Kingston clan
| Latter Day Church of Christ | |
|---|---|
| Classification | Restorationist |
| Orientation | Latter Day Saint movement |
| Theology | Mormon fundamentalism |
| Polity | Hierarchical |
| Leader | Paul Elden Kingston |
| Associations | Davis County Cooperative Society Inc. |
| Headquarters | Salt Lake City, Utah |
| Founder | Elden Kingston |
| Origin | January 1, 1935 Bountiful, Utah |
| Separated from | Woolley Group |
| Members | 5,000 |
The Latter Day Church of Christ is a Mormon fundamentalist denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement, and is also known as the Kingston Clan, the Kingston Group, The Order, the Davis County Cooperative, and The Co-op Society. There are approximately 3,500 members of this group.
The church was created in 1977 by the joint owners of the Davis County Cooperative Society Inc., a cooperative created in 1941 to manage and hold the financial assets of the group. The Latter Day Church of Christ is based in Salt Lake City, Utah.
In the early 1920s, Charles W. Kingston was disenchanted with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) because of its abandonment of plural marriage. Kingston began preaching polygamy amongst fellow members of the LDS Church as well as distributing pamphlets and the book, Laman Manasseh Victorious: A Message of Salvation and Redemption to His People Israel, First to Ephraim and Manasseh, which he had co-written. This eventually resulted in his excommunication from the LDS Church. By 1935, following the excommunication of Kingston's followers from the LDS Church, the group migrated to Bountiful, Utah, to escape harassment, ridicule, and ostracism from members of their community that remained loyal to the LDS Church. They arrived in Bountiful one family at a time with the plan to combine their resources to escape the hardship resulting from the Great Depression. The first five families formed a governing council and elected Charles Elden Kingston, Charles W. Kingston's son, as the leader of the council. In 1941, the community founded by Charles W. Kingston officially declared themselves the Davis County Cooperative Society Inc.
The corporation produces goods and services that are used by members, and sold or traded to other cooperatives and to the public.
Over the decades, the Cooperative has maintained extreme secrecy while developing an extensive cooperative system with assets at an unconfirmed value of over $150 million.
Financial holdings include: a 300-acre (1.2 km2) dairy farm in Davis County; a 3,200-acre (13 km2) farm in Tetonia, Idaho; a coal mine in Emery County; and 1,200 acres (4.9 km2) in Terreton, Idaho; a cattle ranch and a discount store; Desert Tech Firearms; Washakie Renewable Energy; a grocery store; restaurant supply in many western cities including Tucson, Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas, Boise, and Portland. It has been rumored that it owned the United Bank, but this has now been confirmed as incorrect. J. Ortell Kingston aggressively pursued a financially expansive agenda for the Davis County Cooperative Society Inc.
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