James C. Brewster

James Colin Brewster (born 1826) was the cofounder of the Church of Christ (Brewsterite), a schismatic sect in the Latter Day Saint movement.

Brewster was born in New York. When Brewster was a child, his parents were converted to Mormonism and joined the gathering of Latter Day Saints in Kirtland, Ohio.

In 1836, at the age of 10, Brewster began to claim that he had been visited by the Angel Moroni, the same being that Joseph Smith, Jr. had claimed had led him to the golden plates. Eventually, due to his persistent claims of being a prophet, Brewster was disfellowshipped from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

By 1842, Brewster had finished a book entitled "The Words of Righteousness to All Men, Written from One of the Books of Esdras, Which Was Written by the Five Ready Writers, In Forty Days, Which Was Spoken of by Esdras, in His Second Book, Fourteenth Chapter of the Apocrypha, Being one of the Books Which Was Lost, and Has Now Come Forth, by the Gift of God, In the Last Days". After the death of Joseph Smith, Jr. in 1844, Brewster began to accumulate followers in Springfield, Illinois, from Latter Day Saints who were searching for a new prophet leader.

In 1848, Brewster and Hazen Aldrich founded the Church of Christ, which they claimed was the true successor to the Church of Christ Smith had founded in 1830. Aldrich was selected as the sect's first president with Brewster and Jackson Goodale as counselors in the First Presidency.

Brewster continued to receive revelation from God on behalf of the church, and in 1850 he declared that there was a land called "Bashan" in the Rio Grande Valley that God had selected as the new gathering place for the Latter Day Saints. In 1851, Brewster and Goodale led a wagon train of followers to find Bashan, while Aldrich — who had begun to doubt Brewster's prophetic abilities — remained behind in Kirtland.

There were disagreements between Brewster and Goodale and among the other member of the church on the journey to Bashan, and most of Brewster's followers, including Olive Oatman and her family, deserted Brewster and headed for California.

After having failing to discover the promised Bashan, Brewster settled in California and became a lecturer in Spiritualism. He gained a small following of Mormons in California, but did not attempt to revive his church.

References

* "History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" 3:67–73
* J. Gordon Melton (1996, 5th ed.) "Encyclopedia of American Religions" (Detroit, Mich.: Gale) pp. 561–562
* Steven L. Shields (1990). "Divergent Paths of the Restoration" p. 336