Three statements indicate that Sarah and Maria Lawrence had sexual relations with Joseph Smith.
Lucy Walker acknowledged in 1887: “I am also able to testify that Emma Smith, the Prophet’s first wife, gave her consent to the marriage of at least four other girls [Emily and Eliza Partridge and Maria and Sarah Lawrence] to her husband, and that she was well aware that he associated with them as wives within the meaning of all the word implies.”1
Emily Partridge similarly affirmed: “She [Emma Smith] afterwards gave Sarah and Maria Lawrence to him, and they lived in the house as his wifes. I knew this.”2–
Benjamin F. Johnson wrote in 1904: “I do know that at his [Joseph Smith’s] Mansion home was living Maria and Sarah Lawrence and one of Cornelius P. Lott’s daughters as his plural wives with the full knowledge of his wife, Emma, of their married relations to him.”3