to Utah Territory. Founding a new church The "Cutlerite" reorganization But Cutler had no intention of going to Utah. Having broken with Young's organization, he set about creating his own. Having been forced to abandon his mission in 1851 under pressure from local Indian Agents and government authorities, he and his followers relocated to Manti, Iowa, in the southwestern part of that state. On September 19, 1853, Cutler organized The Church of Jesus Christ, claiming that he had seen a prophesied celestial sign (two crescent-moons with their backs together) which Joseph Smith had allegedly told him to wait for before commencing this "reorganization" of the church. Cutler claimed that Smith's church had been "rejected" by God, and that only he possessed the power to reorganize it. Thus, claimed Cutler, his new organization was the sole legitimate continuance of Joseph Smith's work. According to Cutler, the misdeed that brought about the rejection of Joseph Smith's church was its failure to complete the Nauvoo Temple within the "sufficient time" mentioned in Doctrine and Covenants 124:31–32; that organization had accordingly ceased to exist as a legitimate entity. This did not mean that Smith's restored priesthood had been withdrawn from the earth, said Cutler, for he viewed the church and the priesthood as two separate things. While the former had been rejected, said he, the latter had not, and now remained solely with him as the seventh and final member of a furtive "Quorum of Seven" appointed by Smith to carry on his authority independently of the rejected church. All previous members of this quorum had died or apostatized, said Cutler; hence, he and he alone possessed power to "reorganize" Smith's church. Historian D. Michael Quinn surmises that this Quorum might have been the same as the so-called "Committee of the Council" or "Committee of Seven" spoken of in documents relating to the Council of Fifty, but questions whether it was ever anything more than a political body within the Council, as opposed to a group with "extraordinary religious or theocratic powers." Cutler viewed the death of Joseph Smith as the rejection by the "Gentiles" of the restored gospel; as a result, the new sect believed that the gospel was to go to "the Jews and the House of Israel, including the Lamanites (Native Americans)." However, the Cutlerites proselyted to other groups of people regardless. Manti While in Manti, the Cutlerite church attained its