William Bickerton is the founding prophet of the
third-largest Latter Day Saint denomination, known
as the Church of Jesus Christ. Remarkably, his life
has largely remained in the shadows.
Bickerton immigrated to America in 1831 at
the height of the Second Great Awakening. In
1845 Sidney Rigdon, a former counselor to founding
prophet Joseph Smith, accepted him into the
Church of Christ. Rigdon soon bankrupted his
church and abandoned his followers. Unsure where
to turn, Bickerton joined with Brigham Young until
a moral objection to polygamy left him once again
in search of a religious community. Divine inspiration
led Bickerton to form his own church based on
the original teachings of Joseph Smith.
A visionary man, Bickerton expanded his church
along the western frontier, even among the Native
Americans, and kept his congregation afloat through
financial trials. Yet when an allegation of marital
infidelity against Bickerton split his church in two,
he was disfellowshipped and his legacy obscured.
Biographer Daniel P. Stone carefully reconstructs
the forgotten details of this American mystic, fulfilling
Bickerton’s final wish, as taken from the Book of
Job: “Oh that my words were now written! Oh that
they were printed in a book! That they were graven
with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!”
