He crowned himself king of a Michigan island, controlled every detail of his subjects' lives, and was shot by two of them — whose acquittal was his last dying wish.
James Strang was a lawyer and journalist who converted to Mormonism shortly before Joseph Smith's 1844 assassination. When Smith died, Strang produced a letter — almost certainly forged — claiming Smith had anointed him as successor. Most of the church followed Brigham Young to Utah, but Strang gathered his own followers and led them to a remote island in Lake Michigan.
Beaver Island in northern Lake Michigan became Strang's kingdom. He drove off the Irish fishermen already living there, established a theocratic government, and in 1850 was literally crowned king in a ceremony complete with a tin crown and robe. His subjects genuinely called him 'King Strang.' He also won election to the Michigan state legislature — the only monarch ever to serve in an American state government.
Strang ruled Beaver Island with increasing authoritarianism. He issued detailed edicts on every aspect of island life — including requiring all women to abandon dresses in favor of bloomers, a reform he claimed was both practical and moral. The bloomers decree, enforced with public floggings, proved to be his undoing.
Two of Strang's followers, Thomas Bedford and Alexander Wentworth, had both been publicly flogged for minor violations — Bedford for allowing his wife to wear short dresses. In June 1856, the two men ambushed Strang on a dock and shot him twice in the head at point-blank range. The U.S. Navy happened to be in the harbor and witnesses watched from the deck of a warship.
Strang lingered for three weeks before dying. In his final days, he refused to name his attackers or authorize any punishment against them. Bedford and Wentworth were taken to Mackinac for trial — but without the king's testimony, the jury acquitted them in minutes. The killers were celebrated. Strang's followers were immediately expelled from the island by a mob.
Strang's church, the Strangite branch of the Latter Day Saint movement, still exists today — though it numbers only a few hundred members. His brief kingdom on Beaver Island left almost no physical trace, but his story remains one of the most bizarre episodes in American religious history: a self-crowned king, legislator, and dictator, all on a small island in Lake Michigan.