Were Joseph & Hyrum’s Skulls Switched in 1928? (Patrick Bishop 2 of 2)

Were Joseph and Hyrum’s skulls switched (misidentified) in 1928? Patrick Bishop answers this mystery!

Don’t miss our other conversations with Patrick: https://gospeltangents.com/people/patrick-bishop/

Gospel Tangents

Most of us assume the death mask is the closest thing we have to Joseph Smith’s real face. Just open the eyes, the thinking goes, and there he is. Patrick Bishop thought so too, until 25 years of research changed his mind. In Part 2 of our conversation, the producer of Brother Joseph Again makes a bold claim: the true gold standard for Joseph’s likeness isn’t the death mask at all. It’s his skull, and the skulls themselves may have been mixed up for nearly a century.

Joseph & Hyrum Skulls Switched?

When the Smith family graves were exhumed in 1928, nobody knew which body was which. Patrick believes the skulls were misidentified, and the evidence is the wound that killed Hyrum. Hyrum was shot in the face. In one skull, the entire facial structure has collapsed, which Patrick says is exactly what happens when a bullet ruptures the small bones of the face and the flesh later decays.

The other skull is nearly intact, missing only the upper jaw, and when the team overlaid the wound location, there was solid bone right where Hyrum’s injury should be. I’ve heard strong opinions on both sides of this. Lachlan Mackay has told me the skulls were mixed up; Curtis Weber once insisted they weren’t. Patrick says Curtis has since said publicly that his 2008 study was flawed, though Curtis hasn’t endorsed Patrick’s conclusions either.

Then there’s the death mask. Patrick lists the problems: cotton stuffed in the nose, the chin tied up, the weight of the plaster, dehydrated eyes, and injuries Joseph received outside Carthage Jail, which eyewitnesses described in letters, journals and trial minutes. (He’s saving those details for the film.)

The most surprising piece of evidence comes from John Taylor, who knew Joseph well and was with him at the martyrdom. Taylor tried to use the death masks to make a true likeness of Joseph and Hyrum and concluded, “We failed.” Once the masks are matched to the skulls and a few millimeters are adjusted, Patrick says, the face begins to look remarkably like the daguerreotype.

Some of my favorite moments came when Patrick described the access his team received. The Church, which now owns the locket, let them film at Carthage Jail and the Mansion House, and the Community of Christ opened its archives, including Joseph’s sword, pocket watch and epaulets. Along the way, Patrick gained a new respect for Sutcliffe Maudsley, long dismissed as a caricature artist, whose work turned out to be surprisingly accurate.

Patrick is also candid about the case against him. John Hajicek, who provided the Maudsley image of Emma wearing a locket, remains a skeptic. We know Emma owned a locket and a daguerreotype of Joseph, both now lost. But between Joseph Smith III and Lois Smith Larsen there is a 110-year gap in which no one seems to mention this locket at all.

So, are the skulls switched? Is the man in the locket Joseph? Patrick has made the most thorough case I’ve seen, and I’m still weighing it. Over these two episodes we’ve gone from Emma’s verdict on the paintings, through provenance and the 1928 camera, to skulls, masks and skeptics. Now it’s your turn to decide. Brother Joseph Again opens in theaters Friday, October 9; Patrick says opening weekend decides how long it stays, so go see it. The companion book from Greg Kofford Books arrives in November.

Listen to the full conversation wherever you get your podcasts.

Don’t miss our other conversations with Patrick: https://gospeltangents.com/people/patrick-bishop/

Also, check out our previous conversation with Lach MacKay about the Joseph Smith photo: https://gospeltangents.com/2022/08/is-this-joseph-smith/

Gospel Tangents

Time Chapter
0:00 John Taylor on why the death masks fail
1:09 Is the death mask or the skull the gold standard?
1:54 Skulls Switched/misidentified in 1928
5:05 Hyrum’s missing face: what a bullet does to facial bones
8:22 You can’t just open the eyes of the death mask
12:28 Joseph’s sword, watch and epaulets — and Sutcliffe Maudsley’s accuracy
13:47 What celebrity death masks show about likeness
14:43 The Emma daguerreotype vs. the idealized 1842 painting
16:09 John Hajicek’s objections: a provenance gap of 110 years

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