In 1904 Oklahoma City there was a strange sight that met residents and visitors looked down South Broadway one chilly spring day. Marching casually up from Reno street, yet with a destination in mind, were two men, John Aiken and James Sharp, a woman, Melissa Sharp, and a 12 year old boy, Lee Sharp.
Declaring himself "Adam God" Sharp would prove an interesting character. What was really unusual about this incident was they were all stark naked.
Arrested, charged with lunacy, and ordered out of the state, they were back in 1906 in a cult community, Eden, in south Oklahoma county.
A few years later, 1908, the group (which now included a second in command, Louis Pratt) had gone to Kansas City. There, they had caused a riot where five people died. Sharp, and possibly his wife and others, were ordered to prison for his role in the riot.
The group have been a part of the Morman faith or confiscated some of the terms and teachings of the "Adam God" doctrine of Brigham Young, mixed in some extreme evangelical elements and bits and pieces of a lot of things. Not much has been found explaining the doctrinal aspects of this strange cult but it is clear that they were considered bizarre and out of the ordinary. For most people in the Edwardian era, amusements were where they could be found and a group marching naked down a main city street had to have been worth a chuckle or two.
Oklahoman
NY Times
NY Times
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