“The author of this work is not a Mormon, although it is printed by their press. It was the most convenient. But the public will soon find out what he is, by his work.” — Udney Hay Jacob¹

Udney Hay Jacob, previously a broom maker, printed a work called The Peace Maker or The Doctrine of the Millennium which stated that women were property and subservient to men, and that therefore they did not lawfully have the right to initiate a bill of divorcement.² Prior to the publication of The Peace Maker, in 1839, Jacob had written to Martin Van Buren, explaining the contents of the pamphlet he would later print in Nauvoo.³ The work was printed in 1842, in Joseph Smith's printing office. However, in December of that same year, Joseph put a notice in the Times and Seasons declaring that it was printed in his office without his knowledge and wished not to be associated with “the authors, in such an unmeaning rigmarole of nonsence, folly, and trash.”⁴

1. An extract from a Manuscript entitled The Peace Maker, or the doctrines of the Millennium 1842

2. Udney Hay Jacob on Joseph Smith Papers

3. Kenneth W. Godfrey, Conversations with Mormon Historians, BYU Religious Studies Center

4. Notice, Circa December 1st 1842, Times and Seasons