During the winter of 1829–1830, several members of Rigdon’s reformed Baptist congregation moved onto Isaac Morley’s farm near Kirtland, Ohio, and attempted to live as a community where all property was held in common. Many had been, or continued to be, associated with Campbell’s movement, although Campbell himself opposed communal living. Comprising some fifty or sixty individuals in about a dozen families, the community at Morley’s farm suffered “confusion and disappointments” because “they considered from reading the scripture that what belonged to a brother belonged to any of the brethren, therefore they would take each others clothes and other property and use it without leave.” Following Rigdon’s 1830 baptism by Mormon missionaries, most members of the community were also baptized into the Church of Christ. In February 1831, a JS revelation effectively ended the community. (Staker, Hearken, O Ye People, 43–47, 108–109; Whitmer, History, 11.)

Staker, Mark L. Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2009.

See Isaiah 40:3; and Matthew 3:3.