Warren Parrish
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Warren Parrish (also Warren Parish) (1803–1887) was a leader in the early Latter Day Saint or Mormonism movement. He was a brother-in-law of David W. Patten and was baptized into the movement in May of 1833 by Brigham Young. Parrish subsequently participated in Zion's Camp and was made one of the Seventy. He was scribe and secretary to church founder and president Joseph Smith, Jr., primarily in Kirtland, Ohio from 1835–1837. In 1837 he became treasurer of the Kirtland Safety Society bank. When dissatisfaction with Smith grew over the failure of the bank, Parrish led a group of dissenters that formed a schism with Smith.
Parrish's group initially believed that the early practice of Mormonism had been true, but that Joseph Smith had become a fallen prophet and subsequent practices had not been inspired. They returned to the church's original name and are known as the Church of Christ (Parrishite). By the beginning of 1838, the Parrishite church had taken control of the Kirtland Temple and Smith and his loyalists had gathered to Far West, Missouri. Parish later lost faith in the Book of Mormon, which caused a falling out between himself and other leaders, including Martin Harris. Parrish became a non-Mormon minister and left Kirtland altogether. In 1850 he was living in Mendon, New York where he was listed as a "clergyman" by the census. By 1870, he had apparently lost his sanity and was living in Emporia, Kansas where he died in 1887.
[edit] References
- Steven L. Shields, Divergent Paths of the Restoration: A History of the Latter Day Saint Movement, Restoration Research, Los Angeles: 1990, p. 22. (1982 ed.: ISBN 0-942284-00-3)
- Lavina Fielding Anderson, Lucy's Book, Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 2001, p. 850.
