"rcrocket" Have you read her book? I have it. She writes about a lot of things with which she has no clue -- just repeating gossip.
dblagent007
Yes, or most of it. I lost interest towards the last few chapters.
I've read her book and I slightly agree with rcrocket but I would never say she had no clue. That would be like saying Carolyn Jessop has no clue about the FDLS religion that she escaped. I found Ann's book to have a sensational tone at times but also very harrowing in her first hand account. She recounts memories from her childhood and experiences as a plural wife so it's not going to be a book for percise historical details. But it was never intended to be that anyway. She wrote the book to expose Brigham Young and the horrors of living plural marriage to help the women escape. Her book parallels many of the women who escape the FLDS today and try to help others leave.
It's obvious she had very negative feelings about her exhusband Brigham Young and hated polygamy, but she didn't ever claim the restoration of the church or Book of Mormon was fraudulent that I recall.
What I find interesting about Ann Eliza Webb is how apologists discredit her autobiography as gossip and anti Mormon lies, but use her testimony to prove Joseph didn't have an affair with Fanny. Which is it?
The most problematic part of Joseph's "marriage" to Fanny is that entering plural marriage required the very strict law of using the Priesthood sealing keys. Section 132 makes that clear.
1 Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines—
2 Behold, and lo, I am the Lord thy God, and will answer thee as touching this matter.
3 Therefore, prepare thy heart to receive and obey the instructions which I am about to give unto you; for all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same.
4 For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can creject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.
5 For all who will have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof, as were instituted from before the foundation of the world.
6 And as pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, it was instituted for the fulness of my glory; and he that receiveth a fulness thereof must and shall abide the law, or he shall be damned, saith the Lord God.
7 And verily I say unto you, that the conditions of this law are these: All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, boaths, vows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations, that are not made and entered into and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, of him who is anointed, both as well for time and for all eternity, and that too most holy, by revelation and commandment through the medium of mine anointed, whom I have appointed on the earth to hold this power (and I have appointed unto my servant Joseph to hold this power in the last days, and there is never but one on the earth at a time on whom this power and the keys of this priesthood are conferred), are of no efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection from the dead; for all contracts that are not made unto this end have an end when men are dead.
Joseph didn't receive the keys to practice the New and Everlasting covenant of marriage until 1836.
In 1836 Joseph Smith received, in the Kirtland Temple, additional fundamental priesthood keys. These priesthood powers included the keys of the gathering of Israel, the keys of the gospel of Abraham, and the keys of the sealing power, each set of powers restored personally by Moses, Elias, and Elijah. (See D&C 110.) At other times, additional keys and powers of the priesthood were also restored. (See D&C 128:21.) These included the keys of the kingdom pertaining to the dispensation of the fulness of times, keys that have subsequently passed to Joseph Smith’s successors, including President Ezra Taft Benson today. (See D&C 90:1–5.)
The roll in the hay with Fanny Alger happened in 1833, years before he was given the sealing keys.
Fanny Alger is Joseph's first known plural wife, whom he came to know in Kirtland during early 1833 when she, at the age of 16, stayed at his home as a housemaid. Described as "a varry nice & Comly young woman," according to Benjamin Johnson, Fanny lived with the Smith family from 1833 to 1836.
Martin Harris, one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, recalled that the prophet's "servant girl" claimed he had made "improper proposals to her, which created quite a talk amongst the people." Mormon Fanny Brewer similarly reported "much excitement against the Prophet…[involving] an unlawful intercourse between himself and a young orphan girl residing in his family and under his protection."
Former Mormon apostle William McLellin later wrote that Emma Smith substantiated the Smith-Alger affair. According to McLellin, Emma was searching for her husband and Alger one evening when through a crack in the barn door she saw "him and Fanny in the barn together alone" on the hay mow. McLellin, in a letter to one of Smith's sons, added that the ensuing confrontation between Emma and her husband grew so heated that Rigdon, Frederick G. Williams, and Oliver Cowdery had to mediate the situation. After Emma related what she had witnessed, Smith, according to McLellin, "confessed humbly, and begged forgiveness. Emma and all forgave him." While Oliver Cowdery may have forgiven his cousin Joseph Smith, he did not forget the incident. Three years later, when provoked by the prophet, Cowdery countered by calling the Fanny Alger episode "a dirty, nasty, filthy affair."
Chauncey Webb [Ann Eliza's father] recounts Emma’s later discovery of the relationship: “Emma was furious, and drove the girl, who was unable to conceal the consequences of her celestial relation with the prophet, out of her house”.
SOURCE: Richard S. Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon, p.291
At least one account indicates that Fanny became pregnant. Chauncy G. Webb, Smith's grammar teacher, later reported that when the pregnancy became evident, Emma Smith drove Fanny from her home (Wyl 1886, 57). Webb's daughter, Ann Eliza Webb Young, a divorced wife of Brigham Young, remembered that Fanny was taken into the Webb home on a temporary basis (Young 1876, 66-67). Fanny stayed with relatives in nearby Mayfield until about the time Joseph fled Kirtland for Missouri.
Fanny left Kirtland in September 1836 with her family. Though she married non-Mormon Solomon Custer on 16 November 183614 and was living in Dublin City, Indiana, far from Kirtland, her name still raised eyebrows. Fanny Brewer, a Mormon visitor to Kirtland in 1837, observed "much excitement against the Prophet … [involving] an unlawful intercourse between himself and a young orphan girl residing in his family and under his protection" (Parkin 1966, 174).
SOURCE: Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, p.8
But -- you can't beat the D&C as a reference!)