Rigdonite

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Rigdonite is a name given to members of the Latter Day Saint movement who accept Sidney Rigdon as the successor in the church presidency to movement founder, Joseph Smith, Jr. The early history of the Rigdonite movement is shared with the History of the Latter Day Saint movement, but as of the 1844 succession crisis becomes distinct. Sidney Rigdon and other church leaders including Brigham Young and James J. Strang presented themselves as leaders of the movement and established rival church organizations. Rigdon's group was initially headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Rigdonites are sometimes referred to as "Pennsylvania Latter Day Saints" or "Pennsylvania Mormons." The primary surviving Rigdonite organization is the Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite).

[edit] History

[edit] Early Rigdonites

From his conversion in 1830 through 1844, Sidney Rigdon was arguably the most important and influential Latter Day Saint leader after the movement's founder himself, Joseph Smith Jr. When Smith was assassinated, Rigdon was the only surviving member of the church's highest executive council, the First Presidency. At a meeting of a large congregation of Latter Day Saints at church headquarters in Nauvoo, Illinois on August 6, 1844, Brigham Young was able to persuasively argue against Rigdon's bid to succeed to the presidency. Rigdon believed the decision carried no weight as the church's government previously had always claimed to be appointed by God through revelation and not elected by the membership. Young and the majority of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles took control of Nauvoo.

Undaunted, Rigdon relocated to Pittsburgh and established a rival organization of the church. Ebenezer Robinson, founding publisher of the Times and Seasons, became publisher of a new church periodical, the Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate, (later the Messenger and Advocate of the Church of Christ.) The Rigdonite paper, like the reformist Mormon paper before it, the Nauvoo Expositor sought to expose and condemn the practice of plural marriage. Church elder Benjamin Winchester commented that Young and the Quorum of the Twelve had:

"Excited a certain portion of the Church to reject Elder Rigdon (which is a most horrid outrage upon the laws of the same) from a fear that he would bring them to...justice for teaching and practicing the doctrine of polygamy."

The Rigdonites came to believe that Joseph Smith had become a fallen prophet when he began to practice polygamy and that, as a result the "Lord smote him for this thing — cut him off from the earth." (Messenger and Advocate, Jan. 1, 1845)

Rigdon toured the eastern branches of the church in late 1844 and early 1845, gathering leaders to his cause. He was joined by former members of the First Presidency, John C. Bennett and William Law and also by former Apostle William E. McLellin.

On April 6, 1845 — fifteen years after the original organization of the church — Rigdon presided over a General Conference of Rigdonite Latter Day Saints in Pittsburgh, establishing a new hierarchy. He himself was sustained as President of the Church. The new Quorum of the Twelve Apostles consisted of: William E. McLellin, George W. Robinson, Benjamin Winchester, James Blakeslee, Josiah Ells, Hugh Herringshaw, David L. Lathrop, Jeremiah Hatch, Jr., E.R. Swackhammer, Willaim Small, Samuel Bennett. Carvel Rigdon became Presiding Patriarch, and a Standing High Council, Quorum of the Seventy, Presiding Bishopric, and other quorum presidencies were established. In addition, Rigdon called seventy-three men and boys to a "Grand Council," perhaps an adaptation of the Council of Fifty. Also at the conference, the new church organization formally returned its name to the 1830 church's original name, the "Church of Christ."

At a General Conference held that fall in Philadelphia, Rigdon announced that the church would re-establish a communitarian society on what was named "Adventure Farm" near Greencastle, Pennsylvania. Like many attempts to live the Law of Consecration in the Latter Day Saint movement, this experiment proved a failure. Rigdonite apostles William E. McLellin and Benjamin Winchester grew disgusted with Rigdon's leadership and found a new church president and organization in the person of David Whitmer and the Church of Christ (Whitmerite). One of the replacements in the Quorum was a certain William Bickerton. Bickerton, however, disagreed with Rigdon's proposed move to Greencastle and severed his ties to the Church. Bickerton remained in Monongahela, Pennsylvania, and never moved to Greencastle. By April 1847, the Adventure Farm community had collapsed and Rigdon had abandoned his flock, living out the rest of his life on the charity of relatives in New York state.

Bickerton continued to live in the Monongahela area and in 1849 began meeting informally with other believers whom he had converted to the faith, few of which had ever been associated with Rigdon. In 1862, he formally organized his Pennsylvania followers into the Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite).

[edit] References

• Van Wagoner, Richard S.: Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess.
• Rigdon, Sidney, et al: An Appeal to the Latter Day Saints (1863).
• William H. Cadman, A History of the Church of Jesus Christ, Monongahela, PA: The Church of Jesus Christ, 1945.