George Jones Adams ( – May 11, 1880) was the leader of a schismatic Latter Day Saint sect who led an ill-fated effort to establish a colony of Americans in Palestine. Adams was also briefly a member of the First Presidency in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite). In preparation for colonizing Palestine, he changed his name to George Washington Joshua Adams, to tie himself to two well-known country builders: George Washington of the United States and Joshua, from the Hebrew Bible.
Conversion and early church service
George Jones Adams was born in Oxford, New Jersey of Welsh descent. By the 1830s, he had been trained as a Methodist preacher and was a merchant tailor. He was also an aspiring Shakespearean actor, but had little success in being cast in roles.
While traveling from Boston to New York City in February 1840, George, and his wife Caroline () Adams, heard the preaching of Latter Day Saint apostle Heber C. Kimball, and were baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints the same week. Within a month he had become an elder in the church. In the spring/summer of 1840, the Brooklyn Branch was organized with him as branch president in New York City, NY (HC, 4:22). In 1841, Adams traveled to England as a missionary for the church; he was successful in winning numerous converts and stayed in England for eighteen months. Adams returned from England with a one-year-old son, George Oscar; his wife Caroline would raise the boy as her own.
In October 1843, church president Joseph Smith asked Adams to travel with apostle Orson Hyde as a missionary to Russia. In 1844, Smith invited Adams to join the exclusive Council of Fifty. On June 7, 1844, Smith set apart Adams "to be an apostle and special witness ... to the empire of Russia", in preparation for the Mormon political kingdom. However, just prior to Adams' planned departure later that month, all church political efforts were suspended after Smith was killed and the church was thrown into turmoil. Adams returned to New England as a regular missionary, and, along with William Smith, Joseph Smith's surviving brother, created much turmoil among the branches there, claiming to be the "Thirteenth Apostle" and "greater than Paul," and therefore having more authority than any of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. On April 10, 1845, Adams was excommunicated by the Quorum of Twelve Apostles for proposing that the church be led by Joseph Smith III (Joseph Smith's eldest son) under the guardianship of William Smith.
Back in Boston in 1847, Adams was the main witness in the trial of Cobb v. Cobb, in which Henry Cobb sued his wife, Augusta Adams Cobb, for divorce, for having committed adultery with Joseph Smith's successor, Brigham Young; she had married Young in November 1843 without first divorcing Henry. The court case went to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, presided over by Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw, and was widely reported in newspapers nationwide.
Strangite leader
After his excommunication, Adams came to accept the spiritual leadership of James J. Strang, and in December 1846 became editor of Star in the East, a Strangite publication printed in Boston. He then was ordained Strang's counselor in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite). In 1850, Adams crowned Strang with a metal crown as a spiritual "king of Israel", and Adams was appointed to be Strang's "prime minister" and "viceroy". However, by 1851, Adams had been excommunicated from the Strangite church on recurring charges of embezzlement, adultery, apostasy, and drunkenness. Adams and his second wife, Louisa Isabella Pray, moved to Maine where they had two children, son Clarence and daughter Georgina Augustine.
Church of the Messiah
By the late 1850s, Adams had established a church in New England called the Church of the Messiah. Adams claimed to be a prophet of Jesus Christ to the world and began publication of a periodical called The Sword of Truth and Harbinger of Peace. In 1864, Adams established the headquarters of his church in Washington County, Maine, near the Canada–US border. Later that year, Adams announced a great mission whereby he and his followers would travel to and settle in Palestine. Adams taught that their colony could prepare the land for the return of the Jews, which in turn would hasten the Second Coming of Jesus. The members of the church donated much of their money to the church in an effort to realize Adam's proposal.