View resources and learn about each of the wives of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Doctrinal References
Please see 01) PLURAL MARRIAGE: Was plural marriage revealed by the Lord? Was Joseph Smith ensnared by many convoluted activities and expediencies because of his involvement in plural marriage? Was the Prophet involved in adulterous practices or live a dual life? for further references.
List of Plural Wives
Plural Wives
Agnes Moulton Coolbrith (Smith)
- Read the autobiography of Eliza Maria Partridge Smith Lyman (1820-1885)
- Poems and Songs by Eliza R. Snow (eBook)
- Lines on the Assassination (poetry)
Elizabeth Davis (Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee)
- Helen Mar Kimball Whitney (1828-1896) Autobiography
- Why We Practice Plural Marriage, book by Helen Mar Whitney Kimball
Lucinda Pendleton (Morgan Harris)
Mary Elizabeth Rollins (Lightner)
Mrs. G*****
Presendia Lathrop Huntington (Buell)
Sarah Kingsley (Howe Cleveland)
Zina Diantha Huntington (Jacobs)
Early Posthumous Marriages to Joseph Smith
- Read the Autobiography of Cordelia Calista Morley Cox (1823-1915) here!
Mary Ann Frost (Stearns Pratt)
Remarks by President Joseph F. Smith at the funeral services of E. A. Whitney
Below are a few excerpts of remarks made by President Joseph F. Smith at the funeral services of Elizabeth Ann Whitney. In the which he mentioned plural marriage, the plural wives of Joseph Smith, and the Prophet’s association with it.
Elizabeth Ann Whitney was the wife of Newel K. Whitney and mother of Sarah Ann Whitney (a plural wife of the Prophet Joseph Smith). These remarks are taken from the funeral services which were published in the Deseret Evening News, February 22, 1882. For a full transcript of the funeral services, please see “Funeral Services of Elizabeth Ann Whitney” on the Joseph Smith Foundation Reference.
The speaker [Joseph F. Smith] testified in all soberness that henceforth and forever there was laid up for her a crown of glory, a queenly crown for her [Elizabeth Ann Whitney] and all those honorable women who sacrifice their own feelings in order to establish in the Church and make honorable in the earth, the doctrines of patriarchal [plural] marriage. He knew that such women would stand in the presence of the Eternal God crowned with glory and eternal lives, which none living can enjoy but those who are worthy and made this sacrifice.
Here, the speaker said, perhaps, for the first time in public, that the women who entered into plural marriage with the Prophet Joseph Smith were shown to him and named to him as early as 1831, the Lord showed him those women who were to engage with him in the establishment of that principle in the Church, and at that time some of these women were named and given to him, to become his wives when the time should come that this principle should be established. God knew their hearts, as he proved by the fact that they have been true and faithful through all the trying vicissitudes through which they have passed, and that too in the face of a frowning world; they have endured it all, and are to-day examples of womanhood and purity. It was something to be associated with righteous, honorable and pure woman, with women who dare receive and obey the revelations of God at the sacrifice of their own feelings, the most tender feelings of the human heart. God bless them now and forever.
Mother Whitney was one of those faithful women chosen of God as one of the pioneers, so to speak, of this peculiar doctrine; and she and her daughter [Sarah Ann Whitney] will receive the reward of those whom God will not forget in the day when He shall reckon up his jewels.1
Other Resources
Ebooks
- Blood Atonement and the Origin of Plural Marriage
- The Bible & Polygamy: Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy?
- “Funeral Services of Elizabeth Ann Whitney,” published in the Deseret Evening News, February 22, 1892. Please note that there are other earlier publications of the funeral services in the Deseret Evening News in the same month. President Joseph F. Smith made certain edits to the text, and the February 22, 1882 publication is the last publication with his revisions.
