Tuesday, May 21, 2024

Mark Tensmeyer on William Clayton's Notebook 2

  

Even if it is the case that notebook 2 is not a daily record and that Clayton wrote it in batches based on earlier notes, it is speculation to assume it was written later to support a Brigham Young-centric narrative. Clayton would be far from the only nineteenth-century diarist to construct his journal from rough draft notes and other daily records. Internal textual evidence also favors notebook 2 being contemporary. Clayton’s journal expresses a great deal of uncertainty about future events, such as the outcome of his marriage to Margaret Moon. The journal likewise does not anticipate the death of Joseph Smith or the accession of Brigham Young to the presidency of the church. Ironically, this entry from notebook 2 is one of the only contemporary records of Smith having any criticism of Brigham Young. “Also B.Y. had transgressed his covenant & he pled with the Lord to spare him this end & he did so, other wise he would have died. B. denied having transgressed.” (Clayton, Intimate Chronicle, June 23, 1843) Another entry in notebook 2 quotes Smith as saying his brother Samuel ought to be his successor should he and Hyrum die.” (Clayton, Intimate Chronicle, July 12, 1844) Such entries do not support a Utah era narrative and tend to show that it was written contemporaneously by a man who simply wanted to record what he saw and felt. Also, Clayton traced one of the Kinderhook plates in his journal under his entry for May 1, 1843, the same date and entry that Clayton recorded the sealing ceremony of Smith and Lucy Walker. Stanley Kimball compared one of the Kinderhook plates to Clayton’s tracing and found it was a perfect match. This would mean Clayton was using this notebook during that week as the Kinderhook plates were only in Nauvoo for a few days. While it would be possible for Clayton to have copied this outline from an earlier tracing, its presence in notebook 2 tends to make it more likely to be contemporary.  (Mark Tensmeyer, “’Old Wom[en]n’s Tales’ Versus the Historical Verification of Joseph Smith’s Polygamy,” in Secret Covenants: New Insights on Early Mormon Polygamy, ed. Charyl L. Bruno [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2024], 71-72)

 

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