First wife; Relief Society president
Emma Hale Smith
1804–1879
1 topic · 9 dated events
Their part in each topic
Joseph Smith's Plural Marriage
First wife; Relief Society president
Emma opposed plural marriage, briefly consented to four of the sealings in May 1843 on condition she choose the wives, and signed public statements denying any system of marriage other than monogamy. She reportedly burned a copy of the revelation in August 1843. In her last recorded interview, in 1879, she denied her husband had ever had another wife.
In the timeline
9 events across 1 topics, chronological. Only events this person was actually part of — present at, responsible for, or the subject of — not every event where the name comes up.
Fanny Alger and the Kirtland householdhinge
Fanny Alger, a household helper in the Smith home, was joined to Joseph Smith in what Utah-era Latter-day Saints called his first plural marriage. Emma Smith discovered the relationship and expelled her; Fanny stayed briefly with Chauncey Webb's family, left Kirtland with her family in September 1836, and married Solomon Custer, a non-Mormon her own age, in Indiana on 16 November 1836. She never spoke publicly about Joseph Smith.
The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo is organised
Joseph Smith organised the Relief Society with eighteen women, Emma Smith as president and Elizabeth Ann Whitney, Sarah M. Cleveland and Eliza R. Snow as her counselors and secretary. Membership reached over a thousand by September. Within months every member of that presidency except Elizabeth Ann Whitney had been or would be sealed to Joseph Smith, and Whitney's seventeen-year-old daughter was.
Times and Seasons prints a public denial signed by the Relief Society presidency
The paper reprinted the 1835 Article on Marriage and stated that it was the only rule of marriage practised in the church, in order to show that Dr. J. C. Bennett's secret wife system is a matter of his own manufacture. Attached certificates were signed by Emma Smith as president, Elizabeth Ann Whitney and Sarah M. Cleveland as counselors, and Eliza R. Snow as secretary. Cleveland and Snow had both been sealed to Joseph three months earlier, and Whitney's daughter two months earlier.
The Partridge sisters are sealed a second time, in Emma's presence
Emma agreed to two additional wives on condition that she choose them, and chose Emily and Eliza Partridge, not knowing they were already sealed to her husband. Emily wrote that to save family trouble Brother Joseph thought it best to have another ceremony performed, and that from that very hour, however, Emma was our bitter enemy. Emma afterwards also gave Joseph the Lawrence sisters, Maria and Sarah, orphaned Canadian wards for whom Joseph had been appointed legal guardian.
Joseph and Emma Smith sealed for time and eternity
Days after Emma took part in four of her husband's plural sealings, the Smiths were sealed to each other in a meeting of the Quorum of the Anointed, the third such sealing performed in the church. James and Harriet Adams were sealed in the same meeting. Emma and Harriet were the first women to witness the quorum's activities; Emma received her endowment on or just before 28 September.
The revelation on plural marriage is written downhinge
Hyrum Smith urged Joseph to dictate the revelation so he could read it to Emma and persuade her. William Clayton wrote ten pages as Joseph dictated. The text promises exaltation to those sealed by proper authority, states that if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, he cannot commit adultery, and ends by commanding, Let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph, with the warning that if she abide not this commandment she shall be destroyed. Hyrum read it to Emma, who rejected it.
A copy of the revelation is burned
Bishop Newel K. Whitney had a copy made by Joseph C. Kingsbury before the original was destroyed. William Clayton reported that Joseph said Emma had so teased, and urgently entreated him for the privilege of destroying it that he consented to pacify her. William McLellin, who spoke with Emma in 1847, wrote that Joseph himself pulled open the fire with his fingers and burned it after she refused to touch it. Emma denied burning it in an 1856 interview.
The Voice of Innocence read to the Relief Society
Emma Smith opened the Relief Society's first meeting of 1844 by reading a proclamation condemning the Seducer of female chastity, the Slanderer of Female Character, and calling on the whole virtuous female population of the city to shut such people out of their houses and society. The women voted unanimously to uphold the President in putting down iniquity. Relief Society meetings then lapsed.
The Last Testimony of Sister Emma
Shortly before her death, Emma Smith was interviewed by her son Joseph Smith III, then president of the RLDS church. Asked whether her husband had other wives, she answered: He had no other wife but me; nor did he to my knowledge ever have. Asked about a revelation on polygamy or spiritual wifery, she said there was none. The interview became the RLDS church's evidentiary foundation, and prompted Joseph F. Smith's collection of affidavits in Utah.
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People who share the most dated events with Emma Hale Smith.
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