Alleged Sexual Impropriety between Joseph Smith and

Vienna Jacques

Source:

Mrs. Nancy Alexander, “Statement,” [1886?], Original in Stanley B. Kimball papers, Southern Illinois University. Copy of typescript in Linda King Newell Collection, Marriott Library, University of Utah, MS 447, bx 11 fd 3. Punctuation and spelling standardized. A published version can be found in the A. B. Deming Papers, USHS, PAM 9687, copies of pamphlets from the Chicago Historical Society.

Accusation:
My father, William Smith and mother became Mormons in Bolton, N.Y, and moved to Kirtland Ohio in 1836. After Jo Smith, the Mormon Prophet robbed us, I worked out at housework at 25 cents a week.My sister received 50 cents a week; we gave our wages to our parents. Father had broken his arm six weeks before leaving N. Y., and could not work, Mother had to work very hard, she had 14 children.

Polly Beswick, who weighed about 200 pounds, made her home with her sister Mrs. John Tanner,[2] who lived next house to ours and often called on us. She was of good disposition, very agreeable in conversation and everybody liked her. She worked much of the time in Prophet Jo Smith’s family.

It was commonly reported, Jo Smith said he had a revelation to lie with Vienna Jacques, who lived in his family. Polly told me, that Emma, Joseph’s wife, told her that Joseph would get up in the night and go to Vienna’s bed. Polly said Emma would get out of humor, fret and scold and flounce in the harness. Jo would shut himself up in a room and pray for a revelation. When he came out he would claim he had received one and state it to her, and bring her around all right.[3]

Discussion:

This late accusation apparently recorded decades after the alleged incident, involved a woman named Vienna Jacques (apparently pronounced “jack-ways”[1]). At some point, perhaps during the 1880s, a woman called “Mrs. Warner Alexander” allegedly quoted Polly Beswick as quoting Emma Smith regarding an illicit relationship between Joseph Smith a woman Vienna Jacques. The earliest copy of this document is typed, but it is unknown when it was made or whether it was from a dictation or transcribed from a unknown handwritten source. One source places the year of its origin as 1886.[4]

Research indicates that “Mrs. Warner Alexander” was Nancy Maria Smith, daughter of William and Lydia Calkins Smith, born December 1, 1822 (no relation to the Prophet’s brother William B. Smith). She married Justin Alexander on September 4, 1850 at Kirtland making her “Mrs. Justin Alexander” or “Mrs. Nancy Alexander.” It is probable that the transcriber copying the original hand-written statement misread “Nancy” as “Warner.”

The signature located at the bottom of the available account concerning Vienna Jacques. It could be Nancy Alexander’s signature or the writing of the transcriber. Subsequent reviewers may have mistaken “Mrs Nancy Alexander” as “Mrs Warner Alexander”

Other information provided in the document further corroborates Nancy as the author.[5] She and her family gathered to Kirtland only to apostatize, blaming Joseph Smith for robbing them. Nevertheless, Nancy Maria and her husband stayed in the area, and were counted in the 1880 census. [6]

The historical record shows the Joseph Smith family was living in the Kirtland, Ohio vicinity from 1831-1838. Vienna Jacques visited there for a few weeks in 1831 and then again for a few months in 1833 and may have stayed with them.[7] At that time, she consecrated approximately $1400 to the Church, a small fortune that she reportedly obtained “in her self reliant way, by patient toil and strict economy.”[8] Subsequently she was mentioned in a revelation (D&C 90:28-29) and received a compassionate letter from the Prophet.[9]

Year	Month	Incident (Vienna Jacques’ Kirtland stay is highlighted)
1787		Vienna Jacques is born in Beverly Massachusetts.
1831		Vienna Jacques reads the Book of Mormon.
1831	Feb	Joseph and Emma Smith arrive in Kirtland from New York..
1831		Vienna Jacques visits Kirtland, is baptized, and stays for six weeks.
1831 to 1833		Vienna Jacques returns to Boston.
1832	July	Samuel H. Smith visit Vienna in Boston
1833	Early	Vienna Jacques moves to Kirtland with $1400. She is baptized and donates the money to the Church. She may have stayed with the Smith family.
	March	Two verses of a lengthy revelation given to Joseph Smith instruct her to go to Missouri (D&C 90:28-29).
	end April	Vienna’s migration to Jackson County is delayed by a Church conference
	May-June	Vienna Jacques leaves Kirtland, Ohio for Missouri.
1833	July 2nd	Joseph Smith receives word of Vienna’s safe arrival in Zion
1833	Sept	Letter written to Vienna from Joseph Smith
1835	After May	Polly Beswick moves to in Kirtland.
1836		The William Smith family (not Joseph Smith’s brother), including William’s daughter Nancy Maria Smith (the future “Mrs. Warner Alexander”), move to Kirtland.
1838	Jan	Joseph Smith leaves Kirtland, Ohio.
1838		Vienna Jacques marries Daniel Shearer
1840		Daniel and Vienna Shearer are established in Nauvoo.
1840-1844		Vienna Jacques is possibly sealed to Joseph Smith in an “eternity only” marriage.
1844	March	Vienna receives a patriarchal blessing as Vienna Shearer
1845	July	Vienna receives a second patriarchal blessing as Vienna Shearer
1846	Jan	Vienna receives her endowments in the Nauvoo Temple.
1846	Feb	Daniel Shearer receives his endowment.
1869		Vienna refuses to sign an affidavit that she was a plural wife of Joseph Smith

Tracking Polly Beswick between 1835 and 1837 is challenging because it is unclear when she left Kirtland. Nancy Alexander’s family did not settle in Kirtland until 1836.

A review of the chronological and geographical features of this story reveal several concerns. First, even though Polly Beswick is depicted as being a firsthand witness, the described behavior occurred years before her arrival in Kirtland. The level of detail provided by Polly is also curious, since it could only have been received secondhand. This account is also dependent upon another later “telling” from Polly to Nancy Alexander or even through third intermediary.

Second, the described behavior of all of the participants, Joseph, Emma, and Vienna, seem implausible. If true as recounted by Alexander, Joseph Smith would have needed to accomplish one of two difficult tasks during the short time Vienna was present in Kirtland. He would have needed to either convince Vienna Jacques of the appropriateness of polygamy and immediately marry her, while at the same time convincing Emma to let him have a plural wife live with them in their own home. Or Joseph would have needed to persuade Emma Smith to allow him to sleep with Vienna (without a plural marriage ceremony) under their own roof. Neither proposal seems very likely.

As a woman possessing conservative moral values, there is little indication that Emma would have ever approved of her husband having sexual relations with a woman to whom he was not married. Emma struggled mightily in the 1840s to accept plural marriage. All records from the Kirtland period demonstrate that she did not then believe that God-approved plural marriage had then been restored. Accordingly, she would have considered any polygamous intimacy as adultery and would not have permitted contact between the two as described.

Third, if Joseph had married Vienna and was able to use revelations or argument to keep Emma agreeable, it seems strange that he would almost immediately send Jacques to Missouri. Joseph’s behavior in Nauvoo was always to keep his plural wives geographically close to him. Some researchers have suggested that he was planning to move to Missouri soon. However, this is unsupported in light of the September 11, 1831 revelation that designated Kirtland as a “strong hold” for the next five years (D&C 64:21). Importantly, the Lord had promised a great endowment to be given in Ohio (D&C 38:32) and had commissioned the building of a temple in a December 27, 1832 revelation (D&C 88: 119).

Summary:

The Nancy Smith Alexander account is problematic for many reasons. Its provenance cannot be traced, so the actual source of the allegation remains unverified. More challenging, however, is the actual sequence of events related. There does not seem to be sufficient time while Vienna and Joseph were living in close proximity to each other for the alleged behavior to have transpired. Joseph's actions after the reported episode seems implausible.

In addition, any suggestion that Emma accepted plural marriage in any form at Kirtland, Ohio in the mid-1830s is currently indefensible from a documentation standpoint. That she would have tolerated or supported blatant adultery at any time in her life is even more problematic. The observation that the story must have undergone and least two retellings, if not more, does not enhance its overall credibility. Any author who wishes to present this account as reliable would be wise to find a second witness of any of the described illicit activities.

[1] An entry from the journal of Samuel H. Smith who was serving a mission in the Boston area, dated July 18, 1832 records: “Went about five miles to Wm. Angel's, who wife was a sister to Sister Viena Jacways” (Samuel Harrison Smith, diary, CHL, MS 4213, for date; italics mine). It appears that Samuel was writing Vienna’s surname as he then heard it. Modern pronunciation is sometimes “jakes.”

[2] John Tanner, the father of Nathan and John Joshua Tanner, was a forty-seven year old widower in 1825, when he married Polly Beswick’s sister, Elizabeth Beswick (age twenty two). (Ancestral File.)

[3] Mrs. Nancy Alexander, “Statement,” [1886?], Original in Stanley B. Kimball papers, Southern Illinois University. Copy of typescript in Linda King Newell Collection, Marriott Library, University of Utah, MS 447, bx 11 fd 3. Punctuation and spelling standardized. A published version can be found in the A. B. Deming Papers, USHS, PAM 9687, copies of pamphlets from the Chicago Historical Society. Unfortunately it is unclear from what source the published version was taken.

[4] Todd Compton, “A Trajectory of Plurality: An Overview of Joseph Smith's Thirty-Three Plural Wives.” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 29, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 36 reads: “Mrs. Warner Alexander, 1886 statement, LDS archives.” In fact the LDS Archives does not contain this document. (Conversation with archivist Ron Watt, November 12, 2007.) It appears that the first edition of Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippets Avery’s Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith (New York: Doubleday, 1984) listed the document’s location as “CHL.” The second edition corrects this error showing the document located in the Stanley B. Kimball Collection at Southern Illinois University. A copy of poor quality of the transcript is found in the Linda King Newell Collection, Marriott Library, University of Utah, MS 447, bx 11 fd 3.

[5] A published as an article entitled: “Mrs. Alexander’s Statement,” is available but is cropped hiding any information about its source or date of publication. At the bottom is a handwritten name “Mrs Nancy Alexander.” A copy of a published version is found in the “A.B. Deming Paper,” USHS, PAM 9687; copies of pamphlets from the Chicago Historical Society. However, the original document from which the copy was made is not identified.

[6] 1880 censes for Newbury, Geauga County, Ohio. Copy of holograph available at Ancestry.com.

[7] Edward W. Tullidge, The Women of Mormondom (New York: Tullidge & Crandall, 1877), p. 441; Vienna is mentioned in a November 27, 1832 letter from Joseph Smith in Kirtland, Ohio to W. W. Phelps in Independence, Missouri. The Prophet wrote: “Vienna Jaqis had not r[e]ceived her Papers pleas inform her sister \Hariet/ that Shee is well and give my respects to her” (Joseph Smith to W. W. Phelps, November 27, 1832, CHL; see also Richard E. Turley, Jr. Selected Collections from the Archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Provo, Utah: BYU Press, vol. 1, DVD # 20). Whether Vienna had arrived in Kirtland by that time, or was communicating by letter from Boston, is unclear.

[8] Jerri W. Hurd, “Vienna Jacques: The Other Woman in the Doctrine and Covenants,” unpublished manuscript, LKN Collection, ML, Ms 447, bx 4 fd 1, page 1.

[9] Dean C. Jesse, The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City; Deseret Book Company, 1984, 293-96; Joseph Smith, History of the Church, Vol. 1, p.407-09;