joseph Smith. History of the Church, by Joseph Smith, Vol. 4, page 431

(31.)     Times and Seasons Vol. 2, no. 15 p. 432, 1 June 1841

(32.)     Aug.  1, 1842 Times and Seasons, City of Nauvvo, Monday “John C. Bennett”

(33.)     Thomas H. Gregg, History of Hancock County Illinois. Chicago 1880 p 283 Gregg was a self-taught newspaper man who once wrote a feature story under the name “a Buckeye.” He was an abolitionist and teetotaler. He founded a total of eight newspapers and four magazines during his lifetime.

(34.)     Joseph Smith History of the Church, Vol. 5, pp. 35-36 On June 23, 1842, after John C. Bennett had left the Church, Joseph Smith admitted that a letter had been received from a "respectable" person "...Dr. John C. Bennett...located himself in the city of Nauvoo, about the month of August, 1840, and soon after joined the Church. Soon after it was known that he had become a member of said Church, a communication was received at Nauvoo from a person of respectable character and residing in the vicinity where Bennett had lived. This letter cautioned us against him, setting forth that he was a very mean man, and had a wife and two or three children...but knowing that it is no uncommon thing for good men to be evil spoken against, the above letter was kept quiet, but held in reserve."

(35.)     George Miller had been a wealthy farmer near Macomb in McDonough County, Illinois when the Latter Day Saints were expelled from Missouri. Miller invited the Latter Day Saints to live on his farm. Miller then converted to Mormonism in the spring of 1839 and moved to Iowa, across from Nauvoo, in the spring of 1840. On September 1, 1840 - perhaps the same day Bennett first arrived in Nauvoo--President Joseph Smith invited Miller to move to Nauvoo. In many ways, Miller's rise to power in the Latter Day Saint church parallels Bennett's. On the same day (January 19, 1841) that Smith claimed to have had a revelation about Bennett, he also had one about Miller. Miller was made a bishop of the church by revelation and was appointed president of the Nauvoo House Association. In February 1841 Miller was ordained and was elected to the board of regents of the University of the City of Nauvoo. He also assisted in building the Nauvoo Temple. George Miller was elected worshipful master at the first meeting of the Nauvoo Masons December 29, 1841

(36.)     The abandoned wife was the former Mary Ainstice Barker, a daughter of Joseph Barker, one of the first settlers of Ohio and a state representative. Bennett and Barker had married Jan. 9, 1826 in Washington County, Ohio and had at least three children according to the 1840 U.S. census. The 1860 Census of Shelby County, Illinois listed Mary Bennett as keeping a boarding house. Her unmarried son George C. Cook and daughter Mary A. Rice are living with her.  Mary A. Barker Bennett out lived the her bigamist husband by thirty years until her death in 1897. The 1856 Census of Polk County, Iowa show that George was 20 year old was living with John Bennett and his second wife Sarah. Another girl in the household is Cynthia Bennett age 16 born in Sweden probably George's wife. John Bennett sated he had lived in the state 8 years (1848)  Two young Irish laborers were also listed in Bennett's household.

(37.)     The Wasp, June 25, 1842, page 3 McCONNELSVILLE, Morgan Co. O. March 2, 1841. Dear Sir -- By your request I have made inquiries into the history of John Cook Bennett, and am enabled to give you the following facts which may be relied on as correct. "When a young man his character stood fair, he studied medicine with his uncle, Dr. Samuel P. Hildreth, of Marietta, Washington county, O. It is believed he has a diploma, and also recommendations from some of the principal Physicians of that place; he started out with fair prospects, and married a daughter of Col. Joseph Barker, near Marietta. Bennett and his wife united with the Methodist Church, and he became a local preacher. It was soon manifest that he was a superficial character, always uneasy, and moved from place to place; at different times lived in Barnesville, Maconnelsville, Malta, Wheeling, Va., Colesville, Pennsylvania and Indiana; it is not presumed that less than twenty towns has been his place of residence at different times; he has the vanity to believe he is the smartest man in the nation; and if he cannot at once be placed at the head of the heap, he soon seeks a situation; he is always ready to fall in with whatever is popular; by the use of his recommendations he has been able to push himself into places and situations entirely beyond his abilities; he has been a prominent personage in and about colleges and universities, but had soon vanished; and the next thing his friends hear of him he is off in some other direction; at one time he was a prominent Campbellite preacher. "During many years his poor, but confiding wife, followed him from place to place, with no suspicion of his unfaithfulness to her; at length however, he became so bold in his departures, that it was evident to all around that he was a sore offender, and his wife left him under satisfactory evidence of his adulterous connections; nor was this his only fault; he used her bad otherwise. Mrs. Bennett now lives with her father; has two children living, and has buried one or two. Dr. Bennett has three brothers-in-law living in this place, who, if they were disposed, could give all the particulars; but I dislike to urge them; I did apply to one which I thought the most likely, but he seemed reluctant to give it; but referred me to the person who has given me the foregoing; but he not being a connexion [connection], has not been particular in following him in all his peregrinations; but is, no doubt correct, so far as given; -- it has been Dr. Bennett's wish that his wife should get a bill of divorcement, but as yet she has not; nor does my informant know that she contemplates doing so; -- in fine, he is an imposter, and unworthy of the confidence of all good men." * * Through motives of delicacy, we withhold the names of our informants, and other correspondents; but hold ourselves in readiness, at all times, to substantiate by abundant testimony, all that has been asserted, if required, as the documents are all on hand. GEORGE MILLER.    

(38.)     And yet Bishop Miller as Worshipful Master of the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge allowed John Bennett to serve as secretary of the lodge until he was expelled in May 1842

(39) Journal of Joseph Smith 14 May 1842 • “City council. Advocated strongly the necessity of some active measures being taken to suppress houses & acts of infamy in the city; for the protection of the innocent & virtuous— & good of public morals.  shewing clearly that there were certain characters in the place who were disposed to corrupt the morals & chastity of our citizens & that houses of  infamy did exist.— upon which a city ordinance was passed to prohibit  such things & published in this days An Ordinance concerning Brothels and Disorderly Characters,” The Wasp, 14 May 1842, Dr. Robert Foster, a resident of Nauvoo at the time, declared that Bennett "plead the cause of the house of ill fame in Nauvoo when he was Mayor and the City Council unanimously declared it a public nuisance" Wasp October 2, 1842. The Times and Seasons for November 15, 1841, published a notice of the destruction of the house with the statement, "The city authorities manifest a determination to carry out strictly the temperence ordinances of the city, and in this we wish them 'God speed' " (Times and Seasons 3:599–600).

(40.)     The Mormon publication Times and Seasons for August 1, 1842, made this statement concerning Bennett: "It may be asked why it was that we would countenance him so long after being apprised of his iniquities, and why he was not dealt with long ago. To this we would answer, that he has been dealt with from time to time;... He frequently wept like a child, and begged like a culprit for forgiveness,... The church afterwards publicly withdrew their fellowship from him, and his character was published in the 17th number of this paper; since that time he has published that the conduct of the Saints was bad--that Joseph Smith and many others were adulterers,...that we believed in and practiced polygamy--... As he has made his statements very public, and industriously circulated them through the country, we shall content ourselves with answering his base falsehoods and misrepresentations, without giving publicity to them, as the public are generally acquainted with them already. E.D." (Times and Seasons, Vol. 3, page 869)

(41.)   Andrew F. Smith, The Saintly Scoundrel: The Life and Times of Dr. John Cook Bennett (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), p 113

(42.)     Smith, Saintly Scoundrel, pp10, 32.

(43.)     Smith, Saintly Scoundrel, p 45.

(44.)     Carrie A, Moore Deseret News Sunday May 29, 2005 "Research focuses on Smith family." Known descendants from the children of Joseph and Emma Smith number about 2,000, many of them with little or no interest in religion and some with an aversion to their famous ancestor's polygamist practices.

(45.)     Carrie A. Moore Deseret Morning News Nov. 10, 12007 "DNA tests rule out 2 as Smith descendants Scientific advances prove no genetic link" " Ugo Perego, director of operations at the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, told the Deseret Morning News that technological advances in DNA testing during the past couple of years have helped prove with "99.9 percent certainty" that two early Latter-day Saints thought by some to be Smith's children are not his descendants. They are:  Mosiah Hancock, son of Clarissa Reed Hancock, who was married to Levi Hancock. • Oliver Buell, son of Prescindia Huntington Buell, who was married to Norman Buell…In 2005, DNA testing ruled out three other alleged male descendants — Moroni Llewellyn Pratt, Zebulon Jacobs and Orrison Smith son of Fanny Alger." Other children besides Josephine Fisher (b. Feb. 8, 1844) thought to be Joseph Smith's were George A. Lightner (b. Mar. 12,1842), Orson W. Hyde (b. Nov. 9,1843), Frank H. Hyde (b. Jan 23, 1845),

(46.)     Brodie, Fawn (1971), No Man Knows My History, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Compton, Todd (Summer 1996), "A Trajectory of Plurality: An Overview of President Joseph Smith's Thirty-three Plural Wives", Dialogue: A Journal of Latter Day Saint Thought 29 (2): 1–38, Smith, George D. (Spring 1994), "Nauvoo Roots of Latter Day Saint Polygamy, 1841-46: A Preliminary Demographic Report", Dialogue: A Journal of Latter Day Saint Thought 27 WIFES [legal wife-Emma Hale 22, Single females: Helen Mar Kimball 14, Nancy Mariah Winchester 14, Fanny Algar 16, Flora Ann Woodworth 16, Lucy Walker 17, Sarah Lawrence 17, Sarah Ann Whitney 17, Maria Lawrence 19, Melissa Lott 19, Emily Dow Partridge 19, Eliza Maria Partridge 22, Louisa Beaman 26, Sally Ann Fuller 26, Olive Grey Frost 27, Hannah Ells 29, Almera Woodward Johnson 30, Desdemona Fullmer 32, Eliza Roxcy Snow 38, Rhoda Richards 58, Married women: Mrs. Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs 20, Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner 23, Mrs. Sylvia Porter Sessions Lyon  23, Mrs. Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde 27, Mrs. Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes 29, Mrs. Presendia Lathrop Huntington Buell 31, Mrs. Ruth D. Vose Sayers 34, Mrs. Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris 37, Mrs. Patty Bartlett Sessions 47 (mother of Sylvia Sessions), Mrs. Elizabeth Davis Brackenbury Durfee 50, Mrs. Sarah Maryetta Kingsley Howe Cleveland 53 , Mrs. Fanny Young Murray 56, Married women ages unknown: Mrs. Phoebe Watrous Woodworth, Mrs. Blossom Widow women: Mrs. Delcena Johnson Sherman 37, Mrs. Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Smith 31 (widow of President Joseph Smith’s brother Don Carlos) Martha McBride Knight 37 Divorcee: Mary Ann Frost Pratt 34 divorced Parley P Pratt Woman age and marital status unknown: Olive Andrews, Sarah Bapson, Clarissa Reed Hancock, Mary Houston, Mary Huston, Vienna Jaques, Cordelia Calista Morley, Sophia Sanburn, Sarah Scott, Nancy Maria Smith, Jane Tippets, Sophia Woodman. Polygamy was against the law in Illinois. Richard Lyman Bushman. "Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling". pp 492-93: "They had to give up romance, cut themselves off from friends, perhaps suffer disgrace if they became pregnant." Richard Ostling and Joan K. Ostling. "Mormon America - Revised and Updated Edition: The Power and the Promise." p 65: "The number of Smith's polygamous offspring is a bit of a mystery. There was only one child from a plural marriage generally acknowledged as such: Josephine, daughter of Emily Dow Partridge. Several sources indicate there were others, raised in other families and under other names. Such children had, of course, been conceived in secrecy." Leonard J. Arrington & Davis Bitton. "The Mormon Experience: A HISTORY OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS." p199: "Several women later did testify that they were wives in the full sense of the word. Emily D. P. Partidge said she 'roomed' with him, and Melissa Lott Willes testified that she was his wife 'in very deed.'"

(47.)      Wilhelm von Wymetal, "President Joseph Smith the “Prophet”: His Family and His Family and Friends"(Latter Day Saint Portraits) Testimony of Sarah Pratt. SLC: Tribune Printing & Pub., 1886, page 59-62). The German author and newspaper correspondent, “Dr. W. Wyl”, the pseudonym he used spent nearly five months in Salt Lake City in 1885 collecting material for a book on Mormonism. When the book was published, it contained information which he had acquired from his interviews with approximately eighty individuals, including a number of old-time Saints from the Nauvoo and Kirtland days

(48.)     Wasp Extra of Aug. 31, 1842 Testimony of Mrs. Goddard 28th day of August 1842 Subscribed before George W. Harris one of the alderman of the City of Nauvoo. 

(49.) Wymetal 1886, pp. 60–61

(50.)     Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, p 467. Joseph recommended that Orson Pratt divorce Sarah and remarry another. Sarah later claimed that her belief never recovered from this period-Van Wagoner, "Sarah M. Pratt," 89–90.

(51.)     Interview with Wm. Law. March. 30, 1887; The Daily Tribune: Salt Lake City, Sunday Morning July 31, 1887

(52)      Affidavit of Hyrum Smith. Official History of the Church, Vol. 5, p.71 (THE WASP. --- EXTRA. Nauvoo, Illinois, Wednesday, July 27, 1842.) AFFIDAVIT OF HYRUM SMITH. On the seventeenth day of may, 1842, having been made acquainted with some of the conduct of John C. Bennett, which was given in testimony under oath before Alderman G. W. Harris, by several females, who testified that John C. Bennett endeavored to seduce them and accomplished his designs by saying it was right; that it was one of the mysteries of God, which was to be revealed when the people was strong enough in the faith to bear such mysteries-that it was perfectly right to have illicit intercourse with females, providing no one knew it but themselves, vehemently trying them from day to day, to yield to his passions, bringing witnesses of his own clan to testify that their [there] was such revelations and such commandments, and that it was of God; also stating that he would be responsible for their sins, if their was any; and that he would give them medicine to produce abortions, providing they should become pregnant. One of these witnesses, a married woman that he attended upon in his professional capacity, whilst she was sick, stated that he made proposals to her of a similar nature; he told her that he wished her husband was dead, and that if he was dead he would marry her and clear out out with her; he also begged her permission to give him medicine to that effect; he did try to give him medicine, but he would not take it-on interogating [interrogating] her what she thought of such teaching, she replied, she was sick at the time, and had to be lifted in and out of her bed like a child. Many other acts as criminal were reported to me at the time. On becoming acquainted with these facts, I was determined to prosecute him, and bring him to justice.-Some person knowing my determintion [determination], having informed him of it, he sent to me Wm. Law and Brigham Young, to request an interview with me and to see if their [there] could not be a reconciliation made. I told them I thought there could not be, his crimes were so henious [heinous]; but told them I was willing to see him; he immediately came to see me; he begged on me to forgive him, this once, and not prosecute him and expose him, he said he was guilty, and did acknowledge the crimes that were alleged against him; he seemed to be sorry that he had committed such acts, and wept much, and desired that it might not be made public, for it would ruin him forever; he wished me to wait; but I was determined to bring him to justice, and declined listening to his entreaties; he then wished me to wait until he could have an interview with the masonic fraternity; he also wanted an interview with Br. Joseph; he wished to know of me, if I would forgive him, and desist from my intentions, if he could obtain their forgiveness; and requested the privilege of an interview immediately. I granted him that privilege as I was acting as master pro. tem. at that time; he also wished an interview first with Br. Joseph; at that time Brother Joseph was crossing the yard from the house to the store and met Dr. Bennett on the way; he reached out his hand to Br. Joseph and said, will you forgive me, weeping at the time; he said Br. Joseph, I am guilty, I acknowledge it, and I beg of you not to expose me, for it will ruin me; Joseph replied, Doctor! why are you using my name to carry on your hellish wickedness? Have I ever taught you that fornication and adultery was right, or poligamy [polygamy] or any such practices? He said you never did. Did I ever teach you any thing that was not virtuous-that was iniquitous, either in public or private? He said you never did. Did you ever know anything unvirtuous or unrighteous in my conduct or actions at any time, either in public or in private? he said, I did not; are you willing to make oath to this before an Alderman of the city? he said I am willing to do so. Joseph said Dr. go into my office, and write what you can in conscience subscribe your name to, and I will be satisfied-I will, he said, and went into the office, and I went with him and he requested pen ink and paper of Mr. Clayton, who was acting clerk in that office, and was also secretary pro. tem. for the Nauvoo Lodge U. D. Wm. Clayton gave him paper, pen and ink, and he stood at the desk and wrote the following article which was published in the 11th No. of the Wasp; sworn to and subscribed before Daniel H. Wells, Alderman, 17th day of May, A. D. 1842; he called in Br. Joseph, and read it to him and asked him if that would do, he said it would, he then swore to it as before mentioned; the article was as follows: STATE OF ILLINOIS, } CITY OF NAUVOO. } Personally appeared before me, Daniel H. Wells, an Alderman of said city of Nauvoo, John C. Bennett, who being duly sworn according to law, deposeth and saith: that he never was taught any thing in the least cantrary [contrary] to the strictest principles of the Gospel, or of virtue, or of the laws of God, or man, under any occasion either directly or indirectly, in word or deed, by Joseph Smith; and that he never knew the said Smith to countenance any improper conduct whatever, either in public or private; and that he never did teach to me in private that an illegal illicit intercourse with females was, under any circumstances, justifiable, and that I never knew him so to teach others. JOHN C. BENNETT. Sworn to, and subscribed [subscribed], before me, this 17th day of May, 1842. DANIEL H. WELLS, Alderman.

(53.) Testimony of Catherine Fuller Warren before the High Council of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints City of Nauvoo May 25th 1842  "against John C. Bennett & others", copy of holograph in Valeen Tippitts Avery Collection

(54.)     Francis Marion (Frank) Higbee was born in 1820 in Tate, Ohio, to Elias Higbee and Sarah Elizabeth Ward. Frank’s family joined the Latter Day Saint Church in Ohio in early 1832. By 1841, Frank was elected a colonel in the Nauvoo Legion and in July of that year he was brought before a church High Court tried with John Bennett for immorality. He stayed an intimate associate with John Bennett as well as did his brother Chauncey. In 1842 after the attempted seduction of Nancy Rigdon by President Joseph Smith, he gave to John Bennett the letter Smith had written to Nancy in order to justify his actions. For the next two years the Higbee brothers filed several suits against the “Prophet”. The brothers were involved publishing the Nauvoo Expositor. The destruction of the newspaper led to Joseph Smith’s arrest and ultimately to his lynching by a mob at Carthage. Identified by Willard Richards and Jacob B. Backenstos as member of the mob that killed Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith, 1844, at Carthage. After the Latter Day Saints left Nauvoo in 1846, Frank Higbee remained in the city and ran a country store. A Latter Day Saint source claims he was arrested in mid-1846 for anti-Latter Day Saint activities, but he was still residing in Hancock County four years later when 1850 census takers identified him as a single man working as a merchant and his younger brother Jackson as a clerk. He reportedly died in New York or Rhode Island in 1856 age 36. Whether or not he married and had descendants is unknown. Higbee being closely associated with Smith’s death, may have been assassinated. Blood oaths in the Temple ceremonies had faithful Saints swear to kill the murderers of Smith. History of the Church, 7:143–144, 146

(55.)     Brigham Young testimony in Multiple, "Municipal Court," 15 May 1844 Times and Seasons p 539. The date is taken from this testimony

(56.)     Samuel Taylor to T. Edgar Lyon, February 1969. Samuel Taylor papers, handwritten notes on typed page of rough draft of Nightfall at Nauvoo unnumbered first page of Chapter VII, "Every Species of Abomination," ms. 50, Box 29, Bk. 3. “Bennett’s "sexual antics" with men of the Nauvoo Legion cast aspersions of sodomy on "hell knows how many revered pioneers."

(57.)     Brigham Young testimony in Multiple, "Municipal Court," 15 May 1844 ‘Times and Seasons’’ p 539

(58.) Linda King Newell, and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Latter Day Saint Enigma, pg. 112 The town had a brothel and presumably enough business to support it. Two thousand people would pass the building on their way to Sunday meetings each week. On May 14, 1842 the city council passed an ordinance prohibiting brothels in the city. An eyewitness later claimed that Bennett had built one. The city council ordered it ripped down as a public nuisance. Lorenzo D. Wasson, Smith's nephew, reported that he had knowledge of "Bennett and his prostitutes." Whatever Bennett's connection to the brothel, if any, it is unimaginable that it could have survived without the knowledge of the leaders of the church, yet due to a tacit acceptance, perhaps because the brothel was protected by Bennett as mayor, or it might have been an integral part of an emerging system of sexual experimentation then underway in Nauvoo, as Bennett later implied. The city council eventually put the house on rollers and pitched it over the edge of a deep gully.

(59.)     H.J. Sherwood testimony in Multiple, "Municipal Court," Times and Seasons 15 May 1844 p 540.

(60.)     Richard and Pamela Price, President Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy: How Men Nearest the “Prophet” Attached Polygamy to His Name in Order to Justify Their Own Polygamous Crimes, Volume 1 (Price Publishing Co, 2000), chapter 11        

(61.)     President Joseph Smith testimony in Multiple, "Municipal Court," 538.D. Michael Quinn, Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Latter Day Saint Example Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996, 268, 362n121),

(62)      Conclusion based the Sam Taylor Papers, ms. 50, (Special Collections, University of Utah Marriott Library The act of sodomy for most of the nineteenth century was considered so ignoble, so disgusting that it was called an “unspeakable” crime”. In typical nineteenth century journalism, editors never allowed depictions of homosexual acts to be printed as the act itself was viewed too abhorrent and detestable for public consumption. Instead pejoratives such as “unnatural’ “revolting”, “infamous” and “unfit for publication” were used to spare reader’s delicate sensibilities. Sexual practices such as anal sex have historically been labeled an "abominable crime against nature".

(63.)     Sam Taylor to Dr. T. Edgar Lyon, Sam Taylor papers, January 31, 1969. Hyrum Smith also testified that Higbee had been "seduced" by Bennett. Other testimony indicated that Bennett "led the youth that he had influence over to tread in his unhallowed steps." Although deleted in the printed version, the original ecclesiastical notes indicate that in addition to charges of sex with women, other testimony about Bennett was deleted from the official minutes as being "too indelicate for the public eye and ear," an allusion to the "unspeakable crime" of sodomy. T. Edgar Lyon, thought that Bennett could not have been homosexual since he was also accused of seducing women. "From my limited knowledge of homosexuals," Lyon wrote, "it seems to be out of character of the man [Bennett] to be so deeply involved with girls and women in town and at the same time practicing homosexuality." T. Edgar Lyon to Sam Taylor, Taylor papers, February 4, 1969, p. 2.

(64.) The Wasp Vol.I No. 11.        Nauvoo, Hancock Co., Sat., June 25, 1842.  Whole No. 11.

(65.)     Samuel Taylor papers, handwritten notes on typed page of rough draft of Nightfall at Nauvoo unnumbered first page of Chapter VII, "Every Species of Abomination," ms. 50, Box 29, Bk. 3. “ Bennett’s "sexual antics" with men of the Nauvoo Legion cast aspersions of sodomy on "hell knows how many revered pioneers." Taylor to T. Edgar Lyon, February 1969

(66.)       Brigham Young testimony in Multiple, "Municipal Court," p 539.

(67.)     Joseph Smith History of the Church, Vol. 5, p 20 In a speech delivered May 26, 1842, Joseph Smith stated: "At this time, the truth on the guilty should not be told openly, strange as this may seem, yet this is policy. We must use precaution in bringing sinners to justice, lest in exposing these heinous sins we draw the indignation of a Gentile world upon us..."

(68.)     Ann Eliza Young. Wife No. 19, 1876, p 74 "One of the first persons to be initiated into the plural-wife doctrine, if not indeed Joseph's confederate in producing it, was Dr. John C. Bennett, at that time Mayor of the city, Major-General of the Nauvoo Legion, and a very great friend of Joseph. It is said that the pupil fairly outran the teacher, and his success as special pleader for the system of Celestial Marriage was so decided that he incurred the displeasure of the Prophet, and they quarreled violently. He taught the doctrine to some ladies whom Smith had intended to convert himself, and thus coming directly in contact with the Prophet and his schemes, a rupture was caused between the worthy co-workers."

(69.)       Chauncey L. Higbee was born in 1821 the son of Elias Higbee. Upon leaving Nauvoo, he moved to Quincy, Illinois where he married Julia May White in 1854.  He then resettled to Pittsfield, Illinois. That same year, he was admitted to the bar and elected to the Illinois general assembly. Four years later he joined the state senate. In 1861, he was elected as a circuit judge. He was appointed a member of the appellate court in 1877 and served as president of First National Bank, of which he was a charter member. He supported construction of the Pittsfield East School and a new Methodist Episcopal church. He remained in Pittsfield and died in 1884 at the age of 63.

(70.)       John J. Stewart, Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet, pp 164-165

(71.)     Joseph Smith History of the Church 4:587;

(72.)     President Joseph Smith to Miss Nancy Rigdon, 11 April 1842, "History of the Church," Vol. 5, pp.134-36; see also, "The Letter of the “Prophet”, President Joseph Smith to Miss Nancy Rigdon," in "President Joseph Smith Collection," LDS archives Full copy Sangamo Journal Aug 19, 1842

(73.)     Richard S. Van Wagoner. “Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess" p. 296,

(74.)     The Joseph Smith Papers, Journal 29 April 1842

(75.)     Martha H. Brotherton (1824- c.1870) was raised in Manchester, England, and came to America early in 1842 with several other Mormon converts. After Martha's death Brigham Young had her sealed to him "for eternity," in a proxy marriage carried out in Utah. Martha's sister, Elizabeth Brotherton (1816-1897) married Parley P. Pratt at Nauvoo in 1843, becoming that LDS Apostle's second polygamous wife. On Apr. 20, 1842 Elizabeth Brotherton made out a statement in which she said: "I suppose, by this time, you will have heard that my parents and sister have apostatized... my sister has told some of the greatest lies that ever were circulated." This statement was published with her signature in the LDS Church's pamphlet, Affidavits and Certificates Disproving the Statements and Affidavits Contained in John C. Bennett's Letter. In these statements Martha Brotherton was branded a liar and a prostitute. The Nauvoo Wasp, of Aug. 27, 1842 spoke of "mean harlots as Martha H. Brotherton," and it quickly became the policy of the elders of the Church not to respond to Martha's allegations, since statements such as hers had come from "prostitutes" (see, for example, comments attributed to Elder William Small and Thomas Smethurst's indignant response, in the Pittsburgh Morning Chronicle of July 27, 1842). Nearly a decade later, LDS Elder Thomas Smith continued to refute claims of polygamy among the Mormons, writing in the Church's official newspaper: "12th LIE: Joseph Smith taught a system of polygamy... 13th LIE: That Joseph Smith tried to seduce Martha Brotherton... Martha Brotherton's sister sent a letter, stating that Martha was a liar; William Clayton did the same. Both are published in the Millennial Star, Vol. 3, pages 73, 74." (LDS Millennial Star, XII -- Jan. 15, 1850 -- pp. 29-31).

(76.)     John C. Bennett, The History of the Saints; or, An Expose of Joe Smith and Mormonism [Boston: Leland & Whiting, 1842], p 236

(77.)     American Bulletin St. Louis,  Vol. 1  No. 145  Saturday,  July 16, 1842.

(78.)     Times and Seasons 3 April 15, 1842 p 763

(79.)      Times and Seasons 3 April 15, 1842 p 763

(80.)       Millennial Star 3 August 1842: pp 73–74

(81.)     John C. Bennett solicited the statement of Miss Martha Brotherton during the second week of July, while he was visiting St. Louis. Miss Brotherton's statement was originally intended for publication in the prestigious, high-circulation Missouri Republican. In its issue of July 15, 1842 the Republican stated that Bennett's expose materials were not printed, due to lack of space. They were instead published in the July 14 and 16, 1842 issues of the Native American Bulletin. The Brotherton statement was widely reprinted in many other U. S. newspapers; see, for example, the Warsaw Signal of July 23, 1842. the Louisville Journal of July, 25, 1842; the New York Herald of July 25, 1842; the Alton Telegraph of July 30, 1842, and the Quincy Whig of Aug. 6, 1842. It was through the wide circulation of this statement that the secret Mormon polygamy at Nauvoo first received nation-wide attention. Bennett supplies essentially the same information from Brotherton on pp. 236-240 of his 1842 book, History of the Saints.

(82.)     Parley P. Pratt married Elizabeth Brotherton 24 June 1843 as his first polygamist wife in Nauvoo. Her only issue was a daughter Phoebe who died age 5 years.  Pioneer’s Death Mrs. Elizabeth B. Pratt Dies from an Accident Received Yesterday, Sunday, May 9, Mrs. Elizabeth Brotherton Pratt, wife of the late Elder P.P. Pratt, died at her home in the Twenty-second ward of this city, in the 82nd year of her age. She was the daughter of Thomas and Sarah Hamilton Brotherton, and was born in Manchester, England, March 27, 1816. She joined the church in 1840, and came to Nauvoo in 1841. In 1843 she was married to Elder P.P. Pratt, in Nauvoo, the Patriarch Hyrum Smith performing the marriage ceremony. She came to Utah in 1847, arriving here in September of that year. The deceased has been an active, faithful member of the Church, highly esteemed by all her associates. She was a member of the first Relief society organized in Utah. She has lived in this city over fifty years. About a week ago, at her home, she had the misfortune to fall to the floor breaking her thigh. Just previous to this she had had an attack of the grippe, and in her advanced years the combination of ailments resulted in death. The funeral will take place on Tuesday, May 11, at 12 o’clock, noon, from the Twenty-second ward meeting house. Friends invited. Deseret News, May 10, 1897,

(83.) Millennial Star 3 August 1842: pp 73–74

(84) Millennial Star 3 August 1842: pp 73–74

(85.)     Bennett "led the youth that he had influence over to tread in his unhallowed steps ... even to the seduction of the virtuous" (Times and Seasons 3 [August 1, 1842]: 869) Joseph Smith History of the Church, Vol. 5, p. 42)In a letter to Governor Carlin, Joseph Smith said: "Dear Sir: --It becomes my duty to lay before you some facts relative to the conduct of our major-general, John C. Bennett,... "It is evident that his general character is that of an adulterer of the worst kind,... "Some time ago it having been reported to me that some of the most aggravated cases of adultery had been committed upon some previously respectable females in our city,... "More than twenty months ago Bennett went to a lady in the city and began to teach her that promiscuous intercourse between the sexes was lawful and no harm in it, and requested the privilege of gratifying his passions;... "Finding this argument ineffectual, he told her that men in higher standing in the Church than himself not only sanctioned, but practiced the same deeds; and in order to finish the controversy, said and affirmed that I both taught and acted in the same manner, but publicly proclaimed against [it] in consequence of the prejudice of the people, and for fear of trouble in my own house. By this means he accomplished his designs; he seduced a respectable female with lying, and subjected her to public infamy and disgrace. "Not contented with what he had already done, he made the attempt on others, and by using the same language, seduced them also."

(86.) Testimony of Catherine Fuller Warren before the High Council of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the City of Nauvoo May 25th 1842 against John C. Bennett & others, copy of holograph in Valeen Tippitts Avery Collection

(87.) History of the Church Vol 5 Chapter 1 p 3 General John C. Bennett's Perfidy. "In addition to this quotation, I would remark that the day passed very harmoniously, without drunkenness, noise or confusion. There was an immense congregation of spectators, and many distinguished strangers expressed much satisfaction. But one thing I will notice: I was solicited by General Bennett to take command of the first cohort during the sham battle; this I declined. General Bennett next requested me to take my station in the rear of the cavalry, without my staff, during the engagement; but this was counteracted by Captain A. P. Rockwood, commander of my life guards, who kept close to my side, and I chose my own position. And if General Bennett's true feelings toward me are not made manifest to the world in a very short time, then it may be possible that the gentle breathings of that Spirit, which whispered me on parade, that there was mischief concealed in that sham battle, were false; a short time will determine the point. Let John C. Bennett answer at the day of judgment, "Why did you request me to command one of the cohorts, and also to take my position without my staff, during the sham battle, on the 7th of May, 1842, where my life might have been the forfeit, and no man have known who did the deed?

(88.)     Times and Seasons 3 [June 15, 1842]: 830

(89.) The Joseph Smith Papers Journal Entry May 12, 1842 "The correspondence between JS and Rigdon has not been located. Some sources suggest that the difficulties between the two men stemmed from an alleged marriage proposal on the part of JS to Sidney Rigdon’s nineteen-year-old daughter, Nancy. Other evidence suggests that bad feelings developed after JS reproved Nancy for immoral behavior. The nature of the sources precludes any firm conclusions. (See, for example, “6th Letter From Gen. Bennett,” Sangamo Journal [Springfield, IL], 19 Aug. 1842, [2]; Bennett, History of the Saints, 243–247; John W. Rigdon, Affidavit, Salt Lake Co., Utah, 28 July 1905, pp. 6–8, in Joseph F. Smith, Affidavits about Celestial Marriage, CHL; Speech of Orson Hyde, 27–28.)"

(90.) The Joseph Smith Papers Journal Entry May 13, 1842

(91.)     Affidavit of John C. Bennett. State of Illinois, city of Nauvoo, personally appeared before me, Daniel H. Wells, an Alderman of the said city of Nauvoo, John C. Bennett, who being duly sworn, according to law, desposeth and sayeth, that he was never taught anything in the least contrary to the strictest principles of the Gospel, or of virtue or of the laws of God or man, under any circumstances, or upon any occasion, either directly or indirectly, in word or deed, by Joseph Smith, and that he never knew the said Smith to countenance any improper conduct whatever either in public or private; and that he never did teach to me in private that an illegal, illicit intercourse with females, was under any circumstance justifiable, and that I never knew him to so teach others. John C. Bennett. Sworn to and subscribed before me, this 17th day of May, A.D. 1842. Daniel H. Wells, Alderman.

(92.)     Gregg History of Hancock County, Ill p 284

(93.)     AFFIDAVIT OF THE CITY COUNCIL. We the undersigned, members of the city council of the City of Nauvoo, testify that John C. Bennett was not under duress at the time that he testified before the city council May 19th 1842 concerning Joseph Smith's innocence, virtue, and pure teaching-his statements that he has lately made concerning this matter are false,-there was no excitement at the time, nor was he in anywise threatened menaced or intimidated, his appearance at the city council was voluntary, he asked the privilege of speaking, which was granted, after speaking for some time on the city affairs, Joseph Smith asked him if he knew any thing bad concerning his public, or private character; he then delivered those statements contained in the testimony voluntarily, and of his own free will, and went of his own accord as free as any member of the council. We do further testify that there is no such thing as a Danite Society in this city nor any combination, other than the Masonic Lodge, of which we have any knowledge. WILSON LAW, GEO A. SMITH, JOHN TAYLOR, GEO W. HARRIS, W. WOODRUFF, N. K. WHITNEY, VINSON KNIGHT, BRIGHAM, YOUNG, H. C. KIMBALL, CHARLES C, RICH, JOHN P. GREEN, ORSON SPENCER, WILLIAM MARKS, subscribed, and sworn to, by the persons whose names appear to the foregoing affidavit, this 20th day of July, A. D. 1842; except N. K. Whitney, who subscribed and affirmed to the foregoing this day, before me DANIEL H. WELLS, Justice of the Peace, within and for Hancock County, Illinois.

(94.) The Joseph Smith Papers Journal 19 May 1842

(95.)   History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Period 1, History of Joseph Smith, the prophet by himself Vol 5 Chapter 1 "Thursday, 19.--It rained, and I was at home until one o'clock; when I attended a special session of the city council. John C. Bennett having discovered that this whoredoms and abominations were fast coming to light and that the indignation of an insulted and abused people were rising rapidly against him, thought best to make a virtue of necessity, and try to make it appear that he was innocent, by resigning his office of mayor,which the council most gladly accepted; and Joseph Smith was elected mayor of the city of Nauvoo by the council, and Hyrum Smith vice-mayor

(96.)     The Joseph Smith Papers Journal 19 May 1842 • Thursday Thursday 19. Rain. At. home. during A.M.— 1. o clock P.M. City council. The Mayor  John C. Bennet[t] having resigned his office. Joseph. was Elected Mayor  & Hyrum Smith Vice Mayor of Nauvoo.202 While the election was going  forward in the council. Joseph recived & wrote the following Rev—  & threw it across the room to Hiram Kimball one of the Councillors. Verily thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph by the voice of my Spirit, Hiram Kimball has been insinuating evil. & forming evil opinions against you with others & if he continue  in them, he & they shall be accursed for I am the Lord thy God  & will stand by thee & bless thee. Amen After the Election Joseph spoke at some length concerning the evil  reports which were abroad in the city concerning himself— & the  nec[e]ssity of counteracting the designs of our enemies. establishing a night  watch &c. Where upon the mayor was authorized to establish a Night watch by city ordinance. Dr John C. Bennet. Ex mayor, was then called upon by the Mayor to state if he know knew ought against him.— When Dr Bennet replied  “I know what I am about & the heads of the church know what  they are about. I expect: I have no difficulty with the heads of the church. I publicly avow that anyone who has said that  I have stated that General Joseph Smith has given me authority to hold illicit intercourse with women is a a Liar in the face of God. Those who have said it are damned Liars: they are infernal Liars. He neither never <eithe[r]> in public or private gave me any such authority or licence, & any person who states it is a Scoundrel & a Liar. I have heard it said that I should b[e]come a Seckond [Sampson] Avard by withdrawing from the church. & that I was at variance with the heads & should use an influence against them because I resignd the office of Mayor:  This is false, I have no difficulty with the heads of the church  & hope Intend to continue with you. & hope the time may come when I may be restored to full confidence. & fellowship. & my former standing  in the chu[r]ch & that my conduct may be such as to warrent [sic] my restoration & should the time ever come that I may have the opportunity to test my faith it will then be known whethr  I am a true traitor or a true man.” Josep[h]. will you please state difinitely whether you know any thing  again[s]t my character either in public or private? Answer by Gen Bennet, “I do not. in all my intercourse with  General Smith. in public & in private he has been strictly virtuous.” Joseph then made some pertinent remarks before the council  concerning those who had been guilty of circulating false reports &c  & said “Let one twelve months see if Bro Joseph is not calld  for to go to every part of the city to keep them out of their groves  & I turn the keys upon them from this hour if they will not repent  & stop their lyings & surmisings. Let God curse them. & let their tongu[e]s cleave unto the roofs of their mouth.

(97.)     Andrew Jensen. "LDS Biographical Encyclopedia" 6:232, 1887) Sarah Kimball said "Joseph Smith He said that in teaching this he realized that he jeopardized his life; but God had revealed it to him many years before as a privilege with blessings, now God had revealed it again and instructed him to teach with commandment, as the Church could travel [progress] no further without the introduction of this principle."

(98.)     Hiram S Kimball 31 May 1806–27 Apr. 1863. He was a Merchant, iron foundry operator, and mail carrier. Kimball moved to Commerce (later Nauvoo), Hancock Co., Illinois, in1833, and established several stores. He married Sarah M. Granger, 23 Sept. 1840, in Kirtland, Geauga Co., Ohio and returned to Nauvoo three weeks later. He was a member of Nauvoo Masonic Lodge and was appointed assistant adjutant general in Nauvoo Legion, 3 June 1842. He was a Nauvoo city alderman, from 1841–1843. He was baptized into the Mormon church 20 July 1843, and was ordained a high priest, by 17 Jan. 1846. He stayed in Nauvoo until 1850 where he operated the Nauvoo iron foundry, He died en route to serve a mission to Sandwich Islands [Hawaii] when ship's boiler exploded. Sarah Kimball (December 29, 1818 - December 1, 1898) is credited with having the Latter Day Saint's Relief Society founded in her home. She remained a lifetime member of the Church and a lifelong wife to Hiram Kimball.

(99.) The Joseph Smith Papers. Journal 21 May 1842  

(100.) LDS History of the Church 5:14 Price and Price, President Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy, 146-55

(101.) Affidavit of C. L. Higbee Personally appeared before me Daniel H. Wells, an alderman of said city, C. L. Higbee, who being duly sworn according to law, deposeth and saith, that he never was taught anything in the least contrary to the strictest principles of the gospel or of virtue, of the laws of God or of man, under any circumstances or upon any occasion, either directly or indirectly, in word or deed by President Joseph Smith, and that he never knew said Smith to countenance any improper conduct whatever, either in public or in private, and that he never did teach me in private or public that an illicit intercourse with females was under any circumstances justifiable and that he never knew him so to teach others. Sworn to and subscribed before me this 17th day of May 1842. Daniel H. Wells, Alderman. (Affidavits and Certificates, August 31, 1842)

(102.) State of Illinois v. Higbee [J.P. Ct. 1842], Robinson and Johnson, Docket Book, 117.  & The Joseph Smith Papers. Journal 24 May 1842 • "Tuesday 24 while the High council were taking depositions of Sarah Miller. Sister  Nyman’s [Margaret and Matilda Nyman] & again[s]t Chauncey Higby [Higbee] & others for illicit conduct &c prosecution was pending betwe[e]n Joseph & Chauncy before E[benezer]  Robinson in which Chauncey was bound over in $200 Bonds.

(103.) Joseph King, Decatur, IL, to Meredith Helm, Springfield, IL, 17 May 1842, Letters regarding Freemasonry in Nauvoo, CHL; Abraham Jonas, Columbus, IL, to George Miller, Nauvoo, IL, 4 May 1842, copy, Letters regarding Freemasonry in Nauvoo, CHL; Nauvoo Masonic Lodge Minute Book, 7 May and 16 June 1842.

(104.)   The Joseph Smith Papers. Journal 26 May 1842 • "Thursday 26 Masonic Lodge in the A.M. Dr John C. Bennet[t] confessed the  charges preferred again[s]t him concerning. females in Nauvoo. & was  forgiven Joseph plead in his behalf.— Dr Bennet was notified the  day previous that the first Presidency. Twelve & Bishops had withdrawn fellowship from him & were about to publish him but on his  humbling himself & requesting it the withdrawal was withheld  from the paper."  Joseph Smith and other church leaders withdrew fellowship from Bennett on 11 May 1842. Bennett’s remarks on 19 May indicate he knew he was not in full fellowship at that time, although he may not have been aware of the precise action taken against him. Church leaders, having “labored with [Bennett] from time to time, to persuade him to amend his conduct, apparently to no good effect,” published a notice of the action in the 15 June issue of the Times and Seasons. (JS et al., “Notice,” Times and Seasons, 15 June 1842, 3:830;

(105.)   The Joseph Smith Papers. Journal 4 June 1842 • "Saturday 4 At the printing office in the morning. heard the Letters from the Grand  master [Abraham] Jonas Dr [Joseph] King & Mr Helme [Meredith Helm] about Bennets [John C. Bennett’s] expulsion from  the Lodge in Ohio.

(106.)   Albert G. Mackey. "A General History, Cyclopedia, and Dictionary of Freemasonry". (American Masonic encyclopedia) Macoy Publishing & Masonic Supply Co., Inc., Expulsion.

(107.)   Times and Seasons 15 June 1842 volume 3, p 830.

(108.)   John J Stewart. "Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet" p 168

(109.)    LDS History of the Church 5:34–35

(110.)   Andrew F. Smith, The Saintly Scoundrel: The Life and Times of Dr. John Cook Bennett (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), p 91

(111.)     Hawk Eye Burlington, Iowa, June 23, 1842.  

(112.)               New York Herald  July 26, 1842, p 2

(113.)   The Wasp June 25, 1842

(114.)   The joseph Smith Papers Journal 26 June 1842

(115.)   Bennett, History of the Saints, 290–291.

(116.)   Hawk Eye Burlington, Iowa June 30, 1842 Nauvoo, Ill., June 27, 1842. Me. Edwards -- In your paper of the 23d you alluded to the "Trouble among the Mormons," and expressed a desire or hope that "the schism is incurable," and I assure you that it is really so. The holy Joe fears the consequences of my disclosures, and has threatened to take my life, and has ordered some of his Danite band to effect the murder clandestinely -- but he shall be exposed. If he murders me others will avenge my blood, and expose him; If I live, I will do it to the entire satisfaction of all. Just suspend your judgment for a few days until you see my expose in the "Sangamo Journal" of next week, or the week following, over my own name. In haste. Yours, respectfully     John C. Bennett 

 (117.)  John Bennett. The History of the Saints: or, an Expose of President Joseph Smith and Mormonism p. 290

(118.)   John Bennett. The History of the Saints: or, an Expose of President Joseph Smith and Mormonism p. 289

(119.)   The Joseph Smith Papers. Journal 28 June 1842(86.) The Joseph Smith Papers Journal Entry June, 28 1842 "Previous to the council President Joseph  in company with Bishop [George] Miller visited Elder [Sidney] Rigdon & his family  & had much conversation about J. C. Bennet [John C. Bennett] & others. Much unplesat [unpleasant]  feeling was manifested by Elder Rigdon’s family who were confounded & put  to silence by the truth from Prst  Joseph]

(120)    The Joseph Smith Papers. Journal 29 June 1842 • Held a long conversation with Francis Higby [Higbee]. Francis found fault with being exposed but Joseph told him he spoke of him in self defence. Francis was or appeard humble & promisd to reform.

(121.)   Smith. Scoundrel p. 97

(122.)   The Joseph Smith Papers. Journal 30 June 1842

(123.)   William H. Whitsittp. "Sidney Rigdon, The Real Founder of Mormonism." p. 1183 

(124.) Sidney Rigdon, Nauvoo, IL, to JS, Nauvoo, IL, 1 July 1842, JS Collection, CHL.

(125.)   Lilburn W. Boggs, the former governor of Missouri, had ordered that state's militia to ``exterminate'' the Mormons. During the spring of 1842, word circulated in Nauvoo that Joseph Smith had prophesize the "impending demise" of Boggs. The prophet was quoted as saying Boggs ``will die by violent hands within a year.'' Not too long afterward, Orrin Porter Rockwell, Smith's henchman was noticeably absent from Nauvoo. On May 6, 1842, an assassin outside the Boggs home shot through a window, striking the man in the back of the head as he sat reading in his living room. Miraculously, Boggs survived four large buckshot wounds, two in the brain and two in the neck.

(126.)   DHC, vol. 4, 414. Orson Pratt was elected professor of mathematics in the University of the City of Nauvoo, and the degree of master of arts conferred on him by the chancellor and board of regents.”

(127.)  Sangamo Journal July 15 1842

(128.)   William Law Tribune 1887 "Bennett was very smart and clever, but a thorough scoundrel. Never could find out the reason of his downfall. Mrs. Pratt was a most excellent, pure woman, but the fact that Bennett visited her sometimes, was used by Joseph to ruin her character. He had his spies everywhere, and if a woman refused him, he sent his fellows out to whisper stories around about her."

(129.)   Nelson Winch Green, Fifteen Years among the Mormons: Being the Narrative of Mrs. Mary Ettie V. Smith, Late of Great Salt Lake City; a Sister of One of the Mormon High Priests, She Having Been Personally Acquainted with Most of the Mormon Leaders, and Long in the Confidence of The "Prophet," Brigham Young (New York: H. Dayton, Publishers, 1860 [1858]), 30.

(130.)   The Sangamo Journal, Springfield Illinois, 15 July 1842

(131.)   Sangamo Journal 15 July 1842

(132.)   William Law Tribune 1887

(133.)   Bennett Saints p 232

(134.)   Succession in the Priesthood, "History of Brigham Young," p 19

(135.)   Times and Seasons, vol. 3, p 830.

(136.)   William Moore Allred and Orissa Angelia Bates on the 9th of January 1842, were married by Dr. John C. Bennett, in the home of Orson Pratt. Present at the wedding were the Prophet Joseph Smith and his wife Emma. Sarah Pratt was an older sister of Orissa Angela Bates. Allred followed Nrigham Young to Utah and married Martha Jane Martindale and Mary Eleanor Osborn as plural wives.

(137.)   Bennett, History of the Saints, 46

(138.)   The Sangamo Journal, Springfield Illinois, 22 July 1842

(139.) Richard and Pamela Price Affidavits and Certificates Disproving the Affidavits Contained in John C. Bennett's Letters. History of the Church 5:131–132; Martha Brotherton's brother-in-law John Mcllwrick made a sworn statement claiming she "is a deliberate liar, and also a wilful inventor of lies; and that she has also to my certain knowledge at sundry times, circulated lies of a base kind, concerning those whom she knew to be innocent of what she alleged against them. She has also stooped to many actions which would be degrading to persons of common decency." The letter was also signed by her sisters Mary McIlwrick, and Elizabeth Brotherton, who the following year would be Mormon Apostle Parley P. Pratt's first plural wife. Other affidavits followed denying Martha Brotherton veracity signed by Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Kimball's wife Vilate Kimball, as part ofJoseph Smith's massive campaign to counteract Bennett's letters.

(140.)   Rough Stone Rolling Bushman p 466

(141.)   It was reported early in the morning that Elder Orson Pratt was missing. I caused the Temple hands and the principal men of the city to make search for him.... Elder Pratt returned in the evening. (LDS History of the Church 5: 60–61) The city was searched "but to no effect", the prophet called for a meeting at the "Grove" where he had reprimand, "before the public a general outline of J[ohn] C. Bennetts conduct  and especially with regard to Sis P [Sarah Bates Pratt]." Journal 15 July 1842 • Friday Friday 15th. This A.M. early a report was in circulation that O. P. [Orson Pratt] was missing. A. letter  of his writing was found directed to his wife stating to the effect that he was  going away; Soon as this was known Joseph summoned the principal men of  the city and workmen on the Temple to meet at the Temple Grove where  he ordered them to proceed immediately throughout the city in search of  him lest he should have laid voilent [violent] hands on himself. After considerable  search had been made but to no effect a meeting was called at the Grove  where Joseph stated before the public a general outline of J[ohn] C. Bennetts conduct  and especially with regard to Sis P [Sarah Bates Pratt] Met again in the P.M. when Hyrum [Smith] & H[eber] C.  Kimball spake on the same subject after which Joseph arose and said that  he would state to those present some things which he had heard respecting  Edward & D[avid] Kilbourn being conspiring with J. C. Bennett in endeavoring to bring [p. 127]

(142.)   Ebenezer Robinson, The Return 2 [Davis City, Iowa, 1889]: 362–363) "I remember well the excitement which existed at the time, as a large number of the citizens turned out to go in search for him, fearing lest he had committed suicide. He was found some five miles below Nauvoo, sitting on a rock, on the bank of the Mississippi river, without a hat. He recovered from his insanity, but at the next conference when the vote was called to sustain Joseph Smith as President of the church, he alone voted, No."

(143.)   Journals of Orson Pratt, 561-2.

(144.)   England, Journals of Orson Pratt, 80.  Also see the Times and Seasons, vol. 3, 869.

(145.)   England, Journals of Orson Pratt, 80.  Also see the Times and Seasons, vol. 3, 869

(146.)   The Sangamo Journal, Springfield Illinois, 15 July 1842

(147.) The Wasp (often referred to as Nauvoo Wasp) was a weekly newspaper edited and published by William Smith in Nauvoo, Illinois, from April 1842 to April 1843. While it was not an official publication of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, The Wasp was consistently pro-Latter Day Saint and its primary target audience was the Latter Day Saint residents of Nauvoo. When The Wasp ceased publication, it was replaced by John Taylor's similarly themed Nauvoo Neighbor.  The Wasp has been described as the "secular counterpart" of the Latter Day Saint Church's Times and Seasons. The newspaper dedicated much of its space to answering criticism directed at the church leader, President Joseph Smith, Jr.

(148)    The British English legal term “buggery” is very close in meaning to the term “sodomy”, and is often used interchangeably in law and popular speech. It is a specific common law offence, encompassing both sodomy and bestiality.

(149.)   The Wasp, July 27,1842

(150.)   John Bennett, The History of the Saints, or an Exposé of Joe Smith and Mormonism (Boston: Leland & Whiting, 1842), p 257

(151.)   Journals of Orson Pratt, 180.

(152.)   Wilford Woodruff stated that "Dr. John Cook Bennett was the ruin of Orson Pratt". For the next five months, Professor Orson Pratt remained in Nauvoo studying mathematics and reevaluating his faith regarding Joseph Smith’s calling and the doctrine of plural marriage.  During these five months and probably long before and after, Orson says he spent, “Much of my leisure time in study, and made myself thoroughly acquainted with algebra, geometry, trigonometry, conic sections, differential and integral calculus, astronomy, and most of the physical sciences.  These studies I pursued without the assistance of a teacher.” On Jan. 20, Professor Orson Pratt and wife Sarah were allowed to rejoin the Latter Day Saints Church and Pratt was reinstated into the Quorum of the Twelve.  After this occurred, Amasa Lyman was dropped from the Quorum of the Twelve but Joseph Smith appointed Lyman as a counselor  in the First Presidency. Lyman followed Brigham Young to Utah where the church stripped Lyman of his Apostleship on October 6, 1867 and was excommunicated from the church on May 12, 1870 for heresy.

(153.)   The Joseph Smith Papers. Journal, August 8, 1842.

(154.)   The Joseph Smith Papers, Journal, August 13, 1842.,

(155.)   George Q. Cannon, The Life of Joseph Smith the Prophet, p 410.

(156.)   Testimony of Stephen H. Goddard Subscribed before me one of the alderman of the City of Nauvoo, and sworn to this 28th day of August 1842. GEO. W. HARRIS.  Alderman of the City of Nauvoo. Wasp Extra of Aug. 31, 1842  Stephen H. Goddard also accused John C. Bennett of an adulterous relationship with Sarah Pratt.  "I took your wife into my house because she was destitute of a house, Oct. 6, 1840, and from the first night until the last, with the exception of one night, the Dr. was there as sure as the night came…sometimes till after midnight; what his conversation was I could not tell, as they sat close together, he leaning on her lap, whispering continually or talking very low.  One night they took their chairs out of doors and remained there as we supposed until 12 o’clock or after; at another time they went over to the house where you now live and came back after dark, or about that time.  We went over several times late in the evening while she lived in the house of Dr. Foster, and were most sure to find Dr. Bennett and your wife together, as it were, man and wife, lying on the floor and the bed apparently reserved for the Dr. and herself."

(157.)   Testimony of Mrs. Goddard. Subscribed before me one of the alderman of the City of Nauvoo, and sworn to this 28th day of August 1842. GEO. W. HARRIS.  Alderman of the City of Nauvoo. Wasp Extra of Aug. 31, 1842 Zeruiah Goddard wife of Lt. Stephen Goddard testified that Bennett often cursed and swore at Sarah in the middle of the night.  "Their conduct was anything but virtuous, and I know Mrs. Pratt is not a woman of truth, and I believe the statements which Dr. Bennett made concerning Joseph are false, and fabricated for the purpose of covering his iniquities, and enabling him to practice his base designs on the innocent. I remonstrated with the Dr. and asked him what Orson Pratt would think, if he should know that you were so fond of his wife, and holding her hand so much; the Dr. replied that he could pull the wool over Orson’s eyes.  Mrs. Pratt stated to me that Dr. Bennett told her, that he could cause abortion with perfect safety to the mother…On one occasion I came suddenly into the room where Mrs. Pratt and the Dr. were, she was lying on the bed and the Dr. was taking his hands out of her bosom; he was in the habit of sitting on the bed where Mrs. Pratt was lying, and lying down over her.’”

 (158.) See Wilhelm Ritter Von Wyl [Wymetal], Joseph Smith, the Prophet, his Family and his Friends, (LDS Historical Dept.), 60-68.  In addition, Sarah will again tell her side of the story more than forty years after the event, and a few years after Orson’s death.  See her manuscript in the LDS Church Archives, “The Workings of Mormonism as related by Mrs. Orson Pratt, Salt Lake City, 1884.”

(159.) The Wasp Extra  Nauvoo, Hancock Co, Aug. 31, 1842. Several affidavits were filed rebutting Markham's claims including Certificate of Colonel Henry Marks "Having been acquainted with Miss Nancy Rigdon for nearly six years, I can say that she is a lady of a virtuous, chaste, and upright moral character, and I do not believe she ever gave any occasion for the least suspicion to the contrary; and I do further believe the certificate of Stephen Markham to be false, and given with a malicious design and intent to injure the character of Miss Rigdon unjustly. Henry Marks.  LaHarpe, Illis., Sept. 10, 1842. Certificate of General George W. Robinson  Nauvoo, September 3, 1842. Having been acquainted with Stephen Markham, of the city of Nauvoo, for many years, I can safely say that his character for truth and veracity is not good, and that I could not believe him under oath; and that I am personally knowing of his lying, and that his character in general is that of a loafer, disturber of the peace, liar, &c; and that he did come into the house of Sidney Rigdon, as stated in his affidavit, and that Dr. Bennett and Miss Rigdon were present, as well as myself, and that Miss Rigdon was then sick, and Dr. John C. Bennett was the attending physician; and I do further state that no such conversation or gestures as said Markham states, took place or came under my observation; and I do further believe that said Markham did invent, concoct, and put in circulation, said stories with a malicious design and intent to injure the character of Miss Rigdon, and more particularly for the use of the Elders, who are going out preaching to rebut Dr. Bennett's statements; and further this deponent saith not. Geo. W. Robinson. Sangamo Journal Springfield  Illinois,  September 23, 1842. 

(160.) The Wasp Sidney Rigdon's Letter. Vol. I. - No. 20.  Nauvoo, Hancock Co., Sat., Sep. 3, 1842. "Nauvoo, Aug. 27th, 1842 Editor of the Wasp. Dear Sir: I am fully authorized by my daughter, Nancy, to say to the public through the medium of your paper, that the letter which has appeared in the Sangamo Journal, making part of General Bennett's letters to said paper, purporting to have been written by Mr. Joseph Smith to her, was unauthorized by her, and that she never said to Gen. Bennett or any other person, that said letter was written by said Mr. Smith, nor in his hand writing, but by another person, and in another persons' hand writing. She further wishes me to say, that she never at any time authorised Gen. Bennett to use her name in the public papers, as he has done, which has been greatly to the wounding of her feelings, and she considers the obtruding of her name before the public in the manner in which it has been done, to say the least of it, as a flagrant violation of the rules of gallantry, and cannot avoid to insult her feelings, which she wishes the public to know. I would further state that Mr. Smith denied to me the authorship of that letter. Sidney Rigdon. P. S. I wish the Sangamo Journal and all papers that have copied Bennett's letters to copy this also, as an act of justice to Miss Rigdon.  S. R". The editor of the Springfield Sangamo Journal, in issue Sept. 16, 1842 published Sidney Rigdon's Aug. 27th denial statement, with this response: "We copy the above letter with pleasure. To us it appears the explanation of Mr. Rigdon, however satisfactory it may be to the Mormons, will not be regarded as conclusive by the public. The points in the letter are, that Joe Smith did not write the communication referred to, and that Gen. Bennett had no authority from Miss Rigdon to use her name in the matter. In reply, we would say, that we never supposed Joe Smith the writer of the communication sent to Miss Rigdon. It was unquestionabley written by some of his numerous assistants who minister to his depravity. Joe Smith has not sufficient talent to write such a letter. Nevertheless it was written to accomplish his purposes. Of this, there is no denial..." Rigdon's biographer, Richard Van Wagoner, on page 301 of his 1994 "Sidney Rigdon", confirms the conclusions offered by the Sangamo Journal editor, by reporting: "Failing to mention that the "other person" was the prophet's scribe, Willard Richards, Rigdon... further stated that "Mr. Smith denied to me the authorship of that letter." However, Rigdon's carefully worded rebuttal fails to say when it was that Smith made such a denial, and whether or not Smith subsequently admitted to dictating the message to Willard Richards, for delivery to Nancy Rigdon."

(161.) The Wasp Vol. I. - No. 20.  Nauvoo, Hancock Co., Sat., Sep. 3, 1842.    

(162.) Speech of Elder Orson Hyde delivered before the High Priests quorum in Nauvoo, April 27th, 1845 upon the course and conduct of Mr. Sidney Rigdon, and upon the merits of his claims to the presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1845) pp27-28

(163.) Richard S.  Van Wagoner, Ibid p. 299

(164.)   The Wasp Vol. I. - No. 19. Nauvoo, Hancock Co., Sat., Aug. 27, 1842 "While ... calamity follows calamity in all the world ... John C. Bennett, the pimp and file leader of such mean harlots as Martha H. Brotherton ... may flourish with impunity!"

(165.)   Sangamo Journal, July 22, 1842

(166.)   Andrew F. Smith. The Saintly Scoundrel - The Life and Times of Dr. John Cook Bennett p 127

(167.)   Andrew F. Smith. The Saintly Scoundrel - The Life and Times of Dr. John Cook Bennett p 127