Dating Fanny Alger—Emma's Discovery of Her Relationship with Joseph
1833 early
At this time, according to the very late account of Mosiah Hancock, Fanny Alger is married to Joseph Smith by
Levi Hancock. Fanny Alger's mother gave a later timeframe for the marriage—1835-1836.
183-
Fanny Alger comes to live with the Smith family. Eliza Jane Churchill Webb later claimed Fanny had lived with
the Smiths "for several years" prior to her expulsion, which evidently occurred in July 1836. However, Fanny's
mother apparently placed the marriage no earlier than 1835.
1834
The Nauvoo Block and Tackle says this was the year polygamy was first introduced.
1835
A possible year, according to Fanny Alger's mother, for Fanny's marriage to Joseph Smith.
1835
About this time, Benjamin F. Johnson learned from his brother-in-law Lyman R. Sherman that "Plural Marriage
was again to be practiced by the Church."
1835
Benjamin F. Johnson's reminiscence says Fanny lived with the Smiths at this time, and that it was whispered
Joseph loved her.
1835 August 17
The "Article on Marriage" is accepted by a General Assembly of the Church for inclusion in the Doctrine and
Covenants. It speaks of the church having been "reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy," and
declares the church to believe in having only one wife at a time. Its timing suggests that it cannot be related to the
discovery of Joseph Smith's polygamous marriage to Fanny Alger.
1835 October 17, Sat.
Joseph Smith's journal entry states, "called my family together and aranged my domestick concerns and
dismissed my boarders." Fanny Alger is either not dismissed from the home, or is allowed to return in the
following months.
1835 September 19
Jared Carter is tried before the Kirtland High Council. This could be in part for seeking another wife, as
Benjamin F. Johnson says Carter did around this time, but the trial minutes make it appear otherwise, mentioning
other charges and not this one.
1835 November 24
Joseph Smith marries Newel Knight and Lydia Goldthwaite.
1836
"The Nauvoo Block and Tackle" identifies 1836 as another year in which polygamy raised its head.
1836
Eliza Jane Churchill Webb says Fanny Alger's mother told her the marriage occurred in 1835 or 1836. This dates
the discovery of the marriage, and Fanny's consequent exit to the Webb home, to sometime in 1836.
(If Fanny came and lived with Eliza in 1834 or 1835, Eliza would know that the marriage didn't occur after that.
So her identification of "1835 or 1836" as the year strongly implies that Fanny didn't come to live with her until
1836.)
1836 April 3
Keys of Elijah bestowed in the Kirtland temple.
1836 "spring"
Eliza R. Snow moves in with the Joseph Smith family, and stays till at least the end of the term, leaving later in
the year, and returning again in January 1837, by which time Fanny Alger was married and gone. Eliza says she
lived there "at that time"—of Emma making "such a fuss" about Fanny.
1836 June 20
Joseph Smith names his newborn son Frederick Granger Williams Smith, on June 20, 1836, in honor of his
counselor, possibly in gratitude for his loyalty amid scandal.
(McLellin reports that Joseph turned to Williams, Rigdon, and Cowdery for help after Emma discovers him with
"Miss Hill." Most accounts connect only Cowdery with the Fanny Alger incident. However, John Whitmer
reports that in fall 1836, both Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon "lusted after…plurality of wives.")
1836 June 28
Solomon Hancock remarries.—an event he reports by letter to his brother Levi Hancock in Kirtland—shortly
before Joseph tells Levi to "take Fanny Alger and go."
1836 July—early
Levi Hancock receives a letter from Solomon reporting that he has married and is moving to Missouri, the
reception of which letter Levi Hancock reports immediately before Joseph Smith's instruction to "take Fanny
Alger and go."
1836 July
Joseph Smith apparently also learns of Solomon Hancock's plan to move to Missouri.
1836 July—mid-to-late
Fanny Alger is expelled from the Smith home by Emma Smith.
1836 July—mid-to-late
Joseph Smith tells Fanny's uncle Levi Hancock to "take Fanny Alger and go" west to stay with family of his
brother Solomon. Joseph Smith also arranges, or has it arranged, that until the Hancocks' departure she will stay
with their immediate neighbors the Webbs.
1836 July late to Aug late(?) Levi Hancock prepares for his own and Solomon's move to his family's, and then to Missouri.
1836 July 25
Joseph Smith leaves for Salem, Massachusetts.
1836 August 6
Revelation in Salem, Massachusetts (D&C 111).
1836 August 19
Joseph Smith writes to Emma from Salem, stating his expectation of being home "about the middle of
September," and concluding "I…want that you should believe me that I am your sincere friend and husband."
1836 August—late?
Levi Hancock leaves Kirtland, presumably taking Fanny Alger with him. (It appears that Levi Hancock may
have written that he was able to finally leave Kirtland only in "the latter part" of August 1836. However, his
journal on this point is unclear—with strikeouts, etc. I will have to doublecheck it.)
1836 September
The Alger family leaves Kirtland, headed for Missouri.
1836 September (mid?)
The Documentary History of the Church reports that Joseph Smith, et al. return from their trip east "sometime in
the month of September."
1836 fall
On John Whitmer later report, "In the fall of 1836, Joseph Smith, Jr., Sidney Rigdon and others of the leaders of
the Church at Kirtland, Ohio…lusted after the forbidden things of God, such as covetousness, and in secret
combinations, spiritual-wife doctrine, that is plurality of wives."
Fall 1836 would refer to the time after their return from Salem, which may be when Whitmer first hears of
Joseph's polygamy, or perhaps hears Joseph Smith (and Sidney Rigdon?) justify it doctrinally.
1836 November 16
Fanny Alger marries in great haste—perhaps to avoid scandal, especially if she was pregnant. By marrying
before the birth of her child she could have avoided saddling him or her with the stigma of illegitimacy.
1837 January 1 (appx.)
Eliza R. Snow begins boarding with the Smiths again.
1837 spring
Fanny Brewer, arriving in Kirtland, encounters "much excitement against the Prophet, on another account,
likewise,-- an unlawful intercourse between himself and a young orphan girl residing in his family, and under his
protection," and Martin Harris tells her the prophet is "most notorious for lying and licentiousness."
1837 April 25
Emma Smith signs her letter to Joseph, “I pray that God will keep you in purity and safety till we all meet again
1837 May 3
Emma Smith signs another letter to Joseph, “I hope that we shall be so humble and pure before God that he will
set us at liberty to be our own masters.”
1837 May 24
Probably by coincidence, the Missouri Republican publishes a letter from Edmund Flagg stating that he had
encountered a Mormon journeying from Zion through Illinois "with a brace of wives." The claimed encounter
occurred in July 1836, almost certainly too early for even rumor of Joseph Smith's own marriage to Fanny Alger
to have reached Illinois. Flagg refers to the wives and their children as "stock in trade" for Zion, probably
alluding to the persistent rumors of a "common stock" of property and a community of wives.
1837 summer
Thomas B. Marsh testified in 1838 "that while in Kirtland last summer, David W. Patten asked Oliver Cowdery if
he Joseph Smith jr. had confessed to his wife that he was guilty of adultery with a certain girl, when Oliver
Cowdery cocked up his eye very knowingly and hesitated to answer the question, saying he did not know as he
was bound to answer the question yet conveyed the idea that it was true."
Speaking of the same event, Patten himself testified “that he went to Oliver Cowdery to enquire of him if a
certain story was true respecting J. Smith’s committing adultery with a certain girl, when he turned on his heel
and insinuated as though he was guilty; he then went on and gave a history of some circumstances respecting the
adultery scrape stating that no doubt it was true. Also said that Joseph told him, he had confessed to Emma."
1837 July 23
Likely in response to Cowdery's reports, Thomas B. Marsh is told by revelation (D&C 112) "at thy rebuke let the
tongue of the slanderer cease its perverseness" and instructed and reassured about Joseph as follows, "rebel not
against my servant Joseph; for verily I say unto you, I am with him, and my hand shall be over him; and the keys
which I have given unto him…shall not be taken from him till I come."
1837 September 27
Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon leave Kirtland for a visit to Far West.
1837 fall
George Hinkle, according to his report in the Elders Journal in 1838, "asked Oliver Cowdery last fall when
Joseph Smith was in the Far West, if the report was true, for said I, if it is, as he is to be presented before the
church, I wish to know of the truth of this matter beforehand. And he gave me to understand, either in plain
words or implications, that it was false. I bear this testimony for the good of the honest hearted in the east and
elsewhere, and for the good of Brother Joseph Smith, Jr. Brother Marsh will please copy this in the letter to the
east and keep the original here."
1837 November
In the second (November 1837) issue of the Elders' Journal, this one published in Kirtland, the editor (Don
Carlos Smith? Joseph?) lists as one of the "questions which are daily and hourly asked by all classes of people
whilst we are traveling," "Do the Mormons believe in having more wives than one?" Rumor of polygamous
forays by other Mormons, and more recently even of Joseph's relationship with Fanny Alger, may have been
spreading.
1837 November early--?
Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon arrive in Far West.
1837 November 7
Joseph Smith was accepted as president of the church by vote at Far West.
1837 fall (Nov-Dec)
After Oliver Cowdery's arrival in Far West, Thomas B. Marsh "heard a conversation take place between Joseph
Smith and Oliver Cowdery when J. Smith asked him if he had ever confessed to him that he was guilty of
adultery, when after a considerable winking &c. he said No. Joseph then asked him if he ever told him that he
confessed to any body, when he answered No."
1837 fall (Nov-Dec)
According to the 1838 report of George W. Harris, and with reference to the same incident described by Thomas
B. Marsh above, "one evening last fall O. Cowdery was at his house together with Joseph Smith jr, and Thomas
B. Marsh, when a conversation took place between Joseph Smith jr & O. Cowdery, when he seemed to insinuate
that Joseph Smith jr was guilty of adultery, but when the question was put, if he (Joseph) had ever acknowledged
to him that he was guilty of such a thing; when he [Oliver] answered No."
1837 December
Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon leave Far West to return to Kirtland.
By 1838 January 12
Nancy Smith Alexander, according to her later statement, "heard Mrs. Betsy Gilett, say in our house in Kirtland
before the Prophet Jo Smith left for Mo.That he practiced a plurality of wives." Mrs. Alexander added, "There
was very much talk among the old women about plurality of wives and Jo Smith’s revelation about Vienna
Jaques."
(Note also that the rumor she heard was of polygamy on the part of Joseph Smith. Had it been of him committing
adultery it seems quite likely she'd have remembered this.)
1838 January 12
Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon leave Kirtland this night to escape mob violence.
After 1838 January 12
On his way to Far West, MO, Joseph Smith travels to Dublin, Indiana—the home of Fanny Alger and her new
husband Solomon Custer, remaining there nine days.
1838 January 21
Oliver Cowdery writes to Warren Cowdery from Far West that he had, in conversation, "in every instance"
affirmed "the truth" regarding "a dirty nasty filthy affair of [Joseph Smith's] and Fanny Alger's," writing the word
"affair" over some other, illegible word.
By early March 1838
Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon arrive in Far West, MO.
1838 April 12
Oliver Cowdery's trial in Far West, at which much of the above testimony was obtained.