I think very few people are aware of a small Mormon group sometimes called the Hedrickites. Their official name is the Church of Christ, and they were the first Mormon group to return to Missouri and purchased part of the original temple lot where Joseph Smith had a revelation that 24 temples would be built there. Why don’t we know more about this group? Jean Addams is a former president of the John Whitmer Association, and will tell about his family connection to Granville and John Hedrick.
Jean: My wife is a Hedrick. She said she had never told that to anybody because it had some connotations that weren’t what she wanted to convey when she was a conver,t herself, at 14 in Los Angeles.
GT: Oh, really? I don’t think very many people know who Granville Hedrick was.
Jean: No.
GT: That’s interesting that she was kind of hiding that.
Jean: After she had been baptized, her mother sat down and told her about her Mormon history.
GT: No way.
Jean: Yeah. She didn’t want to tell anybody about that. When she told me about that. I got quite excited. She said, “You know about the Hedrickites?” And I said, “I know a little,” and I says, “I guess we’re going to go find out a lot. So let’s start with your dad’s name or your your ancestor’s name. Granville Hedrick was my great-great-uncle. His brother was John. John Hedrick is the first Saint of any sect that came back to Jackson County in 1865 and scouted out the place for the movement of the whole Crow Creek branch out of Illinois in1867. He then started buying up the temple lot property that same year in 1870.
GT: So, it was John Hedrick, not Granville.
Jean: That is correct. Oh, I did not know that either. Wow, that’s interesting.
Check out our conversation…..
