Messenger and Advocate

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The Messenger and Advocate (previously, the Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate) was an early Latter Day Saint periodical published monthly in Kirtland, Ohio from October 1834 to September 1837. It was the successor to The Evening and Morning Star and the predecessor to the Elders' Journal and later Times and Seasons.

The Messenger and Advocate was established after a mob had destroyed the printing press of the The Evening and Morning Star in Independence, Missouri on July 20, 1833. It was first issued in October 1834, with Oliver Cowdery as editor.

In May 1835, William W. Phelps and John Whitmer took over as editors from Cowdery. Then, Cowdery became editor again in March 1836 until February 1837, when the publication was transferred to Joseph Smith, Jr. and Sidney Rigdon. In October 1837, the publication was succeeded by the Elders' Journal.

[edit] Rigdonite Messenger and Advocate

In 1844, Sidney Rigdon asserted a claim to be the successor of Joseph Smith, Jr. and he organized a group of Latter Day Saints in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This group began to publish a periodical which revived the name, Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate in 1845. Ebenezer Robinson (founding publisher of Times and Seasons) was the publisher of this Rigdonite paper. After Rigdon changed the name of the church back to the original "Church of Christ," the periodical became the Messenger and Advocate of the Church of Christ.