In the winter of 1844, Mrs. Bedford passed through the Endowment house at Nauvoo. After suffering with the Saints in their various vicissitudes of fortune and fate in Nauvoo and Nebraska, in the year 1850 and at the age of sixteen, she entered with her parents the Strang colony on Beaver Island and spent five years in that fellowship. [Illustration: THE KING OF BEAVER ISLAND] James J. Strang was born in Scipio, N. Y., in the year 1813, and was educated for the practice of law. He had been a Baptist until he became interested in Mormon affairs and at Nauvoo, when Smith was at the zenith of his authority, he was baptized into the Mormon Church and soon became an elder. His complexion was florid, his hair was red, and he wore a glass eye, but he was a convincing speaker. As the result of an alleged revelation he established Zion at Spring Prairie (now Voree) Wisconsin, where (so he often stated to his disciples) he discovered eighteen metallic plates containing valuable history. It appears that these were never submitted to the inspection of his people. In 1847 with a few followers he established a new Zion on Beaver Island, in Lake Michigan, to which point considerable additional Mormon immigration was attracted in 1849. It was his declared purpose to make this island the center of Mormon power. In 1850 the government of his colony was established on Mormon lines by the Union of the church and civil government, and on July 8th of the same year he was formally crowned King by George Adams, president of the twelve. I find this union of church and state to be authorized, and the argument therefor presented in _Times and Seasons_, 1844. The assumption of civil authority by the Strangites resulted in much friction between the Mormons and their opponents, though not so serious as what arose from a similar cause in Illinois. The fact that the number of votes cast on Beaver Island was equal to its entire population seems to be conceded. It is, however, the inside life of that people that is of present interest. Strang had one wife, named Mary, when his kingdom was established, but a revelation that he announced to his people decreed polygamy to be a divine institution. He accordingly added four wives to his household, the last two, Phoebe and Delia Wright, who were cousins, being taken on the same day, as the sequel of a picnic held by the Saints on an island in Pine Lake, which in memory of the happy event was called Holy Island, by which name it is still known. Two daughters from his second and third marriages were named respectively Eveline and Evangeline in honor of whom two important townships in Michigan still bear the name given by Strang.