Lorenzo Snow
Lorenzo Snow was born April 3, 1814, in Ohio. He joined the church in June of 1836 at 22 years of age. In 1837, he was called on a mission, and while serving he missed the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society. He moved to Far West in the summer of 1838, and after recovering from an illness, went on another mission. In 1840, he settled with the LDS community in Nauvoo until he was called to serve a third mission in England. Returning in 1843, he continued preaching and teaching.
Plural Marriages
After Joseph Smith explained the ways of plural marriage, Lorenzo joined in and got married himself. These marriages were done in secret and thus not well or reliably recorded at the time. There are conflicting dates and even wives in different sources. This data is presented as is shown on Lorenzo Snow’s Family Search page, the genealogy website owned by the church. There are differing dates found on Lorenzo Snow’s Wikipedia entry, the archived rootsweb profile for Lorenzo Snow, and a wikitree entry for Lorenzo Snow.
According to the data found in family search January 1845 is when Lorenzo Snow began his married life, just months after Joseph and Hyrum were killed for destroying the printing press in Nauvoo. Then in November of the same year, he married his second wife, and 3 months later he married wife #3 and #4 on the same day. One of which was Charlotte Squires, who was only 18 years old at the time of marriage. In his first year of marriage, he wed 4 women. So the household was Lorenzo Snow, four wives (Mary, Sara, Charlotte, and Harriet), and still no children – yet the family was technically growing. The “growing” family soon migrated west, following Brigham Young’s leadership. And following Brigham Young’s example, Lorenzo continued adding wives.
Lorenzo Snow married 9 women in his lifetime. He married his first 4 wives in the space of 1 year, going from a 30-year-old bachelor to a 31-year-old secret polygamous man with four wives. Although he married nine women, he was “only” married to at most seven women at a time, since two of his wives died a few years after marriage. Six of the nine wives died before him, and when he died, he still had 3 living wives: Mary Elizabeth Houtz (61), Phebe Amelia Woodruff (59), and Sarah Ephramina Jensen (46) now widowed by the death of their shared husband of 87.
Of his 9 wives, at the time of marriage, 5 of them were teenagers! Two of those teenage brides were only 15 years old on the wedding day. This is way too young to be married, let alone to someone who is more than double your own age.
The age difference of some of his wives is startling. While his first marriage was to Mary Goddard, who was 32 and he was 30, this is the only marriage where the woman was older than him, and in many cases, he was older by a factor of 2 or 3 (meaning Lorenzo Snow was 2 or 3 times older than his bride). The largest age difference was his last wife, Sarah Jensen, whom he married when he was 57 and she was only 15!
Lorenzo sired children with all his wives. At least 2, and at most 8, and a total of 42 children.
At the time of this last marriage, Lorenzo had 17 children already older than his new bride. His 42 children span from 1846 to 1896, so he was fathering children from the age of 32 to 82. He passed away in 1901, at the age of 87, when his youngest child was not yet 5.
“That’s what l love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.” The old joke about even when getting older, continuing to date high school girls, is a reality for Lorenzo Snow.
At age seventy-two Snow was sentenced to a prison term for practicing polygamy. In prison he taught classes in reading, writing, mathematics, and bookkeeping during his one-year term.
https://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/s/SNOW_LORENZO.shtml
Wives of Lorenzo Snow
- Lorenzo Snow
- 5th President of the Church
- Born April 3, 1814 in Mantua, Ohio.
- Became an Apostle on February 12, 1849, at the age of 34.
- Became church president on September 13, 1898.
- Married 9 (10 or 11) women.
- Died on October 10, 1901, at age 87.
- Fathered 42 children
- Mary Adaline Goddard
- Born March 8, 1812
- Married on January 17 1845, in Nauvoo
- Lorenzo Snow was 30, she was 32.
- This is his only marriage with his wife being older than he was.
- Died on December 28, 1898, at 86 years old.
- Married for 53 years.
- Bore 3 children.
- Sara Ann Pritchard
- Born November 29, 1826
- Married April 21, 1845, in Nauvoo
- Lorenzo Snow was 31, she was 18.
- Age difference of 12 years.
- Died on December 12, 1900, at 74 years old.
- Married for 55 years.
- Bore 5 children.
- Charlotte Merrill Squires
- Born November 19, 1825
- Married January 17, 1846
- Lorenzo Snow was 31, she was 20.
- Age difference of 11 years.
- Died on September 25, 1850, at 24 years old.
- Only married 4 years.
- Bore 2 children.
- Harriet Amelia Squire
- Born September 13, 1819
- Married January 17, 1846
- Lorenzo Snow was 31, she was 26.
- Age difference of 5 years.
- Died on May 12, 1890, at 70 years old.
- Married duration of 44 years.
- Bore 5 children.
- Eleanor Houtz
- Born August 14, 1832
- Married June 1, 1848
- Lorenzo Snow was 34, she was 15.
- Age difference of 18 years!
- He’s more than double her age.
- Died September 14, 1896, at 64 years old.
- Bore 8 children.
- Caroline Horton
- Born December 25, 1824
- Married October 9, 1853
- Lorenzo Snow was 39, she was 28.
- Age difference of 10 years.
- Died February 21, 1857 after 3 years of marriage.
- Lorenzo Snow remarries just weeks later to Mary Houtz.
- Bore 3 children.
- Mary Elizabeth Houtz
- Born May 19, 1840
- Married March 5, 1857
- Lorenzo Snow was 42, she was 16.
- Age difference of 26 years.
- Widowed at 61 by Lorenzo’s death at 87 on October 10, 1901.
- Died March 31, 1906.
- Bore 6 children.
- Phebe Amelia Woodruff
- Born March 4, 1842
- Daughter of Wilford Woodruff.
- Wilford had already tried to give Phebe (age 14) to Brigham Young as a wife.
- Married April 4, 1859
- Lorenzo Snow was 45, she was 17.
- Age difference of 27 years.
- Widowed at 59 by Lorenzo’s death at 87 on October 10, 1901.
- Died February 15, 1919.
- Bore 5 children.
- Sarah Ephramina Jensen
- Born October 10, 1855
- Married June 12, 1871
- Lorenzo Snow was 57, she was 15 years old.
- Age difference: 41 years!
- He’s 3.8 times older than her!
- She’s younger than 17 of his children.
- Widowed at 46 by Lorenzo’s death at 87 on October 10, 1901.
- Died on January 2, 1908, at 52.
- Bore 5 children.
The Nearly Forgotten Wife
Along with marrying his first cousin, Mary Adaline Goddard, Lorenzo Snow also married her sister (also his own first cousin), Hannah Maria Goddard. Though most records have conveniently forgotten this account of Lorenzo Snow’s adulterous wife Hannah Maria Goddard. Hannah had a child with another man soon after marrying Lorenzo and he “relinquished his earthly claim on the pregnant Hannah Goddard and allowed her to marry her true love, Joseph Johnson.” The story is amazing, and in his church discipline court, Joseph E Johnson even remarks about Joseph Smith’s affair with Johnson’s own mother-in-law. The court does not deny the statement and takes it in stride, the curious thing is, Mary Heron Snider is not even listed as one of Joseph’s secret marriages.
- Hannah Maria Goddard
- Born July 2, 1828
- Marries Lorenzo Snow January 19, 1845
- Sister to Mary Adaline Goddard
- Has relations with Joseph E. Johnson around April 12, 1849.
- Joseph Ellis Johnson is already married at this time and is later married again (3 plural wives)
- He is disciplined for adultery in a church court but is shortly re-baptized.
- Birth of Joseph Eugene Johnson on January 3, 1850
- Released from Earthly Marriage (Divorced) by Lorenzo Snow
- Marries Joseph Ellis Johnson December 2, 1850
- After pleading with Lorenzo Snow to annul their sealing, they are sealed in 1861.
- Bears 8 children to Joseph E. Johnson, none to Lorenzo Snow.
Another Rumored Wife
- Jane Farmer
- Born August 29, 1838
- Potentially married Lorenzo Snow (maybe even sealed only) in 1848.
Some genealogists believe Lorenzo Snow married her as a minor to help her family but, so far as is known, this plural marriage to a 10-year-old girl was never consummated.
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Snow-1406
Wife of Lorenzo Snow — married [date unknown] [location unknown]
This venerable Mormon pioneer [Johanna o’Connor Farmer] was an English convert of Lorenzo Snow’s in 1841/42 during his mission to the United Kingdom. Johanna did have a younger daughter, named “Jennie” or “Jane” with her husband John Smith Farmer, born in 1838 in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England, UK. After her husband’s untimely death, she and her 3 children, including daughter “Jane Farmer,” immigrated to Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois, in 1844. When, after Prophet Joseph Smith Jr.’s brutal assassination that summer, she took her children to St. Louis, Missouri, along with nearly 1,500 other “Latter-day Saints”. Lorenzo Snow apparently helped the Nauvoo refugees financially, perhaps including the Farmer family, whom he knew, but in 1848, Jane was only 10 years old. Surely he did not marry her so young.
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Farmer-2903
Lorenzo Snow Serves Time in Prison
As polygamy was deemed illegal in 1882 with the Edmunds Act, Lorenzo Snow, along with most of the senior church leaders were required to keep watch over their shoulder for U.S. Marshalls. To comply with the law they placed each of their wives into a distinct house and ceased cohabitating with them all. Snow did the same, but as the law became more strict, he was taken in and ended up serving nearly a year in prison as an apostle.
In 1886 and 1887, at age 72, Lorenzo Snow was convicted of bigamy under laws adopted by the US Congress and Utah legislature. He served for 11 months for refusing to renounce the doctrines of polygamy. Eventually, in 1904, three years after President Snow’s death, the LDS Church officially denounced plural marriage as unsuited to “these times,” forcing all members to give up extra wives or be struck from the church rolls.
During the anti-polygamy crusade he was sentenced by Judge Orlando W. Powers under the “segregation” ruling, to serve three terms of imprisonment of six months each, making a period of eighteen months, and to pay three fines of three hundred dollars each. The supreme court of Utah confirmed the sentence and an appeal was taken to the court of last resort. After he had served eleven months of his imprisonment the supreme court of the United States reversed the ruling made in his case, denying the right of the Utah judges to inflict punishment by “segregation,” and he was released from confinement.
https://josephsmithfoundation.org/lorenzo-snow/
By 1882, when the Edmunds Act became law in the United States, Lorenzo Snow had married ten times. His wives included Harriet Amelia and Charlotte Squires (married in October 1844 or January 1845), Eleanor Houtz (married on January 1, 1845), Mary Adaline and Hannah Goddard (married on January 19, 1845), Sarah Ann Prichard (married on April 21, 1845), Caroline Horton (married on October 9, 1853), Phoebe Amelia Woodruff (married on April4, 1859), Mary Elizabeth Houtz (unknown date, but likely before spring 1859), and Sarah Minnie Ephramina Jensen (married on June 12, 1871).
Two wives had died by the time the Edmunds Act became law—Charlotte Squires in 1850 and Caroline Horton in 1857. Additionally, Hannah Goddard had deserted Lorenzo Snow shortly after their marriage in 1845. In addition to seven living wives, the Snow family consisted of many children, ranging from age two to age thirty-five (not including Mary Goddard’s three children from an earlier marriage), and numerous grandchildren.
Although the details of these marriages were most likely unknown to many, it was well known that Snow practiced plural marriage, having established four separate homes in Brigham City for his family. The main home, known as the “Big House,” was located at 250 North Main Street in Brigham City with separate apartments for three wives. Minnie had moved into the fourth home, a new brick house on the corner of First West and Forest on the back side of the block of the Big House in 1880.
In the wake of the 1882 Edmunds Law, Lorenzo Snow and his wives decided by “mutual consent” to live “in accordance with the requirements of that law, and this, too, without violating any principle or object embraced in the law of celestial marriage.” This meant ending physical intimacy with all his wives except Minnie, the wife with the youngest children (LeRoi Clarence was five and Minnie Mabelle was two) and the only one still bearing children. Lorenzo and Minnie had three additional children after 1882: CoraJeane on February 16, 1883, Lorenzo Lamont on August 26, 1885, and Rhea Lucile on November 5, 1896.
Within These Prison Walls, Lorenzo Snow’s Record Book, 1886–1897 by Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Andrew H. Hedges
https://rsc.byu.edu/within-these-prison-walls/introduction#_noteref-55
Lorenzo Snow — 1885 — a church apostle at the time. In late 1885, Snow was indicted by a federal grand jury for three counts of unlawful cohabitation. According to his indictments, Snow had lived with more than one woman for three years. The jury delivered one indictment for each of these years, and Snow was convicted on each count. After conviction, he filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the federal district court which convicted him. The petition was denied, but federal law guaranteed him an appeal to the Supreme Court. In Ex Parte Snow, the Supreme Court invalidated Snow’s second and third convictions for unlawful cohabitation. It found that unlawful cohabitation was a “continuing offense,” and thus that Snow was at most guilty of one such offense for cohabiting continuously with more than one woman for three years. Snow became president of the LDS Church in 1898.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmunds_Act
President Snow’s Mormon Legacy
Tithing
Lorenzo Snow, as president of the church made an impact that is still felt today. He urged members to pay tithing on their income. Though he states he targets “every man, woman and child who has means” to pay tithing, the church uses his teachings still today and simply removes the “who has means” part of his quote replacing it with an ellipsis.
This isn’t the only time the church misleads members with quotes which are taken out of context like this, though they do complain that historical things taken out of context is what anti-mormon folk do. Looking at what was happening to the church when Lorenzo became church president, we can see why he may have been so focused on needing members to pay tithing. The church was in debt, because the legal problems of polygamy were catching up to the leadership. Lorenzo himself was indicted for his illegal polygamous activities and spent a year in prison. He urged for members to pay tithing in order to defend the church leaders in court and pay the fines for their polygamous relationships – even after the church reportedly stopped the practice.
As he began his tenure as church president, Snow had to deal with the aftermath of legal battles with the United States over the practice of plural marriage… The LDS Church was also in severe financial difficulties, some of which were related to the legal problems over plural marriage…
It was during Snow’s presidency that the LDS Church adopted the principle of tithing—being interpreted as the payment of 10 percent of one’s income—as a hallmark of membership. In 1899, Snow gave an address … imploring the Latter-day Saints to pay tithes of corn, money, or whatever they had… For the remainder of his tenure, Snow emphasized tithing in his sermons and public appearances. By April 1907, the practice of its members paying tithing had eliminated the church’s debt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_Snow
The God Couplet
On Women
Eliza R. Snow
Lorenzo’s sister, Eliza R. Snow, was secretly married to first Joseph Smith and then openly to Brigham Young as a plural wife. She was known as a scholar and wrote a biography of Lorenzo Snow. She discusses his polygamy in it, here are some relevant passages:
Up to this time my brother lived a bachelor. The great work in which he was engaged as a missionary of the Gospel of salvation to the nations of the earth, had so engrossed his mind and engaged the energies of his soul, that virtually he had ignored the first commandment to “multiply and replenish the earth.” To devote his time, his talents, his all to the ministry was his all-absorbing desire; and in consonance with this desire, he had cherished the idea that domestic responsibility would lessen his usefulness; and, until the law of Celestial Marriage was fully explained to him by the Prophet Joseph Smith, in a prolonged interview while the two were seated along on the bank of the Mississippi river, as before related, he had not conceived the idea that marriage was on of the duties of the great mission of mortal life.
With him, this, as well as every other practical doctrine, was only to be understood to be obeyed. It is one of his peculiarities to do nothing by halves; and when convinced of the duty of marriage, and that it was a privilege accorded him in connection with his ministerial calling, he entered into it on an enlarged scale, by having two wives sealed to him the holy bonds of matrimony, for time and eternity, at the same time; and not long after, another was added to the number, and then another. Thus, all at once, as it were, from the lone bachelor he was transformed into a husband invested with many domestic responsibilities. Probably a realizing sense of the fact that he had arrived at the mature age of thirty-one years in celibacy, suggested to him the propriety of making up for lost time by more than ordinary effort, and out of the old beaten track.
Previous to the administration of those sacred sealing ordinances, he explained to each of the chosen ones the law, obligations and object of Celestial Marriage, and that he might be expected to take others–that the ceremony being precisely the same for each, they would all occupy the same equal position, no one having a higher claim than another.
It was distinctly understood and agreed between them that their marriage relations should not, for the time being, be divulged to the world; but if circumstances should be such that he would wish to acknowledge as wife, before the world, either one of them, he should be permitted to do so.
Early in the winter of 1845-6, the Nauvoo Temple was so far completed that the administration of the sacred ordinances of the Holy Priesthood was commenced, and continued until about the first of February–thousands of the Saints receiving endowments and sealings. My brother and his wives, among the number, had their washings, anointings and endowments, and were sealed at a holy altar, a privilege and blessing which they estimated above all earthly honors. When Lorenzo walked across the inner court of the Temple proceeding to the altar, accompanied by his four wives, all stately appearing ladies, one of the Temple officiates exclaimed, ‘And his train filled the Temple!’
LORENZO SNOW AND PLURAL MARRIAGE From The Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow by Eliza R. Snow (pages 84-85)
https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/2072081?p=21881104
In Pisgah, my family was composed of the following individuals: Mary Adaline (Goddard)(my eldest wife); Hyrum, Orville and Jacob, her sons by a former husband; Charlotte (Squires), Sarah Ann, (Prichard) Harriet Amelia (Squires)…..All of the women above mentioned were sealed to me as my wives in the Temple at Nauvoo, where we all received our second annointings. In Pisgah, Charlotte gave birth to a daughter (my first-born), which we named Leonora, after my eldest sister. Also Adaline gave girth to a daughter, named Rosetta, after my mother. Little Leonora was taken sick and died, and with deep sorrow we bore her remains to their silent resting place to be left alone, far from her father and the mother who gave her birth. Sarah Ann also gave birth to a daughter, named after my sister and her mother Eliza Sarah.
LORENZO SNOW AND PLURAL MARRIAGE From The Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow by Eliza R. Snow (page 92-93)
https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/2072081?p=21881104
Much ado is made concerning the secret plural marriages of Joseph Smith, but troubled Mormons often forget that many other church leaders had polygamous families. They even began to practice polygamy or plural marriage in the open, until they were persecuted, or prosecuted rather, by the US Government which had outlawed polygamous relationships. Many of these men also married teenagers while two, three, or four times their age. Plus, we know these later polygamous relationships were sexual, as they bore children. Many apologists take care to claim that Joseph’s plural marriages were not sexual in nature and that he was merely learning about the sealing powers. Maybe it is seen as more important with Joseph Smith because many of his relationships were also polyandrous (where the woman was previously or simultaneously married to another man too). These relationships are all messy, and the Mormon doctrine is that celestial marriage equates to plural marriage in the eternities. Multiple wives is still common among leadership, even if they only have one “living” wife at a time.
Russell M. Nelson, for example, is married and sealed to his first wife, Dantzel White (1945-2005), and also married and sealed to his second wife, Wendy Watson (since 2006). The church doctrine holds that Russell M. Nelson will have two wives in heaven – or that he will start with these two wives in heaven, and will add to his heavenly harem throughout the eternities.
It’s a wonder that as a church that wanted to define marriage in such a foreign way to the accepted view of the day, are today so hostile toward same-sex marriages. How does the doctrine and practice of plural marriage or polygamy make you feel? Is it a part of your own family history, faith struggle, or nightmares? Consider sharing your deconstruction story at wasmormon.org. Add it to the hundreds of others who have answered the question: “If you leave the church, where will you go?”
More reading:
- https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/zwl3sf/lorenzo_snows_wives/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/4n7oua/wtf_really_6_out_of_the_9_wives_of_lorenzo_snow/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_Snow
- https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/timeline/KW84-5CT
- https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/ya8f8c/lorenzo_snow_married_sarah_minnie_jenson_in_1871/
- https://blog.mrm.org/2015/04/a-mormon-detective-story/
- https://oregontrailgenealogy.com/hannah-maria-goddard/