Fanny Alger may have been the first polygamous wife of Joseph Smith. Historians debate many details, but the historical record suggests that she had a secret sexual—and possibly marital—relationship with the Prophet. New research suggests that the relationship between Joseph and Fanny may have begun as a father-daughter adoptive sealing. In this interview, Christopher C. Smith discusses the evidence and implications of the new theory.
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Read more about Fanny Alger in Secret Covenants: New Insights on Early Mormon Polygamy.
Who was Fanny Alger?
Fanny Alger was an eighteen-year-old follower of Joseph Smith who resided with the Smith family in Kirtland, Ohio, around 1836. The Alger family had converted to the church in 1830, and Fanny started living with the Smiths as a domestic servant around 1833 when she was about fifteen.
Alger is best known as one of the first documented women with whom Joseph Smith carried on a secret sexual (and possibly marital) relationship. But as Don Bradley and I argue in our co-authored chapter in Secret Covenants, there’s more to her story than just that. We argue that before she became his controversial paramour, Alger ritually became Joseph Smith’s daughter in a sacred sealing ceremony in the Kirtland Temple. And later in her life, she became a Spiritualist medium.
What indications are there that Alger was adopted and sealed as a daughter to Joseph Smith?
The key piece of evidence is the testimony of Eliza Jane Churchill Webb, who described Fanny Alger as an “adopted daughter” of the Smiths and mentioned that Alger’s mother claimed she was sealed to Joseph at the time of adoption.
This account has been known to historians for a long time, but “sealed” has always been taken as a reference to plural marriage. An adoptive sealing is much more in line with the language of Webb’s account—and it also helps make sense of the several other sources which either indicate that Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith’s adopted daughter or that she was sealed to him.
Emma flew into a fury.
For instance, Mosiah Hancock claimed that his father, Levi Hancock, had been the one to ask Alger’s parents for permission to ritually seal her to Joseph Smith, and the parents consented willingly.
Such casual consent makes no sense in the context of a marriage sealing, but it makes entire sense for an adoptive sealing.
What do we know about Oliver Cowdery having a similar sealing?
In late 1837 when Oliver Cowdery accused Joseph Smith of adultery with Fanny Alger, Joseph Smith’s defenders spread the rumor that Cowdery had been involved in the same sort of relationship with a girl who lived in his own household.
For instance, Eliza Webb said Brigham Young told her that “Oliver had a girl sealed to him at the same time” as Joseph was sealed to Alger.
The incident triggered a series of departures from Kirtland.
Historians have rejected these claims. By all accounts, Cowdery abhorred polygamy and was shocked to discover the sexual relationship between Smith and Alger. The claims that he secretly entered a Kirtland plural marriage make no sense.
Upon closer investigation, however, we find convincing evidence that Cowdery had adopted twelve-year-old Adeline Fuller as his daughter by the time these rumors circulated in 1837.
If Smith and Cowdery both adopted daughters in a shared sealing ceremony, it helps us make sense not only of the insinuations about Cowdery, but also of his strong negative reaction to the amorous turn in Joseph Smith’s relationship with Fanny Alger.
What theological developments preceded the idea of family sealings?
Historians have traditionally thought that marriage sealings preceded adoptive sealings in the development of Latter-day Saint theology. Our findings reverse this sequence—which makes a lot more sense.
There were few precedents for plural marriage in early Latter-day Saint theology, but many precedents for ritual adoption. In Kirtland, Joseph Smith taught that Saints could be adopted into the divine family, into the priesthood lineages of Aaron and Abraham, and into the family of the Church patriarch.
When Elijah restored the sealing power to Smith and Cowdery at the Kirtland Temple dedication ceremony in 1836, he said its purpose was to “turn the hearts of the Fathers to the children and the children to the fathers,” which sounds more like adoption than marriage.
Did these sealings shape Brigham Young’s approach to sealing rituals?
Brigham Young’s statement to Eliza Webb that “Oliver had a girl sealed to him at the same time” as Smith was sealed to Alger indicates that he knew of the adoptive sealings performed in Kirtland. This awareness may have influenced his introduction of the “law of adoption” after Smith’s death.
Brigham Young’s system called for Saints whose parents weren’t Church members to be sealed as adopted children to general authorities so they could inherit a priesthood lineage.
Historians have argued that Young misunderstood Joseph Smith’s Nauvoo teachings on the subject of adoption, which envisioned sealing children to biological parents. We argue that Young’s system may have been influenced by what he knew of Smith’s adoptive practice in Kirtland. Smith and Cowdery adopted Alger and Fuller although both girls had living parents, and Alger’s were even members of the Church.
What may have catalyzed a romantic relationship between Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger?
Several factors might have contributed to the transition from an adoptive sealing to an amorous relationship:
- Age difference: The age gap between thirty-year-old Joseph Smith and eighteen-year-old Fanny Alger was not large enough to fit a traditional father-daughter dynamic.
- Attraction: Fanny Alger was described as a pleasant and comely young woman, and Joseph Smith was known for his charisma.
- Shared religious experience: Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger were both inclined to visionary religious experience, and the shared sealing ritual may have created a sense of intimacy.
- Ambiguity of the sealing ritual: The ritual might have been open to reinterpretation, allowing them to transition from an adoptive to a marital understanding of its meaning.
When did their relationship become amorous?
The relationship between Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger likely turned amorous in the spring or early summer of 1836. This is based on the timing of Emma’s discovery in July 1836 and our hypothesis that the sealing occurred shortly after Elijah’s appearance in the Kirtland Temple in April 1836.
What happened when Emma found out about Joseph and Fanny?
The sources tell us that in July 1836, Emma Smith peered through a crack in the barn door and spied Joseph and Fanny in a compromising situation together on the hay mow. Emma flew into a fury. Joseph called upon Oliver Cowdery to mediate the dispute, which ended with Emma expelling Alger from the house.
The incident triggered a series of departures from Kirtland. Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery departed almost immediately on a mission to Salem, Massachusetts.
After a brief stay with the Webb family, the apparently now pregnant Fanny Alger went west with her uncle toward Missouri. However, she stopped 500 miles short of her destination and settled down with an Indiana boy named Solomon Custer. Even Eliza Snow, another female boarder in the Smith home, apparently found Kirtland too hot and fled town to stay with her parents in Mantua, Ohio, some 30 miles away.
How does Emma’s discovery help us to make sense of the Salem treasure hunt trip?
Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery’s sudden departure on a “mission” to hunt for buried treasure in Salem, Massachusetts in late July 1836 has puzzled historians. Smith had given up treasure hunting many years earlier, so why this sudden revival of interest in that pursuit? It makes sense if he was looking for any excuse to get out of town while Emma cooled off.
How did the fallout cause a lasting rift between Joseph and Oliver Cowdery?
The incident opened a rift between Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery that would widen over the next year amid the fallout from their failed effort to start up a Kirtland bank. Cowdery saw the amorous turn in Smith’s relationship with Alger as an adulterous perversion of the adoptive sealing, while Smith apparently viewed this development of their sealed relationship as a legitimate and divinely sanctioned one.
By December 1837, Cowdery had told enough other Church leaders about Smith’s relationship with Fanny Alger that Smith was publicly accusing him of slander to combat a mass apostasy in the Kirtland Church. A few months later, in Missouri, Smith orchestrated Cowdery’s excommunication on charges that included circulating false reports.
Historians must reverse the order of priority.
How did the relationship between Joseph and Fanny precipitate the “Great Apostasy” in Kirtland?
The failure of the Kirtland Bank was the immediate inciting incident for the Great Kirtland Apostasy of 1837—but it wasn’t the only issue. Oliver Cowdery had apparently told Warren Parrish, the leader of the dissenter group, about the Fanny Alger incident, and Parrish aired the story publicly to the members of the Church.
The mass defection culminated in a raucous public meeting on December 10, when Joseph Smith defended himself against the charges of adultery, called Oliver Cowdery a liar, and exchanged words with Cowdery’s brothers, Lyman and Warren.
The meeting went poorly for Smith, and he fled Kirtland for Missouri shortly thereafter.
Cowdery’s adoptive daughter, Adeline Fuller, may also have played a role in the apostasy. Joseph’s mother, Lucy Mack Smith, claimed Fuller had a seer stone through which she received revelations that Joseph was a fallen prophet. (David Whitmer, however, denied that Fuller had prophesied against the president of the Church.)
What do we know about Fanny Alger’s later life?
The reportedly pregnant Fanny Alger quickly married Solomon Custer and settled in Indiana. She and her husband became tavernkeepers and Spiritualist mediums, receiving lyrical revelations. Their only known extant revelation appears to teach Christian universalism: the idea that there is no hell and everyone will be saved.
Why is the story of Fanny Alger important to Latter Day Saint history?
The Kirtland apostasy and the excommunication of Oliver Cowdery obviously cannot be understood without reference to the Fanny Alger incident. But what our paper claims is that this incident is also the key to understanding how Joseph Smith’s sealing theology developed over time.
Rather than see adoption sealings as a spinoff of plural marriage, historians must reverse the order of priority. The sealing power was first restored for the explicit purpose of sealing parents to children and was only thereafter repurposed by Joseph Smith to license plural marital relationships. This fundamentally reshapes the history of Latter-day Saint theology and raises important new questions for the next generation of Latter-day Saint thinkers and historians to grapple with.
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About the interview participant
Christopher C. Smith is a historian of religions, with a PhD in religion from Claremont Graduate University. He also holds an MA in History of Christianity from Wheaton College and a BA in Biblical Studies from Fresno Pacific University. Chris’s academic specialties include Mormonism, economic approaches to religion, and religion and violence.
Further Reading
- Latter-day Saint Plural Marriage: A Comprehensive Guide
- What Have Scholars Written about the Doctrine and Covenants?
- Who Were Joseph Smith’s Wives?
- Who Was the Father-in-Law of Fanny’s Brother John?
- What Do Brian and Laura Hales Have to Say About Polygamy?
Fanny Alger Resources
- Secret Covenants: New Insights on Early Mormon Polygamy (Signature Books)
- Fanny Alger (Church History Topics)
- “Guilty of Such Folly”? Accusations of Adultery or Polygamy Against Oliver Cowdery (BYU RSC)
- Fanny Alger (Joseph Smith’s Polygamy)
- Joseph Smith: Monogamist or Polygamist? (Interpreter)
One reply on “Who Was Fanny Alger?”
I asked LDSbot if any credible sources claim that Fanny Alger was initially sealed to Joseph Smith as a daughter. The chatbot said no. I next asked explicitly about the research from Don Bradley and Christopher Smith. The chatbot said their research was not generally accepted as reliable. I asked the chatbot if it had access to the book chapter in question. At this point, all I got was error messages. Even robots run away from a good debate.