Leader of The Church in Missouri
Later in 1831, Whitmer joined the growing number of Latter Day Saints in Jackson County, Missouri. Local opposition to Mormon settlement in the county resulted in the expulsion of most of the Latter Day Saints by the summer of 1833. Whitmer, along with many of the others, took refugee in neighboring Clay County. At a July 3, 1834 conference of the church, Whitmer's brother David was called to be president of the church in Missouri. John Whitmer and William Wines Phelps were called as David's counselors. Because David returned to Kirtland, Whitmer and Phelps were left to preside in his absence. Whitmer wrote several petitions to Missouri's governor, Daniel Dunklin, asking that the Latter Day Saints be allowed to return to their lands in Jackson County.
Working with sympathetic non-Mormon residents in Clay County, including Alexander Doniphan, Whitmer and Phelps began to purchase land northeast of Clay in what became a new county, set aside for Mormon settlement. Together with Phelps, Whitmer purchased land for the church in his name in what became Caldwell County and founded the town of Far West.
Read more about this topic: John Whitmer
Famous quotes containing the words leader of, leader, church and/or missouri:
“To be a leader of men one must turn one’s back on men.”
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939)
“I don’t think that a leader can control to any great extent his destiny. Very seldom can he step in and change the situation if the forces of history are running in another direction.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“Eddie Felson: Church of the Good Hustler.
Charlie: Looks more like a morgue to me. Those tables are the slabs they lay the stiffs on.
Eddie Felson: I’ll be alive when I get out, Charlie.”
—Sydney Carroll, U.S. screenwriter, and Robert Rossen. Eddie Felson (Paul Newman)
“Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man’s nature—opposition to it, is [in?] his love of justice.... Repeal the Missouri compromise—repeal all compromises—repeal the declaration of independence—repeal all past history, you still can not repeal human nature. It still will be the abundance of man’s heart, that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)