George Darling Watt’s incestuous relationship and other shocking relationships among the early LDS

In a previous Blog I talked about a Newspaper article that I found dated May 2 1874.

LDS missionaries had hired a hall on the Isle of Man to present their message, but after their presentation an elderly man came forward and shared a statement of his acquaintance Mr. William Hill, formerly a respected shopkeeper in Manchester.

William Hill and his wife Keziah had emigrated to Utah in 1851 after joining the church in Manchester and as I mentioned in my previous Blog Parley P. Pratt took William’s wife Keziah to be his tenth wife.

In William’s statement he also talks about several other moral disgraces that he experienced during his journey to and sojourn in Utah. Even though some of the facts are not completely accurate, such as the quote that Martha Brotherton was proposed to by Joseph Smith instead of Brigham Young, I was able to discover that stories were based on fact. Here follows is an excerpt from his statement. -

“I remember,” said he, “an emigration coming into the valley. There were 90 wagons, with 10 persons in each wagon, making 900 persons. 165 had died on the way. They arrived when the snow was thick on the ground. The authorities, having taken their oxen and cows from them, made them camp on an open space, taking no further notice of them. Many of them died for want of food and fire.

I have often seen from 20 to 30 young females start from the camp in the morning, barefoot, for Red Bute Kanyon, a distance of ten miles, through snow and ice, and come back to the city at night, with loads of wood on their backs, worn down with cold, hunger,and fatigue. As these wretched girls passed Brigham’s house (which they had to do) they could see above 100 loads of wood piled up behind it, guarded by one of his servants. When these young emigrants are fairly worn down and destitute, the authorities go and pick out the prettiest girls, engage them as servants, and in a few days they are wives of these ugly old men: and more than that, in about a fortnight more they are divorced, again to be picked up by some other old scoundrel !

There is a man in the 7th ward, called Thomas Blezzard, who married a woman and her daughters ! This woman’s name was Mrs Wise; her husband died on the plains; she was about 40 years of age, her eldest daughter 18, the next 16, and the youngest 13: he had two distinct families in the house before that.”

William Hill personally knew all the parties and made oath to the truth of the statement.

He further made oath to the following disgusting facts, which are a pretty commentary upon the old Manxman’s averment as to the morality of Utah.

“G.D. Watt behaved himself very indecently towards his own daughter, when at Council Bluffs, frequently being seen in her wagon in a most disgusting state. When he arrived in the Valley, he asked Brigham Young to marry them, but Brigham told him that the time had not yet come for the general priesthood to marry their own daughters, but the time was not far distant when all the priesthood would be allowed the privilege of Lot. As she was a nice looking young woman Brigham married her himself, and took her to his own house. In about three weeks after, he sent for Elder Watt, handed over to him the girl, telling him, at the same time, that he might now have his daughter for a wife as the time had come, Brigham married them.”

“And now, said the speaker, what do you think of moral Utah?

Mr Johnson then described the first attempt on the part of Joe Smith to introduce polygamy by inducing a young girl - Martha Brotherton to become his wife at Nauvoo. She escaped into the States, and told her tale, which was speedily carried to Manchester. Miss Brotherton being well known was believed. Parley Pratt, who was then in England published a statement in the Millennial Star, vol. iii., page 74. “But for those who may be assailed by these foolish tales about the two wives, we would say that no such principle ever existed among the Latter Day Saints, and never will”. He further wrote in the Star, vol. vii page 22: “No such doctrine (polygamy) is known, held, or practiced as a principle of the Latter Day Saints. It (polygamy) is just another name for whoredom....It is as foreign from the principles of the church as the devil is from God.” And yet the scoundrel was at the very time living with another man’s wife, his own wife being compelled to work in a factory in America!....."

In my previous Blog I wrote about the research that I was able to do into the life of William Hill and his wife Keziah.

The two other people that he mentions are Thomas Blezzard who married a widow and her three daughters and G.D. Watt who got permission to marry his daughter.

I couldn't find a Thomas Blezzard but did find a John Hopwood Bleazard or Blezzard who was born in Yorkshire and emigrated to Nauvoo with his wife and children after joining the church. His first and second wife both died in Nauvoo and then he married a young widow in Winter Quarters, Sarah Searcy Miller, apparently Brigham Young offered him Sarah's young daughter of 16 also as a wife if he would stay in Winter Quarters to build and repair the wagons (he was a wagonmaker by trade) also the youngest daughter Martha was given to him. This is what I found -

"John Hopwood Bleazard and Sarah Searcy Miller were endowed at the new Nauvoo Temple in 1846, and probably lived together by Brigham Young's permission (as was a customary proceeding) until they were remarried March 30, 1848, at Winter Quarters. They were sealed in the Endowment house, Salt Lake City, January 17, 1853. Their first child, John was born December, 1848 at Winter Quarters; the second, Miriam, December 23, 1849, at Winter Quarters.

A family member wrote the following out John Bleazard. -

I've heard through Uncle Mark's line that Brigham promised John Hopwood Bleazard Mary Miller, daughter of Sarah, as a plural wife, in order to induce him to make and mend wagons for the Church. He married her (Mary Jane) and the first child, Sarah Jane, was born October 14, 1849, in Holt County, Missouri.

Sarah Searcy Miller, my grandmother, got a temple divorce from John Hopwood in the Endowment house in Salt Lake City, July 7, 1873, at the age of 58, and was sealed to her first husband, James Miller, by Daniel H. Wells. (On record)

Her daughter, Mary Jane Miller, had two children by Bleazard, (one died), then left him and married Isaac Hill, October 27 1852. It is on record, in the Temple archives, that she was sealed to Hill March 10, 1866. (Mary Jane had been sealed to Bleazard at Winter Quarters at 6:00 p.m., Witness, Wilford Woodruff.)

(Sarah Searcy Miller must have been about 33 when she married Bleazard, and her daughter Mary, 16, and Bleazard, 45.)

It is said that Brigham promised Martha, Mary's younger sister, to John Hopwood Bleazard also, when she grew up a little more. (My mother said Martha wouldn't have him. Effie Syphus in St. George, swears that Martha married him, also.) Anyway, Martha is on record as marrying her sister Mary's husband, later, and having a family by him.

(Ma said these two girls were beautiful, that Martha was to have married a young man her own age, that she was crazy about. She wouldn't give him up, when commanded by the priesthood. He came up missing, and she never saw him again. A young man's body was dug up in an old cellar a few years later, but could not be identified as he.)"

Mary Jane Miller was the daughter of James Miller and Sarah Searcy (or Surcey). She was born January 9th, 1832 at Beards, Montgomery County, Illinois. Mary Jane was 10 years old when she joined the Church. The date of her baptism is given as October 10th, 1842. Mary Jane’s father, James Miller, is believed to have died at Nauvoo, Illinois while working on the temple. Isaac’s diary mentions a James Miller who died there on March 12th, 1841. The Miller family was supposedly living in Nauvoo at that time.

Mary Jane and her mother, Sarah Searcy, a widow, were married in polygamy to John Hopwood Blazzard, March 30th, 1846, at Winter Quarters. (If these dates are correct, Mary Jane would have been only 14 years of age.) President Brigham Young performed the marriage ceremony, with Wilford Woodruff and Willard Richards as witnesses. To this union of John Blazzard and Mary Jane, two daughters, Sarah and Mary Ann, were born. The latter, Mary Ann, died when she was about two years of age from the effects of ill-treatment received from her father. Mary Jane became very angry and resentful toward her husband because of his outrageous temper and of his mistreatment of her children and herself, and she finally left him. She received a divorce from him on January 31st, 1850.

As noted above, Mary Jane married Isaac on October 27th, 1852 in polygamy with her sister, Martha Ann"

The other name G. D. Watt, I believe to be George Darling Watt who was also born in Manchester in 1812 - this is what I found about him

"Take for example the story of George Darling Watt, who was the first man to be baptised in England. The LDS church provides a very interesting account of how Watt won a foot race to the banks of the River Ribble in order to be accorded that unique privilege. The story is designed to convey the fervour of those early converts. However, the equally interesting fact that Watt was later authorised by Brigham Young to take as a plural wife Watt’s own younger half-sister, Jane Brown, (they shared a mother, Mary Ann Wood), and that they became parents of three children, is seldom if ever discussed, even though that also illustrates the degree of enthusiam with which some accepted the Mormon gospel."

I can remember hearing about that story about a race down to the river Ribble when we visited Preston many years ago.

So it turns out that he had an incestuous relationship with his half sister (a little better than with a daughter !)

D. Michael Quin mentions George D. Watts and links him to this October 8, 1854 discourse of Brigham Young at general conference.

"Then I reckon that the children of Adam and Eve married each other; this is speaking to the point. I believe in Sisters marrying brothers, and brothers having their sisters for Wives. Why? Because we cannot do otherwise. There are none others for me to marry but my sisters.

'But you would not pretend to say you would marry your father and mother's daughter'

If I did not I would marry another one of my sisters that lives in another garden; the material of which they are organized is just the same; there is no difference between them, and those that live in this garden, Our spirits are brothers and sisters, and so are our bodies, and the opposite idea has resulted from the ignorant and foolish traditions of the nations of the earth."

According to Wikipedia Watt worked as a reporter for the Deseret News and as a private clerk for Brigham Young. Using his skill as a stenographer, Watt began recording the sermons given by Young and other LDS Church leaders. Beginning in 1853, Watt published these sermons in a periodical known as the Journal of Discourses. Watt remained the primary editor of the Journal until 1868.

In 1852, Watt was appointed by Young to a committee that was charged with creating a new phonetic alphabet that would assist non-English speaking Latter-day Saint immigrants learn English. The result was the Deseret Alphabet. Although the alphabet was largely a failure, Watt remained a strong promoter of the language system.

In 1869, Watt was disfellowshipped from the LDS Church for following the teachings of dissident William S. Godbe. Watt was identified as one of the leaders of the "Godbeites" and was disciplined by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Although Watt was initially repentant and desired to return to full fellowship in the LDS Church, by 1874 he was a devoted Godbeite and was excommunicated from the LDS Church on May 3, 1874.

Another rabbit hole to delve into 😊