Charles Blancher Thompson

Background

Thompson was born in Niskayuna, New York to a Quaker family.

Career

He claimed the title Baneemy and his followers were known as "Baneemyites". Among the several aspirants to be Smith"s successor, Thompson initially accepted James J. Strang as the rightful leader of the Latter Day Saints. However, in January 1848 Thompson broke with Strang after Thompson reported to having received a revelation from God while he was living in Saint Louis, Missouri.

Thompson began to claim that he was the reincarnation of the biblical Ephraim and that he was to be known as "Baneemy, patriarch of Zion".

Thompson claimed that a revelation received by Joseph Smith on June 22, 1834, referred to him:

Thompson self-published a tract entitled The Voice of Him!! The group was also referred to as the Conjespresites. In September 1853, Thompson moved his followers to Monona County, Iowa, north of Council Bluffs, where they established a communitarian commune called Preparation.

Thompson enforced strict rules of behavior among his followers and published a variety of periodicals while in Saint Louis and in Iowa, including Zion’s Harbinger and Baneemy’s Organ, Preparation News and Ephraim"s Messenger. In October 1858, Thompson"s followers "ran him out of town".

The property owned by the commune was the subject of a lengthy court battle which was not resolved by the Iowa Supreme Court until 1867.

Thompson ultimately moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where in 1892 a city directory listed him as "Reverend Charles B. Thompson". He died in Philadelphia in 1895. The 344-acre (139 km2) Preparation Canyon State Park in Iowa now occupies the space where Thompson"s commune of Preparation once was.

Connections

followers:

That Crieth