Two Wives (Part 2)

OK - an article on Wikipedia confirms my suspicion. The Mormon's practiced polygamous marriages back in the 1800's.

The Mormon practice of plural marriage began in 1843, and was introduced by Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon church. It was then practiced privately until 1852, when it was publicly announced as a principle of Mormon doctrine. At this time, the Mormon-dominated legislature wanted to keep this practice under legal protection, so they framed laws that favored the practice without actually using the word “polygamy” in order to keep it from coming to the attention of the U.S. Congress.

Polygamy was able to continue for the next while without being noticed. With the Compromise of 1850, Utah was officially deemed a territory, and therefore became subject to a federally appointed governor and judiciary. Brigham Young [also in my tree], the president of the church at the time, was elected the first governor, along with an all-Mormon legislature. One of the first acts of this legislature was in 1851, when they awarded their probate courts extended jurisdiction. Thus, “probate courts possessed concurrent jurisdiction with the district courts and offered an alternative to the federally appointed, non-Mormon officers of the district courts”. Because bigamy was prohibited at common law, the territorial legislature rejected the common law in 1854. Therefore, the legal protection of the Mormons who chose to practice polygamy were relatively free from federal intervention until Congress passed the Morrill Act in 1862, which was the first federal law that specifically prohibited bigamy. On the whole, the Mormons who practiced polygamy avoided the federal court systems all together. Rather, they settled disputes with an ecclesiastical court system established by the church. Thus, the practice of polygamy in the Mormon communities continued.

At its height, at least 25 percent of adults in these communities were members of polygamous households. In 1890, however, Wilford Woodruff (the president of the church at the time) issued a “manifesto” forbidding the practice. Currently, some breakaway groups still follow polygamist lifestyles, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon church) now opposes the practice.

So there we go - he married sisters and had kids with them at the same time. The data appears correct.