The last years of Sidney Rigdon

 

I recently re-read the late Richard S. Van Wagoner's superb biography, Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess, 1994, Signature Books. In a long-ago Culture of Mormonism blog post, I mentioned the book. In the ensuing paragraphs of this blog post, my source is Van Wagoner's biography.

Re-reading the book, I was struck by the last poverty-stricken years of Rigdon's life. He lived with loyal wife, Phebe, and existed on the charities of his children and few dozen followers. Latter-day Saints are very familiar with Rigdon, but after he lost a power struggle of control of the church to Brigham Young in 1844, conventional Mormons know little of his life. He tried to start an offshoot of Mormonism in Pennsylvania and later in a rural setting but failed. He then failed again. Some of his followers lost a lot of money, and his children lost confidence and prevented "Father Rigdon" from trying to be a prophet and leader.

In fact, when a man named Stephen Post wrote to Rigdon, inquiring about starting a church, Rigdon's son, (John) Wickliffe, wrote to Post, pleading that Post stop enabling his father's religious mania.

Post stayed away for a while, but Rigdon and Phebe were determined to begin again, and Post eventually resumed correspondence with Sidney. Late in his life, Sidney and Phebe started a church, Children of Zion, more or less without the knowledge of their children. I found it fascinating that Sidney's last church was formed and operated on the sly.

He ran it from afar, calling priesthood leaders, demanding his followers provide him and his wife financial assistance. Sidney's reputation as a scholar and early LDS church likely still counted for a lot with people seeking divergent paths of the Smith-started main church, now led by Brigham Young. 

Rigdon's church had three interesting themes. I'll offer sketches in this post, but urge readers to get the above-linked Van Wagoner biography to learn more:

First, The Children of Zion church ordained women to the priesthood. Rigdon went even further, placing women in high priesthood callings. His wife Phebe was the first woman he ordained to the priesthood. There are touching passages of Phebe assigned as a Book of Mormon teacher, and her diligence in reading the Scripture, studying it, providing lesson outlines and her overall pious enthusiasm.

Second: Rigdon's animus towards the original LDS Church was deeper late in life. He believed Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet, Brigham Young a tool of Satan and predicted that the Salt Lake City saints would face the wrath of God with apocalyptic type sufferings and massacres. In fact, Rigdon taught that he was the prophet called by God to restore order after God cleansed the earth. Rigdon also referred to himself as the most important prophet of God through all eternity.

Third: Rigdon believed that God would restore his strength and that he would not suffer death but be healthy enough to restore order to the world. He fervently believed this even as he suffered a series of strokes in the last stage of his life. His wife Phebe also believed. After his death, she, perhaps grief-stricken and disillusioned, ceased much of her activity in the small church.

Rigdon's son, Wickliffe, unaware of his father's latest church, contacted Brigham Young in Utah to ask if the church leader would arrange for Sidney and Phebe to return to the main church and live in Utah. Young, who seemed to regard Rigdon at this time with wry bemusement, agreed. Surprisingly, Rigdon initially entertained the possibility. But it was not to be, as Rigdon placed delusional demands, like demanding that the Utah Saints repent to avoid being destroyed and that Young provide him and Phebe $100,000.

Wickliffe Rigdon later wrote a biography of his father's life. In his 70s, he joined the Utah-based church his father hated.

In Rigdon's biography, Van Wagoner notes that Sidney would probably be classified manic depressive. Solitude and being ignored pained him. In the years before his last, semi-secret church, after Rigdon failed at previous efforts at leadership, only Phebe believed in her husband. 

"Solitary zeal was a devastating sentence to be imposed on so vocal a prophet," writes Van Wagoner. But the aforementioned letter from Post arrived and so began Rigdon's last tenure as a prophet seer and revelator.

But despite lasting the rest of his life, the Children of Zion was a failure too. Membership dwindled to just a few dozen. The Reorganized Church poached many of his Children of Zion membership. That infuriated Rigdon, who had hoped the Joseph Smith III faction would join his church.

Rigdon's erratic behavior alienated many Children of Zion members. They grew tired of a leader from a distance who frequently changed his mind, throwing their efforts to follow him in disarray. A major rupture in the small church occurred when Stephen Post's niece, an unbalanced woman named Evva, attempted to abort her baby with charcoal. It was a failure. As strange as this seems, she prayed to God that the charcoal would not turn her baby into a negro. Evva claimed to receive a revelation from an angel that showed her it was white. She then assumed a level of church leadership.

Other members protested. Sidney turned on the protesters and backed Evva, likely because of his close friendship with Post. This further decreased church membership. Also, Rigdon alienated longtime loyalists by demanding money from them. He angrily denounced them when they demurred, arguing they had stayed loyal despite losing money from his earlier ecclesiastical efforts.

Rigdon died on July 14, 1876, in Friendship, N.Y. He is buried there. Phebe survived him by almost 10 years. She is buried in the same cemetery.

-- Doug Gibson

John Corrill was an older Christian convert to the early Mormon church

 ---

The early years of the Mormon Church are distinct for its young converts, with 20-something apostles embracing the progressive, radical-for-its-time distinctions between Joseph Smith’s Mormonism and the traditional Protestant Christianity. However, there was another type of early LDS convert; an older generation who embraced Christian primitivism, which encompassed a desire to return to strict Biblical principles, disdained “priestcraft,” and had a libertarian streak, mixed with republican ideals, that opposed a centralized church leadership dictating to local church groups. Most importantly, this type of convert would never place a prophet’s opinion over his own personal beliefs.

Given the direction the Mormon Church took over its 14-plus years with Smith solely at its helm, it’s not surprising that a substantial number of the older-generation converts did not stick with Mormonism. Perhaps the best example of this type of early Mormon convert who enjoyed prominence in the young church but later abandoned it is John Corrill, who is mentioned a couple of times in the Doctrine of Covenants. In the book “Differing Visions: Dissenters in Mormon History,” University of Illinois Press, 1994, historian Kenneth H. Winn provides an interesting recap of Corrill’s life and tenure in Mormonism. A Christian primitivist, Corrill, who turned 36 in 1831, initially investigated Mormonism with a determination to expose its follies. However, Corrill, who admired the primitivist teachings of Alexander Campbell, was shocked when he heard Sidney Rigdon, a former Campbell advocate he admired, pitching Mormonism enthusiastically.

As Winn notes, Corrill, a Massachusetts native, read The Book of Mormon and decided he could not declare it a fraud. Also, Mormonism appealed to specific primitivists such as Corrill in that it contained a certainty of belief that they sought, whether with the Book of Mormon or a yearning for “a prophet who could speak for God.” He, as well as his wife and family, joined the church in 1831 in Ohio.

Soon after his baptism, Corrill, after serving a mission, was sent to Missouri to help develop the church’s growth there. He served under Bishop Edward Partridge. It was here that Corrill first clashed with Smith’s leadership. Both he and Partridge favored a more local control than Smith wanted, and both were criticized by the Mormon prophet. Also, Corrill foresaw the problems that would develop with mass migration of poor Mormon converts to land long dominated by non-Mormon Missourians. The combination of religious bigotry among Missourians as well as unwise boasting by saints of establishing a religious and political kingdom led to violence and conflicts that the Mormons would always lose over the years.

Despite the conflict with church leadership, Corrill mended his problems with Smith and according to Winn, had a very strong ecclesiastical relationship with the young prophet through the mid-1830s. In 1836, Winn notes, Corrill was appointed by Joseph Smith to head the completion of the Kirtland Temple. Corrill also developed a reputation of being the Mormon leader who was best able to negotiate with anti-Mormon elements in Missouri. By 1837, Corrill was a leading Mormon settler in Far West, Missouri, ”selected ... as the church’s agent and as the ‘Keeper of the Lord’s Storehouse,’” writes Winn.

But that was the peak that preceded the fall of Corrill’s tenure in the church. As tranquil as events in Far West were, an ill-fated banking endeavor in Kirtland by Smith and other church leaders was leading to apostasy and tense disputes between church leaders and native Missourians. Corrill, Winn writes, regarded the Kirtland monetary failure with “revulsion.” He saw the lust for wealth, and the subsequent fall, as evidence of “suffered pride.” Yet he was as critical of Smith’s dissenters as he was of the banking effort. Also, Corrill still believed that the overall church, with auxiliaries serving as checks and balances, could reform itself and maintain the better relations between Mormons and non-Mormons that still existed in Far West.

That was not to be. The turmoil of Kirtland followed the church to Far West. To cut to the chase, a speech by Rigdon, called the “Salt Sermon,” appalled Corrill. In it, Ridgon, comparing apostates to salt having lost its savor, argued that they could be “trodden under the foot of men.” In short, Rigdon said that the dissenters “deserved ill treatment.”

Corrill warned the dissenters that their safety was in danger. Later, the Danites, a Mormon vigilante group, was organized. The militant group frightened Corrill, who began to work against it in secret. As Winn explains, “The crisis that began in Kirtland and eventually swept Corrill up in Missouri marked a major turning point in early Mormon history, pitting the theocratically minded devotees of the prophet, who regarded opposition to the church leadership as opposition to God, against more libertarian minded dissenters, who rejected the First Presidency’s claim over their temporal affairs and the authoritarian demand for blind obedience.”

Corrill saw the Danites and Ridgon’s call for conflict in direct opposition to the Biblical belief that God is responsible for divine retribution. From this point on, 1838, Corrill was basically in wait to be excommunicated, no longer trusted by the Smith/Ridgon leadership of the church. Nevertheless, church leaders acknowledged Corrill’s reputation for honesty by electing him — with the Danites’ support — to the Missouri legislature. The final break between Smith and Corrill was over the church leadership’s call for a communal structure, which included church leaders being paid for work other than preaching. The communal structure was, Winn notes, allegedly voluntary, although pressure was exercised on members to contribute. “In any event,” Winn writes, “Corrill deeply disapproved of the revelation and readily shared his opinion with others.”

Despite his church status, Corrill worked without success in the Missouri legislature to push Mormon interests and even donated $2,000 of his own money to help the beleaguered saints. By the time his term ended, most of his constituency had fled the area. Ridgon’s rhetoric, and the Danites’ actions, had led to militias overwhelming the church and Smith, Rigdon and others being jailed. Corrill, now without a church and due to be excommunicated in early 1839, left his religion. He wrote a book, “A Brief History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” in late 1839. It is an interesting read for its historical value. At the time though, it sold poorly and Corrill spent the last few years of his life in poverty. He died in 1842, leaving an estate of only $265.86. As Winn writes, “His integrity and basic decency were overshadowed by charges that he had betrayed the prophet and the church.” 

Corrill did offer testimony against Smith to Missouri court hostile to the Mormons. Richard Lyman Bushman, in his 2005 biography of Joseph Smith,also describes Corrill as a “the steady, clear-headed Missouri leader” who conflicted over how much free will he had to surrender to stay a faithful Mormon, and witnessing defeat after defeat, finally decided he had been deceived..

-- Doug Gibson

Originally published at StandardNet

Polygamy opponents were swept aside in Nauvoo turmoil after Joseph Smith’s death

The months in Nauvoo following the murder of the LDS Church founder Joseph Smith were not surprisingly, filled with turmoil and political intrigue. The publication of “The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes” by Signature Books provides detailed accounts of the Nauvoo Stake’s high council meetings. It’s very interesting reading. The High Council was also a political body used to cast out prominent church members who did not support Brigham Young’s claim of leadership, or the church’s still-secret embrace of polygamy.

The purge of those who did not support Young in the months following Smith’s murder is an important part of LDS Church history. The Machiavellian tactics, while ruthless and arbitrary, ultimately underscored why the Mormons survived the Nauvoo disaster and thrived. They needed a “dictator,” — Young — not afraid to seize control and exercise it.

The Sept. 7, 1844 high council case of Leonard Soby, who publicly opposed polygamy in 1843 and helped publish The Nauvoo Expositor a year later, is a typical example of 1844 post-Martyrdom. Despite his past dissident status, which included an association with the anti-Smiths Nauvoo Expositor newspaper, Soby retained an uneasy status among the Nauvoo LDS religious hierarchy.

However, his support for Sidney Rigdon as church leader, and an altercation between Soby, Rigdon, Young and Orson Hyde on Sept. 3 over ordination authority for Rigdon, led to high council members “surprising” Soby with a motion that he be disfellowshipped. Soby protested vigorously, arguing that he was not a sinner, such as an adulterer or a moonshiner, but simply had honest differences with his high council colleagues.

It didn’t help. Soby may have been a bit naive, or disingenuous. By September 1844, among the Nauvoo High Council, any hesitancy to damn Rigdon as a false prophet trying to usurp authority was a one-way ticket out of the LDS Church. By the end of the night, Soby was effectively disfellowshipped. He followed Rigdon to his church in Pennsylvania, which eventually failed. Soby, 34 when drummed out of the LDS Church, died in 1891 in New Jersey. He remains a footnote in early LDS Church history.

For Young’s majority in the Mormon leadership, there was a far bigger fish to fry than Soby, or even Nauvoo Stake President William Marks, whose support for Rigdon and opposition to polygamy also ended his tenure later in 1844. On Sept. 8, 1844, in a public meeting, Rigdon would be kicked out of the church he had worked with Smith to build, with a litany of LDS Church apostles offering evidence against him.

As Brigham Young mentioned, Rigdon and Soby has been caught by Young and allies ordaining persons as “prophets” and “kings” etc. It was clear that Rigdon, who had already lost popular support in a contest with Young for church leadership, was attempting to take what members he could from Nauvoo with him to set up a rival church.

According to Young ally Orson Hyde, Rigdon, when asked that he surrender his license, threatened to publish “the history of this people since they came to Nauvoo of all their iniquity and midnight abominations.” Rigdon was referring to polygamy, and it was personal to him. His daughter, Nancy Rigdon, when 19, had resisted Joseph Smith’s efforts to make her a plural wife.

The stress of the Nauvoo polygamy battle caused Rigdon further deterioration of a long-taxed body and mind. By late 1844, he was a feeble adversary for Young and his allies. Young, who had long lost patience with Rigdon, chastised Rigdon with contempt. Other apostles provided anti-Rigdon rhetoric similar to what apostle John Taylor, future prophet, offered. He said “… he (Rigdon) is in possession of the same spirit which hurled the devil & those who we{r}e with him from heave(n) down to perdition(.)”

Only Marks offered support for Rigdon. To what must have been a very hostile audience, the Nauvoo Stake president pointed out that over the course of years, allegations against Sidney Rigdon had always been unfounded. Marks also argued in favor of a first presidency-directed church, rather than one — as Young and others argued for — directed by the Quorum of the 12 Apostles.

Marks added, “… I do not know of any other man this day that has the same power to receive revelations as Sidney Rigdon(,) as he has been ordained to be a prophet unto this people, & if he is cut off from the body this day I wish to the man if there is any that has the same power as he (Elder Rigdon).”

Young caustically responded that “Sidney had done as much (as was needed to show his unworthiness) when he arrived from Missouri(;) he had done as much as would sever any man from the priesthood …” Various Young allies also began to charge that the late Joseph Smith had had very little regard for Rigdon, and that his reputation within the church had been overstated. This is not an uncommmon tactic to use, in war, business or religion, when a longtime member of a group is being deposed by a new generation.

As mentioned, the removal of Rigdon and allies such as Soby and Marks were needed if the Mormons were to survive as a religion. Rigdon was an ill man by 1844, both physically and emotionally. He had suffered great physical hardships due to persecution in the 1830s and severe depression and anguish brought on by the introduction of polygamy and attempts by Smith to marry his daughter. Had Rigdon somehow defeated Young as Smith’s successor the LDS Church would have withered away. Rigdon’s efforts to build his own church was a miserable failure, and he spent his later years as an obscure, almost iconic curio who few paid attention to. His eccentricities included long, rambling denunciations mailed to Brigham Young that were ignored or perhaps considered with bemusement by the Utah leader.

In fact, I suspect that support for Rigdon from Marks, Soby and others (several were excommunicated the same day that Rigdon was cast out) had more to do with disgust for polygamy and the knowledge that Young intended to continue the practice.

There’s no way to know if Joseph Smith — had he lived — would have abandoned his polygamy experiment.

Under Young’s leadership, however, it was here to stay, and opposition to “the principle” would not be tolerated.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs

Sidney Rigdon: A brilliant orator who failed as a leader

I have a great deal of respect for Sidney Rigdon. A minister, he was a gold-standard convert for the young Joseph Smith and quickly rose to a leading position in the new Mormon Church. Rigdon walked the talk of early Mormonism. He was a great orator and led many to Mormonism. He also suffered in jail cells with Smith and others and the abuse caused him mental breakdowns.

And, like other converts, he was deeply distressed over the secret polygamy doctrine, more so after Smith allegedly attempted to make his daughter, Nancy, 19, a spiritual wife. This led to severed stress on Rigdon and a rift with Joseph Smith that was never fully healed before Smith was martyred in 1844.

After Smith’s death, Rigdon attempted to take control of the LDS Church. Suffice to say he failed in a power struggle with Brigham Young and was excommunicated in September 1844.

Despite that setback, he still enjoyed a following and in 1845 started the Church of Christ in Pittsburgh, Pa., where most former Mormons there followed him. Despite that positive beginning, within two years, Rigdon’s church would dwindle away, finally dying in a scraggly farm/commune in Antrim Township, Pa. After that, Rigdon, along with his wife Phebe, would live mostly in obscurity, resurfacing late in his life with one more feeble effort to start a church that migrated to Iowa and then dwindled away to nothing several years after Rigdon’s death in 1876,

Why did Sidney Rigdon fail the leadership test? It’s very possible that Rigdon, despite his knowledge of theology, the scriptures and church administration, suffered from mental illness and depression. He was devastated by the death of his daughter, Eliza, and quickly lost high-profile alliances with prominent Mormon dissidents, including William McLellin.

When the ailing church moved from Pittsburgh to Antrim Township, Rigdon tried to organize a six-month religious conference, but history tells us that he preached some bizarre doctrines, including a prediction Christ would return to the earth. Before that occurred, the farm was seized.

Rigdon’s last church was called The Church of Jesus Christ of the Children of Zion. The church included female members of its priesthood. Rigdon wrote a pamphlet, an appeal to the Latter-day Saints, but it was directed at members of the Reorganized Church under Joseph Smith III, not the Utah Mormons.

Like many of the original, early church members who apostasized, Rigdon never lost his testimony of The Book of Mormon or the early visions that these church leaders claimed. He spent much of his later life condemning Joseph Smith, Emma Smith — who he called a she-devil — and the doctrine of polygamy. But even then, Rigdon was such an enigma of contradictions. He denounced Smith and his wife vociferously in letters late in his life, but sought Joseph Smith III’s approval soon after leaving the main Mormon church. It’s likely that the rejection he received from the Reorganized church hardened his animosity toward the Smiths.

Another fascinating contradiction of Rigdon’s is his feelings on polygamy. He condemned it as “ruinous to society,” yet it appears that the 1840s’ church Rigdon organized and conducted wife-swapping, according to some members’ recollections.

To a faithful Latter-day Saint, there’s an easy answer to Rigdon’s decline: he apostasized from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But that’s a cheap answer that requires no thought. He apostasized, but his future life was shaped by his experiences as an early Latter-day Saint. The trauma and betrayal he thought he received must have presented difficult contradictions for a man who shared what he believed to be revelation from God and later saw him lust after his daughter. That would be a tough dilemma to reconcile for anyone. The stress certainly turned Rigdon into a man unfit to lead thousands. (Research for this article includes Richard S. Van Wagoner’s “Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess,” and “Sidney Rigdon: Post Nauvoo,” by Thomas J. Gregory, BYU Studies, Winter 1981.)

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs

John Corrill an example of the older Christian primitivist converts to Mormonism

The early years of the Mormon Church are distinct for its young converts, with 20-something apostles embracing the progressive, radical-for-its-time distinctions between Joseph Smith’s Mormonism and the traditional Protestant Christianity. However, there was another type of early LDS convert; an older generation who embraced Christian primitivism, which encompassed a desire to return to strict Biblical principles, disdained “priestcraft,” and had a libertarian streak, mixed with republican ideals, that opposed a centralized church leadership dictating to local church groups. Most importantly, this type of convert would never place a prophet’s opinion over his own personal beliefs.

Given the direction the Mormon Church took over its 14-plus years with Smith solely at its helm, it’s not surprising that a substantial number of the older-generation converts did not stick with Mormonism. Perhaps the best example of this type of early Mormon convert who enjoyed prominence in the young church but later abandoned it is John Corrill, who is mentioned a couple of times in the Doctrine of Covenants. In the book “Differing Visions: Dissenters in Mormon History,” University of Illinois Press, 1994, historian Kenneth H. Winn provides an interesting recap of Corrill’s life and tenure in Mormonism. A Christian primitivist, Corrill, who turned 36 in 1831, initially investigated Mormonism with a determination to expose its follies. However, Corrill, who admired the primitivist teachings of Alexander Campbell, was shocked when he heard Sidney Rigdon, a former Campbell advocate he admired, pitching Mormonism enthusiastically.

As Winn notes, Corrill, a Massachusetts native, read The Book of Mormon and decided he could not declare it a fraud. Also, Mormonism appealed to specific primitivists such as Corrill in that it contained a certainty of belief that they sought, whether with the Book of Mormon or a yearning for “a prophet who could speak for God.” He, as well as his wife and family, joined the church in 1831 in Ohio.

Soon after his baptism, Corrill, after serving a mission, was sent to Missouri to help develop the church’s growth there. He served under Bishop Edward Partridge. It was here that Corrill first clashed with Smith’s leadership. Both he and Partridge favored a more local control than Smith wanted, and both were criticized by the Mormon prophet. Also, Corrill foresaw the problems that would develop with mass migration of poor Mormon converts to land long dominated by non-Mormon Missourians. The combination of religious bigotry among Missourians as well as unwise boasting by saints of establishing a religious and political kingdom led to violence and conflicts that the Mormons would always lose over the years.

Despite the conflict with church leadership, Corrill mended his problems with Smith and according to Winn, had a very strong ecclesiastical relationship with the young prophet through the mid-1830s. In 1836, Winn notes, Corrill was appointed by Joseph Smith to head the completion of the Kirtland Temple. Corrill also developed a reputation of being the Mormon leader who was best able to negotiate with anti-Mormon elements in Missouri. By 1837, Corrill was a leading Mormon settler in Far West, Missouri, ”selected ... as the church’s agent and as the ‘Keeper of the Lord’s Storehouse,’” writes Winn.

But that was the peak that preceded the fall of Corrill’s tenure in the church. As tranquil as events in Far West were, an ill-fated banking endeavor in Kirtland by Smith and other church leaders was leading to apostasy and tense disputes between church leaders and native Missourians. Corrill, Winn writes, regarded the Kirtland monetary failure with “revulsion.” He saw the lust for wealth, and the subsequent fall, as evidence of “suffered pride.” Yet he was as critical of Smith’s dissenters as he was of the banking effort. Also, Corrill still believed that the overall church, with auxiliaries serving as checks and balances, could reform itself and maintain the better relations between Mormons and non-Mormons that still existed in Far West.

That was not to be. The turmoil of Kirtland followed the church to Far West. To cut to the chase, a speech by Rigdon, called the “Salt Sermon,” appalled Corrill. In it, Ridgon, comparing apostates to salt having lost its savor, argued that they could be “trodden under the foot of men.” In short, Rigdon said that the dissenters “deserved ill treatment.”

Corrill warned the dissenters that their safety was in danger. Later, the Danites, a Mormon vigilante group, was organized. The militant group frightened Corrill, who began to work against it in secret. As Winn explains, “The crisis that began in Kirtland and eventually swept Corrill up in Missouri marked a major turning point in early Mormon history, pitting the theocratically minded devotees of the prophet, who regarded opposition to the church leadership as opposition to God, against more libertarian minded dissenters, who rejected the First Presidency’s claim over their temporal affairs and the authoritarian demand for blind obedience.”

Corrill saw the Danites and Ridgon’s call for conflict in direct opposition to the Biblical belief that God is responsible for divine retribution. From this point on, 1838, Corrill was basically in wait to be excommunicated, no longer trusted by the Smith/Ridgon leadership of the church. Nevertheless, church leaders acknowledged Corrill’s reputation for honesty by electing him — with the Danites’ support — to the Missouri legislature. The final break between Smith and Corrill was over the church leadership’s call for a communal structure, which included church leaders being paid for work other than preaching. The communal structure was, Winn notes, allegedly voluntary, although pressure was exercised on members to contribute. “In any event,” Winn writes, “Corrill deeply disapproved of the revelation and readily shared his opinion with others.”

Despite his church status, Corrill worked without success in the Missouri legislature to push Mormon interests and even donated $2,000 of his own money to help the beleaguered saints. By the time his term ended, most of his constituency had fled the area. Ridgon’s rhetoric, and the Danites’ actions, had led to militias overwhelming the church and Smith, Rigdon and others being jailed. Corrill, now without a church and due to be excommunicated in early 1839, left his religion. He wrote a book, “A Brief History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” in late 1839. It is an interesting read for its historical value. (here ) At the time though, it sold poorly and Corrill spent the last few years of his life in poverty. He died in 1842, leaving an estate of only $265.86. As Winn writes, “His integrity and basic decency were overshadowed by charges that he had betrayed the prophet and the church.” 

Corrill did offer testimony against Smith to Missouri court hostile to the Mormons. Richard Lyman Bushman, in his 2005 biography of Joseph Smith,also describes Corrill as a “the steady, clear-headed Missouri leader” who conflicted over how much free will he had to surrender to stay a faithful Mormon, and witnessing defeat after defeat, finally decided he had been deceived..

-- Doug Gibson

Originally published at StandardNet