Mormon History

Mormon Splinter Groups - 1851

Saint Joseph Gazette – October 1, 1851

MORMONISM. -- A correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger, writing from Nauvoo, states that Mormonism at this day is as different and distinct from anything which the Prophet Smith ever taught or ordained, as Mahometanism is different from Christianity. The sect is already split into seven different bodies, each repudiating the other. They are as follows: "Rigdonites, who are the simon-pure of the sect, are scattered throughout the land; Brighamites, usurpers, occupying the valley of Utah; Strangites, at Force [sic - St. James?] Beaver Island, Lake Michigan; Hydeites, squatters on the unsurveyed public lands in Western Iowa -- Kanesville, their headquarters; Cutlerites, settled on Silver Creek, Mills county, Iowa; Brewsterites, at Socorro, New Mexico; Bishopites, at Kirkland, Lake county, Ohio. The Strangites, Brewsterites, and Bishopites are new lights; the Cutlerites are reformers; and the Hydeites are the Whig branch of the usurpers of the government of the church after the assassination of Prophet Smith."


Note: The writer missed listing the followers of Apostle Lyman Wight, living in Texas, and the followers of Apostle William Smith, living primarily in Illinois and Wisconsin. These two groups attempted a union in 1850, but it never went beyond the planning stages. William Smith's church soon split into what became Reorganized Latter Day Saints (incorporating some dissident Strangites) and a few, diehard Smithites, (whose group disintegrated during the mid-1850s).

 

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