The death of Joseph Smith (1805–1844) left his followers with a problem that a belief in continuing revelation made especially difficult. Who could speak with the authority of the prophet, and what would establish that authority? James Jesse Strang (1813–1856) claimed a letter appointing him as successor and an ordination by an angel. He then offered a further sign that the recovery of ancient records would continue through him.
In September 1845, four witnesses excavated three small brass plates near Voree in Wisconsin under Strang’s direction. His translation attributed their message to a ruler of a fallen American people. The witnesses, the objects, and the translated words each had a place in the account presented to potential followers. As in other claims of recovered knowledge, the circumstances of discovery helped explain why the record should be trusted.
Strang later established a community on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan, where he was crowned king in 1850. His Book of the Law of the Lord claimed another ancient source in the Brass Plates of Laban. These recoveries were bound to the ordering of a community, not confined to an argument about the distant past. Accepting his authority meant accepting religious and practical consequences in the present.
His own reading also included Volney (1757–1820), whose account of religion challenged the authority of revelation. That encounter does not explain away Strang’s later claims, but it places learned criticism and prophetic ambition within the same life. On Beaver Island, ancient records supported a restoration that other heirs of Smith’s church disputed. The people who followed Strang had to decide among rival witnesses and competing accounts of succession while continuing the ordinary work of building and maintaining their settlement.