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Mormonism

The Strange Life of James Jesse Strang, New York’s Other Mormon Leader

December 22, 2021 by John Warren 1 Comment

Martyrdom of Joseph and Hiram Smith in Carthage jail, June 27th, 1844 G W Fasel lithograph by C G Crehen printed by Nagel and Weingaertner, NY“I prophesy in the name of the Lord God of Israel, unless the United States redress the wrongs committed upon the Saints in the state of Missouri and punish the crimes committed by her officers that in a few years the government will be utterly overthrown and wasted, and there will not be so much as a potsherd left.”

So it was that Sharon, Vermont native Joseph Smith, who supposed himself a prophet of God and founded what is now the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (informally the LDS or Mormon Church), rather mistakenly announced the demise of these United States on May 6, 1843.

It would be Smith however, who met an untimely fate, murdered and mutilated by a mob of vigilantes in Illinois on June 27, 1844. In the feud that erupted after his death, native New Yorker James Jesse Strang would proclaim himself Smith’s appointed successor. [Read more…] about The Strange Life of James Jesse Strang, New York’s Other Mormon Leader

Filed Under: History, Western NY Tagged With: Cayuga County, Chautauqua County, Crime and Justice, Cultural History, Mormonism, Political History, Religious History, Scipio

The New York Origins of Mormonism

May 7, 2018 by Jack Kelly 1 Comment

E.B. Grandin Print ShopSixteen inches of snow in June. Killing frosts in August. The mystifying weather, known as eighteen-hundred-and-froze-to-death, swept the Northeast in 1816. Unbeknownst to those who suffered from it, the climactic quirk was the result of a volcanic eruption in the distant Dutch East Indies a year earlier.

That summer, Joseph Smith Sr. threw in the towel. The Vermont farmer joined the exodus of his neighbors who were determined to find a life with more promise than they could scratch from the rocky New England hill country. It was rumored that land was more fertile in the western New York State. Men there were already surveying for a canal to connect that country to East Coast markets. [Read more…] about The New York Origins of Mormonism

Filed Under: History, Mohawk Valley, Western NY Tagged With: Auburn, Erie Canal, Mormonism, Palmyra, Religion, Wayne County

Joseph Smith and the Founding of Mormonism

September 9, 2015 by Liz Covart 1 Comment

ben_franklins_worldIn this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World, Spencer McBride, an editor with the Joseph Smith Papers Documentary Editing Project, joins us to explore the life of Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism and the Church of Latter Day Saints. You can listen to the podcast here: www.benfranklinsworld.com/045

[Read more…] about Joseph Smith and the Founding of Mormonism

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Joseph Smith, Mormonism, Podcasts, Religious History

Upstate Cauldron: Eccentric Spiritual Movements in Early NYS

June 20, 2015 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Upstate Cauldron - Eccentric Spiritual Movements in Early New YorkJoscelyn Godwin’s Upstate Cauldron: Eccentric Spiritual Movements in Early New York State (SUNY Press, 2015) is an outstanding guide to the phenomenal crop of prophets, mediums, sects, cults, utopian communities, and spiritual leaders that arose in Upstate New York from 1776 to 1914.

Along with the best known of these, such as the Shakers, Mormons, and Spiritualists, Upstate Cauldron explores more than forty other spiritual leaders or groups, some of them virtually unknown. [Read more…] about Upstate Cauldron: Eccentric Spiritual Movements in Early NYS

Filed Under: Books, History Tagged With: Cultural History, Mormonism, Religious History, Shakers, Spiritualism

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