of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Alta California area of Mexico, which would become the Utah Territory in 1850. However, Wight refused each time. He rejected Young as a prophet. Wight was eventually excommunicated by Young on December 3, 1848; his most prominent follower, Bishop George Miller, was also disfellowshipped. Zodiac, Texas Wight moved his group of Latter Day Saints to the Republic of Texas and he would eventually found several communities on the central Texas frontier. Wight's followers built the first Latter Day Saint temple west of the Mississippi. The temple was built in Zodiac, Texas, about three miles from Fredericksburg. Sealings, ordinations, washing and anointings, and adoptions were performed in this temple by the Wightites. The only remaining material infrastructure of the colony is the Mormon Mill cemetery near Hamilton Creek, about fifty miles east by north of Fredericksburg. President of the Church of Christ (Wightite) Wight would later recognize William Smith as the president of the Latter Day Saints for a short time and served as a counselor in Smith's short-lived First Presidency. After 1849, Wight wrote and stated that he believed the prophetic mantle of church leadership should fall on the shoulders of Joseph Smith's sons. By then, Wight had rejected Brigham Young, William Smith, and James Strang as pretenders to be Smith's successor. In 1851, after the Pedernales River overflowed its banks and destroyed Zodiac, the Wightite colonists moved to Burnet County, establishing Mormon Mill. Death Wight died on March 31, 1858, in Mountain Valley, Texas at the age of 61. He had been experiencing epileptic spasms. Wight had been living in Texas with a small remnant of his colony. His group had been traveling to Jackson County, Missouri, where he wished to rejoin the remainder of the mid-western Latter Day Saints. He was buried in his temple robes at the Mormon cemetery at Zodiac, which no longer exists. After Wight's death, most of his followers became members of the RLDS Church (renamed the Community of Christ in 2001), led by Joseph Smith III. See also Castell, Texas Castellites Notes References Biography of Lyman Wight, The Joseph Smith Papers (accessed May 10, 2012) Laughlin, David L., David L. Laughlin Research Files, (MSS 2327), L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. Further reading External resources Grampa Bill's G.A. Pages: Lyman Wight Lyman Wight, "Saints Without Haloes", Leonard J. Arrington