There were two main reasons for the tar and feathering.
Also, they were tarred and feathered by their own members, and not an angry mob of anti’s
- First was their plan to have all of their church members sign over all of their assets and properties to the “United Order” communal experiment. Some members saw this as Smith and Rigdon’s scheme to fleece them, and rightly so; the financial disaster that was the United Order, which culminated in the Kirtland Bank scandal, caused many Mormons to lose their life savings, and about half of all church members abandoned the faith over the incident, including most of the original twelve apostles.
and
- Second, it was alleged that Smith made a pass at Johnson’s 15 year-old daughter, Nancy Marinda, and that was her brothers’ motivation for attacking Smith. “Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith” supports this idea, but in his “In Sacred Loneliness” Todd Compton doubts it for lack of convincing evidence. It’s likely true that Smith made the pass at Marinda for five reasons. (They can be found at the link below)
Here is some more interesting tidbits.
Faithful Latter-day Saint Mary Elizabeth Rollins testified that Joseph had a private conversation with her in 1831; she was then twelve years old. She said Joseph ‘told me about his great vision concerning me. He said I was the first woman God commanded him to take as a plural wife.’
- Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner to Emmeline B. Wells, summer 1905, LDS Archives
and
Within six months of Joseph’s conversation with 12 year-old Mary Elizabeth Rollins, he and Emma had moved into the John Johnson home, where 15 year-old Marinda lived. Orson Pratt later quoted Lyman Johnson as saying that ‘Joseph had made known to him as early as 1831 that plural marriage was a correct principle,’ but remarked also that ‘the time had not yet come to teach and practice it.’
- Orson Pratt, "Latter-day Saints Millennial Star (Liverpool England), 40 (16 Dec. 1878):788)
Everybody notice she was
12 years old?
mormoncurtain.com/topic_joesephsmith_section2.html
