to name a successor, leaving the matter in God's hands. When no prophet appeared, the bulk of his church dissolved, though a few loyal congregations remain today. Many of the Latter Day Saints who remained in the Midwest, including Strang, believed that one or more of Joseph Smith's sons would eventually lead the church. The church had published a revelation in 1841 stating "I say unto my servant Joseph, In thee, and in thy seed, shall the kindred of the earth be blessed", and this was widely interpreted as endorsing the concept of Lineal Succession. Accounts written after Smith's death indicate that Smith set apart his son as his successor at certain private meetings and public gatherings, including Liberty and Nauvoo. Within the years following Smith's murder, Brigham Young apparently made earnest entreaties to his sons, Joseph Smith III and David Hyrum Smith, to join his church's hierarchy in Utah, which may represent some recognition by Young of the patrilineal right of succession for Smith’s sons. Both Smiths, however, were profoundly opposed to a number of practices of the church in Utah, especially plural marriage, and refused to join with them. Eventually, many Latter Day Saints in the Midwest coalesced behind the leadership of Jason W. Briggs, Zenas H. Gurley, William Marks and others. In the late 1850s, they proposed a more solid church structure, sometimes referred to in contemporary sources as the New Organization, and like other Latter Day Saint groups asked Joseph Smith III to be their president. Smith III refused to lead any church unless he felt inspired to do so. By 1860, he reported that he had received such inspiration and became Prophet/President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on April 6. Smith III stated at that conference in Amboy, Illinois: Joseph Smith's widow Emma, as well as Joseph III's two brothers, affiliated with this organization. A decade later the group added the word Reorganized to the official church name to distinguish it from the much larger group in Utah. For a time until the start of the twentieth century, leaders of both this group and the Utah group were Smith first cousins. The church is now referred to as the Community of Christ. There were several other Latter Day Saint branches in Bloomington, Crow Creek, Half Moon Prairie, and Eagle Creek, Illinois, and Vermillion, Indiana, each left leaderless after the 1844