Biographical Background
Compton is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who lived for a number of years in Santa Monica, California. He has served an LDS mission to Ireland. He studied violin with Richard Nibley and has played electric violin with singer-songwriter Mark Davis. In 1982 he completed a master's degree from Brigham Young University. He later received a Ph.D. from UCLA in Classics (concentrating on Greek and Indo-European mythology) which he taught for a year at USC. He also taught at UCLA and California State University, Northridge. He has been an independent researcher since 1993, drawing a regular income by working as an ADS specialist for a law office.
Compton began his serious work in Mormon history as a Visiting Fellow at the Huntington Library studying the journals of Eliza R. Snow. He found that his Classics background helped his Mormon history work by teaching him respect for these primary documents. While researching, and trying to note people identified in Snow's journals, Compton found that he needed a good list of Joseph Smith's plural wives. Not finding one, he began researching his own list, which eventually grew into his 1997 book, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith.
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