|
ALL IN THE
DRAGON FAMILY |
|
THE MEROVINGIAN
ANCESTRY OF THE
2008 & 2012
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE
MITT ROMNEY
“And there
appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon,
having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads...
And the great
dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and
Satan... And the beast which I saw was
like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and
his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power,
and his seat, and great authority... And they worshipped the dragon
which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast,
saying, Who is like unto the beast?” (Rev. 12:3,9;
13:1-2,4)
INTRODUCTION
MITT ROMNEY
Dynasty of the Holy Grail: Mormonism's Sacred Bloodline by Vernon G.
Swanson, was published in 2006 by a Mormon publishing company, Cedar Fort,
Inc. in Springville, Utah. The Mormon author of this tome maintains that
LDS Prophet Joseph Smith was a direct descendant of Jesus Christ and Mary
Magdalene, and that Mitt Romney, who is a descendant of Joseph Smith, is
also descended from Jesus Christ. Swanson presents documented evidence
that LDS Church leaders have taught this this false doctrine throughout the
history of their Church. That the LDS has taught this heresy is also
presented in “Did
Jesus Marry?”
by Mormon Research Ministry. The following excerpt from Dynasty of
the Holy Grail: Mormonism's Sacred Bloodline presents genealogical
evidence of Mitt Romney's descent from Joseph Smith and presumed lineage in
the fictitious bloodline of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.
“For
the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after
their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching
ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be
turned unto fables.”
2 Tim. 4:3-4
By Vernon G. Swanson
Vernon
G. Swanson is Director of the Springfield UT Art Museum, author of
The Development of the Holy Ghost in Mormon
Theology.
Dynasty of the Holy Grail:
Mormonism's Sacred Bloodline
is stored in the Library of Congress. (more info)
Excerpt from
Dynasty of the Holy Grail:
Mormonism's Sacred Bloodline
PART 8:
THE LATTER-DAY ISRAEL
CHAPTER 21: THE LITERAL DESCENDANTS OF THE CHOSEN SEED
The
Lord’s Latter Day Descendants
pp. 365-367
“There is a 'chosen people' reserved in premortality to come to this earth in
the last days through certain lineages. There is also a 'chosen family' in
the latter days for Joseph Smith declared, 'but few of them [gentiles] will
be gathered with the chosen family.' The 'chosen' were not all Jews, but
also Ephraimites of the Shiloh Dynasty, who were called and ordained before
the foundation of the earth to this work, and for the most part have
admirably accomplished their missions.
“We
have attempted to show how the patriarchal and matriarchal bloodline of the Lamb's chosen family presently
flows through the veins of Joseph Smith, and
because of it he was the Grail king and
inheritor of the promises of the dispensation of the fullness of time.
Because of this extended family the gospel could flourish where it was
planted. In this regard, speaking of New York and by extension New England,
the Lord declared: Behold, and lo, I have much people in this place, in the
regions round about; and an effectual door shall be opened in the regions
round about in this eastern land. -- D & C 100:3
(...)
“If
the noble blood of Jesus Christ and His wives
was present in America's founding fathers and specifically in Joseph Smith's lineage, might it
also be present in other members of the Church leadership at all levels? If
the blood of Israel was richly
concentrated in England, Wales, and Scotland, was this not the ancestral
base of most of our LDS leaders?...
“In
scripture, the 'true vine' is usually used as a reference to Jesus Christ
(John 15:1,5). However, it is also a metaphor for God's chosen people... It
should be noted as well that later genealogical research has shown that many
members of the early LDS Church leadership were distantly related to the
Joseph Smith family. Brigham Young, speaking in 1845 of a shared genealogy,
noted: 'When we come to the connections we discover that we all sprung back
to the settlement of New England about 200 years ago...
“Other lines descending from Jesus Christ may be
included in the Church's royal family...
“A
few common ancestors in Britain seem to have been a crucial pivot in the
family tree, which spread its branches to other founder and apostles in the
LDS Church. Dealing with this issue, an interesting letter written in 1853,
referencing a speech from Brigham Young, from Orson Pratt to
Parley P. Pratt has come to light: 'You
will recall that Joseph had a vision and saw that our families and his all
sprang from the same man a few generations ago... The Lord has his eye upon
him, and upon his father, and upon their progenitors, clear back to Abraham
and from Abraham to the flood, and from the flood to Enoch and from Enoch to
Adam.'...
“...Archibald F. Bennett (1896-1965), Church genealogist...discovered that
several generations back to Joseph did have a common ancestor with the Pratts. This ancestor was the English reformer,
John Lathrop
(1584-1653), the fifth great-grandfather of the
Prophet Joseph Smith.
“John Lathrop was a minister in the Church of England who broke from his
church and formed a small dissident congregation. He was persecuted and
imprisoned and eventually emigrated to America. Thousands of his descendants
are LDS, as Richard W. Price wrote in his biography and genealogy of
Lathrop: 'In the [LDS] Church I would say probably 25 percent of the
original Church members in America were descended from him [Lathrop]... I
don't think there's any recent, common ancestor that has more descendants in
the Church.'
“According to genealogy, early Church leaders related to Lathrop include
Oliver Cowdery, Orson and Parley P. Pratt, Wilford Woodruff, Frederick G.
Williams, Joseph Smith, Sr., Joseph F. and Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B.
Lee, and others. More recently are included Nathan Eldon Tanner,
Marion G. Romney and Bishop H. Burke
Peterson, to name a very few. From this astonishing discovery, one can
reason that Joseph selected many of the general authorities, not because of
nepotism, but because he knew them through revelation to be descendants of Jesus Christ.
“Besides LDS leaders, the Lathrop line has produced other noted Americans,
namely Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eli Whitney, Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Dr. Benjamin Spock. More recently we
have President George Bush, Utah Congressman Dan Marriott, former Secretary
of Education T. H. Bell, former LDS Michigan governor
George Romney and his son, Mitt Romney, governor of
Massachusetts."
“We
are reminded of Pelagius, the fifth-century British monk, who left the
Catholic Church to pursue a truer vision of the gospel. He claimed descent
from the ‘children of Joseph of Arimathea’ (a code name for the children of
Jesus Christ). In like manner, Lathrop left the church of England to live as
he felt the scriptures taught. The was thrown into prison and eventually
banished to New England where he was able to teach and practice a more
Puritanical life. Interestingly, there are many similarities between the
early Pilgrims, Puritans, and the LDS Church. ‘Half of what the Puritans
believed,’ writes Cureton, ‘is what Mormons believe also.’
“The converging genealogical lines point to Joseph Smith and the immediate
families of the Church as having a special calling. Joseph’s lineage in
Christ was very potent and was shared by many early Latter-day Saints. Among
these are Judge James Adams, George Q. Cannon, and Heber C. Kimball.
“The Oliver B. Huntington journal records and account of how Joseph Smith
sealed a Sister Repshire to Judge James Adams of Springfield, Illinois. The
entry notes that, ‘The Prophet stated to her (Repshire) that Judge Adams was
a literal descendant of Jesus Christ.’ Another example is brother
Joseph saying to Edward Hunter, his scribe for section 128 of the Doctrine
and Covenants. ‘I know who you are, we are near kin, I know your genealogy.’
“These noted instances help to establish Joseph Smith’s understanding of the
concept of a genealogical link between the royal lineage of the Savior to
living Latter-day Saints of the early Church. The genealogy of the family of
the first Church bishop, Edward Partridge (1793-1840) indicates that they
are related to the
Rex Deus ancestry of the
Plantagenets, d’Anjoy, Stewarts
of Scotland, and the Dukes of Normandy.
“The Isaac Morley lineage was supposedly through the Mores of Orkneys,
Sinclairs of Scotland,
Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd (the Welsh Knight Templar),
John Dee (1527-1608),
the occult alchemist, and others of the Grail bloodline. 16. Isaac
Morley was the Mormon patriarch who established the first pioneer settlement
in Sanpete Valley in 1849 and baptized Ute Indian chief ‘Joseph’ Walker in
1855.
“The apostle Heber C. Kimball, grandfather of president Spencer W. Kimball,
also claimed ancestry from Jesus Christ. A number of quotations from the
early brethren comfirm this concept. Orson F. Whitney, of the Grail seed
himself, writes: ‘So was it with this servant of Christ [Heber C. Kimball],
this brother of Jesus in the British Isles… His, also, was the Savior’s
lineage; in his heart a kindred spirit; in his veins the self-same blood.’
“This was not some metaphorical blood, but literal and living blood, with
the Savior’s DNA signature flowing through Kimball’s very veins. Brother
Kimball, in the Tabernacle in March 1857, spoke along these lines:
‘Did you actually know Joseph Smith? No. Do you know Brother Brigham? No. Do
you know Brother Heber? No, you do not. Do you know the Twelve? You do not;
if you did, you would begin to know God, and learn that those men who are
chosen to direct and counsel you are near kindred to God and Jesus Christ,
for the keys, power, and authority of the kingdom of God are in that
lineage.8’...
“There are those who find this presumptuous at best and sinister at worse.
Most left-leaning and liberal Mormons find any discussion of a ‘special’ or
‘chosen’ bloodline repugnant and dangerous. 30 They believe it will lead to
a ‘master-race’ syndrome of racial superiority. They see a waning of
bloodline and chosen-race rhetoric as the chief reason for the proclamation
of 1978 regarding the Blacks and in the demise of the LDS Church Patriarch’s
office.
“It
is at variance with Mormon tribalism, as given tin patriarchal blessings.
The idea of blood, ancestral inheritance, genealogy, and bloodlines is noted
in scripture in almost every chapter. It is particularly evident in the
statements of Joseph Smith, and early Church leaders made Grail claims for
themselves. However, without understanding and appreciating its message and
meaning, it is ‘unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks
foolishness’ (1 Corinthians 1:23)
A
NEW FISHER KING?
‘For this anointing have I put upon his [Joseph Smith, Jr.] head, that his
blessing shall also be put upon the head of his posterity after him. And as
I said unto Abraham concerning the kindred of the earth, even to I say unto
my servant Joseph: In thee and in thy seed shall the kindred of the earth be
blessed. – D&C 124:57-58’
“A
root or branch is mentioned in the Old Testament referring to a righteous
king who will unite the throne with the bloodline of God (Jeremiah 23:4-5;
Isaiah 11:1-5; Zech. 3:8-10; 6:12-15). This particular branch was probably
Jesus Christ, although earlier we noted that the branch was the Church.
However, the righteous Branch might also refer to the Prophet Joseph Smith
Jr. For as Zechariah wrote, ‘These are the two anointed ones’ (4:14).
Joseph Smith was well aware that he, and Ephraimite, would also represent
the House of David.”
(Dynasty of the Holy Grail: Mormonism's Sacred Bloodline,
Vern G. Swanson, 2006, pp. 365-367)
See
also:
The Ancestors of Mitt Romney
Ø
Mitt Romney's LDS Missionary duty in paris
Mitt Romney performed his
Mormon missionary obligation in France in the late 1960s. During that
period, Romney was promoted to "the highest position attainable by a
missionary, that of assistant to the mission president in
Paris... In the
absence of the mission president, who had returned to the United States
after his wife's death, Romney took on a greater leadership role.”
The Making of Mitt Romney
The Boston Globe
By Michael Kranish and Michael
Paulson, Globe Staff | June 25, 2007
“For two and a half years, Mitt Romney would
wear the dark suits and white shirts of a Mormon
missionary. All of his time, all of his energy,
would be devoted to trying to persuade the
people of France to join the Mormon Church.
(Photo / Andre Salarnier)”
“In the 'Conversion Diary,' then a newsletter
of the French Mission, he is mentioned repeatedly for standout numbers of
hours spent door-knocking, numbers of copies of the Book of Mormon
distributed and numbers of invitations for return visits. He was promoted
through the ranks, first to zone leader in Bordeaux, and then to the highest
position attainable by a missionary, that of
assistant to the mission president in
Paris... In
the absence of the mission president, who had returned to the United States
after his wife's death, Romney took on a greater leadership role. It was
during this period, in late 1968, that some people say they saw the first
glimpses of the super-organized achiever who many knew in later years.”
Ø
Paris is the location of the
Prieuré de Sion, the “hidden
center of supreme
command” over all secret societies
worldwide.
Ø Was Mitt Romney being groomed by the Prieuré de Sion for
his future role as President of the U.S.?
Ø
Is Mitt Romney
a secret “Learned Elder of Sion”?
“..the 121 dignitaries of the Prieuré de Sion
are all éminences grises of high finance and of international political or
philosophical societies...” (Holy Blood, Holy Grail, p. 214)
Mitt Romney's great
grandfather, Miles Park Romney, was one of the early Mormon leaders who
practiced and defended the practice of polygamy.
Mormon roots
Romney's family history is
intertwined with that of the Mormon church. The Romneys
came from the English village of Dalton-in-Furness,
about 280 miles northwest of London, and immigrated to
America in response to the same kind of missionary work
that Mitt would perform.
Mormonism was in its
infancy in 1837 when the Romney family, headed by a
carpenter named Miles Archibald Romney, heard a
missionary speak near their home about the story of the
religion's founder and prophet, Joseph Smith.
Born in the little village
of Sharon, Vt., Smith was praying in the woods of
western New York when, according to his account, he saw
''a pillar of light exactly over my head.'' Two
personages, God and Jesus, appeared before him, telling
him that other churches ''were all wrong.'' Several
years later, in the same woods, the angel Moroni
appeared to him, directing him to a set of golden plates
on which was recorded the history of an Israelite tribe
that migrated to America and became the ancestors of the
Native Americans.
The Romneys were so moved
by the missionary's story that they were baptized as
Mormons and, in 1841, they journeyed to Nauvoo, Ill.,
where Smith had established a Mormon community. On Aug.
18, 1843, the Romneys had a son named Miles Park Romney,
the great-grandfather of Mitt Romney.
A year later, Smith was
assassinated and the Mormons were driven out of Nauvoo,
headed for a new promised land of Utah. The Mormons
believed that the great mountains of the West would
protect them from persecution and from hostility toward
polygamy. Mormon men had begun taking ''plural wives''
after Smith said God told him to revive the Old
Testament practice of polygamy.
When Miles Park Romney
turned 18, he followed instructions from Mormon leader
Brigham Young that he find a wife. On May 10, 1862,
Miles married a woman who would eventually bear him 10
children, Hannah Hood Hill. One month later, with Hannah
pregnant, Miles left to perform church missionary duties
in England for nearly 3 1/2 years.
Two months after the
marriage, on July 8, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln
signed an antibigamy act, which prohibited polygamy in
Utah and the other territories. Miles believed strongly
in the church's practices and was committed to his
mission to bring converts to America. He laid out his
beliefs in England in an article titled ''Persecution.''
''Many, now, wonder why it
is that we are so despised,'' Miles wrote. But Miles
stood by his faith, writing that ''from the earliest
ages of the history of man, Truth and those who strictly
adhere to its principles have been unpopular.''
Miles returned to Utah in
October 1865, meeting his 2 1/2-year-old daughter for
the first time. The family was poor, possessing a small
cook stove, a bed, three chairs and a small table.
Miles, a carpenter, bought land and built a two-room
wooden house. Hannah became pregnant again, and a second
daughter was born.
''We were happy,'' Hannah
recalled, in an autobiography written for her family
when she was 80 years old. ''We had two sweet little
girls to bless our home and make it more happy and they
bound us together in love and union.''
Addition to a
marriage
It was then, in 1867, that
Miles P. Romney had a fateful meeting with Young.
''Brother Miles P., I want
you to take another wife,'' Young requested, according
to Hannah's autobiography.
Miles faced the choice of
obeying US law, under which polygamy was illegal, or the
head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
He chose the church. Hannah was distraught.
''I felt that was more than
I could endure, to have him divide his time and
affections,'' Hannah wrote later. ''I used to walk the
floor and shed tears of sorrow. If anything will make a
woman's heart ache, it is for her husband to take
another wife, but I put my trust in my Heavenly Father
and prayed and pleaded with him to give me strength to
bear this great trial.''
Then Hannah performed her
duty: she prepared a room for her husband's new wife,
Caroline Lambourne. Hannah wrote, ''I was able to live
in the principle of polygamy and give my husband many
wives.'' But her despair deepened when her younger
daughter died at 10 months.
Soon, Young gave Miles and
his two wives a new mission: sell your home, and move to
the southern Utah town of St. George. The new settlement
about 300 miles south of Salt Lake was in a vast desert,
surrounded by red-toned ridges in a region where summer
temperatures often topped 100 degrees.
Young prophesied that,
''There will yet be built between these volcanic ridges,
a city, with spires and towers and steeples, with homes
containing many inhabitants.'' The Romneys sold their
Salt Lake City home and moved to St. George, where they
lived ''in a little shanty, a small board room, and a
wagon box,'' Hannah wrote.
From the shanty, the
Romneys wrote themselves into church history as
builders. Miles played a major role in the construction
of St. George Temple. Then, Brigham Young hired Miles to
build a two-story addition to his winter home in St.
George. Miles took on the task with zeal, constructing
one of the most lavish residences in Utah, a sandstone
brick dwelling with an elaborate porch painted red and
green. The restored home is visited today by Mormons
from around the world, who are told of Miles's role in
building the house. Pictures of Young and Romney hang in
an adjoining building.
But while Miles was
prospering as a builder, he had increasing trouble
handling two wives. Hannah wrote that Caroline ''was
very jealous of me. ..... She wanted all my husband's
attention. When she couldn't get it there was always a
fuss in the house. [Miles], being a just man, didn't
give way to her tantrums.''
Miles and Caroline had two
children, whom Hannah agreed to care for. But Caroline
was not satisfied. She asked Young for permission to
return to her parents in Salt Lake City. The separation
was ''the severest trial ever experienced'' by Miles,
according to ''Life Story of Miles Park Romney,''
written by his son, Thomas. Miles and Hannah ''made a
special trip of three hundred miles by wagon to try to
induce Carrie to return to her home in Saint George. But
all their pleadings were in vain,'' and a divorce was
granted, according to the biography.
Miles, meanwhile, was
climbing in prominence in the church. He was given a new
responsibility: defeat a congressional effort to enforce
antipolygamy prohibitions. Miles and four other Mormon
leaders signed a letter stating that ''the Anti-polygamy
bill ..... is unconstitutional and is an act of special
legislation and ostracism, never before heard of in a
republican government and its parallel hardly to be
found in the most absolute despotisms, disfranchising
and discriminating, as it does, 200,000 free and loyal
citizens, because of a particular tenet in their
religious faith.''
Romney and the others said
the legislation violated the Declaration of
Independence's guarantee that all men had the rights of
''life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'' and the
Constitution's guarantee of freedom of religion.
The lobbying paid off and
the bill died in the Senate, but other antipolygamy laws
remained on the books.
For a brief time, with
Caroline having left, Miles and Hannah were once again
in a single-wife marriage. It was then, in 1871, that
Hannah gave birth to Gaskell, the grandfather of Mitt
Romney.
Two years after Gaskell's
birth, however, Miles met the fair-skinned Catharine
Cottam, who had flowing hair, a serene smile, and was
described by her brother as the ''prettiest girl in St.
George.'' Miles married Catharine in Salt Lake City on
Sept. 15, 1873.
Hannah, seven months
pregnant, did not attend the wedding. Instead, she
prepared a room for Catharine, whom she called ''a girl
of good principles and a good Latter-day Saint.''
''I cannot explain how I
suffered in my feelings while I was doing all this hard
work, but I felt that I would do my duty if my heart did
ache,'' Hannah wrote.
Two months after Miles and
Catharine were married, the child of Miles and Hannah
died during delivery. Hannah blamed herself.
''I felt I had caused it by
doing so much hard work,'' Hannah wrote.
Nearly four years later,
Romney married again, taking as his wife Annie M.
Woodbury, a schoolteacher.
Romney's life in St. George
with Hannah, Catharine and Annie briefly settled into a
comfortable, devout routine. But church leaders in Salt
Lake City intervened, devising a plan to plant Mormon
communities in an arc throughout the West. Miles was
told by church leaders to uproot his family and help
settle the town of St. Johns, Ariz.
The journey of almost 500
miles was harrowing, requiring the wagon trains to skirt
the northern rim of the Grand Canyon.
''Here you can see the
river hundreds of feet below you winding its way between
perpendicular banks of solid rock without a tree to be
seen and devoid of vegetation,'' Catharine wrote her
parents, as quoted in a volume compiled by her
great-granddaughter, titled, ''Letters of Catharine
Cottam Romney, Plural Wife.''
Finally, the Romneys
arrived in St. Johns. It was a sparsely settled town, a
Wild West amalgamation of gun-toting farmers and
laborers, including Native Americans and Mexicans, who
were especially resentful of new settlers such as the
Mormons. The local newspaper, the Apache Chief, urged on
May 30, 1884, that ''the shotgun and rope'' be used to
get rid of Mormon settlers.
''Hang a few of their
polygamist leaders such as ..... Romney ..... and a stop
will be put to it,'' the newspaper said.
Catharine began to fear her
surroundings, writing, ''I believe there are some as
wicked people here as can be found anywhere on the
footstool of God.''
The tensions accelerated as
local authorities sought to try Romney on charges of
polygamy. To avoid prosecution, Romney sent Catharine
and Annie into hiding.
But authorities brought new
charges, alleging that Romney lied about having title to
his land. One night, a marshal arrived at the Romney
home after midnight, demanding that Miles surrender.
''The marshal had a gun in
one hand and handcuffs in the other,'' Hannah wrote.
A colony in
Mexico
Miles fled to Utah, where
he was told by church leaders ''to go to Old Mexico and
build a city of refuge for the people that would have to
go there on account of persecutions of polygamy,''
Hannah wrote. Miles agreed, and decided it was safest to
go with only one of his wives, Annie. He left behind
Hannah and Catharine and their children, hoping they
would reunite in the coming months.
After weeks of travel,
Romney reached a vantage point in the Mexican mountains.
Gazing upon a valley that
extended for miles on the banks of the Piedras Verdes
River, Miles Romney saw mesquite and cactus carpeting
the flatlands, with stands of scrub oak shading the
riverbanks. The valley floor was 5,000 feet high,
providing a climate cool enough to support peach and
apple trees. Beyond brown hills, the towering,
pine-covered peaks of the Sierra Madre curtained the
valley, catching the winter snows that would provide
ample water for irrigation. This would be the colony of
Juarez - Colonia Juarez.
At first, Miles was
desperately poor and responsible for an enormous family.
He lived out of a wagon, and then a crude hut.
On Dec. 27, 1885, shortly
after helping establish the colony, Miles despaired of
his plight. He feared federal marshals might come to
Mexico to arrest him. He was uncertain about the fate of
Hannah and Catharine.
''I sometimes think that I
am only an injury now to both my family and my
friends,'' Romney wrote to Catharine's brother Thomas.
''I have borrowed my friends' money, and my family
receive no support from me, and the prospect ahead seems
as black as midnight darkness.''
Soon, Hannah arrived. Then,
more than a year after Romney arrived in Mexico,
Catharine joined them. A festive reunion followed, with
Miles, his three wives, and their children. ''21 of us
all together had a splendid dinner,'' Catharine wrote
her parents.
The town, meanwhile, began
to take shape, due in significant part to Gaskell
Romney. At 15, he helped build the canal that irrigated
the fields, and helped build a family farm known as
Cliff Ranch, in the mountains overlooking Colonia
Juarez.
Then the family's world
came crashing down once again. Back in Utah, some of the
same Mormon leaders who had urged Romney to create a
refuge for polygamy now turned against the practice.
In September of 1890,
Church president Wilford Woodruff issued what was called
the Manifesto: ''I now publicly declare that my advice
to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting
any marriage forbidden by the law of the land.''
The careful wording of the
Manifesto might have given some solace to the Romneys.
They may have believed that Woodruff was referring to
the law in the United States, not Mexico. They continued
their practice of plural marriage, but even more
isolated than before. Indian attacks and crop failures
were common.
Miles moved to a nearby
town called Colonia Dublan and, in 1897, seven years
after the Manifesto, married for a fifth time, to a
wealthy widow named Emily Henrietta Eyring Snow, the
only wife with whom he did not have children.
Gaskell, meanwhile, married
Anna Amelia Pratt, who would become Mitt Romney's
grandmother. Anna descended from one of the most
important families in the Mormon faith. Her grandfather,
Parley Pratt, had 12 wives and was chosen by Joseph
Smith as one of the 12 Apostles.
Gaskell and Anna broke with
their family traditions and did not engage in plural
marriage.
After 12 years of marriage,
the couple had a boy whom they named George W. Romney,
the fourth of their seven children... /
George Romney was Mitt Romney's
father.
Mitt Romney's Mormonism
Mitt Romney's great-great-grandfather,
Parley P. Pratt, was among the first leaders of the LDS Church in the early
19th century. His first cousin once removed Marion George Romney, was an
Apostle of LDS Church. Mitt Romney's father, George W. Romney, was a
patriarch of LDS Church.
Parley P.
Pratt
Parley Parker Pratt (12 April 1807 – 13 May
1857) was a leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and an original member of Quorum
of the Twelve Apostles from 1835 until his murder in 1857. He
served in the Quorum with his younger brother, Orson Pratt. He was a
missionary, poet, religious writer and longtime editor of the religious
publication The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star. Scenic Parley's Canyon
in Salt Lake City, earlier known as Big Canyon, was renamed in his
honor.
Pratt practiced plural marriage and had twelve wives. One
great great grandson is Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor and
suspended candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential
nomination.[1]...
[Pratt] was also ordained to the office of an elder
in the church. Continuing on to his family's home, he introduced his younger
brother, Orson Pratt, to Mormonism and baptized him on 19 September
1830.
Pratt then returned to Fayette, New York in October 1830, where
he met Joseph Smith and was asked to join a missionary group assigned to
preach to the Native American (Lamanite) tribes on the Missouri frontier.
During the trip west, he and his companions stopped to visit Sidney Rigdon,
and were instrumental in converting Rigdon and approximately 130 members of
his congregation within two to three weeks.
Pratt was later assigned
additional missions to Canada, the Eastern United States, the Southern
United States, England, the Pacific Islands, and to South America. He moved
to Valparaiso, Chile to begin the missionary work there. They left after not
much success and the death of his child Omner in 1852. In addition to his
brother, Orson Pratt and Sidney Rigdon, he was instrumental in introducing
the Mormon faith to a number of future LDS leaders, including Frederick G.
Williams, John Taylor and his wife Leonora, Isaac Morley and Joseph Fielding
and his sisters, Mary and Mercy Fielding.
In addition to serving as
an active missionary, Pratt entered the leadership of the early Latter Day
Saint movement acting as an original member of the
Quorum of Twelve Apostles. While on a mission to the British
Isles in 1839, Pratt was editor of a newly created periodical, The
Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star. While presiding over the church's
branches and interests in New England and the mid-Atlantic states, Pratt
published a periodical entitled The Prophet from his headquarters in New
York City. He was also a noted religious writer and poet. He produced an
autobiography, as well as some poems which have become staple LDS hymns,
some of which are included in the current LDS Church hymnal.
After
the death of Joseph Smith, Pratt and his family were among the Latter Day
Saints who emigrated to Utah Territory and continued on as The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) under the direction of
Brigham Young. Pratt was involved in establishing the refugee settlements
and fields at both Garden Grove and Mt. Pisgah, Iowa and personally led a
pioneer company along the Mormon Trail to the Salt Lake Valley. Sometime in
the mid 1850s, working with George D. Watt, he helped develop the Deseret
alphabet. In 1854, Pratt went to California to preside over the Pacific
Mission of the LDS Church headquartered in San Fransisco.
From: Mystery
Babylon: Catholic or Jewish?
The founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, surrounded
himself with 12 apostles of which his closest colleagues were Jewish
Cabalists, Orson Hyde and Alexander Neibaur. Lance Owens wrote of Neibaur’s
intimate knowledge of the Cabala and his strong influence on Joseph
Smith:
“That Neibaur brought a knowledge of Kabbalah to
Nauvoo has been mentioned in several studies of the period. For instance,
Newel and Avery note in their biography of Emma Smith, ‘Through Alexander
Neibaur, Joseph Smith had access to ancient Jewish rites called cabalism...
That he not only knew something of Kabbalah, but apparently possessed a
collection of original Jewish Kabbalistic works in Nauvoo, is however
documented in material almost totally overlooked by Mormon
historians.
“Can anyone familiar with the history and personality
of Joseph Smith--the prophet who restored the secret knowledge and rituals
conveyed to Adam, translated the works of Abraham, Enoch, and Moses, and
retranslated Genesis--question that he would have been interested in the
original version of this Jewish occult tradition? And here, in Neibaur, was
a man who could share a version of that knowledge with him. Whatever the
reasons for the similarities, it should be remembered that the
Hermetic-Kabbalistic world view parallels Joseph’s vision of God in many
particulars. Not only might Joseph have been interested in this material,
but he would have noted how similar this sacred, secret tradition was with
his own restoration of ancient truth. And perhaps Neibaur, on a religious
quest--from Judaism and Kabbalah, Europe and England, to Christianity and
Mormonism and a new home in Nauvoo--saw or even amplified that intrinsic
sympathy in his explications of the tradition for Joseph.
“Whatever the reasons for the similarities, it should
be remembered that the Hermetic-Kabbalistic world view parallels Joseph’s
vision of God in many particulars. Not only might Joseph have been
interested in this material, but he would have noted how similar this
sacred, secret tradition was with his own restoration of ancient truth. And
perhaps Neibaur, on a religious quest--from Judaism and Kabbalah, Europe and
England, to Christianity and Mormonism and a new home in Nauvoo--saw or even
amplified that intrinsic sympathy in his explications of the tradition for
Joseph.
“Certainly the first text Joseph Smith would have
confronted was the Zohar, the great heart of the Kabbalah. This is
one of the works Neibaur cited repeatedly in his article and, as the central
text of Kabbalah, is the key book any individual with Kabbalistic interests
would have preserved in his library. Familiarity with the Zohar was a
given for a Kabbalist, particularly one with knowledge of works as divergent
as those cited by Neibaur, all of which expounded in some degree upon themes
in the Zohar. If Neibaur had read to Joseph from any single text, or
explained Kabbalistic concepts contained in a principal book, the
Zohar would have been the book with which to start. This might
explain why in 1844 Smith, in what may be his single greatest discourse and
in the most important public statement of his theosophical vision,
apparently quotes almost word for word from the first section of the
Zohar.” (“Joseph Smith and
Kabbalah: The Occult Connection”)