The fact is that Lyman Wight entered into that relation before the time here mentioned. Affidavits in this regard can be produced but it will be unnecessary.
That John E. Page practiced "polygamy" I have the testimony of his wife, Mrs. Mary Eaton of Independence, who told me and others, in August 1904, that she gave her husband, John E. Page, other wives.
These men did not follow Brigham Young, but denounced him, yet they practiced plural marriage and did not get that doctrine from him.
THE TESTIMONY OF A BOGUS WIFE
The "testimony" you submit from President Young's "legal wife" is spurious. It matters not if you did receive the "information" from your uncle. The poor man was tricked and deceived. Bogus "wives" and "daughters" of President Young have "worked" the public before. Mary Ann Angel Young, President Young's legal wife, was not in Colorado in 1860 and 1861. She never was divorced and died in this city true to her husband, his family and the faith, on the 27th day of June, 1882. (News, July 5, 1882.) So much for this "bogus" testimony.
TESTIMONY IMPEACHED
The testimony of T. B. H. and Fanny Stenhouse is sufficiently impeached in the Saints' Herald, vol. 52, p. 2; 20, p. 602, and Sinners and Saints, p. 245. The woman's bitterness would condemn her writings. However I will mention one statement—you make Mrs. Stenhouse say: "It is reported by Fanny Stenhouse and many others, that Joseph Smith said, 'If ever the Church had the misfortune to be led by Bro. Brigham, he would lead it to hell.'" She gives this as a rumor that is "reported," so do the "many others" who are mostly from your church. Oh, yes, I have heard of this before. But do you know where the report originated? It originated with the apostate and would-be assassin, Robert D. Foster, who threatened the Prophet Joseph's life in 1844, and who was one of the incorporators and advocates of the notorious Nauvoo Expositor, and one of the chief actors in bringing about the martyrdom, June 27, 1844. In a toadying letter to your president, dated February 14, 1874, he said the prophet "remarked, in the presence of Mr. Law, Bishop Knight, John P. Greene, Reynolds Cahoon, and some others, that if ever Brigham Young became the leader of the Church, he would lead them down to hell."
MARVELOUS GROWTH OF THE CHURCH
I decline to accept the statements of such a character; besides, President Young did not lead the Church to hell, but preserved it, and under his direction it grew, expanded, and accomplished a wonderful, even a miraculous work. In the reclamation of the arid west, the permanent establishment of prosperous communities in the desert wilds, and for their unity, strength, and industrial and temporal independence, the "Mormon" people are today the marvel, if not the admiration of the thinking world. They came here with nothing but the good will of God. They began in poverty, and "having almost nothing to invest," says Mr. William E. Symthe in The Conquest of Arid America, "except the labor of their hands and brains, and that all they have expended in a period of fifty years for all classes of improvements—from the first shanty to the last turret of the last temple—came primarily from the soil."
Again he says in the same work: