Episode 118a: Polygamy Manifesto for Dummies Part 1

As early as 1832, Mormon missionaries were laboring successfully to make converts among Maine’s followers of polygamist religious leader Jacob Cochran, who went into hiding in 1830 to escape imprisonment due to his practice of polygamy. Among Cochran’s marital innovations was ‘spiritual wifery’, and “tradition assumes that (Cochran) received frequent consignments of spiritual consorts, and that such were invariably the most robust and attractive women in the community”.[2] The majority of what became the Quorum of the Twelve in 1835 attended Mormon conferences held in the center of the Cochranites in 1834 and 1835.[3][4][5][6] Brigham Young, an apostle in the Twelve, was acquainted with Cochran’s followers as he made several missionary journeys through the Cochranite territory from Boston to Saco,[7] and later married Augusta Adams Cobb, a former Cochranite.[8][9]

As early as 1832, Mormon missionaries were laboring successfully to make converts among Maine’s followers of polygamist religious leader Jacob Cochran, who went into hiding in 1830 to escape imprisonment due to his practice of polygamy. Among Cochran’s marital innovations was ‘spiritual wifery’, and “tradition assumes that (Cochran) received frequent consignments of spiritual consorts, and that such were invariably the most robust and attractive women in the community”.[2] The majority of what became the Quorum of the Twelve in 1835 attended Mormon conferences held in the center of the Cochranites in 1834 and 1835.[3][4][5][6] Brigham Young, an apostle in the Twelve, was acquainted with Cochran’s followers as he made several missionary journeys through the Cochranite territory from Boston to Saco,[7] and later married Augusta Adams Cobb, a former Cochranite.[8][9]

As early as 1832, Mormon missionaries were laboring successfully to make converts among Maine’s followers of polygamist religious leader Jacob Cochran, who went into hiding in 1830 to escape imprisonment due to his practice of polygamy. Among Cochran’s marital innovations was ‘spiritual wifery’, and “tradition assumes that (Cochran) received frequent consignments of spiritual consorts, and that such were invariably the most robust and attractive women in the community”.[2] The majority of what became the Quorum of the Twelve in 1835 attended Mormon conferences held in the center of the Cochranites in 1834 and 1835.[3][4][5][6] Brigham Young, an apostle in the Twelve, was acquainted with Cochran’s followers as he made several missionary journeys through the Cochranite territory from Boston to Saco,[7] and later married Augusta Adams Cobb, a former Cochranite.[8][9]