Ms 4048
Workings of Mormonism related by Mrs. Orson Hyde \Pratt/
Salt Lake City
1884
As the wife of Orson Hyde \Pratt/the Apostle, Mrs. Hyde \Pratt/ was very familiar with the workings of Mormonism for many years. Mrs Emma Smith and Mrs Heber C. Kimball were among her most intimate friends; specially intimate as she was left without any relative but her infant son while her husband was off on his missions to England.
While at Nauvoo, when about twenty-two years of age, she was thus left dependent for means of support as well as companionship. She would often take her child with her and spend a week or two at a time, in the family of Joseph Smith, earning \by her needle/ provisions, or whatever was most convenient to pay. [page 2] There was little money then in circulation and people were obliged to be content to earn what would merely keep soul and body together.
In Joseph Smith she had implicit confidence. in. She accepted his inspired revelations; her husband had written many at his dictation. He appeared much interested in her affairs and brought Dr. John C. Bennett once or twice with him when he called: At first his calls were made upon her in her home where she was living with another family; then when she moved into a little house by herself his attentions became more frequent. He told her at one time that his wife Emma had become jealous of her; she at once called upon Emma and assured her of the folly of such an idea; she told her that she was thoroughly bound up in her husband, Mr. Hyde [sic], and had no [page 3] thought for any one else. At one of his calls with Dr. Bennet, Joseph told Mrs. Hyde [sic] that there was something he wanted to say to her but dare not for fear she would lose respect for him. That seemed impossible to her, but \as/ she told him; he however postponed the announcement. He told her that perhaps she would like to undertake to make Dr. Bennett’s shirts and clothing, as othhe could pay in money; that many had tried but without giving him satisfaction. While she had never done anything of the kind before, she did it now from necessity, and cheerfully; she even did his washing after awhile for money was a scarce article of payment.
Sometime after this Joseph called again and said that now he should tell her what he meant to have told her before. He said itthat he knew she must be lonely now that her husband was away, and that it was not at all necessary that it should be so. She needed the company of some man, and he would stay with her when theshe wished it; that there was no sin in it as long as she kept it to herself; that the sin was wholly in making it known toherself orto her husband or any one else. She replied to Joseph’s proposal most indignantly; she told him she loved her husband most devotedly, and upbraided him \sharply/ for what he had suggested. He replied that if she told of it he had it in his power to ruin her character. From that time she discontinued her habit of going to his house to sew, and asked Emma Smith to send the work to her instead.
After he had left her sheMrs. Hyde [sic] was in \great/ distress of mind. Here she was friendless andalone scarcely more than twenty years of age, with one who was almost as a god to her counselling her in this way: Regardless of his threats \if she told/ she went immediately to her friend Mrs. Harris, in whose virtue and faithfulness as a wife, shand \as her old and tried/ friend she had implicit confidence; to her she told the story of the insult Joseph had offered her expecting to receive her hearty sympathy. To her surprise Mrs. Harris replied: that“she \You/ must think nothing of that; why I myself have been his mistress for the past four years.” She soon saw for herself, with her eyes now opened, that there were manyhouses whose back doors he entered on the sly, guarded as he was by Bennet who would tell Mrs. Pratt to watch his \Smith’s/ entrance and exit here and there; women, too, would admit \to her/ their intercourse with him and offer her opportunities of convincing herself that what they said was true. There was nothing said then as to Celestial Marriage or revelation.
One day Dr. Bennet, who knew of Smith’s proposal to Mrs. Pratt and its rejection, and who in consequence confided to her some of Smith’s iniquities, one day hecalled upon her, and told her that a revelation was to be made five days later, to Joseph Smith, authorizing polygamy; that Smith had been so general in his attentions thatto the women that he was obliged to shield himself by these means.
Five days from that time, the revelation was made, in the presence of a few of his chosen councillors. Mrs. Pratt says to the best of her knowledge it was written by Smith and Bennet conjointly.
It was first shown to Emma Smith who must be persuaded to accept and live up to, if possible. She did believe in her husband as a prophet, seer, and revelator. But she knew him too well as a man, Mrs. Pratt said, to believe in this as a revelation. She indignantly threw the paper into the fire. The statement is differently made as regards the revelation finally made public. Some say that a single copy was preserved, others that it was written up from memory.