So spake the Almighty God of heaven
My mind has always been filled with dreams of royalty and power.
Four days after the United States celebrated its 74th birthday, he was coronated king. It was a public affair, full of pomp and circumstance – a stark contrast from his predecessor’s own ceremony reportedly held in secret, not long before. He donned a chest plate and red flannel robe, speckled in black. In a touch of modesty, he carried a wooden scepter and wore a metal crown. It wasn’t gold – but neither was it paper as one account reported. It was made of tin by the village blacksmith, with glass stars shimmering on the front.
There were 300 people in attendance for a date that future generations of followers would mark as the second most important on the calendar. The first still belonged to Joseph Smith, the man chosen by God, who, in turn, was said to have appointed James Jesse Strang. A letter, written shortly before Smith’s assassination at age 38, spelled the succession out clearly. Seeking an answer and seemingly aware of his impending death, the Earth dissolved into space, angels appeared and heavenly music filled the air.
“So spake the Almighty God of heaven,” Smith allegedly wrote. “Thy duty is made plain, and if thou lackest wisdom, ask of God, in whose hands I trust thee, and he shall give thee unsparingly, for if evil befall me thou shalt lead the flock to pleasant pastures. God sustain thee.”
It was, as such things go, rather straightforward. Though not everyone agreed. All of the flowery letters of unknown origins in the world wouldn’t have moved Brigham Young, following Smith’s pre-trail murder by a mob in the small Illinois town where Abraham Lincoln had unsuccessful defended a murder suspect a decade prior. Strang was not in attendance at the conference of elders that saw Young transforming into Smith’s visage during a speech.
Having only converted some months prior, he had quickly risen up the church ranks. Strang had spent his formative years convinced he was a man of great of destiny. “If our government is overthrown,” he wrote of the young country in his diary, “some master spirit may form another. May I be the one.” He would add, years later, “My mind has always been filled with dreams of royalty and power.”
It was the opportunity to witness the words of a living prophet first-hand that drew him to the new religion. He’d established an outpost in Wisconsin, should Smith and his followers be driven from their base in Illinois. It was there he received the note. Dated nine days before Smith’s death and postmarked from the church headquarters in Nauvoo, the "Letter of Appointment" directly contradicted Young’s claim that, "you no longer have a prophet, but you have apostles.”
The letter explains,
And now behold my servant James J. Strang hath come to thee from far for truth when he knew it not, and hath not rejected it, but had faith in thee, the Shepherd and Stone of Israel, and to him shall the gathering of the people be, for he shall plant a stake of Zion in Wisconsin, and I will establish it; and there shall my people have peace and rest and shall not be moved, for it shall be established on the prairie on White River, in the lands of Racine and Walworth; and behold my servants James and Aaron shall plant it, for I have given them wisdom, and Daniel shall stand in his lot on the hill beside the river, looking down on the prairie, and shall instruct my people, and shall plead with them face to face.
Strang’s claims were bolstered by his own report that angels had visited him the moment Smith died. A number of church members accepted him as the rightful successor, a list that included a number of apostles and members of Smith’s own family. Ultimately, however, his 12,000 adherents paled in comparison to the 50,000 claimed by Young.
Strang pressed on, leaving Wisconsin for Beaver Island on the northernmost tip of Lake Michigan. The 55-square-mile land mass was primarily inhabited by Irish immigrants by the time the Strangites arrived in 1848. They cleared land and established their enclave. The following year, Strang embraced polygamy, ultimately taking five wives and fathering 14 children. He published the Book of the Law of the Lord: Being a Translation from the Egyptian of the Law Given to Moses in Sinai, having come into possession of the eighteen brass plates of Laban prophesied in Smith’s writings.
His activities drew the scrutiny of President Millard Fillmore, though a subsequent trial only raised Strang’s profile. The king soon leveraged his notoriety with a unanimous vote for a seat in the Michigan House of Representatives. He would also win reelection – albeit by a narrower margin. The politician’s anti-liquor policies would ultimately draw the ire of locals.
It was, however, a pair of former followers who would hasten the end of the king’s reign.
“Two doctors left here yesterday, and today two or three ignorant persons say they are on an errand of mischief,” he reported in his own paper, The Islander, on May 22, 1856. We laugh in bitter scorn at all these threats.” Two weeks later, standing on the dock of the Beaver Island harbor, the pair descended on Strang, firing three bullets into his back.
Neither man was charged in the assassination.
Sources:
Assassination of a Michigan King The Life of James Jesse Strang by Roger Van Noord
James Jesse Strang: The Rise and Fall of Michigan's Mormon King by Don Faber
For His Was the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory … Briefly https://web.archive.org/web/20070929122436/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1970/4/1970_4_4.shtml