Supplement to the Millennial Star: December; 1844. Conclusion of Elder Rigdon’s trial. [Caption title] [At end:] Liverpool: Edited and published by Thomas Ward, 36, Chapel-Street. James and Woodburn, Printers, 39, South Castle-Street. [1844]
8 pp. 22.5 cm.

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Sidney Rigdon arrived in Nauvoo from Pittsburgh on August 3, 1844, and immediately began to promote himself as Joseph Smith’s successor.  Five days later, the Nauvoo Saints, with only a few exceptions, voted to sustain the leadership of the Twelve.  But Rigdon continued to press his claim to succession, and on September 8, eight members of the Twelve, the senior bishop Newel K. Whitney, and a special high council deliberated over his actions and then excommunicated him.  Rigdon returned to Pittsburgh with a few followers and set up his own church, and in October he issued the first number of his church’s new periodical, the Messenger and Advocate.

Rigdon’s September 8 “trial” is reported in detail in the Times and Seasons of September 15, October 1 and 15, 1844 (see this digital collection).  The first installment of this report in the Times and Seasons is reprinted in the Millennial Star for December 1844 (see this digital collection).  The third installment is included in the December 1844 supplement.  This also contains extracts from The Prophet of November 2, both supporting the leadership of the Twelve.  Three notices are at the end, the third asserting that “no individuals professing to come from America, or elsewhere, [will] be permitted to preach, unless they bring legal credentials from the presidency in Liverpool.”  The supplement is routinely bound with the fifth volume of the Star.

Excerpted and edited from Peter Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church.  Volume One, 1830-1847. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center, [1997]).  Item 240, p. 282.

Used by permission of the author and the Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University.