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S2E9 · Lesser Known Heroes from Church History - Mercy Fielding Thompson
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Standard of Truth · Season 2 · Episode 9 · 1:05:56

Lesser Known Heroes from Church History - Mercy Fielding Thompson

Mercy Fielding Thompson spent a night locked inside Liberty Jail with her baby, and later wrote that she wouldn't sell the honor of it for gold.

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The question ·

Listeners asked for an episode on Emma Smith; instead, who is a lesser-known hero of early Church history whose faith we should know?

Richard

Listeners asked for an episode on Emma Smith, so Richard and Gerrit try something different: a lesser-known hero, Mercy Fielding Thompson, the sister of Mary Fielding Smith. Reading mostly from Mercy's own autobiography, Gerrit follows her from her 1837 marriage to Robert Thompson in Kirtland through the Missouri violence, a night locked in Liberty Jail with her sick sister and two babies, and Robert's sudden death in Nauvoo in 1841. He then covers her plural marriage to Hyrum Smith, her prompting to have the sisters give a penny a week for the temple's glass and nails, and her service as one of the first women ordinance workers in the Nauvoo Temple. The episode closes with her letters defending plural marriage to Joseph Smith III and her testimony that she would not give up her religion for all the gold in America.

Who comes upMercy Fielding ThompsonMary Fielding SmithRobert B. ThompsonHyrum SmithJoseph SmithJoseph F. SmithDon Carlos SmithEliza R. SnowBrigham YoungJoseph Smith IIILyman O. Littlefield
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Richard thanks listeners for their emails, including many asking for an Emma Smith episode, and says they want to try something different.

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Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast, hosted by historian, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, where we explore the early days of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and gain rare historical insights into how a young farm boy was able to establish a new church and grow it by way of visions, manifestations and miracles.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. In this week's podcast, we wanted to try something a little bit different. So we've received lots of emails, we really appreciate your emails, by the way. They're at questions at standardoftruthpodcast.com. We couldn't come up with a longer email if we tried.
Gerrit At some point, we're gonna try to shorten it to something like questions at standardoftruthpodcast.info.org.slash backslash something.
Richard That's right.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard Well, that was taken. That's why we went with the one that we did.
Gerrit Well, again, our operating budget was somewhat prohibitive in the selection of, so we figured, if we make it really hard for you to ask questions, then we won't have to answer any of them.
Richard That is true. When our operating budget comes down to what my tax return is this year, that's really when you're on.
Gerrit And I happen to know you're getting audited, so I don't know, I'm just kidding about that.
Richard So in this podcast, we received lots of great questions, and we received several questions about doing a podcast specifically on Emma Smith. There's a lot of interest in understanding Emma and her relationship with Joseph, and especially early in the church's history. But we wanted to try something a little bit different. Perhaps Gerrit had mentioned in the past doing a podcast on minor deming, and perhaps that there might be an opportunity to talk about some characters from early church history that there isn't as much known about.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, at some point, we've already talked about Emma on multiple podcasts, and so obviously we'll keep mentioning her because she's so critical to early church history. But I also thought that one of the things that we could provide for people that are listening is maybe some examination. And I mean, for a lot of members of the church, there's only a few women that they even know from church history. And one of the things that is powerful to me in studying the church's history is the strength of the women that are living during this era of the restoration of the church. And in the Joseph Smith era, in the early Utah era, and it's overwhelming at times to read it. I went to the Huntington Library to research on, they have a bunch of Latter-day Saint, well, they call it their Mormon collection. But they have a bunch of Latter-day Saint documents, a bunch that are like, hey, why do you have this? This is our stuff. But anyway, one of the things they have, again, I have no idea how they have it.
Gerrit I guess I should go research it and then be mad about it. Is they have some of Eliza R. Snow's journals that she kept, primarily the one they have is the one she kept when she was crossing the plains. And it is, it's this little leather bound book. I'm showing you with my hands and you can't see me. I haven't yet determined that this is an audio medium. But it's this little teeny book that is smaller than my hand. In fact, I put my hand down next to it and took a picture of it so that you could just see. And just reading through her words, the difficulty she's going through, she's having trouble with some of the people that are in her company, that are not living up to their expectations, which a bunch of them aren't. It was powerful. There was a powerful spirit in knowing that my hand here is touching the same thing that Eliza R.
Gerrit Snow did, as she was struggling across the plains to get to Utah. And so it made me think, as we've gotten these other questions, about the number of people that maybe don't always get all the limelight. Now look, I'm not probably going to be able to flesh out a bunch of people that no one's ever heard of because the reality is those people don't have documents. And that's one of the things you learn when you're studying history is, for all of the documents of people you do have, there are thousands of people that are born, live and die, and you get a passing mention here or there, a birth and death record, that's it. And you don't get their story. But I especially thought that, as we're commemorating the Relief Societies Organization in March, that we could focus on one of these early heroes of mine from church history, who led a very difficult life, but was adamant about her faith.
Gerrit And that is Mercy Fielding Thompson. Now, you probably usually, when you hear something fielding, it's Joseph Fielding Smith. And maybe you even know that Joseph F. Smith's mother was Mary Fielding, who was married to Hyrum Smith. Well, Mercy Fielding is actually Mary Fielding's sister. So Mary and Mercy are our sisters. And I thought I would share a little bit about her life experiences. Now, first of all, I need to give the caveat and apologize literally to anyone who is related to Mercy Fielding Smith, right? Because I'm barely going to scratch the surface of the things that you know about your great-great-grandmother, your great-great-a-aunt, or however. And so you're probably shaking your fist at the podcast right now. You've pulled your car over, you've gotten out, you're kicking the tires, angry, hopefully not cursing, but maybe because this is done so poorly.
Gerrit But for the rest of you, hopefully you'll at least give me some grace as I try to share this, because I think we'd like to try to help people understand some of the faith of these individual men and women from church history that maybe aren't as well-known. I sometimes feel like we think that the only member of the church in Joseph Smith's time period was Joseph Smith and Emma, and that's it. Those are the only people we can really talk about. And then in Brigham Young's time period, it's just Brigham Young, and so I thought I'd share a little bit about it. And what I'm gonna share mostly from is from her own autobiography that she writes to her family shortly before she dies. Well, I mean, as she's getting up in years, she actually lives a little bit longer, but she wants her family to understand the things that are important to her. So that's what's kind of cool about an autobiography. Now, that sounds like we're about to start reading War and Peace here. No, it's only a few, it's like 10 pages long. And she is going to explain a lot about her life.
Gerrit And I'm gonna summarize a lot of it too. But she is someone who is converted and will marry in 1837. She's going to marry Robert Thompson. Now, Robert Thompson is gonna actually be pretty prominent in church history, even though you don't know who he is. Any archivist or historian listening is like, oh, well, Robert Thompson is, he's gonna be one of Joseph Smith's personal secretaries. In fact, he's going to keep some of Joseph Smith's personal journals and correspondence. So as a historian, like I love Robert Thompson, because some of the things I have from Joseph, I only have because he kept the records, right? So that's one of the reasons why you even get involved in that. But Joseph is pretty close to Robert. He's one of Robert's friends. And Mercy is going to talk about here, she says that we removed to Kirtland, Ohio in May 1837, where I was married to Robert Blasher L.
Gerrit Thompson by Joseph Smith the prophet. Received a patriarchal blessing through Joseph Smith Sr. Patriarch of the Church of Jesus Christ. And so she's talking about the things that are going on. She moves to Ohio, she's converted, moves to Ohio, marries as soon as she gets there. Essentially, Kirtland must have been the BYU of, the BYU Idaho of early church membership. Return with my husband to Canada, he being appointed to labor there. As a missionary, he remained there until March, 1838, when we were appointed to journey with Hyrum Smith, to whom my sister had been married December, 1834. So that's one of the important things to understand. We told you Mary and Mercy are sisters. Her sister Mary is married to Hyrum Smith. She's Hyrum Smith's second wife. They're not practicing plural marriage yet, but notice I said yet, but Hyrum, his first wife actually passes away.
Gerrit And so he's going to marry Mary when that, that's a problem with alliteration, but he's gonna marry Mary as his second wife, but at the time he still only has one wife. So shortly after her marriage, she moves with Robert to far west Missouri. So she moves there in 1838. And now anyone who has even a passing understanding of church history in Missouri is well aware that when you say they moved to far west, things aren't going to end well. You can know this if you ever go to Missouri and go visit far west, you'll find the thriving Mormon community of nobody there. And the reason why no one is there is because they are driven out by the extermination order and by the Missouri state militia in the so-called Mormon war in 1838. So they get there in March.
Gerrit Well, that's when they start to head down. I don't know exactly when they get there. When they get there, she has her daughter. So Robert and Mercy have their daughter, Mary, and she's born June 18, 1833. That's one of the things she talks about. Now, we are gonna do a series of podcasts at some point talking about the horrific violence that took place in Missouri. It really is necessary to understand church history and where Latter-day Saints are actually coming from. Why do they have the feelings that they do? Because they all have this shared collective experience of this just horrific violence for which no one seems to care at all. I mean, this is not just simply that there's violence. It's that there's violence for which there's no recourse and for which there is no justice. We talk about that a little bit already, I know, but we'll end up doing, you know, put that in the hopper with minor deming and at some point, plural marriage.
Gerrit So in season 17, we'll do that. I mean, part of the reason why it's actually hard to do a podcast on the violence in Missouri is I'm not even entirely sure how to present it. If I were to present the documents the way they're actually written about the things that are going on in Missouri.
Richard You would have an explicit.
Gerrit We would have to put an explicit label on our podcast because it's so incomprehensibly foul and evil. And so, you know, we're wrestling with that. We're not quite sure. You know, I figure that, you know, we'll have to, we'll have to, at some point, figure out how we can do that or just incredibly edit what we talk about. But I mean, at any rate. And that's part of the problem is it's hard to edit what happened because when you're in church and you just hear, oh, yeah, the Saints were driven out of Missouri. Well, it sounds bad. I mean, I don't think anyone in church is like, I got this. Although I did the other day have someone say something to the effect of me, the effect to me that, well, sure, the Saints had it rough, but it's a lot harder today because of things like pornography and the internet. I mean, I'd crossed the plains a hundred times, but boy, trying to stay worthy every single day, that's really hard.
Gerrit The worst part was that person was Richard. No, I'm just kidding. It wasn't Richard, but if you wanna ever get on the wrong side, I mean, it is one of my pet peeves. It is. It's something that really, it bothers me because you read these accounts from these men and women from this era and just the intense suffering that they go through. And I know why people do it. I mean, I understand what someone means when they talk about, well, the saints in the past, they had to suffer physical trials, but we have a lot more spiritual trials. I mean, what they're trying to say is, we're all pioneers. We all have to endure to the end. We all have to go through hard times. That's what they mean to say. They don't mean any ill intent towards these pioneer men and women of the past. The problem is just how false it is, that this statement. I mean, as I will sometimes tell my classes, I mean, if you don't think burying three of your babies within a four-year period because you've been forced from five different houses because of violence, if you don't think that's a spiritual trial, then I think you probably haven't really experienced very many trials.
Gerrit I mean, why am I in Missouri, to start with? Why is Mercy in Missouri? God told her to go to Missouri. So she goes to Missouri and has her family scattered and loses all of her property and they're driven out months later. But that wouldn't be a spiritual trial at all, right? Only physical. Oh, if only I could find my grandmother's dishes and all the mess that the mob made. Anyway.
Richard Well, no, I was going to say, I've heard you at many a fireside kind of share this, when the suffering comes because you're following the prophet, the nature of all of that suffering is spiritual.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, that's the reality. I think anyone who's listening to us, and I'm sure that's essentially, well, first of all, no one's listening.
Richard First of all, Rachel's mom.
Gerrit Rachel's mom. My mom, I think she's actually listening more ever since we brought her on for the Hubert Humphrey extravaganza, which is, I think we want to do that recurring every Presidents Day. Right? It worked out great. The Hubert Humphrey extravaganza. We're going to get some merchandise at some point. It'll just be a picture of my mom, Hubert Humphrey, and then in the background, kind of lowering over her will be Ernest Wilkinson.
Richard But you think that's going to sell really well, dude.
Gerrit I feel like we have a huge. That's our merch. I feel like we have a huge market for that. That and we have an idea of having some Willard Richards action figures, where no matter how many times you, because just when we talked about that Carthage conspiracy, I mean, the guy's got like 18 guns on him. So it's a Willard Richards action figure. He's just got bandolero after bandolero of guns.
Richard Like Elisha and the widow and the vessel of oil. So every time he puts his hand into his pocket, there's another gun. There's always a gun.
Gerrit There's always a gun. So these are some merchandise ideas for the website that we don't have in the e-commerce platform that we aren't on. We're going to continue to just offer this as a free service, because then that way, when people are really upset with how bad this is, well, you get what you pay for. Anyway, the reality, the whole point of that is that these Latter-day Saints from this time period, they are often going through horrific trials, especially in what's going on in Missouri. And the whole reason why they're in Missouri is because Joseph Smith the Prophet told them to go to Missouri. And so here they are in Missouri, and months after they arrive, you have this horrific violence that she's going to describe here. And you have to bear with me because I'm reading from the original, so not always can I write off the bat and have to flip the pages sometimes there.
Gerrit But she says to describe the suffering and privations we endured while there would be past my skill. Although reading some of the things she wrote, I think actually she had plenty of skill. She's being very modest there. She could easily have done it, but it's just there's too much. It would make this sketch too lengthy. Some few things, however, I will relate. My husband, with many of the brethren, being threatened and pursued by the mob, fled into the wilderness, leaving me with an infant, not five months old, three months distressing suspense. So in three months of distressing suspense. So the whole idea behind it, her husband, Robert, has to flee because the mob says they're going to kill him. So he leaves her with the baby. They're still in far west in their house that's not even finished. Her sister, of course, is going to have things even worse because Mary's going to see Hiram taken off to Liberty Jail.
Gerrit So Robert doesn't end up there, but she says she's going to endure three months before I could get any intelligence. So she didn't even know what had happened to him. And apparently they weren't able to get any runners back to him or whatever. I mean, the mob is... This is after the Hans Mill Massacre. This is after Joseph's been arrested. So the violence has gotten pretty bad here. So she couldn't get any intelligence on him during that time. She says, I stayed with my sister, who having given birth to a son while her husband was in prison. So many people don't know that or they don't think about it, that while Hyrum's in Liberty Jail, his wife, Mary, actually gives birth to their son. So this is as difficult a time it could be. And by the way, it's also the middle of winter. So they're going through all this. They're slowly being driven out of their homes. People are being assaulted, killed, arrested. Homes are being ransacked all during this time of year where you can't just go outside.
Gerrit It's in the middle of winter. Talking about her sister, she took a severe cold and was unable to attend to her domestic duties for four months. So Mary Smith, Mary Fielding Smith, her sister, gets so sick that she's basically hovering near death the whole time Hyrum is gone and in jail. And what does Mercy do? Mercy does what amazing women of faith do. She steps into the breach and takes care of the children, takes care of the little baby, takes care of her own baby. All the while, she doesn't even know where her husband is. And she just kind of matter of fact steps into the breach. Well, things need to be done, and I'm going to do them. She says, this caused much of the care of her family, which was very large, to rest upon me.
Gerrit Mobs were continuously threatening to massacre the inhabitants of the city. And I feared that every time to lay my babe down, lest they should slay me and leave it to suffer worse than immediate death. She's reflecting on this. She's thinking about the fact that she was so terrified of how the mob was acting. Remember, when we do talk about the Missouri violence, one of the things Joseph Smith talks about in one of the letters he writes is that these people are so violent and horrific, they're actually digging up the bodies of men that they've already killed and further mutilating the bodies as a way of demonstrating how much they hate Mormons in the state. At any rate, you can see this kind of fear she has. She doesn't have her husband. She's now taking care of her sister's family as well as her own family. About the 1st of February 1839, by the request of her husband, my sister was placed on a medic.
Gerrit So we were talking about November. We're already now to February. We've gone through almost the entire winter in the state and Hyrum, in jail, asked to be able to see his wife. So Mercy, I mean, who's that going to fall upon? Mercy's going to help her sister go see her husband. So she says, my sister was placed on a bed, in a wagon, and taken on a journey of about 30 miles to visit him in the prison. Her infant son Joseph, then being about 10 weeks old, so this is the same Joseph F. Smith that would later become the prophet of the church, is going as an infant baby, 10 weeks old, with this mother who's so sick she can't stand to visit Hyrum in Liberty Jail, in that awful dungeon. Anyway, accompanying her and taking my own baby, she's talking about because she has her own baby, along with them near eight months old, the weather being extremely cold, we suffered much on the journey.
Gerrit We arrived at the prison in the evening, and we were admitted and the doors closed upon us. So they actually go into the jail. That's how they're doing their visiting hours. It's not like the men get to come out. They go into the jail, and they actually spend the night in the jail with all these men that are in prison so that they can visit them. She says, the doors closed upon us. A night never to be forgotten, and she underlines night with a strong underline in her handwriting. Never to be forgotten, a sleepless night. I nursed the darling babes, and in the morning prepared to start for home with my afflicted sister. And as long as memory lasts, will remain in my recollection the creaking hinges of that door, which closed upon the noblest men on earth. Who can imagine our feelings as we traveled homewards? But would I sell the honor bestowed upon me of being blocked up in that jail with such characters for gold?
Gerrit No, no. You kind of get a sense of the woman that Mercy Fielding is. She is making these extreme sacrifices on the basis of her sister, and she is adamant that Joseph and Hyrum are prophets, the noblest men on earth. So they eventually are going to get to Nauvoo. Well, they go to Quincy first, and then eventually they're going to move to commerce. And still, all throughout that time, Mercy is the one taking care of the whole family. Her husband is actually going to reunite with her, so there's at least that. But shortly after arriving in Nauvoo, their life really kind of goes through this kind of, everything seems to be getting so much better, and then the bottom falls out. And I think that that's one of the most difficult aspects of mortality, is when there are just times in life where you kind of sit back and you say, man, you know, everything's coming up Richard.
Gerrit You know what I mean? Like where you're just like that things are, things seem to be working out. And, you know, I think we always knock on wood or maybe we don't say it out loud because we hope maybe the universe won't hear. And it seems that right after that, we will have sometimes some really difficult experiences. I mean, maybe that's just the nature of mortality. We have trials that are interspersed with great moments of joy, that are interspersed with more trials, at least until the resurrection, when our trials are going to be behind us. At any rate, they move to what will become Nauvoo, and Robert is actually going to be employed as this scribe for Joseph, and he's going to work actually in the print shop with Joseph's younger brother, Don Carlos. Well, in August of 1841, both Don Carlos and Robert Thompson are going to pass away.
Gerrit And we're not entirely sure. I mean, from the descriptions of the... I mean, trying to determine how someone died of a disease in the 19th century is very difficult because the misdiagnoses are rampant. But either malaria or the ague or possibly tuberculosis, it's actually difficult to tell. At any rate, she's finally back reunited with her young family and this horrific tragedy. And Mercy loved Robert. Occasionally, I don't hear it as much anymore, but there would be times I would hear people try to denigrate or at least minimize the suffering of people in the past by saying things like, well, I mean, death was just so much more common back then that I think people were just, you know, it was easier for them. I can only think that was spoken by someone who's never lost anyone ever in their life.
Gerrit If you think that how you react when you lose your spouse or you lose a child is based upon what century you're living in, then you must not have ever lost a spouse and you must not have ever lost a child, the connection that's there. And so she describes it. I'm going to go back to reading some of this here. I was then left a widow with my little girl who was feeble with diligence and economy and the blessings of the Lord. Our wants were supplied, but to me, it was a lonesome life. She's writing this in 1880, many years later, looking back on this, and you can feel the loss. To me, it was a lonesome life, deprived of the society of my husband, whose like could scarcely be found. I believe all who knew him would agree with me in saying that in meekness, humility and integrity, he could not be easily excelled if equaled.
Gerrit He labored diligently for Brother Joseph and the Church to the end of his life without asking for a salary. In this, I aided him as far as possible by keeping borders. So he's working for the Church, doing all kinds of things, copying things down, writing letters for Joseph. She's taking borders into their house, and so she's doing essentially the difficult work of cooking and cleaning and taking care of people staying in their home in order for them to have an income. She goes on to say, a few months before his death, he entered into a partnership with Don Carlos Smith in editing the Times and Seasons. This is what I talked about. So Don Carlos is Joseph's youngest brother. Being deprived of the society of such a husband caused one to mourn so deeply that my health was very much impaired. I mean, she goes into this just this deep depression.
Gerrit It was relatively sudden there. I mean, he's only sick for just a little bit before he dies. It's stunning, and it comes right on the heels of things seemingly going to be good, and instead you have this horrific tragedy. She's going to go on, though, and talk about something that is actually another very difficult trial. Okay, so now she doesn't have her husband, this love of her life. A couple of years go by. Now, during that time, she's one of the women who joins the Relief Society when it's founded. She's one of the people active in that. But she's going to, this is her writing this. On the 11th of August, 1843, I was called by direct revelation from heaven through Brother Joseph the Prophet to enter into a state of plural marriage with Hyrum Smith the Patriarch. So now, this is a completely different type of trial.
Gerrit She doesn't have a husband at this point, although she still has her child, but this was not the expectation of how she might ever again marry. Her sister is married to Hiram at the time, but still this idea of plural marriage is so foreign. This is 1843, so they're not practicing plural marriage openly yet. Only a very few people in the church are being taught about it, and it's being practiced. And so she gives her reference to it in this memoir of hers. The subject, when it was first communicated to me, tried me to the very core. All of my former traditions and every natural feeling of my heart rose in opposition to this principle. But I was convinced that it was appointed by him who is too wise to air and too good to be unkind. Soon after my marriage, I became an inmate with my sister in the house of Hyrum Smith, where I remained until his death.
Gerrit So she's going to move in to the Hyrum Smith household, and so she has this difficult trial of accepting and practicing plural marriage. I think everybody listening here can very well relate. She feels inspired to do it, and when she does, she only has that second husband for a very, very, very short time.
Richard So you use the term or she used the term inmate. What does that mean in the 19th century?
Gerrit It just means living inside of, right? So, I mean, we use it today almost entirely to mean a prisoner, right? Because you're an inmate at the penitentiary. What does it mean you live in the penitentiary? So they would use it more like meaning I moved into the household. So today we only reference it in terms of prison, but in the 19th century, they used it for all kinds of things. Oh, I was an inmate at the hotel on 9th Street. They didn't mean that you were like, you know, behind bars, waiting for Willard Richards to pop up behind the corner with his bandolier of guns. So it's this other terms. One of the things that is interesting about that request is at least according to another source that Joseph explains to Mercy that it's actually Robert Thompson, his friend who's passed away, her husband that actually appears to Joseph several times and tells him to have Hyrum marry her.
Gerrit Now, their marriage isn't a sealed marriage. It's only for time because she's going to be sealed to Robert. But she is certainly affected by that. And as she says later, the voice of the Lord speaking through the mouth of the Prophet Joseph was what this was for this request to marry Hyrum. And so she does and then moves into his household with her child. So she's living in Hiram's household. Now while she's there, one of the things she's doing is Hyrum Smith is the patriarch of the church at this point. Well, Hyrum Smith is giving patriarchal blessings constantly. So Mary and Mercy are the primary transcribers of nearly all of these patriarchal blessings. So if you have an ancestor who received a patriarchal blessing from Hiram in 1843 or 44, it is probably 90% that it was Mercy or Mary that was actually recording that patriarchal blessing for your ancestor to have.
Gerrit So she's already doing that. That's not the only thing she's going to be doing. They're building the Nauvoo Temple. Now she's a part of the Relief Society already. And the Relief Society, at least in some ways, has gotten up to try to help build the Nauvoo Temple. That was part of the origination idea. But these two sisters decide, Mary and Mercy, that they need to do something more. That they're going to put forth a greater effort to try to bring the sisters of the Church to consecrate their time, but primarily their money, whatever little money they could get, to the completion of the temple. The sacrifice the saints make to finish the Nauvoo Temple, even after Joseph is murdered, is a real demonstration of how certain they are. First of all, this temple is commanded by God. And second of all, the ordinances that are going to be performed in it are essential.
Gerrit I said before that one of the great differences between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and those that break off away from it after Joseph is murdered, is they immediately jettison the idea of temple ordinances. Endowments and washing and anointings are cast aside. There's no longer ceilings. There's no longer eternal marriages. And yet these people living in Nauvoo at the time, Joseph repeatedly talking about how they need to finish the temple, Mercy and Mary see finishing the temple as such an important thing that they're actually going to make a big sacrifice. So I'm going to share first of all what she says in her, in her autobiography about it. But then I also want to share one of the things that comes out of that. She writes at one time after seeking earnestly to know from the Lord if there was anything that I could do for the building up of the kingdom of God.
Gerrit So she's she's she's praying about this personally. What can I do? I mean, all these people are sacrificing. What can I do? A most pleasant sensation came over me with the following words. Try to get the sisters to subscribe one cent per week for the purpose of buying glass and nails for the temple. I went immediately to Brother Joseph and told him what seemed to be the whisperings of the still small voice to me. He told me to go ahead and the Lord will bless you. I then mentioned it to Brother Hyrum, who was much pleased and did all in his power to encourage and help by speaking to the sisters on the subject in private and in public, promising them that they should receive their blessings in the temples. All who subscribe one cent per week, they should have their names recorded in the book of the law of the Lord. So first of all, this is a pretty awesome thing here.
Gerrit And when you want to talk about some personal revelation, Mercy is praying to ask God how she can help the church. The response she gets is to create this subscription. Now, I know the term subscription is also kind of a little weird for people in the 21st century, because usually when you think of subscription, you think of, well, I pay $2.99 a month so that I can have some memory from my iPhone through the Apple cloud, and that that's what you're purchasing each month. Subscriptions in the 19th century are very often used in charitable works. So in this sense, I commit to subscribe, four cents or a penny a week, so 52 cents a year, to buy building materials for the temple. And that's over and beyond whatever I'm paying in tithing and whatever my husband is giving in labor, what I'm giving in labor as I'm building. We're all going to donate a penny a week.
Gerrit Now, that may not sound like a lot. Remember, money back then is worth a lot more. I mean, the average person makes somewhere around $300 a year in this time period in the 19th century. But it still sounds relatively small. What's 52 cents a person? And how much a difference is that really going to make? Well, so they are actually going to undertake this. And let me share with you now from the church newspaper where they're publishing this subscription. You can see how it read to women and men who would have read it in the church's newspaper.
Richard So by comparison, so in 2019, the median family income in the state of Utah was about $86,000, a little more than that.
Gerrit I'm not doing very well.
Richard Yes, yes. So for $300, that's about.17% of the 52 cents would be.17% of the 300 bucks. So that's about $150 a year, about $12 a month is relative equivalent.
Gerrit And what it would seem like to us.
Richard Yeah, which actually goes to your point where $12 a month, that's not that much, but you know, on the whole.
Gerrit And that's the whole point. So from the church's newspaper, this is how it was introduced in the Millennial Star. We have much pleasure in publishing and recommending the following plan to be adopted amongst the sisters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in England. Because Millennial Star is the church's newspaper in England. So this is not just going on. They're doing this globally for the saints to try to raise money for the temple. We believe that the completion of the temple is near, is as near as the hearts of the sisters as the brethren, and that the following proposal will be responded to on the part of the English sisters in a manner that shall reflect honor upon themselves and materially instrumental in forwarding the great work. So this is written by Mary Smith and Mercy Thompson. Dear sisters, this is to inform you that we have entered into a small weekly subscription for the benefit of the temple funds. One thousand have already joined it, while many more are expected, by which we trust to help forward the great work very much.
Gerrit The amount is only one cent, or half a penny, per week. As Brother Amos Fielding is waiting for this, I cannot enlarge more to say that myself and Sister Thompson are engaged in collecting the same. We remain your affectionate sisters in Christ, Mary Smith and Mercy R. Thompson. Hyrum then has an appended note to this. It's actually one of the last things Hyrum writes, because this is June of 1844 that this is being published. The latest subscription for the temple of one cent per week is fully sanctioned by the First Presidency. And then the newspaper goes on. We feel much to encourage this plan, and to trust the sisters in England will manifest that they will not be behind the sisters in Nauvoo in this laudable work. One thing in connection with this work we should mention, and request that it be attended to with the strictest accuracy, that is the name of each individual be recorded and the amount which they subscribe in order that they may be transmitted to Nauvoo where they will be entered into the books of the Lord's house. The sisters or others who may collect the subscriptions will please be very particular on this point.
Gerrit They want to know who's donating. And one of the documents that we have from this time period is one of these subscription rules where they are entering in the sisters' names and the money that they have donated. It's incredible to even see, to look at it and realize that each of these women on this sheet were making a personal sacrifice, a demonstration of their faith beyond all the sacrifices they were already making to the completion of the temple. It's pretty incredible. Mercy is going to lead this effort, but we kind of gave a little bit of foreshadowing already that as difficult as it was for her to enter into a plural marriage with Hyrum Smith, that marriage is going to end in the hail of gunfire in Carthage. She's going to explain exactly what happened with that in their household.
Gerrit Now, of course, Mary's the one who's been married to Hiram longer, but still she's going to describe this. I should actually say that she talks about the various things they bought with the subscription money that she talks about. They bought glass and nails somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 that they're able to raise. So they're able to raise hundreds of dollars through this very small means. As she talks about it, they were given to the Temple Treasury, which they gladly received just in time of need. So that's one of the cool aspects. She's not just someone who's just going to pray and think about what needs to be done. Mercy Fielding and her sister Mary, they're going to do something about it. We're not just going to pray and say, I hope the temple gets done. We're going to pray and say, I hope the temple gets done, and also come up with a way to try to aid it in its completion.
Gerrit So she goes on to talk about the violence that takes place. She says, The foregoing sentence brings to my mind the picture which beggars description. An affectionate husband, a loving father, talking about Hiram when he was murdered, a faithful friend, a warm-hearted benefactor, being torn from wives, children, friends and dependents, never to see their faces more, and we never to see him, but a mangled, bleeding corpse. Perhaps my feelings can be better imagined than they can be described, left again without any human protection. With a feeble child, I remained with my sister until the temple was finished, as so far as the ordinances was finished so far, that the ordinances of the Holy Priesthood would be administered.
Gerrit There, when I was called by President Young to take up my abode there and to assist in the female department, which I did laboring night and day, keeping my child with me. So Mercy is going to be called to be one of the first female ordinance workers in the temple. The Nauvoo Temple isn't even done. Brigham Young is going to call her to go administer all of the temple ordinances. She's going to move into the temple with her child. So if you've ever wondered, does the temple provide childcare? At least the Nauvoo Temple provided some kind of childcare. She took her little girl there with her when she did it. And so you always hear about the thousands of saints that are receiving their endowments just before they're driven out of Nauvoo. Mercy is one of those that is staying up night and day because it's all fine and good for Brigham and others to be there to administer things, but they need women to administer the female ordinances.
Gerrit And Mercy is one of those who moves into the temple in order to constantly be performing these ordinances in the temple with women who are coming to the temple. So it's a fascinating, amazing thing to study. She's going to talk about how they are driven out of Illinois, where she says, I with my sister and family crossed the Mississippi River a day or two before the mob commenced firing on our city. I traveled to winter quarters, where I remained until the following year, following June, when I started with a company of saints led by Parley P. Pratt. We arrived in the Valley of the Salt Lake in 16 weeks. It took them 16 weeks to cross, you know, all across the prairie to get to, you know, through the mountains to get to Salt Lake Valley. And with several saints in privations, eating thistle roots, fighting crickets and grasshoppers, but do not remember to have uttered a murmuring word.
Gerrit That's a very interesting phrase. I don't remember ever, ever murmuring about these sufferings. The blessing of the Lord has attended with me and crowned my labors with success so that I've been able to assist in the immigrating of the poor saints. So when she gets to Utah, what does she do? She starts to help gather funds to help other saints immigrate. She's also going to be in one of the earliest reconstituted relief societies in Utah as well. And one of the things that you should probably know about her, I hadn't thought that I'd share this, but it's kind of fun, so maybe I will. I mean, that's how you know. Richard's tapping his fingers together in anticipation for what this might be. But she is going to become a key player in discussions surrounding the practice of plural marriage in Utah, because one of the arguments is going to be made by the Community of Christ, or was the reorganized church, which later becomes the Community of Christ.
Gerrit One of the arguments it's made is that Joseph Smith never taught or practiced polygamy, that was invented by Brigham Young, that was never actually taught. And in fact, that is what some apostates from the church today have taken up saying. Plural marriage is a very difficult thing to deal with. So what's a lot easier to do? To just say that it was never actually taught and to blame it on someone else. I still want to believe the Book of Mormon is true, but I don't want to believe that God ever commanded anyone to practice plural marriage. I understand the impetus behind that. But just wanting something to be the case and that thing being the case are just, they're not the same thing. And so what happens is there are multiple efforts made by the reorganized church to try to prove that Joseph Smith never taught or practiced plural marriage. And one of those efforts is really several of those efforts are undertaken by Joseph Smith's children, like Alexander Smith and of course Joseph Smith III, who's the leader of the reorganized church at the time.
Gerrit And so it's going to lead to a letter exchange between some of the leaders of the Community of Christ and Mercy herself. And you get a little bit of what she thinks people need to hear. She writes a letter to another member who's looking for evidence of the early revelation, that doctrine comes section 132 really was received by Joseph Smith. And she writes this letter. Now she's writing this January 31st, 1886. So she's, I think, 79 years old at this point, reflecting back. Having noticed, well, she says, dear brother, having noticed in the Deseret News an inquiry for testimony concerning the revelation on plural marriage and having read the testimony of Brother Grover, it came to my mind that perhaps it would be right for me to add my testimony to his on the subject of Brother Hyrum reading it to the High Council. I well remember the circumstance. So one of the arguments that's made by Latter Day Saints is, well, not only was this revelation received by Joseph, Joseph and Hyrum show it to multiple people and actually read it in several groups.
Gerrit And so when someone's like, oh, no, he never received it, like, well, then what were they reading in 1844 when I heard it, right? At any rate, in this letter, she goes on to say, I well remember the circumstance. I remember he told me he had read it to the brethren in his office. He put it into my hands and he left it with me for several days. So she's saying she actually had the revelation. Mercy's saying I had the revelation in my hands for several days. I had been sealed to him by Brother Joseph a few weeks previously and was acquainted with almost every member, the High Council of the High Council, and knew Brother Grover's testimony to be correct. Now, if this testimony would be of any use to such as are weak in the faith or tempted to doubt, I should be very thankful. Please make use of this in any way that you think best, as well as the copy of the letter addressed to Joseph Smith at Lamoni, your sister in the Gospel, Mercy Thompson.
Gerrit So Mercy is going to go further. She's going to write a letter to Joseph Smith III. So who would be what? That would be her nephew, step-nephew, I guess, something like that. So here is that letter that she writes. Dear sir, after having asked my father in heaven to aid me, I sit down to write a few lines as dictated by the Holy Spirit. After reading the correspondence between you and LO. Littlefield, that's Lyman O. Littlefield, I concluded that it was the duty of someone to bear a testimony which could not be disputed. Finding from your letters to Littlefield that no one of your father's friends had performed this duty while you were here, now I will begin at once and tell you my experience. My beloved husband, Robert B. Thompson, your father's private secretary, at the end of his mortal life, died August 27, 1841.
Gerrit I presume you will remember him. Nearly two years after his death, your father told me that my husband had appeared to him several times, telling him that he did not wish me to request your uncle Hiram to have me sealed to him for time. Hiram communicated this to his wife, my sister, Mary, who by request opened the subject to me when everything within me rose in opposition to such a step. But when your father called and explained the subject to me, I dared not refuse to obey the council, lest peradventure I should be found fighting against God. And especially when he told me the last time my husband appeared to him, he came with such power that it made him tremble. He then inquired of the Lord what he should do. The answer was, go and do as my servant hath required. He then took all opportunity of communicating this to your uncle Hiram, who told me that the Holy Spirit rested upon him from that, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet.
Gerrit The time was appointed with the consent of all parties, and your father sealed me to your uncle Hiram for time in my sister's room with a covenant to deliver me up in the morning of the resurrection to Robert Thompson, with whatever offspring should be the result of that union. At the same time, counseling your uncle to build a room for me and to move me over as soon as convenient, which he did. And I remained there as a wife, the same as my sister, to the day of his death. All of this, I am willing to testify in the presence of God, angels and men. Now I assure you, I have not been prompted or dictated by any mortal being in writing to you. Neither does a living soul know it, but my invulnerable daughter. God bless you, is the sincere prayer of your true friend, Mercy R. Thompson. PS. If you feel disposed to ask me any questions, I would be pleased to answer concerning blessings which I received under the hands of your late mother by the dictation of your father.
Gerrit So she kind of ends it off with giving this kind of kind. I can give you some information about Emma who's passed away at this point. So you have Mercy, not just she essentially apparently unprompted decides she is going to take her young step-nephew to task essentially. You're going around and saying there is no evidence at all because that was the nature of the correspondence of Lyman Littlefield. Oh, there's no evidence. No one has any evidence of anyone who was any marriage. And she's like, well, I'm your aunt, and I was married to your uncle in a plural marriage, and your dad's the one who did it. So, yeah, you know, I mean, that kind of...
Richard Other than that.
Gerrit Yeah, other than the fact that, yeah, other than all of your argument is not good. Now, what's interesting is the response of that is something we had shared earlier that the response of the paper to that is essentially if that were the case, then that would mean that Hyrum was a false prophet. Right, so rather... So you realize that's a pretty powerful testimony. So in their newspaper, The Saints Advocate, they've got to try to respond to that testimony. So this is the response of the reorganized church at the time. Mrs. Mercy R. Thompson carefully signs her name Thompson. We are thankful for that much anyway. Suppose that the statement is correct, that Mrs. Thompson was so sealed, and the date and manner of the ceremony are not given. And if she lived afterwards as a wife to Hyrum Smith, if so, both he and she were transgressors against both the law of the land and the law of God, and there can be no question about this.
Richard So they take it to the logical conclusion of what it would have to be if they were to practice.
Gerrit That polygamy is so wrong, that even though Hiram was a prophet, that if he did it, then he was a transgressor and a false prophet. I mean, at least you're pushing all your chips to the center of the table.
Richard Well, they're consistent.
Gerrit Yeah, so anyone who practices it's a false prophet. Your uncle and father practiced it. Shoot. What do you do? I mean, that becomes part of the problem. So David Fulmer is the one who sort of cooperated part of the letter that she gave. But I think I'll just end off going back to her autobiography and sharing the testimony that she shares about all these difficulties, trials, things she had in her life. But where is she at at the twilight of her life? Now, she's writing this to her. She's writing to her descendants. It's actually very interesting. She says, I want this to go to my oldest living female descendant. And if she's not, I want it to go to the next oldest female descendant. She wants this document of hers, her testimony, to go to the oldest living female. And if she doesn't have any, she says, I want it to go to my sister's oldest female.
Gerrit So she really wants this to be passed along to the women in the family as her testimony. And so you can see that, and I'll just briefly finish off what she has there. I would not give up my religion for all the gold in America. I know that I have not followed cunningly devised fables. I know that if I had not embraced the gospel as revealed by Joseph Smith, the prophet, in these last days, and endeavored to live up to the requirements of the law of God, I could never be permitted to dwell in the presence of the Lord and His celestial kingdom. When she's writing this, she's in her 74th year. She says, I'm now in my 74th year, and I've written this sketch without spectacles, mostly by lamplight. I think she's trying to say there's probably a few mistakes in it, but it's actually very, very nicely written. But she's going to go on to provide this final thought. May the blessing of God, the Eternal Father, rest upon all my kindred, that they may bring forth fruits of righteousness and be prepared to meet with those who have died in the faith of the Gospel.
Gerrit One of the reasons why we decided to do this is there are so many powerful testimonies of the men and women who have come before us, who we, you know, we sometimes, obviously we highlight the prophets and we highlight the men and women who are much more well known to us. But one of the things you find as you study, as you study Latter-day Saint history, is just how many testimonies of individuals and of course, Mercy is going to go on to, you know, be fairly prominent. And, but maybe not as well known. I would guess that there's at least some people listening to this podcast who didn't know that Mercy was Hyrum Smith's poor wife or her defense of poor marriage and that, or have heard this testimony. And I think that studying the trials and difficulties and faith of the women and men in the past can help us as we're going through our trials.
Gerrit No part of what Mercy is doing in her life is easy. And in fact, I mean, if we went even further into her life sketch, when she gets to Utah, she actually will remarry. Well, that man will eventually start practicing plural marriage as well. Well, whatever happens with that, she, a couple years down the road, decides she wants to divorce him. Now, Utah has very liberal for the country at the time, very liberal divorce laws. Women are able to leave these marriages. And that was part of one of the protections, at least they put in for plural marriage. And so she divorces him. And so she's going to live singly for most of the rest of her life. She gets remarried again briefly and then divorces that man and then is going to live singly. So she's experienced all of these emotions. She had a husband and a family and lost it. And then had to deal, wrestle with this incredibly radical doctrine of plural marriage only to just come to terms with it in order to have Hyrum Smith murdered as well.
Gerrit And instead of leaving the church, instead of going into just a place of depression, she devotes the remainder of her time in Nauvoo to continually trying to finish the temple and then serving as a temple worker to try to help and then leads with the saints as they go out to Utah. Her story may not be that well known, but it is on the shoulders of these giants of women in the early church that all of our testimonies stand. The reason why I had the gospel in my life, in part is because Mercy didn't ever say, this is too hard, I'm giving up. She just, once she knew that the church was true, that was what mattered in her life. And everything else became secondary. My hope is for all of us, myself included, can get to the point in our testimonies that we believe outside of whatever happens to us in this life.
Gerrit And if life is good, we believe and we remember the Lord. And if life is terrible, we believe and we remember the Lord. And if life is uncertain, we believe and we remember the Lord, and we always remember that the point of this life isn't this life. I loved how she said she wouldn't trade her religion for all the gold in America. She's not just saying fancy words at a testimony meeting. She's someone who actually has sacrificed all of her goods multiple times because she was certain that this church was true. And even though it invited all kinds of ridicule publicly to talk about the fact that she practiced plural marriage of her own volition, she wrote a letter and published it saying, yep, I practiced it and explained the whole story. So she's someone I revere from church history as having more courage and more faith than certainly many other people do.
Gerrit So thanks so much for joining us for this. And we look forward to hearing from you as you ask questions. Hopefully we'll be able to get a chance to answer them. Obviously we can't answer every question. As we pointed out, we can't answer any of some questions when it relates to, can you explain how everything there is to know about polygamy? Yeah, probably I won't be able to answer that one. But hopefully you feel the spirit as we read Mercy's testimony and that her testimony helps strengthen yours. That's the hope.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

Quote board

Make a share card from any line

I'm showing you with my hands and you can't see me. I haven't yet determined that this is an audio medium.

GerritBanter

You can know this if you ever go to Missouri and go visit far west, you'll find the thriving Mormon community of nobody there.

GerritBanter

I mean, as I will sometimes tell my classes, I mean, if you don't think burying three of your babies within a four-year period because you've been forced from five different houses because of violence, if you don't think that's a spiritual trial, then I think you probably haven't really experienced very many trials.

GerritInsight

Well, no, I was going to say, I've heard you at many a fireside kind of share this, when the suffering comes because you're following the prophet, the nature of all of that suffering is spiritual.

RichardInsight

So every time he puts his hand into his pocket, there's another gun. There's always a gun.

RichardBanter

If you think that how you react when you lose your spouse or you lose a child is based upon what century you're living in, then you must not have ever lost a spouse and you must not have ever lost a child, the connection that's there.

GerritInsight

So if you've ever wondered, does the temple provide childcare? At least the Nauvoo Temple provided some kind of childcare.

GerritBanter

But just wanting something to be the case and that thing being the case are just, they're not the same thing.

GerritInsight

I mean, at least you're pushing all your chips to the center of the table.

GerritBanter

Her story may not be that well known, but it is on the shoulders of these giants of women in the early church that all of our testimonies stand.

GerritInsight

And if life is good, we believe and we remember the Lord. And if life is terrible, we believe and we remember the Lord.

GerritInsight

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
The pioneers had physical trials; our trials today are the spiritual ones.
Death was so common back then that people didn't grieve the way we do.
Joseph Smith never taught or practiced plural marriage; Brigham Young invented it.
Take it to classReady to use in a lesson or a talk.

Take it to class

Ready to copy into a lesson or a text

Mercy Fielding Thompson lost her home in Missouri, her husband in Nauvoo and Hyrum at Carthage, and still wrote that she would not give up her religion for all the gold in America.

When Mercy prayed to know how she could help build the temple, the answer was small: one cent a week from each sister. Those pennies bought glass and nails for the Nauvoo Temple.

Trials that come because we follow the Lord are spiritual trials, not just physical ones.

Believe and remember the Lord when life is good, when it's terrible and when it's uncertain; the point of this life isn't this life.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
The absurdly long email addressThey couldn't come up with a longer one if they tried, and the shorter one was taken (0:39, 0:55).
The operating budgetIt comes down to Richard's tax return, and Gerrit happens to know he's getting audited (just kidding) (1:07, 1:27).
Episodes promised, never madeMinor Deming, the Missouri violence that may need an explicit label, and plural marriage in season 17 (1:32, 10:50, 11:58).
Not an audio mediumGerrit shows the size of Eliza R. Snow's journal with his hands (3:13).
BYU, everywhereKirtland, where Mercy married as soon as she arrived, was the BYU-Idaho of early Church membership (8:50).
The audience: Gerrit's mom (and Rachel's mom)No one's listening except Rachel's mom, and Gerrit's mom, who's listened more since the Hubert Humphrey extravaganza that will recur every Presidents Day (15:34, 15:35).
Merch we don't haveA shirt of Gerrit's mom, Hubert Humphrey and Ernest Wilkinson, and a Willard Richards action figure with endless bandoliers of guns (15:35, 16:03, callback 32:14).
Everything's coming up RichardGerrit's phrase for when life seems to be working out right before the bottom falls out (24:14).
The crack research staffRichard converts the 52-cent yearly subscription into about $12 a month on 2019 Utah incomes (39:30, 39:44).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

Your question could be next week’s episode
Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
General ConferenceGeneral Conference talks that cite a scripture read in this episode.

In General Conference

Talks from the latest General Conference that cite a scripture this episode reads or names on air
October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 132Come to the Lord in His Holy HouseElder Gerrit W. GongElder Gong lays out three doctrinal foundations for temple worship: eternal families, moral agency, and the Holy Spirit of Promise, which makes honored covenants binding.October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 132Sealed by the Holy Spirit of PromiseElder David A. BednarElder Bednar, using the image of a damaged passport rejected at a border, teaches that ordinances and covenants are our credentials for returning to God, and that their integrity must be maintained through ongoing faithfulness, ratified over time by the Holy Spirit of Promise.

Summaries, themes and lessons for every talk are on What Did They Say?

Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
Read Mercy Fielding Thompson's whole autobiographical sketch; it's only about 10 pages (6:32).
Robert B. Thompson, the secretary whose record keeping preserved some of Joseph Smith's journals and letters (7:35).
The Nauvoo Temple penny subscription and its rolls of sisters' names (42:17).
Mercy's 1886 letters and the Reorganized Church's effort to show Joseph never practiced plural marriage (50:20).
Eliza R. Snow's trail journal at the Huntington Library (3:13).
SOT Litner · S2E9.