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Joseph Smith Fought
Polygamy
Vision Articles
How Men Nearest
the Prophet Attached Polygamy to His Name
in Order to Justify Their Own Polygamous Crimes
By Richard and
Pamela Price |
"What a thing it is
for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven
wives,
when I can only find one"—Joseph Smith (LDS
History of the Church 6:411).
[ Joseph
Smith Fought Polygamy Index ]
Mary Page Eaton Testified that Joseph Was Not
a Polygamist
Throughout her long life, Mary Judd Page Eaton declared that
Brigham Young, and not Joseph Smith, had introduced polygamy into
the Church. As recorded in the Vision
magazine, December 2002 (No. 42), Mary and her husband, Apostle
John E. Page, lived in Nauvoo after Joseph’s death. During
that time, Apostle Page was expelled for opposing Brigham Young’s
measures, which included the introduction of false temple endowments
and plural and celestial marriage.
Mary later asserted:
I can prove, by some of the covenants we were required to
make, that Joseph never originated them. Mr. Page was with me,
and went through the same ceremonies. The words of our covenants
were spoken to us by Brigham. After we had received the endowment
in the temple, as soon as we were alone in our house, Mr. Page
said to me, "Mary, I tell you that endowment is all of
the devil." (The Saints’ Advocate
5 [March 1883j: 295)
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Apostle John E. Page, painted by Nancy Harlacher from a
black and white portrait supplied by F. Edward Butterworth.
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Apostle Page envisioned the Saints
returning to Independence and acquiring the Temple Lot property.
He affiliated with the Church of Christ (Temple Lot), led by Granville
Hedrick, who was promoting the gathering and the acquiring of
Temple property. By 1867, Apostle Page was afflicted with asthma.
Believing that his illness was terminal, he told Mary he was disappointed
with the Church of Christ. He also told her that he was going
to die, and requested that Seventy John Landers of the RLDS Church
preach his funeral sermon. Apostle Page died October 14, 1867.
He and Mary were the parents of eight children.
In 1876, Mary married William Eaton, an elder of the Church
of Christ (Temple Lot). Mary, a staunch member of the RLDS Church,
and Mr. Eaton moved to Independence. There they shared a deep
interest in the Temple Tract, and Eaton purchased lots, including
the area which contains the
“spot” for the Temple of the Lord. They then sold
those lots to the Church of Christ, which owns them to this day.
Mary Page Eaton deserves to be listed with the great women of
the Restoration because:
- She, as an apostle’s wife, lived in Nauvoo and knew
Joseph and Emma personally, and heard Joseph say that “polygamy
was wrong when it was practiced by the ancients, and it’s
wrong now."
- She was the only wife of an apostle who served during the
Nauvoo era, who openly opposed polygamy. In contrast, some of
the wives of Brigham Young and the apostles who followed him,
made affidavits that they had been Joseph’s wives.
- Mary asserted that a direct connection existed between Udney
Jacob’s Peace Maker and Section
132 of the LDS Doctrine and Covenants.
- Mary helped purchase parcels of the Temple Lot in an effort
to reserve the land for the erection of the true Temple, which
is yet to be constructed. In contrast, Brigham Young and his
fellow apostles sold their rights to that lot (which they had
never really owned) to James Pool of Independence (see The
Temple of the Lord by Richard and Pamela Price, 41–55).
Mary was a witness for the RLDS Church in the famous Temple
Lot Suit.
- Mary was an educated woman who used her talents to write articles
and letters over a period of many years, in an effort to clear
Joseph’s name of polygamy.
Her parents, relatives, and friends went west with Brigham Young,
and she wrote long letters to convince them of the truth. One
letter stated:
Dear Friend:—Yours of July 25th [1880] is received.
I am anxious to tell you the same news I wrote to sister Lois,
in Kamas, Utah. I heard E. W. Tullidge preach in our church
lately; He gave an interesting account of the rise of the church
through Joseph the Martyr, announcing his belief in his son
as being the president of the church at the present time. He
finished by uttering a prophecy concerning the church in Utah.
It ran thus: “There shall thousands of that people throw
away their evil doctrines and join the true church, and preach
the gospel in purity to the nations of the earth.”
The same prophecy was declared by John E. Page, my husband,
I think in 1854, in Dekalb, Illinois, to a large schoolhouse
full of attentive hearers. He spoke with sadness of the evils
that people had been led into by blind shepherds, but said with
great earnestness: “Thus saith the Spirit of the Lord:
He will turn and overturn that church until He shakes out the
evil doctrines from them, and very many shall come out from
them and teach the gospel in purity to the nations.”
Now mark these two witnesses on the tablet of your memory.
I have told you beforehand, for with a sane mind and much rejoicing
I heard them both, being present when these things were uttered.
I doubt not the Lord or his goodness, ability, and power to
fulfill them. You say you have replied to my arguments on polygamy.
True; but you can not refute them and believe the Book of Mormon.
You say it is plain that the Nephites were not allowed to practice
that principle; but wherein that was a standing law to all ages,
you fail to see. “Herein is a marvelous thing,”
that you do not see that the law given by an angel of the Lord
to Jacob to teach his people was not correct in that age of
revelation. Jacob says it was given before in the age of Lehi.
The Lord says the disobedience of it in the age of David and
Solomon, was abominable before Him. Again in the same chapter
the Lord says he will visit all the lands of his people who
disobey it, with a sore curse, even unto destruction. Jacob
says that the Lamanites have not forgotten the command given
to our fathers, (plural). In that age the same pure law was
in force, and for keeping this command the Lamanites shall become
a blessed people. This is an age yet to come. If they shall
be blessed for keeping this law, the church in Utah, will be
cursed for disobeying it, as in lands where the same sin prevailed,
for God is no respecter of persons. Read Mosiah, chapter seven,
and you will find that in another age the same crime brought
destruction upon those who practiced it in the age in which
King Noah lived. Read Ether, fourth chapter, concerning those
not of the Nephites, but of a people led to this land by the
Lord, who always gives pure laws to His people. The Prophet
Ether says that King Riplakish did not do right in the sight
of the Lord, for he had many wives. Is it possible for the Lord
to call a thing good that He has by so many witnesses called
evil? Can he declare any practice abominable that is (defined
by Webster) “hateful, detestable, loathsome,” and
afterwards when importuned, call it the celestial law, and righteousness?
The prophet Mormon says, “He changeth not, if so He would
cease to be God.”—Book of Mormon 4:7.
Now I think you are convinced by so many witnesses. When the
angel told Jacob the Lord’s law for his people, it was
a standing law to all ages. What would you think of a people
who dared to say, “The gospel brought to us by an angel
was not a law to all ages?” In conclusion we refer to
chapter ten of the second book of Nephi, 4th and 5th. The nations
that possess the Lord’s words in the Book of Mormon shall
be judged by them at the last day.
Yours for truth,
Mary Page Eaton.
(The Saints’ Herald 35 [September
1888]: 557—558)
Mary Writes of Polygamy’s Foundation
Mary wrote an article in which she proclaimed boldly against
Brigham Young and Helen Mar Kimble Whitney, daughter of Apostle
Heber C. Kimball. Mary was well-acquainted with both families.
On December 19, 1838, at Far West, Brigham Young and Heber C.
Kimball had ordained John Page to the office of apostle, and on
December 26, 1838, Apostle Kimball performed the wedding ceremony
for Mary Judd and John Page. Mary wrote:
The Foundation of Polygamy In Brigham Young’s public
address to his church, September 17th, 1878, he says: “Our
father Adam had but one wife here; her name was Eve; but there
is no doubt but that he left many companions.” Why did
he utter these false and deceptive teachings without a shadow
of foundation but his own insidious assertion? With many others
equally foolish, and untenable, he artfully enslaved the minds
of his people, placing them in a terrible net, and made their
bands so strong that nothing but the power of God can release
them! But God’s loving favor, and ever prevailing power,
will reclaim the honest.
When I read Bro. Joseph’s [Joseph Smith III] reply to
Littlefield, I rejoiced and said, It is enough; we have no need
to say more on the subject; Joseph has so clearly, from the
word of God, shown the errors that people have been deceived
by, all but hypocrites and deceivers among them will begin to
“enquire for the old paths” of righteousness and
walk therein. But today, while reading Helen Mar [Kimball] Whitney’s
defense of polygamy, I thought, How dark the minds of that people,
when the word of God is so plain! [Helen, a wife of a polygamist,
claimed to have been married to Joseph the Prophet .] .... Helen
Mar says polygamy is right, because it was practiced by some
of the Bible prophets and kings, and Joseph Smith the Martyr
taught it! What a weak and soul-sickening excuse to do evil!
Before Joseph Smith taught any doctrine, God made an instrument
of him to translate the Book of Mormon, and in 2d book of Nephi,
chapter 2, Lehi the prophet says of the book, that which is
written by the children of Joseph, and the children of Judah,
(referring to the Bible), “shall grow together unto the
confounding of false doctrines.” And the eleventh chapter
says the nations that have these words shall be judged by the
things written by the Nephites. In the twelfth chapter the Lord
says the words from his mouth to the Nephites shall be “a
standard” to his people. These are words of the prophets
which the Lord inspired them to write, also inspired Joseph
to translate. They prove that we shall be judged by them, and
not by any man’s word that teaches contrary to them; for
they shall “confound false doctrines." Helen Mar
quotes some of the revelation she says Joseph the Martyr had
on plural marriage [LDS DC Section 132], where he is made to
ask the Lord how he justified Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon,
and others, in having many wives and concubines! This alone
condemns the pretended revelation, and proves it an atrocious
falsehood; for Joseph knew the word of the Lord in the Book
of Mormon forbade the practice of such vileness, and called
it “abominable” in David and Solomon, and said no
man shall “do like them of old,” referring to all
who had practiced polygamy. All who are not “lost in the
mists of darkness” that Lehi saw will clearly see that
if they accept that trash as revelation from God, they
must reject the Book of Mormon....
To believe God is the author of such fallacious and foul laws
and statements is more unreasonable than to believe He instituted
all the religions extant in the land instead of the pure gospel
of Christ and his apostles.
Helen Mar says she has lived thirty years in polygamy, and
then utters a lamentable and soul stirring wail which is the
undercurrent and true telltale of the miseries of that people.
She says “Nothing would induce me to lose ... that crown
which awaits all that have laid their willing, but bleeding
hearts upon the altar!” What a vile mockery of godliness
for men to thus deceive and enslave the female mind.... How
can men believe in God, or expect his mercy, who cause such
misery to such lovely wives! This yoke of bondage is obviously
Satan’s device; for Christ says, “Take my yoke upon
you; for my yoke is easy, and my
burden is light.” The Prophet Jacob says the Lord has
seen the sorrow and heard the mourning of the daughters of his
people. He is the same merciful God forever, to all that trust
him.
Mary Eaton
(The Saints’ Advocate 6
[June 1884]: 449–451)
An Article Defending the Bible
Another article by Mary reads:
Polygamous Mormons Not Biblical
A defense of the Bible and answer to the Kansas City Star
for August 16th, 1888.
The Bible does not teach polygamy as a correct principle,
but as a custom of the heathen. Their influence caused a few
of the Israelites to practice it. When the Author of all good,
the great architect of our world, placed the happy pair in the
garden of Eden, he planned the true pattern for the happiness
of all the world. This was observed by his people before the
flood, until Lamech, a descendant of Cain, and a murderer, “took
unto him two wives.” Righteous Noah, to whom the Lord
talked and gave particular instruction, went into the ark with
his wife; his sons also followed the Edenic pattern and were
saved, when the posterity of Cain and the rest of the wicked
were drowned and exterminated from the earth. We follow the
Bible history to Abraham. His wife Sarah gave him her maid to
be his wife. This she did in her unbelief in the promise of
the Lord, that “Sarah should be the mother of nations.”
Sarah soon found she had done wrong; and Abraham also, for the
Lord commanded him to put away the bond woman. He obeyed the
Lord, a good example for Bible believers.... Next we notice
the righteous youth Jacob, deceived by the heathen Laban and
persuaded to follow their customs. Moses commanded the kings
of Israel not to multiply wives, but they brought terrible calamities
upon themselves by disobeying this law. The New Testament and
Book of Mormon adhere strictly to the Lord’s plan. Those
who led the Mormons to Utah deceived them, and taught them the
customs of Laban the heathen. There are many thousands of Latter
Day Saints in the world, under the ministerial charge of Joseph
Smith [III], the son of the founder of their church. They are
loyal to the government and are of pure morals and obey the
law of Eden. They send their elders to teach the people in the
west that polygamy has not come to stay. It must go to the heathen,
its natural originators, its final home.
M. Eaton
August 19th, 1888. (The Saints’
Herald 35 [October 13, 1888]: 655)
Concerning Righteous Seed
Mary penned these words:
I ask, Is it possible that ... any other sane man or woman,
can believe that God can contradict or countermand any law that
he has given to his Church? After telling the Nephites that
polygamy is abominable, to make his word so plain that none
should be deceived, he says, “For if I will raise up seed
unto me; I will command my people, otherwise,” from those
who practiced polygamy in the land of Jerusalem. This is apparent,
for he had before said he had brought them here to raise up
a righteous branch of the children of Joseph [son of Jacob].
Now can a people be righteous and break this plain law? All
reflecting minds will say, No. And will not be deceived by a
pretended revelation to the contrary. As Sister Emma [Smith
Bidamon] wisely said, it [Section 132 in the LDS DC] must come
from the devil. God has especially shown to us that he is unchangeble,
by bringing forth his church in this land where the political
law prohibits such vices [as plural marriage]. Those that practice
them have to go into secret combinations, and build temples
in which to perform their oaths and perverse sealings. In the
Book of Ether, third chapter, last paragraph, the prophet says,
“The Lord worketh not in secret combinations.” This
is a positive declaration, which must deter a true Saint from
sustaining that in which the Lord does not work.
We left the popular churches of the day to join the humble
church of God, because his word says he is unchangeable. The
blessings, ordinances, and precepts of the gospel are alike
in all ages of the world. Let us continue to serve the unchangeable
God and praise him for his word so beautiful and plain (The
Saints’ Herald 27 [December 1880]: 385).
At age eighty-seven, Mary was still defending Joseph. Abbie
Horton, a sister in the Church, wrote of Mary:
truthful men and women have for years been speaking and writing
in defense of the pure character and unsullied principles of
the founder of the true Church. Some of these are in our midst.
Only yesterday Sister Mary Eaton, widow of Elder John E. Page,
said to us, “I knew Joseph the Martyr at a time when he
was suffering from persecution on every hand. All manner of
falsehoods were told concerning him and the direst indignities
perpetrated upon him, but like a man of God he bore it all with
forbearance and fortitude. When assailed because of false reports
which were whispered about, he said, 'My sister, polygamy was
wrong when practiced by the ancients, and it’s wrong now.'"
The footsteps of this frail little sister are tottering, the
feeble and delicate frame can hardly support itself; but though
waning, the memory of that honest, pure-hearted man whom she
had ever reverenced as a prophet of God, still answers to the
humble prayer and to the soulful desire to continue to the end,
abiding in the faith of the message delivered to this generation
through Joseph Smith. (The Saints’
Herald 51 [March 30, 1904]: 305)
Mary Judd Page Eaton died March 6, 1907. Her home had been a
little cottage that stood on land where the present RLDS Auditorium
stands, immediately south of the Temple Lot she loved so much.
She testified to the end that Joseph Smith fought polygamy.
[ Joseph
Smith Fought Polygamy Index ]
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