Introduction to the William Clayton Diaries

Nemo [00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. And this is an LDS discussions edition. I'm Nemo and while I'm not your host for today, I am one of the co hosts and I do have the most British accent. So I got tagged to introduce the second part of this marathon episode covering the journals of William Clayton. Last episode we covered the very close relationship between Joseph Smith and William Clayton and we discussed the turbulent history of the journals and how the church has kept them cloistered away with, with rare exception, for over 150 years. If all that sounds fascinating, it absolutely is. And if you haven't watched or listened to that episode yet, then the LDS discussion series is best consumed in sequence. So go back and have your fill of part one before getting started here on part two. But with all that out of the way, let's dive into part two of our discussion on the William Clayton journals.

Julia [00:00:49] So the next part is the journals themselves or the diaries, however you want to frame them. But Brian, I wanted to ask. So I guess a lot of people, I'm confused by these theories of his journals because to me they look like day to day regular things. Like, I know that you said some of them are repeated, so maybe he's copying. I just, can you explain what they are? Just, I know that's a silly question,

Bryan Buchanan [00:01:09] but like when, I mean that's, that's been a question that's been asked. So the MHA presentation, Robin Jensen talks about how it seems like, like others, Clayton may have recorded short, brief notes on something that he then fleshes out in a, in a journal, you know, a bound journal. This is not at all uncommon. Some people would use day books like, like a pocketbook that you keep with you or like something else that you would physically haul around with you and you jot down things. Heber J. Grant did this, Wilford Woodruff did this from time to time. Willard Richards apparently did this. But there's this one particular one, that's one of the entries that we talk about that to me, I don't know how you don't see this as a contemporary record. And Robin talked about how if you look at the ink flows, there's just really no good reason to think this is not a contemporary diary unless you just don't like it. And again, that's not a historical attack, that's an apologetic attack, which again, like you cannot like polygamy and think this, that's fine. That's not how history works, that's not how historians work. There's Been talk like Michelle pointed out, she says, you know, I can understand why believing Mormons don't, you know, that believe that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. I can understand why that ex Mormons want to think that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. He was like, I can't understand why academics think that. I thought you were so close. It's because all of them look at the evidence and say it points to Joseph Smith being a polygamist. That's how history works. You take the sources that you have, you put them all together, you weigh them against each other and come up with a conclusion. And that conclusion has been universally in the historical community. Joseph Smith was a polygamist because of historical methods.

Edits and Changes to Clayton's Journal Entries

Guest [00:03:12] Are we going to. Are there slides about the edits to the journal entries? The direct edits to the journal entries,

Bryan Buchanan [00:03:18] like later when they use it for

Guest [00:03:20] history of the Church, like on this presentation. Are we going to cover the question of why the text of Clayton's journals have been altered after we weren't.

Bryan Buchanan [00:03:32] But we can certainly talk about it.

Guest [00:03:33] So let me ask the question.

Bryan Buchanan [00:03:35] Yeah, yeah.

Guest [00:03:36] How do you explain the church historians altering the text of Clayton's journals? They actually edited. According to this person, they actually edited his journals directly on the journal pages. They even went so far as to make drafting notes of language unrelated to them as though they were a manuscript draft. They didn't do that with Woodruff or any other journals they used. How would you explain this? Now this is according to the person.

Bryan Buchanan [00:04:05] Yeah, yeah.

Guest [00:04:05] Who's written the question.

Bryan Buchanan [00:04:06] Yeah. So, yeah, it is. During Joseph Smith's lifetime, it's already apparent that William Clayton's journal is an important source document. Right. So as they are in the process of drafting the manuscript history of the Church, they're using stuff. And so that's what again, 19th century things you would, you would change things, you would change person. And you're trying to create like this, this seamless narrative. You clean things up. You, you changed. Again, like you're saying that's the way

Guest [00:04:34] 19th, 19th century history was done.

Bryan Buchanan [00:04:37] Absolutely.

Guest [00:04:37] They didn't have the academic discipline yet of footnotes and citations.

Bryan Buchanan [00:04:42] And yeah. This idea to us today, like this is abhorrent. Like, you can't, you can't. Welcome to 19th century history.

Guest [00:04:48] You know, I mean, clearly Brigham Young rewrote.

Bryan Buchanan [00:04:51] Yep.

Guest [00:04:52] Lucy Maximus bio autobiography.

Bryan Buchanan [00:04:55] Yeah. The thing like, you know, is this is such a common tactic is to take the Clayton journal's kind of in isolation, be like, well, they did this so we can throw that away. It's like, great. We have all these other things, too. It's like they all form this historical picture. So A, that is not different or unusual or out of the ordinary, and B, and even if it were, which it isn't, you have all these other things, like you can't explain away. All of it doesn't work.

Julia [00:05:26] But I feel. I don't know if this fits into this, but I feel like I've seen. Because looking over George D. Smith's intimate Chronicle and then even some of these Allen notes, I feel like they indicate a lot of times when something has been marked out in pencil or written over in a different handwriting. I feel like. Like that's been kind of open or they try to be open about that.

Bryan Buchanan [00:05:43] Yeah. And again, like, those are the kinds of things you can only do if you have the originals. So when this edition comes out with Yale pretty confident, there will be very robust and thorough documentation of these kinds of things. Maybe not necessarily so much the later things, because that wasn't Clayton. Right. So that's kind of almost a separate discussion. They might talk about it in the introduction. But yeah. If these historians are using something as a source document for something else, you can't make a photocopy of it to work with. You have the original to work with. So they would just mark right on there. So. And we see that with other kinds of documents where you have, you know, start paragraph here, change this to this. Like, again, if you were familiar with other kinds of documents at the time and contemporary historical practices. These aren't unusual things.

Julia [00:06:38] Yeah.

Guest [00:06:39] They don't necessarily imply plagiarism or.

Bryan Buchanan [00:06:42] Definitely not fraud or.

Guest [00:06:44] Nope. Any. Any of that sort of thing.

Bryan Buchanan [00:06:47] Well, and that's the thing is to walk into a document without evidence leading you to start looking at that, to decide this whole thing is a later creation. Who does that? You don't walk into what looks like a normal contemporary diary without red flags screaming at you that something has been done like this, and start thinking, oh, well, this must be a later creation. And the same kind of thing. With the July 1843 revelation, what becomes section 132? Like, we have a perfectly good narrative based on the contemporary documents that explains why we have the text that we do the story is that the original was destroyed. Guess what? We don't have an original. We have copies. We have people quoting language from this revelation that was there at that time. That language appears in this text.

Guest [00:07:38] And by the way, people made copies because documents got destroyed. That's why they made copies.

Bryan Buchanan [00:07:43] You don't have a xerox machine. You don't have a scanner.

Guest [00:07:46] So the fact that it originally original gets destroyed shouldn't be necessarily alarming. It's the whole reason.

Bryan Buchanan [00:07:53] Well, and in this case, well, we don't have the original of the ship. Guess what other revelations you don't have originals for? All of them. Every single one.

Guest [00:08:01] Wait, of the dnc, there is no

Bryan Buchanan [00:08:03] original text of any revelation that is in the Doctrine Covenants. None.

Guest [00:08:08] What?

Bryan Buchanan [00:08:08] Yeah. So again, all these things that are brought forward as red flags are not only not red flags, they're like exactly the same as all of the other things.

Julia [00:08:16] So like DNC 101 with the statement on marriage. Right. There's. That's not original. Right?

Bryan Buchanan [00:08:21] Yeah. And that's why we don't even have

Nemo [00:08:23] the original signatures of the Book of Mormon witnesses, for goodness sake.

Julia [00:08:26] Yeah, yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [00:08:27] Right. So that's, that's why historians get kind of annoyed at this. This particular discussion. Not because polygamy is like a sacred cow. It's because this is not how history works. Historians don't love when pseudo history gets painted as actual history like that. That annoys historians.

Guest [00:08:46] Or when what some perceive to be conspiracy theories that are motivated by faith or belief get injected into the historian's craft or the historian's discipline.

Bryan Buchanan [00:08:58] His apologetics being merged into history doesn't

Guest [00:09:02] work because it is faith motivated. I mean, it is. There's no, there's no, there's no sort of never Mormon credible historian or ex Mormon. Totally not believing historian that's taking this position. It's literally only believing Mormons.

Julia [00:09:29] That's a good point.

Guest [00:09:30] Don't want Joseph Smith to be a bad guy.

Bryan Buchanan [00:09:34] John Turner doesn't care if polygamy is divine or not. That's not a question he cares about. He's a historian. Using tools of historian. The historical method leads him to the conclusion that Joseph Smith is a polygamist. He doesn't care about polygamy one way or the other.

Guest [00:09:50] And he's held these diaries in his hand, Right?

Bryan Buchanan [00:09:53] Yeah. Has he dug into every single little minutiae detail of this discussion? Maybe not, but you don't need to.

Guest [00:10:01] He's read a lot of them.

Bryan Buchanan [00:10:02] Yeah. I mean, he's done his homework.

Guest [00:10:05] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [00:10:05] So, yeah, that's, that's, that's why this discussion kind of bugs historians. It's not. It, it's not polygamy. It's pseudo history. That's also.

Guest [00:10:15] Laurel probably would have raised issues if it was a concern for her. Right? Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. I mean, yeah. She's not. She's not. She's a believer, but she's also an award winning historian. Like a Pulitzer Prize winning historian.

Bryan Buchanan [00:10:32] Big time award.

Guest [00:10:33] Yeah. You don't get that for being shabby or shoddy or.

Bryan Buchanan [00:10:36] Yeah, it's, it's all these historians. It's not because they're obsessed. They obsessed with polygamy being right. That's not how historians think or work. They shouldn't. Those aren't historians if that's, that's the model they're working from.

Polygamy Documented in the Clayton Diaries

Guest [00:10:49] So.

Julia [00:10:50] Okay, so with, with what was just released with the PDFs, I think that starts in, in 1842. But what I have in the slide deck is from 1843 where he gets married to his polygamous wife. Where William Clayton. Where do you want?

Bryan Buchanan [00:11:03] Well, let's just, let's just wander through. If people have not read much of the Clayton diaries, you know, you will quickly see why these have always been of such interest because they are so fascinating for a lot of reasons. Not just polygamy, but that being a big one.

Julia [00:11:20] Okay, so the, the entry that I started with is April 27th of 1843. This is a Thursday. He says at the temple am went to. Went to pre. Is I saying presidents?

Bryan Buchanan [00:11:31] Yes. This is going to press house or riding out with pressed is like every day again.

Julia [00:11:36] Right. David and Jonathan who rode with me to brother Heber C. Kimmel's and he just abbreviates HC where sister Margaret Moon was sealed up by the priesthood by the president and M. Which is married to me. Evening told mother in law concerning the priesthood. And I wanted to note that William Clayton is living in a small house with his first wife, Ruth Moon, her sister Margaret Moon and mother.

Bryan Buchanan [00:12:02] Yeah, this is, this is a complicated household. And that again, you know, in addition to the, the question, Joseph Smith's polygamy. William Clayton's polygamy is so fascinating because it is the best portrait of what a polygamist household looked like. Not just in Nauvoo, but pretty much of all time. Like, the amount of detail is fascinating.

Guest [00:12:23] Bill Real sent out a text to just some podcasters and said, where's the interesting stories in the William Clayton journals? I'm having a hard time finding anything scandalous.

Bryan Buchanan [00:12:34] Did you mean like new stuff?

Guest [00:12:36] It's just interesting stuff, period, I think. I don't know. I didn't read it super closely, but I'm like, dude, have you not read the Moon story? Because I didn't know the story really until John Turner told it in his book. And we talked about it. But for those who really don't get why this is interesting is, I understand that the way Turner sets this up is, is that Clayton writes, joseph can't stop talking about polygamy. It's all he wants to talk about. And Joseph comes up with this quote that a man should get all he can. So then, like, Clayton's like, well, I want in. And so Joseph's like, well, who do you want? And then Clayton's like, well, there's this woman back in England that I really liked. And Joseph's like, well, I'll see what I could do. But in the meantime, is there anyone else you want? And then he's like, well, my. My wife's younger sister is kind of cute. And so that Joseph seals.

Bryan Buchanan [00:13:32] Wait, who sealed the wife to him?

Guest [00:13:34] Well, I think it's Joseph.

Bryan Buchanan [00:13:35] Oh, well, so he was aware of it. It doesn't sound like he's fighting it, then. Well, again, this is why there's so much attention on the Clayton diaries, because of entries like that. Pretty hard to distance Joseph Smith. That's an authentic diary written at the time. Yeah, your position kind of just fell apart.

Guest [00:13:53] And so Joseph says, I'll seal you to your wife's William Clayton. I'll seal you to your wife's younger sister, who lives with you and your wife right now.

Bryan Buchanan [00:14:03] And the third.

Guest [00:14:05] The third.

Bryan Buchanan [00:14:06] Oh, and the mom.

Guest [00:14:07] And by the way. And then Turner writes, is this in the. Are you going to write about how the mom felt about the second marriage?

Julia [00:14:14] Yeah, yeah, keep going. Well, I also want to know because you pointed this out. So on just for giving some dates from this recent release of these PDFs. November 30th of 1842, he wrote to Margaret Moon, and then he fetched Margaret and Lydia is their mother's name, and I guess the other sister on December 2nd of 1842. But then there's another entry for May 1st of 1843.

Bryan Buchanan [00:14:36] Boy, this is a fun one.

Guest [00:14:38] Okay, wait, wait, wait. Are we going to talk about Lydia?

Bryan Buchanan [00:14:42] Yes.

Julia [00:14:43] I said these a lot in chronological order, so.

Guest [00:14:46] Okay, good case. Once we get there, I won't spoil it. I just want to make sure we got there.

Key Diary Entries Involving Joseph Smith

Bryan Buchanan [00:14:51] Okay, so this next entry, more so than any, I think, is so helpful. And I'm pretty sure it was Brent Metcalfe that really kind of pointed out how important this page is. So this is the shot of the original page. So this was an image that appeared in a book called Producing Ancient Scripture in a chapter about the Kinderhook plate So if you look at this two page spread on the right, you can see what appears to be a tracing. So this is the story of these plates that guys bring to Nauvoo saying these are these ancient plates that we've just dug up. Hey, Joseph, can you translate them? So that's its old. That's its own discussion. Right. There's a whole story there. But those plates are only in Nauvoo for a short period of time. So if you're arguing that this journal is created later and backdated, that's very difficult. You got to explain.

Julia [00:15:46] Again, that's a good point.

Bryan Buchanan [00:15:48] Yeah. So this is. Brent pointed this out because on the left page, in fact, go to the next one, Julie, if you wouldn't. So we can you get a little better shot of we're talking about. So and again, like this entry is so important because notice what it says. So this is May 1, 1843, at 10 MJ to LW. Clearly someone is trying to hide something because you don't write like this normally. So based on other evidence, this is what historians do. You don't take one piece of evidence, you take other pieces. So from this, this is the entry saying that Joseph or that the Clayton married Joseph Smith to Lucy Walker. So this page has every single indication of being a contemporary record because it's tracing this plate that was in Nauvoo for a short period of time. Dan Vogel did a short video about this. Right. Brigham Young also traced this. Like, this was cool. This was, you know, we think of Nauvoo being super fun and exotic, but it's like if you're living it, it's. It's just life, right? So these guys come to town with ancient plates they dug up. Like that's news. You know, there's no Netflix. I don't think there's any basketball games going on. So if.

Julia [00:17:04] Dude, there is a lot of music.

Bryan Buchanan [00:17:05] Yeah, that was so funny. So one of the main things that is new to us is how often Clayton went to singing school and band and all this other stuff. So for people who are interested in kind of other aspects of Nauvoo social life, there's a whole bunch of stuff for you. But anyways, yeah, that's why this entry is so important because it's again, like if you look at that and then still want to argue that these journals are a later creation, you've got a much more difficult story to weave at this point. So that's why that, that entry is, is so important.

Julia [00:17:43] And there's another one here. This is the next day. So the other one was May 1st. This one's May 2nd. On Tuesday, talked with Jane Charnock. She loves me and he's already married and would sooner unite to me than R. Joseph wrote out today with Flora

Bryan Buchanan [00:17:58] W. So remember, this is the day after Joseph Smith had been married to Lucy Walker by Clayton. He's now riding out with Flora Woodworth, a teenager who I'm forgetting my dates, but will has or will become a plural wife of Joseph Smith.

Guest [00:18:15] She's the one he gives the watch to that Emma gets mad.

Bryan Buchanan [00:18:17] One of.

Guest [00:18:18] Yeah, one of the teenage girls.

Bryan Buchanan [00:18:21] One watch recipient.

Guest [00:18:22] Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [00:18:23] Yep. And she, she's interesting because she pops up again and again and again.

Guest [00:18:27] Yeah. She's also raven haired. I remember Turner describing her as raven haired.

Bryan Buchanan [00:18:32] Another interesting part of this is that she is deeded some land by Joseph Smith. This has been a topic that's gotten a lot of attention lately. Last time I was on, I mentioned a friend of mine, Marianne Clements, who's done really interesting research. She's going to come on our podcast, the Sense on History podcast, and we're going to talk about the land deeds because they've been used a lot as, you know, kind of another piece of evidence in this discussion. And it's more complicated, so stay tuned for that. But Florida pops up all the time. So Joseph rides out with her. He. In fact, I think we have more entries about her that we'll talk about.

Julia [00:19:12] Yeah, there's a whole weekend where they're together. This one, this one I just found interesting. This is May 16th. So just a little bit later there's a. I don't want to read the whole thing, but he's talking about just the theology that Joseph Smith is teaching. But he says that Joseph put his hand on my knee and says, your life is hit up with Christ in God and so is many others. And my thoughts are why else would they need to be hid? Except like he's talking about polygamy to me.

Bryan Buchanan [00:19:36] Right. And so the context of this is really fun. So they are going east of Nauvoo to this Mormon community. It starts life as Ramos, a Book of Mormon name, I think, and then transitions to Macedonia. I love these little Podunk American towns that have like Greek names or Egyptian names. It's near Podunk town. Sorry. Or we'll still British names. Not that you know, we've ever done that. But he's going out to visit Benjamin F. Johnson. So I mentioned him earlier. So this is this guy who's Younger. They have this really close relationship. It would have been closer, except Benjamin lives out, you know, and you got to ride there on horse. But Joseph has already married one of Benjamin Johnson's sisters as a plural wife, will soon marry another and actually asks about marrying a third. But she's already engaged to somebody else. And I think it's the day after this that Joseph will seal a plural life to Benjamin F. Johnson. But then at the end of that entry is content that becomes a section in the Doctrine and Covenants later. And this only happens because Clayton is his good friend who goes on trips with him and records this. So at the bottom he says, you know, in the celestial glory was three heavens or degrees. And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood. And earlier, when Clayton had explained the priesthood to Lydia, this becomes a shorthand for polygamy. Right. The. The pre. You know, later Emma will resist the p. Priesthood becomes a synonym. Right. And this order of the priesthood is. And again, why do you need to code things if you are creating a journal later on in Utah, where you're out now, isolated, and everyone is doing. We've announced it to the world. You don't need to code things unless you are truly creating like a Beautiful Mind kind of deal with red strings going everywhere. Like, the amount of planning necessary to make this all fit. If this is a later creation. Chef's kiss, boys, because you did great.

Guest [00:21:49] Yeah. As I'm reading these entries, I'm thinking this would have been an elaborate, elaborate scheme.

Bryan Buchanan [00:21:55] How many people do you have involved? Mormons suck at secrets. No one ever blows the whistle. Yeah, it beggars belief by that.

Guest [00:22:04] And at what point was he just keeping an honest journal? And then all of a sudden, in theory, meets with Heber and Brigham and says, all right, let's turn this journal

Bryan Buchanan [00:22:15] into a huge chock full of mundane details too.

Guest [00:22:18] Let's just turn it into some huge document where we can frame Joseph, my best friend, someone who we've given our life to.

Bryan Buchanan [00:22:28] Oh, yes, he was your best friend. Oh, except they killed him. I forgot. Whoops.

Guest [00:22:31] Just. They basically all gave their lives to Joseph and were faithful to him to the end. But let's frame him anyway through this elaborate scheme.

Nemo [00:22:42] Occam's Razor surely needs to come into play at this point.

Bryan Buchanan [00:22:45] Two sounds more reasonable and likely.

Guest [00:22:48] It just seems.

Bryan Buchanan [00:22:49] And again, like this, like, okay, I've had 11 mundane entries in a row. We haven't made up an entry about polygamy a while. I better make up one now again, you don't walk into what looks like a normal journal and think like, this is backdated.

Guest [00:23:05] That's the one that future wives will. Future fake wives will agree to sign affidavits for, not object to.

Bryan Buchanan [00:23:15] Yep. So one that I was going to bring up in our ceiling episode that I forgot is this weird. The fake marriage between Sarah Ann Whitney and Joseph Kingsbury, who will write the copy that's in. Of the 1843 Revelation. Right. So Joseph marries her. Then Joseph Kingsbury civilly marries her as the front husband. Seems how this works, right? Later in Nauvoo, Joseph Kingsbury will submit a bill to church leaders. I think it's John Taylor by this point. For housing and taking care of Sarah Ann. If this is all a ruse. John Taylor knows that this is a ruse, right? I mean, in the wildest version of this theory, like he's orchestrating Joseph Smith's murder. He knows that's ruse. This guy's submitting a bill for taking care of a plural wife. That wasn't nonsense. Complete nonsense.

Joseph Smith's Plural Marriages and Sealings

Guest [00:24:12] Okay.

Julia [00:24:12] Yeah, yeah.

Guest [00:24:13] All right.

Julia [00:24:14] Okay. So I pulled another one. This is May 23rd. This is a Tuesday. And again, I don't want to read all these, but it's up here. But he. It says that President Joseph, or President stated to me that he had a little trouble with Sister Emma. And then he interestingly talks about Joseph Jackson. And then he says Joseph Jackson is rotten hearted. And I just had some questions about that because Joseph Jackson later publishes 48 hit his little. I don't know if it's the pamphlet or the booklet, but what's happening in 1843 that's got him. Because William Clayton will later accuse. Will list Joseph H. Jackson among the murderers of Joseph Smith.

Bryan Buchanan [00:24:49] Nauvoo is so wild because you have guys like Brigham and Heber and William who are very devoted. And then you have these other guys that kind of float into town. Like you get a. John C. Benn is the most notable. But then you get these other guys that float in. The Joseph Jacksons, Marinus Eaton. And these are guys who have gotten like, run out of town, other places for counterfeiting, theft, all kinds of these. These are bad dudes. And Joseph Jackson comes in. As I recall, the context of this is he wants to marry one of Hyrum's daughters. And dad and uncle are like, yeah. And then he publishes this kind of expose thing later that like John C. Bennett seems to be a mix of interesting details from a guy who was there for things with complete nonsense. You Know, this kind of expose genre. That is the hardest thing about these pieces in the genre. Right. Even when we get to things like wife number 19 and the Stenhouse's books is they. And John C. Bennett. I mean, again, like the first big one is there are things that we can triangulate with other things that do seem legitimate alongside things that are completely made up sell books.

Guest [00:26:06] Now that I'm remembering Grant Palmer, when he was trying to allege that maybe Emma demanded William Law to be her plural spouses.

Bryan Buchanan [00:26:22] I do too.

Guest [00:26:23] That that came from Joseph Jackson's maybe account.

Bryan Buchanan [00:26:27] Could be.

Guest [00:26:28] And I think Turner wasn't eager to run with things from Joseph Jackson's account. It was stuff that I wanted to be true because it was, you know, pretty intense narrative that was condemning. And that made sense to me. Based on DNC132, where Joseph is basically on the one hand seeming to say, emma, I'll make you accommodations, meaning potentially

Bryan Buchanan [00:26:51] has been thrown out as a possibility.

Guest [00:26:53] Right. But then later, Joseph says, you can't have any extra.

Bryan Buchanan [00:26:56] Yeah, there's more to that story.

Guest [00:26:59] Right.

Bryan Buchanan [00:27:00] And that again, like, when you have a vacuum where there's a piece, there's an answer somewhere. Somebody comes in with something that. Alleging to be that piece. You want it to be that piece.

Guest [00:27:10] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [00:27:10] But the expert, they're so hard. Unless you have other stuff. Again, that's like John C. Bennett. Like, if when he's throwing out the names with the asterisks, we have to triangulate them, right? We're like, okay, this looks like Louisa Beeman.

Julia [00:27:27] Well, and then he has the number of. Yeah. And then he has the number of asterisks, right. With the letters. Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [00:27:32] Compare that with other things and be like, all right. In the scope of all this, that seems to be legitimate. But then this idea of like, the Cloistered Sisters and the levels, you're like, you can see why these books sold, right. People around the country in Europe are hearing these exotic stories about Mormons. And here's an insider perspective, right? You can totally. This is the reality TV of their time, right. This lives right here. You can totally see why these books sold. And so after John C. Bennett does one, the next person comes along and the publisher's like, great, how soon can you have me a manuscript? How much of it's true? I don't care, whatever. Just give me a manuscript. And again, like, kind of like the other things we talked about, like, this was just normal. There's a big expose genre at that time. We have them today. It's not different. Problem is, is when you are trying to look at these as potential sources of data. Super, super complicated. And so there's been a tendency to just throw them out, which is too much, or a tendency to be like, it's all real. Again, like that story that is. That is the craft of a historian. It's science, it's art, it's, you know, judgment. It's a sense, after reading all of this breadth, to be like, okay, this claim is real because of this, this and this. This claim is probably real because this, this and this, this case probably, you know, there are gradations of it. And that is the skill of a good historian, is to be able to have that breadth and, and context for how that works. Historical training to then assess that claim

Guest [00:29:14] and that source in, you know, and I don't want to be defending anyone, and I know we're giving them a lot of time today, but it's why we're having this conversation. But when I think about what value someone like Michelle Stone can provide, it is true that, you know, documents can be forged. It is true that documents can be changed or edited. It is true that sources can be super late and that super late sources can be more suspect. And so we should scrutinize documents and we should consider earlier sources.

Bryan Buchanan [00:29:56] What documents scrutinize.

Guest [00:29:58] Oh, you're saying, oh, okay.

Bryan Buchanan [00:30:00] You don't just scrutinize the documents you don't like.

Guest [00:30:02] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [00:30:03] If the only documents that have iffy provenance are ones you don't like, that's a problem.

Guest [00:30:07] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [00:30:07] A great example of this is when the Salamander letter comes out, who starts questioning it?

Guest [00:30:14] Of all people, Gerald.

Nemo [00:30:15] Gerald.

Bryan Buchanan [00:30:16] Why? Of all people, Gerald would have loved for that to be true. Right?

Guest [00:30:21] Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [00:30:22] But why does he think that it's a forgery? Because of his memory.

Guest [00:30:26] His memory?

Bryan Buchanan [00:30:27] Yes. Not because of. I don't want this to be true. Is because this sounds a whole lot like Mormonism unveiled.

Guest [00:30:33] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [00:30:33] Now, he didn't have any idea that Mark had done it. He thought. What he. His first thought was, it's a 19th century forgery. Right. And it's not until George Throckmorton comes along with forensic tools that now says, okay, here's the pattern. The way Mark ages the ink. And what's so fun about that is that's Michelle's cousin, second cousin. It's close. She and her sister did a thing on it. But George comes in, is like, okay, because of the aging process, because the ink alligators that has this Particular cracking pattern. Right. There's this. This story where they take a stack of documents with this other forensic investigator, and he's like, all right, give me the documents. Don't tell me what they are. I'm going to sort them into piles. This is Hoffman. This isn't. He gets through. And the guy's like. Because by that point, they were, you know, they were sure which ones had come from Hoffman. And guy's like, oh, you did pretty good, George. You just missed this one. But then they double check, they're. Oh, actually, that was Hoffman. So again, like, they were forgeries because of things. Not feelings, not desires, because of similarities to documents. The ink was cracking. Like, there are reasons to think things are forgeries. That follows historical method. Great. Scrutinize documents, but do it like this. If you were like. If you want to say, this is a historical discussion, wonderful. This is how we do history.

Guest [00:31:57] And. And publish it in a reputable journal and get peer review.

Bryan Buchanan [00:32:01] Yep.

Guest [00:32:02] Right.

Bryan Buchanan [00:32:02] Go for it.

Guest [00:32:03] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [00:32:03] Again, like, polygamy is not a sacred cow. Good, responsible history is the sacred cow. If you want to do good, responsible history, no one is going to say boo. Right. Do it. Go for it.

Guest [00:32:17] But even good, responsible historians get things wrong too. Right?

Bryan Buchanan [00:32:20] They do. And again, like, there's nothing wrong with questioning and double checking. And I love being a contrarian. There's nothing more that I love than you're like, nope, just kidding. Nope, you've been wrong. And this is why, like, all. You know, that. The Clayton Temple thing, I was like, it's not. It's Lucy and Foster. The handwriting changed right there. It's great. Because of things, you have to have evidence for claims. You don't. Just like, I don't like this. And so now that I don't like this, now I'm gonna go figure out why I. You know.

Julia [00:32:52] Yeah. Okay, so this next part, this is a. In my opinion, this is a sort of love triangle that's happening. So this is. There's two entries here. There's one in June 11th of 1843, and then one July 8th of 1843. And the first one is on a Sunday. It says, margaret received a letter from Aaron. And then there's no last name, but this is far. Which made her feel bad. It also gave me unaccountable sorrow. And then this July one is on a Saturday. Margaret wrote a letter to Aaron, which I dictated, informing him that she should not marry.

Guest [00:33:24] Hmm.

Bryan Buchanan [00:33:26] Those are fun dynamics. So wait, the letter.

Guest [00:33:29] So Clayton liked this person, didn't want

Bryan Buchanan [00:33:32] her married he's already married to her. So remember, this is the one where Joseph performs the ceremony. So Aaron Farr's on a mission. You can feel for Margaret in this, right, Margaret? I don't. It seems like there was a. Oh,

Guest [00:33:48] this is Margaret Moon.

Bryan Buchanan [00:33:49] This is her. This is the sister.

Guest [00:33:50] This is her second wife.

Bryan Buchanan [00:33:51] This is the sister. They've. They've been married by the priesthood. So, again, like, the fluidity of how people conceived of eternal ceilings by the priesthood would be quite shocking, I think, to modern Mormons, because it's not as set in stone as we would think it would be. Right.

Guest [00:34:08] We covered that in our ceilings episode.

Bryan Buchanan [00:34:10] Yeah. Yep. It's very fluid and messy. And so, yeah, you've got this triangle. So Margaret, I think, does love Clayton, but she loves Aaron more. And guess Aaron's also her age. And so it's. So I'm going to dictate. I'll tell you what to tell your missionary. Remember, we were sealed by the priesthood. And he asks Joseph one time, can the seal be broken? And Joseph, nope, can't do it.

Nemo [00:34:37] Brigham Young goes on to disagree, but, yeah, yeah, sometimes.

Julia [00:34:42] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so this next one is. This is June 23rd of 1843. And again, I don't want to read all this because there's so much here, and some of it's not. He talks about carriages breaking at some points in his journal and stuff like that. But he says, Emma wanted to lay a snare for me. Joseph had been talking to her about delicate matters. She was disposed to be revenged on him, and she thought that if she would. And this is the part, I guess, John, that you were talking about. There's a thing here that he said. Clayton says she thought that if he would indulge himself, she would, too. And then at the very end, it says, I feel desirous to do right and would rather die than lose my interest in the celestial kingdom, which I thought was really interesting.

Guest [00:35:22] So interpret that, Brian, which part?

Bryan Buchanan [00:35:26] First, there's like 83 things going on in this. This, this. Emma wanted to lay a snare for me. People have very compartmentalized knowledge of all this. Right. We know that Emma knows about some things at some times, but definitely not all of it. And this is one of these cases where I've noticed a tendency, even in kind of academic circles in talking about how the Clayton journals portray Emma and Joseph's relationship as this warm, loving thing. And I'm like, it does. And. Right. You know, a warm, loving relationship can be sneaky and compartmentalized. Sometimes, too. Both things.

Guest [00:36:11] Or in denial.

Bryan Buchanan [00:36:12] Or in denial.

Guest [00:36:13] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [00:36:13] And so this. This idea that Emma, you know, how much she knew, at what point, you know, what did you know it, when did you know it? But yeah, that concept of. Of, well, if Joseph. If you get to marry other spouses, then why don't I. Seems like a reasonable response to that. So, yeah, that's. That's where William Law, William Clayton comes in. It's unclear if there was. If she. If there was a person she had in mind or not, but yeah. And then at the end, Clayton saying, I'd rather die than lose my interest in this life. These are earnest people, you know, who occasionally are also sneaky. So these are people who have been taught by Joseph Smith, who they love and revere, that this is now the order of the priesthood that gets you to the celestial kingdom. So if you believe him, then you're going to do it. And along the way, you have casualties. Because as we talked about in the Ceilings episode, how I think it's pretty clear to most people the amount of autonomy that women have within this system is minimal to none. Right. Margaret gets no say in her feelings for Aaron Farr. It would be fascinating to know more about the courtship part of that relationship with Clayton, whatever that looked like. That's one element that we don't get too much of. We get details about walks and conversations about the priesthood, and that's about all we get. It'd be fascinating to know how William framed that pitch to Margaret.

Julia [00:37:49] Yeah.

Guest [00:37:50] And people also just need to remember, as far as Emma goes, that she was like the 22nd wife actually sealed to Joseph because he kept the first 20, 20 wives from her secretly. And then, you know, there was the sham marriage that was performed in front of Emma. But also, you know, Turner talks about Joseph convening the Relief Society and putting Emma in charge for the express purpose of quieting polygamy rumors. And eventually, people that are Emma's counselors or closest friends are practicing polygamy with Joseph as members of the Relief Society leadership, and they're keeping their polygamy with Joseph, Emma's husband, from Emma.

Bryan Buchanan [00:38:39] But hold on, John, Isn't Joseph Smith consistently denying this?

Guest [00:38:43] Yeah. Yes.

Bryan Buchanan [00:38:45] Why don't you believe him, John?

Guest [00:38:46] And he's consistently denying it. But I'm just.

Bryan Buchanan [00:38:48] But why don't you believe that then? Shouldn't we believe Joseph? Emma said there was nothing going on.

Guest [00:38:53] Shouldn't we believe Emma and Joseph and

Bryan Buchanan [00:38:55] the Book of Mormon hashtag believe Joseph?

Julia [00:38:57] Well, she did. She. She did say in One of her speeches to only listen to Joseph Smith from the stand. So that makes me think that, you know, obviously he was not saying those things. Not.

Bryan Buchanan [00:39:06] I like those things he's saying. Please, Joseph.

Guest [00:39:10] Yeah, yeah. Okay. Keep going.

Julia [00:39:12] Okay. So also, this is interesting because in 1843, I think Emma stops attending Relief Society. I just. Just wanted to Note that. So June 27, 1843. Am went to see Hiram, who finally concluded it was not best for me to go to Joseph at present at home nearly all day he returned. And then the next day, Wednesday, at the. At the temple office, Sister Emma had not heard the particulars of President J's situation until I informed her this. Amazing.

Bryan Buchanan [00:39:44] So I put these together because. So what's going on here? This is the second attempt to try to extradite Joseph Smith to Missouri for the little burn box thing. This is not polygamy related. But notice, like, Emma doesn't seem to have any idea of what's going on here. So it's really hard to portray this relationship as super informed on all things. So, you know, if he's not telling her that they're trying to extradite me, like what? You know, he's not telling her that. Which isn't shameful. Really, then you. How much does she know about anything else?

Guest [00:40:20] Read it again, Julia.

Julia [00:40:22] Oh, yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [00:40:23] Once again, Joseph is in hiding, kind of hanging out.

Julia [00:40:27] So the. Not. So she doesn't know of the particulars of this extradition, and so she went. So he went to Hyrum's and then he finally. Who. Hiram concluded that it was not best to go to Joseph at home nearly all day. And then Emma returns, and then he says, at the temple, Sister Emma had not heard the particulars of President J's situation, so she really is uninformed by even just those. Those other things.

Bryan Buchanan [00:40:51] Okay, yeah, there's a lot. And. And that will. There's another entry. We'll get to the secret things.

Guest [00:40:57] Let's do the context before you read so that we understand what the words mean after.

Bryan Buchanan [00:41:01] Perfect.

Guest [00:41:02] If that's all right.

Bryan Buchanan [00:41:02] Yep.

Julia [00:41:03] I feel like this one we've referenced a lot already. I don't know that it needs an introduction. This is July 12th of 1843. It says, Wednesday this a.m. i wrote a revelation consisting of 10 pages on the order of the priesthood, showing the designs of Moses, Abraham, David and Solomon having many wives and concubines. And then it says, and after Joseph wrote. And after it was wrote, President Joseph and Hyrum presented it and read it to E or Emma, who Said she did not believe a word of it and appeared very rebellious. J. Told me to deed all the unencumbered lots to E and the children. He appears much troubled about E. And

Guest [00:41:42] we know those deeds happened, right?

Bryan Buchanan [00:41:45] We do, yeah. The question is, it seems like from. From what I gather, they. They weren't land that was ever used. It doesn't seem like some of these women even knew they had been deeded. There's a lot going on there. It's not quite as cut and dried as he's. He's giving land to plural lives kind

Guest [00:42:02] of thing, but I remember Joseph, I remember John Turner saying that when Emma freaked out about the polygamy revelation, Joseph gave her land as a way to say, you'll be taken care of.

Bryan Buchanan [00:42:16] It does seem like divorce or a separation is very much an option on the table.

Guest [00:42:21] Emma does threaten divorce at various points.

Bryan Buchanan [00:42:24] Yeah. It's again. But again, like, you know, he's very troubled about Emma. He does love her. She is the wife of his youth. And, you know, it doesn't have to be one or the other.

Guest [00:42:35] They loved each other.

Bryan Buchanan [00:42:36] Yeah. It was a warm, loving relationship that also had a bunch of secrecy and other stuff going on.

Guest [00:42:41] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [00:42:42] I mean, if you can't see that as being a plausible option, I don't know what to tell you.

Guest [00:42:50] I mean, if Hillary Clinton stays with Bill Clinton after obvious and known and explicit multiple infidelities, a wife or a partner can stay with a partner over all sorts of problems. Right. Especially in the 1800s.

Bryan Buchanan [00:43:07] Feel like he denied a lot of that stuff publicly.

Guest [00:43:11] Yeah, that's true. I did not have sex relations with that woman.

Bryan Buchanan [00:43:17] Hashtag believe, Bill.

Guest [00:43:21] All right.

Julia [00:43:22] Okay. This is the next day. It says this AM Joseph sent for me, and when I arrived, he called me up into his private room with E. And there. And this really does feel like he's. He is his best friend. And there stated an argument or agreement they had mutually entered into. They both stated their feelings on many subjects and wept considerable. And this is very touching. Oh, may the Lord soften her heart that she may be willing to keep and abide his holy law.

Guest [00:43:53] That's pretty obvious. And it weirdly, it shows that if Joseph's bawling, it implies he believed in the polygamy.

Bryan Buchanan [00:44:03] I again, like, it doesn't have to be one or the other. But I do think there is an element of belief with Joseph and certainly those around him. Right. If you look how Clayton frames this, like, he genuinely wants Emma to believe in this because of the law of Sarah in this revelation from the day before. Right. This concept that the first wife has, this. Her role is to approve and kind of welcome other wives into this relationship that will get them to the celestial kingdom. This is the religious worldview that this is all occurring in. Does that mean there can't be coercion? Of course not. You know, people can be genuine and there can be elements of coercion that sneak in, and there can be people who were never genuine and we're all coercion, you know, like this. This behavior is all across the spectrum. And the single person's behavior moves on that spectrum.

Emma and Joseph's Polygamy Tensions

Guest [00:45:02] I kind of want to move away from addressing the polygamy deniers now and just talk about why this is alarming, shocking stuff. And in this case, it's Emma and Joseph really having a significant marital dispute over polygamy. She's rejected the revelation. And now Joseph's bringing Clayton in to see if he can help be almost a marriage counselor.

Bryan Buchanan [00:45:27] That's. I'm like, Clayton, you're so detailed on so many things. What is the agreement they. They arrived on? Love to know more about that part of it. Don't get much.

Guest [00:45:38] What I'm thinking of is this property deal, you know, at least part, maybe as part of it.

Bryan Buchanan [00:45:43] Certainly. I mean, the fact that it's a day apart.

Guest [00:45:46] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [00:45:46] Certainly seems like that's, that's, you know, maybe he's. He's agreed that if something were to happen, then I, I and the children will be taken care of. Seems like a very plausible guess.

Guest [00:45:59] And what's going to happen is she's eventually going to be okay with polygamy for like four wives, and then she's going to say no more. And then as I understand that Joseph's going to stop in. In the 1844 China time period.

Bryan Buchanan [00:46:13] By the end of 1843. Yeah. So the last wife is. Ran into this last time. It's either Rhoda Richards or Fanny Young. And. And then seems to shut off completely.

Guest [00:46:25] Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Julia [00:46:29] Yeah. Fanny Young is. Is how Compton dates it. Okay.

Bryan Buchanan [00:46:31] Yeah. Fanny. So, yeah, Brigham's older or sister.

Julia [00:46:35] Yeah. Okay. So this next one. Also another aspect about polygamy is how the women struggled because of this connection to these men that they maybe didn't want. So this is July 22nd. This is just a few days later. It says Saturday, Margaret MT Or Margaret. And. And then I can't remember how he abbreviates it. I don't know if it was an A, but it's. Aaron Farr had a long conversation Together, she had stood true to her covenant with CW and this is interesting because I'm pretty sure he just means himself, but it's written backwards. William Clay.

Bryan Buchanan [00:47:05] How did you figure out that code, Julia?

Guest [00:47:09] Subtle. It's very subtle.

Julia [00:47:12] Okay. I also had some talk with him, and although the shock is severe, he endures it patiently. And I pray the great Elohim to make up the loss to him an hundredfold and enable him to rejoice in all things. My heart aches with grief on his and M's account, so Margaret's account, and could almost say, oh, that I had never known H or her is what I'm seeing. But thou, oh God, knowest the integrity of thy servant. Thou knowest that I have done that which I have understood to be thy will and have stood still, determined to do so. And I ask thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, either to absolutely wean my affections from M or give me hers entire, because she does have feelings for Aaron. And then I am content. But to live in this state of feeling, I cannot. If I have done wrong in this thing, show it me that thy servant may repent of it and obtain forgiveness. But, oh, Lord, have mercy on me and by some means release me from this grievous bondage of fear feeling, and thy servant will praise thee. President Joseph came to see me and pronounced a sealing blessing upon Ruth and me. So does he. Is he finally marrying him and his first wife?

Bryan Buchanan [00:48:24] So, yeah. So now that they are, they're finally, after being sealed to a plural wife, being sealed to Ruth.

Julia [00:48:30] I hadn't thought about that. But. And then the last sentence is, and we mutually entered into an everlasting covenant with each other. So that's. I didn't think about him doing that with other individuals like, so Emma.

Guest [00:48:38] We knew that emma was the 22nd sealing.

Bryan Buchanan [00:48:41] Yep.

Guest [00:48:42] So Clayton was sealed to his first wife's second, which again, was in violation of the law of Sarah in DNC132, which would have been revealed by this point. Why are they ignoring the law of Sarah in the revelation?

Bryan Buchanan [00:48:58] Of all the elements of that, that one got thrown out.

Guest [00:49:02] Can I just say, Julie, I'm so glad you read that. Like, either he's just making all this anguish and heartache up. I mean, even if he's making up his own heartache and anguish, it's clear that his second wife, Margaret, the younger sister of his first wife, loves this other guy. This other guy loves her. She agreed to marry her brother in law because Joseph told them all this was God's will and now she's stuck. Margaret's stuck loving this, everybody's stuck. This other guy, he's heartbroken, she's heartbroken. And then Clayton is in the middle of it feeling at least hopefully sad for this situation and it's kind of Joseph's mess with but it looks like Joseph believed it too.

Julia [00:49:59] Well, William tried to make it right like so this is a couple days later. This is the 26th. If I can read this, this is M or Margaret seems quite embittered against me, in consequence of which I called her to me and asked her if she desired the covenant to be revoked if it were possible to this she would not give me a satisfactory answer. I'm sure she wants to stay faithful to God also, only saying if it had not been done, it should not be meaning our union. I then asked if she would consent if A or Aaron Farr would take her under all circumstances, and I'm pretty sure what he means here is that she is pregnant with William Clayne's child. But she would but she would not consent to have it revoked, which makes sense, saying she did not. She did. She did it not for her sake, but for the sake of the peace of my family. Under these circumstances I could not rest until I had ascertained whether the see or covenant could be revoked and although contrary to her wish, I went to see President J or Joseph. I took A Aaron to talk with him and asked him some questions whereby I ascertained that he would be willing to take her under all circumstances again, probably pregnancy, I reasoned consider considerable with him to prove that I had done right in all these matters so far as I knew it. I called the President out and briefly stated the situation of things and then asked him if the sea or covenant could be revoked. He shook his head and answered no. At this conclusion my mind seemed for the moment to get relief for the twofold reason that I had done all that I could and I did not want the seed or covenant to be revoked. I came back to M and A were together in Pharaoh's garden. I told them the answer I got and advised them to take the best measure to make all things right between them. I cannot help thinking that M has treated me not only unkindly, but meanly and cruelly. No wonder. But I forgive her before the Lord, for I sympathize with her in her grief, but cannot control her, for she will not speak to me.

The Human Toll of Plural Marriage on Women

Bryan Buchanan [00:52:05] So what happens Polygamy Boys and girls,

Guest [00:52:07] summarize what just happened there.

Bryan Buchanan [00:52:10] Everyone in this episode Seems to be acting genuinely. So Clayton's like, I can see this is rough. You know, do you want to. Should we do it? Do you want to be. Do you want to go to Aaron instead?

Guest [00:52:26] Get an annulment, basically.

Bryan Buchanan [00:52:28] Well, can we do that? I don't know. Let me go find it. Joseph says no. Well, I don't know what to tell you. They all believe fervently in this religious system. And so this is how you get to heaven. And everyone wants to get to heaven exalted. You know, it sucks, but we, we got to make the best of it.

Julia [00:52:50] Yeah.

Guest [00:52:51] It's all based on this fake scarcity that you can't be with your family in heaven unless you meet these requirements that Joseph provides according to God. Right.

Bryan Buchanan [00:53:02] This is, these are the, this is the rule book we're playing with. Got it. You have to comply if you would like to be exalted.

Guest [00:53:08] Yeah.

Julia [00:53:09] I also want to point out that I think one of the motivating things for Michelle, and I don't want to put words in her mouth, but I think that one of the motivating things to push against polygamy is how, how hard it was on the women. How. How very much not of God, this seems like with me, Todd Compton's book, he goes over each of the wives and he talks about how hard they struggled with this. And I can see this with Margaret Moon and Aaron and I just feel like this is just so heartbreaking. And so while I disagree with her historical, historical take on things, I think she's coming from a good place where polygamy is not good. It doesn't treat anybody well. Everybody's stuck, you said. And like I. So I appreciate that in her, in her take on things.

Bryan Buchanan [00:53:46] Everybody can agree that polygamy was rough and hard and messy and yes, horrible for.

Guest [00:53:50] Abusive.

Bryan Buchanan [00:53:51] Yeah.

Julia [00:53:52] Yes.

Guest [00:53:52] Predatory.

Bryan Buchanan [00:53:53] Far more so for women, but also difficult for men. I mean, William is also having a tough time. Again, no one is happy in this.

Guest [00:53:59] Well, are we going to get to his mother in law?

Julia [00:54:01] Because I think she'd be right next to.

Guest [00:54:03] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Julia [00:54:05] So this is August 13th of 1843 at night. My wife's mother, her name is Lydia Plum Moon, went to the garden to pray. Just as we were going to bed, Margaret and Lydia went out and found her on her knees. She was deranged. She came into the bedroom trembling and seemed as though she had been frightened, but was all what was altogether delirious. Her feet and legs were cold and I feared she was going to die. She got into bed and we got some hot water to her feet and rubbed her legs and feet with flannel and went to bed. She soon seemed some better from her conversation with Lydia this afternoon. And I'm pretty sure this is the daughter right there to Lydia, so it's confusing. This afternoon it seems she took President J's remarks very deeply to heart. And that with the fear and that with her fears for Margaret overwhelmed her. I feel as though I was in some measure a child of sorrow. But I'm determined to try to do right in all things. May the Lord bless my family and my father's house and save us with an everlasting salvation and let peace and intelligence beam upon us in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Guest [00:55:13] So now the mother in law is literally delirious, close to death, possibly suicidal,

Bryan Buchanan [00:55:21] traumatized to her limits, which I would

Guest [00:55:24] be if I were an early 19th century Christian woman whose two daughters are sleeping in the same bed as their husband. And are we getting to that yet the three is that coming?

Bryan Buchanan [00:55:38] Theoretical polygamy and practical polygamy are two different beasts. And we see this all through like fundamentalist history. We understand mentally the concept of this is necessary for exaltation. The realities of living it are totally different. Discussion.

Guest [00:55:56] Clearly Clayton would have been disturbed by. Unless he was just a monster by his mother in law being deliriously, you know, close to death.

Bryan Buchanan [00:56:05] He feels like he has no answers. That's why you get all of this language about can you help us, God? Because we don't know what to do. And I would also like to point out, I think one of the Bronte sisters wrote that last entry. Like if you were doing a Bronte novel about polygamy.

Julia [00:56:19] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [00:56:19] Like she's out in the garden and you know, she's like, yeah, yeah, very much Bronte.

Julia [00:56:25] I just want to. I also wanted to ask. I tried looking for different sources in the thing, but he's referencing something that President Joseph said to her. I don't know if you know on the top of your head, was she teach. Was this about polygamy? I'm assuming because it's to do with Margaret.

Bryan Buchanan [00:56:38] I'm guessing this is the conversation about can the covenant be broken? And he says no. And so she's like, crap, there's no way out of this.

Guest [00:56:47] And it's got to be the promise of, hey, don't. Joseph's saying, don't be sad. This is going to be hard, but you're going to get.

Bryan Buchanan [00:56:55] Eternal sacrifice brings forth a blessing.

Guest [00:56:57] You're going to Be exalted in the highest kingdom. This is where the becoming God's thing exactly starts.

Bryan Buchanan [00:57:05] You got to live God's law. You want to be where Abraham is, You have to do the works of Abraham.

Guest [00:57:09] Yeah.

Julia [00:57:10] Yeah. Okay. This next one's three days later. This is on August 16th. We returned and met President Joseph and some of the family going to the funeral of Judge Adams. PM I went with a young to look at a lot and called as Sister Booths, who is in trouble. Robert has gone away to work. Sarah Ann has gone to Keokuk, which is across the river. And Elspeth and husband is going to Chicago this evening. And then this is an important part, this a.m. jay told me that since. Since E came back from St. Louis, she had resisted the P or the priesthood in toto. And he had. He had to tell her that he would relinquish all for her sake. She said she would give. She would. She would have given E and E, P or Eliza and Emily Partridge. But he knew if he took them, she would pitch on him and obtain a divorce and leave him. He, however, told me that he should not relinquish anything. Oh, God, deliver thy servant from iniquity and bondage.

Bryan Buchanan [00:58:15] Now, this is interesting. As I recall, there's some question on the would given as like, you know, a past tense or would give as like a future kind of thing. So. But yeah, this. This is that case because this is the one where they're married. And then Emma's like, they're already sealed to Joseph. They're already sealed. Emma's like, okay, fine. How about those two?

Guest [00:58:36] So by this point, Emma agrees to let Joseph practice polygamy.

Bryan Buchanan [00:58:42] Agrees in quotes. Right. Under. Under a religious framework in which this is necessary.

Guest [00:58:49] And they're living with Emma and Joseph

Bryan Buchanan [00:58:51] at the time in the building on my shirt, no less.

Guest [00:58:54] Right. And then so Emma's like, well, you can marry the part. I'll let you marry the Partridge sisters. And Joseph's like, oh, well, secretly great, William Clayton. I've already married them. But okay. Right. Okay. And then what. What else does it say?

Bryan Buchanan [00:59:11] But yeah, it's just this. This dynamic of. Emma does not like this, but, like, Margaret, what are your options?

Guest [00:59:21] Yeah, this is.

Bryan Buchanan [00:59:22] This is the way.

Guest [00:59:24] Yeah. What a mess. Yeah. How would Joseph's like, oh, wow, Emma's told me I could practice, but now she's recommending two people I'm already married to.

Bryan Buchanan [00:59:36] If she does this, it's going to get messy. Guess what? He does. And it is.

Guest [00:59:41] Yeah, that's when the sham One of the sham marriage.

Bryan Buchanan [00:59:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is the one where it happens. And then one of them is in a room, you know, kind of grieving about how messy this is. Joseph goes in to talk to her, the door's shut. Emma comes by. They won't let her open the door. Oh, yeah, that's like this just drama over polygamy that's happening in the Nauvoo mansion.

Guest [01:00:04] Yeah.

Julia [01:00:05] Yeah. Okay, so this is a. This is a couple days later, I think. I think that was the 16th. And this is August 18th. And this one's super interesting. So President J instructed ERS or Samuel I James in the order of the holy priesthood. I had some conversation with brother Whitney, and I've learned that Pharaoh's family are considered aspiring with Walker's boys. And keep in mind that Aaron Farr has already been involved. And then you have Lucy Walker, who's already married to Joseph, the Walker's boys and girls, and they with E or Emma to accomplish my downfall. I find they are my secret enemies, but I fear them not. For God, who knows the secrets of all hearts, knows mine also. I told em of this and ascertained that she had acknowledged to A or Aaron Farr that I had slept with her. And I guess I don't know how far along she gets due in February, so I don't know how. How pregnant looking she is, but that I had slept with her. And if I. If it never had been done, our reunion, it should not be. So I'm guessing the argument is the consummation of the marriage. This, of course, has given him a plea and a weapon against me. At night, my wife's mother had another fit of delirium which fills us all with sorrow. And I think we have a good share. Oh, that's an interesting last line.

Clayton as Mediator Between Joseph and Emma

Bryan Buchanan [01:01:23] So Clayton occupies this kind of weird place between Joseph and Emma, right? We've seen him already as kind of a mediator that both parties seem to trust, but now it's Emma seems like she realizes Clayton has been enabling things that she doesn't like. And so she's like, all right, you've chosen the secret bad things, so we're going to get you. Clayton does seem to be given to paranoia, so he might be imagining boogeyman, but he might not like. There seems like there's enough other hints of actual conspiracies around polygamy.

Julia [01:02:06] Well, that reminds me of Joseph. Was it new tippets? Who. Who first or they? There's an entry where Joseph thinks somebody's poisoning his Coffee. Maybe. Maybe Joseph is also being a little bit paranoid and all.

Bryan Buchanan [01:02:19] Yeah, that's one. It's like the amount of things that could be responsible at that time for making you suddenly sick are a lot.

Julia [01:02:28] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:02:28] Could it be poison? Absolutely. Could it be bad food, bad water, cholera?

Guest [01:02:33] Stress? Yeah, stress, depressed heartache.

Bryan Buchanan [01:02:36] Lot of. Lot of other things that are potentials.

Julia [01:02:39] Yeah. But the fact that he pointed to Emma, he's like, I think Emma's poisoning me. It kind of shows.

Bryan Buchanan [01:02:43] This tells Clayton that. It's like the office one where Michael at the dinner party where Michael's telling Pam about how Jan, you know, she might be trying to poison me. And Pam's like, I'm the one closest to Michael. She thinks I'm having an affair with him. Yeah, it's. It's. It's when you start telling other people you think your wife is trying to poison you, that doesn't sound like a warm, loving relationship right there. Other times, maybe not. Right then. Yeah.

Julia [01:03:13] Okay. So the next day, August 19th, Saturday evening. Went to President J's. Did not see him. M says D Far or Diantha Farr said today she believed M. And I was vexed at her. So I guess she's telling people about polygmy. She almost felt disposed almost to go to every house in the city and tell all she knew and then come home and kill herself. I felt my heart ache tonight when we lay down being. Being downstairs and M up. So I'm guessing. So he's sleeping downstairs with Ruth and Margaret's upstairs. My soul loves M. And my desire is to see her happy and comfortable. Oh, may the Lord bless her. That's heartbreaking.

Bryan Buchanan [01:03:56] Diantha is interesting. Also a teenager. I'm pretty sure this is Aaron's sister. So more drama at the fire household. Couldn't they just have had ice cream? Like, that's far with ice cream. A lot more pleasant. So, so, so, so, so messy. And Diantha, kind of like Lydia, seems to have mental health struggles that polygamy will greatly exacerbate. So, you know, mental health is hard enough to keep good. Throwing polygamous dynamics into it is not going to help these.

Guest [01:04:33] I don't. I don't want to address this, but I'm going to briefly. This just seems way too intricate to be manufactured.

Julia [01:04:40] Yeah, I keep.

Bryan Buchanan [01:04:41] Not to mention, wouldn't you want to make it more happy and pleasant?

Julia [01:04:45] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:04:46] Instead of, like, the messiness that seems like.

Guest [01:04:49] That's a really good point. That's a really good point.

Bryan Buchanan [01:04:51] If you're manufacturing this, like, again, unless this is Beautiful Mind style, we got to make it uglier.

Guest [01:04:57] People got to make people suicidal over it. But we want it to be used to convince people that it was a good thing ultimately.

Bryan Buchanan [01:05:03] Like, if you asked an AI Bot, what do you think polygamy and Nauvoo would look like? It's like this messy.

Guest [01:05:11] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:05:12] Super complicated. And.

Guest [01:05:13] But the other thing is, we often talk about, you know, when there's not enough of Joseph's wives writing about their sex with Joseph. We're like, that people didn't write about that stuff.

Bryan Buchanan [01:05:27] Well, not to mention.

Guest [01:05:28] But here we have an entry where he's saying, we're talking about whether I had sex with her or not. So. Like, we do have an instance of William Clayton writing about his extramarital. Extra first marital sex life in his journal, writing it down. Why did he feel like he could write this stuff down when everyone else felt like it was too secret to write down?

Bryan Buchanan [01:05:50] Well, part of it is, think about the pool of Nauvoo, okay? You've got this big circle. You got smaller concentric circles right within that. How many people in Nauvoo are kind of in the inner polygamy circles, right. That are hearing about it, that that circle shrinks greatly of that circle? How many people are keeping a journal of any sort? That circle just shrunk to this. Of those people that are keeping a journal, how many of them are keeping a good journal? You know, they're writing as frequently as Clayton and with candor and. And. And, you know, details. That's. It's like, there aren't that many journals. So who. Who else would you think is writing about it if no one else is keeping a journal?

Guest [01:06:32] But if I'm Joseph, I'm like, hey, William, don't be writing that stuff down.

Bryan Buchanan [01:06:35] He probably doesn't know, you know.

Guest [01:06:37] Really? You don't think.

Bryan Buchanan [01:06:40] I doubt it. I mean, I. I can't imagine Clayton is showing him his journal, especially when he's. Yeah, again, like, he's writing about how complicated their marriage is, but again, they're

Guest [01:06:49] besties and he's describing a secretary for other purposes.

Bryan Buchanan [01:06:53] But would you show your best friend your journal? No. Yeah, that's not. Yeah, like, I. That's just not something I think you would. Especially dudes.

Guest [01:07:01] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:07:02] Women. I could. I could. I could see, you know, plural wives. If they kept journals, I could see them.

Julia [01:07:07] But also. But also, he's going to Joseph, and he's like, hey, all these hard things are happening. I want to see if we can separate and so she can be with. With Aaron. So, like, he's. He's open with him about everything that's happening.

Bryan Buchanan [01:07:17] Seem like they're discussing it. Sure.

Julia [01:07:18] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:07:19] This idea that, like, well, how come nobody. How many journals do you have? Like, the amount of people keeping journals that are in that demographic is almost non existent. You know, Arsenal does. She seems to be referring to it. Is it detailed? No, she is like this. This stereotypical Victorian woman dressing in black lace. Like she believes that this is divine, but you can. It's. It's like it grosses her out to some degree still. So she's not gonna write about it in detail.

Guest [01:07:50] But Clayton did.

Bryan Buchanan [01:07:51] Yeah.

Julia [01:07:51] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:07:52] Again, like you. The amount of people you have writing good, detailed, consistent diaries in Nauvoo is minuscule.

Guest [01:08:02] I mean, it just explains why this was hid for so long and remains hidden to this day.

Julia [01:08:06] Right.

Guest [01:08:07] Because this is scandalous.

Bryan Buchanan [01:08:09] It's the height of scandalous.

Guest [01:08:12] This is worse than the counts of 50 minutes ever were. Like, there's nothing. Is there anything more scandalous than all of Mormon history? Like, be tough.

Bryan Buchanan [01:08:22] So now. Well, the question, why did it take so long for these to get released? I don't think anyone's still asking that question.

Guest [01:08:32] Was all this that we're reading so far in the version that the hat.

Bryan Buchanan [01:08:36] Pretty much all of this is. Is so far as an intimate chronicle. Because if you are a researcher and you're given access, you see those entries and your eyes get huge.

Guest [01:08:46] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:08:47] Because this is. This is bananas detail that.

Guest [01:08:50] But it didn't blow up the church at the time. Like, why didn't this blow up the church in the 80s and 90s?

Bryan Buchanan [01:08:56] Well, how many people are reading intimate chronicle that aren't already interested in Mormon history and already know that it's complicated?

Guest [01:09:06] But you can see my point, right?

Bryan Buchanan [01:09:07] Oh, yeah.

Guest [01:09:08] Something this scandalous about the founding prophet, it wouldn't get around. Oh, my gosh. William Clayton. We all know who he is. Turns out he had a journal. The church has been hiding it and now we're reading it and there's threesomes and scandal and suicidal mothers in law.

Bryan Buchanan [01:09:26] Yeah.

Guest [01:09:26] You think that would bring down the church or at least fracture the church in half.

Bryan Buchanan [01:09:30] And it didn't. So why not just publish it all then?

Guest [01:09:33] I know, but that.

Bryan Buchanan [01:09:34] And that's a question that comes up from people of even very believing.

Guest [01:09:39] I think the brethren do it. Underestimate how resilient faith is.

Julia [01:09:44] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:09:46] If it didn't break those people, that had to.

Guest [01:09:49] Exactly.

Bryan Buchanan [01:09:50] The people Reading are going to be okay.

Guest [01:09:52] I remain faithful.

Julia [01:09:53] Right?

Bryan Buchanan [01:09:54] All of everyone in this scenario did.

Julia [01:09:57] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:09:57] And again, like, I don't. I don't see any of these people as, you know, PMOs. Right.

Guest [01:10:02] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:10:02] They're all in.

Guest [01:10:04] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:10:04] They wrote. They did it.

Guest [01:10:06] Yeah.

Julia [01:10:06] Yeah. Okay, so we were speaking Eliza Arsenau. So there's a. This is a few days later. This is August 21st, Monday. He asked if I had. If I handed two letters to J. Which she showed me. I had not done it. I satisfied her. I had not. They appeared to be from ER Snow, and President J found them in his pocket. E seemed vexed and angry.

Guest [01:10:31] Interpret what just happened there.

Bryan Buchanan [01:10:34] Sure would like to have those letters. If they're vexing Emma, we can make pretty educated guesses on at least the gist of those letters. Right?

Guest [01:10:42] These are letters from who?

Bryan Buchanan [01:10:43] This is Eliza writing to Joseph. She loved him.

Guest [01:10:48] So Eliza R. Snow's writing love letters to Joseph.

Bryan Buchanan [01:10:51] It seems the pretty clear explanation there. Again, like, if this is totally innocuous, has nothing to do with polygamy in the context of all this other stuff, then why is Emma mad?

Guest [01:11:02] And when's Eliza booted out of the

Bryan Buchanan [01:11:04] Smith home before this point?

Guest [01:11:07] Okay, so this is, I think, okay, yeah.

Julia [01:11:10] But also, why would a single woman like Eliza Arsenau be riding him? And why would he keep it in his breast pocket? Like, I don't.

Bryan Buchanan [01:11:15] But yeah, this is one of those where I'm sure Joseph was like, crap. Forgot those were there. Yeah. So the way Eliza talks about Joseph Smith later is so interesting. She was enamored with him. Famously the polar opposite of her relationship with Brigham Young, it seems.

Guest [01:11:39] So this helps explain why Emma stopped going to Relief Society. Right, Julia?

Bryan Buchanan [01:11:44] In my opinion, I think counselors, people sitting, best friends. You've probably seen that painting of there's a meeting of Relief Society. Joseph is talking to him, and these women are just in. Just wrapped attention on him. You're like, that's fun. In the real world, how many of them are plural lives? That's a picture of Relief Society that does not get talked about.

Julia [01:12:11] Yeah.

Guest [01:12:12] Somebody needs to make an annotated sort of like, version of that painting with, like, little numbers of who it was. Interesting tidbits about who was married to who when.

Bryan Buchanan [01:12:24] The 11th of February, 1843.

Julia [01:12:26] Yeah.

Guest [01:12:27] Oh, my gosh.

Julia [01:12:28] Okay, so August 23rd, 1843. Wednesday. Yep. President J told me that he had difficulty with E. Yesterday. She rode up to Woodwards with him and called while he came to the temple. So it seems like Joseph's in the temple, and she's there with the Woodworths. When he returned, she was demanding the gold watch of f. Of Flora Woodworth. He reproved her for her evil treatment. On their return home, she abused him much. And also when he got home, he had to use harsh measures to put a stop to her abuse. But finally succeeded. This evening, I had some more conversation with Margaret and find she is stubborn and disposed to abuse me. There's a lot of abuse going around. I felt resolved to break my feelings from her if I possibly can.

Guest [01:13:17] Yeah. So, like, I'm remembering conversation with John Turner. So. So Joseph has the gall to be gifting gold watches to teenage girls while he's married to Emma.

Bryan Buchanan [01:13:29] Well, Eliza's older too. She gets one. It's not just teenagers.

Guest [01:13:32] Right. And then Flora's parading the watch around town. Emma finds out about it. Is.

Julia [01:13:39] Well, they're at the house.

Guest [01:13:41] It's shaming. It's humiliating for Emma and Flora. Right. What'd you say, Julia?

Julia [01:13:48] Well, they're at. They're at Flora's house, so I don't know that she's parading around town, but she's there, you know, having a play date or. I don't know what she's doing with Flora or the woodworks, but yeah, she's then sees the watch and she knows what it means.

Guest [01:14:01] Yeah. And so Emma wants the watch back. What a disaster.

Bryan Buchanan [01:14:07] I have to think this or Bill Clinton again. I have to think Hillary would read this and be like, I feel you, Emma.

Guest [01:14:17] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:14:17] And to me, of all the sad polygamy entries, this one I had to use harsh measures.

Guest [01:14:22] Yeah. So Emma's mad at Joseph. Rightly so. So, I mean, Turner didn't want to come out and say it, but harsh measures likely means a physical abuse.

Bryan Buchanan [01:14:32] A beating seems fairly likely, at least yelling, you know, bare minimum yelling. I think it's tough to read that any other way than physical abuse.

Guest [01:14:43] Yeah. Because. Because I think there's been other yelling chronicled.

Violence, Coercion, and Troubling Behavior in Nauvoo

Bryan Buchanan [01:14:47] Yeah.

Guest [01:14:48] Raised voices or whatever. It wasn't described as harsh measures.

Bryan Buchanan [01:14:51] Yeah, this. This seems to.

Guest [01:14:53] Did Martin beat his wife at some point? Martin Harris?

Bryan Buchanan [01:14:57] Yeah.

Guest [01:14:58] I don't know if it was described as harsh measures, then.

Bryan Buchanan [01:15:00] Yeah. So that's like, again, you take these people from a culture in a time period where that's not at all uncommon. What's beating your wife if, you know, in an argument. And so you throw them into Mormonism. Guess what? That's not gonna. With polygamy magically go away. Yeah. You throw polygamy in the middle of it.

Guest [01:15:17] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:15:18] It's. The surprising thing is that didn't happen more probably did, but we just don't know about it.

Guest [01:15:23] People didn't write about it.

Bryan Buchanan [01:15:23] But you have all the sad entries, like the. The dynamics here.

Guest [01:15:28] It seems like William Clade is like, I need to just let Margaret go because this is too stressful.

Bryan Buchanan [01:15:32] Yeah. Can't seem to make this work.

Guest [01:15:34] When is this. What is the entry where they're sleeping in the same bed?

Julia [01:15:38] I don't remember what day it is,

Bryan Buchanan [01:15:39] but there's too many juicy things.

Guest [01:15:41] John, is that coming?

Julia [01:15:42] Yeah, that's coming. Let me.

Bryan Buchanan [01:15:43] After.

Guest [01:15:44] Margaret's furious and wants to leave. Okay. All right.

Julia [01:15:48] Yeah. So I want to. I throw. I'm throwing this little watch up here because a lot of people can say, oh, that people are reading in this individual. People read polygamy into these journal entries. But here we have Eliza R. Snow. So a gift watch. The gift of a watch is not much evidence for Joseph Smith living polygamy. In addition to Flora Ann Woodworth, however, Eliza was also gifted a watch by the prophet Joseph Smith. Smith and historian Jennifer Reeder says that Eliza R. Snow, quote, later used the watch in public settings to illustrate the principle of plural marriage, unquote. Where the watch was concerned, however, Smith waited until. And this is her again, sorry, reader. Where the watch was concerned, however, Snow waited until Emma's death before making a more public claim of her relationship by exhibiting the watch because she had probably understood what happened with Flora. Emma died on April 30 of 18, 1979, and the Deseret News published the news on May 13. Only two days later, Snow publicly displayed her gold watch for the first known time as a memento to her marriage to Smith. And this is a picture from the Deseret News or from the church historical department of Eliza R. Snow's watch. So just giving credibility to this entry

Bryan Buchanan [01:17:00] being polygamy, you don't know when that watch was engraved, Julie. Don't pretend like you know when it was engraved. So, again, like, for Eliza, in whose relationship with Joseph Smith seems to have been, again, like out of a Bronte fanfic novel about polygamy, where that's the. The good part of it, right? This is this. This Victorian ideal of romantic love that somehow we've wedged into a polygamous setting. She loves Joseph Smith, and the dynamics with Emma are not pleasant, but her relationship with Joseph Smith seems to have been something she treasured. Obviously, she treasures this watch that she was given.

Julia [01:17:46] Yeah. Okay. So this.

Guest [01:17:48] This also means That I didn't realize this. That this puts Emma in on the. If Joseph wasn't practicing polygamy, this puts Eliza in on the conspiracy as well.

Bryan Buchanan [01:17:58] And the watch,

Julia [01:18:01] which. Which has. Which you pointed out, which I didn't really say, but it says 1844. JS to ERS.

Guest [01:18:09] Has that been addressed by Michelle and Karen, that Eliza was a conspirator?

Bryan Buchanan [01:18:14] Well, that's too complicated, John.

Guest [01:18:17] No, I'm just.

Bryan Buchanan [01:18:18] I. I don't think so.

Julia [01:18:20] Yeah, the thing about conspiracies is that they need. In order to work, you have to have a few people. I don't. I don't understand this because the numbers just keep growing of who's involved.

Guest [01:18:27] That's a lot of conspirators.

Bryan Buchanan [01:18:29] They never spilled the beans.

Guest [01:18:31] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Julia [01:18:33] Okay, here's some juicy parts. This is the next day, August 24th. Thursday at night, I asked mother if M might sleep with Ruth and me. She appeared very rebellious and would not consent, but said we might do as we had in mind. JS Through WC Pays David D. Yearly. I'm not sure what that last sentence means, but.

Bryan Buchanan [01:18:55] So, yeah, I love the juxtaposition of the craziest scenario possible, the most mundane thing possible. This was the world of Clayton and. And people in those inner circles of Nauvoo. Normal life that would have been just like the life of somebody who's not part of this part of Nauvoo. Like there's this. These. There's the tale of two Nauvoos going on, right? You have this Nauvoo and then, you know, poor agricultural, hardscrabble life. No polygamy.

Guest [01:19:25] Who's he asking if he could sleep with both wives slash sisters at the same time?

Julia [01:19:30] His mother in law.

Guest [01:19:32] His mother in law. The one that was suicidal. Hey, suicidal mother in law. Can I sleep with all your daughters in my bed at the same time? Suicidal mother in law. What the.

Bryan Buchanan [01:19:44] Lydia's like, I'm done.

Guest [01:19:46] This is the third sister. Oh, Lydia's the mom and the third sister?

Julia [01:19:51] Yeah, yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:19:52] She's just like, I. Whatever. Do whatever you want.

Guest [01:19:55] I mean, that's dark. I mean, that's beyond, like. Like a. That's beyond suicidal mother in law. Can I sleep with both your daughters at the same time? Why would he just do it and just be discreet? Why would he ask? I mean, I guess it's a small house and the mother in law is going to know.

Bryan Buchanan [01:20:19] He feels like this is the ethics of this new polygamous religion worldview that they live in right there Needs to be permission sought and granted.

Guest [01:20:29] And hey, suicidal mother in law, can I sleep with both your daughters at the same time, please?

Bryan Buchanan [01:20:34] Why did it take so long for these journals to be released again?

Julia [01:20:40] Also, I want to just. People are going to talk about this and I, I don't. This isn't an evidence for sex. We don't know if they're actually having sex or if he's just trying to like give comfort to her because of all this.

Guest [01:20:51] You're saying they might just.

Julia [01:20:52] Sure. They could just be spooning. I. But I do think there's a conversation that people are going to have whether they, whether it holds up historically or not, of people having this being part of polygamy, of these, this threesome idea. And I can't remember exactly where it was, but I think in Todd Compton's book somebody comes across Joseph dining with two of his plural wives. And of course they're just having dinner. But like there is this conversation that could be had of whether or not that was a part of polygamy is these threesomes.

Bryan Buchanan [01:21:22] I mean, I don't think it's an unreal. Unrealistic question for sure. Yeah.

Julia [01:21:29] Yeah. I don't know. Okay. So continuing forward. This is August 26th. Saturday, Hiram and I rode up to my house And Jay met Mrs. Woodworth and F. And conversed sometime. This is after the whole watch thing. President J. And I walked from my house to Sister Durfees and then and thence to his house. August 28th, Monday, President and I met Miss. I met Ms. Woodworth at my house. August 29th, Tuesday a.m. at the temple. President J. At my house with Ms. Woodworth. So is he saying at the last one that. That he's at the temple while Joseph and Flora are at his own house? Because that's kind of what it looks like.

Bryan Buchanan [01:22:10] Yeah. Again, like this. This is one of those cases where the original would be very helpful. That could be a mistranscription. It's Mrs. And he's talking to the mom about trying to convince her daughter. Or it could be Flora. Yeah. And the dynamics of, of Clayton being in the middle of everything. Right. As being the go between and the facilitator of relationships. And then Sister Durfee is. This is likely. Pretty sure her name is Elizabeth is one of the older plural wives. And it's thought that sometimes these women would talk to the younger plural wives or potential plural wives and sort of make the pitch to them instead of Joseph. Right. So it seems that's one of the roles she played in this Dynamic.

Julia [01:23:05] Yeah. Okay, so there's this one I think you added in here.

Bryan Buchanan [01:23:11] This was one of the ones that Lindsay and I found in Richard Anderson's notes that hadn't. Hadn't been out there before.

Julia [01:23:20] Okay.

Bryan Buchanan [01:23:21] So, yeah, they go to Joseph has a hard time getting money ever. So they go to a guy and borrow 100 bucks, and then they go to the house of Porter Rockwell's mother and they give her that money. So back in Stosa, they mentioned he's going to come up later again, he's a non Mormon. He's been elected sheriff of Hancock county with Mormon support. And. But this is interesting. So we talked about when the two extradition attempts, right? The letter to Clayton from solitude. First time they're trying to get him back to Missouri for something that Rockwell did. The question is, A, did Rockwell do it? B, did he do it because Joseph ordered him to? Hinted open question. Right. So they're going to give Rockwell's mom money. You can read that as, hey, we're really sorry that your son is being falsely imprisoned. Here's some money to help you out. Or, you know, your son was a team player and did what we wanted him to do. Here's some money I just found that was interesting that nobody before had grabbed that then other than Richard as being potentially kind of an interesting entry. So,

Julia [01:24:35] yeah. Okay, so this next one is one we've referenced already. This is the. A new item where it was revealed to Joseph Smith on September 15 about only. Only a man and a family can only have two of a family in polygamy. He finally asked if I would not give Elle to him or Lydia Moon the younger. The younger sister. I said I would so far as I had anything to do in it. He requested me to talk to her. So again, this whole, like, going. Going through other people, other channels to get to the women. And then a couple days later, Sunday, I had some talk with Lydia. She seems to receive it kindly, but says she has promised her mother not to marry while her mother lives, and she thinks she won't. And this makes so much more sense in the context of how hard all this is on Lydia Plum, the mother.

Clayton's Own Plural Marriage Ambitions

Guest [01:25:17] I mean, I don't. I want to make sure what. What just happened here doesn't get lost on people. My understanding is William Clayton isn't satisfied having two of the Moon sisters as his wives. There's the youngest Moon sister, Lydia, who's. How old do we think?

Bryan Buchanan [01:25:36] Yeah, I don't remember.

Guest [01:25:37] I think it's 16 or something like that.

Bryan Buchanan [01:25:39] Ish.

Guest [01:25:40] Seems like, and he wants her too. He wants to sleep with three, all three of the moon sisters and marry all three of the moon sisters. As if he hasn't had enough moon family heartache and caused enough moon family heartache. And how many times his mother in law been suicidal by this point. He's going to go to her and say, I want the third daughter as well. So he goes to Joseph. I mean, he can't make this up. He goes to Joseph and says, can I have the third moon sister too? Joseph's like, let me go ask the Lord. Joseph comes back and says, oh, sorry. The Lord says, two sisters at max. And then, by the way, not a surprise, Joseph says, I guess I'd like to have her though, since, since the Lord says you can. Is it okay if I have Lydia for myself? Is that what just happened there?

Bryan Buchanan [01:26:38] So we talked about how, you know, it doesn't have to be one or the other. Joseph can be genuine at times. And then other times, things like this that seem, let's say, less than genuine. Now remember earlier he'd already married two of Benjamin F. Johnson's sisters and asked to marry the third Joseph.

Guest [01:26:56] Did he marry the third?

Bryan Buchanan [01:26:57] He did not be. Only because the third sister was already kind of engaged to someone else.

Julia [01:27:02] Yeah, it hasn't stopped Joseph in the

Bryan Buchanan [01:27:04] past, that law seems to again. Well, he said it was a new law.

Julia [01:27:09] True, true.

Bryan Buchanan [01:27:10] It wasn't in place at that point.

Julia [01:27:12] So.

Guest [01:27:12] I mean, Joseph's being a hypocrite here.

Bryan Buchanan [01:27:15] Well, and you know, part of this people are like, oh, William Clayton, he was just this pervert. It's like the first person that thought of marrying three sisters wasn't Clayton. So.

Julia [01:27:25] But also, I'd imagine it would be easier on them to go to a family who already is aware of polygamy to go and approach somebody that is already in the know rather than somebody that's not.

Bryan Buchanan [01:27:35] But in fundamentalist groups today, that's often thought of as being true. But you, I think you can also see how the opposite, depending on dynamics, could be totally true. That was the worst possible.

Guest [01:27:48] This is just outrageously scandalous. I mean, and I'm just surprised, you know, all the, the ones that are always mentioned as the most egregious examples of Joseph's behavior are Helenar Kimball and is it Sarah Whitney or Pratt, the one where the husband gets sent to Israel.

Bryan Buchanan [01:28:08] Miranda Hyde.

Guest [01:28:10] Okay, those are the two big ones, right? Helen Mark Kimball and Mirinda Hyde. To me this is on par with those, if not worse. And it's both Clayton and Joseph. But it's just if Hollywood made up this story, writers or reviewers would say it's too outlandish, too on the nose. Right. It's too outlandish. Cut this. It's ridiculous.

Bryan Buchanan [01:28:38] So again, church leaders before 1979, this hasn't been published. No one is aware of the content of the journals. Right. So when stuff like this starts to get out, this is again, like, you know, our non. Question why this takes long. This is why. Because that's what's in this journal.

Guest [01:28:57] Who wrote. Okay, so this is out by 92, right?

Bryan Buchanan [01:29:01] Yep.

Guest [01:29:02] Who is writing the article telling the story of the Moon Sisters and William Clayton and Joseph Smith? Is there a Sunstone article? Is there a dialogue article? Why isn't there a book that comes out by signature? I mean, there's Losing a Lost Tribe Eventually. There's an insider's view. Why isn't there a book that in plain language tells the scandals contained within the Clayton Diaries in a popular common language that would speak to the average member and not never Mormon, showing how outrageous and deadly these Clayton Journal stories are to the founding story of Mormonism? Why isn't this a big deal?

Bryan Buchanan [01:29:45] I mean, I think that's Todd's book,

Guest [01:29:46] though, that's In Sacred Loneliness.

Bryan Buchanan [01:29:50] And that's only. Well, I think that's 97 sisters were Joseph's wives. Right, Right.

Guest [01:29:57] About the Moon Sisters.

Bryan Buchanan [01:29:58] Yeah. So that's the thing is like, that's. That is true. You don't have kind of a concise. I mean, I'm trying to think Van Wagoner's book. I'm trying to remember if. I don't remember if he talks about the Moon Sisters.

Guest [01:30:11] I mean, I haven't even done an episode on that other than. Other than my long episode with John Turner that was named something else. Julia, we freaking need to do an LDS discussions episode dedicated to the Moon Sisters.

Julia [01:30:24] Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah.

Guest [01:30:25] This is like wild. This is a top five smoking gun.

Julia [01:30:30] Yeah.

Guest [01:30:31] Making this whole founding narrative extremely problematic.

Bryan Buchanan [01:30:35] This is just Clayton is gross.

Guest [01:30:39] Well, Joseph's in on it.

Bryan Buchanan [01:30:41] Well, later. They're made to be made.

Guest [01:30:43] No, he starts by saying a man should get all he can. Go fetch the moon, William. You know what I mean?

Bryan Buchanan [01:30:51] Well, there's all this Brigham and Heber and. And William. They're all perverts.

Julia [01:30:56] Oh, my gosh.

Bryan Buchanan [01:30:57] Don't come from a vacuum.

Guest [01:30:58] Yeah, this comes from the head.

Bryan Buchanan [01:31:01] It's not Creation X Neon.

Guest [01:31:02] The fish rots from the head.

Bryan Buchanan [01:31:03] You're saying this is matter and organized.

Guest [01:31:05] That what Were you gonna say, I want you to be able to speak.

Julia [01:31:08] Oh, I can't remember. But I. I do want to talk about these next parts, too.

Guest [01:31:12] Sorry. My rants.

Julia [01:31:13] Oh, no, these are good rants. These are good. Okay.

Bryan Buchanan [01:31:16] So you didn't think Clayton's journals were fun and interesting before, like.

Guest [01:31:20] Well, Bill Real is like, where's the beef? I'm like, what do you mean, where's the beef?

Bryan Buchanan [01:31:24] Did you read them?

Guest [01:31:26] I don't mean to mischaracterize, Bill. Julia. I don't know.

Julia [01:31:31] So this next one. So I guess Michelle Stone says that he wasn't well liked, that William Clayton. And here I can kind of see where she's coming from. He. This is December 2nd. He's really worried that he's not. He just really wants to be part of the Quorum of the Anointed. And he thinks it's Cahoon. These, like, kind of rumors about the Stonecutter stuff. And. But he writes a letter to Joseph, and it's a really long letter explaining, please, like, let me into the Quorum. He doesn't transcribe the letter here, but. And then you have the next day where I think I just missed the date. So it's December 3rd. Joseph Smith was reading his letter. That's the whole thing. That's all he writes. And then by December 5th, Joseph's like, oh, yeah, that's. There's no trouble. Like, the only reason that you hadn't been put into the Quorum was because it was not convenient. And none were admitted except by revelation. And then. And then, I guess a little bit later, he is ordained. He's part of the Quorum.

Bryan Buchanan [01:32:25] So I just thought revelation somewhere in there that I missed.

Julia [01:32:28] I didn't see one, so.

Bryan Buchanan [01:32:30] Really interesting. Yeah. Clayton. In the MHA presentation, Jeff Mahas talked about how when Orson Whitney does History of Utah, he has all these biographies of key people. And Jeff describes as he tried as hard as he could to find something interesting about Clayton. And basically what he came up with is he was punctual and he kept regular office hours. So it. Clayton does seem to be a whiner. He seems to be kind of paranoid, but he's loyal.

Julia [01:33:00] Well, hang on. I just want to say. Sometimes I say things in my journals that I would never say out loud to anybody. So to say that they're whiner or complainers, I. This is his own thoughts. I don't.

Bryan Buchanan [01:33:10] Right.

Julia [01:33:10] I don't know that we should get all nitty gritty.

Bryan Buchanan [01:33:13] Well, and that's the part of the problem again, is our concentric circles we talked about is we don't have a lot of other journals to bounce our perspective of him off of. Right. So he's constantly fighting with Reynolds Cahoon. What did Reynolds Cahoon think of him? You know, there are people who definitely in their head think that everyone hates them. And it's all. It's in their head. Right. That people are like, oh, sorry, no, you're fine. So it could just be Clayton's self perception is that he's not liked and everyone's fighting him.

Julia [01:33:48] Yeah. And Reynolds Cahoon, I will say Reynolds was also part of the polygamy inner circle and he also had a kid through polygamy as well. So I don't know how the. I don't know how these people who push against that Joseph, who was a polygamist, that. Why are all these other people having kids and not getting punished for it is an interesting thing to me. So, yeah. February. Jumping forward to 1844. This is February 18th. It says Margaret M. Began to be sick and continued to grow worse until 5 o' clock when she was delivered of a son. She did remarkably well, for which I thank my heavenly Father. Mother attended her. I was at home all day. M. Seems to do very well. So again, this is a child born in polygamy. I. And he's. He's Joseph Smith's best friend. I don't know how this can be answered, except that Joseph Smith was understood polygamy or was in on polygamy.

Joseph Smith's Death and Clayton's Legacy

Guest [01:34:38] Joseph Smith's best friend and scribe. Right.

Bryan Buchanan [01:34:43] Right Hand man is with him basically every day.

Julia [01:34:47] Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's. These are just ones that you had pointed out in your episode with Lindsay. Joseph Smith was voted. This is April 11th. Joseph Smith was voted prophet, priest and king with loud hosannas. April 13. He prophesied the entire overthrow of the nation in a few years. And of course, we all know that that came true.

Bryan Buchanan [01:35:07] So why do outsiders think that Nauvoo is getting crazy? We've got this budding theocracy with a king and who's saying things that are

Guest [01:35:19] pretty treasonous, that the government, US Government, will be overthrown.

Bryan Buchanan [01:35:23] Yeah, yeah. Again, like, it's like, yes, polygamy is in the mix, but there's a whole bunch of other stuff too.

Guest [01:35:29] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:35:29] And The Council of 50 takes on a pretty interesting. It's like, you know, this becoming this trying to be this independent theocracy in the middle of a democratic America.

Guest [01:35:38] This is why I really believe. I believe Nauvoo was heading towards Waco territory. Like David Koresh.

Bryan Buchanan [01:35:46] Saucy and kind of, you know, clickbaity. This, to me, is the more dangerous

Guest [01:35:51] treason and militias and.

Bryan Buchanan [01:35:54] Yeah.

Guest [01:35:54] You know.

Bryan Buchanan [01:35:55] Yeah.

Guest [01:35:56] Extradition and the habeas corpus stuff like.

Bryan Buchanan [01:35:59] Yeah, yeah.

Guest [01:36:00] It's gonna get deadly very soon.

Bryan Buchanan [01:36:02] The destruction of the press. The content. Yes. But it's like they destroyed the press. Like, that's what's. That's what sets Thomas Sharp off. The newspaper guy.

Guest [01:36:10] Right. Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:36:11] So that's the thing is, like, yes, polygamy is wild and crazy, and that's the reason most people know about this journal. But there are all of these other things that Clayton is commenting on, and Clayton is the scribe for the Council of 50. So, again, that's one other place where he's right at the middle of things.

Guest [01:36:28] Plus, the Naboo militia is armed to the teeth, Right. Yeah, yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:36:33] And they have started a Masonic lodge, which seems to be a way of further cementing that loyalty within the group. There's all these things that are kind of coming together that outsiders are hearing about and getting increasingly. That's. I've told people. I don't know if it's really a fair comparison, but I think the vibe of it, for anyone that's watched Wild, Wild country about the. The Osho, the Rajneeshis up in. In Oregon, I. To me, that feels like, in a modern term, like how people. Again, like, you have way more coverage, obviously, but like, how outsiders would have viewed this. This rapidly growing community with political power, with military, you know, all these things. Like, there's a lot of interesting parallels.

Guest [01:37:20] And by the end, water supplies are getting poisoned.

Bryan Buchanan [01:37:23] Yeah.

Guest [01:37:23] You know.

Bryan Buchanan [01:37:23] Yeah. It gets. It gets. Starts getting real nutso up there.

Guest [01:37:27] And there would have been a massacre if they hadn't have shipped Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh out of the country.

Bryan Buchanan [01:37:33] It was heating up fast.

Guest [01:37:35] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:37:36] That's the thing is, like, Nauvoo, you wonder, like, do they become dangerous if Joseph Smith isn't killed? Like, that's a fascinating alternate universe for so many reasons. What if Joseph lives another year? 2 years, 5 years, 10 years? Right. What happens theologically? What happens politically? What happens with polygamy? You know, Joseph seems to have gone radio silence, but others aren't. So. Yeah. Nauvoo could end up very different if

Guest [01:38:11] he hadn't been assassinated. He would have been assassinated. Like he was gonna get assassinated.

Bryan Buchanan [01:38:17] They move maybe, you know, they move to Utah somewhere.

Guest [01:38:20] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:38:20] With Joseph.

Guest [01:38:21] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:38:22] You know.

Guest [01:38:22] Yeah, yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:38:23] It doesn't Seem like there's a future in nauvoo for another 10 minutes.

Guest [01:38:28] Yeah.

Julia [01:38:28] Yeah. And then again, I want to remind people that these are not all of his journals. These are just ones that I found interesting or that Brian found interesting. So please go and read these other accounts from these places that we've shared. We have June 23rd. He's talking about how he goes to Joseph's death, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. And then he's taking in the public and private records together, and he buries them. And then June 28, after they are killed, he says, the bodies were laid out and I went to see them. And then he describes the scene, what it was like seeing them. And I just wanted to share that because it kind of gives that perspective.

Guest [01:39:01] Sorry.

Julia [01:39:01] After the bodies were laid out, I went to see them. Joseph looks very natural, except being pale through loss of blood. Hyrum does not look so natural. I can imagine why their aged mother is distracted with grief. And it will be almost more than she can bear.

Guest [01:39:18] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:39:19] One last nod to this. I think the reason. The idea that Joseph Smith is not a polygamist has irked people is because the. The most extreme end point to that is the idea that Brigham Young, John Taylor, these guys, are orchestrating Joseph Smith's murder. Like, Clayton just doesn't comment on it. He doesn't know about this. Like, that part of that, the extension of that narrative going there, I think that's really what people are like. Okay, this drives me crazy.

Julia [01:39:59] Yeah.

Guest [01:40:01] Then later, really quick, we go back to that. Sorry. Yeah, that's also. Okay. You can bring it back to me. We're all mad at Joseph Fielding Smith for ripping a page out of the 1832 version of the first vision out. Well, here we've got William Clayton being told by Joseph to hide and bury the evidence. How can subsequent church leaders. And we know Joseph Fielding Smith was the son of Joseph F. Smith, who was the son of Hyrum Smith, who was the brother of Joseph. Like, they know that Joseph Smith was okay with things being buried and hidden and destroyed. So why wouldn't Joseph Fielding Smith hide and destroy things in the 1900s? Because that's what his great uncle did.

Bryan Buchanan [01:40:50] Yeah.

Guest [01:40:51] Right.

Bryan Buchanan [01:40:51] Now, thankfully, he didn't destroy them. So.

Guest [01:40:54] And they got unburied.

Bryan Buchanan [01:40:55] Right.

Guest [01:40:56] And they did bury him.

Bryan Buchanan [01:40:57] He does bury him. But that's Clayton. It seems clear like Clayton is not doing that to bury them permanently. It's just to get him to hide them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Guest [01:41:07] Well, I thought it was burn or bury.

Bryan Buchanan [01:41:10] It is burnt or bury.

Guest [01:41:12] So that is getting rid of them permanently.

Bryan Buchanan [01:41:14] Like Joseph's intent is. He's like, why don't you burn them? And Clayton's like, I'll bury him. I'll bury him. Yeah.

Guest [01:41:21] Do you think those three Navu era journals were buried as a part of the burial or were they separate?

Bryan Buchanan [01:41:27] It doesn't seem like it. So when they unbury the Council of 50 Records, they're all water damaged and so they get copied in those books and there's discussions about, you know, are those legitimate because of that? Again, not discussions. I'm super interested in these. The condition of them is such that again, this is like, well, maybe these are copies. It's like Kinderhook plate entry again makes that so difficult.

Guest [01:41:50] I mean, I'd suggest.

Bryan Buchanan [01:41:51] And if you're doing that, why does this journal start and then skip to this one and come back like other normal journals do? Yeah, there's a lot of reasons why these. These are not great hypotheses which suggest

Guest [01:42:02] Joseph did know about them. Possibly.

Bryan Buchanan [01:42:05] Yeah.

Guest [01:42:05] Okay. Yeah, go ahead, Julie. Sorry.

Julia [01:42:07] Yeah, so I really like this. I'm going to read this one if it's okay. This is August 15th, 1844. After dinner I went to see Erb.

Guest [01:42:15] Or this is after Joseph's dead.

Julia [01:42:17] Yes. Is, er. I don't know if that's Elder Brigham Young. I have. I have his counsel. I then went to see Emma and this is a longer entry. I just shortened it for the sake because I want to talk about Emma. I found her alone and began to talk to her and tell her what I thought woods intended to do. She grew warm and said that all the business of the trustee must be presented. We had no secrets that we must keep back from the public. For she was determined to have everything settled. Now. I replied to her that there were many things that which, which I was unwilling the world should know anything about and should not lend my hand to ruin the church. That's very interesting. She then grew more angry and said I had neglected her and the business and there was nothing that had, that had President Smith's name to that that should not be investigated. She said she had no secrets nor anything she was unwilling the world to know. And then he goes on to say, he's like, I know things. He's like, I know things that you wouldn't want the world to know. And she, she said, she. She denied it. And then he says, he goes on to say, I replied to Sister Emma that I don't lie and you know better what I know. I know. And although I never have told it to any soul on earth. And she called him a liar several times. She said she called him her enemy. And then it says that it was a secret things that. Which she says that it was secret things that cost Joseph and Hiram their lives, which is very likely true. And then he says again, I would rather die than do anything to ruin the church.

Emma's Final Stance on Polygamy

Guest [01:43:51] Okay, can I tell you what I'm understanding and then have you guys tell me? So it sounds like Emma's saying we should talk about the polygamy problem with Joseph and with everyone because we have nothing to hide and it's time for everything to come out. And then it sounds like Clayton is saying, let's not talk about polygamy. It will harm the church. This is interesting except for the fact that. That Emma was complicit in polygamy. She. She would have had that as something to consider hiding as Clayton wanted it hidden. But then we know later she does lie about it and hide the polygamy happened. So this is different. This shows Emma with a different inclination about being honest about polygamy early on versus how she. What. What she ends up doing later. So are we to understand that Clayton prevailed on convincing Emma that talking openly about polygamy was a bad idea that would harm the church? And did Emma care if the church got harmed knowing that Brigham Young took it over and she hated Brigham Young and ended up wanting the Utah church to be harmed? Like, make this make sense.

Bryan Buchanan [01:45:15] There's a lot going on here. And this is outside of polygamy. I think this is one of the big selling points of Clayton's journal again is the. The messiness of the post Joseph Smith Navu. Right. Because as messy as it had been, it's. It's. Doesn't really get better.

Guest [01:45:32] Not.

Bryan Buchanan [01:45:32] We're not killing. You know, no one's dying yet. But it's. It's ugly. And while Joseph is alive, people had kind of bit their tongue about things and now they're. They're not going to do that anymore. Let me. I'm going to put on the pro Emma hat here. Here's. Here's what I see going on from her perspective. She has been so disgusted and traumatized by so many things going, most notably polygamy, that she just doesn't want to think about it anymore. Joseph is gone now, and she's like, okay, while Joseph was alive and. And the word complicit, I would reframe as reluctant acquiescence with really no other option available to her in the most limited. She was like, okay, is this enough? Can you know, will this stop it if I say yes to this? Right. So going forward, and the idea of her lying in the sense that she says things that aren't true. Yes. But again, I put it in this context of the. She has been so traumatized by this and does not want to remember this and does not want to think about how the religion that she loved and will continue to love and the husband that she loved and will continue to love, even though she was so incredibly hurt and mad about so many things, she would rather just say it never happened. And does she know that it happened? Of course she knows that it happened. And that's just like, well, you have to believe them. It's like, it's so complicated. It's. It's not this black and white thing. It's like, yes, but can you not understand why she did what she did? Does she want to re litigate all these past hurts and embarrassments? No. She was a proud woman. Like, she had a refined element of her character that Joseph definitely didn't have. You know, there were a lot of ways in which Joseph married up. You know, she was smarter, she was more refined, she was more cultured. Joseph is this rough and tumble. I want to go leg wrestle with the boys, right? And Emma wants to go writing in writing outfits and parties and balls. Like, she. She has this vision of a more cultured, refined life that definitely does not involve the embarrassments of polygamy Mormonism to her is this beautiful thing that had polygamy creep in. Does she know that Joseph Smith did it? Yes, but it's way easier to just pretend, just slice out that part of Mormonism and throw it away. So that, to me, that's what. That's the complicated dynamic that's going on. What she's. What's going on there. And she sees that Clayton has. Was part of this was an enabler. Brigham Young was part of this, was an enabler. And she sees that they are set on continuing the secret things. And she's like, joseph is no longer here. I don't have to pretend so much anymore. I don't like this. I'm not doing it. And Clayton, if you've picked Brigham Young, so we're enemies now. And of course you can. You can. You can see where Clayton comes from. You don't have to sympathize with it, I think the way that you do with how Emma acts, right? So he's like, how dare she not line up with the priesthood.

Julia [01:49:11] Yeah.

Guest [01:49:11] Julie, do you have an explanation that I want to give a thought, but

Bryan Buchanan [01:49:14] I want to give you a chance about Emma.

Guest [01:49:17] Yeah. Julie, what do you think?

Julia [01:49:19] The way I was reading that was just like her. I don't know if this is what you were saying too, but like her saying, like, I don't. I don't want to think of Joseph having lived polygamy. Almost like a denial. Like, I don't, I don't. Maybe. Maybe there's lack of evidence. I don't know. Yeah, like, I don't think. I don't want to think about him. I don't think I'm going to say he didn't live polygamy. But then you have Clayton saying, well, like, I know that you have secrets like, that you wouldn't want the world to know. I have things I don't want the world to know. I don't want to ruin the church. And so, like, yeah, I don't. It just seems like her kind of a continued narrative of like what we hear later of her telling her son that their dad wasn't a polygamist. Those are. But I don't know what.

Guest [01:49:55] Well, the I was reading is her saying, let's just come clean. But is that not what you. You read, Brian?

Bryan Buchanan [01:50:02] Yes, but her version of come clean, in which we've excised Mormonism to her is without this cut out, portion. Portion. Right. This is the Mormonism. She's like that part of Mormonism, the world needs to know about this stuff. She's like, this was bad, it happened, but I don't want to talk about it. Right. And again, part of it. I think you also have to add in that element where, you know, the, the extradition, all the craziness there. Emma didn't know about it. And that's part of what Clayton is like. It's actually even more complicated than you know about. And so that's part of it too. And you can. I can totally see how this conversation started with them both fairly calm and Joseph was kind of the buffer or was the reason we didn't always bluntly say things, take him out. I think tempers flared in that conversation and they were. They both went 0 to 100 and after that they're no longer friends.

Guest [01:51:05] The one thing that occurs to me is that the novel Exposure, you know, William Law and several other high level church leaders would have disaffected by this point. The Nauvoo Expositor would have been published by this point. Joseph would have been killed by this point. It seems like it very easily could have occurred to Emma. It's all out. The secrets are out. It's out in the public. Everybody knows Joseph's been killed. Let's just stop with the ruse and let's just own up to what happened.

Bryan Buchanan [01:51:38] It's almost like there's two. She's saying two opposing, simultaneous things where it's like these things happened and they suck and they didn't happen. Right. Like, I can see her compartmentalizing, kind of starting here, where it's like, to her, these things happened but didn't happen.

Guest [01:52:03] Or maybe they shouldn't define the movement.

Bryan Buchanan [01:52:05] Exactly. This, to her, is not Mormonism. Right. And that's why the. The movement under her son, eventually, her son will explicitly reject these secret things.

Guest [01:52:17] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:52:17] Now, the way they go about it is. Is eventually like saying they didn't happen.

Guest [01:52:22] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:52:22] And of course, it's like, okay, yes, that's not true. But, like, you know, the idea of Emma lied or believe Emma, it's like those are black and white ways of looking at that. That it's. It's just so much more complicated, as it always.

Guest [01:52:39] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:52:40] And that's always the historian cop out. Right. It's like there's context that's complicated. Well, it was. And you. You can't say, well, we have to believe Emma. What do you mean by that? Like, again, like, I believe Emma in the sense of everything we just talked about. So, yeah, there's.

Julia [01:53:02] There's a couple more sentences from that journal entry that I wanted to share. He says, I had told her I had run at her call night and day whenever I could get a chance and have suffered abuses which I never would have borne for any other woman in the world. And then the very last line, he says he explained he. Because he's talking about how Emma's friends are not really her friends, and she's blind and she doesn't know what's good for her. And then he says, I went and told President Young the whole circumstance. And he told me to fear not, but rejoice. And I just thought that was really interesting. But. But, yeah, the relationship between. Between William Clayton and Emma seems like it was like they were. They seem close to. And she seems really hurt by his choosing Brigham.

Bryan Buchanan [01:53:40] I think they were friends, but in a sense, they were sort of friends in law with Joseph as the. The middle. The connector right there. And when he's out of it, it's like, I think they start realizing, oh, our relationship wasn't what we thought it was. And you also. I Think you can pretty clearly see there Clayton being like, this woman. How dare she talk to the priesthood that way? Like, that is pretty clearly going on. And, you know, and that's Clayton. That's her. The nature of his interactions with Emma, Brigham's interactions with Emma, Brigham, all of those things are intensified. Right. How dare a woman talk to the priesthood this way? That will be far more blunt and explicit with him. And then also, like, he doesn't have that relationship, however close it might have been to Emma, that Clayton did. Right. Again, like, Brigham is so fascinating as a successor because he is like, the successor of the ideals and practices. He's not the friend. Right. That's where William Marks comes in, who Emma genuinely had a friendship with, it seems, and a stake president had a claim, you know, so there's those dynamics, too, and that Clayton will talk about as those get resolved.

Julia [01:55:01] Okay, so we have two more entries that I want to talk about.

Guest [01:55:06] Julie's nerding out here. It's great. Keep going.

Julia [01:55:10] There's two more entries, I think, that are really interesting. He's got a June 28th one where it says, a new revelation. And even though he follows Brigham Young, he records a new revelation has come to light from Mother Smith, corrected and altered by William Smith. By William Smith, so as to suit his wishes by representing him as the legal successor of Joseph in the presidency. Yeah.

Guest [01:55:31] Oh, yeah. Clayton is claiming that Lucy, Mother Lucy. Lucy Mack Smith is declaring William Smith the one Joseph had misfits with.

Julia [01:55:45] Yep.

Guest [01:55:46] Can you imagine the church with William as prophet if Joseph was bad boy,

Bryan Buchanan [01:55:53] William was a loose cannon in a lot of ways. Speaking of a guy that no one actually liked. Man, that guy every place, like, go away, William. You're nuts.

Guest [01:56:02] But Lucy's claiming a revelation, that there's

Bryan Buchanan [01:56:06] a revelation that she, a woman, received.

Guest [01:56:10] Oh, that's scandalous.

Bryan Buchanan [01:56:13] Do you want to take bets on how Brigham thinks about a woman having a revelation about William Smith who they already don't like and who has already caused problems and who hasn't really been in Nauvoo?

Nemo [01:56:29] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:56:29] So, again, like the dynamics of the post Joseph Smith, Nauvoo are, again, no better place than Clayton's journal for that.

Guest [01:56:37] How is it the church never taught its members that Joseph's mom felt like Joseph's brother William should be the rightful successor? How is the church never mentioned that to any of us?

Bryan Buchanan [01:56:48] Yeah, I can't imagine why they wouldn't want to be like, hey, Smith family lineal rule. Not that any other religious group will have that at the center of their identity.

Guest [01:57:00] Gosh.

Bryan Buchanan [01:57:01] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Guest [01:57:03] Okay. All right, Julia.

The Carthage Jail and Aftermath

Julia [01:57:05] So I think this last one. Brian, I think you added this one, if I'm not mistaken.

Bryan Buchanan [01:57:08] Oh, man. Is great. So our guy, sheriff back is. Is back. So remember, he's non Mormon. He's been elected with Mormon support. And he's not just the Mormon sheriff. He's the sheriff of the whole county. So he comes back to Nauvoo with quite a tale. So Brigham's like, oh, geez back. And Stosis here, he's got a story. Come, come, listen. So he says the mob drove him from his home in Carthage yesterday. He goes down to Warsaw. So down the river, this is where Thomas Sharp. Who the newspaper guy who was really not a fan of Joseph and his political ambitions and all this stuff, and more than anyone inflames public opinion about Joseph Smith outside of Nauvoo, right? So he back in Stosis there. But he's like, there is no way I get out of here alive, okay? Nauvoo is kind of the frontier. Like, today it's Midwest. But, like, this is. This is Wild west stuff. Do you know? This is the.

Guest [01:58:05] The.

Bryan Buchanan [01:58:05] The dudes that run. That run the town. And he talks one of the influential mobocrats to escort him out of Warsaw. So he's leaving, but here comes the bad dudes, right? And they're hot on his tail. The only reason he survives is because one of the guys's horse trips and he goes flying off his horse. And so it fortunately happened that who does he come upon but Porter Rockwell, who already has the reputation of Porter Rockwell, right? Lilburn Boggs. Maybe he tried to kill him, maybe he didn't. But it's already. People know Rockwell is a. Is a bad dude. And if you're in trouble, you want Rockwell on your team, right? So he's like, guys, they're chasing me. Guys, help me. Help me. The sheriff. So he gets them when back and still came up to him. Porter shouted him and asked him what was the matter. He replied the mob were after him to kill him. And pointing towards them, guys, come save me. And they get close, and Porter's like, don't be scared. They've. They had 52 with a meaning, 52 shots. He's like, I got more ammo than these guys. We can take care of him. Porter's never scared of dudes, right? So eventually they. They shoot one of the dudes. Last sentence. It is pretty certain the man is killed. And then the next day, Clayton will report, oh, the Guy that got killed was Frank Worrell. So he is part of the Carthage Greys. So this is the group that protects Joseph and Hyrum at the jail. This is like. This is the. The foxes guarding the hen house. Right. You couldn't. If you actually want to protect Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith and others there having in the Carthage Greys as the militia there to protect him. This is a terrible idea. So he's apparently one of the guys that's there and orchestrates the actual murders of Joseph and Iron Smith. That's the guy that gets killed. Now, remember, he's the guy that had gone with Joseph to Porter Rockwell's mom's house while Porter's still in jail and gives her money.

Julia [02:00:13] Oh, yes.

Bryan Buchanan [02:00:14] Seems like Porter, he's like, hey, Porter,

Guest [02:00:16] remember when I helped out your mom?

Bryan Buchanan [02:00:18] Can you come make it so I don't die? So we knew about this story, but Clayton's reporting of it that he hears from back and stills was new, so that was wild.

Julia [02:00:30] Wow.

Guest [02:00:31] Side question. I was surprised that John Turner doesn't conclude his a belief that Porter Rockwell fired the. The shots.

Bryan Buchanan [02:00:42] Yeah.

Guest [02:00:43] What is your opinion? Do you have an opinion?

Bryan Buchanan [02:00:46] There doesn't really seem to be another good candidate. Like, I don't believe they ever bring forward another credible suspect. So he is there.

Guest [02:00:56] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [02:00:58] I think you can make a really plausible case either way that he was there and it's just wrong place, wrong time. He had nothing to do with it. If I have to pick someone, I think it's probably likely.

Guest [02:01:11] I think his point is there isn't enough evidence.

Bryan Buchanan [02:01:13] Yeah. It's the kind of thing, like, you know, if I have to pick somebody. Okay. But if, as a historian, can I.

Guest [02:01:20] Not enough evidence.

Bryan Buchanan [02:01:21] Yeah. Can I responsibly say that he did it? No.

Guest [02:01:23] Okay.

Bryan Buchanan [02:01:24] Yeah, I. I totally understand why in a biography, you know, if you're talking to John over drinks one night, you're like, all right, somebody tried to shoot him, John. Who do you think it was? You know, that's a different. That's a different scenario, different answer. And I don't know, they would answer differently, but yeah, you know, yeah, that's. That. You can't. You can't. You can't prove it.

Guest [02:01:44] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [02:01:45] So certainly plausible.

Guest [02:01:48] Oh, man. Five and a half hours, Julia.

Julia [02:01:51] Yeah, I know.

Guest [02:01:53] But also fascinating if anybody who makes it to the end and listens to 5 hours and 20 minutes, come to Benchmark Books and you can get a 10% off of a book.

Bryan Buchanan [02:02:05] Yeah. It's going to say you deserve to Come get a book. No, that's really like. I know this was long, but I hope people a have an understanding now if you didn't already why the Clayton journals are so fascinating and controversial and why the publication was so long and

Guest [02:02:25] all of it's still not published.

Bryan Buchanan [02:02:27] We're getting there. I know it's like just, just be a little more patient. We'll have them and they'll be great and it'll be a meticulous transcript with great footnotes and it'll be, it will be so nice. And you know who'd be the first people who will say we are so happy this is out will be the editors. No one.

Guest [02:02:44] Robin Jensen. And who.

Bryan Buchanan [02:02:46] So you have Robin Jensen, you have Jeff Mahas, you have Alex Smith and Brandon Metcalfe I think are the four editors. All top notch dudes, tons of background in Joseph Smith and Nauvoo and all of the things necessary to do this. So one of the interesting things is there are a bunch of symbols and you know, weird things like the one where it seems to be WC backwards. All right. But there are others where it's not entirely clear. You can guess. But I think that will be a helpful place where these guys will take their background and be like, here we go. Let me lay out what's going on here. So that will be fantastic. I cannot wait to do the kickoff event for that at Benchmark. That will be a freaking packed house.

Guest [02:03:32] They'll come and, and I think so sign books.

Bryan Buchanan [02:03:35] I yeah, we've done lots of stuff with them and with you know, other historical department Joseph Smith papers things. So that will be so nice. And it is kind of interesting that this transcript has come out now because people can see it all and see okay, yeah, no, they're, they're not hiding other stuff. The rest of it is like is. Is largely more the mundane details.

Guest [02:04:02] So the stuff that hasn't yet been published, that would have just been released. So first of all you believe that it's a complete manuscript. The, the one that totally.

Bryan Buchanan [02:04:13] There's no reason to believe that this I totally authentic.

Guest [02:04:16] Okay.

Bryan Buchanan [02:04:17] Yeah. I think this is the, the Dean and Jesse Jim Allen.

Guest [02:04:20] And you're saying for the most part they've already released the, the interesting stuff has already been released for 30, 40 years.

Bryan Buchanan [02:04:26] These guys, early when, you know, they announced they could do it, I'm like, is it fair to say that given because multiple people had a crack at them, isn't it fair to say that 95% of the juicy stuff is already out there? And they're like, yeah. In fact, I think in one of their presentations, they address that exact thing in like, 98%.

Guest [02:04:43] You're saying the editors.

Bryan Buchanan [02:04:44] Yeah, yeah.

Guest [02:04:46] And I wonder if they're bummed that this kind of steals the thunder of next year's release.

Bryan Buchanan [02:04:51] I mean, I don't know how you wouldn't be.

Guest [02:04:53] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [02:04:54] And again, it's like, if you've never worked on making an academic book happen, you have no idea how complicated and long of a process and how much of your time was invested in that. That will never come back to you in dollars. That's. It's so funny at the store, people walk in sometime and look around. I'm like, man, these authors must just clean up. And you want to flip them off. If you had any idea how the ratio of money, like, if you worked it out, how much you make per hour working on stuff like this, it's an offensive thing to say. So. Yeah. That's the thing that bums me out about this is like, Dean and Jim put in a lot of work. Did they want their transcript to come out like this? No way. No possible way. And all these guys that have worked on this edition to be, you know, I mean, not really scooped, but kind of.

Publication History and Significance of the Journals

Guest [02:05:50] That's a bummer.

Bryan Buchanan [02:05:50] It's. It's just not cool. And. Yeah.

Guest [02:05:54] So that's part of why people are upset at the way this was leaked

Bryan Buchanan [02:05:57] to historical community is like, really? Come on now. Again, it's like, again, everyone gets it. Everyone wants the Clayton journals. We wanted them a long time ago.

Guest [02:06:10] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [02:06:10] And we're access policies responsible for this. Yeah. But again, like, you can. You can. Even if you don't sympathize with why, you can understand why. Right. And that's what history does. Like, you don't have to sympathize with polygamy to understand what's going on. Right. You don't have to like it. No one's saying that same kind of thing here. Like, you don't have to, like, why it took so long for this to come out. But with all this background, I hope you can understand why. And again, I say that it's like, this is like, from the hot. The church leader level, why this was so complicated and. And be right there. Like, all of those entries, like we said, are. They're not so. They are salacious. They are.

Guest [02:06:58] Yeah. No, they are wild.

Bryan Buchanan [02:07:00] So why didn't they release this?

Guest [02:07:03] I. I hope because it's giving you, again, outrageously scandalous.

Bryan Buchanan [02:07:08] It really is.

Guest [02:07:09] Yeah, it really is. And and again, people are mad because. Because, number one, it was obtained unethically.

Bryan Buchanan [02:07:19] Sure seems like it.

Guest [02:07:20] It was. When it was released. It was shrouded in conspiracy theory framings, broader historical community reject and probably despise and then really disrespected the work of the four editors who worked so hard to actually produce.

Bryan Buchanan [02:07:43] They wanted to take this long. Of course not.

Guest [02:07:46] Yeah, yeah. It's not their fault. Yeah, yeah.

Closing Reflections and Final Thoughts

Bryan Buchanan [02:07:48] So now I do. I do want to talk for a minute about people who are troubled by polygamy. Because you should be troubled by polygamy. I get it, and I totally understand why. The idea that Joseph Smith was not a polygamist is so welcome and refreshing. And it does. Like, if you listen to Michelle and Karen and others talk about this, they talk about, like, this burden being lifted. Totally get it. Completely, thoroughly get it. So, yeah, like, if you are troubled by polygamy, I am genuinely sorry.

Guest [02:08:26] It's not just troubled by polygamy. It's troubled by Joseph Smith's behavior. Right. His sexual predation.

Bryan Buchanan [02:08:33] You know, and I do understand, like, if you are a faithful LDS Mormon to this day, like, the idea that, well, not Joseph, but Brigham, that's not super helpful. But if your religious worldview is Mormonism, in which, if it wasn't Joseph and, you know, like, a lot of other things, things got corrupted down the road. Again, like, I totally understand why this is so welcome to you. I get that. I do. The problem is, is within a historical setting, dealing with pseudo history and shoddy methods is not a good answer. Again, like, I. I can. I can totally see like. Like Emma, you know, was that the best course of action of how to deal with the past? Probably not. But I'm not going to sit here and blame Emma for that. Again, I completely understand why she did it, and I'm not going to blame her. So this is a troubling subject. There's a reason that Carolyn Pearson writes the Ghost of Eternal Polygamy and it sells a bajillion copies. And people love it because it. It gives that voice to that. That unease and discomfort and hatred of this.

Guest [02:09:57] It still surprises me. And I was going to say Julius or somebody, some listener, viewer, just like Lindsay and Brian did. Year of polygamy. Somebody should do a year of the William Clayton journals and just slowly go through.

Bryan Buchanan [02:10:13] You could read, okay, maybe not at office or ditto, ditto entries. But, like, the substantive entries, one by one. I mean, we tried hard, but to

Guest [02:10:23] provide the background, right? Oh, is that part of what y' all did? In your series.

Bryan Buchanan [02:10:26] No, no, no, no, no, no. That was. We, we. We went in way more depth on some of the content here.

Guest [02:10:30] Yeah. Oh, today, six hours. Yeah. But, but like somebody. Like the fact that this didn't. Like, first of all, I'm not trying to take the church down. I don't want it to take the church down. But the fact that this comes out and doesn't. In the 90s or whatever or 80s and doesn't take the church down. Well, one, is a testament to how resilient faith is. But two, it's. It's mind blowing to me. But, but now it's going to be released by the church by next year and it'll be my. It'll be mind blowing again that most members will never really learn about this or really think about it. And that when a big stink is made and all the TikTok episodes and Instagram Reels and YouTube videos come out and this is dissected and picked apart and discussed ad nauseam, it'll still be mind blowing that it doesn't take down Joseph Smith in the eyes of, of the membership in a significant way because it's so outrageously scandalous. And the church is going to be publishing the journal that to many would put the stake in the heart of a credible Joseph Smith, but it won't.

Bryan Buchanan [02:11:51] Did they have to do this? No. Did they have to release the journals ever? They don't have to. It took a long time. Again, I try to be fair, like a bunch of people. I wish it had happened earlier, but kudos to them for publishing it full on all of the journals, not redacting things with footnotes and introductions and all of these things like that is a sticky wicket, if there were ever a sticky wicket. So to do it, that's. That's commendable.

Guest [02:12:29] The 180 years. How many years?

Bryan Buchanan [02:12:34] Yeah. So, I mean, the 1846 is sort of your endpoint of those Nauvoo journals. So exactly

Guest [02:12:42] what were you going to say, Julia?

Julia [02:12:44] Oh, I was also just going to say, like, I'm really grateful for platforms like this where people. I don't. I think it's hard to like, pick up a book like this and read it. And I don't. I'm sure that Yale one will be just as big. But like, I'm grateful for platforms like this where people can consume it really quickly or jump to certain stuff spots and then. Because I don't have to sit in relative term. Yeah, well.

Guest [02:13:06] Well, I'm grateful that, like, I was visiting my dad in Florida who's 92 years old, and all this stuff happens and I'm getting texts and without me lifting a finger, Julia, you and Nemo and Brian all circle the wagons and just in a few days you come up with such a gripping and interesting and informative and important treatment of a really important discovery, you know, and again, I'm over 20 years or 30 years into learning about this stuff and I'm learning a mountain of new things. I had no idea, you know?

Julia [02:13:43] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [02:13:43] If you don't find Mormon history interesting, I can't help you, man.

Guest [02:13:49] So, Julia, thank you so much.

Julia [02:13:52] Yeah, this has been so fun. I really. This is. This topic is so interesting to me. This is so good.

Guest [02:13:57] And Brian, thank you so much for making this happen. Thank you.

Bryan Buchanan [02:14:01] These episodes we did on our podcast I think are still probably my favorite. So I was more than happy to come talk about it again because again, it's like you have the journals themselves, but then you have the backstory and I love both of them.

Guest [02:14:13] Yeah. And also Nemo had to go to bed because it was 1am or 2am by the time he signed off. So. We love you, Nemo. Sorry. Sorry we outlasted you, but thanks for all you did. So, Julie, anything you want to tell people to close?

Julia [02:14:29] No, I just think this is super fascinating. Like, I don't. I. Especially going through this with you, Brian, and seeing like the exact history and how the. How long the church has had this and how like different parts have come out. I. And then reading the journals themselves and how like much emotion there is and then like even just something as simple as those kinderhook plates, I don't see any way that this is not a contemporaneous document or there was a later fabrication. And like. And I don't see a lot of. About Brigham's relationship with William Clayton, so it doesn't really feel like he'd be in on anything. And Joseph's always in these journals, so I don't. I don't really see how this doesn't expose Joseph Smith's polygamy.

Bryan Buchanan [02:15:06] But the angle of this discussion is not really what I wanted to talk about, but being that that was the context and why we're talking about it now. Yeah, it's Mormon history. Endlessly interesting. And again, like pushing back and re examining and things. Totally good.

Guest [02:15:26] It's a big deal. The polygamy deniers. Joseph Smith, polygamy deniers. It's a big deal right now in the modern Mormon Church.

Bryan Buchanan [02:15:34] Yep.

Guest [02:15:34] It's not a Small deal.

Bryan Buchanan [02:15:36] It is.

Julia [02:15:36] No, I, the people are in my comments on my, on my reels all the time, just pushing against the, this, this narrative of Joseph Smith being a polygamist.

Guest [02:15:44] I'm getting out with Michael Jackson, too. I like mention that Michael Jackson abused some kids. I've gotten so many YouTube comments where people are furious that I would endorse that clearly false accusation. Even though he's admitted on camera, there's nothing wrong with sleeping with children.

Julia [02:16:06] Oh, my gosh.

Bryan Buchanan [02:16:07] Don't know what to tell you people.

Guest [02:16:10] Sorry, everyone. Like, Michael Jackson slept with little boys. He just did, you know. Anyway. All right, well, Julia, so check out Analyzing Mormonism. Right, Julia?

Julia [02:16:22] Yeah, yeah. On all the platforms. Yeah. Analyzing Mormonism.

Guest [02:16:25] And check out Benchmark books and Sunstone history podcast and your polygamy.

Bryan Buchanan [02:16:32] Yep. Yeah, come see me. Come buy a book. You can, we can, we can talk about stuff. Yeah, that's. I kind of like Julie said, like, I realize not everyone has it in them to go read more about it, but some of you will be interested. Come buy some stuff.

Guest [02:16:49] For sure.

Bryan Buchanan [02:16:50] You know, when the Yale edition comes out here, you know, pretty soon don't get it from Amazon. They're not going to get you a signed copy. You can't ask the editors questions. With Jeff Bezos platform, I'm a benchmark.

Guest [02:17:02] If people want to bring you some candy or a tree, do you have a favorite candy or snack or treat?

Bryan Buchanan [02:17:09] Just about anything, really. The, the Willy Wonka stuff. You know, runts, Gobstoppers. These kids today, they all want chewy candy. Get out of here. We want hard stuff that breaks your teeth.

Guest [02:17:21] All right, so here's the deal. If, if you bring Brian Buchanan some Gobstoppers, I will find time to take you out to ice cream or pizza

Bryan Buchanan [02:17:32] or as far as ice cream. And then you can tell all the people at the counter about their history.

Guest [02:17:37] All right, well, thanks for joining us today. I'm Warm Stories. Thanks again, Brian. Thanks again, Julia Nemo. And thanks to everyone who joined us today. Again, this is episode 70. Whatever in a, in a 70 plus episode series called LDS discussions. You can go to LDS discussions.com to read Mike's original essays. Again, this series is best consumed in sequence. Share it like it. Start from the beginning. I promise you it's one of the most important things Mormon Stories ever did. So check out the LDS Discussion series. Thanks to all the donors that make all this possible. If you don't donate and you value the LDS Discussion series and you want to see continue, because we pay Brian and Julia and Nemo and Colby when he participates. Please donate to keep this series alive. MormonStories.org donate we're also in a legal battle. If you want to support our legal fund mormonstories.org legal we'll have some news coming out next week that we think you'll want to. Well, by the time this airs, it may not. It'll be last week. So anyway, thanks to everyone who supports us. Please like subscribe Comment love your emails mormonstories gmail.com check out 132 problems Michelle we love you. Karen we love you Guy that we're not mentioning. I don't know you, but I'm sure you're awesome too. But thanks for being good sports as we just share our perspectives. Maybe we'll have unnamed Guy and Michelle on later to give their perspective. We'll see. I want to know what their arguments would be to all this because this seems overwhelming, but they could surprise me. Anyway, thanks for joining us. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. We'll see you all again soon on another episode of LDS Discussions and Mormon Stories Podcast. Take care everybody.