"History of the Traverse Region." Chicago, 1884.

"Candidates for the Pontificate," in Remy & Brenchley's "Journey to Great Salt Lake City," Vol. 1. London, 1861.

"Sketch of James Jesse Strang," in Vol. XVIII. Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections. Lansing.

Newspaper articles consulted:

New York Tribune, July 2, 1853. (Letter from Strang defending the Beaver Island Mormons.)

New York Times, Sept. 3, 1882.

Detroit Free Press, June 30, 1889. (Statement of King Strang's assassination as witnessed by Capt. Alex. St. Barnard, of the United States steamer Michigan.)

Chicago Tribune, Oct. 2, 1892, and Oct. 13, 1895.

Detroit News, July 1, 1882.

Chicago Illustrated Journal, January, 1873.

Yenowine's Illustrated News, Milwaukee, June 24, 1888.

Milwaukee Sentinel, May 6, 1892.

Most of the newspaper articles concerning the Beaver Island kingdom contain gross exaggerations.

THE BEAVER ISLAND PROPHET.

THE TRIAL IN THIS CITY IN 1851 OF "KING" STRANG.

From the Detroit Advertiser and Tribune of July 12, 1877.-By Hon. Geo. C. Bates,* United States District Attorney.

To the Editor of the Detroit Tribune:

In that valuable and most interesting history of Michigan, just now published by the Hon. James V. Campbell, of the supreme court of Michigan, a very brief reference is made to the history of James J. Strang, familiarly known as "King" Strang, and his arrest and trial in the cir cuit court of the United States for the district of Michigan in 1851, on several indictments for offenses committed at the Beaver Islands by him and his Mormon brethren (who seceded from Brigham Young and settled in Mackinac county in the years 1847-8-9-50-51,) in these words:

"The complaint, however, was not legally well founded, and although the proceeding disclosed much that was not creditable and many of the Island people were shown up in an unpleasant light, it did not appear that they had violated the laws of the United States." Outline of Popu lar History of Michigan, Page 550. Campbell.

And as the event was one of much interest at that time, being mixed up with the political and judicial history of Michigan and a portion of the Mormons, it seems an appropriate period to put upon record a correct statement of that event, and so complete the early records of the Stateand the object and purpose of this article is to accomplish that end. Strang himself in a series of articles in the year 1853 before his assassination, published in the journals of that day, pretended to give a correct account of the causes that led to his arrest and trial, the manner of such arrest, and his triumphant acquittal in Judge Wilkin's court, on the trial of the indictment for burning the mails, delaying the mails, and other crimes against the United States; a copy of which now lies before the writer hereof, but his statements are in many respects utterly untrue,

*George C. Bates was born in Canandaigua, New York, and received an academic education, and graduated from Hobart College at Geneva. New York, in 1831. He studied law with John C. Spencer at Canandaigua. He was a personal friend of his fellow student Stephen A. Douglas. He was admitted to the bar in Detroit, in 1834. In 1841 he was appointed United States District Attorney by President Harrison. He served in this capacity from 1841 to 1845, and again from 1849 to 1852, when he resigned and went into practice in California. In 1848 he was defeated for Congress by A. W. Buell. He practiced law in Chicago from 1861 to 1871 and then became District Attorney in Utah for two years, and then served several years as attorney for the Mormon church. In 1877 he again took up his profession in Detroit, but soon moved to Leadville and afterwards to Denver where he died. He was first a Whig, then a Republican. As a stump political speaker he had no superior in his day. In eloquence, wit, humor, and all the graces of speech and person, he had no rival, and was well known throughout the West and on the Pacific coast, where he was always warmly welcomed at all party meetings.

and in the main are a gross libel on the civil authorities and the people of Mackinac county, wherein these events mostly occurred.

As early as 1847, May 11, a portion of the Mormon people under the leadership of Strang as their king, prophet, revelator and seer, took possession of the Beaver Island in the name of the Lord, and commenced a series of acts which finally terminated in the arrest and trial of Strang and a large number of his brother Mormons; and eventuated in his assassination there in the year 1856 by some of the Islanders, whom he had persecuted from time to time. By the fall of 1850, this Mormon element had become an important faction in the elections of Michigan then closely contested, as the death of Gen. Taylor had left the Whig party a second time confused and the accession of Millard Fillmore to the presidency had distracted and to a certain extent divided its supporters. The election of that fall under the skillful manipulation of John Harmon, Esq., had eventuated in some 700 Democratic Mormon votes, which in a close contest would determine the success of parties in this State. During the year 1850, and the early spring of 1851, Strang and his people had by their consolidated Mormon vote secured nearly all the local offices of the Island of Mackinac, to which the Beaver Islands were attached for judicial purposes; and by means of such power, controversies immediately sprung up between the Gentiles of that island and the Mormon officers precisely as they exist in Utah today, and finally eventually ripened into open war, as Strang described it; and soon in the resistance to judicial process from a Gentile justice of Mackinac, one Bennett was killed, and, as was then charged, his heart was cut out by the Mormons, and exposed to derision and scorn. In a small way, these events are a duplicate of what is just now the condition of Utah, and which may there shortly, as here in the year 1851, ripen into open armed resistance to the lawful authorities of the Government. But for all the offenses committed by King James and his infatuated brethren there was no redress in the county of Mackinac where those crimes were committed, and where the criminals must be arrested and tried, if tried at all. The Mormon voters outnumbered very largely the Gentile, voters, and so had secured the election of J. M. Greig as county judge of that Island; and nearly all the other local officers there were Mormons, elected by the Mormon vote, which there as in Utah to-day is a unit. The Governor and State authorities were Democratic, and as the Mormon vote might secure them in power, were not very vigorous in their efforts to bring Strang and his people to trial; and as the entire machinery of the county government could be and was in the hands of the Mormons, there could be no legal means to punish their crimes, unless by an armed force. And so

the then Governor of Michigan appealed to the President of the United States to furnish the necessary aid in bringing to an end the disorder, riots and crimes of the Mormon people at the Beaver Islands. But President Fillmore was President by accident, and was then laying his plans, which were finally fully developed in the Whig National Convention of 1852 at Baltimore, to re-elect himself; and fully appreciating the fact that the Mormons at Beaver might give the casting vote at the next presidential election against him, and in favor of the Democratic candidate, and being a very cautious, cold and calculating man, hesitated and halted for a long time before he could be induced to lend the power and process of the United States to the arrest and conquest of King James the First of Beaver Islands, and his rebellious and revolting subjects. Webster was then Secretary of State, and he too was anxious and eager like all the other great men of the nation, to be the party's candidate for the presidency; and he, too, saw and felt that the Mormon vote was worth saving if it could be done, and, therefore, the best policy would be to let the Democratic State authorities reduce to subjection their Democratic Mormon brethren, and leave the Whig Presidential candidate of 1852 to have the credit, with Strang and his Christian brethren, of having declined to intermeddle with so delicate a question. Much red tape was cut, many diplomatic notes passed, if we are creditably informed, between the Secretary of State of the State of Michigan, and the Godlike Secretary of State of the United States as to which power should subdue this handful of Mormons in Michigan, but who, small in numbers, might by their 700 votes control the next Presidential election in the State. At that time there was in the United States Senate a young but brave and honest, outspoken man, who had dealt with Joseph Smith and his Mormon people in Illinois Stephen A. Douglas-a gallant, true and straightforward Democrat, and who always was a pet and protegé of Daniel Webster, because he was an honest, straightforward, chivalric politician, and he was called into the counsels of the Whig administration by Fillmore, as he was in a more trying period in 1861 by Lincoln, and then, as always, his voice was for war on anybody and everybody who resisted the constituted authorities of the nation. Strengthened by the advice of the brave Douglas orders were at once issued through the Attorney General to the United States District Attorney of Michigan to commence legal proceedings against Strang and his confederates for offenses punishable in the Federal courts, such as obstructing the mail, delaying the mail, cutting mail bags, stealing timber from the public lands, counterfeiting the coin of the United States, passing counterfeit coin, etc., all of which crimes there was evidence to convict them, and of which they had been guilty. Simultane

ously orders were issued from the Navy Department to Capt. Bullis, of the U. S. naval steamship Michigan, to proceed to Detroit fully armed and equipped,, and report there to the United States Marshal for orders; to transport him and his deputies and the United States District Attorney to Mackinac and the Beaver Islands in order that all processes issued by the district attorney from the Federal courts could be served with certainty, and that Strang, no matter what his force, could not resist capture, arrest and trial in the courts of Detroit, wherein all United States process must issue. Accordingly in May, 1851, the United States District Attorney, using the evidence of several Gentiles who had long lived on the Beaver Islands, and whom Strang had persecuted and annoyed in every possible way, obtained warrants for the arrest of Strang and a large number of his confederates, and embarked on board the war steamer, Michigan, with Gen. Schwartz as Chief Deputy United States Marshal, and forty well armed and equipped assistants, bound for the Kingdom of James the First, at Beaver Island?

Of course, it was deemed impossible to arrest these defendants, except by strategy, for the island on which they had erected their tabernacle was wholly unsettled save by Mormons, and on leaving its shores, there were several cranberry marshes of large extent, and heavy timbered lands where the larch, the pine, the beech and maple grew so compactly and were so completely hedged with underbrush that they were wholly inaccessible; and when the steamer Michigan left the dock at Detroit, there were many loud jeers and sneers by Democrats, whose political sympathies were strong with Strang, that Whig fools were going on a tom-fool errand, with a big ship to aid their folly. Long ere the Michigan reached Mackinac where the Mormon Judge Greig was then holding the county court, the district attorney had with the aid and advice of Capt. Bullis's United States Navy devised a plan which as will be seen was carried out to the very letter, and which resulted in the capture of Strang and every defendant against whom a United States warrant had been issued.

It was agreed between the United States District Attorney and the Captain of the Michigan, that the steamer should anchor off the court house at Mackinac, at as nearly half past three as possible, that her guns were to be trained directly on the court house, the marines mustered to arms, and as much display of force made as this gallant little iron steamer could show. The vessel arrived precisely at the time named, let go her anchor as near the court house front door as possible, and brought her guns and force all to bear on the door of the building where the Mormon chief justice of the county court was then holding a term, sitting without