Fanny Alger

Fanny Alger (30 September 1816 in Rehoboth, Massachusetts – 29 November 1889 in Indianapolis, Indiana) is alleged to have been the first plural wife of Joseph Smith, Jr. Historians differ on whether she was actually married to Smith, or if she was just involved in an affair with him.

Rumors of affair with Smith and alleged polygamous marriage

Alger's parents were neighbors of the Smith's, and Alger lived with Smith and his wife, Emma. Chauncey and Ann Eliza Webb, ex-Mormons, later recalled that rumors had been whispered while Alger lived with the Smiths about Smith and Alger. Alger stopped living with the Smiths as a result of a fallout with Emma and was dismissed as their housekeeper.

The first contemporary reference to the alleged relationship was in a letter dated January 21, 1838. Oliver Cowdery wrote to his brother Warren stating that Smith had inappropriately spent time alone with Alger, referring to it as a "dirty, nasty, filthy affair." During this time Cowdery was estranged from Smith and they were disagreeing over leadership issues in the new movement.

Historian Lawrence Foster has dismissed the claim that Alger was ever married to Joseph Smith, stating that it is "debatable supposition, not an established fact". Fawn Brodie, in her famous work No Man Knows My History, also made the claim that Alger had been an affair of Smith's.

In 1903, Benjamin F. Johnson, a patriarch in the LDS church in Utah, wrote a letter to George S. Gibbs. Although Johnson was a teenager at the time, and not an intimate of Smith, he repeated the rumors he had heard about the relationship and alleged that he had been "told by Warren Parish, that he himself and Oliver Cowdery did know that Joseph had Fannie Alger as a wife Johnson also claimed that, although Alger did not join the Saints in Utah, "she did not turn from the Church nor from her friendship for the Prophet while she lived"(sic).

According to George D. Smith, Alger's marriage to Smith may have been attested by several contemporaries at the time, including Emma Smith, Warren Parish, Oliver Cowdery, and Heber C. Kimball, even though publicly the leadership of the church, including Joseph Smith and Emma denied that Joseph Smith had been a polygamist throughout their lives.

Later life

Alger then lived with relatives in Mayfield, Ohio until 1837, when she moved with her relatives to Indiana where she married Solomon Custer, with whom she had nine children. When asked about her relationship with Smith after Smith's death, she is reported to have said: "That is all a matter of my own, and I have nothing to communicate."

Paternity testing of Orrison Smith

In 2005, Ugo Perego performed genetic research in an attempt to verify the paternity of several people alleged to be children of Joseph Smith through alleged plural wives. Orrison Smith, the first son of Fanny Alger, was found not to be Joseph Smith's son. Four other likely candidates were also ruled out. Presently genetic research has revealed no descendant of Joseph Smith through any woman other than his first and only publicly acknowledged legal wife, Emma Smith. Emma Smith bore Joseph nine children and his descendants through her number in the hundreds today.

Footnotes

References

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  • Referenced as Fanny Alger (Remembering).
  • Referenced as Fanny Alger (Wives).
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