House of David - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

This article is about a twentieth-century religious community. For the ancient House of David, see Davidic line
Davidic line
The Davidic line refers to the tracing of lineage to the King David referred to in the Hebrew Bible, as well as the New Testament...

.

The Israelite House of David is a religious society founded by Benjamin and Mary Purnell in Benton Harbor, Michigan

Benton Harbor, Michigan

Benton Harbor is a city in Berrien County in the U.S. state of Michigan which is located west of Kalamazoo. The population was 10,038 at the 2010 census. It is the lesser populated of the two principal cities included in the Niles-Benton Harbor, Michigan Metropolitan Statistical Area, which has a...

, in March 1903. Benjamin Franklin Purnell (March 27, 1861 – December 16, 1927) was born near Maysville, Kentucky

Maysville, Kentucky

Maysville is a city in and the county seat of Mason County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 8,993 at the 2000 census, making it the fiftieth largest city in Kentucky by population. Maysville is on the Ohio River, northeast of Lexington. It is the principal city of the Maysville...

. As a child he was fascinated by preaching and learned to read using the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

, being raised in a Christian church. His father brought home a "lightning railroad preacher" and had little Benjamin preach to him. Benjamin greatly enjoyed preaching to large crowds, answering any difficult questions they had.

Benjamin married Mary Stallard (November 13, 1862 – August 19, 1953) of Nickelsville, Virginia

Nickelsville, Virginia

Nickelsville is a town in Scott County, Virginia, United States. The population was 383 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Kingsport–Bristol –Bristol Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is a component of the Johnson City–Kingsport–Bristol, TN-VA Combined Statistical...

, in Aberdeen, Ohio

Aberdeen, Ohio

Aberdeen is a village in Brown County, Ohio, United States, along the Ohio River. The population was 1,603 at the 2000 census.Aberdeen is connected to Maysville, Kentucky by the Simon Kenton Memorial Bridge to downtown Maysville and the William H. Harsha Bridge, a cable-stayed bridge completed in...

, August 29, 1880. In 1888 they discovered a group of preachers extolling a man named James Jershom Jezreel

James Jershom Jezreel

thumb|300px|The site of Jezreel's unmarked grave in Grange Road Cemetery, Gillingham.James Jershom Jezreel, real name James Roland White, was a British soldier who founded the New and Latter House of Israel religious sect — known as the Jezreelites — in England. Jezreel’s main beliefs were based...

as the Sixth Messenger. Jezreel had published three books known as The Extracts of the Flying Roll. While the preachers were in Richmond, Benjamin and Mary joined their group, known as the Movement or "the Visitation", which was started by a woman named Joanna Southcott

Joanna Southcott

Joanna Southcott , was a self-described religious prophetess. She was born at Gittisham in Devon, England.-Self-revelation:...

, or the First Messenger, in 1792. While studying the writings of Jezreel they interpreted that there would soon be a Seventh and last Messenger, mentioned in Revelations

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"...

10:7. On March 12, 1895, the Purnells announced that the spirit of Shiloh

Shiloh (Biblical figure)

Shiloh is a figure mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in Genesis 49:10 as part of the benediction given by Jacob to his son Judah. Jacob states that "the scepter will not depart from Judah.....

had bonded with them to become the seventh and last messenger.

The House of David colony soon had several hundred members. In 1906, the House owned about 1,000 acres, on which the colony harvested fruit from a dozen orchards and cultivated grain. The commune had its own cannery, carpenter shop, coach factory, tailor shop, and steam laundry. they also owned and operated their own electricity

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

plant, providing lighting to the community. It had three brass bands and two orchestras, and a zoological garden.

Divisions arose in the 1920s after 13 young women confessed, under oath to the court, that they had sexual relations with the patriarch while still minors. As soon as this became public knowledge, the Detroit Free Press
Detroit Free Press
The Detroit Free Press is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, USA. The Sunday edition is entitled the Sunday Free Press. It is sometimes informally referred to as the "Freep"...

and other newspapers ran critical articles about Purnell, but he died before the trials had concluded.

One group, headed by Mary Purnell, remained together and in 1930 purchased a small plot of land. There they rebuilt and reorganized the New Israelite House of David, better known as Mary’s City of David until her death at the age of 90.

A second faction, the Old House of David led by Judge T. H. Dewhirst, had 350 members in 1935, 24 of whom were clergy, and in 1955 had 150 members with 10 clergy. (As of 2010, the group was reported to have three surviving members.) Dewhirst's faction believed that Mary Purnell had no right to usurp authority over the community, as it was led by his own self-appointed council of elders.

Baseball teams

Purnell was a sports enthusiast and encouraged the members of the Israelite Community to play sports, especially baseball

Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

, to build physical and spiritual discipline.

In 1913, the Israelite House of David began to play competitive baseball and by 1915, they were following a grueling schedule. The House became famous as a barnstorming

Barnstorm (sports)

Barnstorming in athletics refers to sports teams or individuals that travel to various locations, usually small towns, to stage exhibition matches....

baseball team which toured rural America from the 1920s through the 1950s, playing amateur and semi-pro

Semi-professional

A semi-professional athlete is one who is paid to play and thus is not an amateur, but for whom sport is not a full-time occupation, generally because the level of pay is too low to make a reasonable living based solely upon that source, thus making the athlete not a full professional...

teams in exhibition game

Exhibition game

An exhibition game is a sporting event in which there is no competitive value of any significant kind to any competitor regardless of the outcome of the competition...

s. They were motivated by the need to make money for their families and colony back home and by the opportunity to share their beliefs. The team members wore long hair and beards as they played.

By the late 1920s, needing more skilled players, the House began hiring professionals, the most notable being Grover Cleveland Alexander

Grover Cleveland Alexander

Grover Cleveland Alexander , nicknamed "Old Pete", was an American Major League Baseball pitcher. He played for the Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs, and St. Louis Cardinals and was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938.-Career:Alexander was born in Elba, Nebraska, one of thirteen...

, Satchel Paige

Satchel Paige

Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige was an American baseball player whose pitching in the Negro leagues and in Major League Baseball made him a legend in his own lifetime...

, and Mordecai Brown

Mordecai Brown

Mordecai Peter Centennial Brown , nicknamed "Three Finger" or "Miner", was an American Major League Baseball pitcher at the turn of the 20th century. Due to a farm-machinery accident in his youth, Brown lost parts of two fingers on his right hand and eventually acquired his nickname as a result...

. Some professional players grew their beards out to show respect towards the God of Israel, while others wore false beards. They were known for their skill and played against some of the greatest teams in the country. The House of David played against Major League, Minor League, independent and Negro League teams, with all the same spirit of competition and fair play. At one point, the community had three separate barnstorming teams touring the county, playing and evangelizing wherever they went.

The House of David continued to sponsor barnstorming teams well into the 1930s and then sponsored weekend semi-professional teams until the 1940s. Mary's City of David sent out barnstorming teams from 1930 until 1940 and then again from 1946 until 1955. Throughout this period, there were numerous teams which bore the House of David name and wore beards. The most famous was probably the Black House of David, an all African-American barnstorming team that played solely within the Negro Leagues.

The House of David was the inspiration behind the James Sturm

James Sturm

James Sturm is an American cartoonist, Xeric Award-winner, and co-founder of the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont...

graphic novel, The Golem's Mighty Swing (in which the team was called the "Stars of David").

A vintage baseball club (the House of David Echoes BBC) has been honoring the legacy of the House of David teams since 2001, playing vintage baseball under the 1858 rules while growing their beards and playing at historic Eastman Field near Benton Harbor, Michigan.

Musical bands

The organization also fielded nationally known musical bands between 1906 and 1927. These bands toured the country almost non-stop on the three top vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

circuits: the Pantages, the Keith and the Orpheum.

Parks

The House of David operated a world-famous amusement park and zoo. It also established "The Springs of Eden Park" which became a popular Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

vacation spot in the 1930s. A revamped version opened in late 2011.

External links

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Baseball teams

Musical bands

Parks

Further reading

External links