A SHORT-LIVED KINGDOM.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 87, 24 September 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

A SHORT-LIVED KINGDOM.

About thirty-five miles from Charle. voix. off the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, is a group of islands, eleven i:i number, inhabited ever since white men first entered America. They were practically cleared of forests, and covered with cultivated fields as early as 1650, and within four years of the founding of Quebec-, Champain had a trading post at Beaver Island. It was at Beaver IVand that one 0; the most interesting incidents in the history 0/ America occurred —the attempt of James Jc-se Strang to establish a branch of the Mormon Church and at the same time to set up a, virtual kingdom. with himself as reigning monarch. Strang was the son of in farmer, and born in Cayuga County, N.Y. Although possessed of little education, he had great natural abilities, and r-upported himself in early life by Temperance lectures and dabbling in politics. Tn 1843 he was settled in Burlington, Wisconsin, and some time before the death of Joseph Smith, in 1844, he visited Nauvoo, and became a convert to Mormonism. to "plant a stake in Zion," at Wisconsin, the death of t;!ie brothers Joseph and Hyrum Sniit'h. Strang claimed the succession, although he had been a member of the church for 'ess than a year. Rrigham Young and other Mormon leaders denounced hiai as an imposter. excommunicated him. and drove him from Nauvoo. Attended bv a few followers, he attempted to settle in Walworth County, Wis., but was compelled to go further afield, and in 1817 he transferred his community to Beaver Island, and founded a

village which was namvd after himself, St. James. About July 11, 1850, he reorganised his church, and established the "kingdom," and from then till his death he was known as "King Strang." He controlled the Mormon vote, and was elected to the Legiiature of 1853 and again in 1855. The mynteriou* disappearance of trading ve iseis and all their crew in the vicinity of Beaver Island led to grave suspicions, and when the schooner '"Robert Willis," loaded with wheat and Hour for Buffalo, was seen steering for Beaver Harbour, and was never seen again, whilst the Mormons had plenty of flour and wheat for a long time after, decisive action was taken against them. The man-of-war "Michigan" was_ sent to Beaver Island, with the Inited State* Marshal, who arrested Strang and a. large number of his followers, and took them to Detroit, where they were tried before Judge Wilkins, o. the United States Court. In the end he and ia hundred of his fo"lowers were acquitted. In 1856 matters came to a crisis. A resident of the island, named Thomas Bedford, had been publicly tbgged by King Strang's orders, and he determined on revenge. On June 20 the U.S.S. "Michigan"' was in harbour at St. .I:in"s, and Strang was shot in the back, after which Bedford <and his accomplices were taken to Mackinac, tried, and acquitted. King Strang lived only a month, and after his death the tabernacle at St. Jamps was destroyed. the property of the Mormons confiscated, and the Mormons banished from the State.