The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints—usually distinguished with a parenthetical (Strangite)—is one of the several organizations that claim to be the legitimate continuation of the church founded by Joseph Smith on April 6, 1830. It is a separate organization from the considerably larger and better known The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both churches claim to be the original organization established by Joseph Smith. The Strangite church is headquartered in Voree, Wisconsin, just outside Burlington, and accepts the claims of James Strang as successor to Smith. It had approximately 300 members in 1998. An undated FAQ on the church's official website reports there are around 130 active members throughout the United States.
After Smith was murdered in 1844 with no clear successor, several claimants sought to take leadership of the church which Smith founded. Among them was Strang, who competed with other prominent members, notably Brigham Young and Sidney Rigdon.
At its peak, the Strangite Church had about 12,000 members, making them noteworthy rivals to the larger faction of 50,000 led by Brigham Young."". Strangite.org. Retrieved October 28, 2007. This compares to approximately 50,000 for Brigham Young at this same time. See "Church membership: 1830–2006," at https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/search . Strang was murdered in 1856, after which most of his followers joined Joseph Smith III and his Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, now called the Community of Christ.
History Before Strang
Strangites share the same history with other Latter Day Saint denominations up until the assassination of Joseph Smith. During the resulting succession crisis, several early Mormon leaders asserted claims to succeed Smith, including Sidney Rigdon, Brigham Young and James Strang. Rigdon's claim rested on his status as the senior surviving member of Smith's First Presidency, the church's highest leadership quorum. Rejected by the main church body in Nauvoo, Illinois, Rigdon and his followers moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where his organization faltered. A descendant of the Rigdonite church lives on today as The Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite), which is not recognized as legitimate by Strangites.
Brigham Young initially argued that Smith could have no immediate successor,http://www.ils.unc.edu/~unsworth/mormon/jssuccessor.html . but rather that the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (of which he was president) should be sustained as the presiding body of the church. Young and his followers migrated west to the Salt Lake Valley, in what became Utah Territory, continuing to use Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as their name until incorporating in 1851, when the spelling was standardized as "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints".
James Strang's appointment letter and the Voree plates
Although he was a relatively recent convert at the time of Smith's death, James Strang posed a formidable—and initially quite successful—challenge to the claims of Young and Rigdon. Strang was a Mormon elder charged with establishing a stake or "place of refuge" in Wisconsin, should the Mormons be forced to abandon their headquarters in Nauvoo. He possessed a document that came to be known as the "letter of appointment", alleged to have been written by Smith prior to his death. Critics assert the handwriting of the letter does not graphologically resemble any extant letters written by Smith. Furthermore, wording in the letter was ambiguous; some insist that it only appointed Strang to be president of the new Voree Stake of the church,Strang's own son, Charles Strang, took this position. See Smith, Heman, History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,] vol. 3, chapter 2 , pp. 52–53. while Strang and his followers interpreted it as a call to follow Smith as President of the Church. Strang also claimed at the moment of Smith's death, he was visited by angels who ordained him to be Smith's successor, though he claimed no other witnesses to the event.Strang, James J., The Revelations of James J. Strang , Section 4:1–11.
Strang's assertion appealed to many Latter Day Saints who were attracted to Mormonism's doctrine of continuing revelation through a living prophet. In the face of protracted Mormon anguish at Smith's death, Strang insisted that there still was, indeed, a Mormon seer who communed with God and conversed with angels. Strang's claim was bolstered by his discovery of the Voree plates, purporting to contain the last testament of an ancient Native American, one "Rajah Manchou of Vorito". These plates were found in the Hill of Promise, which would become the temple site in the new Strangite town of Voree. This event was reminiscent of Smith's translations of the golden plates (the Book of Mormon) and the Book of Abraham, and may have encouraged some Latter Day Saints to accept Strang over any of his competitors, who had not produced any such "records".
Early successes and losses
Many prominent Latter Day Saints believed in Strang's "letter of appointment" and accepted him as Mormonism's second "Prophet, Seer, Revelator and Translator"—at least in the short term. These included the church's Presiding Patriarch and apostle William Smith (Smith's only surviving brother); Book of Mormon witness Martin Harris (who left and later rejoined the LDS Church in Utah); Nauvoo Stake President William Marks; second Bishop of the Church and church trustee-in-trust George Miller; apostle John E. Page; former apostle William E. McLellin; Smith's mother Lucy Mack Smith; and other members of the Smith family.
Another adherent was John C. Bennett, former mayor of Nauvoo and a former member of the First Presidency. Bennett had been in Smith's innermost circle but had broken with the founding prophet and had written an anti-Mormon exposé. Bennett founded a secretive Strangite fraternal society known as the "Order of Illuminati", but his presence disrupted Strang's church and ultimately led to his excommunication.Fitzpatrick, Doyle C. (1970). The King Strang Story: A Vindication of James J, Strang, the Beaver Island Mormon King. National Heritage., p. 151. Bennett's order fell by the wayside and no longer exists among the Strangites.
All of these persons left the Strangite church by 1850, with the exception of Miller, who would remain lifelong loyalty to Strang. Many of these defections were due to Strang's seemingly abrupt about-face on the turbulent subject of polygamy. Vehemently opposed to the practice at first,(August 12, 1847). Voree Herald as quoted in Fitzpatrick, pp. 74–75. See also apostle John E. Page at this same source, on his conversations with Strang on the subject. Strang reversed course in 1849 to become one of plural marriage's strongest advocates. Since many of his early disciples had looked to him as a monogamous counterweight to Young's polygamous version of Mormonism, Strang's decision to embrace plural marriage proved costly to him and his church.
Strang found his greatest support among the scattered outlying branches of Mormonism, which he frequently toured. His followers may have numbered as many as 12,000, at a time when Young's group had slightly over 50,000.Church Educational System, "Chapter 28: Utah in Isolation", Church History In The Fulness Of Times Student Manual (Salt Lake City, Utah: LDS Church, 2003). After Strang won a debate at a conference in Norway, Illinois, he converted the entire branch.Erekson, Keith and Newell, Lloyd: A Gathering Place for the Scandinavian People: Conversion, Retention and Gathering in Norway, Illinois (1842–1849), pp. 28–29. While in Voree, the Strangites published a periodical known as the Voree Herald. Strang's church also fielded a mission to England, one of the primary sources of early converts to Mormonism. This mission was led by Martin Harris, the financier of the Book of Mormon and one of its Three Witnesses. Harris proved a poor spokesman, however, and the English missions sided with the LDS Church led by Young.
Establishing a kingdom on Beaver Island Because the high price of land in the Voree area made it difficult for Latter Day Saints to "gather" there, Strang moved his church headquarters to Beaver Island in Lake Michigan. Here his disciples founded a town known as St. James (now St. James Township), and in 1850, openly established an ecclesiastical monarchy with Strang as the spiritual "king" of his church. The date of his coronation, July 8, is still mandated as one of the two most important days in the Strangite church calendar (the other is April 6, the anniversary of the founding of Smith's church).Strang, James J. (1856) Book of the Law of the Lord, Being a Translation From the Egyptian of the Law Given to Moses in Sinai. St. James: Royal Press, p. 293.
Contrary to popular belief, Strang never claimed to be king over Beaver Island, or any other geographical entity. Rather, he asserted that he was king over his church, which he saw as the one, true "Kingdom of God" prophesied in scripture and destined to spread over all the earth.Fitzpatrick, Doyle C. (1970) The King Strang Story: A Vindication of James J. Strang, the Beaver Island Mormon King. National Heritage, p. 199. The constitution of this kingdom was contained within the Book of the Law of the Lord, which Strang claimed to have translated from the Plates of Laban mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Originally published in 1851, this new book of Strangite scripture would be republished in a greatly expanded edition in 1856, just after Strang's murder. The book is still revered by Strangites today, remaining a vital part of their canon of scripture.
In addition to printing religious materials, the Strangite printing press on Beaver Island became the source of a new periodical, the Northern Islander, which was the first real newspaper in all of northern Michigan.Fitzpatrick, p. 208. As St. James became an entrepôt for Great Lakes shipping, the Strangites began to compete with more established commercial lake ports such as Mackinac Island. Tensions grew between Mormons on Beaver Island and their non-Mormon neighbors, which frequently exploded into violence. Accusations of thuggery and thievery were leveled by both parties against each other, compounded by ever-increasing dissension among some of Strang's own disciples, who chafed at what they saw as his increasingly tyrannical rule.
In 1854, Strang published Ancient and modern Michilimackinac, including an account of the controversy between Mackinac and the Mormons. Dale Morgan, a historian of the Latter Day Saint movement, writes: "Strang surveys the geography and history of Mackinac and the surrounding region, particularly the islands of Lake Michigan, and after giving an account of the Mormon settlement upon Big Beaver Island, addresses himself to the bitter controversies between the people of Mackinac and the Mormons. Although dealing with controverted matters and colored by Strang's indignation at the outrages he and his people had to endure, the pamphlet is a responsible source on the events of which it treats, and is also interesting for the considerable measure of learning it reveals in Strang".Dale L. Morgan, Bibliography, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite).