Decades later, Lorin C. Woolley described otherworldly events that occurred at his father's house during 26-27 September 1886, which became the basis for claims of special authority to continue performing plural marriages by those now called "Fundamentalist Mormons."

Allegedly witnessed by Charles H. Barrell, Daniel R. Bateman, Hiram B. Clawson, George Earl, L. John Nuttall, Lorin's mother Julia, and sister Amy (among others), John Taylor allegedly ordained Samuel Bateman, the First Presidency's First Counselor George Q. Cannon, Charles H. Wilcken, John W. Woolley, and Lorin as "high priest apostles" on 27 September 1886, also commissioning them to keep plural marriage alive, even if the LDS Church gave it up.

Lorin's account in the 1920s continued: " ... the Prophet Joseph Smith stood by directing the proceedings. Two of us had not met the Prophet Joseph Smith in his mortal lifetime, and we-- Charles H. Wilkins [sic] and myself--were introduced to him and shook hands with him." Upon the return of the First Presidency's Second Counselor Joseph F. Smith from Hawaii to Utah in 1887, he was likewise ordained and commissioned--according to Lorin--but without the presence of a resurrected personage.

On the other hand, Fundamentalist Mormons now believe that concealing George Q. Cannon's delayed comments about the September 1886 revelation and ordination/commission is the reason that someone tore three pages from Cannon's diary--covering most of September 29th until the last lines of his entry for October 12th. However, in a book published jointly in 2009 by the LDS Church's Deseret Book Company and BYU's Religious Studies Center, an essay argued that until his death in 1901 , George Q. Cannon's diaries make no reference whatever to "an alleged revelation" of September 1886, while the essay's authors emphasized that Cannon referred to John Taylor's pre-1886 revelations.

Between the Deseret News publication of Wilford Woodruffs Manifesto on 25 September 1890 and the adoption of Church President Joseph F. Smith's so-called "Second Manifesto" by general conference on 6 April 1904, more than 250 polygamous marriages were secretly performed by twenty-one LDS officials.

Between the adoption of Joseph F. Smith's Second Manifesto in April 1904 and a ceremony in July 1907, more than thirty new polygamous marriages were secretly performed by eleven LDS officials. In my examination of the diaries, autobiographies, and family traditions of the participants in those ceremonies, none involved John W. Woolley in any way. The husbands included his nephew Samuel E. Woolley, a mission president.

On the other hand, crucial insights are within documents still sequestered inside vaults at LDS headquarters. Examples are George Q. Cannon's "Private Memorandum Book" (mentioned on 25 February 1888 in the posting of his diaries on the Internet by LDS headquarters, but not included with their posting), also Joseph F. Smith's diaries after 1885 (which his son's published biography quoted until 1916), also Matthias F. Cowley's bound diaries from the Manifesto onward, also Apostle Francis M. Lyman's diaries to his death in 1916, and at least five surviving journals written by Apostle John W. Taylor before his death that year. Moreover, various families have preserved John W. Woolley's notebooks from 1902 to 1910, also Judson Tolman's notebooks from 1906 to 1916, and a journal/diary by President Taylor's young guard Daniel R. Bateman about 1886 and about the Woolleys during the 1920s. Both Church-custodians and family-custodians have withheld from research other documents of similar importance.

Two of us had not met the Prophet Joseph Smith in his mortal lifetime, and we-- Charles H. Wilkins [sic] and myself--were introduced to him and shook hands with him.