On January 3, 1843, Charlotte Haven sat down in a small cottage overlooking the Mississippi and wrote to her parents in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She had arrived in Nauvoo only days earlier to spend the winter with her brother Henderson and his wife, Elizabeth. Haven was not a Latter-day Saint. Her skepticism appears in the opening lines:[1]
Haven's letters appeared nearly forty-eight years later in the Overland Monthly under the title "A Girl's Letters from Nauvoo." They are openly critical and should be read as one outsider's testimony, not as a neutral transcript. Still, she recorded small details that official histories often leave out: the bitter cold, muddy streets, unfinished homes, crowded worship services, and the everyday presence of Joseph Smith during the Nauvoo years.[1]
On January 22, in a letter to her sister Isa, Haven described the previous Sunday's service at Smith's home. Smith returned to Nauvoo on January 10 after a federal habeas corpus hearing in Springfield.[3]
Smith's journal entry for Sunday, January 15, says only that he was "at home," followed by fifteen blank lines.[4]
Haven's letter supplies the missing scene. She wrote that the house filled until no one else could stand inside, and the windows were opened for a crowd gathered outdoors.[1]
Phrenology was a popular nineteenth-century system that claimed the size and shape of particular regions of the brain, and therefore the contours of the skull above them, revealed a person's mental faculties and moral character. Practitioners divided the head into supposed "organs" for traits such as benevolence, combativeness, and secretiveness, then read bumps and proportions as evidence of character. In Haven's sentence, the "organs situated in the back part" refers to those supposed zones, not to anatomical organs visible in the skull. The labels and meanings varied among phrenological systems.[5]
Haven was therefore doing more than describing Smith's head. She was translating his appearance into a character-reading system that many contemporaries treated as scientific. That gave her dislike the sound of objective authority. Modern research finds no meaningful basis for inferring personality or brain function from the shape of the scalp, so her phrenological verdict is evidence about her assumptions and the culture of 1843, not evidence about Smith's mind.[6]
Haven remained critical after meeting Joseph and Emma Smith more personally the next month:[1]
Haven never hid her hostility toward Mormon claims. She also described the Saints' poverty after Missouri with sympathy and praised the Mormon women who helped care for her sister-in-law during childbirth. That mixture matters. Her description of Smith cannot serve as an impartial verdict, yet it is firsthand rather than rumor. Her bias is visible on every page. So is her proximity to the people and events she described.[1]
[1] Charlotte Haven, "A Girl's Letters from Nauvoo," Overland Monthly 16, no. 96 (December 1890): 616-638.
[2] Joseph Smith Papers, "Appendix 1: Missouri Extradition Attempt, 1842-1843, Selected Documents, Introduction."
[3] Joseph Smith journal, January 10, 1843, Joseph Smith Papers.
[4] Joseph Smith journal, January 15, 1843, Joseph Smith Papers.
[5] Courtney E. Thompson, "Phrenology," Encyclopedia of the History of Science (2021).
[6] Oiwi Parker Jones, Fidel Alfaro-Almagro, and Saad Jbabdi, "An Empirical, 21st Century Evaluation of Phrenology," Cortex 106 (2018): 26-35.
As I write Nauvoo, I look at the word with perfect amazement, and almost doubt my own senses when I find myself an inhabitant of this city of fanatics, for never did I expect to see the place, far less to indite letters to my dear parents from it.[1]
Haven's letters appeared nearly forty-eight years later in the Overland Monthly under the title "A Girl's Letters from Nauvoo." They are openly critical and should be read as one outsider's testimony, not as a neutral transcript. Still, she recorded small details that official histories often leave out: the bitter cold, muddy streets, unfinished homes, crowded worship services, and the everyday presence of Joseph Smith during the Nauvoo years.[1]
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| Fictional depiction of Charlotte composing a letter |
On January 22, in a letter to her sister Isa, Haven described the previous Sunday's service at Smith's home. Smith returned to Nauvoo on January 10 after a federal habeas corpus hearing in Springfield.[3]
Smith's journal entry for Sunday, January 15, says only that he was "at home," followed by fifteen blank lines.[4]
Haven's letter supplies the missing scene. She wrote that the house filled until no one else could stand inside, and the windows were opened for a crowd gathered outdoors.[1]
Joseph Smith is a large, stout man, youthful in his appearance, with light complexion and hair, and blue eyes set far back in the head, and expressing great shrewdness, or I should say, cunning. He has a large head and phrenologists would unhesitatingly pronounce it a bad one, for the organs situated in the back part are decidedly the most prominent. He is also very round-shouldered.[1]
Phrenology was a popular nineteenth-century system that claimed the size and shape of particular regions of the brain, and therefore the contours of the skull above them, revealed a person's mental faculties and moral character. Practitioners divided the head into supposed "organs" for traits such as benevolence, combativeness, and secretiveness, then read bumps and proportions as evidence of character. In Haven's sentence, the "organs situated in the back part" refers to those supposed zones, not to anatomical organs visible in the skull. The labels and meanings varied among phrenological systems.[5]
Haven was therefore doing more than describing Smith's head. She was translating his appearance into a character-reading system that many contemporaries treated as scientific. That gave her dislike the sound of objective authority. Modern research finds no meaningful basis for inferring personality or brain function from the shape of the scalp, so her phrenological verdict is evidence about her assumptions and the culture of 1843, not evidence about Smith's mind.[6]
I, who had expected to be overwhelmed by his eloquence, was never more disappointed than when he commenced his discourse by relating all the incidents of his journey. This he did in a loud voice, and his language and manner were the coarsest possible.
His object seemed to be to amuse and excite laughter in his audience. He is evidently a great egotist and boaster, for he frequently remarked that at every place he stopped going to and from Springfield people crowded around him, and expressed surprise that he was so "handsome and good looking."[1]
Haven remained critical after meeting Joseph and Emma Smith more personally the next month:[1]
He talked incessantly about himself, what he had done and could do more than other mortals, and remarked that he was "a giant, physically and mentally." In fact, he seemed to forget that he was a man. I did not change my opinion about him, but suppose he has good traits. They say he is very kind hearted, and always ready to give shelter and help to the needy. We may hope so, for a kind heart in this place can always be active.[1]
Haven never hid her hostility toward Mormon claims. She also described the Saints' poverty after Missouri with sympathy and praised the Mormon women who helped care for her sister-in-law during childbirth. That mixture matters. Her description of Smith cannot serve as an impartial verdict, yet it is firsthand rather than rumor. Her bias is visible on every page. So is her proximity to the people and events she described.[1]
Sources
[1] Charlotte Haven, "A Girl's Letters from Nauvoo," Overland Monthly 16, no. 96 (December 1890): 616-638.
[2] Joseph Smith Papers, "Appendix 1: Missouri Extradition Attempt, 1842-1843, Selected Documents, Introduction."
[3] Joseph Smith journal, January 10, 1843, Joseph Smith Papers.
[4] Joseph Smith journal, January 15, 1843, Joseph Smith Papers.
[5] Courtney E. Thompson, "Phrenology," Encyclopedia of the History of Science (2021).
[6] Oiwi Parker Jones, Fidel Alfaro-Almagro, and Saad Jbabdi, "An Empirical, 21st Century Evaluation of Phrenology," Cortex 106 (2018): 26-35.
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