After Hurlbut, the next very influential ex-mormon was John C. Bennett

Few people in early Church history caused as much long-term damage as John C. Bennett. His name isn’t widely known today, but the ideas he created still show up in modern anti-Mormon arguments, in books like No Man Knows My History, the CES Letter, and A Letter For My Wife. Bennett played a major role in shaping the assumptions and accusations that critics still repeat almost 200 years later.

Who Was John C. Bennett?

John Cook Bennett was born in 1804 in Massachusetts and spent his early adult life repeatedly reinventing himself after scandal. Although he had limited medical training through an apprenticeship, Bennett routinely exaggerated his credentials, presenting himself as a distinguished physician and professor. In Ohio, he became involved with a medical school where he was later implicated in selling degrees to unqualified students. When these practices came under scrutiny, Bennett did not defend himself—he left.

This con-man pattern followed him throughout the 1830s. Bennett moved from state to state, leaving behind unpaid debts, damaged reputations, and, according to multiple accounts, an abandoned wife and children. Each relocation allowed him to start over, adopting new titles, new authority, and new influence while concealing his past. By the time he reached Illinois, Bennett had become adept at securing power quickly and disappearing just as quickly when exposure followed.

In 1840, Bennett saw in Nauvoo a fresh opportunity. The Latter-day Saints were building a city, seeking political allies, and defending themselves against hostile neighbors. Bennett arrived offering connections, legitimacy, and protection. His confidence, education, and apparent influence made him seem indispensable. What Joseph Smith and the Saints could not yet see was that Bennett’s past behavior was about to repeat itself—this time with far greater consequences.

His Sudden Rise in Nauvoo

Bennett’s rise in Nauvoo was astonishingly fast. Because of his political connections and role in helping secure the Nauvoo Charter, Joseph Smith trusted him and viewed him as a valuable ally at a vulnerable time for the Saints. Bennett was baptized and almost immediately elevated into positions of extraordinary authority:

• Mayor of Nauvoo
• Assistant President of the Church
• Major General of the Nauvoo Legion
• Chancellor of the University of Nauvoo

No other recent convert rose so quickly or was entrusted with so much power. But the man Joseph believed he was working with was not the man Bennett truly was.

The Real Source of “Spiritual Wifery”

While publicly presenting himself as a defender of Joseph Smith, Bennett was privately engaging in widespread sexual misconduct. He targeted vulnerable women and told them that Joseph Smith secretly approved of his actions. Bennett invented his own doctrine, later labeled “spiritual wifery,” which had nothing to do with the carefully limited and tightly controlled introduction of plural marriage that Joseph was beginning among a small, trusted group.

Bennett taught women that adultery was permitted, that secrecy was required, that Joseph Smith had authorized these relationships, and that these arrangements were “spiritual marriages.” None of this was true. Bennett deliberately used Joseph’s name to justify immorality and protect himself from exposure.

When Church leaders investigated these accusations, women testified that Bennett had lied to them. Bennett privately confessed his wrongdoing when confronted. But instead of repenting, he reacted with rage once he was removed from power. On May 11, 1842, he was excommunicated for adultery and misconduct.

Bennett’s Public Smear Campaign

After his excommunication, Bennett immediately launched a public campaign to destroy Joseph Smith. He traveled through Illinois and the eastern United States, giving lectures, publishing letters, and spreading accusations in hostile newspapers. In late 1842, he published The History of the Saints; or, An Exposé of Joe Smith and Mormonism, a book filled with sensational claims.

This book established a pattern that later anti-Mormon writers would follow almost exactly. Bennett accused Joseph Smith of sexual predation, political corruption, secret seduction rings, and violent conspiracies. He portrayed Nauvoo as dangerous and immoral. Modern historians recognize that Bennett was projecting his own behavior onto Joseph Smith, but many contemporaries did not yet know Bennett’s full history and believed his stories.

Lies That Led to Joseph Smith’s Arrests

Bennett’s most dangerous falsehoods came in 1842 after the attempted assassination of former Missouri governor Lilburn W. Boggs. Bennett swore affidavits claiming that Joseph Smith had predicted Boggs’s death and sent Orrin Porter Rockwell to carry out the attack. These claims were unsupported and contradicted by other witnesses, but they were politically useful.

Based largely on Bennett’s testimony and rumors he fueled, Missouri officials sought Joseph Smith’s extradition. Joseph was arrested multiple times in 1842 and early 1843 and forced into hiding to avoid illegal transport to Missouri, where he feared mob violence rather than a fair trial. Each legal attempt collapsed under scrutiny, but Bennett’s lies consumed months of Joseph’s life and placed him in constant danger.

Nancy Rigdon and the Happiness Letter

In 1842, John C. Bennett provided an article to the Sangamo Journal that he claimed was a private letter from Joseph Smith to Nancy Rigdon.

The so-called “Happiness Letter” is often used by anti-Mormons as evidence against Joseph Smith, claiming that he used manipulative tactics to convince plural wives to marry him. The reality is that no original letter exists. The only version available is the one John C. Bennett had published after his excommunication, as part of his public attack on Joseph Smith.

Sidney Rigdon, Nancy’s father, and the Nauvoo press publicly denied the authorship, and Nancy Rigdon herself denied Bennett’s claim. The Joseph Smith Papers include details about this letter and place it in the appendix because it is not an authenticated document and comes from a source with a documented history of lies and scandals. Like so many of Bennett’s accusations, the letter to Nancy Rigdon appears only after Bennett’s fall from power and with the direct goal of damaging Joseph Smith’s reputation.

How Bennett Shaped Later Dissent and the Martyrdom

The dissenters who later published the Nauvoo Expositor relied heavily on Bennett’s earlier accusations. William Law, Wilson Law, the Higbee brothers, and the Fosters repeated many of Bennett’s claims nearly word for word, especially allegations of sexual corruption and abuse of power. The Expositor crisis that followed directly led to Joseph and Hyrum Smith’s imprisonment in Carthage and their murder.

Bennett was not present in Nauvoo in June 1844, but the environment that led to Carthage was built on the stories he had already spread throughout Illinois.

A Complicated Man and a Lasting Legacy

John C. Bennett was deeply flawed, ambitious, and destructive. Yet it is possible that he did, at times, feel peace in the restored gospel. After Joseph Smith’s death, Bennett attempted to reattach himself to splinter movements led by Sidney Rigdon and James Strang. In my view, this suggests that something in him still longed for the light and meaning he once found in the Restoration.

Nevertheless, whatever good may have existed in Bennett, the damage he caused was immense. His lies, exaggerations, and retaliatory accusations became foundational material for later anti-Mormon narratives. Much of what critics still repeat today traces directly back to Bennett’s fabrications. His influence on anti-Mormonism has been lasting, even though his credibility has not.

Understanding John C. Bennett is essential to understanding how misinformation about Joseph Smith began, spread, and hardened into tradition.

Bennett’s Influence on Fawn Brodie

A century later, Fawn Brodie wrote No Man Knows My History, the first major modern biography attacking Joseph Smith. Brodie relied heavily on:

• Bennett’s sexual accusations
• Bennett-influenced affidavits
• Bennett’s framing of Joseph as deceiving Emma
• Bennett’s portrayal of Nauvoo as corrupt

She didn’t cite him directly, but many of her assumptions came straight from the anti-Mormon environment he created. Brodie shaped modern skepticism about Joseph Smith, but Bennett shaped Brodie.

How Bennett Shaped Modern Anti-Mormon Arguments

Even though the CES Letter and A Letter For My Wife don’t mention Bennett’s name, their arguments follow his exact pattern:

• Joseph as a sexual predator
• Plural marriage framed as abusive
• Accusations of secrecy and deception
• The idea that the Church hides its past
• Using shock value to undermine faith
• Assuming the worst motives possible

These ideas didn’t start in 2013 or 2017. They didn’t start with Reddit. They began with John C. Bennett in 1842.

The CES Letter and LFMW are basically updated versions of the same storyline—cleaned up, modernized, and wrapped in emotional language instead of the dramatic Victorian style Bennett used.

Why This Matters

When someone reads accusations about Joseph Smith today, it’s important to know where they came from. Critics today often present their claims as “new discoveries” or “hidden history.” But most of the themes were created by a man who:

• lied about his past
• committed adultery
• manipulated women
• used Joseph’s name to justify sin
• abandoned the Church
• and then wrote a book blaming Joseph for his own behavior

Knowing this origin helps put modern claims in perspective.

Here are a few of the connections between the modern anti-mormon assumptions that lay their foundation on the lies of John C. Bennett: