Joseph Smith — Polygamy Timeline

Dec 23, 1805. Born to Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith. Family relocates to western New York amid poverty and failed crops. Joseph reports his first vision around 1820, and his first visit from the angel Moroni in 1823.

Joseph reports a vision in a grove of trees. Four firsthand accounts exist, written between 1832 and 1842. The LDS Church's own Gospel Topics Essay acknowledges the differences:

1832 account (Joseph's own handwriting — not published until the 1960s): One being appears. Joseph already knows no church is true before praying. Primary purpose: seeking forgiveness for sins.

1835 account: Two personages appear, plus "many angels." Told to a visitor named Robert Matthews.

1838 account (the canonical version, taught in the Church today): Two personages, no angels. Joseph's question is which church to join — he says it "had never entered into my heart that all were wrong." This directly contradicts the 1832 account.

1842 account: Two personages, no angels. Written for public consumption (the Wentworth Letter).

The 1832 account was not publicly known until the 1960s. Early Church members had no awareness of the First Vision for 12 to 22 years after it supposedly occurred.

Jan 18, 1827. Joseph (21) elopes with Emma Hale (22) over her parents' objection. This is the only marriage of Joseph's life with civil legal standing. All subsequent plural marriages are conducted without civil authority or legal recognition.

Apr 6, 1830. Joseph Smith founds the Church of Christ with six members. The Book of Mormon is published by E.B. Grandin in Palmyra, New York. Within 14 years the Church grows to tens of thousands of members across North America and Europe.

Sep 12, 1831. Joseph (25) and Emma move into the Johnson farmhouse in Hiram, Ohio. The Johnson home becomes temporary Church headquarters; 17 sections of the Doctrine & Covenants are received here. Marinda Johnson (16) is called home from boarding school to meet Joseph. Her sister Mary Beal Johnson (~13) also lives in the household. Sidney Rigdon and family live in a cabin directly across the road.

Mar 24–25, 1832. ~60 men organized by apostate Symonds Ryder assault the Johnson farm at midnight. Joseph is dragged from his bed, strangled, stripped naked, and tied to a board in a field. A physician is brought specifically to castrate him — his hand shakes and he drops the knife. A vial of nitric acid chips one of Joseph's teeth (he speaks with a slight whistle for 11 years). Hot tar and feathers are applied and he is left for dead. Marinda Johnson (16) and Mary Beal Johnson (~13) are in the household during the attack. The adopted infant twin, already sick with measles, is knocked from his trundle bed and exposed to cold air. He dies 5 days later. Joseph preaches to his congregation the following morning, then baptizes three converts.

Summer 1835. A traveling exhibition of Egyptian mummies arrives in Kirtland. The Saints purchase four mummies and multiple papyrus scrolls. Joseph examines the papyri and announces they contain "the writings of Abraham." He begins "translating" what becomes the Book of Abraham, published in 1842 and canonized in 1880 as part of the Pearl of Great Price.

In 1966–67, papyrus fragments from Joseph's collection are discovered in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and transferred to the LDS Church. Egyptologists — both LDS and non-LDS — examine them. The LDS Church's own Gospel Topics Essay (2014) states: "None of the characters on the papyrus fragments mentioned Abraham's name or any of the events recorded in the book of Abraham." The fragments are identified as the funerary Breathing Permit of Hôr — an ancient Egyptian burial document. The LDS essay acknowledges Joseph "did not translate the book by conventional means."

Mary Beal Johnson. The official LDS Church history records: "When the Smith family moved from the Johnson home to Kirtland, 14-year-old Mary Beal Johnson went with them to help Emma Smith care for her young children. Six months later, young Mary suddenly became ill and died on March 30, 1833. Her death was unexpected and shook up the family." No primary source records the cause of death.

Fanny Alger. Emma Smith hires Fanny (~16) as household help after Mary Beal Johnson's death. LDS historian Brian Hales: "I believe Fanny Alger replaced Mary as household help for Emma." A relationship or marriage develops. Oliver Cowdery (letter, Jan 21, 1838): "A dirty, nasty, filthy affair of his and Fanny Alger's." William McLellin: Emma "went to the barn and saw him and Fanny together alone. She looked through a crack and saw the transaction!!" The LDS Gospel Topics Essay (2014) acknowledges the relationship as Joseph's first plural marriage but notes "little is known." Emma expels Fanny. Fanny marries Solomon Custer in Indiana in 1836 and never publicly discusses Joseph Smith.

The 1835 edition of the Doctrine & Covenants includes section 101 — the official Statement on Marriage — which reads in part: "Inasmuch as this Church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy: we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband." This statement is published while the Fanny Alger relationship is active or has recently ended.

Jan 21, 1838: Oliver Cowdery writes to his brother Warren: "A dirty, nasty, filthy affair of his and Fanny Alger's was talked over in which I strictly declared that I had never deserted from the truth in the matter." At his May 1838 excommunication hearing, one of nine formal charges is accusing Joseph Smith of adultery. Cowdery — one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon — is excommunicated and never retracts. Simultaneously, the Kirtland Safety Society banking venture collapses. Joseph and Sidney Rigdon flee Ohio in January 1838 under threat of arrest.

Oct 27, 1838. Governor Lilburn Boggs issues an executive order: Mormons "must be exterminated or driven from the state." Oct 30: A mob attacks the settlement at Haun's Mill, killing 17 Latter-day Saints including children. Joseph surrenders to Missouri militia and is incarcerated at Liberty Jail (Dec 1838 – Apr 1839) without trial. The Saints are forcibly expelled from Missouri in the dead of winter.

1839. Joseph and Emma relocate to Commerce, Illinois, renamed Nauvoo. John C. Bennett — physician, civic leader — arrives September 1840, concealing a wife and children. He uses political connections to obtain the Nauvoo Charter, granting the city virtual autonomy, a private militia (the Nauvoo Legion), and habeas corpus powers enabling Joseph to resist extradition to Missouri. Bennett is appointed Assistant Church President, Mayor of Nauvoo, and Major-General of the Nauvoo Legion. He lives in the Smith home for 39 weeks. Nauvoo grows to rival Chicago in population within three years.

Apr 5, 1841. Joseph B. Noble officiates Joseph's first documented Nauvoo plural marriage to Louisa Beaman. Emma does not know. Over the next three years Joseph marries an estimated 30–40 women in secret, none with civil legal standing. Of his first 12 Nauvoo plural wives, 9 are already legally married to other living men (polyandry). The LDS Church's 2014 Gospel Topics Essay acknowledges all of this and states Joseph "did not discuss his marriages openly."

Joseph proposed to Zina Huntington three times while she was being courted by Henry Jacobs; she declined each time. Zina married Henry on March 7, 1841. Seven months later, while six months pregnant with Henry's son, she is sealed to Joseph on the banks of the Mississippi River — performed by her own brother Dimick Huntington. Zina later confirms the Oct 27, 1841 date in a sworn 1869 affidavit. Her son Zebulon is born Jan 2, 1842. DNA analysis (2005) confirms Zebulon is Henry Jacobs' biological son. Zina later becomes General Relief Society President of the LDS Church.

Emily (19) and Eliza Partridge (22) — daughters of the deceased first LDS bishop — moved into the Smith household in 1840. Both are secretly sealed to Joseph in March 1843 without Emma's knowledge. Emma then offers Joseph two wives; she chooses the Partridges, not knowing they are already sealed. They are sealed a second time in Emma's presence. May 23, 1843 (William Clayton journal): Emma finds Joseph and Eliza Partridge secluded in an upstairs bedroom and demands Joseph give them up or "blood should flow." Both sisters leave the household. Emily later gives legal testimony in the 1892 Temple Lot Case.

Joseph first tests Apostle Heber C. Kimball by asking him to surrender his wife Vilate. Heber complies — Joseph releases him. Joseph then asks for Helen (14) instead. She is told "the salvation of our whole family depended on it." The ceremony is conducted at another man's home to maintain secrecy from Emma. Helen later privately writes: "I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it. Had I known it was anything more than ceremony I never would have consented." The LDS Church's 2014 Gospel Topics Essay acknowledges Joseph married Helen "several months before her 15th birthday."

Jul 12, 1843. Joseph dictates D&C 132, the revelation commanding plural marriage. Verse 54 directly threatens Emma: if she does not accept Joseph's plural wives, "she shall be destroyed." Hyrum reads the revelation to the High Council on August 12, splitting Nauvoo leadership into pro- and anti-polygamy factions. William Law — Joseph's own Second Counselor — refuses to accept the revelation, leading ultimately to the Nauvoo Expositor. Emma burns her copy of the document. D&C 132 is canonized by the LDS Church and remains official scripture today.

May 26, 1844. Joseph delivers a public sermon in Nauvoo: "What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one. I am the same man, and as innocent as I was fourteen years ago; and I can prove them all perjurers." According to the LDS Church's own 2014 Gospel Topics Essay, Joseph has approximately 30–40 plural wives at this moment. This is his last public denial of polygamy. He is killed 32 days later.

Jun 7, 1844. The Nauvoo Expositor — founded by William Law and other former Church insiders who knew the plural marriage system firsthand — publishes its first and only issue exposing Joseph's secret polygamy and his theocratic ambitions.

Jun 10: Joseph, acting as mayor, orders the Nauvoo Legion to destroy the press and all copies. A warrant is issued for his arrest for inciting a riot.

Jun 24–25: Joseph surrenders to Illinois authorities after initially fleeing across the Mississippi River.

Jun 27, 1844: A mob storms Carthage Jail. Joseph Smith (38) and his brother Hyrum are shot and killed. Joseph is buried at Nauvoo on June 29, 1844.