Criticism of Joseph Smith, Jr.

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Main article: Joseph_Smith,_Jr.

Problems in Zion

After the dedication of the Kirtland temple, Smith's life "descended into a tangle of intrigue and conflict."[1] Following his death in 1844, both friend and foe agreed that sometime during this period Joseph privately married Fanny Alger, a serving girl in the Smith household, as a plural wife, a relationship that Oliver Cowdery referred to in 1838 as a "dirty, nasty, filthy affair."[2]

A more common expedient for raising money on the frontier was wildcat banking. Smith did not have enough capital to obtain a state charter, but he printed notes anyway and circulated them in January 1837. The Kirtland Safety Society failed within a month. The notes had Smith's signature on them, and he was personally blamed for the fiasco. The onset of a nationwide panic in 1837 also encouraged creditors to pursue their debtors vigorously.[3] Many Latter Day Saints, including prominent leaders who had invested in the banking scheme, became disaffected and either left the church or were excommunicated.[4] There were even a couple of unseemly rows in the temple, including one occasion on which guns and knives were drawn.[5] When a leading apostle, David W. Patten, raised insulting questions, Joseph slapped him in the face and kicked him into the yard.[6] After a warrant was issued for Smith's arrest on the charge of bank fraud, Smith and Rigdon fled Kirtland for Missouri on the night of January 12, 1838.[7]

References

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  1. ^ (Bushman 2005, p. 322).
  2. ^ (Bushman 2005, pp. 322-27). The relationship had ended by 1836, and Alger married a non-Mormon grocer in Indiana, bearing him nine children. To her brother, who later wrote to her about her relationship with the Prophet, she replied, "That is all a matter of my own. And I have nothing to communicate."
  3. ^ (Bushman 2005, pp. 329-30).
  4. ^ (Bushman 2005, pp. 336-38).
  5. ^ (Bushman 2005, p. 339).
  6. ^ (Bushman 2005, pp. 332, 337, 339).
  7. ^ (Bushman 2005, pp. 339-40).
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