Eliza Partridge: Plural Wife of Joseph Smith Who Kept Her Covenant Through Hardship and Pioneer Sacrifice

Eliza Maria Partridge (April 20, 1820 – December 30, 1885) was the eldest daughter of Edward Partridge, the first bishop of the Church, and Lydia Clisbee. Along with her younger sister Emily, she lived in the Smith household in Nauvoo following her father's death.

Eliza was sealed to Joseph Smith as a plural wife on March 8, 1843, in Nauvoo. She later wrote: 'I had no anticipation of ever making my experience public.' She kept the covenant quietly, living in full knowledge of the sacred and painful nature of the principle.

After Joseph Smith's martyrdom, Eliza married Apostle Amasa M. Lyman on September 28, 1844, in Nauvoo. With him she crossed the plains to the Salt Lake Valley and raised a family in Utah.

Eliza's journal — now preserved in archives — is a record of extraordinary faith under hardship. She documented the day-to-day suffering of pioneer life: crossing rivers, enduring cold, grieving, and persevering. Through poverty, the trials of plural marriage, and the isolation of frontier life, she maintained her covenants and her faith.

In 1869 she signed four affidavits attesting to her sealings to Joseph Smith, serving as a legal and historical witness to the sacred ordinances of the Nauvoo period. Her willingness to bear record — decades later, publicly and under oath — stands as testimony to the depth of her conviction.

She and Emily Partridge together represent two of the most historically significant witnesses to the inner life of the Nauvoo restoration — daughters of the first bishop, raised in the Prophet's home, and faithful to the end.

Fuller account of this event (in the witness’s own words):

Territory of Utah} County of Salt Lake} SS. Be it remembered that on this first day of July A. D. 1869, personally appeared before me, Edward Partridge, Probate Judge, in and for said county, Eliza Maria (Partridge)——Lyman who was by me sworn in due form of law and upon her oath saith that on the eighth day of March A.D. 1843 at the city of Nauvoo county of Hancock State of Illinois she was married or sealed to Joseph Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, by Heber C. Kimball, one of the Twelve Apostles in said Church, according to the laws of the same regulating marriage; in the presence of Orson Hyde.