Serial grifter Cameron Bertuzzi is the gift git who keeps on giving. Here is another gem showing he is a liar, not just a grifter:
This is something I would expect from Trent Horn and others from Catholic Answers, showing that Bertuzzi may have indeed become a Roman Catholic after all--the inability to read documents in their context. Here is the letter:
Letter to Newel K., Elizabeth Smith, and Sarah Ann Whitney, 18 August 1842 (notice that it is not just addressed to Sarah Ann Whitney but her parents, too; this alone shows Cameron has not read it but is cribbing it either 2nd or even 3rd hand). Here is the text of the letter:
Dear, and
Beloved, Brother [Newel K. Whitney] andSister, [Elizabeth Ann Smith]
Whitney, and &c. [Sarah Ann Whitney]—
I take this oppertunity to
communi[c]ate, some of my feelings, privetely at this time, which I want you
three Eternaly to keep in your own bosams; for my feelings are so strong for
you since what has pased lately between us, that the time of my abscence from
you seems so long, and dreary, that it seems, as if I could not livelong in
this way: and <if you> three would come and see me in this my
lonely retreat, it would afford me great relief, of mind, if those with whom I
am alied, do love me, now is the time to afford me succour, in the days of
exile, for you know I foretold you of these things. I am now at Carlos
Graingers [Granger’s], Just back of Brother Hyrams [Hyrum Smith’s] farm,
it is only onemile from town, the nights are very pleasant indeed, all
three of<you> come <can> come and see me in
thefore part of the night, let Brother Whitney come a little a head,
and nock at the south East corner of the house at <the> window;
it <is> next to the cornfield; I have a room intirely by
myself, the whole matter can be attended to with most perfect saf[e]ty, I <know> it
is the will of God that you should comfort <me> now in this
time of affliction, or not all at all now is the time or never, but I
hav[e] no kneed of saying any such thing, to you, for I know the goodness
of your hearts, and that you will do the will of the Lord, when it is made
known to you; the only thing to be careful of; is to find out when Emma comes
then you cannot be safe, but when she is not here, there is the most
perfect safty: only be careful to escape observation, as much as
possible, I know it is a heroick undertakeing; but so much the greater
frendship, and the more Joy, when I see you I <will> tell you
all my plans, I cannot write them on paper, burn this letter as soon as you read
it, keep all locked up in your breasts, my life depends upon it, one
thing I want to see you for is <to> get the fulness of my
blessings sealed upon our heads, &c. you will pardon me for my
earnestness on <this subject> when you consider how lonesome I
must be, your good feelings know how to <make> every allowance
for me, I close my letter,I think Emma wont come to night if she dont
dont fail to come tonight, I subscribe myself your most obedient, <and> affectionate,companion,
and friend.
Joseph Smith
The following is from the Historical Introduction on The
Joseph Smith Papers website:
On 18 August 1842, while
hiding at Carlos Granger’s home on the outskirts of Nauvoo, Illinois, JS wrote
a letter to three individuals, addressing them in the first line of the letter
as “Brother and Sister, Whitney, and &c.” In addition to the directly named
recipients, Nauvoo bishop Newel K. Whitney and his wife, Elizabeth Ann Smith
Whitney, the letter was intended for their seventeen-year-old daughter, Sarah
Ann Whitney, who lived with her parents in Nauvoo. On 27 July, three weeks
earlier, Newel K. Whitney had sealed Sarah Ann and JS, with Elizabeth Ann
Whitney serving as a witness to the sealing. In early August, Adams County
sheriff Thomas C. King arrived in Nauvoo with a warrant to arrest JS and
extradite him to Missouri. JS attempted to fight the warrant on legal grounds
and was released on a jurisdictional question; then, by 10 August, he went into
hiding for the next two weeks to avoid the possibility of arrest and
extradition.
In his letter, JS asked the
three members of the Whitney family to visit him at Granger’s home, instructing
them to approach the house covertly. JS’s request for stealth was at least
partially intended to keep his whereabouts secret, given the threat of arrest
and extradition that initially drove him into hiding and the fact that posses
were searching for him in Illinois and Iowa Territory, making him fear for his
life. JS’s desire for secrecy also likely arose from his practice of plural
marriage, a principle he had shared with only a small group of trusted friends
at that time. According to the letter, JS may have wanted to keep knowledge of
the Whitneys’ visit from his wife Emma Smith, who had been away from Nauvoo at
the time of JS’s sealing to Sarah Ann. JS instructed that the letter be
destroyed as soon as it was read, possibly because of his dual concerns of
maintaining his safety in hiding and the secrecy of his plural marriage to
Sarah Ann.
Although vague, JS’s letter
suggests that he needed to address some matters with the Whitneys in person.
His urgency may have been motivated by his fear that he would be extradited to
Missouri, which led him to contemplate leaving Nauvoo.8 In the letter, JS
mentioned that one reason he wanted the Whitneys to visit was to bless them.
This may indicate that he had not been able to fully bestow the blessings
promised to Newel and Elizabeth Ann Whitney as part of the 27 July sealing of
Sarah Ann to JS. Partial journal entries, apparently written by Newel K.
Whitney, were copied in two extant versions of the 27 July 1842 revelation that
Whitney used to seal JS and Sarah Ann. The journal entries mirror the language
and promises found in the revelation. The first of the entries recorded that on
21 August 1842, Newel and Elizabeth Ann Whitney received blessings granting
them and their family part in the “first resurrection,” which Latter-day Saints
believed would occur as part of the second coming of Jesus Christ. A week
later, on 27 August, at which point JS was no longer in hiding, a second
journal entry noted that the couple were rebaptized, confirmed, and blessed
with long life, priesthood keys, and “all gifts posessed by my progenitors who
held the Priesthood before me anciently.”
By 18 August, JS had been in
hiding for more than a week, with little opportunity to be outside and with
visits from only a few trusted people. JS had a gregarious personality, which
probably made his seclusion difficult, and the letter emphasized his loneliness.
While most of the letter was directed to all three members of the Whitney
family, some sentiments appear to be particularly intended for Sarah Ann and
suggest that JS wanted to spend time with his recently married plural wife.
JS wrote the letter himself.
Before it was delivered, William Clayton added the date and location. Since JS
intended the letter to remain private and to be destroyed once read, it was
likely hand delivered to the Whitneys by a trusted courier, possibly Clayton.
Though the fact that the letter was kept and passed down in the Whitney family
indicates they received the letter, JS’s journal contains no entry for 18
August, and it is unclear whether the proposed visit occurred. On 19 August, JS
returned to Nauvoo but remained in hiding. He spent the next three days in the
dry goods store he owned in Nauvoo before returning home.
Interestingly, Todd Compton in his 1996 review of Fawn Brodie listed Sarah Ann as a possible example of "dynastic marriage," not sexual polygamy. Of course, as Cameron is reliant on 10-second google searches, he will not know this. That this marriage was an eternity-only sealing is also agreed upon by Michael Marquardt, an ex-LDS researcher:
Sarah Ann Whitney was
married to Joseph Smith on July 27, 1842. Nine months later on April 29, 1843,
she was [legally] married to Joseph C. Kingsbury with the Prophet Joseph Smith
officiating. She was then eighteen years old. It seems that Joseph Smith married
Sarah Ann Whitney for time and for all eternity and then relinquished her for
time, in a pretended marriage ceremony to Joseph C. Kingsbury. (H. Michael
Marquardt, The Strange Marriages of Sarah Ann Whitney to Joseph Smith the
Mormon Prophet, Joseph C. Kingsbury, and Heber C. Kimball (Salt Lake City:
Modern Microfilm, 1973; rev. ed., Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry,
1982), 18)
For actual scholarship and research on (1) Joseph Smith and Sarah Ann Whitney specifically and (2) Joseph Smith's polygamy in general, see, for e.g.:
B. H. Roberts Foundation, Joseph Smith's Polygamy (primary sources)
Brian C. Hales, Sarah Ann Whitney
Gregory L. Smith, Review of Nauvoo Polygamy: “. . . but we called it celestial marriage” (2008), by George D. Smith, FARMS Review 20, no. 2 (2008): 37-123
Cameron Bertuzzi is nothing short of a hack and intellectual fraud.
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