Warning to Wife-Stealers, A

DESCRIPTION: "Just let his be a warning to wife-stealers: Stay away! You cannot come to Arkansas and steal another's wife! And if you dare to try it you will surely have to pay, yes, You must pay most dearly with your life."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1968 (Cheney-MormonSongs)
KEYWORDS: husband wife adultery homicide
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1857 - Murder of Parley Parker Pratt
FOUND IN: US(Ro)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Cheney-MormonSongs, p. 176, "(Just let this be a warning to wife-stealers)" (1 fragment)
NOTES [300 words]: Cheney-MormonSongs says this is about the murder of the Mormon leader Parley P. Pratt. Certainly what details it contains fit that event: Pratt (1807-1857) had been poor as a boy, and converted to Mormonism in 1830. Joseph Smith sent Pratt west to teach Native Americans; along the way, Pratt met and converted Sidney Rigdon, who was responsible for most of the limited knowledge of historical Christianity found in Mormon doctrine (Reeve/Parshall, p. 166). Pratt and his brother Orson became important Mormon missionaries as well as helping lead the exodus to Utah; Reeve/Parshall, p. 167, declare they had a "profound influence on Mormonism through their preaching and writing" (even though Orson had repeated disputes with church leaders).
Maybe Parley should have argued with them, too. Unfortunately for Pratt, he listened to Joseph Smith on the subject of polygamy; he had twelve wives and fathered thirty children, no doubt causing a noticeable decline in the average intelligence of the human race by his efforts -- because the sequel was just stupid. Pratt become involved with an already-married women, Elenore McLean (Bagley, pp. 8-9), who became his final wife (Reeve/Parshall, p. 168). After a long and complicated pursuit across the country, McLean's husband succeeded in killing Pratt near Van Buren, Arkansas.
The killing was extrajudicial -- but it was also popular; the locals had already hauled Pratt before the law on trumped-up charges (Denton, pp. 110-111). The basic reason for the hullabaloo was polygamy, but Denton, p. 112, and Brooks, p. 57, state that the Mormons viewed it as religious persecution. Some have argued that the murder of Pratt was a cause, or at least an excuse, for the Mountain Meadows Massacre, for which see "The Mountain Meadows Massacre" [Laws B19] - RBW
Bibliography

Bagley: Will Bagley, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows, University of Oklahoma Press, 2002
Brooks: Juanita Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre, second edition, 1962; I use the 1991 University of Oklahoma paperback edition with a foreword by Jan Ships
Denton: Sally Denton, American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 11, 1857, Secker & Warburg, 2003
Reeve/Parshall: W. Paul Reeve and Ardis E. Parshall, editors, Mormonism: A Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2010

Last updated in version 6.6
File: ChMS176F

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