On July 8, 1850, the King of Earth and Heaven donned a paper crown adorned with gold tinsel stars which he had designed. A few hundred supporters braved hordes of mosquitoes to watch the ceremony on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan. So began the short-lived kingdom of James Jesse Strang, one of the most brazen con men in U.S. history.
Strang was born in the early 1800’s in upstate New York. He was a sickly, undersized child who spent most of his childhood in bed, reading and fantasizing about a better world. His childhood fantasies were excellent practice for his adult activities of grifting, cheating, and lying. If there’s a sucker born every minute, Strang easily attracted the gullible and stupid.
In the 1800’s, the U.S. was awash in ethically challenged businessmen looking to exploit every avenue to make a quick buck. Strang tried his hand at many things, from running a local post office to practicing law to aiding and abetting his father-in-law on shady canal projects.
Eventually, Strang decided that crooked canal deals were less lucrative than the religion biz. Strang’s gift of gab created a truth distortion around the people in his vicinity, inducing them to believe his lies. Religious folks wanted to believe his fantasy of a better world at a time when the country seemed to be falling apart economically, culturally, and politically. Non-religious people liked to cheer him on in a 19th century version of “sticking it to the man”, not realizing they were also marks in his con games.
Strang’s crooked career took off when he joined the Mormons in Nauvoo, Illinois. The Mormons were despised as interlopers and weirdos who offended God by practicing polygamy. Brigham Young was attempting to move the Mormons away from Illinois when the founder, Joseph Smith was lynched. That gave Strang an opening to run his first truly successful con job.
First, he claimed that Joseph Smith had written a letter appointing Strang to lead the Mormons. When Brigham Young challenged the (forged) letter, Strang claimed an angel visited him in a dream and told him to dig at a particular oak tree. He led a group of followers to the tree where they dug (Strang could always find someone to do the dirty work) until they uncovered some brass plates covered with an unknown script. By a wonderful coincidence, Strang was the only one the angel entrusted to translate the script. Years later, one of Strang’s associates described exactly how they managed this con job.
The con job split the Mormons between the followers of Brigham Young who headed for the Great Salt Lake and Strang who headed for northern Michigan. Eventually, Strang found what he was looking for on Beaver Island, the largest island in Lake Michigan.
In the 1840’s when Strang arrived, Beaver Island was sparsely populated and accessible only by boat. For much of the year, the island was snowed or iced in. It was perfect for Strang. His bully boys ran a terror campaign against the Indians and white settlers who already lived on the island. Theft, arson, and horsewhipping have a way of clearing out the neighborhood.
Then Strang set about building his Mormon paradise. Money was tight so he sent his bully boys to “consecrate”, meaning to steal, the property of non-Mormons. Eventually, the brazen thievery was too much and Strang, along with his bully boys were arrested. Strang’s knowledge of the law allowed him to delay proceedings while witnesses disappeared, changed their stories, or the opposing parties simply gave up.
Being arrested infuriated Strang so he rigged the next election to ensure he was voted in as justice of the peace. After that, he presided at the trials of his bully boys and amazingly they were always found innocent of the charges. He later rigged elections affecting much of northern Michigan in an attempt to control the Michigan legislature. That still didn’t satisfy his ego, so he created his own kingdom.
As with all con men, Strang eventually sank beneath the weight of his own contradictions. He opposed polygamy. Until he wanted a couple of new wives. He ordered his followers to give all their worldly goods to the community. Then he used their property to build vanity public projects. He expected his followers to give him unquestioned loyalty even as he cast them aside when they had served his purpose.
If you can tell the worth of a person by their associates, then Strang was the lowest of the low. He surrounded himself with horse thieves, rapists, fake medical doctors, snake oil salesmen, and every other sort of ne’er-do-well. They were bound together by their criminal activities.
But when you’re a con man, you make more enemies than friends. Some of his former friends who he had banished from Beaver Island began plotting to kill him. Other former associates began ratting him out to save themselves from severe prison sentences.
In 1865, the federal district attorney for Michigan obtained a warrant against Strang for selling timber owned by the federal government and counterfeiting money. (Both of these charges would most likely have been proven in court.) In June 1865, after the spring thaw, a ship sailed into Beaver Island’s harbor with a federal warrant for Strang’s arrest.
After some negotiations, Strang agreed to come quietly. As he walked toward the harbor shots rang out. Strang dropped dead, shot by one of his own bully boys who felt betrayed by the prophet, king, con man.
There is so much more to the life of J.J. Strang and his many cons, described in The King of Confidence: A Tale of Utopian Dreamers, Frontier Schemers, True Believers, False Prophets, and the Murder of an American Monarch, by Miles Harvey (2020). The book is a fast read with an incredible amount of background information that provides cultural context for the life and crimes of Strang.
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