Fanny Alger

Fanny Alger (30 September 1816 in Rehoboth, Massachusetts – 29 November 1889 in Indianapolis, Indiana) is alleged to have been the first plural wife of Joseph Smith, Jr. Historians differ on whether she was actually married to Smith, or if she was just involved in an affair with him.

Rumors of affair with Smith and alleged polygamous marriage

Alger's parents were neighbors of the Smith's, and Alger lived with Smith and his wife, Emma. [Harvnb|Johnson|1903 as quoted in Harvnb|Newell|1994|p=66] Chauncey and Ann Eliza Webb, ex-Mormons, later recalled that rumors had been whispered while Alger lived with the Smiths about Smith and Alger."Fanny Alger" (Remembering)Verify source|date=September 2008 ] Verify source|date=September 2008 Alger stopped living with the Smiths as a result of a fallout with Emma and was dismissed as their housekeeper. [Harvnb|Newell|1994|p=66]

The first contemporary reference to the alleged relationship was in a letter dated January 21, 1838. Oliver Cowdery wrote to his brother Warren stating that Smith had inappropriately spent time alone with Alger, referring to it as a "dirty, nasty, filthy affair." During this time Cowdery was estranged from Smith and they were disagreeing over leadership issues in the new movement. ["Cowdery, Oliver"]

Historian Lawrence Foster has dismissed the claim that Alger was ever married to Joseph Smith, stating that it is "debatable supposition, not an established fact". [ [http://www.signaturebooks.com/reviews/insacred.htm "Review of Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith", Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 33 (Spring 2001): 184-186] ] Fawn Brodie, in her famous work "No Man Knows My History", also made the claim that Alger had been an affair of Smith's.

In 1903, Benjamin F. Johnson, a patriarch in the LDS church in Utah, wrote a letter to George S. Gibbs.Fact|date=September 2008 Although Johnson was a teenager at the time, and not an intimate of Smith, he repeated the rumors he had heard about the relationship and alleged that he had been "told by Warren Parish, that he himself and Oliver Cowdery did know that Joseph had Fannie Alger as a wife" [Harvnb|Johnson|1947] Johnson also claimed that, although Alger did not join the Saints in Utah, "she did not turn from the Church nor from her friendship for the Prophet while she lived"(sic).Verify credibility|date=September 2008 [Harvnb|Johnson|1903Verify credibility|date=September 2008]

According to George D. Smith, Alger's marriage to Smith may have been attested by several contemporaries at the time, including Emma Smith, Warren Parish, Oliver Cowdery, and Heber C. Kimball, [Harvnb|Smith|2001|pp=128, footnote 15] even though publicly the leadership of the church, including Joseph Smith and Emma ["Church History", Volume 3, pp. 355-356] denied that Joseph Smith had been a polygamist throughout their lives. ["Times and Seasons" 3 [August 1, 1842] : 869] ["Times and Seasons" 3 [October 1, 1842] : 940] [Emma Smith was a tireless public campaigner against polygamy and stated: "We raise our voices and hands against John C. Bennett's 'spiritual wife system', as a scheme of profligates to seduce women; and they that harp upon it, wish to make it popular for the convenience of their own cupidity; wherefore, while the marriage bed, undefiled is honorable, let polygamy, bigamy, fornication, adultery, and prostitution, be frowned out of the hearts of honest men to drop in the gulf of fallen nature". The document "The Voice of Innocence from Nauvoo". signed by Emma Smith as President of the Ladies' Relief Society, was published within the article "Virtue Will Triumph", Nauvoo Neighbor, March 20, 1844. "The Voice of Innocence from Nauvoo" is also referred to in "LDS History of the Church" 6:236, 241]

Later life

Alger then lived with relatives in Mayfield, Ohio until 1837, when she moved with her relatives to Indiana where she married Solomon Custer, with whom she had nine children."Fanny Alger" (Wives)] Verify source|date=September 2008 When asked about her relationship with Smith after Smith's death, she is reported to have said: "That is all a matter of my own, and I have nothing to communicate."Verify source|date=September 2008

Paternity testing of Orrison Smith

In 2005, Ugo Perego performed genetic research in an attempt to verify the paternity of several people alleged to be children of Joseph Smith through alleged plural wives. Orrison Smith, the first son of Fanny Alger, was found not to be Joseph Smith's son. Four other likely candidates were also ruled out. Presently genetic research has revealed no descendant of Joseph Smith through any woman other than his first and only publicly acknowledged legal wife, Emma Smith. Emma Smith bore Joseph nine children and his descendants through her number in the hundreds today." [http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695226318,00.html DNA tests rule out 2 as Smith descendants] ", Carrie A. Moore, "Deseret News", 10 November 2007.]

Footnotes

References

*Citation
last=Compton
first=Todd
author-link=Todd Compton
title=Fanny Alger Smith Custer, Mormonism's First Plural Wife?
journal=Journal of Mormon History
volume=22
issue=1
year=1996
pages=174–207
url=http://content.lib.utah.edu/u?/jmh,18163 .
*cite book
last = Compton
first = Todd
authorlink = Todd Compton
coauthors =
title = In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith
publisher = Signature Books
year = 1997
location = Salt Lake City
url =
doi =
id = ISBN-X
*cite encyclopedia
title = Cowdery, Oliver
encyclopedia = Encyclopedia of Mormonism
volume = 1
url = http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/people/oliver_cowdery.html
publisher = Macmillan Publishing Company
year = 1992
accessdate =
*cite web
title = Fanny Alger
work = Remembering the wives of Joseph Smith
url = http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/02-FannyAlger.htm
accessdate = Referenced as "Fanny Alger" (Remembering).Verify credibility|date=September 2008
*cite web
title = Fanny Alger
work = The Wives of Joseph Smith
url = http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/6552/fanniealger.htm
accessdate = Referenced as "Fanny Alger" (Wives).Verify credibility|date=September 2008
*Citation
last=Johnson
first = Benjamin
year= 1903
title = Letter to George S. Gibbs
location = Benjamin Franklin Johnson, Papers, 1852–1911, Church Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. .
*Citation
last=Johnson
first = Benjamin
year= 1947
title = Benjamin F. Johnson, My Life's Review
publisher = Zion's Printing and Publishing Co.
pp = 7-107
location = Independence, Missouri
url = http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/BFJohnson.html .
*Citation
last = Newell
first = Linda King
authorlink = Linda King Newell
coauthors = Valeen Tippetts Avery
title =
publisher = University of Illinois Press
year = 1994
location = Urbana
url =
doi =
id = ISBN .
*Citation
title = Nauvoo Roots of Mormon Polygamy, 1841-46: A Preliminary Demographic Report
last = Smith
first = George D.
journal = Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought
volume = 34
number = 1, 2
link = http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/dialogue&CISOPTR=27656&CISOSHOW=27455&REC=4
year = 2001
date = Spring/Summer 2001 .
*cite book
last = Van Wagoner
first = Richard S.
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Mormon Polygamy: A History
publisher = Signature Books
year = 1992
location =
url =
doi =
id = ISBN