In the Centerville, Delaware LDS branch, a small storm arose around a white Mormon man who polygamously married "a collored girl". William Knopp, a 60 year-old convert from England, and his first wife, 58 year-old Jane Vale Knopp, had just arrived in America, and stopped in Delaware for a year, on their way to Utah. The Centerville branch president, Samuel A. Woolley, a former Quaker and abolitionist, went on a trip to Ohio. Woolley received a letter from Centerville branch member Sarah Mariah Mousely, informing him that William Knopp had plurally married an African American woman after Woolley left. Woolley in turn wrote to Apostle John Taylor, who was in Philadelphia, telling him that Knopp "has married a yellow girl since I left" and that he felt he should take away Knopp's priesthood yet let him remain a member of the church, but he wanted Taylor's council first.

We do not know Taylor's response, but Woolley returned to Delaware and then in March 1856, he traveled to Philadelphia to meet personally with Taylor about this case, and another case of an alcoholic, married branch member who had seduced another married woman in the branch and gotten her pregnant while her husband was still in England. Woolley returned to Delaware and on Sunday, March 16, discussed the two cases in the branch's council meeting. It was there reported that William Knopp "had no desire to be cut off the church but he could not attend the council." However, his "reasons that he gave[for not attending] were not satisfactory to the council and after some remarks had been made by President S. A. Woolley upon the case of Bro Nopp that he had forfeited his right to the priesthood marrying the seed of Cain and had reflected [sic -rejected] the council given him by the council it was moved by Pres S A Woolley and Sec[onded] by Elder J[oseph] Lloyd that he be cut off." The branch council again stressed in the minutes that Knopp was excommunicated for "contempt of council" for not attending, and for "mingling with the Seed of Cain." Knopp likely "divorced" his plural wife soon thereafter, for he was rebaptized on August 17, 1856. The very next day, William and his first wife, Jane Vale Knopp, left Maryland. Although they were ultimately headed for Utah, it took them several more years to do so, finally arriving in Salt Lake with the John Smith ox team company on September 1, 1860. (Although there is no indication what William Knopp's African American plural wife had joined the LDS Church, we do know that at least two other Black men were members of the Centerville, Maryland branch: Henry Cook and William Carpenter.)