Frank Sandford
Encyclopedia
Frank Weston Sandford was the founder and leader of an apocalyptic Christian sect, informally called "Shiloh" and eventually known officially as "The Kingdom." Sandford was early attracted to premillennialism
, the Higher Life movement
, the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit
, and divine healing; and in the 1890s, he created a communal society in coastal Maine whose members "lived on faith" rather than being gainfully employed. Considered by former members and many neighbors to be a crank and an autocrat
who insisted on unquestioning loyalty, Sandford—who had identified himself with the biblical Elijah and David
—was convicted of manslaughter
in 1911 and served seven years in a federal penitentiary. His absence retarded the growth of his small sect; but it survived, in attenuated form, into the 21st century.
, the tenth child of a farming family. As a young man Frank was a natural leader. An early companion recalled that he was always the one who "drove the horse and steered the boat"; if they played ball, "he was always a captain." His father died when Frank was fourteen, and by sixteen he was teaching school during an era in which physical prowess was often necessary to establish classroom discipline.
During his second year of teaching, Sandford reluctantly attended a revival meeting at his mother's Free Baptist church and was converted on February 29, 1880. He threw away his tobacco and announced his conversion publicly, not only at church but also at Nichols Latin School, where worldly cosmopolitanism was the preferred pose.
Entering Bates College
on a general scholarship, Sandford was elected class president and served as both coach and catcher of the baseball team. He graduated in 1886 with honors and was chosen to give a commencement address. For a summer he captained a semi-pro baseball team and was approached by professional scouts. After a teammate ridiculed him for attending church on the annual State of Maine Fast Day, Sandford returned to Bates to attend Cobb Divinity School
.
Frustrated by the seminary's mixture of formalism and religious modernism
, Sandford later said that God had addressed him directly with words from the gospel of Matthew, "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." For the rest of his life he distrusted academic religion. Soon thereafter the twenty-four-year-old dropped out of seminary after he was called as pastor by the Freewill Baptist church in Topsham, Maine. Sandford was frenetically energetic, and within three years his revivals resulted in three hundred conversions and more than a hundred baptisms. Besides serving as pastor, he became principal of the Topsham schools and organized sports programs for both local children and workers at a paper mill.
’s "College of Colleges" at Northfield Mount Hermon School in Northfield, Massachusetts
, the second annual meeting of the Student Volunteer Movement
. The college men who attended represented a revival of interest in foreign missions among more privileged Americans. Moody himself provided Sandford with three important religious ideas: personal holiness, living by faith, and informal preaching. Shortly thereafter, Sandford read Hannah Whitall Smith
's, The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life (1875). Smith was an exponent of "higher life"
Christianity; but what most attracted Sandford was Smith's "emphasis on action, on a life that acts on faith, that obeys by doing."
Later that fall Sandford was present for a religious conference that featured the Rev. A. B. Simpson
, who had come to Maine specifically to organize the Christian and Missionary Alliance
. Simpson's ministry emphasized not only missions and deeper life holiness but also faith healing
. (At the latter meeting Sandford also met Helen Kinney, the daughter of a wealthy cotton broker, who had surrendered a career in art to become a foreign missionary.) Finally, in the summer of 1888, Sandford attended the Niagara Bible Conference
, which emphasized the imminent, premillennial
return of Christ.
These diverse, yet related, strands of late 19th-century evangelicalism came together for Sandford after he accepted the pastorate of a more affluent Free Baptist Church in Somersworth, New Hampshire
. Following a period of emotional depression—perhaps a nervous breakdown—he was temporarily released by his church after the denomination invited him and another young minister to travel around the world. Sandford visited Japan, China, India, Egypt, and Palestine. In China he toured the China Inland Mission
of Hudson Taylor
, where he noted with admiration that "all depend upon God for support and divide their supplies equally"—a model for his own Shiloh. Visiting the Holy Land, Sandford developed a life-long passion for more knowledge about it, but he nearly died when his steamer sank off Jaffa
.
." Shortly thereafter, Sandford convinced Helen Kinney, whom he had met again as a missionary in Japan, to marry him. When he suggested leaving the pastorate and preaching the gospel without visible support, she replied, "I think it would be lovely."
On New Year's Day, 1893, Sandford told his church that God had told him, "Go." He resigned his pulpit and gave away his savings in the teeth of an economic panic and depression. Sandford and his wife then began holding meetings in rural Maine—at the beginning with virtually no congregations and no financial support. But Sandford continued to preach. Eventually he achieved some success among people in the coastal hill regions of Maine, and contributions now came in plentifully, although Sandford did not solicit money or even pass a collection plate.
By the fall of 1894, Sandford believed that he no longer bore responsibility for his actions, that he need only respond to the movings of the Holy Spirit. Thus abandoning the Free Baptists, he began to issue a monthly magazine in which he advertised for other workers to join him in his ministry. A year later with a small but committed following of young people, he announced the opening of a school, soon given the name "Holy Ghost and Us Bible School." The school charged no tuition, offered no courses, and had no teachers except Sandford and no textbooks except the Bible.
. At that moment Sandford had three cents in his pocket. Nevertheless, he had plenty of faith that God would provide the means of putting up a building without his explicitly asking for money. Although Sandford eventually decided that publishing a list of needs in his Tongues of Fire would be acceptable, the manner in which the money and volunteer labor was provided by supporters was nearly miraculous in any case. Sandford had intended to name only the main building Shiloh (after a place in the Bible), but the name "Shiloh" was obviously more mellifluous than "The Holy Ghost and Us," and it became the informal name of Sandford's movement.
At its height, Shiloh had more than six hundred residents who attempted to "live in the supernatural." None worked for pay, and all depended on God to supply their material needs. To live at Shiloh meant to "be in a constant state of readiness for the 'Holy Spirit's latest,' as Sandford put it. This meant no settling into ruts of any kind. It meant being ready to do any job, especially those you were least adept at....It meant being open to last-minute changes in schedule." There was a typical schedule: one or two hours of private devotions in the morning, breakfast and kitchen chores, prayer at 9 AM, classes until noon, lunch before personal household or office duties. But the schedule might be interrupted at any moment by some special request for prayer. "God's work could not be crammed into a human schedule, and fussy ideas about order were not appropriate."
on Saturday, Sandford's theology was, at this point, not far from mainstream evangelicalism. Nevertheless, because Sandford believed that Thursday was the day on which Jesus was crucified, he and his followers prayed for six hours (from 9 AM to 3 PM) on that day. In the summer of 1896, Sandford publicly discussed the two prophets mentioned in the Book of Revelation
who would appear before Christ's Second Coming
, and he declared that his school would "stand by and if need be die" with them. When Sandford's son John was born shortly after the dedication of Shiloh, Stanford said that (like John the Baptist
), the boy had been "filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb."
were England and America, blood descendants of the ancient Hebrews who had been carried into captivity by the Assyrians in 721 BC. British Israelism
was a religious version of ideas about Anglo-Saxon supremacy that were common to the contemporary English-speaking world, and the doctrine made the Bible all the more relevant because its prophecies seemed to apply to the people of Shiloh and the nation of which it was a part.
. Soon Tongues of Fire reported healings of pneumonia, cancer, diphtheria, catarrh, "sick headache," sprained wrist, dropsy, typhoid, mental derangement, broken bones, and "utter exhaustion." A local three-year-old girl who had been pronounced permanently sightless by medical authorities suddenly gained her sight after prayer was offered for her at Shiloh. But the most spectacular case was the "resurrection" of Olive Mills, who had been seriously ill, perhaps with spinal meningitis. Told Mills was dead, Sandford found her without breath or pulse. In desperation he shouted, "Olive Mills! Come back! In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, come back!" Almost immediately, Mills opened her eyes, and within a few hours she was out of bed and dressed.
Sandford believed the Epistle of James
compelled Christians who were sick to call church elders for prayer and the laying on of hands
. Sandford criticized Christians who sought treatment from physicians. He believed that illness might be the result of either discipline from God or an attack of Satan; but casting out demons required “prevailing prayer,” an exercise that included such protracted fervency and shouting that one skeptic became apprehensive as what sounded “like a hundred people talking at once” concluded with a woman’s screams piercing the din. In 1899, Sandford received a divine message to complete a hospital in a hasty building drive—a technique frequently employed at Shiloh—but it was a hospital in which doctors were permitted only for diagnoses and consultations. No medicines of any kind were provided. Among those influenced by these early religious developments at Shiloh were A. J. Tomlinson, founder of the Church of God
, and Charles Fox Parham
, one of the founders of the Pentecostal
movement.
Inevitably Sandford encountered opposition. A brief follower published an exposé, Sanfordism Exposed, and relatives of converts who wished to deed their property to Shiloh tried to have them declared insane. Although Durham benefited from levying taxes on the residential portions of Shiloh, the town also feared that block voting by Shiloh residents might dominate the town meeting, the school board, or the board of selectmen or, that in the event of bankruptcy, its members might become dependent on town charity.
More serious threats arose from among Sandford's own followers. The movement claimed to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, but conflict developed when members disagreed about where the Holy Spirit was leading. In September 1900 Sandford announced that there would henceforth be an official chain of authority: God the Father, God the Son, the prophet whom God had chosen, ordained ministers subordinate to the prophet, everyone else subordinate to the ministers, with women and children also subordinate to their husbands and fathers. Sandford then instituted an organized purge of members that "incorporated not just confession, but long day and night sessions of open and unrelenting criticism of each other. One's capacity to accept that scouring in a contrite and cooperative spirit, without resentment or defensiveness, was the first step in passing the grade." One by one individuals were then brought before Sandford himself for final scrutiny by "the seven eyes of God."
Sandford also developed a three-tiered membership in his religious system: those willing to be "100-fold warriors" would be supported by 60- and 30-fold members who would live in their own homes and continue to work. In 1901, to make a clean break with the past, Sandford instituted closed communion
and rebaptized all local members of his society in the nearby Androscoggin River
.
" of Revelation 11, who would be martyred and rise from the dead in Jerusalem before the coming of Christ's kingdom. The "Elijah" announcement was met with increased ridicule from the press and led to the breaking of all ties with followers of Moody and A. B. Simpson.
In 1902, after once again visiting Jerusalem, Sandford received a divine message that indicated that in some way, he was also the biblical David
. Sandford had a portrait of himself printed encircled by the words "David careth for the Sheep," and he immediately renamed his movement "The Kingdom."
. Peers were encouraged to closely examine each other's lives for sin, and parents regularly whipped children, a practice Sandford apparently condoned as the "schoolmaster to bring them to Christ." In January 1903, Sandford instituted a "Ninevah Fast" forbidding all food or liquid for thirty-six hours even for infants, animals, and the sick. During that period fourteen-year-old Leander Bartlett, who had confessed to the most serious sin of planning to run away from Shiloh, died of diphtheria
. When Sandford's own six-year-old son, John, disobeyed him, Sandford ordered him to fast without food or water until he declared himself glad to be whipped. A prominent defector from the sect, Nathan Harriman, publicized John’s treatment and declared Sandford’s hold over the people of Shiloh a kind of hypnotism, in which God's requirements were "identical with those of Sandford.”
Many local residents took a dim view of Sandford, and the newspapers engaged in "long-running campaigns against Shiloh." One editor denounced Shiloh as " a damnable institution, a hell upon earth and the worst blot that ever disgraced the fair pages of Maine's history." In January 1904 Sandford was indicted by Androscoggin County on charges of cruelty to children
and manslaughter
—cruelty in the case of his son and manslaughter for his role in Bartlett's death. A jury convicted Sandford on the cruelty charge but was hung on the charge of manslaughter. On appeal, the verdict in the cruelty case was upheld; and at retrial, Sandford was convicted of manslaughter. In 1905, the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine reversed the manslaughter conviction because the trial judge had required jurors to make a decision based on their own belief about the "efficacy of prayer as a means to cure the sick." Another jury trial resulted in another hung jury
. Meanwhile, Sandford had his followers sign a ten-foot scroll called the "Pledge of Loyalty," which included among its articles of faith a statement that "F. W. Sandford of Shiloh, Maine, U.S.A." was Elijah and David, and that "I believe in and accept him as such."
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While his manslaughter case was still in the courts, Sandford purchased the racing yacht
Coronet
, an extravagantly appointed schooner
, for $10,000—raised in the usual Shiloh manner by prayer, "in this case, forty days and nights of it, with shifts for eating and sleeping." Sandford made two quick trips to Jerusalem in 1905-06, but when his legal difficulties had ended, he and his thirty selected crewmen and passengers (including his wife and five children) circumnavigated the globe on what he described as a missionary journey. It was an unconventional missionary enterprise. No one went ashore to preach the Gospel or even distribute religious literature. Sandford intended to "subdue the world for Christ" by intercessory prayer, claiming nations and isles for Christ by sounding brass instruments as they passed by. Oddly, Sandford added a taxidermist
to a crew of reasonably experienced seamen, and he included on a ship already filled to capacity both "eyes for stuffed animals and birds" and a large harp on which he took lessons. There were moments of real peril, as when the Coronet fought its way through the thundering seas around Cape Horn
and then again after a powerful gale broke the main sheet and (indirectly) part of the mast almost immediately after Sandford had shot an albatross
. During calmer periods, Sandford had leisure enough to hunt and receive an occasional vision.
, Kingdom. She was treated with utmost courtesy until they reached the Maine coast, at which point Sandford refused to let her land until she was "adjusted" to her husband. Eventually Whittaker was freed by court order and was then given custody of her children.
The story made sensational newspaper fare, especially when Florence Whittaker sued Sandford for forcible detention. At the time Sandford was aboard the Coronet, and authorities began watching ports to serve him the legal papers. Sandford determined that they would not find him, that a mission station should be opened immediately in Africa and perhaps another in Greenland
. In December 1910 more than seventy men, women, and children headed off to Africa, divided between the Kingdom and the Coronet. In March 1911, the Kingdom went aground and was destroyed off the coast of French West Africa
. Sandford blamed the wreck on the spiritual impotence of its passengers and crew, but he took everyone aboard the Coronet, which now became fearfully overloaded with people and undersupplied with food and water.
Nevertheless, Sandford heard the supernatural direction, "Continue," which he interpreted to mean to sail on to Greenland. After recrossing the Atlantic to catch the northerly currents, the Coronet passed up numerous opportunities to take on water and supplies, Sandford announcing that God had ordered him not to put into port in the United States or Canada. Finally, on September 6, 1911, there was a "quiet mutiny" of some sort off the Grand Banks
, and the Coronet was turned south. Unfortunately, the ship now made little headway, and the passengers and crew were saved from possible starvation only by the fortuitous appearance of the ocean liner, S. S. Lapland, which provided some food—but ominously, no fruit or vegetables.
Almost before they knew what was happening, men began to fall victim to scurvy
; and within a few days after the Coronet reached Portland
on October 21, 1911, scurvy had claimed the lives of six crew members. Sandford was first arrested on Florence Whittaker's warrant and then, a few days later, for being responsible for the deaths—"unlawfully, knowingly, and willingly" allowing a ship to "proceed on a voyage at sea without sufficient provisions."
.
Although Sandford accepted imprisonment as the will of God, he had difficulty at first bending to prison regulations. But with sleep, proper nourishment, and enforced exercise, his health gradually improved. He even insisted that Shiloh residents drop whatever they were doing at 11:30 and 4:00 and exercise with him. He was made a gatekeeper and given a pass that allowed him to spend some time out of doors. He also volunteered to teach a group of prisoners how to read and write and especially enjoyed conducting a weekly Bible class that began with one student and grew to more than a hundred. Eventually Shiloh was allowed to send him a harp, and Sandford was not only able to practice, he gave at least two concerts at the prison.
Sandford had appointed seven ministers to share responsibility for leading the group, but his letters were treated like "a purse of gold." Many of them, even private letters to his family, were printed and distributed. Because prisoners were only allowed to send two letters a month, a sect member moved to Atlanta and took dictation during weekly visits.
Given three years off for good behavior, Sandford was released from prison in September 1918. When he reappeared at Shiloh, he was served a sumptuous meal, although many Shiloh residents had recently suffered serious illness and almost all, hunger. Sandford's return to Shiloh sparked new contributions and new healings, even food enough for two meals a day.
Nevertheless, three days after his arrival, another of Sandford's daughters ran away, and a few months later Sandford left Maine for the sect's Boston headquarters. Furthermore, the sect had conducted virtually no evangelistic outreach since the beginning of Sandford's imprisonment in 1911.
The end of the Shiloh community came suddenly in 1920 after the death of Shiloh resident Elma Hastings and a suit brought by relatives for guardianship of her children on the grounds of non-support by their father. Then the Children's Protective Society of Maine, having investigated living conditions at Shiloh, urged that all minors be removed from the community.
In March 1920, Sandford sent the message, "Work." No one anticipated that this directive would effectively end the Shiloh community within days. Two months later the prayer vigils had stopped, the Bible school was closed, and the Shiloh population had dropped from 370 to a handful. As Nelson has written, once the men went off to the mills, everything changed. With "the assurance that they would never be hungry again," that their needs would be met in the same way everyone else's were met, "there was no reason to stay. They could be ordinary Christians anywhere."
in the Catskill Mountains
. He prayed, farmed, raised sheep, studied astronomy, taught small groups, and gradually regathered his scattered followers into centers in different parts of the country. Messages were delivered to the faithful by a smaller inner circle.
Sandford continued to be supported by the tithes of his followers, and his retirement was "satisfying and serene," although his papers and books were twice destroyed in house fires. To some degree Sandford relaxed his earlier rhetoric. On New Year's Eve, 1941, he received a message from God to "remit the sins of each and every person that has been baptized since October 1, 1901." But he never renounced his claim to be Elijah; nor did he ever express remorse for those who had died on the Coronet thirty years earlier.
Sandford's death on March 4, 1948 was quiet and peaceful. His funeral and internment, however, were hasty and secretive. The news of his passing was not released to the press for six weeks. Sandford had, of course, not died as Elijah in Jerusalem, but as an unheralded inhabitant of a Catskill village.
A successor organization, Kingdom Christian Ministries—reorganized in 1998 after a split occasioned by continued debate over Sandford's theology—has several hundred members at a few centers in the eastern United States. An independent evangelical Christian church, Shiloh Chapel, meets in a remaining portion of the original Shiloh building in Durham, Maine; it is no longer affiliated with Kingdom Christian Ministries.
Premillennialism
Premillennialism in Christian end-times theology is the belief that Jesus will literally and physically be on the earth for his millennial reign, at his second coming. The doctrine is called premillennialism because it holds that Jesus’ physical return to earth will occur prior to the inauguration...
, the Higher Life movement
Higher Life movement
The Higher Life movement was a movement devoted to Christian holiness in England. Its name comes from a book by William Boardman, entitled The Higher Christian Life, which was published in 1858...
, the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...
, and divine healing; and in the 1890s, he created a communal society in coastal Maine whose members "lived on faith" rather than being gainfully employed. Considered by former members and many neighbors to be a crank and an autocrat
Autocracy
An autocracy is a form of government in which one person is the supreme power within the state. It is derived from the Greek : and , and may be translated as "one who rules by himself". It is distinct from oligarchy and democracy...
who insisted on unquestioning loyalty, Sandford—who had identified himself with the biblical Elijah and David
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
—was convicted of manslaughter
Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...
in 1911 and served seven years in a federal penitentiary. His absence retarded the growth of his small sect; but it survived, in attenuated form, into the 21st century.
Youth and education
Sandford was born in Bowdoinham, MaineBowdoinham, Maine
Bowdoinham is a town in Sagadahoc County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,612 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford, Maine metropolitan statistical area. The town is located on the west side of Merrymeeting Bay.-History:Fort Richmond was...
, the tenth child of a farming family. As a young man Frank was a natural leader. An early companion recalled that he was always the one who "drove the horse and steered the boat"; if they played ball, "he was always a captain." His father died when Frank was fourteen, and by sixteen he was teaching school during an era in which physical prowess was often necessary to establish classroom discipline.
During his second year of teaching, Sandford reluctantly attended a revival meeting at his mother's Free Baptist church and was converted on February 29, 1880. He threw away his tobacco and announced his conversion publicly, not only at church but also at Nichols Latin School, where worldly cosmopolitanism was the preferred pose.
Entering Bates College
Bates College
Bates College is a highly selective, private liberal arts college located in Lewiston, Maine, in the United States. and was most recently ranked 21st in the nation in the 2011 US News Best Liberal Arts Colleges rankings. The college was founded in 1855 by abolitionists...
on a general scholarship, Sandford was elected class president and served as both coach and catcher of the baseball team. He graduated in 1886 with honors and was chosen to give a commencement address. For a summer he captained a semi-pro baseball team and was approached by professional scouts. After a teammate ridiculed him for attending church on the annual State of Maine Fast Day, Sandford returned to Bates to attend Cobb Divinity School
Cobb Divinity School
Cobb Divinity School, founded in 1840, was a Free Will Baptist graduate school affiliated with several Free Baptist institutions throughout its history...
.
Frustrated by the seminary's mixture of formalism and religious modernism
Liberal Christianity
Liberal Christianity, sometimes called liberal theology, is an umbrella term covering diverse, philosophically and biblically informed religious movements and ideas within Christianity from the late 18th century and onward...
, Sandford later said that God had addressed him directly with words from the gospel of Matthew, "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." For the rest of his life he distrusted academic religion. Soon thereafter the twenty-four-year-old dropped out of seminary after he was called as pastor by the Freewill Baptist church in Topsham, Maine. Sandford was frenetically energetic, and within three years his revivals resulted in three hundred conversions and more than a hundred baptisms. Besides serving as pastor, he became principal of the Topsham schools and organized sports programs for both local children and workers at a paper mill.
Spiritual search
Beginning in 1887, Sandford's life changed dramatically. In July, Sandford attended Dwight L. MoodyDwight L. Moody
Dwight Lyman Moody , also known as D.L. Moody, was an American evangelist and publisher who founded the Moody Church, Northfield School and Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts , the Moody Bible Institute and Moody Publishers.-Early life:Dwight Moody was born in Northfield, Massachusetts to a large...
’s "College of Colleges" at Northfield Mount Hermon School in Northfield, Massachusetts
Northfield, Massachusetts
Northfield is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 2,951 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area...
, the second annual meeting of the Student Volunteer Movement
Student Volunteer Movement
The Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions was an organization founded in 1886 that sought to recruit college and university students in the United States for missionary service abroad. It also sought to publicize and encourage the missionary enterprise in general...
. The college men who attended represented a revival of interest in foreign missions among more privileged Americans. Moody himself provided Sandford with three important religious ideas: personal holiness, living by faith, and informal preaching. Shortly thereafter, Sandford read Hannah Whitall Smith
Hannah Whitall Smith
Hannah Tatum Whitall Smith was a lay speaker and author in the Holiness movement in the United States and the Higher Life movement in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
's, The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life (1875). Smith was an exponent of "higher life"
Higher Life movement
The Higher Life movement was a movement devoted to Christian holiness in England. Its name comes from a book by William Boardman, entitled The Higher Christian Life, which was published in 1858...
Christianity; but what most attracted Sandford was Smith's "emphasis on action, on a life that acts on faith, that obeys by doing."
Later that fall Sandford was present for a religious conference that featured the Rev. A. B. Simpson
Albert Benjamin Simpson
Albert Benjamin "A.B." Simpson was a Canadian preacher, theologian, author, and founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance , an evangelical Protestant denomination with an emphasis on global evangelism....
, who had come to Maine specifically to organize the Christian and Missionary Alliance
Christian and Missionary Alliance
The Christian and Missionary Alliance is an evangelical Protestant denomination within Christianity.Founded by Rev. Albert Benjamin Simpson in 1887, the Christian & Missionary Alliance did not start off as a denomination, but rather began as two distinct parachurch organizations: The Christian...
. Simpson's ministry emphasized not only missions and deeper life holiness but also faith healing
Faith healing
Faith healing is healing through spiritual means. The healing of a person is brought about by religious faith through prayer and/or rituals that, according to adherents, stimulate a divine presence and power toward correcting disease and disability. Belief in divine intervention in illness or...
. (At the latter meeting Sandford also met Helen Kinney, the daughter of a wealthy cotton broker, who had surrendered a career in art to become a foreign missionary.) Finally, in the summer of 1888, Sandford attended the Niagara Bible Conference
Niagara Bible Conference
The Niagara Bible Conference was held annually from 1876 to 1897, with the exception of 1884. In the first few years it met in different resort locations around the United States...
, which emphasized the imminent, premillennial
Premillennialism
Premillennialism in Christian end-times theology is the belief that Jesus will literally and physically be on the earth for his millennial reign, at his second coming. The doctrine is called premillennialism because it holds that Jesus’ physical return to earth will occur prior to the inauguration...
return of Christ.
These diverse, yet related, strands of late 19th-century evangelicalism came together for Sandford after he accepted the pastorate of a more affluent Free Baptist Church in Somersworth, New Hampshire
Somersworth, New Hampshire
As of the census of 2000, there were 11,477 people, 4,687 households, and 3,079 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,173.4 people per square mile . There were 4,841 housing units at an average density of 494.9 per square mile...
. Following a period of emotional depression—perhaps a nervous breakdown—he was temporarily released by his church after the denomination invited him and another young minister to travel around the world. Sandford visited Japan, China, India, Egypt, and Palestine. In China he toured the China Inland Mission
China Inland Mission
OMF International is an interdenominational Protestant Christian missionary society, founded in Britain by Hudson Taylor on 25 June 1865.-Overview:...
of Hudson Taylor
Hudson Taylor
James Hudson Taylor , was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China, and founder of the China Inland Mission . Taylor spent 51 years in China...
, where he noted with admiration that "all depend upon God for support and divide their supplies equally"—a model for his own Shiloh. Visiting the Holy Land, Sandford developed a life-long passion for more knowledge about it, but he nearly died when his steamer sank off Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
.
Stepping out on faith
After his return to America, the pastorate seemed tame, his congregation narrow-minded. In August 1891, Sandford had two strange experiences: he tentatively, but (at least according to his own testimony) successfully, cast demons out of a friend; and the following morning, he heard whispered in the trees the single word, "ArmageddonArmageddon
Armageddon is, according to the Bible, the site of a battle during the end times, variously interpreted as either a literal or symbolic location...
." Shortly thereafter, Sandford convinced Helen Kinney, whom he had met again as a missionary in Japan, to marry him. When he suggested leaving the pastorate and preaching the gospel without visible support, she replied, "I think it would be lovely."
On New Year's Day, 1893, Sandford told his church that God had told him, "Go." He resigned his pulpit and gave away his savings in the teeth of an economic panic and depression. Sandford and his wife then began holding meetings in rural Maine—at the beginning with virtually no congregations and no financial support. But Sandford continued to preach. Eventually he achieved some success among people in the coastal hill regions of Maine, and contributions now came in plentifully, although Sandford did not solicit money or even pass a collection plate.
By the fall of 1894, Sandford believed that he no longer bore responsibility for his actions, that he need only respond to the movings of the Holy Spirit. Thus abandoning the Free Baptists, he began to issue a monthly magazine in which he advertised for other workers to join him in his ministry. A year later with a small but committed following of young people, he announced the opening of a school, soon given the name "Holy Ghost and Us Bible School." The school charged no tuition, offered no courses, and had no teachers except Sandford and no textbooks except the Bible.
Shiloh
In 1896, Sandford became convinced that God had told him to build a home for the Bible school on a sandy hill near Durham, MaineDurham, Maine
Durham is a town in Androscoggin County, Maine, United States. The population was 3,419 at the 2000 census. It is included in both the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine Metropolitan New England City and Town Area.-Geography:According to the United...
. At that moment Sandford had three cents in his pocket. Nevertheless, he had plenty of faith that God would provide the means of putting up a building without his explicitly asking for money. Although Sandford eventually decided that publishing a list of needs in his Tongues of Fire would be acceptable, the manner in which the money and volunteer labor was provided by supporters was nearly miraculous in any case. Sandford had intended to name only the main building Shiloh (after a place in the Bible), but the name "Shiloh" was obviously more mellifluous than "The Holy Ghost and Us," and it became the informal name of Sandford's movement.
Theological development
Except for celebrating Jewish Feasts and keeping the SabbathShabbat
Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...
on Saturday, Sandford's theology was, at this point, not far from mainstream evangelicalism. Nevertheless, because Sandford believed that Thursday was the day on which Jesus was crucified, he and his followers prayed for six hours (from 9 AM to 3 PM) on that day. In the summer of 1896, Sandford publicly discussed the two prophets mentioned in the Book of Revelation
Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...
who would appear before Christ's Second Coming
Second Coming
In Christian doctrine, the Second Coming of Christ, the Second Advent, or the Parousia, is the anticipated return of Jesus Christ from Heaven, where he sits at the Right Hand of God, to Earth. This prophecy is found in the canonical gospels and in most Christian and Islamic eschatologies...
, and he declared that his school would "stand by and if need be die" with them. When Sandford's son John was born shortly after the dedication of Shiloh, Stanford said that (like John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
), the boy had been "filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb."
British Israelism
By 1898 Sandford had found additional spiritual and material support among Higher Life Christians in Boston and London, and he concluded that God now wanted him to establish an outpost in Palestine. Visiting Jerusalem for the first time, he dashed off a paper announcing that the Ten Lost TribesTen Lost Tribes
The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel refers to those tribes of ancient Israel that formed the Kingdom of Israel and which disappeared from Biblical and all other historical accounts after the kingdom was destroyed in about 720 BC by ancient Assyria...
were England and America, blood descendants of the ancient Hebrews who had been carried into captivity by the Assyrians in 721 BC. British Israelism
British Israelism
British Israelism is the belief that people of Western European descent, particularly those in Great Britain, are the direct lineal descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. The concept often includes the belief that the British Royal Family is directly descended from the line of King David...
was a religious version of ideas about Anglo-Saxon supremacy that were common to the contemporary English-speaking world, and the doctrine made the Bible all the more relevant because its prophecies seemed to apply to the people of Shiloh and the nation of which it was a part.
Divine Healing
By the early 20th century, the doctrine of divine healing had become an important part of Sandford's teaching. Initially skeptical, Sandford had resolved to “preach that part of the Bible” after attending an 1887 meeting where A.B. Simpson had spoken on the subject. In 1897 Sandford also witnessed and praised the miracles of contemporary faith healer John Alexander DowieJohn Alexander Dowie
John Alexander Dowie was a Scottish evangelist and faith healer who ministered in Australia and the United States. He founded the city of Zion, Illinois, and the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church...
. Soon Tongues of Fire reported healings of pneumonia, cancer, diphtheria, catarrh, "sick headache," sprained wrist, dropsy, typhoid, mental derangement, broken bones, and "utter exhaustion." A local three-year-old girl who had been pronounced permanently sightless by medical authorities suddenly gained her sight after prayer was offered for her at Shiloh. But the most spectacular case was the "resurrection" of Olive Mills, who had been seriously ill, perhaps with spinal meningitis. Told Mills was dead, Sandford found her without breath or pulse. In desperation he shouted, "Olive Mills! Come back! In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, come back!" Almost immediately, Mills opened her eyes, and within a few hours she was out of bed and dressed.
Sandford believed the Epistle of James
Epistle of James
The Epistle of James, usually referred to simply as James, is a book in the New Testament. The author identifies himself as "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ", with "the earliest extant manuscripts of James usually dated to mid-to-late third century."There are four views...
compelled Christians who were sick to call church elders for prayer and the laying on of hands
Laying on of hands
The laying on of hands is a religious ritual that accompanies certain religious practices, which are found throughout the world in varying forms....
. Sandford criticized Christians who sought treatment from physicians. He believed that illness might be the result of either discipline from God or an attack of Satan; but casting out demons required “prevailing prayer,” an exercise that included such protracted fervency and shouting that one skeptic became apprehensive as what sounded “like a hundred people talking at once” concluded with a woman’s screams piercing the din. In 1899, Sandford received a divine message to complete a hospital in a hasty building drive—a technique frequently employed at Shiloh—but it was a hospital in which doctors were permitted only for diagnoses and consultations. No medicines of any kind were provided. Among those influenced by these early religious developments at Shiloh were A. J. Tomlinson, founder of the Church of God
Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee)
The Church of God, with headquarters in Cleveland, Tennessee, is a Pentecostal Christian denomination. With over seven million members in over 170 countries, it is one of the largest Pentecostal denominations in the world...
, and Charles Fox Parham
Charles Fox Parham
Charles Fox Parham was an American preacher and evangelist. Together with William J. Seymour, Parham was one of the two central figures in the development and early spread of Pentecostalism...
, one of the founders of the Pentecostal
Pentecostalism
Pentecostalism is a diverse and complex movement within Christianity that places special emphasis on a direct personal experience of God through the baptism in the Holy Spirit, has an eschatological focus, and is an experiential religion. The term Pentecostal is derived from Pentecost, the Greek...
movement.
Acting for God
By end of the century Sandford became convinced "that as the passive agent of God's will, he could require exact and total obedience." Furthermore, as Hiss has written, to skeptics "Sandford's language vibrated with blasphemy, for in describing his own prayers as God's actions, he seemed to regard himself as having divine powers."Inevitably Sandford encountered opposition. A brief follower published an exposé, Sanfordism Exposed, and relatives of converts who wished to deed their property to Shiloh tried to have them declared insane. Although Durham benefited from levying taxes on the residential portions of Shiloh, the town also feared that block voting by Shiloh residents might dominate the town meeting, the school board, or the board of selectmen or, that in the event of bankruptcy, its members might become dependent on town charity.
More serious threats arose from among Sandford's own followers. The movement claimed to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, but conflict developed when members disagreed about where the Holy Spirit was leading. In September 1900 Sandford announced that there would henceforth be an official chain of authority: God the Father, God the Son, the prophet whom God had chosen, ordained ministers subordinate to the prophet, everyone else subordinate to the ministers, with women and children also subordinate to their husbands and fathers. Sandford then instituted an organized purge of members that "incorporated not just confession, but long day and night sessions of open and unrelenting criticism of each other. One's capacity to accept that scouring in a contrite and cooperative spirit, without resentment or defensiveness, was the first step in passing the grade." One by one individuals were then brought before Sandford himself for final scrutiny by "the seven eyes of God."
Sandford also developed a three-tiered membership in his religious system: those willing to be "100-fold warriors" would be supported by 60- and 30-fold members who would live in their own homes and continue to work. In 1901, to make a clean break with the past, Sandford instituted closed communion
Closed communion
Closed communion is the practice of restricting the serving of the elements of Holy Communion to those who are members of a particular church, denomination, sect, or congregation...
and rebaptized all local members of his society in the nearby Androscoggin River
Androscoggin River
The Androscoggin River is a river in the U.S. states of Maine and New Hampshire, in northern New England. It is long and joins the Kennebec River at Merrymeeting Bay in Maine before its water empties into the Gulf of Maine on the Atlantic Ocean. Its drainage basin is in area...
.
Identification with Elijah and David
Shortly thereafter, Sandford announced that God had spoken three words to him "like a thunderbolt": "Elijah is Here!" And it was as Elijah that Sandford now called down God's judgment on "every lying pen," editors who had written critically "about this man of God." As usual Sandford was also making an eschatological reference. Sandford believed that he, as Elijah, would be one of the "Two WitnessesTwo Witnesses
The two witnesses are two of God's prophets who are seen in a vision by John of Patmos, who appear during the Second woe in the Book of Revelation 11:1-14....
" of Revelation 11, who would be martyred and rise from the dead in Jerusalem before the coming of Christ's kingdom. The "Elijah" announcement was met with increased ridicule from the press and led to the breaking of all ties with followers of Moody and A. B. Simpson.
In 1902, after once again visiting Jerusalem, Sandford received a divine message that indicated that in some way, he was also the biblical David
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
. Sandford had a portrait of himself printed encircled by the words "David careth for the Sheep," and he immediately renamed his movement "The Kingdom."
Manslaughter trial
Sandford returned to Maine to find his community at what he considered a low spiritual ebb and with many members ill, most fearfully with smallpoxSmallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
. Peers were encouraged to closely examine each other's lives for sin, and parents regularly whipped children, a practice Sandford apparently condoned as the "schoolmaster to bring them to Christ." In January 1903, Sandford instituted a "Ninevah Fast" forbidding all food or liquid for thirty-six hours even for infants, animals, and the sick. During that period fourteen-year-old Leander Bartlett, who had confessed to the most serious sin of planning to run away from Shiloh, died of diphtheria
Diphtheria
Diphtheria is an upper respiratory tract illness caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae, a facultative anaerobic, Gram-positive bacterium. It is characterized by sore throat, low fever, and an adherent membrane on the tonsils, pharynx, and/or nasal cavity...
. When Sandford's own six-year-old son, John, disobeyed him, Sandford ordered him to fast without food or water until he declared himself glad to be whipped. A prominent defector from the sect, Nathan Harriman, publicized John’s treatment and declared Sandford’s hold over the people of Shiloh a kind of hypnotism, in which God's requirements were "identical with those of Sandford.”
Many local residents took a dim view of Sandford, and the newspapers engaged in "long-running campaigns against Shiloh." One editor denounced Shiloh as " a damnable institution, a hell upon earth and the worst blot that ever disgraced the fair pages of Maine's history." In January 1904 Sandford was indicted by Androscoggin County on charges of cruelty to children
Child abuse
Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...
and manslaughter
Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...
—cruelty in the case of his son and manslaughter for his role in Bartlett's death. A jury convicted Sandford on the cruelty charge but was hung on the charge of manslaughter. On appeal, the verdict in the cruelty case was upheld; and at retrial, Sandford was convicted of manslaughter. In 1905, the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine reversed the manslaughter conviction because the trial judge had required jurors to make a decision based on their own belief about the "efficacy of prayer as a means to cure the sick." Another jury trial resulted in another hung jury
Hung jury
A hung jury or deadlocked jury is a jury that cannot, by the required voting threshold, agree upon a verdict after an extended period of deliberation and is unable to change its votes due to severe differences of opinion.- England and Wales :...
. Meanwhile, Sandford had his followers sign a ten-foot scroll called the "Pledge of Loyalty," which included among its articles of faith a statement that "F. W. Sandford of Shiloh, Maine, U.S.A." was Elijah and David, and that "I believe in and accept him as such."
Circumnavigation on the Coronet
Yacht
A yacht is a recreational boat or ship. The term originated from the Dutch Jacht meaning "hunt". It was originally defined as a light fast sailing vessel used by the Dutch navy to pursue pirates and other transgressors around and into the shallow waters of the Low Countries...
Coronet
Coronet (yacht)
The Coronet, a wooden-hull schooner yacht built in 1885, is one of the oldest and largest schooner yachts in the world.-History:left|thumb|200px|Page 1, The New York Times, March 27, 1887The schooner Coronet was designed by William Townsend and built for Rufus T. Bush by the C. & R. Poillon...
, an extravagantly appointed schooner
Schooner
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....
, for $10,000—raised in the usual Shiloh manner by prayer, "in this case, forty days and nights of it, with shifts for eating and sleeping." Sandford made two quick trips to Jerusalem in 1905-06, but when his legal difficulties had ended, he and his thirty selected crewmen and passengers (including his wife and five children) circumnavigated the globe on what he described as a missionary journey. It was an unconventional missionary enterprise. No one went ashore to preach the Gospel or even distribute religious literature. Sandford intended to "subdue the world for Christ" by intercessory prayer, claiming nations and isles for Christ by sounding brass instruments as they passed by. Oddly, Sandford added a taxidermist
Taxidermy
Taxidermy is the act of mounting or reproducing dead animals for display or for other sources of study. Taxidermy can be done on all vertebrate species of animals, including mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians...
to a crew of reasonably experienced seamen, and he included on a ship already filled to capacity both "eyes for stuffed animals and birds" and a large harp on which he took lessons. There were moments of real peril, as when the Coronet fought its way through the thundering seas around Cape Horn
Cape Horn
Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...
and then again after a powerful gale broke the main sheet and (indirectly) part of the mast almost immediately after Sandford had shot an albatross
Albatross
Albatrosses, of the biological family Diomedeidae, are large seabirds allied to the procellariids, storm-petrels and diving-petrels in the order Procellariiformes . They range widely in the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific...
. During calmer periods, Sandford had leisure enough to hunt and receive an occasional vision.
Tragic northern voyage
Even before returning to Maine, Sandford heard that Florence Whittaker, a member of his outpost in Jerusalem, wanted to abandon the sect whether or not her minister husband (who had just accompanied Sandford on the multi-year circumnavigation) would leave with her. At this point Sandford decided to bring back all his followers from Palestine, and Whittaker reluctantly agreed to accept passage to the United States on another Shiloh ship, the three-masted barquentineBarquentine
A barquentine is a sailing vessel with three or more masts; with a square rigged foremast and fore-and-aft rigged main, mizzen and any other masts.-Modern barquentine sailing rig:...
, Kingdom. She was treated with utmost courtesy until they reached the Maine coast, at which point Sandford refused to let her land until she was "adjusted" to her husband. Eventually Whittaker was freed by court order and was then given custody of her children.
The story made sensational newspaper fare, especially when Florence Whittaker sued Sandford for forcible detention. At the time Sandford was aboard the Coronet, and authorities began watching ports to serve him the legal papers. Sandford determined that they would not find him, that a mission station should be opened immediately in Africa and perhaps another in Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
. In December 1910 more than seventy men, women, and children headed off to Africa, divided between the Kingdom and the Coronet. In March 1911, the Kingdom went aground and was destroyed off the coast of French West Africa
French West Africa
French West Africa was a federation of eight French colonial territories in Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan , French Guinea , Côte d'Ivoire , Upper Volta , Dahomey and Niger...
. Sandford blamed the wreck on the spiritual impotence of its passengers and crew, but he took everyone aboard the Coronet, which now became fearfully overloaded with people and undersupplied with food and water.
Nevertheless, Sandford heard the supernatural direction, "Continue," which he interpreted to mean to sail on to Greenland. After recrossing the Atlantic to catch the northerly currents, the Coronet passed up numerous opportunities to take on water and supplies, Sandford announcing that God had ordered him not to put into port in the United States or Canada. Finally, on September 6, 1911, there was a "quiet mutiny" of some sort off the Grand Banks
Grand Banks
The Grand Banks of Newfoundland are a group of underwater plateaus southeast of Newfoundland on the North American continental shelf. These areas are relatively shallow, ranging from in depth. The cold Labrador Current mixes with the warm waters of the Gulf Stream here.The mixing of these waters...
, and the Coronet was turned south. Unfortunately, the ship now made little headway, and the passengers and crew were saved from possible starvation only by the fortuitous appearance of the ocean liner, S. S. Lapland, which provided some food—but ominously, no fruit or vegetables.
Almost before they knew what was happening, men began to fall victim to scurvy
Scurvy
Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. The chemical name for vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is derived from the Latin name of scurvy, scorbutus, which also provides the adjective scorbutic...
; and within a few days after the Coronet reached Portland
Portland, Maine
Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...
on October 21, 1911, scurvy had claimed the lives of six crew members. Sandford was first arrested on Florence Whittaker's warrant and then, a few days later, for being responsible for the deaths—"unlawfully, knowingly, and willingly" allowing a ship to "proceed on a voyage at sea without sufficient provisions."
Trial, conviction, and imprisonment
Sandford refused to employ legal counsel at the trial, although he did receive legal advice—which he rejected. In court, Sandford declared that the sickness and starvation aboard the Coronet was punishment from God for refusing to obey his command to continue to Greenland. The jury brought in a guilty verdict within an hour. On December 17, 1911, Sanford was sentenced to serve not more than ten years at the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, GeorgiaAtlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
.
Although Sandford accepted imprisonment as the will of God, he had difficulty at first bending to prison regulations. But with sleep, proper nourishment, and enforced exercise, his health gradually improved. He even insisted that Shiloh residents drop whatever they were doing at 11:30 and 4:00 and exercise with him. He was made a gatekeeper and given a pass that allowed him to spend some time out of doors. He also volunteered to teach a group of prisoners how to read and write and especially enjoyed conducting a weekly Bible class that began with one student and grew to more than a hundred. Eventually Shiloh was allowed to send him a harp, and Sandford was not only able to practice, he gave at least two concerts at the prison.
Sandford had appointed seven ministers to share responsibility for leading the group, but his letters were treated like "a purse of gold." Many of them, even private letters to his family, were printed and distributed. Because prisoners were only allowed to send two letters a month, a sect member moved to Atlanta and took dictation during weekly visits.
The Scattering
During his imprisonment, Sandford tried to promote his teenage son John as a Shiloh leader, and John seems to have had some success at editing a new periodical, The Golden Trumpet. But when in 1915, John was put in charge of an inquisitorial board called the "Eye-of-the-Needle," intended to probe the souls of Shiloh residents, Sandford himself brought the experiment to a halt when his son incurred resentment and, in any case, proved temperamentally unsuited to the task. Shortly thereafter, Marguerite, one of Sandford's daughters, ran away from the community, a serious blow to Sandford's authority because of his insistence that leaders be able to "handle their children."Given three years off for good behavior, Sandford was released from prison in September 1918. When he reappeared at Shiloh, he was served a sumptuous meal, although many Shiloh residents had recently suffered serious illness and almost all, hunger. Sandford's return to Shiloh sparked new contributions and new healings, even food enough for two meals a day.
Nevertheless, three days after his arrival, another of Sandford's daughters ran away, and a few months later Sandford left Maine for the sect's Boston headquarters. Furthermore, the sect had conducted virtually no evangelistic outreach since the beginning of Sandford's imprisonment in 1911.
The end of the Shiloh community came suddenly in 1920 after the death of Shiloh resident Elma Hastings and a suit brought by relatives for guardianship of her children on the grounds of non-support by their father. Then the Children's Protective Society of Maine, having investigated living conditions at Shiloh, urged that all minors be removed from the community.
In March 1920, Sandford sent the message, "Work." No one anticipated that this directive would effectively end the Shiloh community within days. Two months later the prayer vigils had stopped, the Bible school was closed, and the Shiloh population had dropped from 370 to a handful. As Nelson has written, once the men went off to the mills, everything changed. With "the assurance that they would never be hungry again," that their needs would be met in the same way everyone else's were met, "there was no reason to stay. They could be ordinary Christians anywhere."
Retirement
Before Shiloh was finally deserted in May, Sandford heard the heavenly direction to "Retire." For the remainder of his life, Sandford lived in seclusion near the village of Hobart, New YorkHobart, New York
Hobart is a village in Delaware County, New York, United States. The population was 390 at the 2000 census.The Village of Hobart is in the Town of Stamford...
in the Catskill Mountains
Catskill Mountains
The Catskill Mountains, an area in New York State northwest of New York City and southwest of Albany, are a mature dissected plateau, an uplifted region that was subsequently eroded into sharp relief. They are an eastward continuation, and the highest representation, of the Allegheny Plateau...
. He prayed, farmed, raised sheep, studied astronomy, taught small groups, and gradually regathered his scattered followers into centers in different parts of the country. Messages were delivered to the faithful by a smaller inner circle.
Sandford continued to be supported by the tithes of his followers, and his retirement was "satisfying and serene," although his papers and books were twice destroyed in house fires. To some degree Sandford relaxed his earlier rhetoric. On New Year's Eve, 1941, he received a message from God to "remit the sins of each and every person that has been baptized since October 1, 1901." But he never renounced his claim to be Elijah; nor did he ever express remorse for those who had died on the Coronet thirty years earlier.
Sandford's death on March 4, 1948 was quiet and peaceful. His funeral and internment, however, were hasty and secretive. The news of his passing was not released to the press for six weeks. Sandford had, of course, not died as Elijah in Jerusalem, but as an unheralded inhabitant of a Catskill village.
The Kingdom after Sandford's death
The Kingdom continued after Sandford's death under the informal leadership of Victor Abram, his personal secretary, although Sandford never had a true successor. At Abram’s death in 1977, his son-in-law, Joseph Wakeman, became leader but thought of himself "as more of a caretaker." The membership then gradually learned that Abram had had a series of extra-marital affairs while leading an organization that emphasized moral purity.A successor organization, Kingdom Christian Ministries—reorganized in 1998 after a split occasioned by continued debate over Sandford's theology—has several hundred members at a few centers in the eastern United States. An independent evangelical Christian church, Shiloh Chapel, meets in a remaining portion of the original Shiloh building in Durham, Maine; it is no longer affiliated with Kingdom Christian Ministries.
External links
- Website of Kingdom Christian Ministries, a successor organization.
- fwselijah.com, a website dedicated to a critical examination of Sandford and his religious movement.
- Guide to the Nelson collection of Shiloh materials, Bates College.
- Guide to the William Hiss collection of Shiloh material, mostly newspaper clippings, Bates College.