Evidence of sexual relations in Joseph Smith's plural marriage with Eliza R. Snow:

Witness

Quotation

Reference

self

“You ask (referring to Pres. Smith), ‘Did he authorize or practice spiritual wifery?  Were you a spiritual wife?’ I certainly shall not acknowledge myself of having been a carnal one’…  I am personally and intimately acquainted with several ladies now living in Utah who accepted the pure and sacred doctrine of plural marriage, and were the bona fide wives of Pres. Joseph Smith.”[1]  (Emphasis in original.)

Eliza R. Snow to Daniel Munns, May 30, 1877, Community of Christ Archives

“[Joseph Smith III] said, ‘I am informed that Eliza Snow was a virgin at the time of her death.”  I in turn said, ‘Brother Heber C. Kimball, I am informed, asked her the question if she was not a virgin although married to Joseph Smith and afterwards to Brigham Young, when she replied in a private gathering, “I thought you knew Joseph Smith better than that.”’”[2]

Statement in 1905 interview with Joseph Smith III, CHL.

“Emma is currently reported as having had recourse to a vulgar broomstick as an instrument of revenge; and the harsh treatment received at Emma’s hands is said to have destroyed Eliza’s hopes of becoming the mother of a prophet’s son…  Sarah M. Cleveland… kept a kind of assignation house for the prophet and Eliza R. Snow.”

Wilhelm Wyl, Mormon Portraits, Salt Lake City: Tribune Printing and Publishing Co., 1886, 58, 90.

“She [Aida] says that once when she was at her work that Emma went up stairs and pulled Eliza R. Snow down stairs by the hair of her head  as she was staying there.”

John Boice and Mary Ann (Barzee), Boice "Record," [patriarchal blessing book], pp 178-79, CHL, MS 8883.

“Joseph [Smith III], the night your mother turned Eliza R. Snow into the street in her night clothes you and all the family stood crying.  I led you back into the house and took you to bed with me.  You said, ‘I wish mother wouldn’t be so cruel to Aunt Eliza.’  You called her aunt, because you knew she was your father’s wife.  He did not deny it.” 

Undated sermon by Solon Foster reported by John R. Young by letter to Mrs. Vesta P. Crawford.[3]

“Charles C. Rich called at the Mansion House, Nauvoo, to go with the Prophet on some appointment they had together.  As he waited in the main lobby or parlor, he saw the Prophet and Emma come out of a room upstairs and walk together toward the stairway which apparently came down center.  Almost at the same time, a door opposite opened and dainty, little, dark-haired Eliza R. Snow (she was ‘heavy with child’) came out and walked toward the center stairway.  When Joseph saw her, he turned and kissed Eliza, and then came on down stairs toward Brother Rich.  Just as he reached the bottom step, there was a commotion on the stairway, and both Joseph and Brother Rich turned quickly to see Eliza come tumbling down the stairs.  Emma had pushed her, in a fit of rage and jealousy; she stood at the top of the stairs, glowering, her countenance a picture of hell.  Joseph quickly picked up the little lad, and with her in his arms, he turned and looked up at Emma, who then burst into tears and ran to her room.  Joseph carried the hurt and bruised Eliza up the stairs and to her room. ‘Her hip was injured and that is why she always afterward favored that leg,’ said Charles C. Rich.  ‘She lost the unborn babe.’”

Leroi C. Snow, “Notes,” in possession of Cynthia Snow Banner.[4]

“Joseph never had any living children by his polygamous women, although it is always supposed that Eliza R. Snow had a child, as she went into retirement for a year before Joseph’s death.”

Eliza J. Webb [Eliza Jane Churchill Webb], Lockport, New York, to Mary Bond, April 24, 1876, Biographical Folder Collection, P21, f11, item 7, 8, Community of Christ Archives.