User talk:Stoutmtc

Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia, as you did to Alexander William Doniphan. Your edits appear to constitute vandalism and have been reverted. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you.

The information is referenced, it stays.

> Best O Fortuna (talk) 03:30, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Alexander William Doniphan

Hi Best O Fortuna. I agree with you that Muench's book says "Smith's neighbors... feared... polygamy" as cited. However, Muench doesn't cite his source for the assertion. In addition, the statement in Muench merely implies polygamy was a problem in 1833 by its placement in his chapter on Doniphan. The current wording of the Doniphan article does more than imply polygamy was a significant contributor to Missourian fears in 1833.

The topic of the beginnings of Mormon polygamy has been heavily researched and there is no contemporary documention that polygamy was attributed to Mormons in the 1833 timeframe. Todd Compton's 1997 "In Sacred Loneliness" is only able to make a circumstantial case that Joseph Smith may have entered into a plural marriage with Fanny Alger by 1833 (Compton, pp. 25-42). Richard Bushman's 2005 "Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling" acknowledges rumors were circulating by 1835 (Bushman, p. 323) as referenced in the LDS-issued 1835 "Article on Marriage," but the rumors themselves are not extant and may have been due to confusion between Mormons and contemporary radical sects (e.g., marital experiments on the part of Noyes' Oneida community and the followers of Jacob Cochran). Mormon Jared Carter sought a second wife in 1835 (Compton, p. 39), but he was specifically disciplined for doing so. Assertions by believers that Joseph Smith taught plural marriage circa 1831-1832 are only documented after Brigham Young publicly announced the practice of polygamy in 1857 (the Wikipedia article on "Origin of Latter Day Saint polygamy" documents the late date of these assertions in the footnotes).

By 1838 Oliver Cowdery was accusing Joseph Smith of conducting a "dirty, nasty, filthy affair" with Fanny Alger, as he wrote to Warren A. Cowdery on Jan 21 1838 (Cowdery Letter Book), but an 1838 allegation of an affair is not reason in 1833 for Missourians to evict their Mormon neighbors. The first affirmed plural marriage didn't occur until April 1841 and was not publically documented at the time (George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy, 2008, p. 1; Compton, pp. 55-70; Bushman, pp. 437-439). It was not until John C. Bennett's 1842 letters in the Sangamo Journal and his "THE HISTORY OF THE SAINTS ; Or, An Exposé of JOE SMITH And MORMONISM" that Mormons were publicly linked with polygamy in writing. Of academic interest, Bennett biographer, Andrew Smith, makes clear that Bennett's 1842 accusations didn't capture the actual nature of Joseph Smith's polygamous practices (The Saintly Scoundrel, Smith, 1997, p. 138).

So, Muench says what he says about the fears that caused the initial clash between old-time Missourians and the Mormons. But he didn't cite sources and no primary sources document polygamy as a prominent fear in the events of 1833.

My removal of the words about polygamy as a fear in 1833 was not inspired by a desire to vandalize the page, merely by a desire to avoid strengthening and promulgating simplifications of history that are not supported by primary documents.

Stoutmtc (talk) 07:03, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Moving pages

Please see the moving a page article to find out how to move pages without administrator assistance at the requested moves page. Thanks Themeparkgc Talk 00:38, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Gideon Carter?

Hi-

I was going through old, abandoned AfC drafts to clean the database a bit and found your Gideon Carter article. It seems like it has a lot of potential--do you think you'd continue it? Just curious.

Thanks, 68.40.187.150 (talk) 04:27, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]