Dr Kyle Beshears dives into James Strang’s wives and concubines. We’ll learn about a cross-dressing polygamist wife, and about James Strang’s life. Check out our conversation…
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Intro to James Strang
GT 00:38 We’re here because I met you in September at John Whitmer [Conference.]
Kyle 00:42 Yes.
GT 00:43 You gave a Strang presentation, and I want to focus on that. So, I’m going to have Vickie Speek [come on next week.] But what I would like to do for those who may be new listeners and don’t know who James Strang is, just give us a real thumbnail sketch, because you focused on one of his wives. So, give us just a short summary of James Strang. And then you can introduce your paper from John Whitmer.
Kyle 01:11 Yeah, sounds great. I’m glad you brought up Vickie Speek. She’s the GOAT [Greatest of All Time.] She is the numero uno right now for Strang studies, and very well-deserved and well-earned. She wrote this book, I’m sure you’ll talk about it, but “God Has Made Us a Kingdom,” which is a quote from the Book of the Law of the Lord. And I’m sure you’ll talk about that with her in that video. James Strang was born in Cayuga County, New York in 1813. He’s a lawyer, a postmaster, a temperance lecturer. He comes from Baptist stock.
GT 01:45 Ah, so does Sidney Rigdon.
Kyle 01:47 So, does Sidney Rigdon. Yes, he [Strang] converts to the LDS movement in February of 1844.
GT 02:02 The year the prophet Joseph Smith died.
Kyle 02:04 The year that Joseph Smith died. Yes, yeah. So, he comes at the very tail end of Joseph Smith’s life. And a conversation apparently occurred between he and Joseph Smith about the prospect of the Latter-day Saints opening up a stake in Wisconsin territory, where James Strang was living with some of his family and in-laws. In the summer of 1844, when Joseph Smith and Hyrum were assassinated, James Strang claims that he was appointed by an angel to take charge of the Church. He also claimed to receive a letter from Joseph Smith, appointing him to that office which is called the Letter of Appointment. And then a year later, he claims to have uncovered plates, found them by temporary custody of the urim and thummim. He gets witnesses, pulls them up, translates them. In the translation of the plates is a prophecy that one prophet would die, and in this land, the next Prophet, i.e. James Strang, would take over. James Strang…
GT 03:10 Isn’t that kind of convenient.
Kyle 03:12 Well, I mean, it can be coincidental or convenient or providential. It just depends on where you’re coming from. So, James Strang calls for the Saints to gather in Voree, Wisconsin, which is near Burlington, today. But then, also, begins what he calls the Lamanite mission, the mission to indigenous people, on an island in Lake Michigan called Beaver Island. And so, the shift of focus–he has Voree and Beaver Island, but really Beaver Island becomes the center of his attention. He moves there. And he establishes the kingdom of God on earth and he coronates himself the king of the kingdom of God, until Jesus returns. Right? And he institutes polygamy, having once been anti..
GT 04:01 [Strang was] very anti-polygamy.
Kyle 04:01 [He was] very anti-polygamy, yes. And I’m sure we’ll talk about all of that. The years immediately following his coronation, the height of his power, but accusations, probably grounded in a little bit of truth, a lot of bit of hyperbole, anti-Mormonism in the Great Lakes as, “I thought y’all were moving to Utah. Why are you here? We don’t want you here.” There are accusations of piracy, of abuse of women, those types of things. And so, the Gentiles don’t like him. There’s economic competition between Beaver Island and Mackinaw that’s causing tension. There’s Pseudos, the pejorative name that James called apostates.
GT 04:41 Pseudo-Mormons.
Kyle 04:42 Pseudo-Mormons, pseudo-Strangites, yes.
GT 04:44 Because they still call themselves Mormons.
Kyle 04:46 They still call themselves Mormons.
GT 04:47 Their official name of the church is?
Kyle 04:49 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite) for the largest congregation. Others reject the Strangite name, but capital D, no dash. Dashes and Ds are important in LDS Studies.
GT 05:03 So, just as a reminder, for those of you who, well actually I don’t think most people get offended that I use the term Mormon, but they have the same name as our church. We’ve got to distinguish them somehow.
Kyle 05:15 Yes. And I think we were talking about it before, but in one of the things we’ll talk about here briefly, but one of the scriptures that–or THE scripture, that Strang brings forth, calls the church, the Church of the Firstborn. So maybe he wanted that to be one of the distinguishing markers, but…
GT 05:31 [Church of the Firstborn] which is the name of a lot of polygamous groups, too, now.
Kyle 05:34 Right, yeah.
GT 05:37 Was he a polygamist, then, when he wants to do that, maybe?
Kyle 05:41 When the Book of the Law Lord is coming out?
GT 05:43 I guess, when we wanted to call it the Church of the Firstborn.
Kyle 05:46 He was secretly practicing polygamy when he was translating, when he was working on it. So, yeah. And then polygamy is actually not only sanctioned but regulated in the Book of the Law.
GT 05:57 You’ve got to stop at four wives.
Kyle 05:59 Well, he had five, total.
GT 06:03 Wasn’t it four in there?
Kyle 06:05 He had four plural wives, but one legal first wife Mary?
GT 06:10 For a total of five.
Kyle 06:11 For a total of five. Yeah. So we can talk about it all. But actually, I think Vickie would be great to talk about the plural wives piece, because she did a lot of research into the lives of those women after James Strang dies. So, anyway, all this tension is mounting with Beaver Island. People just want them out. There are wild episodes of people shooting at each other with cannons and pistols. And all of a sudden these rumors are coming out that they’re doing animal sacrifices on the island. And they’re just weird. They’ve got to go. And so, somehow, with the cooperation of the United States Navy, disaffected members and Gentiles plotted an assassination of Strang. They made the attempt on the docks at St. James, which was the main city on Beaver Island.
GT 07:03 Named after James Strang.
Kyle 07:04 After James Strang, yep. And that was an 1856, summer of 1856. He doesn’t die immediately. He’s taken to Voree, so back to Wisconsin, where he does succumb to his wounds, but does not name a successor. And so, after that, the movement disperses, under order of Strang. He tells families, “Hey guys, the men you need to take care of your families and disperse. Don’t gather.” This comes through his son. “Disperse, so that way you’re harder to persecute.” And most followers of James Strang end up going into the Reorganization. But there is a remnant of followers that remain true to the church and through a line of church leadership. The movement is still alive to this day.
Cross-Dressing Polygamist
GT 07:55 I know at your presentation, there was an Strang descendant in the audience that was a member of the RLDS Church or Community of Christ.
Kyle 08:02 She was not just a descendant. She was the descendant of the woman that I was doing a paper on, Elvira Field.
GT 08:11 Okay.
Kyle 08:11 So that was extra special. She was super sweet. She went on the tour that Casey Griffith gave us.
GT 08:17 Oh, I didn’t know about it.
Kyle 08:18 He took us around. Yeah, it was really cool. He took us around the Temple Lot and showed us where the, maybe they would have been cornerstones.
GT 08:24 Oh, he mentioned that in my previous interview.
Kyle 08:26 So her descendant was there. Yeah, she was sweet. That was cool. Yeah, anyway. So, the paper, so we’re talking about her. So the paper was on the writings of Charles J. Douglas, or Charley Douglas, who it turns out was actually a woman by the name of Elvira Eliza Field.
GT 08:51 So, we’ve got cross-dressing polygamy now.
Kyle 08:54 Because James had been monogamist and anti-plural marriage, the spiritual wife doctrine, the Nauvoo foolishness, right, all of that stuff. “We’re not going to do that. The Brighamites are going to do that, but we’re not going to do that.” He has this really famous line in one of his newspapers. He considered his opinion on the matter unchangeable. And by 1844, that turns out not to be the case.
GT 09:19 Famous last words.
Kyle 09:20 Famous last words, right. He has George Adams make the proposal secretly. And at some point, in July of 1849, Elvira accepts. But James is going to go on a six-month missionary tour on the east. And now they’re newlyweds and they don’t want to be apart. So, what are they going to do? They hatched this plan. Maybe Elvira can dress up as Charley, my 16-year-old nephew and keep minutes and be my scribe. And that’s what they go with. She cuts her hair.
GT 09:52 Was she 16?
Kyle 09:54 No, no, she was 19. I think she was 19 when they were married.
GT 09:58 That’s pretty close.
Kyle 09:58 Pretty close, yeah. But if you want to know more about– her image was captured in a daguerreotype. So there’s a great scholar, named Amy Deragotis and in the spring edition of the John Whitmer Association’s Journal, her work on the daguerreotype is going to be in that one and then my paper on her writings is going to be in that.
GT 10:20 Oh, nice.
Kyle 10:21 Yeah, yep. So that’s that. So if you want to, like, double click on any of this, that’ll be the way to do it.
GT 10:26 So, this will be the new daguerreotype, because Joseph Smith will be old news.
Kyle 10:29 By that point, no one’s going to care about that daguerreotype. I’m just kidding. I think people are going to care about that daguerreotype for a long time.
GT 10:39 It probably won’t get quite as big of publicity as the Joseph Smith one.
Kyle 10:42 No, but I mean, it’s funny the way that Amy framed it; this daguerreotype resonates in Mormonism in a sense, because it’s materializing something that is immaterial. What did it take to make that relationship work for that season was this nonexistent boy named Charley Douglas, but they made it. They made him happen and the daguerreotype is this evidence or this proof.
GT 11:14 For those who don’t know, was Elvira posing as a woman or as a man in that photo, in the daguerreotype?
Kyle 11:21 Right, right. He looks, I mean, I think he’s posing as Charley. I, personally, think it would be kind of hard to argue that he’s posing as a she. Anyway, so the paper goes through a series of essays that Charles/Charley wrote, and this is fascinating to me, because it’s not all that peculiar that a woman would conceal her sex to write. There were male pseudonyms for women all over the place in England, and the United States. So that’s not quite unusual. It’s also not quite unusual that a woman would have religious authority over men. That’s rare, but it’s not unheard of. You have Anne Lee from the “Shakers.” What is rare is what Elvira does. She conceals her identity as a woman to write as a religious authority. And she puts this out in Strang’s primary newspaper, with Strang’s stamp of approval, and builds, essentially, a millennial kingdom eschatology. She’s prepping the people to receive King James and his eschatological kingdom. That is insane when you think about it, in the mid-19th century. Who’s doing this? Charley is, that’s who. So, that’s what we looked at.
GT 12:56 Okay, give us more details. What were the interesting things that Charley, aka Elvira, wrote?
Kyle 13:02 Yeah, I think one of the things that struck me was how close Charley stuck to really common Protestant, eschatological interpretations of Daniel. She was lockstep in line with Matthew Henry or Adam Clarke and how they understood the Danielic prophecy of that alloyed statue of clay and iron, and the feet are smashed. And this is supposed to represent the smashing of the Roman Empire. And so, she stuck with that, and built on that to say, “Hey, there has to be kingdoms in Europe before Jesus returns.” But what’s happening in the 1840s and 1850s, monarchies are running out of time. Right? And so, Elvira is like, Jesus has to come back or else Daniel’s prophecy is not going to come true. So, this is her way of priming, or continuing to prime the eschatological anticipation in James Strang’s church. Latter-day Saints started in apocalyptic anticipation, and she’s pushing and pushing and pushing. And this is after the great disappointment, too, when we think about George Miller? Yeah, George Miller, 1844, is that right?
GT 14:24 Yes.
Kyle 14:24 He predicted the end of the world in October and she’s writing after that. She’s still like, “No, no, he’s coming. He’s coming.” But, probably the most fascinating thing was there are parts–she writes an article called Secret Societies. And she argues favorably for them. And she says, the nice thing about secret societies is that you can say things in them that are not accepted in wider culture. Like, you can undermine powers. You can undermine power structures, and that’s why they’re really great. Also, at this time, there are becoming more benevolent fraternities or societies to help society. She’s like, “They’re also helping people be lifted out of poverty.”
Kyle 15:06 And then she goes on this, you can’t call it a rant or tangent, but this discourse about how culture has failed the farmer and the manufacturer, and we need to gather together and uplift the common man and distribute wealth. And we need a government that ensures that this is possible. It’s like you’re reading Marx, before Marx is translated in English. It’s crazy. It’s so–you have this proto-Marxism. But her solution is not where Marx goes. Right? It’s not government devoid of religion. Her solution is, “No, a Kingdom that’s led by Christian religious principles.” So they want the same thing, but they’re coming at it from different angles. And then she’s like, “Well, what kind of Kingdom is this?” She kind of winks to her readers like, “No, there’s a time for everything. Like, come on, you know there’s a time.” Because James is going to coronate himself that summer. So, that’s on the horizon. She knows what’s coming. And she’s just getting the church ready. So I don’t know, that’s fascinating to me. That’s fascinating. I don’t know if it anybody here wants to listen to any of that.
GT 16:16 Well, a couple of things that come to mind about the secret societies. Number one, the Council of Fifty was a secret society. And so James was part of that before he went to Wisconsin?
Kyle 16:25 No. James is not part of the Council of Fifty. But he had at least five, maybe six members of the Council of Fifty who affiliated with him, at some point, most notably, George Adams, who at the time that Elvira is writing, obviously, is still in good favor with James, is one of his counselors. He’s the one that makes the proposal. So, the Council of Fifty thought is definitely present in James Strang’s movement, in the trajectory that the Council of Fifty sat, Strang is trying to follow that, I think under influence of people that were a part of it.
GT 17:03 Which is why, because Joseph Smith was ordained a king. Casey Griffiths had James Strang’s scepter.
Kyle 17:09 The scepter, yeah, yeah. And Elvira Field, formerly Charley Douglas, but when she comes out as being his plural wife, Elvira Field actually helps craft his crown.
GT 17:22 Okay.
Kyle 17:23 And so she’s helping them craft the crown. He has the scepter. George Adams has this whole show, because he’s a stage actor. And it’s actually really fascinating to read people’s reactions to that, historically. You go back and you’ll read people’s journals or correspondence and they’re reminiscing on it. And some of them [wrote] “I was brought to tears. The kingdom of God is being established. We have a king for the first time.” And when James says king, he’s not talking about a European monarch. He’s talking about an Old Testament-type king. Right?
GT 17:51 We have a king and a priest, essentially.
Kyle 17:54 Correct. Correct. We have this king, and this is just another sign that Jesus is coming and other people are like, “The scepter was a stick. The Crown was made of paper. It was super weird.” I’d say even in his followers, you had this diverse reaction of this overwhelming joy and big time out, like, what is happening? And some people will start to walk away because they’re like, “You’re just trying to consolidate power and be an authoritarian.”
GT 18:25 And being the king in a democracy is not a good move.
Kyle 18:28 [It’s not] something you do.
GT 18:30 We just threw off the king not that long ago.
Kyle 18:31 Two thing you don’t do, right? You don’t destroy printing presses and you don’t establish a monarchy in Beaver Island. And really, those are the two–those are the match to the fire, right? Because he’s got all this power.
Pirates of Lake Michigan?!
Kyle 18:49 And he’s telling people to pirate ships and he’s abusing women. It was the monarchy, the power that the people in the opposition to James didn’t like.
GT 19:00 Pirate ships, like on Lake Michigan. Is that what you’re talking about?
Kyle 19:03 Yeah. Pirate, so it sounds crazy. But in the 19th century, piracy was a really big problem on Lake Michigan.
GT 19:09 You hear about that with the Pirates of the Caribbean. Right?
Kyle 19:12 No, the Pirates of the Great Lakes is going to be Johnny Depp’s next one, I’m sure, and quite the adventure. But yeah, that’s why the U.S. Navy was present, was to help tamp piracy. Because at that point, the War of 1812 is in everybody’s rearview mirror. Canada and the U.S. are cool. Why do you need a fleet in Lake Michigan? To stop a Canadian invasion? No, to regulate piracy and smuggling whiskey and those types of things.
GT 19:46 Well, because that was one of the things that got James Strang killed, I hear, was he was trying to enforce the Word of Wisdom. And they’re like, “Well, we’re not Mormons. We want to have our booze.” Is that true or not true?
Kyle 19:55 Yeah. Luckily at that point in time, there shouldn’t have been any Gentiles on the island. At one point he gave everybody an ultimatum, “You either get baptized or you get out.”
GT 20:05 Kind of a Spanish Inquisition kind of a thing?
Kyle 20:08 It was enforced. It was enforced. Not well, ultimately, some Gentiles remained on the island, but not many. But James Strang was a teetotaler. He was a temperance lecturer, even in his youth and he did not like alcohol.
GT 20:32 And so, he was pirating ships to prevent the alcohol from coming?
Kyle 20:35 Well, we don’t know, officially, if James Strang was pirating anything, but the accusations were that they would pirate ships, and either hold them hostage, hold the men hostage or …
GT 20:48 Like Somalia, kind of a thing?
Kyle 20:50 Kind of, yeah, or they would go through like the mail, take out the important bits and then send them on their way. Beaver Island had exports: timber, primarily. I mean, the timber on Beaver Island was part of the economic engine for them. So, some ships would come in, offload timber. Others would be passing by, let’s say from Detroit, down to Chicago. And then the accusation was they would pirate these little schooners, take some stuff and send them on their way. So, is there a truth to that? think there’s some. I don’t know if it was like Tortuga in the 18th century in Lake Michigan. I don’t think so. But where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and people didn’t like not getting their $5 that their uncle promised them from Detroit. So, yeah, eventually it became enough of a problem and people resorted to violence with the participation of the U.S. Navy. Because they were right there to pick up the assassins and take them to Mackinaw for a trial that was…
GT 22:01 A sham trial.
Kyle 22:02 It was a sham, yeah.
GT 22:04 So, just like Joseph Smith, the killers of James Strang got off scot-free.
Kyle 22:09 Not only did the killers of James Strang get off scot-free, but I’m pretty sure one of the killers, I don’t remember which one, went on to murder two or three other people. So, they’re not great people. Whatever you think about James Strang is irrelevant. They weren’t great people, that the government let go.
Order of Illuminati
GT 22:28 Well, the other secret society that I was thinking of, besides the Council of Fifty was Masonry. I think they had or they were trying to get a temple endowment, as well.
Kyle 22:40 Yes.
GT 22:40 Was it based on Masonry or something else?
Kyle 22:43 They had what was called the Order of Illuminati. And the Order of Illuminati was–you can read the order of some of their services, what they would have done, the pledges they would have made, the script that they would have gone through. But the Order of Illuminati definitely puts off Masonic vibes. James is doing what he believes was the trajectory that was set before him by Joseph Smith. So, Joseph Smith is trying to retrieve Freemasonry, the purest, primitive form of Freemasonry and the endowment that was lost in antiquity past. [Joseph Smith is trying to retrieve] the restoration of the ancient order of things, it’s coming back today. James is like, “We’re going to do the same thing.” And his form of that is the Order of Illuminati. The Strangites never completed a temple. They started one at Voree. They started a tabernacle on Beaver Island. [They] never got one completed. They did baptism for the dead. They would have to do it in a lake they called Font Lake. Or they had a lake, the Galilee Lake on Beaver Island. So, it’s kind of like the Nauvoo era for the Strangites, as well. They don’t have a completed temple; we’re doing baptisms for the dead in the Mississippi or we’re doing endowments in whatever structures that we can find. Wasn’t it the red brick?
GT 24:08 The Red Brick Store.
Kyle 24:09 The Red Brick Store; we’re doing marriages or sealings, baptisms in the unfinished basement of the temple. They’re not there and they never do get there.
GT 24:21 Yeah, they don’t practice those today?
Kyle 24:25 No.
GT 24:26 I mean, for one thing, they lost all their apostles and they can’t replace an apostle without a prophet.
Kyle 24:31 Yeah, so according to their ecclesiology, they cannot just vote to have an apostle or something like that. God has to appoint a leader. So, because they believe he’s not appointed one yet, they’re waiting for God to move on, to bring them the third prophet.
GT 24:52 Okay. So, the reason why I asked you about those secret societies was Charley Douglas/Elvira, were they referring to Masonry or the Council of Fifty?
Kyle 25:08 Nope, I don’t know how much she was aware of the Council of Fifty, maybe. But frankly, James Strang is only aware of the Council of Fifty through people. He was never a member. No, she’s on tour in the east with James Strang and goes to cities like Baltimore and Philadelphia, New York, where in the late 1840s, early 1850s, secret societies are making a comeback. This isn’t the anti-Masonry movement earlier in history. They’re making a comeback as benevolence societies, like, “We’re going to give to society.” This is more of a networking thing. And so, you do have Freemasonry, but you also have Odd Fellowship. So, she mentions the Odd Fellows. And then there’s another organization that, I think, has since gone defunct, but it was a temperance-based benevolent society, as well. And she said, those are the ones that are really cool, because they’re underground. You can speak freely. You can push against power in culture. But, also, they’re doing really good things, because they’re pulling resources there to get people jobs, to uplift people out of poverty and to take care of widows and orphans. So ,that’s really attractive to her. She wants that and she thinks that’s going to come through her husband’s efforts.
Concubine Eunice Kinney
GT 26:27 Cool. So that’s just the one wife of James Strang. You haven’t checked out the other wives?
Kyle 26:35 I have written about a potential concubine of Strang.
GT 26:39 Oh.
Kyle 26:39 Her name is Eunice Kinney. And I’m hoping that’ll see the light of day, published. Her story is pretty fascinating. But James Strang, not only had four plural wives and one legal wife, he also kept concubines and the amount, we don’t know. The evidence is extremely scant. But his sons inform us, and other people like that were close to James Strang on Beaver Island, inform us that he kept concubines. Typically, the rule was, if they were a widow, the prophet would give her, would raise up seed through her and thereby honor the dead husband. The woman that I wrote on, she lost her first husband, who died. [She] married, and that guy became a pseudo and left her.
GT 27:30 Oh.
Kyle 27:30 And I believe she became a concubine for Strang at that point. So yeah, they have, I mean, I don’t know. I just keep coming back to the story of women in Strang’s movement. Somebody needs to tell their stories. The thing is with Eunice Kenny, you’ve never heard of her, but you have. Any biography or any work that talks about Elijah Abel…
GT 27:58 I was going to say that, because she was– yeah, ell us that story, because Russell Stevenson told a little bit of it. But, it’s been a long time.
Kyle 28:06 Yeah. So, Elijah Able, famously, is an early black priesthood holder, and he’s doing missionary work with– was it John Taylor? I know for a fact, [he was with] James Blakeslee, in that area, Canada, the St. Lawrence River Valley, in Upper New York, which is where Eunice lived. In 1834, if I’m remembering that date correctly, she hears Elijah preach and [she] converts, her and her husband convert. And the thing that’s really interesting about, what’s the connection, who cares? Eunice writes two letters to a man named Winfield Watson and gives an extremely detailed account of Elijah’s work in that area. And so she’s a very valuable resource for: what was Elijah Abel doing at this point and at this time. So, stories about how he was accused of murdering people, but then, where’s the evidence? You don’t have any, and then walks away. That comes from Eunice Kinney.
GT 29:03 Okay.
Kyle 29:05 Eunice Kinney writes, too. As far as I know, I’ve only ever seen one of the testimonies in the works. And it’s probably because the LDS Church Library has a copy of one of the testimonies. But she actually has two. And in the Strangite archives is number two, maybe there’s other versions floating around.
GT 29:24 So, you’re saying the LDS Church has not released that?
Kyle 29:27 No, no. They have and they synchronize. There are no contradictions, but it is kind of overlapping. So, she’ll give some details that she doesn’t in the others and it kind of gives you a full picture. There are no contradictions. There’s no reason the question. What happened was, at this period of time in the 1980s, Wingfield Watson is–did I say 1980s? I made a similar mistake on another podcast. As a historian, you should probably be particular with dates. In the 1890s, Wingfield Watson is desperately trying to collect testimony of people to try to keep the Strang movement alive. Eunice is one of these people that he has correspondence with. And he’s like, “Tell me about your conversion. Tell me about how you became LDS. Tell me about your Beaver Island years. Tell me what happens after that.” So, she writes him a letter, and that becomes a testimony that most people know of. And he writes back. He’s like, “You skipped over Beaver Island. I want to hear more about Beaver Island.” And she writes back another letter, skips over Beaver Island, again. This time, though, she gives this vision that she had of Strang after his death about how Strang was framed in a cloud of a diamond, which is important to a Strangite. The concept of the term, diamond, is really important. He’s in this diamond and he’s got his scepter and his crown.
Kyle 30:49 And an angel comes up to her and she’s like, “What is this?” The angel is like, “He’s the prophet. Everything’s going to be okay.” So, she has this reassurance of faith in Strang.
Kyle 30:56 Watson is like, “That’s great. I wanted to hear about Beaver Island.” She never goes into much detail about it. But anyway…
GT 31:01 Because she is a concubine?
Kyle 31:03 I do believe so, because– I can’t remember when it happened. Two of Strang’s sons, Clement and Charles. Vickie, correct me if I’m wrong. [They] had a conversation about their father’s plural wives. And in one of those conversations, in one of the boy’s journals, he recorded the entire conversation that they had. And he brought up the fact that their dad had concubines. With one of the concubines, he had a child by the name of Kinney, who becomes a lawyer in Wisconsin. And then there’s another letter to either Clement or Charles from somebody who lived on the island, who mentions a concubine by the name of Kinney. So, we have at least two sources of evidence that there was a concubine on the island, named Kinney. Kinney lives on the island from 1850 to 1856. And her husband, Avery, where she gets the last name Kinney from, apostatizes, leaves and goes to Minnesota and starts a new family. So, she’s left alone with, I think, four children at that time on the island by herself. What is she supposed to do? She can’t provide for family. And this is out by then, which regulates plural wives and concubines.
GT 32:23 So, because he already had four, he couldn’t add another plural wife. So she had to be a concubine?
Kyle 32:28 Well, the wives had a different status. They had a higher status, according to the Book of the Law of the Lord. So, wives have a particular status and concubines were kept for the benefit of the concubine, not for the benefit of James. Whatever you want to say about that, sure. But the whole point…
GT 32:50 Was he just supporting her financially, then?
Kyle 32:55 He would have been supporting her financially, if for no other reason, each Strangite contributed to a coffer. They had what was called the Associating Order of Enoch, earlier, which was like a property relief thing that was going on in Voree. And it failed. But there was a general sense that you’re giving to the church coffer to support people in Eunice’s position. So, she would have been taken care of. It’s just that, if that was the only evidence that we have, I don’t think she would have been a concubine. But two separate sources saying there was a boy named Kinney, that James Strang had with one of his concubines, and there just so happens to be, a woman who lost her husband by death and then lost her husband by apostasy. The other thing that, the other reason I think she’s a concubine…
GT 33:49 Do we need to get Ugo Perego to do a DNA test?
Kyle 33:51 (Chuckling) Yeah, we’ll do ancestry.com. Don’t they have a DNA test? The other piece of evidence, I think, [that] supports this is that Eunice Kinney is a staunch polygamist for the rest of her life. To her dying days, she is adamant that polygamy is a holy, righteous principle, her words.
GT 34:14 I’m guessing that she didn’t join the RLS Church.
Kyle 34:16 She did.
GT 34:16 She did?
Kyle 34:17 And she was brought under church discipline because she wouldn’t let go of polygamy.
GT 34:20 Oh, really?
Kyle 34:21 So, I’m thinking to myself, why are you like a dog on a fire engine tire on this issue? And if she had been a concubine or plural wife or some kind of relationship with Strang, that was it. She tips her cards a little bit in one letter about accepting polygamy. She says that it occurred during Joseph’s life when she was living in Michigan. Some traveling missionaries were coming, and they were telling her about the secret things that aren’t ready for the world, but they are for the church. This would have been, like, the 1840s, we’re getting [into the] Nauvoo era. And she hated the idea, bristled against it. She said she fought and wrangled against it, but then was basically told, “Look, you can accept this principle, or you can die like a fool.” And she, after prayer and her spiritual disciplines, decided, “You know what? This is a holy, righteous principle.” And she was ready to accept it. So, she’s kind of primed, even before she gets to be Beaver Island, years before she gets to be Beaver Island, if her memory is correct in that timeline.
GT 35:35 Why wouldn’t she join the Brighamites?
Kyle 35:38 Well, because the Brighamites didn’t accept James Strang. So, if the Brighamites had just said, “You know what, James? We had our disagreements, but he’s all right,” she might have. She might have got out there. She actually warms up to the Brighamites in the end. She hates the Josephites.
GT 35:56 Because– so they kicked her out of the church?
Kyle 35:58 They tried to.
GT 35:59 Oh, they didn’t kick her out, though?
Kyle 36:00 I think, probably because her son was the head of the branch where she was brought under discipline. And if I’m reading between the lines, her son, William was, like, “Look. I know, believe me, I know. But she’s my mom. I’ll take care of her.” And she actually moved from Wisconsin to Michigan after that trial. And she moves in with one of her sons, Sylvester, in the U.P. and he’s a newspaperman. And you know, they kind of leave the RLDS Church alone or she leaves the RLDS Church alone.
GT 36:33 U.P., the Upper Peninsula, right?
Kyle 36:34 U.P., Upper Peninsula, yeah. So, after that church discipline, she, literally, moves and is not in the hair, of the Reorganization, of the Josephites anymore. And she stays away from the Church for a season, but she comes back to it, fellowships with it, basically, is like, “We’re going to agree to disagree. I’ll keep my mouth shut.” Still, in some of her last letters of her life, talking about polygamy, talking about how she wishes it was practiced, how the principle can only be practiced, wherein we have a prophet and we’re an active church. She laments the fact that they can’t practice polygamy. That, to me, like, why would you be so attached to that practice, if you hadn’t been affected by it, personally?
GT 37:22 So your paper is going to argue that she probably was [practicing polygamy.]
Kyle 37:26 It’s going to argue that she was a concubine. That’s not going to be the main point. It’s one thread. It’s her biography. It’s a short biography, from birth to death. And the only time I ever bring it up is when she brings it up. I’m letting her say when she wants to talk about it and when she doesn’t. So, when she brings it up, I do. When she doesn’t, I don’t. And the only kind of commentary I had is like, “Wait. Did she say she was into polygamy, and now she’s saying she’s into polygamy. But she was never a polygamist. Right?” Well, here’s the thing, when she was on Beaver Island, she might have been one. And then we move on. So yeah.
GT 38:03 Can you explain the difference, at least according to the Book of the Law of the Lord of a polygamous wife versus a concubine?
Kyle 38:11 I think it has issue issues of authority in the household. Concubines don’t have any.
GT 38:18 Why would she want to be a concubine?
Kyle 38:20 She’s taken care of. She would have…
GT 38:22 Financially?
Kyle 38:23 Financially. She’s got four children. All of them are underage. I think her oldest son, at that time, was maybe 14. And she’s got a daughter who was 6. So, she’s got four mouths to feed on an island that is, essentially, wilderness. Beaver Island was not really–they were settling it. So, Avery, her husband takes off, goes to the Wisconsin territory, marries a woman, has, like a billion kids. What’s she supposed to do? If this is an option, she takes it, because she had been told already, this is a holy and righteous principle and actually increases your chance of celestial glory. And so she wants it. The timing is perfect. “I’ve lost my husband.” Also, she’s in her 30s, at that point in time, and I think she’s got that sense of like, “Who’s going to want to marry me?” And the community was not that big. James would have been aware if there was a widow on the island that he needed to take care of. And then there’s also, when Eunice leaves Beaver Island, when they get exiled, she leaves, it was a nice way of putting it. They got kicked off by Gentiles, forcibly, violently. When she gets kicked out of Beaver Island, she moves into a house with another woman, whose last name was King, and a son, not married. So, it’s potentially maybe like two concubines and then Eunice on the census data changes all of their names to conceal their identity. They’re laying low. And what’s really interesting is her name. She claims her name is Josepha Franklin. And I think that is like an homage to her first two loves: Joseph being her first prophet. Franklin was her first married name, of her first husband that died.
GT 40:22 Oh.
Kyle 40:23 I hope this thing sees the light of day. I hope people would enjoy her story. I like Eunice.
GT 40:29 Well, if they don’t we’ve got a great story. Yeah,
Kyle 40:30 That’s true. That’s true. Looking at it–I’ll just be honest, I like Eunice more than Elvira. Elvira’s got descendants, but I’ve been in contact with Eunice’s descendants, too. I like Eunice. I like her story.
GT 40:46 Very good. All right. Well, Kyle Beshears, do you have any last thoughts you want to share with us before I let you go?
Kyle 40:55 No, I really enjoyed this. I’m glad we could make it happen.
GT 40:59 All right. Well, thanks for being here on Gospel Tangents. I appreciate it.
Kyle 41:03 Thank you.
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