James Strang
James Jesse Strang was an American religious leader, politician and self-proclaimed monarch. He served as a member of the Michigan House of Representatives from 1853 until his assassination.
In 1844, he said he had been appointed as the successor of Joseph Smith as leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a faction of the Latter Day Saint movement. Strang testified that he had possession of a letter from Smith naming him as his successor, and furthermore reported that he had been ordained to the prophetic office by an angel. His followers believe his organization to be the sole legitimate continuation of the Church of Christ founded by Smith fourteen years before.
A major contender for leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints during the 1844 succession crisis after Smith's death, Strang urged other prominent church leaders like Brigham Young and Sidney Rigdon to remain in their previous offices and to support his appointment by Smith. Young and the members of the Twelve Apostles loyal to him rejected Strang's claims, as did Rigdon, who had been a counselor in the First Presidency to Smith. This divided the Latter Day Saint movement. During his 12 years tenure as Prophet, Seer and Revelator, Strang reigned for six years as the crowned "king" of an ecclesiastical monarchy that he established on Beaver Island in the US state of Michigan. Building an organization that eventually rivaled Young's in Utah, Strang gained nearly 12,000 adherents at a time when Young was said to have about 50,000. After Strang was killed in 1856 most of his followers rallied under Joseph Smith III and joined the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Strangite church has remained small in comparison to other branches of the Latter-Day Saint movement.
Similar to Joseph Smith, who was alleged by church opponent William Marks to have been crowned King in Nauvoo prior to his death, Strang taught that the chief prophetic office embodied an overtly royal attribute. Thus, its occupant was to be not only the spiritual leader of his people but their temporal king as well. He offered a sophisticated set of teachings that differed in many significant aspects from any other version of Mormonism, including that preached by Smith. Like Smith, Strang published translations of two purportedly ancient lost works: the Voree Record, deciphered from three metal plates reportedly unearthed in response to a vision; and the Book of the Law of the Lord, supposedly transcribed from the Plates of Laban mentioned in the Book of Mormon. These are accepted as scripture by his followers, and the Church of Jesus Christ in Christian Fellowship, but not by any other Latter Day Saint church. Although his long-term doctrinal influence on the Latter Day Saint movement was minimal, several early members of Strang's organization helped to establish the RLDS Church, which became the second-largest Latter Day sect. While most of Strang's followers eventually disavowed him due to his eventual advocacy of polygamy, a small but devout remnant carries on his teachings and organization today.
In addition to his ecclesiastical calling, Strang served one full term and part of a second as a member of the Michigan House of Representatives, assisting in the organization of Manitou County. He was also at various times an attorney, educator, temperance lecturer, newspaper editor, Baptist minister, correspondent for the New York Tribune, and amateur scientist. His survey of Beaver Island's natural history was published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1854, remaining the definitive work on that subject for nearly a century, while his career in the Michigan legislature was praised even by his enemies.
While Strang's organization is formally known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the term "Strangite" is usually added to the title to avoid confusing them with other Latter Day Saint bodies carrying this or similar names. This follows a typical nineteenth-century usage where followers of Brigham Young were referred to as "Brighamites," while those of Sidney Rigdon were called "Rigdonites," followers of Joseph Smith III were called "Josephites", and disciples of Strang became "Strangites".
Childhood, education and conversion to Mormonism
James Jesse Strang was born March 21, 1813, in Scipio, Cayuga County, New York. He was the second of three children, and his parents had a good reputation in their community. Strang's mother was very tender with him as a consequence of delicate health, yet she required him to render an account of all his actions and words while absent from her. In a brief autobiography he wrote in 1855, Strang reported that he had attended grade school until age twelve, but that "the terms were usually short, the teachers inexperienced and ill qualified to teach, and my health such as to preclude attentive study or steady attendance." He estimated that his time in a classroom during those years totaled six months.But none of this meant that Strang was illiterate or simple. Although his teachers "not unfrequently turned me off with little or no attention, as though I was too stupid to learn and too dull to feel neglect," Strang recalled that he spent "long weary days ... upon the floor, thinking, thinking, thinking ... my mind wandered over fields that old men shrink from, seeking rest and finding none till darkness gathered thick around and I burst into tears." He studied works by Thomas Paine and the Comte de Volney, whose book Les Ruines exerted a significant influence on the future prophet.
As a youth, Strang kept a rather profound personal diary, written partly in a secret code that was not deciphered until over one hundred years after it was authored. This journal contains Strang's musings on a variety of topics, including a sense that he was called to be a significant world leader the likes of Caesar or Napoleon and his regret that by age nineteen, he had not yet become a general or member of the state legislature, which he saw as being essential by that point in his life to his quest to be someone of importance. However, Strang's diary reveals a heartfelt desire to be of service to his fellow man, together with agonized frustration at not knowing how he might do so as a penniless, unknown youth from upstate New York.
At age twelve, Strang was baptized a Baptist. He did not wish to follow his father's calling as a farmer, so he took up the study of law. Strang was admitted to the bar in New York at age 23 and later at other places where he resided. He became county Postmaster and edited a local newspaper, the Randolph Herald. Later, in the midst of his myriad duties on Beaver Island, he would find time to found and publish the Daily Northern Islander, the first newspaper in northern Michigan.
Strang, who once described himself as a "cool philosopher" and a freethinker, became a Baptist minister but left in February 1844 to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He quickly found favor with Joseph Smith, though they had known each other only a short time, and was baptized personally by him on February 25, 1844. On March 3 of that year he was ordained an Elder by Joseph's brother Hyrum and sent forthwith at Smith's request to Wisconsin, to establish a Mormon stake at Voree. Shortly after Strang's departure, Joseph Smith was murdered by an anti-Mormon mob in Carthage, Illinois.
Succession claim and notable early allies
After Smith's death, Strang claimed the right to lead the Latter Day Saints, but he was not the only claimant to Smith's prophetic mantle. His most significant rivals were Brigham Young, president of Smith's Twelve Apostles, and Sidney Rigdon, a member of Smith's First Presidency. A power struggle ensued, during which Young quickly disposed of Rigdon in a Nauvoo debate. Young would reject offers to debate with Strang for the next three years before leading his followers to Utah while Rigdon led a smaller group to Pennsylvania. As a newcomer to the faith Strang did not possess the name recognition, or a more prominent calling like his rivals, so his prospects of assuming Smith's prophetic mantle appeared shaky at first. But this did not dissuade him. Though the Quorum of Twelve quickly published a notice in the Times and Seasons of Strang's excommunication, Strang insisted that the laws of the church prevented excommunication without a trial. He equally asserted that the Twelve had no right to sit in judgment on him, as he was the lawful church president. He began to attract several Mormon luminaries to his side, including Smith's brother William Smith, Smith's mother Lucy Mack Smith, and William Marks, president of the Nauvoo Stake.Strang rested his claim to leadership on an ordination by an angel at the very moment Joseph Smith died, requirements that he claimed were set forth in the Doctrine and Covenants that the President had to be appointed by revelation and ordained by angels, and a "Letter of Appointment" from Smith, carrying a legitimate Nauvoo postmark. This letter was dated June 18, 1844, just nine days before Smith's death. Smith and Strang were some 225 miles apart at the time, Strang offered witnesses to affirm that he had made his announcement before news of Smith's demise was publicly available. Strang's letter is held today by Yale University. Every aspect of the letter has been disputed by opposing factions, including the postmark and the signature however the postmark is genuine and at least one firm hired to analyse the document and compare it to Smith's known letters concluded that it was likely to have been authored by Smith. They concluded "A brief observation of these four documents indicates that the education and word usage was consistent with the theory that all four documents were authored by one individual."
There have been several conflicting claims about the authenticity of the letter. One disaffected member of Strang's church said they received a confession from Strang's law partner, C. P. Barnes, that he had fabricated the Letter of Appointment and the Voree Plates. Another member of the Brighamites stated years after Strang's death to have forged the letter himself and mailed it to Strang as a prank. There are no reliable firsthand statements, however, by witnesses or insiders that question the validity of the letter.
Strang's letter convinced several eminent Mormons of his claims, including Book of Mormon witnesses John and David Whitmer, Martin Harris, and Hiram Page. In addition, apostles John E. Page, William E. McLellin, and William Smith, together with Nauvoo Stake President William Marks, and Bishop George Miller, accepted Strang. Joseph Smith's mother, Lucy Mack Smith, and three of his sisters accepted Strang's claims. According to the Voree Herald, Strang's newspaper, Lucy Smith wrote to one Reuben Hedlock: "I am satisfied that Joseph appointed J.J. Strang. It is verily so." According to Joseph Smith's brother William, all of his family, endorsed Strang.
File:John C. Bennett engraving.jpg|left|thumb|Engraving of John C. Bennett as a General of the Nauvoo Legion.
Also championing Strang was John C. Bennett, a physician and libertine who had a tumultuous career as Joseph Smith's Assistant President and mayor of Nauvoo. Invited by Strang to join him in Voree, Bennett was instrumental in establishing a so-called "Halcyon Order of the Illuminati" there, with Strang as its "Imperial Primate." Eventually, as in Nauvoo, Bennett fell into disfavor with the church and Strang expelled him in 1847. His "order" fell by the wayside and has no role in Strangism today, though it did lead to conflict between Strang and some of his associates.