George J. Adams: From Methodist Preacher to Missionary—Conversion and the 1841 English Mission (1840–1844)

George Jones Adams (1811–1880), a former Methodist preacher and Shakespearean actor, was baptized in New York City in February 1840, just one week after hearing Apostle Heber C. Kimball preach. Ordained an elder by Parley P. Pratt in March 1840, he presided over the Brooklyn Branch during the summer. In February 1841, Adams traveled to England as a missionary with Orson Hyde. Arriving in March, he was ordained a high priest in Manchester that April. He served with significant success in the Bedford and Northampton regions, increasing church membership from fewer than thirty to sixty-eight within a single month. After laboring for eighteen months in England, he returned to New York in 1842. He was later admitted to the Council of Fifty in 1844 and, on June 7, 1844, was set apart by Joseph Smith to serve as a special witness to the Russian Empire. Following the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, Adams faced significant challenges, including excommunication in 1845. He later served as a counselor to James J. Strang, eventually founding his own 'Church of the Messiah' in the 1860s and leading a failed colonizing effort to Jaffa, Palestine, before dying in Philadelphia in 1880.