Almera Woodard Johnson
In an 1883 affidavit, Almera W. Johnson admitted that she had “lived with Joseph Smith as his wife”: “On a certain occasion in the spring of the year 1843 … I was sealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith . … After this time I lived with the Prophet Joseph as his wife, and he visited me at the home of my brother Benjamin F. at Macedonia.”1
Almera’s brother, Benjamin F. Johnson, left five records confirming that she had sexual relations with the Prophet: “He [Joseph Smith] remained two days, lodging at my house with my sister as man and wife (and to my certain knowledge he occupied the same bed with her). This visit was on the 16th and 17th of May, 1843, returning to Nauvoo on the 18th.”2 “He [Joseph Smith] was at my house … where he occupied my sister Almira’s room and bed.”3 “[As] for my younger sister the Prophet made me the medium of his courtship; and I saw her married to him in the summer of 1843, and I further know that they roomed together as husband and wife at various times in my home at Macedonia, where he associated with other of his plural wives and various times as he had occasion.”4 “The Prophet again Came and at my house ocupied the Same Room & Bed with my Sister . …”5 “The Prophet stayed … there [at my house] with my sister Almira as his wife.”6
- Almera W. Johnson, Affidavit, August 1, 1883; published in Joseph Fielding Smith, Blood Atonement and the Origin of Plural Marriage, 71. (back)
- Benjamin F. Johnson, Affidavit, March 4, 1870, Joseph F. Smith, Affidavit Books, 2:6-7; Andrew Jenson, “Plural Marriage,” 222. (back)
- Benjamin F. Johnson, My Life’s Review, 96 (back)
- Benjamin F. Johnson, Letter to Frank Feely, December 10, 1897. (back)
- Zimmerman, I Knew the Prophets, 44. (back)
- Johnson to Lund, May 12, 1903. (back)