Item Detail
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2497
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0
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0
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English
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Bishop Hill : An 1854 Description by Charles Wilson
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Journal of Illinois History
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Spring 2001
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4
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41-54
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Bishop Hill, a utopian religious community of Swedes in Henry County, Illinois, was founded in 1846 by followers of Eric Jansson. They were a dissident schism of the Lutheran state church. After visiting the colony, Charles Wilson wrote a letter in 1854 to an unidentified recipient in Sweden detailing the utopian colony. He noted that Jansson was sometimes compared with Joseph Smith. Of Joseph Smith, he wrote: 'about Joe Smith I would briefly say that he was a fanatic, that his teaching was in conflict with the true faith of Christ and he was himself a bad person with impure principles.' [p.44]