Sidney Rigdon (February 19, 1793 – July 14, 1876) was a leader during the early history of the Latter Day Saint movement.
Biography
Early life
Rigdon was born in St. Clair Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, on February 19, 1793. He was the youngest of four children of William and Nancy Rigdon. Rigdon's father was a farmer and a native of Harford County, Maryland. He died in 1810.
According to an account by his son John M. Rigdon, young Rigdon "borrowed all the histories he could get and began to read them. ... In this way he became a great historian, the best I ever saw. He seemed to have the history of the world on his tongue's end and he got to be a great biblical scholar as well. He was as familiar with the Bible as a child was with his spelling book. He was never known to play with the boys; reading books was the greatest pleasure he could get. He studied English Grammar alone and became a very fine grammarian. He was very precise in his language."
Rigdon remained on the farm until his mother sold it in 1818.
Baptist ministry and tanner
On May 31, 1817, Rigdon was baptized by Rev. Phillips, and he became a member of the Peter's Creek Baptist Church of Library, Pennsylvania.
In 1818, Rigdon moved to North Sewickley to become an apprentice to Baptist minister Rev. Andrew Clark. Rigdon received his license to preach for the Regular Baptists in March 1819.
Rigdon moved in May to Trumbull County, Ohio, where he jointly preached with Adamson Bentley from July 1819. He married Bentley's wife's sister, Phoebe Brooks, in June 1820. Rigdon remained in Ohio until February 1822, when he returned to Pittsburgh to accept the pastorate of the First Baptist Church there under the recommendation of Alexander Campbell.
Rigdon and Bentley had journeyed to meet Campbell in the summer of 1821 to learn more about the Baptist who was encountering opposition to his idea that the New Testament should hold priority over the Old Testament in the Christian church. They engaged in lengthy discussions, with both men joining the Disciples of Christ movement associated with Campbell.
On January 28, 1822, Rigdon arrived in Pittsburgh to become a minister at the First Baptist Church. Rigdon's ministry met with opposition from member Rev. John Winter, and on July 11, 1823, a schism split the congregation, with each side disfellowshipping the other. On October 11, Rigdon was "excluded from the Redstone Association Baptist Denomination", of which the First Baptist Church was a member.
From 1824 to 1826, Rigdon worked as a journeyman tanner in Pittsburgh, while preaching Campbell's Restorationism on Sundays in the courthouse. He also worked as a journeyman printer for the Philadelphia publisher Paterson. In 1826, Rigdon became the pastor of the more liberal Baptist church in Mentor, Ohio, in the Western Reserve.
Latter Day Saint leader in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois (1830–44)
Many prominent early Latter Day Saint leaders, including Parley P. Pratt, Isaac Morley, and Edward Partridge, were members of Rigdon's congregations prior to their conversion to the Church of Christ founded by Joseph Smith.
Early involvement
In early September 1830, Rigdon's associate, Pratt, was baptized into the Church of Christ founded by Smith. In October, Pratt and Ziba Peterson began a mission to preach to the American Indians.
They visited Rigdon and his wife, Phoebe, in Ohio. Rigdon read the Book of Mormon in fourteen days, proclaimed its truthfulness, and was baptized into the church on November 14, 1830, in Mentor, Ohio. He proceeded to convert hundreds of members of his Ohio congregations. In December 1830, Rigdon traveled to New York, where he met Joseph Smith. He was then ordained a high priest on June 3, 1831.
Rigdon was a fiery orator, and he was immediately called by Smith to be the spokesman for the church. He also served as a scribe and helped with Smith's re-translation of the Bible.
Rigdon as revelator
Rigdon reportedly received visions jointly with Smith. According to one account: "Joseph would, at intervals, say: 'What do I see?' as one might say while looking out the window and beholding what all in the room could not see. Then he would relate what he had seen or what he was looking at. Then Sidney replied, 'I see the same.' Presently Sidney would say 'what do I see?' and would repeat what he had seen or was seeing, and Joseph would reply, 'I see the same.' This manner of conversation was repeated at short intervals to the end of the vision".