In the power vacuum following Joseph Smith’s murder in June 1844, a little-known convert named James Jesse Strang made an audacious play for control of the Latter-day Saint movement. Producing a letter he claimed Smith had written before his death — naming Strang as successor — he launched one of the most brazen religious confidence schemes in American history. Physically unremarkable and barely a year into Mormonism, Strang nonetheless attracted thousands of followers, ultimately crowning himself king of a Lake Michigan island colony. His story is a frontier parable about charisma, religious hunger, and the dangerous appeal of self-appointed prophets.
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