Footnotes
For more information on Bennett’s “disclosures,” see “Joseph Smith Documents from May through August 1842.”.
Recollections of the Pioneers of Lee County, 57; Wilford Woodruff, “Sabbath Scene in Nauvoo,” Times and Seasons, 15 Apr. 1842, 3:752. When Wasson departed from Nauvoo is not clear, but it was sometime after his baptism and before mid-June, since this letter states he spent four weeks in New Jersey.
Recollections of the Pioneers of Lee County. Dixon, IL: Inez A. Kennedy, 1893.
Benjamin Winchester began preaching in New Jersey in 1838, proselytizing in towns such as Hornerstown, New Egypt, and Toms River in Monmouth County. Erastus Snow also preached extensively in New Jersey in 1841, and William Appleby labored there as well. (Benjamin Winchester, Payson, IL, 18 June 1839, Letter to the Editors, Times and Seasons, Nov. 1839, 1:9–11; Snow, Journal, 1838–1841, 102–113; Letter from William Appleby, ca. Mar. 1842; see also Fleming, “Early Mormonism in the Pine Barrens,” 73–88.)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Snow, Erastus. Journals, 1835–1851; 1856–1857. CHL. MS 1329, box 1, fds. 1–3.
Fleming, Stephen J. “‘Sweeping Everything Before It’: Early Mormonism in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.” BYU Studies 40 (2001): 72–104.
One newspaper reported that in June 1842, West preached “that Infidelity is identical with Mormonism.” (Tyler Parsons, Boston, MA, 14 June 1842, Letter to the Editor, Boston Investigator, 15 June 1842, [3].)
Boston Investigator. Boston. 1831–1904.
By the end of July 1842, the Sangamo Journal in Springfield, Illinois, had published four of Bennett’s letters.a The New York Herald reprinted some of the letters in July, and other eastern newspapers, including Philadelphia’s North American and Daily Advertiser, referenced the letters and the falling-out between Bennett and JS.b
(aJohn C. Bennett, Nauvoo, IL, 27 June 1842, Letter to the Editor, Sangamo Journal [Springfield, IL], 8 July 1842, [2]; John C. Bennett, Carthage, IL, 2 July 1842, Letter to the Editor, Sangamo Journal, 15 July 1842, [2]; John C. Bennett, Carthage, IL, 4 July 1842, Letter to the Editor, Sangamo Journal, 15 July 1842, [2]; John C. Bennett, St. Louis, MO, 15 July 1842, Letter to the Editor, Sangamo Journal, 22 July 1842, [2]. bSee, for example, “Important from the Far West,” New York Herald, 21 July 1842, [2]; “Excommunication Extraordinary,” North American and Daily Advertiser [Philadelphia], 8 July 1842, [2]; and “A Row among the Mormons,” Sun [Baltimore], 22 July 1842, [2].)Sangamo Journal. Springfield, IL. 1831–1847.
New York Herald. New York City. 1835–1924.
North American and Daily Advertiser. Philadelphia. 1839–1845.
Sun. Baltimore. 1837–2008.
The issue contains a notice dated 20 August 1842. (“Books of Mormon,” Times and Seasons, 15 Aug. 1842, 3:894.)
According to Webster’s 1828 dictionary, one definition of satellite was “a follower; an obsequious attendant or dependant.” To support his accusations against JS, Bennett had produced affidavits from Francis M. Higbee, Melissa Schindle, and others, as well as a statement from Martha Brotherton. (“Satellite,” in American Dictionary [1828]; John C. Bennett, Carthage, IL, 2 July 1842, Letter to the Editor, Sangamo Journal [Springfield, IL], 15 July 1842, [2]; “Miss Brotherton’s Statement,” Sangamo Journal, 22 July 1842, [2].)
An American Dictionary of the English Language: Intended to Exhibit, I. the Origin, Affinities and Primary Signification of English Words, as far as They Have Been Ascertained. . . . Edited by Noah Webster. New York: S. Converse, 1828.
Sangamo Journal. Springfield, IL. 1831–1847.
See Matthew 7:24–25.
In June and July 1842, Adams, a high priest in the church who had formerly been a lay Methodist preacher, debated Presbyterian minister George Montgomery West, first in Boston and then in Philadelphia. In Boston, the debates lasted for five evenings in June. According to one Boston newspaper, Adams defended the church “in a masterly manner, and so ingeniously and fairly supported it by the Bible, as to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mormonism is the doctrine of the Bible; provided it teaches any one particular doctrine more than another.” Apparently, Adams and West had recently resumed their debate in Philadelphia. (Letter from Erastus Snow, 22 June 1842; “The Mormon Discussion,” Boston Investigator, 29 June 1842, [3], italics in original; Advertisement, Public Ledger [Philadelphia], 1 Aug. 1842, [2]; Advertisement, Public Ledger, 2 Aug. 1842, [2].)
Boston Investigator. Boston. 1831–1904.
Public Ledger. Philadelphia. 1836–1925.
The Times and Seasons reprinted an article from the Boston Investigator stating that in the Boston debates, Adams, “with the whole Bible at his tongue’s end, bore down upon him [West] with a torrent of Scripture that swept away his objections like chaff before the hurricane, and the doughty Dr. was fairly at a loss how to get hold of him.” Another article from the Bostonian, also reprinted in the Times and Seasons, characterized West as “a master of language, and very sarcastic, but his proofs are all assertions, his arguments assumptions, his reasons ridicule; and he seems determined to frighten the Mormons away by looks and expressions of horror, and annihilate their system by a flower of rhetoric, appealing to the well known prejudices of the people, instead of their understanding.” (“Dr. West and the Mormons,” Times and Seasons, 15 July 1842, 3:862; “Great Discussion on Mormonism,” Times and Seasons, 1 Aug. 1842, 3:864.)
See Psalm 46:4.
Lorenzo had two brothers, Harmon and Warren, and two sisters, Clara and Roxy. His mother was Elizabeth Hale Wasson, Emma Smith’s sister. (Recollections of the Pioneers of Lee County, 57.)
Recollections of the Pioneers of Lee County. Dixon, IL: Inez A. Kennedy, 1893.
The Times and Seasons reported that Wasson was the first of Emma Smith’s “kindred that have embraced the fulness of the Gospel.” (“Sabbath Scene in Nauvoo,” Times and Seasons, 15 Apr. 1842, 3:751.)
Wasson’s family had moved from Harpursville, New York, to Illinois, in 1836. Emma Smith’s mother, Elizabeth Lewis Hale, had passed away earlier in 1842 in Harmony, Pennsylvania. (Recollections of the Pioneers of Lee County, 57; Anderson, Ancestry and Posterity of Joseph Smith, 302.)
Recollections of the Pioneers of Lee County. Dixon, IL: Inez A. Kennedy, 1893.
Anderson, Mary Audentia Smith. Ancestry and Posterity of Joseph Smith and Emma Hale: With Little Sketches of Their Immigrant Ancestors All of Whom Came to America between the Years 1620 and 1685, and Settled in the States of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1929.
Editorials in the Wasp and Times and Seasons implied that Bennett enjoyed frequenting brothels. Wasson may have also been referring to the women who were seduced by Bennett in Nauvoo. (Editorial, Wasp, Extra, 27 July 1842, [4]; Times and Seasons, 1 Aug. 1842, 3:876.)
The Wasp. Nauvoo, IL. Apr. 1842–Apr. 1843.