Alleged Sexual Impropriety between Joseph Smith and

Julia Murdock

Source:

Clark Braden at the E. L. Kelley and Clark Braden, Public Discussion of the Issues Between The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and The Church of Christ (Disciples) Held in Kirtland, Ohio, Beginning February 12, and Closing March 8, 1884 Between E. L. Kelley, of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and Clark Braden, of the Church of Christ. St. Louis: Clark Braden, 1884, 203.

Accusation:

“His [Joseph Smith’s] intimacy with Julia Murdoch, his adopted daughter, caused trouble with his wife, who sent the girl to her father.”[1]

Discussion:

In this allegation, Clark Braden accuses Joseph Smith of sexual pedophilia. Julia could have only been eleven, twelve, or thirteen years of age.

Julia Murdock and her twin brother Joseph were born in Orange, Cuyahoga Co. Ohio, April 30, 1831, to John Murdock and Julia Clapp Murdock, who died shortly after giving birth.[2] Emma Smith, the Prophet’s wife, lost twins of her own at the same time, so widower John Murdock approached Emma and Joseph Smith to see if they would be willing raise Julia and Joseph as their own children. They were adopted into Joseph Smith’s family at the age of nine days. Baby Joseph Murdock died before his first birthday, on March 29, 1832.

It appears that Julia experienced a close relationship with her adoptive parents in her early years. A letter written to Joseph Smith from Emma dated April 25, 1837 states: “I could hardly pacify Julia and Joseph [Smith, III, son of Joseph and Emma] when they found out you were not coming home soon.”[3] Similarly, Joseph wrote to Emma November 12, 1838: “Tell little Joseph he must be a good boy; father loves him with a perfect love; he is the eldest must not hurt those that are smaller than him, but comfort them. Tell little Frederick, Father loves him with all his heart; he is a lovely boy. Julia is a lovely little girl; I love her also. She is a promising child; tell her, Father wants her to remember him and be a good girl.”[4] On April 4, 1839, he penned: “I want to see little Frederick, Joseph, Julia, and Alexander, Joana, and old major.” [5]

In 1858 Julia recounted the heartbreaking experience of learning of her adoption: “Until I was a child of five years old, I was happy. It was then I was first told I was not a Smith and by Mrs. Walker. She was little older than myself, and done it through spite. God forgive as I have done long ago. But from that hour I was changed; I was bitter even as a child.”[6]

In 1914 at the age of eighty-one, former Nauvooan Mary Dunn Ensign wrote that Julia knew of her step-father’s plural wives:

I went to school with the Prophet’s children, passed their home going and coming and frequently called for their adopted daughter, Julia, who was the same age as their son Joseph Jr., [Joseph Smith III], the present leader of the Josephite Church [RLDS Church established in 1860]. One day in particular we were in the dining room. There were three young women at work setting the table as fast as they could get it set. Young Joseph would gather the knives and forks etc., and disarrange them. They were having a Jolly good time. When we left and on our way to school, Julia remarked to my sister and me: “It is said these young girls are hired girls, but they are not. They are my father’s wives.”

That was the first time that I had heard of a man having more than one wife, and if she knew it, it is reasonable to assume that young Joseph knew.[7]

Julia would have been barely thirteen at the Prophet’s death.[8] At age seventeen, she eloped with Elisha Dixon, who was killed five years later in an explosion of a steamship on Red River, Texas.[9] Julia returned to Nauvoo where she married John J. Middleton, a Catholic and staunch anti-Mormon, November 19, 1856.[10] She bore no children to either husband, dying at the home of Mr. James Moffatt near Nauvoo in 1880.

A review of anti-Mormon literature fails to identify any additional corroboration of this complaint. Available evidence fails to substantiate such a dark encounter (or encounters) between Joseph and Julia. An incident in 1844 suggests that the then thirteen year old Julia felt normal romantic teenage desires. Biographer S. Reed Murdock recounted how Oliver Huntington had asked her to attend a wedding celebration with him. She “treated it with disrespect” but when Oliver went without her, “she had a fit and uttered some unkind things about Oliver.” The two later reconciled.[11]

Concerning Joseph Smith’s relationship with the young Julia, Lucy Meserve Smith recalled in 1892: “Julia said her Pa [Joseph Smith] was such a good man, and she hoped she would be prepared to meet him: ‘As Papa talked to me before he went away and told me to be a good girl and never mistreat any of my playmates then he should be happy to meet me.’ ‘Oh,’ said she, ‘how bad I should feel if I thought I wouldn’t be good enough to meet my Dear Papa.’”[12]

Julia’s biographer, Sunny McClellan Morton, wrote: “Julia’s feelings in adulthood toward Joseph Smith are not known. Joseph’s early death denied her the opportunity to develop a mature relationship with him. She rarely mentioned him in letters. Along with her childhood love for him, she perhaps came to feel some ambivalence toward him or perhaps some resentment toward him for the religious faith that cost him his life.”[13]

The second part of Braden’s allegation, that Emma “sent the girl to her father” because of the alleged improper relations, is contradicted by all available historical research. In a letter to her biological brother, John R. Murdock, dated November 2, 1858, Julia explained to her biological father that love for the Smiths compelled her to shun him after learning of her true identity: “I shunned you and my own father and why? Because I had a dread of being taken from those I was raised with and loved with the same love that should have been yours.”[14]

In his autobiography, Julia’s biological father, John Murdock, explained the basis for the estrangement: “Sister [Emma] Smith requested me not to make myself known to the children [Julia and her brother Joseph who died in 1832] as being their father. It was a hard request and I said but little on the subject. She wanted to bring the children up as her own and never have them know anything to the contrary.”[15] All available evidence supports that he did not interact with Julia as her father in any way until the late 1850s, when correspondence began between Julia and her brother John R. Murdock. John R. shared his correspondences with his father who wrote an impassioned letter on January 20, 1859:

It was January 12th we received our letter directed to my son, J. R. Murdock, in answer to his to you in June last. It was a great treat, for it was to us all and more especially myself like receiving intelligence from the dead; and I could truly say the dead is alive and the lost is found. For my Dear Julia, you have been a lost child to me all your days. And I feel like Jacob of old when his sons brought him word of Joseph in Egypt and like him I can say shall I live to see my daughter?[16] (Italics added.)

These evidences support a complete disconnect between Julia and her father from her birth until the late 1850s, showing that she could not have been “sent to her father” sometime in the early 1840s.

During the Clark Braden – E. L. Kelley debates, Kelley wrote a letter to then RLDS President Joseph Smith, III. Joseph was raised with Julia as her sibling and was an eye witness to the proceedings in the Smith home. Joseph responded on August 7, 1884 saying “[Julia] lived with mother till” 1850, and added: “Braden is a jackal in spirit if he attempts to fix polygamic origin on her.”[17]

Summary:

This brief accusation required significant research to demonstrate its multiple weaknesses. It is based upon Braden’s solo, late, and antagonistic charges that are not supported in any other manuscript documentation. Also, available historical data supports that Julia experienced a positive relationship with Joseph Smith. In addition, good evidence has been located refuting Braden’s claim that Julia was sent to live with her father in consequence of an alleged impropriety.

[1] E. L. Kelley and Clark Braden, Public Discussion of the Issues Between The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and The Church of Christ (Disciples) Held in Kirtland, Ohio, Beginning February 12, and Closing March 8, 1884 Between E. L. Kelley, of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and Clark Braden, of the Church of Christ. St. Louis: Clark Braden, 1884, 203

[2] S. Reed Murdock recounts the passing of Julia Clapp Murdock: “Later in his life, John [her husband] revealed his real feelings in a letter to his daughter Julia: ‘The anguish of soul that I felt at this time [of her death] you may try to imagine. I was bereft of a tender companion, a feeling mother, a good housekeeper and one that I love and yet love the memory of her. The circumstances of her death were like this… I had just at this time went to the door to speak to some person when she sent for me to come in. Immediately I went to her bed. She appeared to look fresh and be doing well, but she told me she was going and reached out her hand and shook hands with me and every person in the room and bid us farewell and immediately folded her hands across her own stomach, closed her eys, and went to sleep in Jesus in hope of a part in the resurrection of the just at the coming of the Lord in power and glory. She went to sleep as natural as any person ever did got to sleep of rest without one struggle or grown in the space I suppose of two minutes of shaking hands with us…” (Quoted in S. Reed Murdock, John Murdock: His Life and His Legacy, Layton, Utah: Summerwood Publishers, 2000, 293.)

[3] Emma Smith to Joseph Smith, April 25, 1837, Joseph Smith Letterbook, MS d 155 bx 2 fd 2, CA; copy of holograph in Linda King Newell Collection, MS 447 bx 9 fd 31, Marriott Library.

[4] Originals at RLDS Archives. Copies of holographs in the Linda K. Newell Collection MS 447 bx 9 fd 37.

[5] Originals at RLDS Archives. Copies of holographs in the Linda K. Newell Collection MS 447 bx 9 fd 38.

[6] Julia M. Middleton to John R. Murdock, November 2, 1858; cited in S. Reed Murdock, Joseph and Emma’s Julia: The “Other” Twin, Salt Lake City, Eborn Books, 2004, 201. Punctuation standardized.

[7] Mary Dunn Ensign, “Autobiography,” Mormon Biographies Collection, d2050, bx 2, fd #2

[8] Andrew Jenson, LDS Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:304.

[9] S. Reed Murdock, Joseph and Emma’s Julia: The “Other” Twin, Salt Lake City, Eborn Books, 2004, 83-94. See also Joseph Fielding Smith, Church History and Modern Revelation, Vol 2, p.83.

[10] S. Reed Murdock, Joseph and Emma’s Julia: The “Other” Twin, Salt Lake City, Eborn Books, 2004, 101-03.

[11] S. Reed Murdock, Joseph and Emma’s Julia: The “Other” Twin, Salt Lake City, Eborn Books, 2004, 73.

[12] Lucy Meserve Smith, “Statement, May 18th, 1892,” typescript, George A. Smith Fmialy Collection, (copy in Richard Van Wagoner Collection), Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

[13] Sunny McClellan Morton, “The Forgotten Daughter: Julia Murdock Smith,” Mormon Historical Studies, 3 (Fall 2002) 2:43. [35-60]

[14] Quoted in S. Reed Murdock, Joseph and Emma’s Julia: The “Other” Twin, Salt Lake City, Eborn Books, 2004, 201.

[15] John Murdock Autobiography, 104. Quoted in S. Reed Murdock, John Murdock: His Life and His Legacy, Layton, Utah: Summerwood Publishers, 2000.293.

[16] Quoted in S. Reed Murdock, John Murdock: His Life and His Legacy, Layton, Utah: Summerwood Publishers, 2000, 292.

[17] Joseph Smith III, letter to E. L. Kelley, August 7, 1884, Miscellany, P19, f44, Community of Christ Library – Archives. It is possible that Joseph Smith, III, understood Braden’s accusation to mean that the Prophet was Julia’s biological father. No evidence has been found to support a connection between Joseph Smith and Julia Clapp Murdock.