[Doctor Bennett] would give them medicine to produce abortions, provided they should become pregnant. Hyrum Smith affidavit, Official History of the Church 5:71
Joseph was commanded to take more wives and he waited until an angel with a drawn sword stood before him and declared that if he longer delayed fulfilling that command he would slay him. Hyrum Smith, cited Benjamin F Johnson’s letter to George S Gibbs 1903
In the group of Smith’s well-documented wives, eleven (33%) were 14 to 20 years old when they married him. Nine wives (27%) were twenty-one to thirty years old. Eight wives (24%) were in Smith’s own peer group, ages 31 to 40. In the group aged 41 to 50, there is a substantial drop off: 2 wives, or 6%, and 3 (9%) in the group aged 51 to 60. Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness
Prescindia, who was Norman Buell’s wife and simultaneously a plural wife of the Prophet Joseph Smith, said that she did not know whether her husband Norman or the Prophet was the father of her son, Oliver. And a glance at a photo of Oliver shows a strong resemblance to Emma Smith’s boys. Mary Ettie V Smith, Fifteen Years Among the Mormons p34; viz also Fawn M Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith
Another word of the Lord to me is that it is the duty of these young men here in the land of Zion to take the daughters of Zion to wife and prepare tabernacles for the spirits of men, which are the children of our Father in heaven. They are waiting for tabernacles, they are ordained to come here, and they ought to be born in the land of Zion instead of Babylon. Wilford Woodruff
Had I been treated with the cruelty and neglect which has fallen to the lot of so many unfortunate women in Utah, I should probably have been in my grave to-day, or in that Asylum, which has been provided by the Church-situated on a lonely hill at a sufficient distance from the city, so that the cries of the unhappy, ill-treated, insane women should not be heard. Fanny Stenhouse, ‘Tell It All: The Story of a Life’s experience in Mormonism: an autobiography’
If I had forty wives in the United States, they did not know it, and could not substantiate it, neither did I ask any lawyer, judge, or magistrate for them. I live above the law, and so do this people. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses I:361
I believe in Sisters marrying brothers, and brothers having their sisters for Wives. Why? Because we cannot do otherwise. There are none others for me to and the opposite idea has resulted from the ignorant and foolish traditions of the nations of the earth. Brigham Young, sermon 8th October 1854
Elders, never love your wives one hair’s breadth further than they adorn the Gospel, never love them so but that you can leave them at a moment’s warning without shedding a tear. Should you love a child any more than this? No. Here are Apostles and Prophets who are destined to be exalted with the Gods, to become rulers in the kingdom of our Father, to become equal with the Father and the Son, and will you let your affections be unduly placed on anything this side that kingdom and glory? If you do, you disgrace your calling and Priesthood. The very moment that persons in this Church suffer their affections to be immoderately placed upon an object this side the celestial kingdom, they disgrace their profession and calling. When you love your wives and children, are fond of your horses, your carriages, your fine houses, your goods and chattels, or anything of an earthly nature, before your affections become too strong, wait until you and your family are sealed up unto eternal lives, and you know they are yours from that time henceforth and for ever. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses III:360
Since the founding of the Roman empire monogamy has prevailed more extensively than in times previous to that. The founders of that ancient empire were robbers and women stealers, and made laws favoring monogamy in consequence of the scarcity of women among them, and hence this monogamic system which now prevails throughout Christendom, and which had been so fruitful a source of prostitution and whoredom throughout all the Christian monogamic cities of the Old and New World, until rottenness and decay are at the root of their institutions both national and religious. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses XI:128
The only men who become Gods, even the sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses XI:269
When England and the rest of the nations learn war no more, instead of passing a law in this or any other nation against a man having more than one wife, they will pass a law to make men do as they should in honoring the daughters of Eve and making wives of and providing for them. Will not this be a happy time? Yes, very fine. If you will produce this to-day, I’ll tell you what I would be willing to do, I would be willing to give up half or two-thirds of my wives ... Do this and you are welcome to them. Would I get more wives? If I had a mind to. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses XII:255
But it is not the privilege of a woman to dictate the husband, and tell how or how many he shall take, or what he shall do with them when he gets them, but it is the duty of the woman to submit cheerfully. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses XVII:159
Monogamy, or restrictions by law to one wife, is no part of the economy of heaven among men. Such a system was commenced by the founders of the Roman empire ... Rome became the mistress of the world, and introduced this order of monogamy wherever her sway was acknowledged. Thus this monogamic order of marriage, so esteemed by modern Christians as a holy sacrament and divine institution, is nothing but a system established by a set of robbers ... Why do we believe in and practice polygamy? Because the Lord introduced it to his servants in a revelation given to Joseph Smith, and the Lord’s servants have always practised it. And is that religion popular in heaven? It is the only popular religion there. Brigham Young, The Deseret News 6th August 1862
Now, where a man in this church says, ‘I don’t want but one wife, I will live my religion with one,’ he will perhaps be saved in the Celestial kingdom; but when he gets there he will not find himself in possession of any wife at all. He has had a talent that he has hid up. He will come forward and say, ‘Here is that which thou gavest me, I have not wasted it, and here is the one talent,’ and he will not enjoy it but it will be taken and given to those who have improved the talents they received, and he will find himself without any wife, and he will remain single forever and ever. Brigham Young, Deseret News 17th September 1873
When she had lived at the farm a year, she told me that Brigham had never been to see her once during all that time; but that he had got possession of her property, and was using it for factory purposes. The water-course ran through her yard, her house was made an office, and the whole place was so changed and so entirely spoiled as a residence, that she never could go there again to live. She must, whether she would or not, live there until Brigham chose to move her somewhere else, or until her children could find some place for her to go to. She supports herself entirely, independently of the man who has swindled her out of her home and her property; and the only assistance she receives is from her children, who are very kind to her, annoyed as they were at her for giving up her home, and, above all, allowing it to fall into Brigham Young’s hands. His duck-and-goose story was all misrepresentation, made use of merely to induce her to go to the farm; and when she got there she very soon found that she would have those lovely feather beds, not, at least, by raising the fowls to supply the feathers. The Prophet’s imagination had evidently run away with memory when he ardently painted the glories of the farm to his bride. This poor old lady was made a tool for the gratification of Brigham Young’s avarice, as her son had been the victim to one of his followers’ jealous anger. She has little to love Mormonism for. Its two leading doctrines, the ‘Celestial Marriage’ and ‘Blood-Atonement’ have pretty thoroughly shut out happiness from her life, and rendered her in her old age lonely and dependent. Ann Eliza Young, ‘Wife no 19’ re Mrs Lewis
It got torn down in the 30s I think. Another well-kept secret about Brigham Young, besides him ordering the extermination of immigrants from Arkansas (not Missouri) is this: he built a mansion for his favorite wife, Amelia, across the street from the Lion House. Apparently it was so ostentatious even some of the faithful commented on its extravagance. John Taylor I believe moved in when he became prophet, but was embarrassed by the money spent on it when so many pioneers were literally starving. Sad when you think of Emily Partridge, one of Brigham’s wives, who had to make a living for herself (and her child with Brigham) without help. For references, see lds.org family search, and In Sacred Loneliness by Todd Compton. (Wife No.19 by Ann Eliza Webb Young).
Our current ‘Amelia’s Palace’ is of course the City Creek Center. The parallel is sad but true. Brigham Young took tithing money for his own support and now the church is using funds originally derived by tithing income to build a 4 billion dollar mall. They have lied about the funding and the cost. They are not a church. They need to be thrown in jail for fraud. Courtney #19, board post 13th May 2010 ‘Amelia’s Palace: Mansion Built For BY’s Favorite Wife’
Zion’s Camp did not redeem Zion, but it transformed Mormon leadership and culture. In February 1834, the Kirtland high council elected Joseph Smith as ‘commander-in-chief of the armies of Israel’. This was one of the first acts of the newly organized high council which thus acknowledged Smith's religious right to give God’s command to ‘go out unto battle against any nation, kindred, tongue, or people’. Zion’s Camp was the first organization established for the external security of Mormonism. A year later, the military experience of Zion’s Camp (rather than any ecclesiastical service) was the basis upon which Smith said he was selecting men for the newly organized Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy. Unlike other American denominations, ‘the church militant’ was a literal fact in Mormonism, not just a symbolic slogan. D Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy p85