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Desdemona Wadsworth Fullmer Smith
Joseph Smith (1805–1844), founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, taught and practiced polygamy during his ministry, and married multiple women during his lifetime. Smith and some of the leading quorums of the church he founded publicly denied he taught or practiced it.''Millennial Star'' 4 anuary 1844 144. In 1852, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) acknowledged that Smith had practiced plural marriage and produced a written revelation of Smith's that authorizes its practice. Smith's lawful widow Emma Smith, his son Joseph Smith III, and most members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church) attempted for years to refute the evidence of plural marriages. They pointed to the historical record that Joseph Smith publicly opposed the practice of polygamy; the suggestion of the RLDS Church was that the practice of polygamy began in Utah under the leadership of Brigham Young. The first publication ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he was 24, Smith published the Book of Mormon. By the time of his death, 14 years later, he had attracted tens of thousands of followers and founded a religion that continues to the present with millions of global adherents. Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont. By 1817, he had moved with his family to Western New York, the site of intense religious revivalism during the Second Great Awakening. Smith said he experienced a series of visions, including one in 1820 during which he saw "two personages" (whom he eventually described as God the Father and Jesus Christ), and another in 1823 in which an angel directed him to a buried book of golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an ancient American civilization. In 1830, Smith published what he said was an English translation of these plates called the ''Book of Mormo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Todd Compton
Todd Merlin Compton (born 1952) is an American historian in the fields of Mormon history and classics. Compton is a respected authority on the plural wives of the LDS Church founder, Joseph Smith. Biographical background Compton is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsSmith, Julie M. "An Interview with Todd Compton". http://www.timesandseasons.org/?p=2826. Accessed 1 November 2007. who lived for a number of years in Santa Monica, California. He has served an LDS mission to Ireland. He studied violin with Richard Nibley and has played electric violin with singer-songwriter Mark Davis. In 1982 he completed a master's degree from Brigham Young University. He later received a Ph.D. from UCLA in classics (concentrating on Greek and Indo-European mythology) which he taught for a year at USC. He also taught at UCLA and California State University, Northridge. He has been an independent researcher since 1993, drawing a regular income by working as an ADS specialist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oliver Cowdery
Oliver H. P. Cowdery (October 3, 1806 – March 3, 1850) was an American Mormon leader who, with Joseph Smith, was an important participant in the formative period of the Latter Day Saint movement between 1829 and 1836. He was the first baptized Latter Day Saint, one of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon's golden plates, one of the first Latter Day Saint apostles, and the Second Elder of the church. In 1838, as Assistant President of the Church, Cowdery resigned and was excommunicated on charges of denying the faith. Cowdery claimed Joseph Smith had been engaging in a sexual relationship with Fanny Alger, a teenage servant in his home. Cowdery became a Methodist, and then in 1848, he returned to the Latter Day Saint movement. Biography Early life Cowdery was born October 3, 1806, in Wells, Vermont. His father, William, a farmer, moved the family to Poultney in Rutland County, Vermont, when Cowdery was three. (Cowdery's mother Rebecca Fuller Cowdery died on September 3 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warren Parish
Warren F. Parrish (January 10, 1803 – January 3, 1877) was a leader in the early Latter Day Saint movement. Parrish held a number of positions of responsibility, including that of scribe to church president Joseph Smith. Parrish and other leaders became disillusioned with Smith after the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society and left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Upon leaving, he went to Kirtland, Ohio, with the other disaffected former church leaders and formed a short-lived church which they called the ''Church of Christ'', after the original name of the church organized by Smith. This church disintegrated as the result of disagreement between church leaders, and Parrish later left Kirtland and became a Baptist minister. Activity in Latter Day Saint church Baptism by Brigham Young Parrish married Elizabeth Patten, the sister of David W. Patten, one of the original Latter Day Saint apostles. Patten records that on "May 20, 1833, brother Brigham Young came t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fanny Alger
Frances Ward ("Fanny") Alger Custer (September 30, 1817 – November 29, 1889) was possibly the first plural wife of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. Biography Alger was born to Samuel Alger and Clarissa Hancock on September 30, 1817, in Rehoboth, Bristol County, Massachusetts, the fourth of eleven children. Samuel was a carpenter who had built a house for the father of future Church of Christ leader Heber C. Kimball. Clarissa was a sister of Levi W. Hancock, a stalwart member of what was to become the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Algers first moved to Ashtabula, Ohio, and then to Mayfield, Ohio, ten miles southwest of the Mormon settlement at Kirtland, Ohio. In 1830, Samuel (and apparently Clarissa) were baptized into Mormonism and thus became some of its earliest converts. In September 1836, after Fanny had spent some time as a teenage servant in the home of Joseph and Emma Smith, the Algers left Kirtland. Joseph Smith asked F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ensign (LDS Magazine)
''The Ensign of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints'', commonly shortened to ''Ensign'' ( ), was an official periodical of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1971 to 2020. The magazine was first issued in January 1971, along with the correlated '' New Era'' (for youth) and the ''Friend'' (for children). Each of these magazines replaced the older church publications ''The Improvement Era'', '' Relief Society Magazine'', ''The Instructor'', and the '' Millennial Star''. Unlike some of its predecessors, the ''Ensign'' contained no advertisements. As an official church publication, the ''Ensign'' contained faith-promoting and proselytizing information, stories, sermons, and writings of church leaders. For many years, the May and November editions of the ''Ensign'' provided reports of the proceedings of the church's annual and semi-annual general conferences. These issues contain the full sermons and business of the conferences, as well as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sealing (Mormonism)
Sealing is an ordinance (ritual) performed in Latter Day Saint temples by a person holding the sealing authority. The purpose of this ordinance is to seal familial relationships, making possible the existence of family relationships throughout eternity. Sealings are typically performed as marriages or as sealing of children to parents. They were performed prior to the death of Joseph Smith (the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement), and are currently performed in the largest of the faiths that came from the movement, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). LDS Church teachings place great importance on the specific authority required to perform these sealings. Church doctrine teaches that this authority, called the priesthood, corresponds to that given to Saint Peter in . Sealings Faithful Latter Day Saints believe civil marriages are dissolved at death, but that a couple who has been sealed in a temple will be married beyond physical death and the res ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saints' Herald
''Herald'' (formerly ''The True Latter Day Saints' Herald'' and ''The Saints' Herald'') is the official periodical of Community of Christ. It is published monthly in English in Independence, Missouri, by Herald House Publishing. ''The True Latter Day Saints' Herald'' was first published in January 1860, at Cincinnati, Ohio, as the official newspaper of the newly organized Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church). Its editor was Isaac Sheen. In March 1863, publication moved to Plano, Illinois, and in November 1881 to Lamoni, Iowa. In May 1921 the publication moved to its current location in Independence, Missouri. The ''Herald'' has had several name changes in its history: , May 2010, s.v. "Herald". *''T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Seer (periodical)
''The Seer'' was an official periodical of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) which first appeared in 1853 and was published throughout 1854. History of publication After the LDS Church publicly acknowledged that it was teaching and practicing plural marriage at its September 1852 conference, LDS Church president Brigham Young dispatched apostle Orson Pratt to Washington, D.C., where he was asked to publish an apologetic magazine targeted at non-Mormons. The primary purpose of the magazine would be to explain and defend the principles of Mormonism. The first edition of ''The Seer'' was published in January 1853, with future editions being produced monthly. The contents of ''The Seer'' were composed almost entirely of original writings by Pratt. Throughout its publication history, the majority of Pratt's writing stressed the rationality of the doctrine of plural marriage. For example, Pratt dedicated 107 of the 192 total pages of ''The Seer'' to a twelve- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orson Pratt
Orson Pratt Sr. (September 19, 1811 – October 3, 1881) was an American mathematician and religious leader who was an original member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Christ (Latter Day Saints). He became a member of the Quorum of the Twelve of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and was a leading Mormon theologian and writer until his death. Church membership and service Pratt was born in Hartford, New York, the son of Jared Pratt and Charity Dickenson. He was the younger brother of Parley P. Pratt, who introduced him to the LDS Church and baptized him on Orson's nineteenth birthday, September 19, 1830, in Canaan, New York. Pratt was ordained an Elder several months later, on December 1, 1830, by Joseph Smith and immediately set out for Colesville, New York, his first mission. This was the first of a number of short missions in which Pratt visited New York, Ohio, Missouri, and the Eastern States. On February 2, 1832, he was o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emma Hale
Emma Hale Smith Bidamon (July 10, 1804 – April 30, 1879) was an American homesteader, the official wife of Joseph Smith, and a prominent leader in the early days of the Latter Day Saint movement, both during Smith's lifetime and afterward as a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church). In 1842, when the Ladies' Relief Society of Nauvoo was formed as a women's service organization, she was elected by its members as the organization's first president. After the killing of Joseph Smith Emma remained in Nauvoo rather than following Brigham Young and the mormon pioneers to the Utah Territory. Emma was supportive of Smith's teachings throughout her life with the exception of plural marriage and remained loyal to her son Joseph Smith III in his leadership of the RLDS church. Early life and first marriage, 1804–1829 Emma Hale was born on July 10, 1804, in Harmony Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, the seventh child of Isaac Hale a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emma Hale Smith Bidamon
Emma Hale Smith Bidamon (July 10, 1804 – April 30, 1879) was an American homesteader, the official wife of Joseph Smith, and a prominent leader in the early days of the Latter Day Saint movement, both during Smith's lifetime and afterward as a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church). In 1842, when the Ladies' Relief Society of Nauvoo was formed as a women's service organization, she was elected by its members as the organization's first president. After the killing of Joseph Smith Emma remained in Nauvoo rather than following Brigham Young and the mormon pioneers to the Utah Territory. Emma was supportive of Smith's teachings throughout her life with the exception of plural marriage and remained loyal to her son Joseph Smith III in his leadership of the RLDS church. Early life and first marriage, 1804–1829 Emma Hale was born on July 10, 1804, in Harmony Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, the seventh child of Isaac Hale a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
