In organizing the School Folders in the Information Files recently I came across an intriguing photograph of a House of David barnstorming basketball team. The photo dates from approximately 1940 and shows five muscular young men in tank tops and short shorts. Three are bearded and three are from Spencer. All of them are originally from Indiana. The five men were a Mr. Jefferies of Lyons, Indiana, first name unrecorded; Dutch Leonard of Bloomington and the three men from Spencer; Ollie Troth, Red Johnson and Wayne Payton.
The House of David Commune was famous in its day. It was founded by Benjamin Franklin Purnell and his wife Mary in Benton Harbor, Michigan in March, 1903. Benjamin Purnell had been born in March 27, 1861 in Esculapia, Kentucky. He was the seventh of nine children born to farmers Madison and Sarah Purnell. Benjamin learned to read from the New Testament and when a tent preacher passed through town Madison invited him home so little Benjamin could preach for him.
Benjamin Purnell loved to preach and became a child evangelist, travelling across the country delivering sermons. At the age of sixteen Benjamin married Angeline Brown in Virginia. The couple settled in Richmond, Indiana where Benjamin found work as a broom maker. The marriage did not last and by the time Benjamin was nineteen he was back in the road and unattached.
It was in Aberdeen, Ohio where he met and married Mary Stallard on August 29, 1880. They had two children together. In 1888 they learned from a group of preachers about a man said to be the Sixth Messenger, James Jershom Jezreel. Jezreel had written a trilogy known as the Extracts of the Flying Roll which prophesized that Eden would be restored and the 144,000 children of Israel would gather in a new Eden in America. Michigan to be exact. Jezreel wrote, “O blessed Michigan, for out of thee shall come a star.”
Jezreel was following in the footsteps of the First Messenger, Joanna Southcott of Devonshire, England. Born in 1750, Southcott had received “communications of the spirit” in 1792 and pronounced herself the woman spoken of in Revelations, “A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.”
Over the next twelve years Joanne Southcott received revelations that foretold Christ’s return to Earth, the restoration of the Garden of Eden and eternal life for God’s 144,000 elect. At the height of her popularity Southcott attracted over 150,000 follows but in 1814 the 64-year-old virgin announced she was pregnant with the prophesied child, the new Messiah, Shiloh of Genesis, who would rule with the iron scepter. Her due date of October 14, 1814 came and went with no child and it was announced Southcott had fallen into a “trance.” On December 26th or 27th, 1814, Joanna Southcott died though her believers lived on.
In the mid-1880s the Fifth Messenger, John Wroe, instituted Mosaic law and also a custom known as the “Cleansing of the Blood” where the Messenger had the responsibility of de-flowering every female member of the religion before their marriages. When word of this ritual leaked out in Britain they were chased off that island and disbursed to Australia, Canada and the United States.
By 1890 the largest group of Southcottians was based at the Flying Rolls colony Detroit Michigan led by Michael Mills who proclaimed he was the Seventh Messenger, the Sixth being recognized as James Zerell who had collected all the prophecies of the previous five Messengers into one volume known as the Flying Roll. It was here that Benjamin and Mary Parnell travelled in 1895. The Southcottians of Detroit gave all of their worldly goods to Michael Mills and lived communally in “God’s House” on the grounds of the Colony. In 1894 Michael Mills had a vision that from that point forward that all the wives were to be shared communally with all of the men of the Colony. This was too much for Benjamin Parnell who encouraged Mills’ outraged wife to file for divorce. The resulting scandal ended with Michael Mills barely escaping a lynch mob and in Michigan filing morals charges against him leading to a five year prison term for the former prophet.
During this period of turmoil Benjamin Purnell announced that he had received a Revelation that Michael Mills was a fraud and, in fact, he, Benjamin Purnell, was the true Seventh Messenger. He and Mary were run out of Detroit by Southcottians still loyal to Michael Mills and spent the next several years as itinerant preachers.
In 1902, while the Purnell’s were in Fostoria, Ohio, their daughter Hettie was killed in an explosion of a fireworks factory during her first day at work there. She had just turned sixteen. The explosion leveled the factory and killed everyone inside. Hettie was so badly burned that she was only able to be identified by the ring given to her by a friend for her birthday less than two weeks before. The actions of Benjamin and Mary Purnell caused outrage in some segments of the Fostoria population because they did not believe in death and so refused to bury their daughter but upon leaving the place three weeks later they published a notice in the local newspaper thanking everyone for, “the kindness, gifts and support,” shown to them by the Citizens of Fostoria.
Benjamin and Mary then moved along with five followers to Benton Harbor, Michigan which reported came to Mary in a dream. Once in Benton Harbor they incorporated the Israelite House of David. A wealthy supporter donated land to the group and they soon hooked up with about 200 members of the ‘Flying Rollers’ who had become disenchanted with Michael Mills and the Detroit group. Most of the Purnell’s original followers were from Indiana and Ohio but their ranks expanded dramatically after Benjamin Purnell made a recruiting trip to Australia in 1904-05 among the followers of Messenger James Jezreel.
From here the House of David prospered. It was a communal society and all of its members assigned all their worldly possessions to Benjamin Purnell who added vegetarianism and celibacy to the list of religious requirements. The House of David built three impressive buildings, one of which, Shiloh, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They generated their own electricity and ran their own printing press. They purchased Michigan’s 3,400 acre High Island where they grew fruits and vegetables they later sold at their fruit and vegetable market which was said to be the largest in the world; as was their state-of-the-art cold storage facility. They opened their own amusement park complete with a miniature railroad along with hotels and vegetarian restaurants. In 1912 they published a vegetarian cookbook. They had a zoo, mineral springs and botanical gardens on their 1,000 acre property. They built an auditorium where Biblical plays were performed. They ran a shipping line and cruise ships, patenting the first cross propeller technology making it harder for waves to tip over cruise ships. They invested in logging. They invented a synthetic stone known as Hydro-stone and the Waffle cone. The invented the automatic pinsetter for use in bowling alleys. At the behest of Welch’s Grape Juice Company they invented a way that grape juice could be stored in cans and in the 1970s their cold storage facility was instrumental in inventing dehydrated Space Meals for use by astronauts. They invented a portable lighting system that allowed sports teams to play outside at night. They sponsored two orchestras and three brass bands that traveled the country playing instruments manufactured at the Colony and they were famous for their semi-pro baseball that barnstormed the country and, to a lesser extent, their basketball teams. Players on these teams were not required to be members of the religion.
Prospering, the House of David was estimated to be worth over $10 million dollars by the 1920s. Despite the vows of celibacy, the House of David was scrutinized by the police on the look-out for immoral practices. Benjamin Purnell was arrested on morals charges in 1910, 1914, 1920 and 1922. In 1923, the Detroit Free Press published a sensational expose of the sect prompting the State’s Attorney General to Act. The Colony was raided but Benjamin wasn’t found. It was assumed he had fled to Canada but in 1926 a disaffected member, Bessie Daniels, went to the police and reported Benjamin Purnell had been hiding in plain sight. He was arrested in his bedroom at the Colony and 13 women swore under oath that they had sexual relations with the Messenger when they were still minors. Benjamin Purnell was placed on trial and convicted of fraud but died on November 16, 1927 before the charges of sexual impropriety could be heard in Court.
After Benjamin’s death the House of David split into two factions with about 200 members supporting Judge Harry Thomas Dewhirst, a one-time jurist from California, and Benjamin’s widow, Mary, who soon proclaimed herself “Co-Seventh Messenger.” They managed to reach a settlement with Mary receiving $60,000 and Dewhirst’s faction retaining Shiloh and the rest of the House of David’s assets. Mary bought land directly across the street, naming it the Israelite House of David, or, more simply, Mary’s City of David. Both Houses maintained baseball teams but the Dewhirst team disbanded in the 1930s while the Israelite House of David’s teams played well into the 1950s.
Mary Purnell died August 19, 1953 at the age of 90. After her death her grandson, Samuel Coy Purnell, sued, claiming Mary owned all the assets of the City of David. A judge ruled that the assets were held communally but still awarded Samuel $700,000 as Mary’s share.
For a while things still prospered. The House of David added a cannery and a couple of Olds dealerships to its holdings and Mary Purnell built a vacation complex called Paradise Park that attracted so many Jewish visitors that a Synagogue was built on-site. However, celibacy took its toll. Numbers dwindled and the House of David stopped actively recruiting new members after Benjamin’s death. The zoo disbanded in the 1940s with the animals sent to Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo. The industries and amusement park closed by the 1970s and by 2010 only three members remained living, supported in nursing homes by the profits from the House of David’s real estate holdings and the money raised from selling blueberries. Traveling down East Briton Road in Benton Harbor today there is barely a trace of the thriving commune. The tourist courts, the vegetarian restaurant, the athletic fields, the beer garden, the Synagogue, all gone though a museum dedicated to the House of David was opened in Benton Harbor in 1997.
All may not be lost, however. Mary Purnell prophesized that the gathering of 144,000 elect, 12,000 from each of the Tribes of Israel, would happen when people drive by and say, “Look, there’s where the House of David used to be,” and when the number of members remaining could fit into her closet. It looks like that time might be at hand.
~ Laura Wilkerson
Genealogy Department
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