Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 484 - The King of Beaver Island

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

You read that title right. Are you familiar with the story of James Strang? A blatant con artist who converted to Mormonism shortly before Joseph Smith's assassination who used a forged letter and some "discovered" brass plates to establish himself as Smith's legitimate heir, and then convinced hundreds of followers to move to Beaver Island in Lake Michigan where they crowned him king in 1850 and formed a small army that included pirates? This true story is wonderfully bonkers. Hail Nimrod! Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, do you remember that one time when a band of rogue Mormons who decided not to follow Brigham Young to Utah, instead followed a young lawyer from upstate New York who dreamed as a teen of being a world leader on par with Napoleon Bonaparte and Julius Caesar to a place called Beaver Island in Lake Michigan, where he would be crowned king in a low-rent coronation ceremony, then forced existing island inhabitants to either convert and pay him as the resident profit or be forced to leave the island? Remember when this guy's followers became lake pirates and raided local fishermen's bounties and attack people along the shore as far away as Milwaukee? No? Well, do I have one hell of a tale waiting for you then? The insane true story

of James Strang, King James of Beaver Island, a man who really did run a little kingdom that lived by their own laws on an island inside America's borders for years, right here, right now, on this part historical, part cult, cult, cult edition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald, and you're listening to TimeSuck. You're listening to TimeSuck. Happy Monday, and welcome or welcome back to The Cult of the Curious. I'm Dan Cummins. Sir Sucks a Lot.

Former Moka addict, current sugar addict, probably actual work addict. And you are listening to TimeSuck. Hail Nimrod, hail Lucifina, praise. please be to Good Boy Bojangles and Glory B to Triple M. I'm so excited to share the story with you. I laughed so many times while getting this ready to record over the past few days. It is so delightfully absurd. We're heading back to the land of Mormonism for this one. Mormon suckers, if you could handle that old episode on the history of Mormonism, I think you'll be able to handle this one just fine. I mean, you know that regardless of what the religion means to you and what it is today, its documented history is pretty fucking weird.

We've, of course, not only covered Mormonism directly before, but also in adjacent ways, like most recently in our episode about Mormon housewife and satanic panic spreader and war on drug soldier Beatrice Sparks, the writer of the fiction presented as truth, Go Ask Alice, as well as an episode on Lori Vallow, the school of the prophets cult. The Children of Thundercult, Jeffrey Lundgren, that two-parter, and more. There are so many other Mormon-adjacent topics based essentially on some grifter who made a bunch of shit up. Beatrice Sparks forced a for, excuse me, teenage diaries, Lori Vallow, Jeffrey Lungan, and others took the Mormon concept of personal, continuous revelation, the idea that God is speaking to us continually and can speak directly to you, and created an apocalyptic cosplay group. The School of the Prophets used divine revelation to justify polygamy. Children of Thunder, that's fucking too much to get into. Why does this kind of shit happen so often around Mormonism?

Well, while the teachings of all sorts of religions are twisted by people trying to use God to justify all sorts of horrible selfish shit that they want to do, Mormonism founder Joseph Smith made this especially easy to do. We're continuing revelation. It made God still speaking directly to the faith. faithful a thing, revealing cosmic mysteries and personal destinies, and he was doing that shit in the U.S. of A. God had never been more American. Back in 1830, Smith created an immersive world, or God created one, you know, through him, where angels and demons, you know, battled it out along the ridges, valleys, and mountains of frontier America, where the righteous Nephites

and the evil Lamanites once fought, where Mormons would soon head west to reclaim an American paradise known as Zion, for many dissatisfied with conventional religion, or facing ostracism from polite society because of addiction or debts or unconventional choices. Mormonism wasn't only a religion that would accept them. It was also a theological playground where they could have a part in the story of America that was unfolding right before their eyes. Basically, it was a large-scale Dungeons and Dragons game. And you could be accepted into this large-scale D&D game as long as you got baptized and agreed to tie Joseph Smith, quote, all your surplus property, followed by an annual payment of one-tenth of all your interest,

according to Doctrine and Covenants 119, which Smith recorded in July of 1838. Smith, if not a genuine prophet, as Mormons, I of course understand, believe, was a master world builder. He took the religious anxieties, frontier hopes, and national myth-making of early America, and wove it into a story that felt alive, immediate, and participatory. And he opened a door for his followers to add to that world building, to create new revelations, to hear new messages from God. How exciting! And since 1830, people have been doing exactly that. They don't, however, usually claim to be the next Joseph Smith, but the King of Beaver Island did. Who would run the LDS Church after Smith's assassination in 1844 was pretty conclusively settled when Brigham Young took control and led the Mormons west to Utah, but not totally. totally conclusively settled for everyone, a few would form splinter groups like James Strang. Strang was so inspired by what Smith had managed to do, mobilize, thousands of people, get them to uproot their lives, to buy land in remote places where they had no history,

no family, no safety net, to work on Mormon publications and missions to donate their hard-earned money to the church. He wanted to duplicate what Smith had done. Maybe take things even further. He wanted to be crowned a true king. The King of Beaver Island, a tale that will be nearly entirely unfolded and revealed in today's time-suck timeline. Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time-suck timeline. hear ye hear ye king james jesse strang was born march 21st 1813 he wasn't born a king but that is when he was born while wikipedia lists him as being born in uh scipio uh cuyuga county i want to say it's like cuyahoga or something i don't know not familiar with this county uh keuga county new york our main source for today

the king of confidence by miles harvey says he was born in randolph new york a town some 200 miles away, and we feel confident that Wikipedia is wrong. This distinction actually matters because Western New York and Randolph is just about as west as you can get was a tremendous influence on the man that James Jesse Strang would become. Though relatively quiet today, Western New York was in those days a region undergoing seismic shifts in identity, culturally, economically, religiously. The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River, transforming the region into one of the most dynamic corridors in the Young Republic.

Long before railroads emerged to dominate transportation, this engineering feat allowed manufactured goods to pour westward into newly developing territories while agricultural products, timber and other raw materials surged east towards coastal markets. In other words, this area was a critical zone for the United States development into an expansive, self-sustaining nation. The canal also became what historians have called a psychic highway. transporting messages from the future and the land of the dead, I mean migrants, into a kind of alternate universe,

one where rigid traditions lost their social form and new ideas could be experimented with. Many of the great social movements of the 19th century, abolition, women's suffrage, temperance, they were finding their first footholds in the culture in this particular area as people worked out what it meant to participate in the machinery of making the country bigger and better. But even more than social justice movements, the area was a hotbed for religion, since, of course, people were seeking to make sense of all the changes.

So many different religious movements lit up western New York that the area would soon become known as the burned-over district. And actually, we've talked about this district several times before, but it's been a minute. The Latter-day Saints,

aka Mormons, the Millerite movement that would give birth to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, even the Ouija Board loving spiritualist movement, the Fox Sisters, was all born in this area. in the first half of the 19th century. And this was where James Strang was born. And he grew up with all of these other new spiritual movements happening around him.

It was an interesting time for him to live there. His parents, Clement and Abigail Strang, were charter members of a Baptist church in Forestville, New York, where James was raised on a farm where his older, or excuse me, with his older brother, David, and his younger sister, Myra Et. Myraet. You don't hear that name a lot these days. It really took off. As a kid, James had been sickly, once so close to death that his parents had actually made arrangements to buy a coffin.

It's fucking crazy of true. If, and obviously, I'm hoping that I never have to face this, but if one of my kids got really, really sick and it looked like they could die, I'm still holding off on making arrangements for a coffin. Like, I feel like that's only something you do after someone, especially a child, is definitively gone. it seems a little macab, right? Daddy, daddy, why is there a man at the door carrying a me-sized coffin? Oh, that, that's, uh, no, that's, that's not a coffin. No, that's a, that's a fun new fort we just got for you. To hide in.

That's fun, right? Come on, lay down in it. Make sure it fits. But first, let's put this little black suit on you. Powder up your face a little bit, maybe lie real still. Let me put some coins over your eyes. Just a little test run. Yeah, pretty dark.

As a result of nearly dying for the rest of the, his life, James would claim to feel, quote, a kind of creeping sensation akin to terror when he recalled his lonely childhood. Long weary days, I sat upon the floor thinking, thine thinking, my mind wandered over fields that old men shrink from. Okay. Growing up, James rarely attended school, and even when he did, teachers paid him scant attention, convinced he was scarcely more than idiotic, he wrote. But all that isolation, all that thinking, thinking, thinking, left him with an overwrought fantasy life. I can relate to that. He began to imagine a new self, began to construct a future in which a lonely farm boy would inspire love and adulation. In other

words, he felt like he was a nobody and he wanted to be a somebody, a tale as old as time, right, perfectly normal. In James's Baptist community, however, this was a no-go. This was not seen as normal. Baptists of that era tended to emphasize personal piety and moral integrity, vanity, pride and appearance, social status, or worldly accomplishments, was generally seen as a spiritual danger. It was taboo, a distracted one from their devotion to God. The focus was instead on humility, self-discipline, simple living, none of which appealed to James, none of which would help him on his path to recognition, so it wasn't feeling

that shit. But there was a different type of person in the Burndover district who was getting a lot of personal recognition, Joseph Smith. Smith was already more controversial than many of the leaders of other movements that emerged from the early 19th century alongside it, like shakerism, which while having been established in England in the late 18th century, didn't start picking up steam until its days in the burned over district. Joseph was no learned scholar. He had never studied in the hallowed halls of America's great institutions of religious learning, places like Princeton and Yale, which have both been founded by clergymen, the Sharon, Vermont native, excuse me, had spent most of his

life as a down-and-out drifter, a man who hunted for buried treasure with a divining rod, who was described by many of those who knew him as indolent, ignorant, and shiftless. But then instead of continuing to spend his life on the margins, Joseph claimed to be singled out by God to find a new church, a church that would make sense of the 2,000-year-old word of the Bible with the new continent of America, especially in regards to its original inhabitants, the Native Americans. This was, of course, the Book of Mormon, supposedly given to Joseph by the angel Moronai in a series of golden plates

that he uncovered from a grove of trees in Palmyra and formed into the tomb we know today. Immediately, some people could tell that maybe there was something like a bit fishy with Smith's story. For one thing, wasn't it convenient that the tablets Moronai spoke of just happened to be a few miles from Smith's house?

Also, wasn't it very weird that the tablets were written in, quote, reformed Egyptian, a language nobody had ever heard of, a language nobody has still ever heard of because it does not exist. Didn't exist then, doesn't exist now. And wasn't as strange that Joseph could read Reformed Egyptian, thanks to a supernatural pair of sear stones called the Yerum and the Thumman, or that he was somehow able to produce this new Bible nearly 600 pages long in less than three months, or that after he was done translating the golden tablets, he gave them back to the angel Maroni, thus eliminating any means of anyone, literally, ever independently conclusively

verifying the story told by a man who would be arrested at least 42 times in his short life for mostly financial con artisti, excuse me, type crimes. For some, the fraud was obvious. Contemporary accounts noted that the original text of the Book of Mormon repeated the phrase, it came to pass, an estimated 2,000 times. Famed humorous Mark Twain called it chloroform in print. He found it painfully boring. An article in the Palmyra Freeman called it, quote, the greatest piece of superstition that has come to our knowledge. And yet somehow, despite what many saw as a blatantly painfully obvious grift

created by a known con artist Smith's star still rose. It freaking soared. He started drawing large crowds of enthusiastic followers, people who had grown up hearing stories about battles with Native American tribes, who had crossed vast and terrifying American landscapes that were so dead. different from Europe, which have been farmed and cultivated for centuries, of course. There were people who had left everything behind to start a new life in the United States or their parents had or their grandparents had, and they were still wondering what this new

place meant for them. What role would they play in America's formation? What role did God want them to play in it? Well, Joseph Smith had answers for them. The book of Mormon told the story of a centuries-long fractricidal struggle between two branches of an ancient Israelite clan that had fled Jerusalem. just before the Babylonian captivity, eventually winding up in the Americas. One of these tribes, a bunch of naughty boys, who probably didn't even go peeping and a potty.

The idolatrous, dark-skinned laminites subsequently wiped out the other people, the righteous, fair-skinned, good boys, and good girls, the Nephites. But not before a Nephite prophet named Mormon, and his son Moronai managed to compile the history of his doomed people on some golden plates around 400 CE. Golden plates. Interesting material to write on. Also interesting that when America, not that people didn't write on gold in ancient times, they did, also interesting that when America was settled over a thousand years later,

zero natives living anywhere near what's now New York State had ever developed an advanced written language. But more important than the convoluted religious history was the main idea, God spoke here, in America, to them. Anyone who was listening was part of a grand unfolding drama linking ancient prophets to a nation barely half a century old. It was a story big enough to make the rough cabins and muddy roads seem like temporary sacrifices on the way to an internal city, Zion, that would have room for the spiritually dissatisfied, the financially struggling, and the socially displaced.

Above all, the story offered them the comforting idea that the chaos of the young republic was not a sign that something had gone wrong. It was a sign that something was going right. And if they braved at all, their reward would be even better than the heaven that conventional Christianity promised. they would literally become gods as man now is God once was

as God now is man may be for over a decade Smith's followers would gather in barns and fields to hear him speak they pooled their meager savings to support the new church and they followed him from town to town and some of them did a lot more than follow him some of them got baptized

by little Joseph as well he fucked a bunch of them to be clear historical and church sources a state he had up to 40 wives. And because of that, one could make the argument that the world building he did was a lot less about having God's ear and a lot more about having the faithfuls, you know, pussies. Everywhere that Smith and his followers went, they were met with skepticism or outright violence, and for many this only deepened their faith that they were doing

something right. After all, why would they be facing so much pushback unless they were on the right path. If so many people hate us, we must be doing something right. Such strange logic, right? I mean, sometimes that's true. But it is a weird logic. And you can find examples of it being employed in all manner of belief systems at any point in history, including the history being made today. A lot of times if a lot of people hate you, it's for good reason. But anyway, there would be so much pushback. And it began almost immediately. The year strang turned 17, Smith's Book of Mormon, rolled off the plates 5888 pages selling for $1.25 a pop, and the initial reception to the book was brutal.

The Rochester Daily Advertiser and Telegraph described it as a, quote, blasphemous work of fraud, adding that a viler imposition has never been practiced. The Fredonia censor, a paper published about 10 miles from the straying family farm, called Smith a, quote, miserable imposter and predicted that the deluded followers of of Joe Smith's Bible speculation would soon come to their senses and reason would resume again. That prediction was a bit off. There's now over 17 million Mormons in the world. However, young James likely agreed with the criticism of Joseph Smith at the time.

If he didn't agree with the criticism of Mormonism specifically, he did believe in criticizing all religion. I am a perfect atheist, he wrote in his diary at the time. But although he'd given up on religion for the moment, James had not given up on becoming someone famous, esteemed, all right? His habit showed a person who was obsessed with differentiating himself in any way he could. For example, at 19, he started recording his diary using a cipher he had created. And his secret code cracked decades later, he stretched or sketched out plans to marry a 13-year-old Princess Victoria, heir to the British Crown. I shall try, he wrote, if there is the least chance. He also vowed to become a priest, a lawyer, a conqueror, and a

legislator he predicted a civil war between the north and the south one he would hope uh or one he hoped to use to his advantage writing amidst all the evils of the disturbances of our national affairs there is one consolation that is if that is if our government is overthrown some master's spirit may form another may i be the one i tremble when i write but it is true i tremble when i write he's such a drama queen This kid was like a stereotypical over-the-top theater kid just without the theater

For now however James Strang had to get a job at this point in his life A few months shy of his 20th birthday Strang began studying law With a local attorney Learning the profession By doing some grunt work

In exchange for the opportunity To read law books In the Lawyers Library And to observe him in court With his hands-on legal education He was admitted to the New York Bar In 1836 After which he did open his own

law practice, but it wouldn't be very successful. To pick up some extra cash, he also worked as a U.S. Postmaster, a part-time patronage job he received for supporting Democratic candidates. This position was considered a good jumping off point for young men who wanted to make their way into political life. Indeed, Abraham Lincoln, while serving as postmaster of New Salem, Illinois, was elected to the State General Assembly at the age of 25. But the same would not happen for the ambitious young James Strang. Unlike Honest A, Strang's time and office was marred by accusations of corruption. And in 1841, after the Whigs took control of the White House,

he was one of more than a thousand postmasters appointed by the damned demoncrats who were then unceremoniously removed from office. There's no easy equivalent for the word Republican, is there? Like, with demoncrat. Demoncrat is just right there waiting. What's the equivalent? Republican? funny but not as powerful.

Republican, not bad, but not as good as demoncrat. Anyway, to make matters worse, the U.S. Treasury informed him that he owed the government $14.41 for overpayments during his time and office, approximately $500 today. Tad insult injury strength's personal life was not going well either. Since his teen years, he would later write, he had been, quote, inclined to a certain evil, which is easier avoided than correct it. And that was this drama queen's way of saying that he, you know, had a strong sexual appetite. Inclined to a certain evil, which is easier avoided than correct it.

One affair with an older woman had almost certainly involved sex. There may have been similar intimacies with some girlfriends. But as for his wife, Mary, the daughter of a construction contractor, Strang had no violent passions, he wrote. Sounds like they were a terrible match. Hard to make a marriage work, if right out the gate. You don't have much interest in having sex with your partner. Unless you're both, I guess, asexual.

Years later, one of the couple's daughters would describe the 1836 wedding, writing, ushered in by rain and sleet and snow, the November wind and gloom, a fit precursor for the tragic life of Mary Abigail Content Pierce. It's quite the name. I think it's probably content. Content, probably content instead of content. What's your name? Mr. Content.

It's not content? Who could have imagined? As they walked up the aisle to the altar that Sunday morning, the sorrow and trouble, the heartache and woe and pain the years were holding for her, they wrote. Part of that woe and pain came from James' debts. In the early 1830s, Strang had tried to make himself into a real estate mogul, joining thousands of other Americans

who had gambled their life savings on rising land values. This boom had begun in 1830 when the federal government started one of the most massive sales of public assets in U.S. history. By 1836, some 72,000 square miles of land. land had gone from public to private hands, much of it in territory opened to settlement after the removal of Native Americans. This, of course, made land more expensive. Some time tracks worth $500 an acre would sell the following year for $10,000 an acre. That is some

serious return on investment. As long as those prices kept climbing, small-time speculators like String, you know, they could dream of making a fortune. Unfortunately, the panic of 1837 brought this frenzy to a dead stop. It would be the deepest, longest, lasting economic crisis the young country had yet faced, and it hurtled countless Americans into sudden financial ruin. To make things worse, the boom years had been built on IOUs. And once the bubble popped, everybody owed everybody, but nobody had the hard cash to pay anybody. Shuffling, a term for evasions, obfuscations, dodges, and deceptions employed by debtors, suddenly became the new national pastime. And soon, nobody would know how to do it better than straying. He'd pay one

creditor with a bank note from a bank that no longer existed, while attempting to convince another that somebody had stolen a payment after he'd already put it in the mail. To support that claim, he not only offered a probable route the letter had traveled, but a theory about the presumptive theft where it had taken place. He quickly realized as he scammed more and more people doing this that he had a gift for bullshit for convincing others of even the most outlandish assertations, but over time, as one after another of those claims proved to be false, fewer and fewer locals were willing again to take him at his word. His final job in the area,

as editor and publisher of a weekly newspaper called the Randolph Herald wrote, lasted less than a year. By that time, he began to try and pull off a new type of fraud. He attempted a swindle involving a farm he, quote, pretended to own in the interior of Ohio.

In the words of one newspaper near his hometown, he managed to sell this non-existent property to an unsuspecting purchaser who then, quote, removed to Ohio, but was unable to find the farm he had bought. That is so fucked up. Selling some settler a land that didn't exist, that he didn't know, right?

Then, you know, they don't realize that until they've taken their family out west in some covered wagon, I'm guessing, that probably has, like, all the shit they own inside of it. That's a good way to get people's lives ruined when they end up far from home, with no home, and possibly very little to no money. Well, finding no evidence that the seller owned

any land in the county, the enraged buyer returned to New York, York procured a warrant and had James arrested. He's lucky he didn't get shot. Shortly after being detained, James Jesse Strang, not Jesse James, the outlaw, escaped by making up some excuse for he wished to step upstairs and was permitted to do so since which the officer has not seen him published a local paper. So much easier to break out of jail back then. Hey, can I go up these stairs? I have to go to the bathroom. They're like, yeah, sure. And then you just leave. All of this, according to the newspaper writer made him the greatest scoundrel in all the land another drama queen

i feel like based on all the old newspaper accounts i've read over the years the 19th century was just a very dramatic time dude's not just a scoundrel he's the greatest scoundrel in all the land i picture somebody tilting their head back right tossing their hand to their forehead when they say that while looking up and away he's the greatest scoundrel in all the land and now james scandrel uh stragg, or straying, decides that it's time to get the hell out of Dodge. No, in August of 1843, James Mary and their two children disappeared from Randolph, New York, and it seemed like they might have ended up dying as they fled. The next that was heard of him, noted the local paper that are reported on his disappearance.

A coat, hats, and some papers containing his name and residence were found in the weeds in one of the eastern counties of the state, and the leave so stirred up as to convey the impression there had been a severe struggle and the suspicion of men. murder. But of course, String and company were alive and well. Strang was planning his next move after faking his own death. His original intention was to make a fortune in what had been one of the era's fastest growing industries, the construction of canals. String hoped to use his father-in-law, William L. Pierce, to get work as a contractor on the Illinois and Michigan canal, an ambitious effort to link to Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. Some, since

canals were massive undertakings, they were usually funded by individual states and run by political appointees making the system ripe for corruption and it was corrupt political appointees could and did give out contracts to whomever they wanted and they often skimmed a little off the top for themselves or quite a bit off the top for themselves as william hoped to do it would have been the perfect career for a man like string because if he were caught he could just move on to any one of the numerous other canal projects taking place across the country and try and repeat it right scam get paid move to new town before scam is uncovered wash, rinse, repeat.

Unfortunately for him, by the time, Straying made it to Illinois in the fall of 1843, there was a two-year suspension of work on the Illinois-Michigan Canal due to financial problems in the state. The grift had been placed on pause. He saw no reason to hang around Illinois, so he decamped north for Burlington, Wisconsin,

where the family would stay in a house that belonged to Benjamin Pierce, Mary's uncle. Makes sense. If you're low on funds, because you're in between scams, mooch off some family. shortly after the family's arrival in burlington his eldest daughter just five years old fell ill and died an event that quote seemed to wear heavily on him in the words of straying sister well yeah i would i would hope

that would weigh heavily on him uh be strange if his reaction to his daughter his five-year-old daughter dying was just a no big whoop can you imagine if somebody's child died and you offer them condolences and they literally replied just flatly with no big whoop like a shoulder short drug no big whoop i'm fine that is darkly hilarious to me my god mark uh there's no words i'm so sorry for your loss just let me know if there's anything i can do truly anything at all no big whoop mark don't hide your grief come on stop don't run away from it that's not healthy it's okay to be devastated you should be chill bro we still got two kids left no big whoop truly possibly to pull himself out of his grief straying attempted to revive his legal career arguing cases

in both Wisconsin and Illinois now. He's a law-abiding citizen again, kind of, on the straight and narrow, maybe. The future king of Beaver Island will never again besmirch his royal legacy. Soon a legal case required James to travel to Ottawa, Illinois,

and there he happened to meet up with one of his Mormon neighbors from Burlington, who persuaded him to make a 175-mile detour, quite the detour, to detour to Navu to hear Joseph Smith preach. Navu was at the moment, bustling, a fast-growing city of more than 10,000 residents, from which a huge Greek revival-style temple was beginning to rise over the Mississippi River. The town had just 2,450 residents in 1840, would have only 1,1,130 residents a decade later in 1850.

But nonsensus data indicates Navu had approximately 12,000 people in 1845. It was quite the short-lived spike. The Mormons didn't stay there long before they were mostly run out of the state. A string did much care for Mormonism when he and his family arrived there, but the town itself was a wonder for him to behold. And before we talk about that town, time for today's first to two mid-show sponsor breaks. If you don't want to hear these ads ever again, please sign up to be a space lizard on Patreon. Big thanks to our space lizards. They help us make monthly charitable contributions.

They get the catalog ad-free, episodes three days early and more. Thanks for listening to our sponsors. Hope you heard a deal that makes sense for you. and now let's return to the fall of 1843 when James Strang sees Joseph Smith's Navu, Illinois, and thinks to himself, I want that. Founded just five years earlier, after Joseph Smith and his disciples had been forced to flee earlier headquarters in both Ohio and Missouri under the threat of violence. Navu now had two sawmills, a flour mill, a foundry, a brewery, a brick factory, a tannery, a book bindery, and even randomly a match factory. All over residents were erecting houses of brick, stone, and lumber, some of them Americans, many of them English, all people who have been inspired to give up their old lives for new ones under the spiritual guidance of one prophet Joseph Smith. We don't know what straying initially thought of Smith because he didn't write that down.

Did he suddenly find his heart open to religion? Something he had detested for almost half his life now when he heard the Vermonter preach? Or was the sermon besides the point? Did he look at all those residents buying up property and think of something? something else like money, money, money. Many years later, an acquaintance would insist that it was simple greed and nothing else. That was the true motivation for what came next. This person would say that Strang dreamed up a simple real estate swindled, the area he had tried to operate in and varying degrees of legitimacy for years now. Apparently, his idea was to draw Mormons to

Burlington, thus drastically inflating local property prices. Ideally, Joseph Smith would say that Burlington, Wisconsin, was to be Mormon's next new home, their new Zion. no clue why they'd agree to that when they had spent the last five years setting things up in Navu but that's what he wanted. String could then simply buy up all the property and sell it as a massive profit. Perhaps to that end

or perhaps because he was truly convinced Smith preached the truth on February 25th, 1844, Strang went to the basement of Navu's unfinished temple where in a wooden font resting on 12 wooden oxen he was baptized by Joseph Smith. Week later

On March 3rd, he was ordained as an elder of the church by Hiram Smith, the prophet's older brother, and then it was back to Wisconsin. Strang's visit ended in late March, early April, during which time, long-simmering antagonism between city residents and their neighbors reached a full boil, with anti-Mormon agitators demanding decisive action against what the New York Sun called a great military despotism, growing up in the fertile West. Could things hold on long enough for James to launch his scheme, though? long enough to get Joseph Smith to endorse Burlington, Wisconsin, home of the Burlington demons, the high school Dallas Cowboys Great, or the high school that Dallas Cowboys Great Tony Romo would play quarterback for, by the way, as the new Zion. No, Mormons were making too many people way too fucking nervous. In Navu Smith wasn't only a religious leader, he was also

the mayor, the commander of the Navu Legion, which was a legally chartered militia of several thousand men now, and to top it all off a candidate for the U.S. presidency in 1844. many people who had long been suspicious of the Mormon's way of life, this was looking like an imminent takeover. Dude was building an army, literally, clearly long for a lot more power, and that made him nervous. In June of 1844, dissenting former members of the church, together with non-Mormon critics, published a newspaper called the Navu Expositor. The first and only issue accused Smith of abusing political power, secretly practicing plural marriage, which he surely did, with girls as young as 14, and manipulating church finance.

witnesses. Rita stealing from his followers. Smith did not gain any sympathy when the Navu City Council with Smith as its mayor then declared the paper a public nuisance and ordered its press literally destroyed in retaliation for these accusations. Now anti-Mormon militias started to mobilize as local leaders from nearby towns demanded that Smith be arrested. Smith briefly fled Navu towards Iowa, but Mormons begged him to come back and face the charges to prevent the situation for becoming an all-out war. A war they didn't all have. the resources to flee from, like Smith did. So on June 25th, 1844, Joseph Smith and his brother Hiram surrendered to the state

militia at Carthage, Illinois. Originally, they were to be tried for the crime of rioting for destroying the expositors press. But shortly after they arrived, the charges were escalated to treason against the state of Illinois, based on Smith's earlier call to mobilize the Navu Legion during the crisis. And with that, Smith was booked into Carthage jail under guard. and very quickly an angry armed mob formed full of those who wanted to

personally deal out what they felt like was justice rather than wait for any court's decision and on June 27th in Carthage around 5 o'clock in the evening a mob emerged from the woods and crept single file along an old rail fence toward the town jail when the men reached the jail

they surrounded it and a host of them rushed the entrance one of the guards fired shots from the front steps but no one in the mob fell after which the men pushed past the guard stormed up the stairs blasting their weapons as they stumbled toward a second-story room. Barricaded inside was their target, 38-year-old Joseph Smith.

And in the instant before the assailants reached his room, he readied a six-shooter, smuggled in by one of his supporters. Suddenly bullets ripped to the wooden door, splinters flew, one of the other prisoners slumped to the floor, uttering, I'm a dead man. The mob pushed into the room, and Joseph Smith fired his guns, but there were too many for him to get them all, and he was quickly out of bullets.

So he rushed to an open window, flexed to jump, and was shot in the back. Simultaneously from below, shots ripped into his chest. Then somebody fired into his back again, and he yelled out as he plummeted towards the earth, O Lord, my God, and the founder of Mormonism was dead. But you know what?

No big whoop. All part of the plan. If you believe this next part of the narrative, this death sent an angel into flight, and that angel flew from Navu to Wisconsin, north from Carthage, over vast stretches of prairie and early squared off fields

over little towns and dusty roads until it reached a settlement to the junction of the White and Fox rivers 40 miles southwest of the side of Milwaukee still two years away from incorporating. There, the angel came upon one of the local citizens, a short man with intense brown eyes. As the man would later report,

the angel anointed his bald head with oil, sanctified him as his successor to Joseph Smith, and issued him a sacred commission. God bless him. Thesseth thee with the greatness of everlasting priesthood. He puteth might and glory and majesty upon thee. Thou shalt preach righteousness and the sublime mysteries in the ears of many people and shall bring the gospel to many who have not known it and to the nations are far off.

While the day of the wicked abideth, shalt thou prepare a refuge for the oppressed and for the poor and needy. Unto thee shall they come, and their brethren who are scattered shall come with them, and the destruction of the ungodly shall quickly follow for it already worketh. Go thy way and be strong. Gotta love how angels speak. A lot of these, a lot of thys. Instead of immediately sending this message,

I wonder why that angel didn't use their angel powers to, I don't know, fly Joseph out of jail to safety before the mob got him. July 9th, 1844, a letter from a dead man arrived to the post office in Burlington, Wisconsin. Addressed to Mr. James J. Strang. It had been postmarked three weeks earlier, in the Mormon city of Navu, Illinois. The dead man was Joseph Smith, and he had written the letter nine days before his murder,

when he could already see what fate would soon befall him. The wolves are upon the scent, and I am waiting to be offered up. He confided a strang, whom he addressed as, My dear son. Indeed, it was the prophet's premonition regarding his imminent demise that had prompted him to write. In the midst of darkness and bowing danger,

the spirit of Elijah came upon me, and I went away to inquire of God, the church should be saved. According to Smith, God's voice came in reply saying, My servant, James J. Strang, the little fella with the bald head and the wonky eyes. He didn't say the last part. I just looked at the picture of him. This mysterious letter would go down as one of the most important and controversial documents in the history of the Mormon religion, in the words of one modern observer. With our modern-day sleuthing skills, I doubt you will be surprised to know that researchers have established that this letter is

fake as fuck. Joseph Smith probably never even fucking remember James's name. The main body of the text is written in print lettering rather than in cursive script, a style of penmanship that doesn't exist in any of Joseph Smith's other materials. So that's a big mistake. Also, the signature, not even close, like wildly off. But looking at it at the time, anyone who strang showed the letter to would have likely focused on its more convincing elements, the legitimate postmark of Navu, for example.

Still, the next 14 months or so would not be easy for straying, despite this griff starting to work a little bit. The letter didn't quickly establish him as the next man to lead the Mormon church, but it did help while he had this letter of appointment, as he called it, there were no shortage of other grifters, also claiming to be Smith's true successor. And they'd all been Mormons for more than just a couple months. One prominent contender was Brigham Young,

president of the quorum of the 12 apostles, early adopter, dedicated believer, dude who would go on to have at least 56 wives, 56, and he'd have at least 57 kids with 16 of them. A lot of miles to feed. He needed that profit job. Young argued that the quorum collectively held the authority to lead the church and that he, as its senior member, should become the next president. Young had served as an apostle since 1835 was closely involved in church leadership and administration, making him well-known and trusted amongst members. And while this may seem like a pretty obvious path, like a vice president, to a president scenario, consider that Mormons did not actually have a formalized way for power

to flow at that time. Joseph Smith had never left a written or publicly acknowledged plan for transferring leadership, and authority in the church was both institutional through offices like the first presidency and the quorum of the 12, but also spiritual, uh, dependent on the belief that God, you know, could, uh, directly guide decisions. Uh, the relationships between these institutions and this ambient spirituality was not entirely clear on the first. presidency side, another potential successor was Sidney Rigden, who had been Smith's first counselor in the first presidency. Rigden claimed that as a surviving member of the first presidency, he should serve as guardian of the church. So which wins out on the institutional side,

quorum or first presidency? And that, of course, leaves out the other side, spiritual. How does spirituality pass? Is there a genetic relationship? Is someone who is related to a spiritual person more spiritual themselves, right? One person thought so, and that was William Smith, Joseph's brother. He claimed that the right based to lead on family, or he claimed the right to lead based on family ties, basically making Mormonism something akin to a kingship, right? Some of you had to have known that trumpet was coming. Emma Hale Smith, Joseph Smith's wife, agreed, except she was advocating for her son, Joseph Smith, the third, to take over. And yes, the third, the prophet was a junior.

And of course, there were all the people that were simply claiming that God had told them that they were going to lead the Mormon church because LDS doctrine around personal revelation, a doctrine that has directly led to the rise of so many cults, many of which we've covered, had left that door open. How was James Strang, one person going to compete with all that, one person on the fringe? Well, initially poorly. After traveling 200 miles by foot, allegedly, to a Mormon conference in Florence, Michigan, Uh, the would-be Messiah had received a decidedly cool reception. One elder grilled him on the possibility of the claim, claiming later that he had forced Strang, whom he described as a false spirit, to concede that he had no authority to act as prophet.

Another concluded that the letter, quote, carried on its face the marks of a base forgery. Also, no fucking way he walked 200 miles. That has to be another lie. Get out of here. Uh, Strang decided that taking his claim directly to Navu now would be too risky, so he headed back to Burlington, Wisconsin, where he regrouped. group with some local Mormons there who did accept his leadership, and he held a couple of small church services where he preached. He wasn't a leader of all the Mormons, not even close, but he was leading some, so not bad. Still over the bleak winter of 1844, 1845, straying,

complain, quote, I am delivered over to the buffetings of Satan. Yet when I pray, God answers, I lay hands on the sick and they recover. I can speak in new tongues. Is it not rather strange if God gave such gifts to men who believe not in him and blaspheme his name continually, if I'm not who I profess to be, I am of all men, most wicked. Again, easy, drama queen. By the fall of 1845, he was more eager than ever for something more. On September 13th, he told his congregation that, quote, it had been revealed to him in a vision that an account of ancient people was buried in a hill south of White River Bridge,

according to a contemporary account. yep he's putting his twist on the golden plates here this is fucking great he led the men he led the men up a rise to an oak tree and told them to look out for any signs of tampering but the grass looked thick and undisturbed and the ground looked even okay and yet when the men began to dig they struck something a flat stone about one foot wide three inches thick which they pried from the soil underneath it they discovered quote a case of slightly baked clay containing three plates of brass covered with various symbols including a man with a crown on his head and a scepter in his hand along with quote what appeared to be alphabetic characters but in a

language of which we have no knowledge these plates were tiny two and a half inches long between a one and a quarter one and a half inches wide said to be as thin as a cheap piece of tin this is incredible i love that he went from gold plates to brass ones just it's so low rent and on brand for this guy. I wish he would have written on them in fucking pig Latin instead of a reformed Egyptian. The language would of course

be completely unknown to scholars, naturally, because it was not a language. Literally just gibberish. Gibberish that only one man in the world could translate. The prophet Joseph Smith. I mean, the prophet James Strang. String would even use a pair of searstones.

He literally called the Yurem and the Thumbet, the exact same fucking names that Smith had used to decipher this text. he also used some sort of magical glasses I tell her describe magical glasses and actual crystal balls cool which he I love this

which he claimed an angel had loaned him specifically for this task not given him loaned him uh huh here take thy magical glasses you'll need them to translate thy pig Latin prophecies

but hear this I will need them back on Monday. Do not burn me on this, Jimmy. I am doing you a solid. James Strang completed the hard work of translating the heavily pig Latin, whatever it was in just five days. Then on September 18, 1854, he declared the plates to be the work of someone named Raja Manchu of Verito, who in some distant age had fallen in battle at that site where the plates were discovered.

Mm-hmm. Well, the word Raja normally refers to a king or prince from India. Strang didn't explain What an ancient royal From the other side of the planet Might have been doing in southern Wisconsin Or for that matter How his story connected to the larger Mormon epic

He didn't explain where the fuck Verito was Is that where Doritos are made? The Cool Ranch ones? I don't know. No one knows. Interestingly in the years to come James will never really talk about Rajah Manchu Sounds like a madly of name For more Far more important was the mysterious figure's promise

Quote The Four runner men shall kill but a mighty prophet there shall dwell It will be his strength And he shall bring forth thy record Did you catch that about the forerunner Being killed like Joseph Smith And a mighty prophet like James Strang

You can find pictures of these plates online And they are so poorly done Like really, really bad It truly looked like a fourth grader Made him for a class project They maybe got a see on You can also find an old photo of James Strang online

And he looks exactly Lee, like the kind of dude who would have made those plates. Still, the Burlington Mormons thought this was nothing short of a true miracle. But most other Mormons, the ones back in Navu, they thought it was all a bunch of bullshit. Is it not surprisingly strange, wrote Brigham Young, that Joseph Smith should appoint a man to succeed him in the presidency of the church some seven or ten days before his death, and yet not tell it to the High Council, nor any of the authorities of the church. More than 40 years later, Young would be proven right when one of strings formed.

associates claimed that the relics had been part of an elaborate fraud perpetrated by the would-be prophet and two collaborators, his old friend, Benjamin Pierce, and his law partner in Wisconsin, Caleb Barnes. According to this witness, Barnes once confided that the plates have been made out of an old brass kettle, which the men engraved with a file saw, then treated with acid to give it an ancient appearance. Sounds about right. After that, they used an auger to bore a long, slanting hole in the hillside, after which they carefully placed the plates beneath the earth, tamped down the surrounding soil, quote, leaving no trace of the work visible

according to this man's account. While Young didn't know that, he did know that this claim was bullshit, right? And yes, you could also argue that Young's claims were of the bullshit variety, that all of this was bullshit, because Joseph Smith's plates were no more heavenly than Strang's, still going with the logic that maybe Brigham did believe

Smith's claims were true, but not Strang's. He used his position as a de facto head of the church to excommunicate Strain now, labeling him labeling him a wicked liar. Still, this didn't stop the story of Strang's translation spreading, and some newspapers began reporting about a new

type of Mormon colony near Burlington which String called Vori, a word he fucking made up, that supposedly meant Garden of Peace. And now String would find himself propelled to some low-key stardom, by a kind of technology that the world had never seen before. The steam-powered printing press,

which allowed newspapers to dramatically lower their costs and reach bigger audiences than ever before. Back in the 1830s there were some 900 newspapers in the U.S. By 1840, the U.S. Census counted more than 1,600, and by 1850, that number topped 2,500. News now moved a remarkable distance at a remarkable speed compared to just two decades earlier, and Strang knew that. Right before he had founded a colony, he had founded a newspaper, the Voree Herald. Didn't sell much in terms of subscriptions, but it wasn't supposed to. It was a propaganda machine. The articles within it were supposed to be picked up by bigger, more well-known newspapers. and news of Vori, the place, would now spread things to that happening and happening without any fact-checking. In April of 1846, a little more than half a year after String had created, planted, then used his borrowed magic angel glasses to decipher the Raja Manchu plates. Papers around the country began to publish versions of the following dispatch from the distant

frontier of Wisconsin. The city of Vori, where the new Mormon prophet String has established his headquarters, is rapidly filling up. Its inhabitants already number 10,000, It is represented to be a most beautiful place, and its water power is immense, sufficient to make it the first manufacturing place in the West. All of that was bullshit. City of Vori was never bigger than 200 people, and most of them lived in rough tenement housing. They weren't going to be manufacturing shit.

Well, I guess they were manufacturing shit, technically, just like the rest of us literally do every day when we digest something, but that was all they were going to manufacture. But to Strang, like to his contemporary circus showman, P.T. Barnum, it was no such thing as bad press. Indeed, he now made a name for himself by going to the headquarters of the papers where his anonymous exaggerated reporting was picked up and correcting them, making himself seem like an honest upfront man. Meanwhile, back in Navu, things are not looking good. Longstanding tensions between Navu residents and their non-Mormon neighbors had erupted into outright war, with more than 200 Mormon buildings torched. That's wild. Many people killed on both sides in various raids and reprisals.

At this point, the government wanted to restore order, so Illinois governor Thomas Ford appointed Stephen A. Douglas to head a delegation to travel to Navu with the express goal of persuading the Mormons to leave the state. That delegation included more than 300 armed men in case they needed some extra persuading. Brigham Young agreed to their terms, but on one condition, he wanted a thousand more wives and to use his exact words, no old, no fats No, the delegation promised that they'd have no problem if the Mormon settled in the far west and Young planned to hold him to that.

So off to Utah, he would soon go. But many Mormons were worried about heading west, especially since Brigham Young, didn't know exactly where he was planning to end up. He only had a vague idea about a recently mapped salty-ass lake in Utah. Capitalizing on this, Strang addressed the fleeing Navu Mormons

directly in the Vori Heraldist paper. Many of you are about to leave the haunts of civilization and of men to go into an unexplored wilderness among savages and in trackless deserts to seek a home in the wilds where the footprint of the white man is not found. The voice of God has not called you to this. He warned that heading west meant that Mormons

would have to worry about, quote, saving their daughters from Indian prostitution and their sons from the Tomahawk. So, you know, again, more propaganda. All of this was now looking bad for Brigham, so he decided to hit back now. Young issued a letter in late January of 1846, warning that Strang's claim to be the true heir to the church was, quote, a lie, a forgery, a snare, flee from it, and save yourselves from

the snare of deception and the devil. Oh, boy. Pot, meat, kettle. Do not follow his deception, follow mine. As things turned out, it was Young himself who soon had to flee. He was indicted by a federal grand jury in Illinois on counterfeiting charges. There's a real good possibility that both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were huge counterfeiters, and fearing a repeat of Joseph Smith's assassination, Young wisely decided to get out of town. On February 2nd, Young declared that it was imperatively necessary to head west as soon as possible. Let's fucking go! He would depart himself February 15th as thousands of Mormons began the treacherous crossing in the Mississippi in the dead of winter, no less. But not everyone crossed. Three weeks later, in early March,

a resident who remained in Navu noted that, quote, many are turning away from the church, to follow a new prophet that has risen up, while another member of the faith from nearby Knoxville, Illinois, agreed that many Mormons were, quote, filled with the notion that Jay Strang is the man to lead the church. And by the fall of 1846, just a year after he had plucked those mysterious brass plates from a lonely hillside, this new prophet could claim approximately 500 followers in Vori, even though in String's own words, the area looked more like an encampment than a town. Indeed, those who lived in Vori dwelled in plain houses, shanties and tents, or sometimes even in the open air.

Then again, much of America, especially much of the West, was like that. By all measures, Strang had finally succeeded in doing something big, building a seemingly decent running town. But Strang didn't want to be a de facto mayor of some fucking dump. Remember, this was the man who wanted to be the American Napoleon, who wanted to marry British royalty. If he was going to be anything, he wanted that to look more like being a king. Hey, sometimes kings are Spanish, okay?

And it wasn't the only one who felt that way. John C. Bennett, soon to be called the greatest scamp in the Western country by Illinois Governor Thomas Ford, began his career as a physician, having granted himself the titles MD and LLD in the 1830s, despite having never received a formal degree in medicine. Bennett launched a crusade to champion the health benefits of the tomato, countering the widespread belief at the time that the fruit was poisonous. Oh, yeah. For a long time, people mistakenly thought that tomatoes were poisonous,

especially in Europe and North America, between the 16th and 18th centuries. God, I love weird history. Although a number of his claims were false, like that the tomato could prevent cholera, he is widely credited with having popularized the plant in the U.S. He was also an iterant preacher, because of course he was. He had converted to Mormonism in 1840 and moved to Navu, quickly rising to the leadership ranks as Smith appointed him mayor of Navu,

chancellor of the University of Navu, general of the Navu Legion, that Mormon militia of 2,000 men. But he'd been forced to flee Navu amid sexual scandal in 1842. A sexual scandal? Who would have guessed? Probably most of you, probably almost all of you. Already married to someone in Ohio, he was alleged to have had sex with several local.

women after assuring each one that such intimacy was sanctioned by the church under what Bennett described as the spiritual wife doctrine, a term he literally made up. Outsted from the LDS Church, he then wrote a takedown of the group called the History of the Saints or an expose of Joe Smith and Mormonism. He threw in a little extra shade there, but I just called him Joe instead of Joseph, which was described by one critic as, quote, too stupid ever to be read by anybody. that is an incredible scathing review What did you think of his new book?

Honestly, I truly think it is too stupid To literally ever be read by anybody By 1845, the year String would unearth And translate the place in Wisconsin Bennett was in Cincinnati Having accepted an appointment As a lecturer at a medical school, a kind of medical school,

the literary and botanical medical college of Ohio Truly sounds like a fake college Where a fake doctor would teach that place would close down on 1869 There, like Strang, fake Dr. Bennett craved more, a place to satisfy all his cravings for status, wealth, and sex. The 41-year-old wrote Strang with a proposition

The two men he proclaimed should combine their talents and invent a kingdom together. While String assumed the position of crowned imperial primate, okay, Bennett proposed to be his general and chief. And now all these two ding-dongs needed with some land for this. Before string set out to find it, he would first consolidate more control over his group at a series of weird candelot ceremonies in Vori over the summer of 1846. His closest followers gathered in private to join a clandestine organization known as

The Order of the Illuminati. Oh, shit. Yeah, they learned the secret handshake, three fingers, within three fingers, the secret sign, three fingers of the right hand to the mouth, and the secret passwords they would need to identify one another. They received noble titles. Viceroy, Lord, Duke, Earl, Chevalier, Marshal, Marquis, Cardinal, Illuminatus. Finally, they swore an oath, quote, ever to conceal and never to reveal, any of the ceremonies, secrets, and mysteries revealed to us. Okay. At the climax of these induction rights, the men promised their absolute obedience,

to string, not only as, quote, the prophet of God, apostle of the Lord Jesus, and chief pastor of the flock, but also as the imperial primate and actual sovereign Lord and king on earth. Imperial primate, just doesn't have a nice ring to it.

Then they entered their signatures in a record book, and acts some of them would later claim was done with their own blood. There's like a million drama queens in the story. The Order of the Illuminati was actually Bennett's idea. He proposed the concept and the rights from Freemasonry,

which he'd been involved with for many years until, of course, being kicked out of a Freemason Lodge in Nafu for, quote, elicit intercourse with a master mason's wife. Not surprised. Not everyone wanted to join, though. They said that the practices of the Illuminati

ran counter to their religious beliefs. Oh, and it was treason, also to the U.S. And they hated Bennett. It was now having sex with a 15-year-old girl in Vori. That guy was clearly mostly into all of this for the fucking. for string some devoted followers willing to follow him anywhere was good enough for now and it was on to the next phase of their plan and what a glorious phase it will be and before we move along to the best part of the story time for today's second of two mid-show sponsor breaks thanks for listening to those sponsors hope you heard some deals you liked and now let's head to the fall of eighteen forty six and check out a certain island that is the main basis for today's show in the fall of eighteen forty six string took a steamboat journey on Lake Erie from Buffalo to Detroit, then north to the Straits of Mackinah,

a narrow waterway that connects Lake Huron to Lake Michigan. It was there that the steamer, the steamer, cruise past a remote spot that would change Strang's life forever. This place was, oh fuck yeah, bro, literally called, and still is called Beaver Island. An isolated landmast in the northernmost waters of Lake Michigan and the largest landmass in the lake, and a place it sounds kind of like some porky-style horn dog low-budget comedy, right, full of so much nudity that would have come out back in the 80s. What happens when one lucky nerds? And two dozen sexy, horny sorority girls all end up stuck for spring break

and the same rundown resort in the middle of Lake Michigan when the ferry breaks down? Well, the whole place turns into Beaver Island. Starring Chuck Mitchell is the creepy middle-aged hotel owner slash front desk clerk who no one ever calls the police on for some reason, even though he keeps getting caught drilling people in the women's bathrooms and installing cameras in several of the showers. Hey, if people are naked girls, you know, sometimes recording them showers a crime.

I guess I'm a criminal. Starring Will Nickerbocker adds Wally, the lucky 18-year-old nerd, in a situation that will literally never ever happen in real life, being surrounded by two dozen, gorgeous, uninhibited nymphomaniac who will stop at nothing to make every one of his sexual fantasies come true. I love it here. I didn't want to leave. I want to die on Beaver Island.

Also starring two dozen actresses, who will either completely disappear from showbiz altogether following this movie bombing in theaters or fully commit to a career in softcore porn. I love it. I love Beaver Island. Like, oh my God, it's not a party here. Where's Wally?

And he's a Mammy. It's spring break, woo! Beaver Island. The internet isn't quite here. You're not old enough to buy porn yet, but you can and you will rent this and then beat off after your buddies have all conked out of the sleepover. Beaver Island.

So much island, even more Beaver. I mean, right. I can't be the only one who thought that Beaver Island could be a movie title for that kind of movie. 13 miles long and six miles wide, Beaver Island had long been populated by the Odawa and the Ojibwe, also known as the Ottawa and Chippewa. Over the previous two decades, the federal government had made life increasingly difficult for the... the Ani Shanabeg, as the two tribes called themselves, which means original people. Back in 1830, Congress had passed the Indian Removal Act, which gave U.S. Presidents the power to negotiate the ousting of Native Americans

living east of the Mississippi in exchange for lands to the west. After coming to the conclusion that their people would soon be forced out anyway, Odawa and Ojibwe representative signed a treaty in 1836 that ceded Beaver Island, along with another 13 million acres of land in northern Michigan, in to the U.S. When String's steamboat arrived, five years after that, a small community of them still live there, though. A handful of white pioneers had established fishing and trading posts and also lived there,

and the government had begun surveying the island for further future settlement. To Strang, though, this island was the perfect place for what he envisioned. He suspected that already. One of his aides had already written to the commissioner of the general land office in Washington, D.C., about the possibility of purchasing it, but he had to make sure. traveling to find his kingdom however came with the price as straying stayed away from the community at vorey more and more of his followers began to stray many of them were specifically increasingly worried about john horn dog bennett and his dirty ding-dong on october fourth eighteen forty six while straying was on the last leg of his return trip some dissident leaders in vorey called a meeting at which they charged bennett with teaching false doctrine including polygamy and concubinage of course and attempting to carry them into practice. Having unanimously agreed that the charges against him were sufficiently sustained, they promptly took it upon themselves to excommunicate Bennett. Bennett's sexual escapades

were posed a significant problem for Strang, who had advertised himself as the anti-Polygamy Mormon leader, right, as opposed to Brigham 24-7 DTF Young. Seemed clear that Strang should oust Bennett on this basis alone, but Bennett was Strang's number two and the person who had come up with the whole kingdom plan. And so, Strang decided not. to excommunicate this coxlinger. Instead, he led with the good news. He was deciding that they should establish a mission among the Indians a small settlement that would allow his followers to

devote themselves to the improvement and salvation of their less favored fellow creatures. And luckily, God had shown him just a place for this. Beaver Island. I mean, could there be a place more suitably named for Bennett and his perpetually aching balls to inhabit? it. The next spring, in mid-May of 1847, Strang was in his new kingdom. He had arrived on Beaver Island. He and four followers found themselves searching the rain-soaked forest floor of Beaver Island for something to eat. Things in paradise were actually not going very well at all. The men had run out of funds during their journey to the island from Wisconsin and were forced to sell their blankets in order to complete the ship's passage, the last leg of the journey.

They came ashore, as Strang would later report, quote, with less than two days of provision. and not one cent of money. Poor planning. Encountering a chilly reception from the first few settlers of the sparsely populated outposts, yeah, I bet. They built a makeshift shelter out of hemlock bows and began to forage for food. This would be their main activity for the next two weeks as they survived mostly on wild leaks and beach nuts until they finally got some work chopping wood for local residents.

Holy shit. Eventually they arranged for the use of a boat, explored six. several smaller islands nearby, then after building a cabin and leaving behind a pair of men to establish a permanent Mormon presence, Strang and his other two followers headed back to Vorey by steamboat. And they found that things had deteriorated there. While String was gone, Bennett had tried to seize power. Of course, this constant problem in Walking Boner did. And on June 7th, the prophet announced that Bennett had, quote, been removed from all official standing in the church for siphoning off money and undercutting Strain's authority

and undoubtedly trying to fuck every human being within 10 square miles under the age of 18 who possessed a vagina. But don't worry, String will quickly find someone else to work with. A new number two. The man whom String selected to replace Bennett as his top lieutenant was once described by the New York Times as, quote, qualified to take the position of chief of all the confidence men on the face of the earth. So another con artist.

like attracts like grifter attracts grifter this grifter was george j adams he'd been born in oxford new jersey around 1811 trained as a tailor uh before he became wouldn't you know it an inerrant preacher uh he was actually super successful so much so that a local theater company recruited him to be in productions of shakespeare plays dude knew how to deliver a uh dramatic monologue he also knew how to drink a lot of liquor he became known as a notorious drunk who had who would borrow clothes from people and then return them so filthy they had to be thrown away. That is not really something to be known for. Like Bennett, George converted to Mormonism in 1840, found himself working his way up the rankings.

He'd been dispatched to the East Coast after Smith's death to figure out a plan for the church with East Coast leaders, but he got, you know, distracted during that mission. He began drinking heavily, quote, begging money and running all over the rights of local Mormon elders according to one account. And like Bennett, he duped numerous Duped numerous young women into casual sex And that led him to being kicked out of the LBS church in 1845 For quote, diabolical conduct

And now he is of course String's new number two Unlike Bennett, who is more of an organizational force George Adams would take Strang's message to the streets Becoming the Prophet's chief recruiter The two were an odd pair String was cool and collected, short, neat to the point of fuzziness and bookish Adams was tall, unkempt, and nearer nearly always drunk, but they had something in common.

Delusions of grandeur and superhuman stamina. In the late summer of 1847, for example, Straying and Adams separately went recruiting with Straying traveling more than 3,800 miles by steamboat, railroad, stagecoach, and foot, during which time he attended the five religious conferences and preached 31 sermons. Adams, meanwhile, cruised up and down the East Coast, where he would recite the tragedies of William Shakespeare one night, then preach the gospel of James Jesse Strang the next. With so many balls up in the air, it was hard to focus on the Beaver Island venture, even though drumming up support for Beaver Island was nominally why both men were traveling so much.

But, as it turned out, the Vori community members were actually not so sure about going to an island in the middle of nowhere without jobs or a safety net. Indeed, a couple families went, didn't like it, came back. Then there was worse news. By the end of 1847, Brigham Young and his followers had reached the Great Salt Lake and declared it Mormonism's new homeland. Some in Vori, when they heard word of this, well, they left to go join the other Mormons there. Personally, things weren't going well for String either. His marriage to marry Piers String was a slow-motion train wreck since the death of their first born in 1843. A big whoop.

The couple hadn't had sex more than a few times, though they did have a son, William, in 1844. Their marriage was hanging on by a threat. String knew he needed something to tie everything together, to get everyone to move to Beaver Island once and for all, not just because I said so, but a real reason. He would spend the summer of 1848 pointing to what he described as ominous signs, including revolutions in Europe, the war in Mexico, rising tensions between the north and the south and America, and soon he would arrive with the reason for all of this ominousness, money, evil money. Yes, the person who had spent his entire life trying to amass money through fraud

was now advocating for some form of communism. as he would write in his newspaper Money governs the world The systems existing among men Cast everything else beneath its power Crowns and sceptors Are but sand and dust before it It makes love false

Justice a farce and truth of fable Men to obtain it will slay their mothers Betray brothers to death Sell sisters to infamy And wives to prostitution But how do you stop well need money Well he had a solution Strange grand experiment in communism

was called the Order of Enoch now, founded in January of 1848 by members of the 12 families in Vori, like the top 12, based on that, you know, the quorum. It effectively replaced the controversial order of the Illuminati while making even bigger demands on participants. Members pledged to give up all their money and belongings, cult, cult, and to combine their property together in one large household with straying, of course, as the presiding patriarch, right? So fucking typical and predictable. The dude screaming about how money is the root of all evil wants everybody else's money. By the end of 1848, the Order of Enoch had some 150 gullible members. That number was higher than expected. They agreed to live a bare-bones life, eschewing the use of coffee, tea, and other stimulants,

as well as abstaining from sugar, spices, and dried fruit. No dried fruit. That feels like a weird thing to abstain from. We must purify ourselves. No more coffee and tea. No more liquor. tobacco. And definitely no more broccoli or carrots. Definitely no more dried apricots. I guess I knew those first two weren't fruit. It's just so random to me.

They also consented to wear unostentatious uniforms. The women's matching dresses made of durable cotton, the men's clothing of flannel. And of course, not everybody would love this. Shocker. Many people would leave early on and when they did, they took their property back, including materials and livestock vital to the survival of the group. straying, panicking, worried that his entire grip was about to collapse, pulled a classic cult leader move, and told his remaining followers that the second coming was just around the corner. And they didn't have time to freaking dilly-dally. Those who clung to their belongings and freedom would be doomed to eternal torment. And that did the trick. As we have learned

over and over here in the suckers, especially in cold episodes, next to sex, nothing sells quite like fear, right? And fear of your soul being lost, well, the stakes don't get any higher. For the first time in months, really in years, things would start going well for straying now. And by the autumn of 1849, his efforts to recruit new pilgrims, both from eastern cities and, excuse me, from Vori, were finally paying off. Mormon settlers had already started work on a new tabernacle and on a road into the island's interior. We'd also begun to clear land for farms and set up homesteads, though a few of them appeared to have bothered paying for the land, or legally claiming it in any way whatsoever. And why would they?

God gave them Beaver Island, and no government could come between them and their Lord. That really is what they believed. String encouraged the illegal claiming of land on the island, preaching that the federal government had no right to sell uninhabited tracks to wealthy speculators, while so many were homeless in the U.S. And now as 1850 approached,

there were about 250 Mormons on Beaver Islands, not a bad turnout. He even recruited his nephew, Charlie Douglas, to help him as a private secretary. And for the next six months, the two would go almost everywhere together, traveling from religious conference to religious conference to drum up further support for Beaver Island while Mary and their three children were parked at Strang's parents' house. Strang had isolated her deliberately because in November of 1849, Strang and Charlie had just reached Philadelphia when a husband and wife wrote a letter about rumors that have been swirling

among Strang's followers. They stated in no uncertain terms, is a gal. The rumor had apparently been verified by a man who claimed to recognize Douglas as a young woman he had seen on Beaver Island. Another added up the clues, including the feminine contours of this young man's buttocks and chest. To conclude that, quote, from the crown of his head to the souls of his feet, Strang's secretary is every whit a woman. Still another follower who had allowed Strang and his assistant to stay in her lodgings reported that when she washed Douglas' laundry, she discovered a mess of bloody cloths, which women sometimes use,

all rolled up, oh, Gemini, thought I, the cat's out of the bag, sure enough. Oh, dear. The pseudo-Charlie turns out to be a filthy and abdominal hussy. But when I examine the bed, oh dear, oh, strang, wang, wang, strambag, hocus, pocus, pocus, pocus. That is literally what they wrote. That is wild. I love that they wrote, oh dear, wang, strambang, hocus, pocus, pocus, pocus. like they had to add that second pocus Just make it a little extra And also three exclamation points After the second pocus

Strang was furious about these rumors He was mostly furious Because they were absolutely true Charlie was a gal And she was his new wife He hadn't told anybody about These fucking guys are so predictable Her name was Elvira Field

An almost 18 year old girl Of course Who had come to Vori with her family In April of 1848 When James was 35 It's not clear how they came to get to know one another, but they were secretly married by George Adams, uh-huh, July 13th, 1849.

Uh, they parted briefly, but then got back together, this time as uncle and nephew. So creepy! Uh, where they would tour the East Coast for the winter of 1849 and 1850. What are you doing on the East Coast? Oh, just fuck, I'm a nephew. I mean, uh, what? Sorry? Uh, on the way home from his tour of the East, the Prophet apparently parted company with

his devoted traveling friend, Charles J. Douglas. Although Elvira Field would soon reappear on. Beaver Island and so would James Strang but this time as a king. All hail King Jimmy String, the great Wang Strambang at the coronation of King James. July 8th, 1850, they really did coronate him. They really are referring to him as King James now. A couple hundred people gathered on a mosquito and infested island in Lake Michigan.

The grand event took place in a half-finished building called a tabernacle. It was more like a big shed, made of hewn lumber, completed to the height of seven or eight feet with a piece of drapery stretched across the ceiling to hide the fur joys from view. The throne on which the king would receive his rights was made of rough boards, covered in some painted cloth and a layer of moss to make it a bit softer. These people are idiots. I know good smart people can be duped into joining the cults.

but also sometimes you have to be pretty dumb. And I think if you followed this clown out to Beaver Island and you went along with this low-rent coronation, you probably did not possess a real top-shelf intellect. James Crown made a fucking paper, literally, decorated with gold tinsel stars, was made by the king himself, with the help of Elvira,

whose 20th birthday it was. Fellow grifter, the perpetually hammered George Adams, would be the master of ceremonies. he'd arrived on the island in late April of 1850 had established himself as a force in the colony railing against the federal government even more than Strang did. To assert their independence from the United States,

Strang had renamed Beaver Island to St. James. Totally. There actually is still a little township of over 250 people on the island today called St. James. Now that the colony outnumbered the small group of non- Mormon white settlers, it was finally time to seal the deal and take over.

Strang and Adams composed what they called a testimony to the nation addressed to President Zachary Taylor and the U.S. Congress and the American people. The document formally requested that the prophet and his followers be granted the right to, quote, settle upon and forever occupy all the uninhabited lands of the islands of Lake Michigan. They wanted all the islands, not just Beaver Island. Oh, you know some good laughs were had in the White House over that letter for sure before that document was formally filed in the get the fuck out of here, folder, a.k.a. the trash can. With that small administrative task done, King James and his acolytes could now plan the ceremony. Adams would put his theater training to good

use, designing costumes, constructing his set, writing himself lines that apparently astonished the 235 or so people gathered in the tabernacle. Not Mary, though. Not Mrs. String. Oh, gee, Mrs. Strang. She'd skip the whole thing. She would not see her husband stand with his robes flowing around him to declare that his lineage traced directly back to David. David, the first monarch of all the tribes of Israel, because she knew better. She knew her husband was full of shit. After Adams placed the crown on strang, he knelt before his new king, raising his royal scepter, which was a random fucking wooden stick.

About a foot and a half long. Ah, this is so good. The monarch tapped Adams on the head with a stick, thereby ordaining him as prime minister. Fuck yeah, bro. This is so fantastic. After Christian's several other nobles with the same right, quote, King James, the anointed, sat on his throne and brandished his scepter with uplifted hands, as one observer put it. The faithful bore witness that the kingdom of God is set upon earth.

In the immediate aftermath of his coronation, String made two bold moves. First, he announced that God had given the islands of the Great Lakes to him and his followers. The conditions were that God gave strength. the right to give out land to Mormons who would then give Strang back a tent of their income, right? The experiment with communism is already out. They had a monarchy now for fuck's sake, a theocratic monarchy, and it was time for some tithy. The second move was to buy a big boat. The Prophet King paid a thousand bucks for it.

Who knows how much that would translate to in today's money? Inflation calculators, they don't really work when you go back that far. But it was a lot of money. It was a big investment, and Strang expected it to pay off. Actually, he needed it to pay off. He was now responsible for the safety and security of over 200 people living on an island where the water could freeze and sometimes commerce could be fully blocked from months at a time to the winter, also had to deal with trouble in the form of his second command, George Adams, his perpetually shit-faced prime minister. The trouble actually began before the coronation when Adams showed up with a rich widow named Louisa Cogswell, whom he introduced as his new wife. This was surprising since nobody knew that Adam's old wife, Caroline, was not around anymore.

He assured everyone that she had died of consumption, which was not true. She was still very much alive. Sick, though, and she was trying to get her son back after Adams had essentially kidnapped him and taken him to Beaver Island. Then Caroline actually did die, no big whoop, not a great look. This was not a good time for straying to have a scandal on his hands. He had enough shit on his prophet king's plate already. His mistress wife, Elvira, was pregnant. His wife, Mary, was ill.

He was publicly against polygamy. but his relationship status was an open secret, so he really didn't need anything else drawn even more attention to the true nature of the commune's leaders' romantic relationships on the island. To make things worse, Louisa, not a rich widow. She was a dancer named Louisa Prey, who was seen by many of the other Mormons on the island as a real she-devil, a harlot, Satan's temptress, be gone, Lucifina.

Things apparently got so intense that Strang told Prey that her life would be in danger if she stayed on the island. in response she produced a bowie knife declared she'd cut the fucking prophet's heart out she didn't say fuck but she said she'd cut his heart out essentially she'd planted in his heart

if he tried to force her off the island so that's pretty dramatic that conflict became a crisis on October 10th, 1850 when some sort of Mormon court they put together on Beaver Island found the dancer guilty of gross slander

and personal insult to the king as well as conspiracy against the church Adams and Louisa now departed the island following this ruling was straying stage curtain and props

they took their stage curtain they took their props and they vowed revenge uh oh and unlike others who may have wanted

Strain dead or at least out of commission they actually had ammunition to use against him so much drama on Beaver Island they headed straight off to Mackinah Island

50 miles east to Beaver Island by boat and the nearest Anglo settlement of any significant size there they immediately set about stirring up some trouble

with Adams calling straying a self-confessed imposter and accusing him of a wide variety of crimes, and they found willing listeners. String had made more than a few local enemies, first by encouraging his followers to take land

that did not belong to them. But it didn't stop there. String had also told his followers that since everything belonged to God, and God had given Strang the ability to parcel all of it out, as long as his followers gave him 10%, they could take whatever they wanted.

Everything that non-Mormans had was up for grabs. Soon the sheriff at Mackinah filed charges against the prophet, and String would be arrested with news papers reporting, Strang was taken to McAnnaud tried and convicted and sentenced to six months imprisonment. It was supposed that the Mormons would attempt a rescue. That rescue, however, would prove unnecessary. Strang was set free on a technicality, but then he was re-arrested and re-released three more times in the following few weeks. He'd be released because of his skill

as a lawyer, mostly, or if you believe other claims, because Democratic politicians had secured his release in exchange for Mormon votes. Fuck's sake. politics. It's just always been corrupt. But others would not go so easy on him. In March of 1851, Michigan District Attorney George C. Bates wrote U.S. Attorney General John Crittenden, the country's chief law enforcement officer, to announce that he had been credibly informed of strange involvement in a number of federal crimes. Bates was a fiery orator who had recently run an unsuccessful campaign for U.S. Congress

as a member of Millard Fillmore's Whig Party, the rivals of the Democrats, and now he wanted something done about James Strang. Without purchasing any land, he wrote to the Attorney General, the Mormons had taken possession of nearly the whole island and were cutting and selling all the wood and timber. Of course they were bates. It now belonged to the king. And if you're not careful, you're going to be at war with the king's army, my friend.

They were also bates alleged operating a large establishment for counterfeiting. Yeah, so much counterfeiting. Did you know that numerous bands of early Mormons were accused of printing a lot of counterfeit money? Counterfeiting and, you know, Mormon was very tied together. in the early years of the church. The only way to bring String and his compatriots to justice was through the federal system and Bates felt that the only way to arrest them

was to raid the colony by warship now. No vessel except an armed one could land there without a posse, Bates wrote, claiming that String's followers had vowed to resist arrest with the force of arms. Bates wanted an invasion of Beaver Island. He won a war. And though President Fillmore did not want that,

he did eventually agree. And I continually forget that we did have a president named Millard Fillmore. As Bates later put it, at last the president decided to, quote, lend the power and process of the United States to the arrest and conquest of King James I. Oh my God, literally wrote that. They were going to send a fucking warship to Beaver Island now. They were going to go to war with the prophet King James.

By the morning of May 23rd, 1850s, having traveled more than 200 miles north on Lake Huron since its departure from Detroit, the fucking warship, USS Michigan, closed in on the Straits of Mackinah. This is glorious. From the deck, Bates could see mile after mile of dense old-growth trees, trees that have become a big business, especially for String, who would encourage his followers to trespass on public land, illegally harvest timber, and sell it to steamboats. Bates also accused String and several of his followers of obstructing the U.S. mail and assaulting a postal carrier with dangerous weapons,

charges that centered around a February 1851 incident in which a Mormon posse allegedly tried to intercept a man attempting to carry mail across the frozen lake by dog sling. There were also other crimes counterfeiting U.S. coins, holding people who had tried to call him out on using phony coins at gunpoint. All told, Bates thought it would be an easy slam dunk of a case if they could make it onto the island, which of course they could. Bates went ashore mid-afternoon on May 23rd

arresting a man named James M. Greig, a judge who was accused of being instrumental in the Mormon's plans to take over the local government. Having taken Greig and unable to find Strang, the ship set off, and Bates urged the captive to write a letter to Strang, urging him to surrender and to tell Bates exactly where String was. When Greig refused, Bates strongly implied

that unless the letter was in his hands, in an hour, Greig was going to get his ass hanged. And that worked. Greek cracked, supplying his captors with what Bates called a long letter for King's Strang, urging him to come on board at once. If the Prophet King failed to turn himself in by sunrise, the letter added, Bates would not hesitate to hang his hostage. Greek also supplied, quote, specific and minute directions with a pen chart on, you know, regarding how to reach string. And so at 2 a.m., so in the middle of the night, May 24th, the Michigan anchored off St. James, a.k.a. B. River Island, and the crew quietly lowered a rowboat into the bay. Armed with Navy revolvers and

cutlasses, and guided by Judge Greig's map, they advanced single file toward their target. First, they arrived at, quote, a long-hewn log building, two stories high, as the prosecutor described the Prophet's place of residence, a light gleamed from an upper window. They then entered a long, low room, where wide berths, heavily draped with stunning calico, shielded beds like the births and state rooms of steamers which proved to be occupied by Mormon women four to a bed

he was probably fucking like a dozen women in this house sounds like a harem's quarters they found a man in one of these beds but the man they found was not strang it was one of his top advisors a dude named Samuel Graham who in recent days

had his ass beaten by some of Strang's enemies who had fractured his skull and arm disoriented and in pain Graham agreed to send a messenger to String that unless he came out of hiding, Grieg would soon be killed. As a courier rushed to Strang's place of hiding, Bates, and his deputies

passed the time by chatting with Graham, reading the Book of Mormon, and wandering about the house. And then, String appeared. He wore, quote, a cotton collar spread all over his shoulders like a Catholic cardinal, and he would surrender, climbing aboard the USS, Michigan at 3.30 in the morning. And just

like that, they had captured the island's king! I realize that that might be a trombone, not a trumpet, but it says trumpet. May 26th, a large crowd gathered in Detroit to catch a glimpse of the renowned royal figure who had just been captured, who just arrived. 31 Mormons besides String had also turned themselves in, but only String and three other leaders were actually sent to Detroit to a wait trial. In June of 1851, lawyers for the prosecution would descend on Beaver Island to collect depositions for the upcoming criminal trial. due to begin at the end of the month. Their main objective was to find out of strang had been stealing from the government,

you know, harvesting timber from public lands. But at their surprise, they found that they had stepped into a turf war. The influx of Mormons meant that other residents, especially local fishermen, felt more and more marginalized. No longer welcome in the town of St. James. On the north end of the island, many of the fishermen settled in and around Cable Bay near its southern tip. Large number of these fishermen had been born in Ireland, early arrivals in the great wave of

migration that would bring more than one and a half million survivors of the Irish potato famine to America between 1845 and 1855. Caught between them was a third marginalized group, local Native Americans. Having fled Beaver Island when Strang established his colony there, a number of them now lived on Garden Island, just a couple miles north of the Mormon kingdom. And they sided with the Irish fishermen. When the prosecutors investigated, they found that the fishermen had many complaints. That String and his followers were stealing their property, harming their business, pressuring them to obey the laws of the kingdom rather than those of the U.S., including trying to force them to pay a tithe of 10% of their earnings to the church.

The Prophet King's most outspoken enemy among these malcontents was a man named Thomas Bennett, who, as the Northern Islander asserted in April of 1851, had vowed to, quote, have the life of Mr. Strang before another harvest. Strang reportedly returned this threat, telling Bennett that if he did not pay taxes in the form of tides, mark my words you will be sorry apparently he wasn't bluffing another witness later testified that dr hezekiah mccullough a mormon follower who had abandoned the city of baltimore where he was a prominent physician because his drinking habit had ruined his reputation declared quote that bennet was the cause of much of the disturbance of beaver island and that they were bound to get him out of the way indeed a few days after allegedly uttering those words mccullough joined about three dozen members of a posse that surrounded the house where bennett resided at the south end of the of the island. The mob had come to arrest Bennett and his brother Samuel, who owned the house for an earlier incident in which they had supposedly threatened the life of a Mormon constable. Oh yeah, Strang has his own private police force now, an illegal police force, the royal

constabulary. Upon seeing the armed intruder's approach, the brothers slammed the front door, and as Samuel Bennett later testified, told them we would not obey Mormon law, King Strang's law, or any other law but the laws of the country. And this is where the story gets murky. The Mormons claimed that someone inside the house proceeded to fire three shots at them, grazing one man in the head. Samuel Bennett, meanwhile, insisted that only one shot was fired by accident when his wife tried to take the gun away from him and that it couldn't have hit anybody. The only points both sides agreed upon were that the members of the posse then rushed the house firing through windows and the door and that when the onslaught was over, Thomas Bennett was dead. Two days later,

the Detroit advertiser ran the following headline. Further outrages at Beaver Island, brutal and deliberate murder by the followers of straying. Dr. McCullough, along with several other straying associates, were now arrested for the killing, but what really outraged people was not the killing, it was that Dr. McCullough, as the only doctor on the island, performed the autopsy. The Detroit advertiser accused McCullough of butchery, claiming that after removing the dead man's heart, he held it aloft and literally twirled it around on his fingers. What is happening in the story?

Blood was then scooped from the cavity of the chest from where the heart was taken. the paper claimed, and by the same hand was daubed with bitter derision on the face of the corpse. This was, of course, not the kind of press that String wanted, just a few weeks before his trial. But fortunately for him, his followers were not backing down on him being a prophet. Unfortunately for him, amidst all this chaos, Mary Strang, his wife of 15 years, packed up her shit and left the island, taken with her the couple's three children. It's not clear why she left, did she just get sick of all of her husband's bullshit? did the Mormons finally exile her?

Did she leave due to a darker possibility? Just a month before, Elvira Field had given birth to a baby boy, she named Charles, as in after the persona, she'd adopted, while following String around the Northeast. A cryptic notation scribbled in the margin of a straying family scrapbook, which would not be discovered until a researcher happened upon it more than a century and a half later, matched that of Charles James Strang, and it said, Mary tried to kill the writer of this when he was an infant

so perhaps somebody found out that Mary tried to kill her husband's child with his mistress and that is why she was either exiled or that's why she just fled and so despite many of his followers continuing to affirm him things were still looking you know kind of bad overall for King James on July 8th 1851

King James stood before a jury to make his closing arguments at his federal trial in Detroit members of that jury had just heard several days of testimony against straying and 12 coded defendants for obstructing the U.S. mail and assaulting a postal carrier with dangerous weapons, which was only the prosecution's first set of charges. They'd heard star witness, George Adams, String's former second command, describe how by the fall of 1850 the prophet had become obsessed with keeping critics on the island from communicating with the outside world.

Cult! Colt! Calt! Adams added that he had once asked String how he planned to stop the wintertime postal carriers who took mail to and from the island once a month by dog sled. The prophet he said had replied that quote dead men tell no tales because i guess he's a fucking pirate now and it would be very easy to cut a hole in the ice in order to dispose of a corpse but then strang was given a chance to defend himself and straying speech to the jury that day was uh pretty strong even bates admitted he was impressed recalling that it was quote full of bitterness and dramatic points he compared himself to christ his prosecutors to the lawyers and pharisees who persecuted him of course he did. Took only a few minutes for the jurors to return with a verdict, acquittal of all 13

defendants. Damn it. Bates, who had sunk enormous amounts of energy and tax dollars into the arrest and unsuccessful prosecution of straying, blamed his failure in convicting him on the notion that, quote, the jury seemed to have imbibed the idea that these men were on trial for religion's sake. Others thought that Bates had come on too strong, like the Detroit Free Press, which blame Bates' badgering of witnesses after, or badgering of witness after witness about Strang's profit status rather than any discussion of whether or not he had broken the law. Bates was a man obsessed with Strang's religious delusions, and it clouded him from seeing that the strongest suspect or aspect, excuse me, of his case was about the lumber stealing that he barely

touched on. But despite this win, Strang's troubles, of course, are not over. Less than two weeks after those charges were dropped in Detroit, four men invaded a home in Koshkanong, a Wisconsin, little town about 60 miles west of Milwaukee, where Straying had about 20 local disciples. On October 10, 1851, around midnight, a husband and wife awoke to find the assailants in their room. While one of the ruffians stood over the bed with a cocked pistol, a local newspaper reported, the other three proceeded to rob the house. Although the gunman got away with only $11 in cash and some of the family's possessions, the incident outraged the surrounding community, which raised a posse of about 100 citizens.

Eventually, 10 or 12 suspects were rounded up, all of whom were followers of strength. The proof against these men reported another local newspaper is of the very strongest character. The whole Mormon community at Beaver Island are implicated in crimes, sufficiently numerous, and black to send them to the penitentiary. One of them was David Heath, a vigilant Mormon, who believed that non-Mormons were the enemy and who had written to Strain cryptically about what sounded like planned robberies committed on behalf of the church,

so there's little doubt that he was involved. In November of 1851, Heath and another Mormon man were found guilty and sentenced to four years in state prison. Indeed, it seemed that Strang's brushed with the law did not stop his followers from taking as much as they wanted from whoever they wanted to take it from. They're still operating on this premise of,

hey, you know, God gave everything to String. String said, you know, it's for us, his followers, and so if it belongs to somebody who's not, one of his followers were absolutely able to take it as long as we give him 10%, you know, in the form of that tithe. That November, somebody wrote anonymously to one of the papers covering the case in Wisconsin to report that on Beaver Island, quote, the Mormons are continually going and coming and their business is stealing, which they call consecrating. The correspondent who was actually Eric J. Moore, a non-Morman on Beaver Island, who had testified against the

prophet in Detroit, added that the thieves, quote, generally go in bans, furnished with all kinds of burglary tools, keys, et cetera, prepared for anything that may occur and armed to the teeth with revolvers, dirks, swords, etc. Despite all this craziness associated with Strang and his followers, things will turn around for our Mad King in November of 1852 when Strang is elected state representative for a sparsely populated district occupying a quarter of the total landmass of Michigan. Strangen managed to pull off the victory by winning all 165 votes on Beaver Island, easily enough to defeat all of the other four candidates who split the remaining 200 ballots amongst them.

String had made no announcement of his candidacy until the day of the election. A low turnout had been expected, which allowed Strang's followers just to easily hand him the victory. Barely any Michiganers even knew that Beaver Island was part of their legislative district, much less that Strang had entered the race.

Strang was overjoyed, of course. As he wrote to his brother, I have made my mark upon the times in which I live, which their wear and tear of time in the unborn ages shall not be able to obliterate. Like Moses of old, my name will be revered, and men scarcely restrained from worshipping me as a god. All right, King James is not content with Beaver Island. He wants to be worshipped. Things were, in general, going well again for James String.

His followers had taken over all the posts in local government with Strangers, as they were being called now, elected as town supervisors, and Dr. McCullough serving as clerk and health officer. With these power bases in their hands, the Mormons made life miserable for the Prophet's foes, tormenting non-Mormons with petty lawsuits, many of which happened to fall under the jurisdiction of a certain James straying himself, who was now also a justice of the peace. The effect of all of this, according to one island resident, was that everyone whom he didn't like became an outlaw.

Oh, yeah, no, he had completely taken over this island. The other effect was that a lot of the island's non-Mormans packed up and left. just like Strang wanted them to. Once elected, he actually sent letters to non-Mormons that demanded they convert to Mormonism with him his head or get the fuck out of town within ten days and most of them actually listened. They packed up their stuff and left as Mormon men patrolled the beach with rifles, many of them taking what they wanted from non-Mormon's boats. This is wild. I'm so happy we found the story. To top it all off, Strang two himself, took himself, excuse me,

a third wife now, 31-year-old Elizabeth Betsy McNutt. After a private marriage ceremony, she moved into his modest home, joining Elvira and baby Charles, then just nine months old. Samuel T. Douglas,

a member of the Michigan Supreme Court who visited the island around this time, wrote that String, lived in a log house with four rooms and two wives. Rooms upstairs led us to believe that he slept with them on the every other night plan.

So much for marking himself as a monogamist, and the opposite of Brigham Young, the lure of having sex with more than one woman was just too great for him to ignore, I guess. I gotta talk to Lindsay.

How is this clown able to get two wives to submit? I can't even get fucking one. What the fuck am I doing with my life? Betsy took over many of the traditionally feminine domestic chores now. I guess he actually has three wives now because of Mary as well.

While Elvira, she continued as the Prophet's private secretary, both women, meanwhile, underscored Strang's radical reimagining of society, by adopting a very different style of dress, pantaloons under a knee-length skirt. String now said his sights on higher political offices. Frankly, brother, I intend to rule this country, he wrote. And it will be a hard struggle if I do not make myself one of the judges of the Supreme Court within one year.

How weird for his brother to get these letters? Can you imagine I have a brother like this? Fucking run in an island somewhere? Multiple wives. Kicked out everybody else. Demands that people call him king. however more and more people are getting worried about what the fuck is going on on beaver island and his opponents back in detroit are preparing to mount a second offensive against him

which could kill his political opportunities with the michigan house which met only once every two years set to start a new session in early january of eighteen fifty three strangeness attempted to have him arrested on an old charge uh or warrant excuse me shortly after his arrival in the state capital of lansing which would force him to give up his position in the michigan House of Representatives. But, using his wealth of legal knowledge, Strang persuaded the Michigan House that the charges were based in nothing more than prejudice against his religion. And now, not only did they let him keep his seat, but by the time the session convened,

he was one of the most respected members of this political body. He was good. He was real good at this shit. In April of 1853, both of Strang's wives, well, his two main wives now, Elvira and Betsy, they would give birth to girls. Evangeline and Evelyn, that's fun, but before Strank has spent much time with him, he would be off again to defend his reputation once more.

In May, with both babies, not more than a couple of weeks old, new allegations of theft appeared in the Detroit Free Press, which described, quote, daily recurring instances of robberies, burglaries, and other depredations committed by the Mormons of Beaver Island, both along the shores and upon the waters of Lake Michigan.

They're fucking pirates now. I love the story so much. The free press story reprinted in papers throughout the U.S. and in England, yeah, this juicy story had gone global, claimed that Mackinaw fishermen had faced an almost impossible task in attempting to guard their property against the piratical trade of Beaver Island, or piratical, I guess I say it. Apparently when the fishermen set their nets far offshore, hanging them vertically from buoys on the surface of the lake, strings men would swoop in with small boats, which move very rapidly, snatch up the equipment, and disappear. at night these same raiders would quote Make their descent upon land To steal, rob and burn What they can find

Ha ha ha ha ha ha Life on the open seas String of course Denied all the allegations Saying he and his followers Were the victims of a massive smear campaign But then one of his followers A man named Jonathan Pierce

Who served as one of his stormtroopers Along with his brother Isaac Would head to southwestern Ohio And be caught stealing horses in Peresburg in July of 1853, which did not help their image. This was far from the first time String had had to bail out a follower out of jail, but given the recent bad press, it seemed essential for Strang to make the charges go away quietly. But he wouldn't be able to get his follower out without a trial,

which proceeded during the summer of 1853. Pierce was ultimately convicted of horse theft, but the judge overturned this verdict on a technicality and granted the defense's motion for a new trial. And then on Halloween night, October 31st, 1853, Jonathan Pierce escaped from jail, and Strang may have helped orchestrate that escape. That's the rumor.

The following year, 1854, saw the arrival of Elvira's third child by Strang, a boy named Clement. Betsy also gave birth to his son, David James, but sadly David would die at just 10 days old. But, you know, he had another kid, you know, so, you know, no big whoop. Strang was now splitting his time between Beaver Island and Vorey. He had two little cult towns now, and his parents would come to live in Vory after leaving New York.

He must have been so proud of baby boy. Strang wouldn't have much time to spend with him, though. He had some campaigning to do on top of everything else. By the fall of 1854, his two-year term in the Michigan legislature was about to end, and he would be up for re-election. Would he be able to keep his political career alive? The election that took place on November 7, 1854, uh was one that seemingly everyone on beaver island voted in uh in his own county string received

695 votes his opponents received zero he's fucking back baby long live the king even though he cheated for sure cheated uh he got more votes than there were legal voters clearly many of his supporters cast multiple ballots under different names among those who appeared on an 1854 census listing eligible voters in the county was a certain napoleon bonaparte okay as well as the profits notorious and elusive personal secretary Charles Charles J. Douglas. My God, I cannot fucking speak today. Gone now for nearly five years. So that's cool. And now for String, it was once again off to Lansing. And things in Lansing, they were a changing. The new and importantly for the time, anti-slavery Republican Party had taken control of both

houses of the state legislature, as well as the governor's office. For Strang's generally pro-slavery Democratic Party, this was nothing short of a disaster. However, March of 1855, would see Strang make a speech on behalf of the state's black residents requesting that free men of color be granted the right to vote. Then two weeks after introducing a suffrage petition, he took the floor for a full hour, hour and a half actually, to denounce the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required officials in free states such as Michigan to assist in the recapture and return of runaway slaves. String had long been an opponent of the act, even go as far as to say that Beaver Island would be, quote, entirely safe as a place of refuge for oppressed men of

color. Feels like he's doing some recruiting here, trying to build up his following, you know, build up his army and his tax base. Defying fellow Democrats, he voted with the Republican majority on a pair of bills designed to undermine the Fugitive Slave Act by granting various legal protections, including the right of habeas corpus to accuse runaways, penalizing anyone who arrested a free person with the intent to enslave, and prohibiting sheriffs from allowing slave catchers to detain fugitives in local jails. The Michigan legislation was modeled on Similar statutes in other northern states, known as personal liberty laws, they were crucial to the evolution of the slavery debate as the civil war turned from a possibility to practically inevitability. Southerners hated these laws, which pushed northerners to pass more of them.

It was a risky political proposition for Strang, who, remember, wanted to be a Supreme Court justice, a governor or president, essentially ruled the world, but he seemed to be motivated by a true belief in racial equality. Or maybe again, he just saw that as a way to grow his following. He also seems to have been on board with stealing still. In the fall of 1855, the New York Times carried a story under the headline, Wholesale robbery by pirates on Lake Michigan. Yes. Reprinted from a paper in the southeastern Michigan town of Allegan. It began, the people along Lake Michigan, from here north to the manistee,

have been thrown into the most intense excitement by the operations of a gang of marauders who are reported to be Mormons from Beaver. Island. God, I have to stop here for a second. Gang of Mormon marauders from Beaver Island. Sounds like the name of an especially strange porno. Back into the quote now, who have carried on their operations with a boldness, coolness, and desperation rarely equaled in the records of highwaymen. They are reported to have burned sawmills and rob stores north of the Grand River. At Grand Haven, they made repeated attempts to break into stores and shops. On Saturday of last week, they made their appearance at the mouth of the Kalamazoo, and after looking about some, pushed up south as far as the tanneries in the town of Ganges, and on Saturday night broke open Robinson and Plummer Store, robbed them of $1,600 worth of goods, made back again down the lake.

There is said to be upwards of 20 in the gang. They sail one small schooner of 20 or 30 tons and two Mackinacob boats. There seems to be no question as to the identity of the robbers or their hailing place. they are emissaries from King Strang's realms, and the whole power of the state should be lent to ferret out and bring to justice the perpetrators of such bold crime. King Strang's realms. I love it.

This was only one of many, many articles about the Beaver Island Mormons plundering published in 1854 and 1855. Apparently, there was a large band with ties to straying plundering Milwaukee as well, breaking into houses, taking money, running raids back in Navu, Illinois, a pair of captured horse thieves there would admit that they hailed from Beaver Island. And back in October of 1854, the Buffalo Daily Record had noted, a rumor has been current for several days on our docks that the schooner Robert Willis, whose sudden disappearance on Lake Michigan last fall was noticed at the time, and of which no intelligence was ever afterwards

received, had been captured by the Mormons of Beaver Island. Her captain and crew massacred, and the vessel unloaded and scuttled. What the fuck? These Beaver Island Mormon pirates are massacring people now, possibly. Then in February of 1855, Wright of Strang was geared up to make his speech for black Michiganers. Three stores were burglarized in Lapeer, Michigan, which was followed by the arrest of another one of the prophets' top eights. That summer in July, the Pontiac Gazette carried accusations about a horse-thieving operation, carried out by String's followers, adding that because of the isolated position of the island, which they inhabit, it is nearly impossible to bring them to justice.

Amidst all of this, that same July, Strang decided at the age of 42 to take on two more wives, of course, as one does. God wanted him to ride more bicycles, and who was he to deny the Lord's wishes for him to find more rides and more ramps where he could try more tricks. They were 17-year-old Sarah Wright, followed a couple of months later by her 19-year-old cousin Phoebe Wright, marrying both, he married both them over the objections of their parents. Two teens for the 42-year-old now, glory be to Geliat. And then it was back to Steely. In September of 1855, more allegations about Mormon horse theft appeared in the Buffalo

Morning Express, followed by a report from a paper in Grand Haven, Michigan, nearly 200-mile south of Beaver Island, that there was no longer any doubt of there being a gang of desperadoes along this coast, well-armed, taking various kinds of goods. Alleging that the marauders were Mormons, the paper added, we advise the inhabitants the whole length of this coast to be on guard when any small boat visit them. Keep your eyes peeled 24-7 for Royal Mormon Pirate Scum. James Strang, of course, denied any connection to these robberies, picking them apart in print with his lawyerly precision and said that this was all a ruse to drum up a band of vigilantes to take action against the Mormons on Beaver Island, at which point the Mormons would

have no choice but to defend themselves with violence. But would the Mormons there actually be able to defend themselves? We're going to find out. In late November, four of Strang's followers were lost at sea, presumed to have drowned a small vessel between Beaver Island and the mainland. Among them was Jonathan Pierce, the accused horse thief, who'd escaped from that Ohio jail two years earlier. This was not a good time for one of Strang's primary stormtroopers to die seemed like an attack on Mormon shores was more likely than ever. Simultaneously, things were not going well on the family front. Earlier that year, his 14-year-old daughter by Mary, Myra Et, he was really trying to keep the name around, had married her 19-year-old first cousin,

Romeo D. Strang, and Strang didn't approve of the marriage since neither was Mormon and had no plans to come live on Beaver Island. The first cousin part didn't bother him at all. This was not a huge loss. String was not spending much time with his first family, but the rejection still had to sting, considering he was in the process of a major professional rejection. Though the Republicans had approved of String's help with the freedom laws, they refused to side with him on any other matters, and Strang now found himself politically homeless. Even worse, Democrats and Republicans joined together to pass by an overwhelming majority, a redistricting plan that slashed the size of the Prophet's legislative district, stripping him of control over any part of mainland Michigan. And the winter of 1855 into 1856 was extremely cold, even for northern Great Lake standards,

with the temperature on Beaver Island plunging below 20 degrees below zero in February on a regular basis. Lake Michigan froze over for 40 miles around, and the residents were stuck on the island until spring. Meanwhile, Strang was having problems with his disciple, Dr. McCullough, who was hitting the sauce harder than ever and disagreeing more and more with String on anything and everything. And String had also rejected Dr. McCullough wanting some new political position on the island, which pissed him off, and King James is worried that a rebellion is brewing. Can the royal keep its polygamous pirates under control? Well, he comes up with a plan for how to retain control over his island. He spent the winter preparing an expanded edition of the Book of the Law of the Lord, a code of conduct that had come from the LDS's text, the Ark of the Covenant, as the prophet told his followers anyway. It now specifically enshrined polychemy. saying that anybody who didn't practice it would not be able to obtain God's full blessing. The former anti-Pologamist has now completely reversed his previous stance.

And like his decision to come out against slavery, this was a political miscalculation. Now a bunch of families on the island are worried about being forcibly torn apart, required to embrace something they do not believe in or want. Also, those straying demanded that women wear pantaloons, he was big on pantaloons, not the increasingly popular hoop skirts, the full-skirted style appeared more and more often among the island's women.

These fucking island bicycles are out of control. They're not submitting. His iron grip is loosening. And by the spring of 1856, it was starting to look like the Mormons no longer had to worry about an outside invasion. Now it seemed like the true threat might be from within.

And then came a knock on the door. When Thomas Bedford, small and dark complexioned, peered out into the mild spring beaver island, the night. A man was waiting in the shadows with an urgent message. According to the messenger, King James wished to see Bedford down at the printing office. And despite the lateness of the hour, Bedford was not surprised by the summons. He'd always been a pretty passive follower of Strang's teachings. He still smoked, for example. And he had bought his wife a hoop skirt, much to his

prophet's displeasure. He also recently accused some other straying supporters of stealing a pair of his horses, along with 90 fishing nets and two fishing boats. And for speaking out about all that, he'd become one of the leaders of the growing anti-strain movement on the island. And when he agreed to help a Native American locate their stolen boat, a straying loyalist had overheard. When he was brought into the publishing office, Strang was not there. Instead, a group of men were there who beat the fucking shit out of him. Men, still loyal to Strang, beat him half to death. Then two months later, on May 22nd, Strang published a report that the two doctors, Dr. McCullough and another, who had recently

left the island, he heavily implied that they were on a drinking binge, which they probably were, but privately he was worried that they were plotting to overthrow him, which they definitely were. McCullough had been stripped of his positions on the church council and his political offices in April, and when he left like George Adams before him, he vowed to get revenge. By late May, Dr. McCullough returned to Beaver Island now, carrying several pistols. He'd been a busy man for the past few weeks. First, he'd gone to Lansing, the Michigan Capitol. There, he successfully lobbied to get state funding to Beaver Island lowered,

based on evidence that String had fraudulently overestimated the number of school children. And perhaps while he was there, he discussed or even got logistical support for a true plan to overthrow the king. I don't know why that sounded so funny. me uh june second eighteen fifty six thomas bedford the guy who'd been beaten in the middle of the night for daring to defy king james waded in a dense fog he was still salty over his late-night thrashing the u s s michigan had just docked in the beaver island harbor that fucking war ship five years earlier that same ship right had swept strang away in recent years had been making regular patrols around the lake and strang had often come aboard to pay his respects to the captain

and now, Thomas, along with another conspirator, Alexander Wentworth, knew that Strang would be headed to the ship any minute, and when he went to board, they planned on shooting him dead. But when Strang appeared, he was walking between two friends, and they chose not to attack and risk hurting those other ding-dongs. But then the ship returned unexpectedly, June 16th. String spotted the smokestack from his house, now two buildings joined by a covered walkway where Strang live with four women, at least, all of whom were currently pregnant, and five children under five years old, an emissary came to tell Strang that the Captain McBlare wanted to talk to him. The emissary and Strang met each other cordially,

made their way along the bay toward the harbor. There, hidden from view, Thomas Bedford, and Alexander Wentworth waited again. And Captain McBlair knew they were waiting. Indeed, two weeks earlier, Commander McBlair, Bedford, and Wentworth had started communicating, along with Dr. McCullough. After an initial meeting,

McBlair informed a secretary of the U.S. Navy about his concern for, quote, some circumstances arising from the secession of members of the community from Mormonism and the malpractice of James Strang, the leader and prophet. It seems that McBlair thought he was going to talk to Strang about not forcing his community to participate in his illegal schemes. Or that was what he told his superiors, and he actually knew exactly what was going to happen next.

Strang reached the dock where the Michigan was moored, a narrow passageway lined on both sides with high piles of cordwood, which visiting steamboats purchased for fuel. Behind Bedford and Wentworth followed, the first carrying a horse pistol, the second a revolver. Brother Strang, they're going to shoot you! He yelled a boy near the ship, but the warning came too late. The two men fired. Wentworth's bullet struck the profit in the small of his back, while Bedford's ripped through his silk hat and into his skull. Then Wentworth charged forward, open fire from point-blank range, shot Strang in the side of the face before rushing into the ship as he screamed,

that damned rascal is out of the way. Who? asked a man who had just heard the shots. Straying that damn son of a bitch, he yelled back. Bedford, however, stayed on the dock, and he bashed Strang's fucking head in with the butt end of his pistol before fleeing for the Michigan. These guys were not messing around.

As men shouted, women screamed, String was transported to a nearby house. That motherfucker was somehow still alive after all that. Long live the king! A showdown, now played out in the docks of Beaver Island as a mob gathered and demanded the assassins be returned to land, but Commander McBlair refused. The Michigan set off at 1 p.m. the next day, carrying seven families from the island. McBlair would turn over the assassin to the local sheriff and Mackinac, though the townspeople, where the townspeople gave the killers a standing ovation and brought them gifts, brought them, excuse me, cigars, whiskey, and brandy.

Even brought them a bed for their jail sale. That's incredible. Speaks volumes over, you know, how a lot of these other locals, what they thought about King James. Fearing that the mob would tear down the jail to release these men, the sheriff eventually decided to shelter the prisoners and their families in his own boarding house. The trial would last less than an hour. And the killers were allowed to go free despite overwhelming evidence of their guilt. after paying $1.25 each in court costs. They just fucking walked off and enjoyed the rest of their lives.

No further charges would ever be filed. Right when I think I can't love this story anymore, this happens. Meanwhile, the story of Strang's shooting spread throughout the country, with some newspapers falsely reporting that Strang had died, others saying he had lived and had a fair prospect of recovery. In truth, Strang was clinging to life by a threat. I mean, had been shot in the head twice. Once in the face, once in the skull, there was a bullet in the skull somewhere.

His followers are convinced that God is going to miraculously heal their prophet, but then more drama unfolds. June 26, 10 days after the shooting, a posse that incredibly included co-conspirators, Dr. McCullough, and Strang's two assassins, Wentworth and Bedford, burst from a commercial steamboat during its stop on Beaver Island. After firing shots, taking Mormon hostages, and threatening to capture the prophet dead or alive, they retreated to the ship, vowing another assault in the days to come.

It's fucking war. on Beaver Island now, the shit's wild. Church leaders now decide it's time to get straying the hell out of there, and he has carried aboard the steamboat Louisville, accompanied by two of his wives, Betsy and Phoebe, all of them bound for Vori, Wisconsin. It was the right choice. By mid-July, an all-out invasion of Beaver Island is underway,

with Mormons experiencing what they had forced others to experience years before, a violent and painful exodus. Angry mobs torched the Tappernacle, they shoot up the Prophet King's house, they destroy the printing house, they forced many to leave, including O'Ira, which left only one prophet wife still on the island, 19-year-old pregnant Sarah Wright. Within days, 515 Mormons would be forced onto ships at gunpoint, with all of their valuables confiscated by the mob. On July 8th, about 90 Mormon refugees

were dropped in Green Bay. In Chicago, a crowd gathered to a gawk at another large contingent of refugees. And over the next few months, all of them would be kicked off the island, like literally all of them. If Strang expected to find any comfort in Voree, meanwhile, as this is going on, his first commune, he was wrong. His first wife, Mary, is in Illinois at her brother's house. Strang's mother's in Voree, as are Phoebe and Sarah, and a few dedicated followers. But it's unclear if Strang is even cogent enough to realize what the fuck is going on. He's been slipping in and out of consciousness ever since his assault. And on July 9, 1856, at 43 years old, Strang dies from his wounds.

the king of Beaver Island has bid this cruel world adieu. Um, okay, arriving a few days later, 26-year-old Oviro, soon to deliver their fourth child, thought that he would actually arise from the dead. And then weeks go by, she waits for weeks for him just to, you know, pop back up from being dead. But then her husband, as a lot of people, you know, tend to do. when they're dead, he stayed dead.

Mary Pierce Strang, the prophet's first and lawful wife, traveled to and remained in Vory after Strang's death, briefly residing next to a house occupied by other wives, Elvira and Betsy, and their children. That's not weird. She would move to Terre Haute, Indiana in 1870, live with her grown son and daughter, and then die in 1880 at the age of 61.

Elvira would continue to live with Betsy McNutt. Those are great names, by the way, Elvira and Betsy McNutt. Moving to various spots in Wisconsin with other stragglers from Strang. sect until 1859 when she moved in with her mother in Lansing, Michigan. But she wouldn't stay with her mom for long. Soon she found herself destitute and contracted a serious illness, at which point she put

an ad in a local paper asking for people to take her children in. Three years passed before she was able to earn enough to get the oldest three back. She never regained custody of her youngest son, James Jesse Jr., born after his father's death. Eventually, at the age of 35, she married a non-Mormon and then lived an uneventful life dying at the age of 80 in 1910. Betsy McNutt never married again. She would move from Wisconsin to Indiana, back to Wisconsin, to an island in Lake Huron,

to a nearby island in Canada, and back to Wisconsin, finally to Iowa, where she died at 1897 at the age of 77. Gabriel Strang, her middle child, would serve two prison terms for horse theft. According to a 1910 story out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Gabriel possessed a puzzling dual personality, stealing horses, and getting into shootouts with police,

while at the same time paying the expenses of a young girl, who was anxious to secure an education but whose family was unable to send her to college. Phoebe Wright died in Tacoma, Washington, made it to the West Coast. At the age of 78, it was Phoebe's cousin, another of King James' young wives, Sarah, who would lead the most remarkable life after String. She gave birth to James Finia String in November of 1856 before marrying a Mormon in Utah, having six more kids. Then when that guy abandoned her, she transformed herself into a fucking doctor.

She made as much as $2,500 a year, which was a lot back then. by delivering babies in 1923 years before her death, she told a reporter what she had taken away from living on Beaver Island saying, quote, I don't believe today that God ever speaks to any man. Old frenemy, George Adams, he would carry on Strang's legacy, or carry on Strang's legacy. After establishing his own church-based in Strang's version of Mormon doctrine,

he convinced more than 150 followers to sell all their possessions and establish a colony in Palestine to a way, the Second Coming of Christ, and you can imagine how that went. Not good. Within a year, 18 of them were dead from either cholera or starvation. The colony was a failure, and Christ did not come, wrote Mark Twain, who just happened to be on a ship that rescued about 40 survivors of that colony. Most of Strang's followers, on the other hand, would eventually choose to join what was then known as the new organization of Latter-day Saints. The group chose not to follow Brigham Young, but to accept the leadership of Joseph Smith III.

eldest son of Smith, this new organization was later incorporated as the reorganized Church of Jesus Christ, the Latter-day Saints, becoming the second largest body in the Latter-day Saint movement renamed Church of Christ in 2001. But some followers of straying would remain, and there are still some around today, and let's get out of this crazy timeline and talk about that real quick. Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely.

James Jesse String. Not the outlaw of Jesse James, but an outlaw. The Royal King James, the king of Beaver Island, a true cult leader, who made an entire island his compound, one of his compounds, really. He saw what worked for Joseph Smith, and he thought, I'll just copy that. And he did, buried plates and all. And in the end, it earned him the same fate as Smith, getting shot to death by those disgusted by what he was doing.

doing such an incredibly strange mostly forgotten piece of american history the dude was so fucking obviously full of shit documented grifter through and through but people still followed him a lot of people some sources say that up to uh they peaked at around 12 000 members at the time of his death i don't know about that probably wasn't that high from what i've gathered from other sources probably like a thousand maybe but still that's a lot and some continue to follow his teachings today They're called Strangites now, not Strangers. While the town on Beaver Island is still named after their prophet King James, the unincorporated township of St. James,

it doesn't seem like any Strangites live on the island today. They were again thoroughly removed at gunpoint after King James' death. But the first community in Vorey, Wisconsin, still a Strangite stronghold. The little unincorporated area is just to the west of the neighboring 11,000-ish-person town of Burlington, Wisconsin. There's a Strangite church there. it's their headquarters, Burlington, just 35 miles southwest, downtown Milwaukee. According to the About Us section of the church's website, LDSstrangite.com, we follow Joseph Smith's legal successor, James J. Strang, and possess a true priesthood.

They also state, quote, James J. Strang was the only person who claimed a direct appointment by the founding prophet. He also was the only person who claimed he was ordained by angels, as required by D.N.C. c 43-7 he met all the succession requirements given by god through revelation we believe the only way a man may become a prophet of god is by an angelic ordination and there can only be one on the earth at a time okay uh the church does not currently have a prophet today it's you know bummer profitless their primary church actually might be their only church uh with an active congregation is located at 1330 Spring Valley Road in Burlington, they practiced a Saturday Sabbath, hold meetings every Saturday at 11 a.m. On their FAQ page, they state they currently have about 130 active members

scattered across the U.S., quote, the majority of this figure attend church in Burlington. We are only a remnant of God's church until the next phase of the dispensation of the fullness of times begins and the gospel returns to the House of Israel. We are in what can be known as intergum phase until the prophetic office is restored to the earth again. They claim to not practice polygamy, which is fucked up, since that is what their prophet demanded, those fucking heathens. You have to tithe 10% of your income, if you remember. And no, you can't agree to double that if you're allowed to have a second wife.

There also might still be a strangite church in Shreveport, Louisiana. So random, but it's not connected to the Vori Church. It seems not surprisingly that the Strangites, splintered into rival factions after Strang's death. But I think the other groups outside of those connected with the Vori Church have died out by now, some just a few decades ago, it seems. So crazy that this whole thing seemed to have started with a real estate grift. Remember upon seeing Navu, Illinois, Strang's idea was simple.

Get Joseph Smith, stupid, but simple. Get Joseph Smith to endorse Burlington, Wisconsin as a good home for the Latter-day Saints, then quickly buy up all the real estate before any settlers arrived, then sell it back to them at an inflated price and profit, or I guess sell it to them since they didn't have it, and then just, you know, wham-bam, thank you, ma'am. But then Smith got shot and shit got weird, like Mormon pirates marauding the waters of Lake Michigan weird.

Thank God, had they not have gotten that weird, we wouldn't have the story. And what a story it is. Story of a man who, for a brief time, actually kind of was an American king, the king of Beaver Island. Time now for today's takeaways. Time shock, top five.

Takeaways. Number one, James Strang was a grifter, real estate fraudster, failed postmaster, and all around down-and-out sleazy dude, who managed to catch on to the scheme of a century in the form of Joseph Smith's exact same scheme. Strang somewhat successfully asserted himself as Smith's rightful successor via a letter that had supposedly been sent from the prophet to the new prophet on the eve of Smith's death. And then when his followers needed even more proof, he arranged to have a bunch of shitty brass plates hidden in a hillside that only he could translate mirroring the discovery of the plates

that became the basis for the Book of Mormon. And like Smith's establishing of Navu, Strain created a new religious settlement at Vorey, although it wasn't much more than a collection of rough houses and shacks. But soon, he would have an island. Number two, Holy Pirates, Batban. For years, Strang and his followers would steal timber, furs, and other goods, sometimes from non-Mormon neighbors or passing ships. There were also claims that the Strangites had intercepted mail or plundered cargo, which brought the issue under federal jurisdiction, though they weren't able to nail him on that. In the end, it wasn't really the piracy that ended Strang's reign. It was the fact that he had pissed off an alcoholic doctor and other top

followers and told his community to embrace polygamy after marketing himself as an anti-polygamist. Number three, Strang had five wives, including his ex-Mary, and 14 children, including four who were born after he died. This is nowhere close to his rival, Brigham Young, though. who had that final count of 57 children, but still pretty insane. Number four, strings surrounding himself with interesting characters, many of whom were just as batch it crazy as he was. From the alcoholic and murderous Dr. McCullough to the theater-making, also alcoholic and eventful religious colonist George Adams,

who vowed revenge on him after a fight with the woman pretending to be a millionaire named Louisa, sure seems that Beaver Island was a refuge for oddballs. Even his second wife, Elvira, dressed as a man for six months, while traveling with him, and his first wife, Mary, may have been pushed so far that she tried to murder Ilvira's infant, Charles, named after Ilvira's male persona. Number five, new info,

what the fuck is going on on Beaver Island today? Not a lot. It seems pretty calm there, pretty peaceful. According to the 2020 census, a little over 600 people live there, but it feels like a place where a lot more people live there like in the summer, you know, like second homes. It's gorgeous, following strings assassination

and the removal of his followers. A bunch of Irish fishermen. settled on the island, many of whom had lived there before Strang had forced them out. The old Strangite print and shop still stands today. All the other Strang era buildings are gone, though. In the 1880s, Beaver Island became the largest supplier of freshwater fish consumed in the entire United States for almost a decade, but then overfishing ended that by 1893. Early in the 20th century, logging became the island's main industry, but then overlogging,

ended that as well. Today, the island describes itself as America's Emerald Isle, a nod to its Irish past and many of the local's Irish heritage. Island today has a golf course, nature trails, restaurants, hotels, and marina, other amenities are available. You can ferry over to the island most of the year. You can fly in and out year round. And if you live there, maybe you can get yourself a membership to the King Straying Hotel Club and impress other members with your knowledge of the strangest chapter by far of the island's past. Time suck, top five takeaways.

The King of Beaver Island has been sucked. That was a fun one, right? Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for all your help and making time suck. Thanks to Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsay Cummins. Thanks to Logan Keith helping to publish this episode, designing merch for the store at bad magic productions.com. Thanks to Sophie Evans for her research.

Also thanks to the all-seen eyes, moderating the cult of the curious private Facebook page of the mod squad making sure Discord keeps running smooth and everybody over at the Time Sucks subreddit and Bad Magic Subreddit. And now, let's head on over to this week's Time Sucker Updates. Updates? Get your Time Sucker updates. Today's first update. From those sending to Bojangles at Timesuckpodcast.com comes in from a stupendous sucker named Sharon, who wrote him with a subject line of

The Journey of a Child Addict. dearest sir suckington and the rest of the team that makes time suck possible this last episode is near and dear to my heart as someone in recovery i wanted to thank you for the compassionate way in which you discussed me and my fellow addicts if you all will allow it i also wanted to share my experience strength and hope with those who might need to hear it it's a long story so i'll truncate it i am an alcoholic i started drinking at a very young age at my friends bat mitzvah I remember feeling so grown up and sophisticated with that wine in my hand. It wasn't much longer before I found vodka, and that was it.

I was off to the races. I managed to hide my drinking from my tea totaler parents and was a full-blown alcoholic by 18. When I went to college, I needed the alcohol to feel like I fit in, to forget the trauma and abuse I had survived. And I was convinced that, yes, I drank heavily, but not to excess. I knew that I came from a long line of addicts on both sides of my family, but I thought it was bulletproof.

I drank my way out of college. I drank my way out of jobs. I drank my way out of any kind of even halfway decent life. I wasn't living at all, merely existing in my own hell. The shame was intense, and I remember praying over and over, God, please don't look at me right now. Not like this. Then I found AA through court-ordered attendance. Over the next few years, I fought my addiction. I had several relapses, but thankfully survived to make it back to the rooms of AA. The day, I have 17 years of sobriety, something I thought was impossible for me when I first started my journey. One of the greatest lessons I ever learned was from an old-timer when he gave me my first white chip. He told me that he had good news and bad news. The good news was that I never had

to drink again. But the bad news was that drinking wasn't my problem. In AA, we talk about addiction as a tri-fold disease, one that is physical, mental, and spiritual. Recovery, therefore, must address those three things as well. That's why our symbol is a triangle inside of a circle. Of all the parts of the big book. The one that I love the most is what we call the promises. A list of things we gain in sobriety. One of them is we will no longer regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. At this point in my recovery, I look back in my story and I feel nothing but acceptance. I wince at some of the shit I did, but I feel no shame. I've lost too many friends to this disease and I am genuinely lucky to be alive myself. I had the benefit of a support network of people just like me

who were in the trenches with me. It was a group of drunks who loved me and held my feet to the fire when I hated myself and the only thing I knew how to do was run. If you're struggling with active addiction, I want to encourage you. You're fighting a titanic battle. You're beat up. You're scared.

You're not sure how much longer you can keep this up, but you aren't alone. There are millions of us around the world. All of us suffering from the same chronic disease and many of us walking are various paths through recovery. Talk with your doctor, with a trusted friend, with a therapist. or another addict who knows what it's like.

The first step towards recovery is opening your mind and opening your mouth. You can do this one day at a time with all of the love in my heart, Sharon. Oh, thank you, Sharon. Thank you for putting in the work to turn your life around. And thank you for sharing your journey to help others turn their lives around. You didn't have to take the time to write and send that email, but you did. And I appreciate that so much. And I'm guessing that someone is going to need to hear it.

maybe a number of someone's. So keep showing up at those meetings. It's clearly working. Hail Nimrod. Next up, Super Sucker Giermo wrote in with the subject line of Time Suck 483 Addiction, Magic Pill for Alcoholics and Personal Experience. Dear Dan Cummins and the Time Suck team, please, with the utmost importance, read the last paragraph of this letter.

Everything else is just a fan writing and sharing. I believe you could help significantly in getting the word out about the Sinclair method for curing alcoholism. please feel free to redact or edit what you may want if you don't want to shout out the book, but TSM and now TREXone could be a magic pill for some alcoholics. And clearly I'm just reading the whole message here. I greatly appreciate your newest episode on addiction. Anytime someone speaks on the issue with grace and respect for those who suffer, my hope is that it inevitably helps someone struggling,

either via proxy of a friend, family member, loved one making the attempt to assist him, or directly, most noticeably, in reminding the attic that in the cold, lonely void that is addiction, someone put in some major effort into bringing awareness to the problem. The call to action and sign off of your episode was exceedingly beautiful and full of grace, I will say even though you and I disagree on a multitude of subjects, the importance of religion for society, benefits of drug use for the general populace, and in this episode, although I may have a poor model for what you believe, that all alcoholics become alcoholics from trauma instead of some people just like to drink. I still enjoy your devout and excellent research into the topics you put forth on time suck.

My mother was, is, and most likely will always be a drunkard, an addict, an alcoholic, with all of the archetypes that go along with it. Surprisingly, and thank God, she was able to maintain sobriety for all five of her pregnancies. There are enough stories for me to fill out a PhD thesis worthy of, frankly, rather depressing tales. What you said towards the end, paraphrasing here, of someone losing a parent, going through a divorce, being fired, but in the span of a decade versus a year struck true to home. essentially none of her children speak to her other than myself and in speaking to her about her life holy shit i think i'd be a drunk to or dead so i try to maintain the grace and forgiveness in my heart for her

regardless of how difficult it can be because when she is drunk she can be a manipulative narcissistic vitriolic liar i tend to agree that addiction is not a moral failing but it sometimes becomes difficult to follow that dogma does it become a moral failing when you've stolen to get drunk How about when you lash out of your loved ones and try to inflict deep emotional wounds because they will not buy you more boots? It's hard to say it's something I've struggled with endlessly. Please, if you could, in a time sucker update,

recommend some additional reading. The book, which I wish you to talk about was written decades ago, and it is called Drink Your Way Sober, The Science-Based Method to Break Free from Alcohol by Katie Herzog. That again is, drink your way sober, the science-based method to break free from alcohol

by Katie Herzog. It has some seriously detailed research, a bittersweet narrator's story of her own journey through AUD, and the potential magic pill for alcoholics. I was a bit sadden that you did not mention the Sinclair Method in your section about alcoholism. In the big book, A.A., Bill states along the lines of, there is no pill to cure alcoholism. That is why you must follow the 12 steps. But as you spoke about in your section about him, he was not opposed to there being some medical intervention, hence why he experimented with LSD. It appears that there may possibly be a pill. Naltrexone that can assist with curing alcohol use disorder.

It's even possible that naltrexone can be used to treat other use disorders, such as binge eating. The quick blurb and getting started is to take a dose of naltrexone 30 minutes to an hour before drinking. The naltrexone binds to the opioid receptors in your brain, blocking the euphoric feeling alcohol gives you. This causes the reward loop to hopefully cease to exist, and the user can potentially reach pharmacological extinction. Sadly, because of what some would call the AA lobby, the Sinclair method is somewhat underground in online forums, Facebook groups, et cetera, where addicts and practitioners gather together

to help people get started. Thank you and your team for all of the diligent work and effort put in the time suck. Well, thank you for sharing this, Guillermo. I looked a bit into Naltrexone, and it seems like there definitely is a lot of belief out there that in conjunction with therapy and or some kind of support group,

Naltrexone can help a lot of people get sober, In line with the findings in last week's episode, you know, there's just no one-size-fits-all method, and I'm so glad that you shared a method that I didn't. Because undoubtedly, there will be people that AA does not work for, but this does, or that this works for in conjunction with AA or with conjunction with something else. Happy to share it, happy to give it some exposure. Yeah, thanks for listening to somebody you don't often agree, you know, don't always agree with or don't often whichever agree with, truly.

And good on you for, you know, both understanding why your siblings have cut your mother out of their lives. but also understanding that what she is going through isn't merely some character defect or the result of nothing more than like a lack of willpower. Sorry you have to witness that. And thank you for sharing. And now let's end on some silliness, some humor. Guessing I'll be sharing more updates

to last week's episode going forward. Funny-ass sack Kevin Miller sent in a message with a subject line of Thanksgiving drama. Hey, Dan, T-LDR, you're a lost soul and you're very stupid. J-K. Gosh dang, but I endured a 20-minute lecture over Thanksgiving when my girlfriend's dad, a fellow sucker, put on a get out of here devil, that's my stand-up special from one of them, and then left me and his father-in-law alone with you. He heard everything.

Fucking the banana peel? Yep. The anti-vax bit? Oh, you bet he heard it. I forgot to mention that the father-in-law is Uber Christian and was under the influence of more than just the Lord that night. I ended up receiving his wrath as he proceeded to lecture me for an eternity about the real truths of this world and how you are lost and very stupid. I like that I'm not just stupid, but very stupid.

Needless to say, he will not be listening to any more of your stand-up comedy or your podcast anytime soon. We didn't hear from him the next day, and I would like to think that you had a profound effect on this man. Thanks for saving me another lecture about repopulating the earth. Love you. You're very faithful and totally not stupid space as you're Kevin Miller. You can read this on the podcast. My girlfriend's dad will love that. Oh, holy shit, Kevin.

I love that you and your girlfriend's dad were able to bond over this particular experience. Playing that special over Thanksgiving. That was a bold choice. Feels like your girlfriend's dad did that specifically to rile that guy up and to have a good laugh about it with you. Basically, it sounds like your girlfriend's dad is cool as fuck. Hail Nimrod. And I hope Lucifina rewards him for this. Yeah, thank you for the laughs.

Chiquita Charlie thanks you as well. Thanks time, suckers. I needed that. well thank you for listening to another bad magic productions podcast actually just got my spotify rap today and it was just cool seeing how many people listen to the show i don't have the numbers of my head night now but i was like oh that's quite a bit uh be sure and rate and review time suck if you haven't already i i always appreciate it it always helps uh maybe don't try and take over any islands this week and crown yourself as a polygamous prophet king it's just a lot

harder to get away with doing shit like that these days uh just maybe play some d and d campaign or something where you can pretend to do that instead and just keep on sucking and fucking chill out. And now, how about we end with just like a little bit more trumpet? For context, in this video posted on YouTube 15 years ago. I love it so much. guy making the video is out on like this. Looks like the second floor balcony of some apartment

or condo, I'm guessing. And there's a parade going by on the street directly below him. A lot of people line in the street watching this parade. A marching band is going by during this video. And right before the part of the video that I'm going to play for you, he grabs a trumpet and then just completely ruins their song with the following. And there's nothing they can do about it. He's on his own property, playing his own trumpet. It's fucked up, but it made me laugh so hard. The death glares he gets from some of the band just kill me.