Lorin C. Woolley

Lorin Calvin Woolley (October 23, 1856 – September 19, 1934) was an American proponent of plural marriage and one of the founders of the Mormon fundamentalist movement. As a young man in Utah Territory, Woolley served as a courier and bodyguard for polygamous leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in hiding during the federal crusade against polygamy. His career as a religious leader in his own right commenced in the early twentieth century, when he began claiming to have been set apart to keep plural marriage alive by church president John Taylor in connection with the 1886 Revelation. Woolley's distinctive teachings on authority, morality, and doctrine are thought to provide the theological foundation for nearly ninety percent of Mormon fundamentalist groups. Early life Woolley was the third child of Mormon pioneer John W. Woolley and his first wife, Julia Searles Ensign. His paternal grandfather was Bishop Edwin D. Woolley, a close friend of Brigham Young. According to LDS Church records, Woolley was baptized a member of the church by his father on October 18, 1868, aged eleven, and ordained an elder by John Lyon on March 10, 1873. Nicknamed "Noisy," the boisterous young Woolley frequently dominated Elders Quorum discussions. Late in life, he would claim to have received his endowment and been ordained an deacon by Young on March 20, 1870, aged thirteen. On January 5, 1883, Woolley married Sarah Ann Roberts in the Endowment House on Temple Square. They had nine children together between 1883 and 1905: seven sons and two daughters. Woolley served as a Mormon missionary in the Southern United States from October 1887, to October 1889. Shortly thereafter, he was called to the Seventieth Quorum of the Seventy in Centerville, Utah, and served a second, four-month mission to Indian Territory from December 1896 to April 1897. In 1922, Woolley related a spiritual experience that had allegedly taken place during his first mission, wherein he fell deathly ill and only recovered after the resurrected Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and John Taylor intervened on his behalf.