Always something to learn here. Got on to Google and sure enough the COTFB were there and it was Morris, the founder, an Englishman of a break away sect from the Mormons. Violence marked their passing.
A bit of a far cry from Dillinger himself, but also tracked down his ancestry. Mathias Dillinger came from Alsace-Lorraine in Europe. To the United States in the early 1800's. German and French people there. Old John Dillinger,(1864-1943), Dillinger's father, very prolific. Fathered children up to 47 years of age.
I must find out whether the press will try to interview Dillinger's descendants.
The elder Dillinger (1864-1943) the bank robber's father married a second time after his wife died. His last offspring was a daughter born 1922. He would have been about 57 years old. (Quite the busy man).
By 1703 there was a COTFB congregation active on the Costa del Tejas (Texas Coast) ~ and I presume this was the doings of a group of Sa'ami whalers. Sa'ami whalers also worked out of what are now the East Coast USA ports in/near Providence RI, and somewhere in SC.
The "Dillinger Fans" have had several professional genealogists take a look at John's genealogy. Hard to believe a guy could have a GGGrandfather from france who joined the COTFB. More likely he simply came from Dillinger, PA, which is up the road from Finland PA and down the road from Blue Ball PA.
The old new Sweden colony RELOCATED from Central Maryland (Elkton) and Lancaster County PA to Western Maryland (and what is now the West Virginia Panhandle) and to York County PA in/about 1700. They'd tired of the constant disputes generated by the incoming Quakers so they relocated the whole colony ~ moving both the COTFB crowd AND the Lutherans (broken up into something like 5 different synods at the time ~ strange folks Fur Shur).
The professional geneaologists always founder on the relocation. They find someone left Lancaster county for, let's say, Bucks County, circa 1700, and they figure the rest of his relatives stayed in Lancaster. All at once you have English and German ancestors you never knew you had.
You have to track back to York County first, and then to Lancaster. That way you drop the English, drop the Germans, and pick up the Swedes, Norwegians, Finns and Sa'ami.
Of note the new Sweden colonialists named everything in York after their former homes in Lancaster county and the Elkton area.
Once in York, the new Sweden colonialists built a string of colonial extensions due West all the way to Kansas City ~ took a while too ~ America had to be settled behind them, but they got into the tree cutting business big time with a large percentage becoming part of the cutting edge who opened up the frontier by bringing land up to farming standards of use. They named most of their colonies "Elk....", "Deer....", "Union.....". By the time they got to Seymour, Indiana (before it was Seymour), Count Jakob Silverskjold was forming a new Sweden/Finland for himself with a claim on 150,000 acres he'd purchased about 1806-1810.. Folks descended from the new Sweden colony called it Amaroosia (Reindeer Crossing), English speaking people called it "Mule's Crossing" (which, btw, can be understood quite well as "mulluh crossing" or (reindeer crossing" in Fenno-English Creole. Later on his son Meedy named it Seymour so he could get the railroads to run through the town.
The original new Sweden settlers met up with an entirely new bunch of Scanderhoovians in this area at Uniontown.
The far larger Scandinavian migrations began a quarter century later as a series of famines swept the land and gave the folks in the Fenno-Scandinavian peninsula the choice of fleeing to America or dieing.
Regarding the Morrisites, the use of the term "Church of the First Born" appeared to have disappeared about 1836 in the Mormon movement mainstream. If you research things deep enough you'll find Mormons have their own view of what the COTFB is. I have mine ~ with the COTFB appearing in Upstate and West Central New York in the late 1700s early contact with some of the principals behind the Mormon movement is entirely possible.
I don't think there's enough information out there to rule out any number of theories.
Now, about the "violence", no doubt the COTFB believed in it. They also didn't and still don't believe in doctors except for bone breaks. When the Orthodox priests first left off trying to Christianize these folks in the 1500/1600 period they pretty much left the shamen alone. Today the COTFB continue to hold tight to faith-healing.