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The Early Baptist Career of Sidney Rigdon in Warren Ohio
By Hans Rollmann

Undoubtedly one of the most enigmatic characters of early Disciple of Christ and Mormon history is Sidney Rigdon (1793-1876). He was onetime adviser and right-hand to Joseph Smith; he lost out against Brigham Young in the succession crisis of 1844; and, after founding an obscure sect, he died forgotten in Friendship, New York. The recent interest in Mormon beginnings has once again brought into focus the leading personalities and events of the North-east and Midwest, and some effort has been expended to elucidate the historical significance of this early Disciple-turned-Mormon pioneer of Ohio. In the following pages I do not attempt to reinterpret this religious enfant terrible but present new biographical information on the Disciple Rigdon, information hitherto unavailable to his biographers. This new data, contained in the church record of the Baptist church in Warren, Ohio, cover his stay as a licensed--and later as an ordained--Baptist minister in Warren from 4 March 1820 to 5 January 1822. On the basis of this information, more light can be shed upon the early career of Sidney Rigdon.

The first biographical sketch of Sidney Rigdon--ostensibly based on information provided by Elder Rigdon himself--appeared in 1843 in a series of articles entitled the "History of Joseph Smith" in the Times and Seasons. Here it is stated that after receiving his preaching license from the Regular Baptist in Pennsylvania in 1819, Sidney Rigdon moved to Trumbull County, Ohio, in May of 1819. He took up residence there in July with Adamson Bentley, an ordained Baptist minister, who with Sidney Rigdon became influential in the Baptist reform movement under the leadership of Alexander Campbell. In Warren, he met Phebe Brooks, formerly of Bridgetown, Cumberland County, New Jersey, whom he married on 12 June 1820. He preached in the district until November 1821, leaving Warren in February 1822 to take charge of the First Baptist Church of Pittsburgh. These are the lean data in the Times and Seasons regarding Sidney Rigdon's first ministerial occupation.

In 1899 in a series on "The Life and Labors of Sidney Rigdon" in the Improvement Era, Assistant Church Historian John Jacques follows the account of the Times and Seasons exactly without providing additional historical information on the Warren period. So also do all subsequent historians with the exception of Rigdon's son John Wycliffe, who lectured in the 1890s at Alfred University in upstate New York on the life of his father. The lecture notes were published in 1966 by Karl Keller in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.