180 years ago today - Jan 17, 1842

Joseph Smith takes eight-months-pregnant Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner as a plural wife. Mary Elizabeth, age 24, has been legally married to non-Mormon Adam Lightner for over six years at the time. She continues to live with Adam Lightner afterward as instructed by Joseph Smith. She claimed that Smith had a private conversation with her in 1831 when she was twelve years old [age 12], "Smith told me about his great vision concerning me." "Joseph Said I was his, before I came here. He said all the Devils in Hell should never get me from him." She also said, "I am the first being that the revelation was given to him for ... I went forward and was sealed to him. Brigham young performed the sealing, and Heber C. Kimball the blessing. I know Joseph Smith had six wives and I have known some of them from childhood up. I knew he had three children [by his plural wives]. They told me. I think two are living today, but they are not known as his children as they go by other names."

[Mary Lightner, 1905 Address, typescript, BYU, Pg. 2-3)]

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