Joseph Musser—LeRoy Johnson

Joseph Musser and LeRoy Johnson were linked by a succession dispute that split the Mormon Fundamentalist movement. After John Y. Barlow’s death, Musser inherited the movement’s leadership, but his appointment of Rulon Allred as heir apparent set Musser’s choice against Barlow’s stated preference for Johnson. When Musser died in 1954, Johnson became leader of the larger faction, which remained at Short Creek and became the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, also known as the United Effort Plan.

Background and competing claims

John Y. Barlow, a staunch polygamist who had cultivated a close relationship with Short Creek and with Johnson, died in 1949. Barlow had specified that Johnson should succeed Musser as prophet. Musser nevertheless became the movement’s leader after Barlow’s death, inheriting a community in which authority depended not only on leadership in the present but also on claims about who was entitled to carry the prophetic succession forward.

Johnson’s association with Short Creek was more than a matter of residence. Barlow had transplanted some of his own families there in 1940, and one of his daughters married Johnson. That history helps explain why Johnson’s supporters could regard his claim as grounded in Barlow’s prior designation, rather than simply as a challenge to Musser’s personal authority.

Musser’s appointment of Allred

The succession dispute sharpened as Musser’s health failed. He suffered a series of crippling strokes and became gravely ill. During that period, Rulon Allred, a naturopath and fellow polygamist, treated him; Musser became utterly dependent on him. In 1951, Musser appointed Allred his second elder and heir apparent, despite strenuous objections from those who believed Johnson was the rightful successor under Barlow’s earlier instruction.

The disagreement was therefore about more than two men’s standing. Barlow’s prior specification and Musser’s later appointment offered competing grounds for legitimate leadership. Musser’s choice gave Allred an explicit claim to succeed him, while Johnson’s supporters could appeal to the succession Barlow had named. The conflict between those claims proved strong enough to divide the movement.

The split and Johnson’s leadership

Following Musser’s death in 1954, Johnson assumed leadership of the larger splinter group. It remained in Short Creek and called itself the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or the United Effort Plan. Allred became prophet of the other faction, the Apostolic United Brethren, based 280 miles north in the Salt Lake Valley. The succession struggle thus produced two rival communities, each organized around a different leader and claim to authority.

After the division, the Short Creek community had little further involvement with Allred’s group. Johnson and his followers kept a low profile beyond Short Creek and were seldom noticed by the wider world. The dispute’s consequence was not simply a change in leadership: it established separate institutional paths for the factions, with Johnson’s group rooted in Short Creek and Allred’s centered in the Salt Lake Valley.

Significance of the relationship

The Musser–Johnson relationship is defined chiefly by a contested succession rather than by evidence of a close personal alliance or a direct confrontation between the two men. Musser’s illness and reliance on Allred shaped the circumstances of his appointment, while Johnson’s claim rested on Barlow’s earlier designation. The resulting split shows how rival interpretations of prophetic authority could turn a disagreement over who should lead into a lasting division within Mormon Fundamentalism.