Council of Friends (Woolley)

Council of Friends
Schoolhouse of the Community and site of the 1953 Short Creek Raid
Classification	Restorationist
Orientation	Latter Day Saint movement
Theology	Mormon fundamentalism
Polity	Hierarchical
Headquarters	Short Creek Community
Founder	Lorin C. Woolley
Origin	March 6, 1929
Separated from	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Separations	Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; Apostolic United Brethren

The Council of Friends (also known as the Woolley Group and the Priesthood Council) was one of the original expressions of Mormon fundamentalism, having its origins in the teachings of Lorin C. Woolley, a dairy farmer excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in 1924.

Before 1920, Woolley taught that, shortly after having received the 1886 Revelation on plural marriage, LDS Church President John Taylor had set apart five men, including himself and his father John W. Woolley, to ensure that the practice of polygamy would continue into perpetuity even if abandoned by the church. To that end, Woolley extended the same apostolic authority to a seven-man Council of Friends between 1929 and 1933.

Following the death of Woolley in September 1934 and of his Second Elder J. Leslie Broadbent six months later, the leadership of the Group fell to John Y. Barlow. In May 1935, Barlow and his fellow Friends sent a handful of followers to the small ranching town of Short Creek in the Arizona Strip (now Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah), with the express purpose of building "a branch of the Kingdom of God." Barlow believed that the isolated Creek could provide a place of refuge for those engaging in the covert practice of polygamy, a felony; within a month, the town's population more than doubled.

After the failure of an attempted communal United Trust in 1935, the Group, particularly Apostle Rulon Jeffs, an accountant, worked to develop the United Effort Plan (UEP), intended to prepare the way for the collectivist United Order described by Mormon founder Joseph Smith. The UEP was incorporated on November 9, 1942.