Fanny Alger
Fanny Alger | |
|---|---|
| Born | Fanny W. Alger September 30, 1816 c. |
| Died | November 29, 1889 (aged 73) |
| Spouse |
Solomon Franklin Custer
(m. 1836) |
| Children | 9 |
Fanny W. Alger Custer (c. September 30, 1816 – November 29, 1889)[1] was possibly the first plural wife of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement.
Biography
[edit]Alger was born to Samuel Alger and Clarissa Hancock on September 30, 1816 or 1817, in Bloomfield, New York, the second of eight children. Samuel grew up working at sawmills and was a carpenter and joiner by trade. Clarissa was a sister of Levi W. Hancock, a leader in the Latter Day Saint movement after 1830.
The Algers left Bloomfield for Ashtabula, Ohio sometime around 1820, and then in 1825 to Mayfield, Ohio, ten miles southwest of Kirtland, Ohio. In 1830, many of the Hancock extended family, as well as Clarissa and Samuel, were among the first to join the Church of Christ in Mayfield, months before the congregation grew to include settlers in Kirtland.[2]
In September 1836, after Fanny had worked as a dairymaid for Emma Smith, the Algers left the Kirtland area for Clay County, Missouri. Fanny's uncle Levi Hancock conveyed her to her parents somewhere between Wooster, Ohio and Dublin, Indiana. The Algers' wagon broke down outside of Dublin where the Paul and Mary Custer family kept a tavern and hosted them. On November 16, Fanny married Paul and Mary's son Solomon at the Custer tavern by the town's justice of the peace.[3] Samuel and Clarissa Alger remained in Dublin for another year before continuing on to Missouri. Fanny and Solomon continued the Custers' tavern business, eventually keeping a grocery store and bakery, and launching a short-lived sawmill in 1870. Obituaries for Solomon and Fanny mention Fanny bearing nine children, though only five can be positively identified, two of whom survived her. Other Custer in-laws in Dublin started the local Universalist church months after Fanny's marriage, but she did not join until 1874. Her funeral was held at the Dublin church after she died at the home of her son in Indianapolis, Indiana, on November 29, 1889.[4]
Many years later, an early acquaintance remembered the young Alger of Kirtland as a "very nice and comely young woman ... toward whom ... everyone seemed partial for the amiability of her character."[5] Her obituary reported that in Indiana she was "generally beloved by all who knew her and was noted for her benevolence of spirit and generous-heartedness."[6] Her Universalist congregation memorialized her as "a firm believer in the Great Salvation" and one who met "with great courage and resolution the cares and perplexities that beset her through life."[7]
Relationship with Joseph Smith
[edit]In January 1838, a year and a half after the Algers had left Kirtland, Oliver Cowdery, one of the Three Witnesses to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, wrote to his brother about feeling dishonored by Joseph Smith's claims that Cowdery had admitted to having "willfully lied" and spreading rumors. Cowdery referred to a "dirty, nasty, filthy affair of [Smith] and Fanny Alger's ... in which I strictly declared that I had never deserted from the truth in the matter, and as I supposed was admitted by himself."[8] Members of the high council and bishopric, led by Thomas B. Marsh at Joseph Smith's appointment, investigated Cowdery and other members of the Missouri presidency for a variety of offenses, including slander against Smith. Rumors about Smith and Alger, Smith and "an orphan girl," and other scandals apparently diminished, with Alger's name disappearing from the historical record of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for decades.[9] A number of stories about her relationship with Smith resurfaced during the late nineteenth century during periods of intense antipolygamy campaigns against Utah Mormons. Secondhand witnesses, Mormon and non-Mormon, variously alleged that Smith had married Alger as a plural wife or had an extramarital sexual relationship with her.[10] Historians are divided over the reliability of these secondhand reports and whether the evidence is strong enough to conclude precisely what kind of relation existed between Alger and Smith.[11][12][13]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Golding 2024 supplies genealogical corrections to previously published errors; see esp. notes 20–21; her death date is confirmed by a published obituary and death certificate.
- ^ Golding 2024, p. 3.
- ^ Golding 2024, p. 4
- ^ Golding 2024.
- ^ Johnson 1947.
- ^ obituary.
- ^ John, R. N.; McGrew, J. B.; Brown, Flora B. (July 1890). "Memorial". The Convention Reporter. p. 5.
- ^ Oliver Cowdery, Letter to Warren A. Cowdery, 21 January 1838, copy by Warren F. Cowdery in Letterbook, circa 30 October 1833–circa 24 February 1838, pp. 80–83, Letter Book, Docket, and Correspondence of Oliver Cowdery, 1833–1894, Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California; other researchers have noticed the word "affair" written over another word, and have suggested it replaced "scrape," though advanced multispectral imaging has not yet confirmed this.
- ^ Compare sources in Golding 2024, Appendix B.
- ^ Bushman 2005, p. 325.
- ^ Golding 2024
- ^ Nash, Brittany Chapman (2020). Let's Talk about Polygamy. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book.
- ^ Hales 2013
Bibliography
[edit]- Golding, David (2024). Firm Believer of the Great Salvation: New Insights into Fanny Alger Custer. Mormon History Association. Cleveland. Retrieved February 1, 2025.
- Anderson, Richard Lloyd (1992). "Cowdery, Oliver". In Ludlow, Daniel H (ed.). Encyclopedia of Mormonism. New York: Macmillan Publishing. pp. 335–340. ISBN 0-02-879602-0. OCLC 24502140.
- Bushman, Richard Lyman (2005). Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
- Compton, Todd (1996). "Fanny Alger Smith Custer, Mormonism's First Plural Wife?". Journal of Mormon History. 22 (1): 174–207..
- Compton, Todd (1997). In Sacred Loneliness. Salt Lake City: Signature Books. ISBN 156085085X.
- Hales, Brian C. (2013). Joseph Smith's Polygamy, 3 Volumes. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books. ISBN 9781589581890. Archived from the original on February 1, 2014. Retrieved January 23, 2014.
- Johnson, Benjamin (April 1903). "Reply to Request for Information". Letter to George F. Gibbs. Retrieved February 1, 2025.
- Newell, Linda King; Avery, Valeen Tippetts (1994). Mormon Enigma. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
- Smith, George D. (Spring–Summer 2001). "Nauvoo Roots of Mormon Polygamy, 1841-46: A Preliminary Demographic Report". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 34 (1, 2): 123–158. doi:10.2307/45226772. JSTOR 45226772.
- Van Wagoner, Richard S. (1992). Mormon Polygamy: A History. Signature Books.
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