In the 1850s, A Mormon Renegade Started a Massive Pirate Colony in Michigan

Published: June 25, 2020, 6:50 a.m.

In the summer of 1843, James Strang, a charismatic young lawyer and avowed atheist, vanished from a rural town in New York. Months later he reappeared on the Midwestern frontier and converted to a burgeoning religious movement known as Mormonism. In...