FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Question: Did Prescindia Buell (or Sarah Pratt, or Mrs. Hyde) not know who was the father of her son?
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Contents
Questions
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- Critics claim that Nancy Marinda Johnson Hyde admitted that she did not know who was the father of her child—Joseph Smith or her first husband, Orson Hyde.
- Critics sometimes mistake Sarah Pratt (wife of apostle Orson Pratt) as the woman in this story.[1]
To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, [[../CriticalSources|click here]]
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Detailed Analysis
== Notes ==
- [note] This type of error is not new. An 1884 document claiming to be by Sarah Pratt (who was by then antagonistic to the Church) describes her as the wife of "Orson Hyde," rather than "Orson Pratt." This error is corrected three times, but the error stands in three other cases. See discussion in Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy Volume 1: History (Salt Lake City, Utah: Greg Kofford Books, 2013), 577. The document cited is [Anonymous], "Workings of Mormonism Related By Mrs. Orson Pratt," typescript of holograph, MS 4048, LDS Church History Library. Sarah Pratt's role, if any, in creating the document is not known. (See Hales, 2:462).