Fanny Alger Mormonism's First Plural wife?

[Robert Fields]

Was Fanny Alger Mormonism's First Plural wife?
I myself am not positive nore sure Fanny Alger was ever married to Joseph Smith. Todd Compton in his In Sacred Lonliness picks on my and Brodies view it was just an affair. "However, she does not mention that former Kirtland resident Chauncey Webb and his daughter Ann Eliza Wenn Young, who were unsymphatetic ex-Mormons, referred to the relationship as a "sealing." Ann Eliza reports that Alger's parents were proud of their connention to the prophet, which wpuld hardly have been the case if the relationship had been merely a furitive affair."(ISL. pg.28) Well Fawn Brodie is dead and cannot speak up for herself and i mentioning it now and still hold her view.
1.Why cannot they mistakenly referred to it as a sealing? The idea it was a sealing was circulated back in Kirtland. It does not mean they wern't guessing.
2.Ann Eliza wasn't a 1st hand witness. She wasn't born until the Saints settled in Nauvoo. Her parents seeing the Alger's proud of Fanny Algers move into the Smith home is not reliable witnessing the Alger's being proud of a secret marriage. Now if the Alger's were seen being proud of the affair after the sealing then it was polygamy. Them going to the Webbs in person sharing how proud they were of the polygamy would satisfy me. But Todd Compton i think trusts the reliability of his 2nd hand witnesses way to much.

Her father Chauncey webb in my opinion a liar. He reported Fanny Alger had been pregnant with Joseph Smith's child. If the pregnancy story of his was false then he reported a false story. Since Fanny Alger had lived in his home he would know if he was a liar, or not. Todd Compton by not including the lying option to explain the vanishing baby unwisely limits himself to the idea "the child was miscarried, or died young, or was raised under another name. Without further documentation, there was no way of knowing."(ISL, pg. 35) How does he know Chauncey Webb was telling the truth about the mythical pregnancy then?

[Robert Fields]

I started three posts dealing with polygamy subjects and Joseph Smith. I was surprised people are so stuck on FLDS that my posts dealing with common complaints of critics got no response.

[Elder Dalton]

Anna Eliza was born in 1844, wrote an anti mormon book in 1875.
40 years after the faye alger incident.
So I question her account.

[Robert Fields]

Her father Chauncey would have been in the know if he was a trustworthy witness. If he made up the pregnancy story that would call into question his integrity as a witness. Her mother left no statements backing him up.

I know members of her family must have been confused about whether it was an affair, or polygamy. Her bother John Alger asked her. And she told him it was basically nobody's business but hers what happened. To me if it were common knowledge from their parents i doubt they would have asked Fanny Alger.

Benjamin Johnson is treated an expert on this case as a witness. But he got the idea it was a marriage from Warren Parrish. So at most Benjamin was a witness to would be rumors spread at the time. Warren claimed Oliver Cowdery agreed with him it was polygamy, but i can't find Oliver Cowdery calling it polygamy for himself.

Could it be polygamy? I honestly don't know it was. I honestly started this post to pick on Todd Compton's popular In Sacred Lonliness. It is often treated as being well documented. To me what passes as documentation in these books would not survive in court.

[Elder Dalton]

But Chaucy Webb came from England & didn't join the church until Nauvoo.
What's wrong with Todd Compton's book?

[Robert Fields]

He may have been non-LDS. But Fanny Alger did stay with Chauncey Webb and his wife in Kirtland. What i feel is a mistake he makes is to be over trusting regarding the documentation he used in regards to back up his opinion. I wish myself he had listed her a a possible plural wife of Joseph Smith rather than a confirmed wife.

Mosiah's father Levi had claimed Fanny Alger had been kept in the upper room of the Kirtland temple. That they were planning on using her as a witness against Joseph Smith. And that Levi came along and rescued her before they could use her against Smith in a church court. He trusts the story merely because Mosiah would not have known that floor had been completed yet. I myself see that correct detail as being possibly a guess of Mosiah, or a detail Levi had worked into a posibly fictuous even. If a true story then cool, but if not Mosiah, oe Levi made up a false story.

I do not dispute something happened between Fanny Alger and Joseph Smith. If he was commanded by God to practice polygamy with her then he was guilty of no adultury. If he just had an affair then he was human and his sin was between him and God.

I highly value Todd Compton's book i just disagree with the author quite a bit.

[tex]

They're quite dead. Who cares?

[DeGuello]

Why not let them rest in peace?