So, Matt, John C. Bennett becomes
an important figure in Nauvoo in 1842,
but when did he first become acquainted with Joseph Smith?
So John C. Bennett begins
a correspondence with Joseph Smith in 1840.
He writes him several letters. At the Tim,
John C. Bennett is the quartermaster general in
Illinois, and he writes Joseph letters about how he's heard
about Joseph Smith; he’s interested in the Saints.
He wants to come to Nauvoo and ultimately join with
the Saints. And so Joseph says: “Yes, please come. Come visit us.
Come join with us.” And
so John C. Bennett moves to Nauvoo in September of 1840.
And he’s baptized and becomes a member of the Church then.
And then he begins kind of this meteoric rise within Nauvoo
and within the Church.
He's instrumental in getting
the charter passed that incorporates the city of Nauvoo.
He also becomes the first mayor of Nauvoo,
once that charter has been passed.
He becomes a major general and the inspector general
and the Nauvoo Legion. And he even becomes
an assistant President in the First Presidency of
the Church because Sidney Rigdon is ill
and can't fulfill those duties.
So he really becomes kind of a rising star in Nauvoo.
But it seems that there are rumors that quickly surfaced
after John C. Bennett comes to Nauvoo about him as a person,
about some of his conduct.
When did those rumors come about, and what were they?
So there are rumors that he is married and that he's left behind
a wife and children. And then by 1841,
we get additional rumors that he is seducing women in Nauvoo
on the justification that Joseph Smith and other Church leaders,
in the terms of contemporary documents,
condone promiscuous intercourse between the sexes.
But does Joseph look into these claims that Bennett has a family?
Joseph does. In the summer of 1841,
William Law and Hyrum Smith are back east; they’re in Pittsburgh.
And Joseph asked them to go down to Ohio and to see
whether Bennett really does have a family down there.
So they go, and they investigate, and they find that indeed,
Mary Barker was John C. Bennett’s wife.
And as they look into this further,
they find that Mary had apparently left John C. Bennett
a few weeks before Bennett comes to Illinois
because Bennett had been abusive.
He had been kind of a serial adulterer that had broken up
as many as seven families in the area.
So he had apparently separated from Mary Barker,
but they weren't divorced at the time.
What about the rumors about Bennett in Nauvoo?
Was there any truth to those?
Yes, the Nauvoo High Council begins investigating these claims
of sexual misconduct in May of 1842, and they get affidavits,
testimonies from several of the women involved.
One of the most important in terms of details is
Catherine Fuller Warren,
who says that Bennett approaches her in 1841 and seduces her
and then continues that practice.
And apparently other men in Nauvoo follow Bennett's example
and use the same justification that Church leaders sanction such
illicit behavior. Part of this seems to be connected to rumors
about plural marriage.
Of course, Joseph Smith saw his own practice of plural marriage
far differently than Bennett's promiscuity.
For Joseph, the relationships he engaged in were ceilings
or marriages that had formal proposals
and official religious ceremonies with witnesses.
What actions does Joseph take against Bennett when he learns
about these details?
Joseph confronts Bennett about them,
but he's willing to give Bennett a second chance.
And so when Bennett acts contrite
and says that he’ll reform. Joseph’s willing to believe them,
that this will happen.
And I think this happens on a few different occasions in 1841
and 1842. But I think finally, by the spring of 1842,
Joseph realizes that Bennett's not going to change.
And so Joseph decides that it's time to take action against
Bennett. And on May 11, 1842,
the First Presidency and Quorum of
the Twelve Apostles and Nauvoo’s bishops signed
a fellowship withdrawal
that essentially cuts Bennett off from the Church at that time.
But before they made that public,
they give Bennett the opportunity to withdraw
voluntarily from the Church.
And Bennett does so on May 17, 1842.
He also resigns as mayor of Nauvoo at the same time.
And so we do have some action occurring in May of 1842.
And I think Joseph also wants to address the ReliefSsociety,
in Nauvoo, about what’s been going on with Bennett.
How does he do that and what does he tell the Relief Society?
So he first reaches out to the Relief Society by
a letter that’s dated March 31, 1842,
in which he warns the sisters about Bennett
and these other men in their seductions
and essentially says that they don't have any authority
or validity in terms of
the arguments they're making about Joseph
and what he sanctioned.
But over the course of the summer of 1842,
we get several Joseph Smith discourses to
the Relief Society in which he is asking
the sisters to encourage repentance,
encourage moral reform, and to be merciful
and forgiving to those who have sinned.
That's really interesting because I think he, Joseph,
uses that same kind of mercy
and forgiveness toward John C. Bennett.
Even after kind of cutting John C. Bennett off from the Church,
Joseph still tries to preserve their relationship,
at least for a period of time.
He defends John C. Bennett before the Nauvoo Legion.
There's a resolution that's passed by
the Nauvoo City Council at Joseph’s request,
commending John C. Bennett for his service
as mayor in Nauvoo. But for some reason, by mid-June 1842,
something has changed in Joseph's mind.
And he he believes that he needs to now denounce John C. Bennett
and kind of distance himself from him.
So he writes a letter to Church members.
He also writes a letter to Illinois Governor Thomas Karlan.
And in both of these, he exposes Bennett as an imposter,
talks about his adultery, about his conduct
in Nauvoo, how he has harmed women there,
and just wants to make people aware of who Bennett is.
Bennett, of course, doesn't take too kindly to this.
And he leaves Nauvoo on June 21 and begins to publish
a series of four letters in the Sangamo Journal,
a Springfield, Illinois, newspaper that denounced Joseph Smith,
depict Joseph Smith as immoral, as a murderer,
as someone who is morally deficient.
And Bennett as well goes on a speaking tour throughout
the eastern United States,
also denouncing Joseph Smith and eventually publishes
a book in the fall of 1842,
which he calls an exposé of the Church and of Joseph Smith.
So things don’t end well. How does this affect the Church?
What’s kind of the long-term fallout from John C. Bennett?
Well, there's a community effect,
especially for the numerous women who were harmed in
the course of these seductions.
But it also forever colors
the public perception of plural marriage,
of polygamy as practiced by the Latter-day Saints because of
the lurid descriptions he uses and his letters in his book,
in his speaking tour.
And but it also has connections to
a second attempt to extradite Joseph to Missouri,
because he argues in his letters that Joseph Smith was complicit
in an assassination attempt
on former Missouri governor Lobatón Boggs.
So there really are some long, long-term effects.
It's almost as if you wish you could go back to Joseph in 1840
and say: “Joseph, don’t answer those letters from John Scibetta,
just ignore them. It’s not going to end well.”
And indeed, it doesn't end well.