August 29th

Aug 29, 1842 - Nauvoo resident, Mary Clift, testifies to the Nauvoo High Council that she is pregnant with Gustavius Hills's child. She says he told her that "the heads of the Church practiced such conduct & that the time would come when men would have more wives than one." Hills is excommunicated.

Aug 29, 1842 - Joseph Smith preaches: " Let the Twelve send all who will support the character of the Prophet, the Lord's anointed, and if all who go will support my character, I prophecy in the name of the Lord Jesus, whose servant I am, that you will prosper in your missions. I have the whole plan of the kingdom before me, and no other person has. And as to all that Orson Pratt, Sidney Rigdon, or George W. Robinson can do to prevent me, I can kick them off my heels, as many as you can name, I know what will become of them." Joseph writes in his journal, "I concluded my remarks by saying I have the best of feelings towards my brethren, since this last trouble began, but to the Apostates and enemies, I will give a lashing every opportunity and I will curse them."

Aug 29, 1843 - Joseph Smith's confidant and personal secretary, William Clayton, writes in his diary: "A.M. at the Temple. President Joseph at my house with Miss W[oo]d[wor]th." Sixteen-year-old Flora Ann Woodworth was a secret plural wife of Joseph Smith.

Aug 29, 1852 - First public announcement of previously denied practice of plural marriage. Contemporary reports show this causes extensive disaffection among British Mormons.

Aug 29, 1858 - Brigham Young tells a visitor to his office: "I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but I tell you, that if the Congress will do justice to this people the Union will be preserved; but if they trample upon our rights, and interfere unconstitutionally with our privileges they will fall--they will separate."

Aug 29, 1877 - Brigham Young dies in Salt Lake City. This is exactly twenty-five years after he authorized public announcement of polygamy. His last words are "Joseph, Joseph, Joseph!" He leaves twenty-three widows of whom seventeen receive a share of his estate. Young's personal secretary L. John Nuttall writes that he "felt that the Master Mind of Utah & in the Whole World had been called away leaving a blank and a sorrowful time for the Latter-day Saints." Young had wanted to appoint his son, Apostle Brigham Young Jr., as his successor but many in the Church's hierarchy oppose the establishment of a dynasty. The office of President of the Church is not filled for over three years.

Aug 29, 1901 - First Presidency statement against secret orders and organizations. This is official culmination of half-century of estrangement from church's involvement in Freemasonry, which Joseph Smith thought would help protect him and Mormons.

Aug 29, 1901 - Apostle John W. Taylor marries two half-sisters, Rhoda and Roxie Welling, both on the same day. This increases his number of wives to five. Apostle Matthias F. Cowley performs the weddings at the Taylor home in Farmington, Utah. Taylor's third wife, Janet Maria Woolley (whom Taylor married four days after Wilford Woodruff's manifesto was presented to the Church in general conference) says that Taylor was given permission to marry the Welling girls by Joseph F. Smith, a counselor in the First Presidency.

Aug 29, 1904 - Joseph Smith's youngest son, David Hyrum Smith dies in the Northern Illinois Hospital and Asylum for the Insane in Elgin, Illinois. Although David was born after his father's martyrdom Joseph had prophesied that his unborn son would be male and would be named "David" and would be "president and king of Israel.
David did not go with Brigham Young to Utah. However as an apostle and later first presidency member in the Reorganized church he went on two missions to Utah to convert the "poor decieved souls." The Utah Mormons returned the favor by trying to convince him that polygamy was instituted by his father rather than by Brigham Young as his mother (and Joseph widow) Emma had claimed. He gradually accepted that his father practiced polygamy but considered it to be adulterous rather than of divine revelation. This realization was accompanied by a decent into severe mental illness. He spent the final 27 years of his life in the Asylum for the Insane.

Aug 29, 1946 - Apostle George F. Richards asks Alberta temple president to stop "Seances" there.

Aug 29, 1964 - DESERET NEWS editorial, "One Nation Under God" endorses adding the phrase "under God" to the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. Assistant to the Twelve Thorpe B. Issacson reads this editorial approvingly at October general conference.

Aug 29, 1964 - Joseph F. Smith II dies. At the time of his death he is serving as a stake high counselor. He had been Presiding Patriarch to the Church but is released in 1946 due to homosexual activities. No church trial is ever held, and no formal action is taken against him but for ten years his local leaders are instructed that he is not to assume any responsibilities or callings. This restriction is lifted by President David O. McKay in 1957.

Aug 29, 1991 - Arthur K. Smith is first non-LDS president of University of Utah.

Aug 29, 2005 - SALT LAKE TRIBUNE publishes AP story "Egyptian wife: Polygamy is the answer." Story states, "CAIRO, Egypt - Hayam Dorbek wants her husband to get married. Again. In urging him - and the rest of Egypt - to be more open to polygamy as approved by Islam, the 42-year-old journalist has set off a lively debate in her country and the rest of the Arab world tuning in on satellite TV. Dorbek says she felt her work was keeping her so busy that her husband needed a second wife. She says he refused, 'but my son is helping me promote the idea,' she said." Dorbek states that the practice is the answer to many of her society's ills, such as adultery. In this she echos the arguments advanced 153 years earlier when Orson Pratt formally announced the LDS practice of polygamy.

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