John Edward Page

John Edward Page (February 25, 1799 – October 14, 1867) was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement.

Born in Trenton, New York, Page was the son of Ebenezer and Rachel Page. After his conversion, Page was ordained an elder on September 12, 1833. He married Lorain Stevens on December 26 of that year. The couple had two children, but both Stevens and the children later died. He remarried in 1839 to Mary Judd, with whom he had three sons. Page received his ordination to the office of apostle in Far West on December 19, 1838, from Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball. He was also a member of the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge.

Page and fellow apostle Orson Hyde were called to travel and preach in the Holy Land and dedicate the land for the return of the Jews. He and Hyde started on their mission, but Page had a change of heart and never left the United States. In June 1841, in Philadelphia, apostle George A. Smith sought him out and encouraged him to complete his preparations and sail with Hyde in two days time. Page refused to go. While in Philadelphia, Page became involved in a controversy with some of the Latter Day Saints there, which led to a directive from Assistant President of the Church Hyrum Smith instructing Page to return to church headquarters at Nauvoo, Illinois.

After the death of Joseph Smith in 1844, Page made a brief claim to the leadership of the church. The majority of the Latter Day Saints, under the direction of Brigham Young, rejected Page's claim, but retained him in his position with the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Page was then called to serve in the Council of Fifty in 1845 to help plan and facilitate the church's move to the Rocky Mountains. However, he was then removed from the Quorum of the Twelve on February 9, 1846. After urging the Latter Day Saints to follow James J. Strang as leader of the church, Page was excommunicated on June 26, 1846. Ezra T. Benson was called by Young to replace Page in the Quorum. After leaving the church, Page worked on the Strangite periodical Zion's Reveille as editor in 1847.

Although Page was an apostle under Joseph Smith and President of the Quorum of the Twelve under Strang, he eventually came to reject both leaders as "fallen prophets". He later became affiliated with the organization of James C. Brewster and Hazen Aldrich, and later that of Granville Hedrick. By 1855, he, William Marks, and others were holding their own worship services. He joined the Church of Christ (Hedrickites) in 1862 and was instrumental in helping the church obtain possession of the Temple Lot in Independence, Missouri.

Page died in on October 14, 1867, in Sycamore, Illinois, at the age of 68.