Who Was This Mysterious Woman? in an 1872 Report of Brigham Young 1 , We Learn That She

Annie Lyman

December 20, 2007 — Keller

Who was this mysterious woman? In an 1872 report of Brigham Young[1], we learn that she was 1) George A. Smith’s cousin, 2) still alive, and 3) a plural wife of Oliver Cowdery. The latter claim has both its supporters (Quinn[2], Faulring[3]) and its skeptics (Van Wagoner[4], Price[5], Morris[6]).

Mary Ann Lyman was born Feb 1817 to Asa Lyman and Sarah Davis[7]. Asa Lyman was the brother of John Smith’s wife Clarissa Lyman, while John Smith was Joseph Smith Sr.’s brother. St. Lawrence County, New York provided the home to an extended family of Smiths and Lymans. Grandfather Asael Smith resided there with three of his sons: John, Jesse, and Asahel. Cousin George A. Smith was born a few months after Mary. The families received a letter from Joseph Smith Jr. in August 1828 which caused John Smith to remark “That Joseph wrote like a prophet.”[8] George A. Smith described the sequence in which the extended family was converted to Mormonism starting in late 1831. First were “my mother’s brothers, Asa and George Lyman, and my grandmother, Philomelia Lyman.” The baptism of George’s mother occurred in September 1831. His father was baptized, despite bad health, in an icy pond in January. Cousin George held out until September 1832, turning down what would amount to a scholarship offer to pursue anything but Mormonism. It is interesting that the Lyman side of the St. Lawrence family joined before the Smith side did.

More is known about her younger–by two years–sister, Clarissa, than Mary Ann. Clarissa Lyman went with her uncle John and cousin George to Kirtland in May of 1833. It is clear that the rest of Asa Lyman’s family did not move until 1834[9]. This in effect narrows the window that Mary Ann could have encountered Oliver Cowdery. Oliver was in Missouri until mobs shut down the Mormon press and threatened the Saints in JacksonCounty on July 23, 1833. Oliver was sent to Kirtland to counsel with Joseph Smith on the best course of action, leaving his wife of seven months behind.

Joseph Smith’s strategy was to start up a new press in Kirtland and petition to organize a military venture for the redemption of Zion. These plans required Oliver to be away from his wife, Elizabeth Whitmer, much longer than expected. One can feel Oliver’s frustration in his letters to her[10]. On the 5th of May, the Joseph Smith left affairs in Kirtland under the leadership of Oliver Cowdery and Sidney Rigdon and marched with Zion’s Camp to Missouri. Although Oliver hoped Joseph would bring back Elizabeth on the return trip, I think she may have waited and accompanied David Whitmer, who arrived from Missouri in mid October[11]. Reunited, Elizabeth and Oliver would go on to welcome their first child into mortality on August 21, 1835[12].

I suspect then, that if Oliver really did practice plural marriage, it would have been during the summer months when Joseph Smith was absent and hence not around to advise him about such a sensitive matter. Being away from his first wife for such a long time must have increased the temptation to act independently for the second Elder. In August of 1834, we can place Oliver in Asa (and Annie’s!) Lyman’s house. There Oliver clerked during a trial where Joseph Smith’s tempermental behavior during Zion’s Camp was considered. Asa Lyman, himself, voiced initial misgivings but would go on to sign a statement vindicating Joseph[13].

Whatever the misunderstandings about earlier transgressions, all appears to have been forgiven by Dec. 5, 1834, when Oliver was officially made an Assistant President, second only to Joseph. Asa Lyman contributed valiantly to the building of the KirtlandTemple and was singled out for blessings[14], including being cured from having seizures[15]. Like many of their peers from Zion’s Camp, George A. Smith and his second cousin Lyman Smith were called to become the first Seventies in 1835. The two were called to be companions in a mission to the eastern states. Lyman Smith returned to marry the then 16 year old Clarissa Lyman[16].

Asa Lyman later ran into difficulties involving long term family friends Alpheus Cutler and Reynolds Cahoon that had to be meditated by the Kirtland High Council and Joseph Smith[17]. He signed the papers[18] to help start up the ill-advised Kirtland Safety Society. As it collapsed—taking the Church in Kirtland down with it—Asa’s family became separated in 1838. Lyman Smith died near Chicago, Illinois in 1838 and his widow Clarissa would take out ad in Nauvoo’s Times and Seasons wondering where her father and brother were after a couple of year’s absence[19]. Clarissa remarried Amos Moore in 1840[20]. Asa Lyman was invited to be endowed in the Nauvoo temple on December 17, 1845[21].

When it came time to leave Nauvoo, George A. Smith was made a captain of a company that included Asa Lyman’s family. At one point on the way to Winter Quarter’s the company was delayed while the wheel on Asa’s wagon is repaired. Asa’s continuing labors for the cause of Zion show up in records at Winter Quarters[22]. Unfortunately while on a fishing expedition to help feed the poor, he drowned in the Missouri River[23].

The trail following Annie Lyman starts to wear thin from this point. She appears on an 1856 census taken in Iron County, Utah[24]. Unsubstantiated genealogical records at familysearch indicate that she married a J.D. Rolland in 1861. I hope someone more seasoned than I can pick up the trail again.

I am satisfied that Brigham Young had little incentive reason to make up such a story, even if he is mistaken about some details. Scoring cheap points with the RLDS branch of the restoration would not have been worth the expense of possibly staining the reputation of a Witness of the Book of Mormon. Why would the then still living Annie Lyman consent to go along in such a conspiracy?

I began my search for Annie Lyman as a way to find some closure about the origins of plural marriage. I have come to appreciate the journey to find such answers even more than the actual answers. As I have come to know more about the early Saints, I feel more connected to them.

Citations

[1] Larson, Andrew Karl and Katharine Miles Larson, eds. Diary of Charles Lowell Walker. 2 vols. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 1980 (see I:349 26 July 1872).

…while Joseph and Oliver were translating the Book of Mormon, they had a revelation that the order of Patriarchal Marriag and the Sealing was right.” Cowdery, according to Young, proposed to Smith, “Why dont we go into the Order of Polygamy, and practice it as the ancients did? We know it is true, then why delay?” Smith warned that “the time has not yet come.” Ignoring the prophet’s counsel, “Oliver Cowdery took to wife Miss Annie Lyman, cousin to Geo A. Smith. From that time he went into darknes and lost the spirit. Annie Lyman is still alive, a witnes to these things

Brigham Young related some of the substance of this story earlier as recorded in Journal of Wilford Woodruff, 5:84. (26 August 1857).

I will argue that Brigham Young correctly identifies the parties involved. However a revelation on plural marriage was more likely received when Joseph and Oliver were translating the Bible and not Book of Mormon. I accept Bachman’s reconstruction posed in

Journal of Mormon History, Vol. 5 (1978) New Light on an Old Hypothesis: The Ohio Origins of the Revelation on Eternal Marriage.

[2]D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, p.17 Quinn thinks Oliver’s plural marriage occurred in 1833 and speculates that it is one of “two evils” referred to in a 18 Dec. 1833 (HC 1:465) blessing by Joseph Smith. I will argue that a marriage with Oliver more likely took place in 1834. Also of note is that Quinn identifies Oliver’s wife as Mary Ann Lyman, which I concur with.

[3]Scott Faulring The Return of Oliver Cowdery from The Disciple as Witness: Essays on Latter-day Saint History and Doctrine in Honor of Richard Lloyd Anderson note 43.

I believe that evidence suggests Cowdery believed in and practiced this Kirtland-form of plural marriage (1833–34), got in trouble for it (1834), and for many years (1835–48) was opposed to the practice. This opposition mellowed when he returned to the church in 1848.

[4]Richard van Wagoner Mormon Polygamy p. 11

This second-hand statement of Young, who may not have even been a Mormon at the time of the purported incident, lacks credibility. The Book of Mormon not only consistently denounces polygamy, but it would have been impossible for Cowdery to have been living polygamously during the period charged by Young (1827-30). Cowdery’s marriage to his only wife, Elizabeth Ann Whitmer, occurred in 1832, three years after the translation of the Book of Mormon.19 Furthermore no charges of sexual misconduct were made against Cowdery during his 1838 excommunication trial when there would have been ample opportunity and strong incentive for such retaliation.

[5] Richard and Pamela Price Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy The Prices are part of the RLDS movement.

It is a fact that Brigham Young was not a credible witness on this subject, since he was not acquainted with Joseph nor Oliver in 1829 when Joseph was translating the Nephite record and Oliver was acting as his scribe. Brigham did not join the Church until April 1832

[6]Larry Morris The Private Character of the Man who Bore That Testimony: Olver Cowdery and his Critics in Farms Review 15:1. Morris comments on Oliver’s reaction to Joseph Smith’s interaction with Fanny Alger, which lead to Oliver accusing Joseph Smith of adultery in 1837-1838.

Oliver was apparently unaware that Fanny Alger had become the first plural wife of Joseph Smith. Regardless of the difficulties between Joseph and Oliver, however, this whole incident has no direct bearing on Oliver’s reliability as a witness.

Morris expanded on his position in the August 2007 FAIR conference in his presentation, Oliver Cowdery Controversies, citing Oliver’s surprise and disgust that the Mormons were practicing polygamy in this 24 July 1846 letter to Daniel and Phebe Jackson:

I can hardly think it possible that you have written us the truth – that though there may be individuals who are guilty of the iniquities spoken of, – yet no such practice can be preached or adheared to as a public doctrine. Such may do for the followers of Mohamet; it may have done some thousands of years ago; but no people professing to be governed by the pure and holy principles of the Lord Jesus, can hold up their heads before the world at this distance of time, and be guilty of such folly – such wrong – such abomination. It will blast, like a mill-dew their fairest prospects, and lay the axe at the root of their future happiness.

[7] search for Mary A. Lyman.

[8] George A. Smith, “My Journal,” The Instructor 81 (1946); 82 (1947), abridged

from holograph in LDS Church Archives. Grammar has been standardized. Most of the information from George A. Smith’s perspective in this essay comes from this source.

[9] History of Greene County, Missouri 1883 R. I. Holcombe, Editing Historian

ASA LYMAN. This gentleman is the son of Asa and Sarah (Davis) Lyman, and was born in New Hampshire April 25, 1811. His grandfather was a soldier in the Revolutionary war. When Mr. Lyman was a small boy his parents moved to St. Lawrence county, New York, where he grew to manhood. At the age of sixteen he learned the blacksmith’s trade, which he has followed until a few years ago. _____In 1834 he removed to near Cleveland, Ohio.____ In 1840 to Parke county, Indiana, from there to Arkansas, and in 1844 he came to Greene county, Missouri, where he has since resided. He had the first shop in that part of the county. He owns a good farm, and spends most of his time reading at home. He was postmaster for about eighteen years, and has been a consistent member of the Christian church for forty years

[10] A few excerpts from Oliver’s 1833-1834 letters follow.

Dec. 6, 1833

Dear Elizabeth: God only knows the feelings of my heart as I address afew lines to you. I know not where this may find you, if ever; but I pray the Lord that it may. Brother Orson, and Gould came, but no Elizabeth came with them. I need not say anything of my disappointment, for I do not desire to add sorrow to your great afflictions, and can only say: I would you were here. When this arrives I want bro. John or William, to write me your situation, health, &c. immediately. If bro. Gilbert, or Phelps comes to the east I shall expect you without fail. I conclude my dear Elizabeth, by saying that my prayers ascend daily and hourly to God that you & I may be spared, & yet enjoy each other’s society, in this life, in peace. O be faithful to the Lord: stay yourself on his Omnipotent arm; and mayGod Almighty bless you, my dear, Amen. I am yours as ever, in life or in death.

Jan. 1, 1834

I think of your situation daily, and my mind is filled with continual sorrow. I live at bro. Joseph’s, and am treated with brotherly kindness; but that is not like living with a family of one’s own, when the Lord has given him one.

May 4, 1834

No man, I presume to say, has a greater desire to dwell with his family than I have. I do, and always did; when I had the privilege, consider one of the greatest temporal blessings ever bestowed upon mankind. So, I do not remain abscent from you because I do not desire your society but to be obedient to the commandments of heaven. You know my dear, that to resign would be committing a gross transgression, if I only did it to gratify an earthly or sensual desire; and so as unworthy as I am, there remains only one course for me to take, and that is, onward in obedience to the word of the Lord; and in this I have reason to believe that you use your influence in my behalf at a throne of grace.

….

Brother Joseph will bring you down and provide everything for your comfort. You may as well have the leave the most of your will be privileged with bringing your goods. You may as well leave the most of your crockery as it will be better to leave that than bring it so far. Should anything transpire to hinder brother Joseph from bringing you, he and brother Frederick will arrange that you may come with some one else, who will see that you are treated with kindness. So I shall expect you the latter part of the summer or fall.

[11] See the Saintwithoutholos.com’s chronology for 1834

[12] Leonard J. Arrington, Oliver Cowdery’s Kirtland Ohio Sketch Book, BYU Studies 12:4

[13] HC 2:147-161

[14] HC 2:204-207

[15] Mark L. McConkie, Remembering Josepha: Personal Recollections of Those Who Know the Prophet Joseph Smith

Lyman, Asa

(November 26, 1785-September 11, 1844 [or July 1847])

Tells of death by drowning while catching fish for the poor; also that though he suffered from epileptic fits, which Joseph told him would not bother him while he worked on the Kirtland Temple; this prophetic promise came true.

Asa Lyman, son of Richard and Philomena Lyman, born Lebanon, Grafton Co., N. Y., Nov. 26, 1785, was drowned in the Missouri river, near Winter Quarters, on the 11th of September 1844. His body not found. He had been a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, and was a High Priest. He was baptized in Matildaville, St. Lawrence County, in 1832. He was one of the stonemasons who built the KirtlandTemple. He had been afflicted with epileptic fits for two years. The Prophet Joseph told him if he went to work on that Temple he should not be afflicted with a fit. He accordingly went to work, when it was six feet high, and continued until the top stone, 50 feet high, was put on, and all the time did not have one fit. At the time of his death he was catching fish to distribute among the poor.

“11 Sept. 1847 Death of Asa Lyman Reported by G. A. S. (George A. Smith),” Mormon Biography File, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[16] See the reference in note 8. I will include a humorous narrative of events from cousin George.

My feet were very sore. I had blisters on all my toes and one on the ball of each foot and one of my heels was one complete blister. Brother William Tinney and Brother Murdock collected a congregation and we preached in the evening. In the morning I proposed to Lyman Smith to rest till my feet got well. He replies, “I wish that little blister was on my heel, I could walk with it.” Being two years older than myself, I regarded him as my senior and seeing his anxiety to get home, I told him if he would take all the money we both had and go directly to the lake, it would be sufficient to pay his passage to Fairport, and in two days he would be at home, and I would wait till I got recruited then I would preach my way home at my leisure; but he refused to separate from me, so I picked up our trunk and said, “Let us be walking.” The first tavern I came to I purchased a half a pint of rum and poured it into my shoes. This at first made my blisters smart, but soon relieved them of pain. I repeated this application twice during the day and traveled 27 miles. In five days we were in Kirtland, making the distance of about 160 miles in that time, though Brother Lyman Smith gave out so that I had to carry our trunk most of the time for the last three days. _____I soon learned the secret of his hurry; in two days after his arrival he was married to my fair cousin, Clarissa Lyman, on the day he had promised previous to his starting on his mission._____ My feet suffered so severely on this trip that all my toenails except two came off. We arrived home November 2, 1835, and was welcomed by President Joseph Smith, the Prophet. We had traveled on foot 1850 miles, held 75 meetings, and baptized eight persons; conversed with and bore testimony to everybody with whom we had an opportunity.