Baptized in 1831, Tennessee native William E. McLellin was ordained a member of this dispensation’s original Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1835. He was only 29 years old at his ordination, but he was already an experienced missionary, schoolteacher and self-taught physician and among the most astute members of the small, humble Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Unfortunately, he broke with his leaders in the wake of the Kirtland financial difficulties of 1837 and was excommunicated in May 1838.