History of the House of David

I've been working at the house of David for around say about it well we're almost quite a year and a half I it's part of my doctoral studies I had assistantship at a museum in st. Joseph the Heritage and that was kind of my introduction to the history of the house of David Ghazni I'm from Kalamazoo so it's not really you know st. Joseph's history is not in Benton Harbor it's not what I'm most familiar with other than you know I collect a lot of old postcards when I go to postcard shows I always saw lots of houses even post cars for sale so I it was a thing I really didn't know much more beyond that but the Heritage a couple of years ago we put together an exhibit on local sports history and I was given the task of doing the section of the exhibit on the house of David and their baseball team which I found was you know a really amazing story and I was started to read all the books that we had in our research library on the house of David in little did I know that you know a year later when I was done with that job at the Museum that someone you know told the house of David about me and they scooped me up for some archival work that they had to do so I went you know from Saint Joseph to Benton Harbor and what I'm going to be talking about today is generally an overview of both you know the history of the colony as well as you know kind of showing off some of the political you know the photographs that I've been working with in our collection and you're gonna see a lot a lot of the photographs going to be showing such as this one are these beautiful you know Kodachrome lantern slides which we've figured out for about 1941 and they're beautiful because they show any colorful photography from that time period is pretty rare and they look you know absolutely like they're taking yesterday but we have photographs basically from the entire you know a time range of the colony this thing this talk was also originally prepared for a I gave it to a group that's interested in the shakers which is a communal society that's primarily based in the Northeast so I'm a lot of this talk is structured in terms of comparison of the shakers I'm sure I'll try to remember too you know leave that out but I may mention them occasionally just be warned you're gonna try to get though you know faith aspects out of the way first is that's probably the part that I'm least comfortable with since a lot of the tax if a balloon your left is way over my head like it's trying to read a foreign language but the house a day of it is you know it's a communal religious colony that's based on this Israelite faith which is amillennialist faith which basically they believe in the imminent arrival in Christ's second coming in his thousand-year reign on earth in a sorted edition that begins in England in the late 1700s with joy and a south cot who claim to be the first of seven messengers that are foretold in the book of Revelation and the names here are the you know basically from joini south cot the first messenger down to James Jezreel who was the sixth messenger at least that's accepted and it israelite faith today now james Trez real writes the book the flying roll which is the book that catches benjamin Parnell's i who's going to be the one that starts the house of david and claims that he is the seventh messenger or the shiloh as was proclaim predicted by Joanna's self cup here we have Benjamin and Mary Pannell Benjamin was born in 1861 in Kentucky and spent you know the first part of his life you know and uh running jobs running around until he comes across the flying role and then he gets himself involved in Israelite faith and about in the 1890s is when he comes across this and then shortly thereafter he had you know spent some time in Detroit with a colony there that you decided that you know had the revelation that he was the seventh messenger and began to seek converts along with his wife and they're gonna have you know the very rocky start they first go to Fostoria Ohio where they are essentially and with this their attempt to set up a colony there and get their you know group going isn't successful because as luck would have it they had two children and their daughter Hedy was killed in a fireworks explosion factory explosion and because of the faith you know they the faculty you know dealing of death because one of the aspects of their faith is they believe that the body has eternal life as well as the soul so if you're true to the faith physically your body does not die and the story goes you know there's the town folks in foster were enraged that Benjamin did not go to the funeral for his daughter and on some accounts that they're run out of town other accounts probably more likely is it's just because the climb that was not you know favorable and they say you know we're good better off going elsewhere but here's some of the other points of the faith you know I guess I said they believe is the seventh Second Coming is imminent and they believe that there's gonna be this what they call the in gathering of the twelve tribes of Israel which is the numbers very it's either 144,000 people are gonna be at this in gathering or it refers to couple so be 288,000 and in gathering is going to be in Benton Harbor where they go from Fostoria they're probably you know really well know is for being celibate being vegetarians and the fact that the men grow beards cuz there's you know is they're all based on various references in the Bible and you know the the beard thing comes from Leviticus basically they grow their hair long and you know what their beards grow out and I always thought it was you know the men were a disadvantage because you know the women can go into town and blend into the rest of the population but the men you know there was always obvious with their you know who they were now the celibacy thing is you know this was a major point I made in the talk about the shakers as the shakers are notorious because they were celibate to the point where their buildings even had were segregated like they had two front doors two staircases and you know the women sat on one side of the meeting house the men and the other and where you know it was never quite to that degree here I mean they didn't have you know two doors you know for each sex and all that stuff and you know a lot of people you know they they were tending they're still married when they joined the colony was when a couple came in but they were not where they weren't expected to you know act as husband and wife anymore and they even had in the teens in the twenty several mass group weddings and the reasons for this is I'm glad to understand is that when whenever they'd get you know a larger number in the of the members that were young adults they decided you know okay it's best to pair them up to kind of protect the reputation because otherwise the outside world is going to see you know all these unmarried single people you know living together in this you know a little compound you know what's going on so as long as you know they're legally married you know maybe that will you know dissuade some of them you know that talk now well they did get legally married in these weddings you know again they were not they did not actually live as couples you know they basically lived as brothers and sisters and this photograph shows you know the you know gets the wedding dinner for the first of these weddings in the basement of one of the colony buildings in Jerusalem I think now in the face early years you know Benjamin and Mary both spent a lot of time on the road you know basically as missionaries trying to gather converts and then by the time as they get settled in bitten Harbor in 1903 you know they've really focused the energies you know in Benton Harbor so they began you know sending others they have on you know teams of missionaries that go throughout country you know spreading the faith and a lot of the missionaries you know see pictures of these you know horse-drawn wagons which is you know when you're talking about you know the early 19th century that's what they had available to them and basically they went off on their own for months at a time spreading the word you know Benjamin and Mary's person to the last missionary trip that they went on was probably them by far the most significant of any of the missionary trips they went to Australia in 1904 to basically try to bring over the converts are the members of the fifth church there was a large congregation of followers of James Rho which the fifth messenger still in Australia so they go down there and lucky for them you know there was a prophecy that the South messenger was going to come from the new world Soviet that going for him but they are able you know make a convincing case so much that 85 members of that church including most of the leadership you know joined them to come back to MIT in Harbor in in 1905 you know they sailed to the United States and then they all came in these new train cars and it was the kind of thing it was a really big event we have you know this mass group of Israelites show up at the train station and they marched you know you know two or three miles from the train station which was in downtown pin Harbor down to the colony and one of the more other interesting missionary trips was this one where you have a group of missionaries that took this boat and this is a postcard that was published by the actually by the house of David even though it also looks like it's more of an ad for the manufacturer of the motor for the boat but they sailed down the Mississippi River down to the Gulf of Mexico and then back up the Atlantic coast from you know thousands of thousands of miles preaching along the way and this is a George William MacGregor who were some missionaries that were based in Australia and they spent there you know much of their lives doing missionary work throughout Australia and New Zealand and for you know the teens in the 20s they you know sent several people forward them on to bitten Harbor basically you have people coming to bitten harbor to join the house of david from all over the world you know you know there's a lot of people from Australia a lot of people from England Scotland other parts of Europe as well as throughout the United States and like one of the things that you know I wish if I could go back in time to experience what it would have been like to been there at the time I really would have loved to have heard you know all the chorus of accents you would have heard of the time you don't really you don't think about that when you're looking at you know black and white photographs or groups of people but all these people are from all these different parts of the world that all would have sounded you know pretty different and one of the you know members are still around today is actually from Scotland's you can still get a little bit of that but not quite what it was now when they start to they come to bitten harbour and what really the main thing that brings them to Benton Harbor is that they there was a family that basically joined the church that was very wealthy that was already established here like they had a wagon company and with a lot of land so basically you know they had you know the resources were kind of in place that Benton Harbor was economically and advantageous and they decided to set up shop a few miles from the city itself at the time where you know the hostel David County grounds is today was you know fairly it was pretty remote at the time so he will be just outside of town will you know so you know we won't have you as much problems with town folk that we had in historic and we'll have you know groom do expand and grow for the eventual ingathering so they start to build buildings the first building is this one called the Ark and when it was first built you know it was kind of like a jack-of-all-trades you know they people lived in it they had the print shop so they can print their religious literature and later on it became you know it's how was the school for you know you had a lot of families coming in with children so they had to be educated and I'm told that towards the end you know it was kind of the housing for the misfits that didn't get along with anybody else so if you know didn't so fit in you got sent off to live in the arc because the arc was actually you know a few blocks away from where everything else we ended up being built the second building they built this is in the middle here was called Bethlehem which is a significantly larger building but still you know fairly simple you know an l-shaped two three-story structure that was you know entirely you know basically you know bedrooms and this was built in 1904 now the rooms themselves you know based on I mean Bethlehem has been Dawn's and it fell down in 1998 so I've never seen it and there are we actually don't have really any photographs of the interior of it but from what I'm told you know was fairly comfortable but not very elaborate and you'd have you know up four or more people living in a room because you know they and you know you know more and more people coming and they could possibly house so it'd be quite some time before people begin to have the luxury of having rooms to themselves now in this photograph to the right right of Bethlehem you see Jerusalem which was the follow-up building which is a little bit larger mirror image there's a closer up shop Jerusalem Jerusalem was you know well you know it's bigger than Bethlehem knows a little bit more fancy and the interior had on the ground floor you know too large your own public spaces initially in the top two levels were all bedrooms and of course it was beautiful to level you know porch wrapper wrapping around it and Jerusalem still there it's you know a little derelict but you walking through it you can see you know there's a lot of beautiful woodwork in it and it was you know a nice building but again you would have had you know multiple people sharing your bedrooms this is you know one of those you know the ground-floor spaces in Jerusalem called the parlor and that room was actually you know still there today and it's still you know other than like the ornate stenciling on along the walls it's still pretty much looks like this it's just got a lot of musty old furniture in it so it's kind of hard to walk around buildings were joined by this archway and I guess I probably should have picked a better picture because this one there's too many too many plants in front of it but there's actually three arches you know two smaller ones on the sides and the central arch this was symbolic you know you see arches will be figure a lot in Israelite architecture and these three arches symbolized the merging of the fifth and sixth churches to create the seventh and the arches you know still there even though Bethlehem is gone but you know it's going to be dismantled and sent to the Eden Springs Park which is the old amusement park and become there believe their new entrance now after you know Bethlehem and Jerusalem are built the architecture becomes significantly more elaborate and fanciful so the next building is called Shiloh which is going to be the main administration headquarters and you can see this is you know more of a queen and more castle-like Building than what the other two structures were this is in part due to by this point one of the members that came from Australia was William right who was an architect and he begins becomes the architect for a lot of the later buildings and so you know this is some of his influence you also think something that's notable about it is well the other two buildings were wood this one's made out of cinder block or concrete block that the Israelites made themselves and pretty much almost all the you know buildings after this can be made out of concrete block but this is you know again I mean it's although it's you know significantly more elaborate and and the inside is absolutely gorgeous you know it's still it's you know just like Bethlehem in Jerusalem where it's you know a lot of bedrooms and multiple people would have been you know housed and even any of a few years later they add another wing to it the original part of Shiloh is you know on the left this is from the taken from the back side and then the part on the right is called a new house and they're joined together by an archway and in a two-story bridge now you can see in the foreground there's you know a little tennis court and one of the things I'd like to point out about a lot of the photographs you see over the colony grounds is that you can play a game of where's Benjamin because he's in the most of them you can usually tell by his you know white hat there's Benjamin there and I think it's Mary you know behind them so it's you know and see if you can find Benjamin in any of the other photographs as I'm you know going through the talk now the last of the major houses that they built is actually you know across the cross Britton Avenue south of you know of where the rest of the buildings are it's called the diamond house and it was completed in 1921 this one you know all the other buildings had you know biblical names the diamond house gets its name because at this point they got the idea of adding a mineral called hematite into the concrete which gives the concrete kind of a sparkly effect in the Sun and the diamond house had you know this hematite concrete we're not only in the outside but also the interior stairwell so you know on the right day it's a really cool effect the other thing I like to mention about this building is it looks you know really big on the outside and the architecture is all really grand but when you're actually inside of it it's not that big and like the stairwells like the railings are really low and like this is more of a tripping hazard than anything else but so it you know it's a beautiful building two years ago I liked this photograph because it's an aerial view and you can see there's some of the workers the building still under construction at this point but some of the workers are standing on the porch on the back of the building and like you know they some annexes to Shiloh here they also added an annex to the diamond house which is actually you know also really small but you know the top floor of the annex is was Benjamin's final you know his bedroom our living space and I've been told that you know part of the reason why you know the diamond house and the annex was kind of you know off on its own is at this point you know everybody wanted part of Benjamin's time and the only way he could you know get any kind of time to do his work or you know any peace and quiet was you know if he at this point lived further away from the rest of the colony now probably what the colony is most known for are two things one is the amusement park Eaton Springs and this next thing is the baseball team Eden Springs you know it's when I first heard about it it seems like you know really bizarre why would you know religious colony run in an amusement park I mean knowing what I know about the shakers like that seems like the last thing they would ever think about doing but when you understand you know how it developed and you know the business reasons behind it it ends up making sense for starters you know the property where you know they start to build on where you know Shiloh Bethlehem and Jerusalem are south of that there was already a little resort called Eastman Springs which is what's going to become Eaton Springs Park and that had been there for quite some time because there were some spring waters and basically you know people from around the area as well Chicago liked to go there that combined it the fact that you have a you know religious group that has you know an unusual lifestyle he's in the for the perspective of the rest of the world they're gonna become a tourist attraction whether they like it or not and people were coming to the colony basically uninvited you know roaming around you know poking their a you're trying to look into the window sitting on to see the you know famous house of David people and their beards so it's like well if we can't fight them we might as well make some money off of them and you know start you know charging admission or you know I was trying to sell them you know ice cream and popcorn and all that sort of thing so now this this photograph like shows you know I think this is probably the harbor and st. Joseph's where you have big advertising sign a lot of the people that would come to the park came from Chicago and came across the lake and steamships which here's a much later photograph but here it shows one of the steam ships that would have brought people over and the house of David had you know a fleet of buses that they got from the World's Fair ready to you know take the passengers and drive them over to the park they also had parking facilities available basically the front lawn of the diamond house or so you know they were catering do you know if you wanted to come you know by train by boat by car you know come to the house of David and we'll even give you a free parking because they were they were going to make their money off of you know again train rides you know popcorn ice cream and entertainment the earliest version of the park is actually was actually located directly behind of ahem in Jerusalem you know a they built this circular building which was an aviary for exotic birds they also had you know you know you can kind of see it off you know right behind it there was a ice-cream parlor and this was you know how it started whereas like basically you know right in the middle of where the colony was trying to live and work but then at the same time the Eastman Springs property became available for sale so the colony bought the property with the idea that not only would the property be you know useful to for further expansion for as the colony needs grew then he had land you needed the land to build upon but then they could you know just divert all the amusement activities down to where this established park was yeah but that you know that's its own separate thing yeah you know the silver Beach is like right on the lakeshore and then where the pier is but the idea is you know now that now all the visitors that come you can see the house of David and see the park they wouldn't be they'd no longer be you know where the houses were where the people are living are working and provided a nice sense of segregation now probably you know the thing that soon people most remember about the park was the trains in 1908 when Park opens you know the colony bought a little miniature locomotive and then immediately went about building more and they had a loop of track that ran around the whole place they said what the setup was that they had a Depot on Britain Avenue that would take you down into the park over a trestle bridge because most of the part was actually in a ravine you go over the stressfull bridge to the south depot which was the Park Depot and then you could take a train from that Depot back across another Trussell bridge back to Britain Avenue to leave now one of the things that really I really enjoyed looking at the old photographs of the amusement park but it's also challenging too because particularly in their early you know first you know 10 20 years it changed a lot like I swear like every season they were adding new things or they're having to fix and modify things are things are moving around there's like this one double-decker gazebo that I'm pretty sure was in at least three different spots because I kept moving it like in one photograph it's in front of one building then it's in a completely different part of the park and it's like okay that's the exact same gazebo but what you know it's going on but as you know spend enough time against try to make some sense of it here's a you know you know that was a previous image was obviously a early photograph of the Train this one's much later from the 40s but shows you know the train going over one of the trestle bridges and here's you know the initial in the round house with you know a lot of the young men and that would have worked on their locomotives and you see all the locomotives behind them basically they you know it must have been a Herculean task keeping these things in operation and you had they had that I basically overhaul um every season and they did all the work themselves so I mean it was but back you know and particularly in the parks in early days it was all you know colony labor so it was all profit you know all the people that worked in the park were members of the colony later on and becomes more problematic as the membership starts to dwindle and as you know membership gets older they're having to hire more and more outside help and that it starts to affect their you know profit line oh yeah because I forgot to mention I'm told about its peak they had about 1200 members and this was have been about the first world war and then began a steady decline by 1930 it was closer to 600 when they had their you know a little split it's another early view of the park actually I think this is taken in the first year it opened in the bill you know there's a big crowd and the you see if you can spot Benjamin in it but the building behind it was a building called the archway which the trains would travel through from on their way from the north depot and at the park and I was a couple of weeks ago I found in the collection you know some photographs with the park taken in the 1980s and there were some pictures of this building all derelict if its windows you know broken and it was kind of sad but it was oh no Hannah was kind of cool to see that it actually survives so long but that building is no longer there unfortunately this show is the Depot that was located in the park and that's this building is actually still there today and is the Podesta functions and you get appointed but this ruff here is actually the grandstand for the ballpark which I'll be talking about a little bit later you're gonna I mentioned how things every photograph of the park it's kind of hard to date it because things kept changing well this is you know very early photograph and this barn like structure is you know basically I think the first incarnation of their vegetarian restaurant which evolves into this building know that earlier barn is basically buried in here if you see like an elevated photograph you can still see that barn like roof they just built all the stuff around it and because the county it was vegetarian the restaurant in the park was vegetarian and it really amazes me to think that the time in the 1920s 30s 40s how many vegetarians could there possibly have been but the restaurant was it actually very successful and one of the things that people you know really are nostalgic about today here's a you know color interior view of the dining room which were probably you know the center part of that really barn and they added the side of rooms later as the rest of the building was built around it another this is one of the earliest structures at the park now then the the left you can't see it but but the back of the building would have been the hill this is that would have gone up to the top and this is the buildings at the bottom of the hill or bottom of the ravine and at this point it's being used as the beer garden you know they wouldn't serve meat but you know even though the not supposed to drink alcohol they had no problem serving alcohol at least after prohibition was over and at this point this is taken in the 1930s they're just outside of the photograph on the right would have been you know the big where the big open-air stage was where all the entertainment acts you can get your beer here and listen to the music or whatever was taking place on the stage this building also was unfortunately no longer there the park had a number of log cabins situate throughout it I believe these are the ones that are on the south end by the where the ballpark was so I think these are the ones that are still there most of the log cabins were on the north end and only one of those survives no no the neat things about the early versions of the park is that they flooded the middle part of the ravine into an artificial lake and here you can see that and built over that is one of the early attractions which was the you know their bowling alleys and billiard halls and they're credited to having you know if not the first one of the first automatic pin setting machines in the country you have a group of people that's sending on the roof is the you can't really see them because the too small in the picture but that's the female band and there's some interior shots of the bowling alley I'm not quite sure what the game on the the right photograph is it looks like it's some kind of combination of bowling and billiards but it's not something I'm familiar with but something they had the interior of the billiard hall you can see all these tables and actually one of these tables we still have today and it's been restored and is currently on the second floor of Shiloh and there it is and I work in the next room over so whenever somebody uses it I get annoyed because it it's kind of distracting but it's you know pretty cool that we actually you know still have one of those originally over 100 year old tables the park was you know also really well known for its gardens which was been maintaining those was basically a full-time job and this is a nice photograph because it's the black-and-white photographs don't really do it justice cuz you know you don't really can't really get the impact of all the flowers and other vegetation but this beautiful you know call it Kodachrome slide you know does a much better job this shows the the zoo area of the park which they had you know a monkey houses a bird bird house you know they had you know lions and other exotic animals and they also had this large stone miniature house that was a popular attraction and unfortunately the house is no longer there but it still exists I know it's in somebody's private collection somewhere but I don't remember exactly where it was up top my head a later attraction at the park was this auto track and it's one of the things that you know a lot of people when if they were kids when they went to the park they probably really remember finally because I'm sure if you were like six or eight years old being able to drive around and one of these cars was probably you know the most awesome thing ever and you know that track is you know you can still see it today the track still there and a lot of the cars are you know of it you can see them at the park but they don't drive them around the track anymore now one of the things I found interesting about the house of David and pursuing as I said I did this talk earlier to a group interested in the Shakers is that being a religious colony they never really had a dedicated church building which you know seems unusual the closest thing they had was in on the park property they built a initially an open-air amphitheater and this is where you know if Benjamin had to do you know any kind of you know sermon or anything of that nature to you know a large group of either members or you know and/or the public this is where would have taken place and you know the first version is basically a very simple you know wooden set of benches built into the hillside and it slowly evolves and this photograph you can kind of see it in the background there's a little bit of a stage that they built up a tent roof and you can see under that tent they're starting to lay the forms for concrete you know seeding and then here's the concrete seedings you know completed and you see there's you know some kind of probably an entertainment act taking place on the stage or I was someone giving a talk and but at this point it still looks like it has a tent you know erected over the top of it and a few years later they built this big you know building big it covering the whole thing in this you know big looks like a big imposing you know cinderblock structure from the bottom of the hill is where we're seeing it but if you saw from the top of the hill looks like this is a big wooden shed so they spend all their money on this facade and you can see it right in front of it that double-decker gazebo that I mentioned earlier that I see in different locations and different photographs and was like why the heck they keep moving this thing but you know at this point in time it's directly in front of the auditorium and in the 1930s that auditorium was torn down and they when they built the new open-air stage and another another location and they transformed the old space into this you know terrorists fountain but you can still very much see how it that was a seating bowl at one point in time and this fountain is still there you know I guess you know before they start doing any work and the park a few years ago was basically so over growing you didn't you couldn't see it but now I know they've ripped away all the weeds and now it's still there and still functions you know say when they tore down the auditorium this is the open-air stage that they built and this is probably you know if people you know remember going to the park when they're younger is probably what they most remember because you know the other auditorium has been gone for you know since the 30s but after Benjamin died in 1927 and the colony was under the leadership of Judge Dewhurst he began an extensive overhaul the entire Park and building this new stage is one of the major projects later on towards the parks you know last few years they built a big metal roof that would have covered the seating area and really kind of obscured the beauty of the proscenium and I'm told that that was you know really a bad idea and not only because aesthetically it looked terrible but because they're like trapped the winds and no it didn't do what they hoped it would do now aside from the park and one of the you know things of the park really you know gave him a venue for was you know they were big into music they're not going to talk a whole lot about their bands because I know there's a program coming up about the house today of musicians so I'm happy enough to you know leave that for another day but now they did a lot of the people that came from Australia particularly were very talented musicians so that's one of the things that really got this going but there are you know Benjamin loved music and it became money not only important aspect of the faith but because the park gave them a natural venue to entertain the crowds that became you know one of the biggest you know activities for colony members and there were you know large bands quartets big and small over the years they also had travelling bands that would on occasion travel for baseball teams around the country you know some of the musicians standing in front of the arch and I guess in this photograph you can better see that you know the two small arches on the side and the big arch in the middle I know one of the gimmicks at the at least you know the male bands like to do wood as you know the curtains lifted they'd be facing away from the audience you know showing off their long hair and then they turn around revealing that they were in fact I'm in and I guess I was you know like a big gag and you know I mused the audience you see one of the female bands and some rather uncomfortable looking uniforms so this one's you know fairly early photograph here's a later version of the female band though there's a bob Dewhurst in the middle being a lone the lone male member of the ladies Orchestra you know I when I get to baseball which you know aside from the park baseball's what you know was really the house of David is most famous for it especially on a national level because the baseball team our baseball teams to say traveled all over the country and it's what how most of the outside world would have had any sort of interaction with them now kind of like the park again it's like you know gee why how does the religious you know colony get into sports especially on you know a level where they're you know making it's like a business for them oh the story begins in 1910 when the house of David builds a ballpark on the south east corner of the region Springs property for the use of a local semi-pro team called speed boys and since the park was there and the speed boys weren't you know playing games there you know all the time you know the young men of the colony began you know uh in the off time start playing pickup games and that kind of snowball but they start to challenge you know all their local teams and that games attracts attention his crowds start to show up and Benjamin realizes that this is a second start charging admission because the house of David ballplayers end up being really good and he's also going to encourage it because he loves baseball he loved to watch the games himself he saw it as a wholesome activity you know athletics would be something that would you know now I keep you know the young men out of trouble but you know would be good for them and it was also you know being you know foster good relations with the public so really beginning in 1914 they start to actually formally organized baseball teams that start to challenge you know local and Industrial teams and teams from around the region on a more formal level and then that quickly expands they start to have at their peak up multiple teams going at the same time they'd have a home team that played you know the games at the Bell Park on the colony but they'd also have you know traveling teams usually two traveling teams going around the country at any one time actually taking in the 1930s when as I'll get to the colony divides into in each group has its own traveling baseball teams so you actually have multiple how sadaiva team is going around the country and then in addition to that you have copycats you know people that I have no affiliation whatsoever with the house of David but realized that it's an established brand and it's popular so they set their own fake house of David teams that you know are traveling around and the colony does what they can to try to you know prevent that from happening and they do sue a few people but you know it's kind of hard to control everybody unfortunately in terms of you know our collection at the colony most of our baseball stuff walked away over the years so when I showed up you know there isn't a whole lot left so I don't have a whole lot of photographs to throw in here is I least not as many as I'd like yeah that's like this one shows the home team and the man in the sitting in the middle this Francis Thorpe who was actually you know not only a player but he was the manager of the whole enterprise and when the colony splits Francis Thorpe he goes to the new colony the city of David and takes most of the ballplayers with them but you know two of the you know players we do have photographs of the one on the left is Tom Dewhurst who was the son of the leader of the colony after Benjamin and he was you know nicknamed the bearded Babe Ruth and he was going to have a you know a lost Ria's career if the house of David not only is you know all player in his youth but later on he's the president until as he died in 96 something alone something around there and the individual on the right is Lloyd Gallagher who was the last living member who had played on the teams he actually passed away at the ripe old age of 99 and I was saying four years ago about and all the photographs we have of him in uniform we don't have any of them actually in a house of David uniform they're all and some other team's uniform but he is act that is actually the house of David ballpark in the background so unfortunately I didn't show up early enough where I could have asked him what the deal was but I'm told he was you know a really great guy and you're wonderful to talk to anything else I want to mention about baseball before I move on you know as I said you know when the colony splits in 1930 most of the players and will go to the new colony the City of David but the house of David will maintain you know traveling teams up until about 1937 and it'll maintain a home team into the 40s whereas the City of David because they got most of the players you know they had the advantage of you know what go on a little bit longer and their teams played until I'm through the 1955 season when George Anderson the last tally member to play retired and at that point it was a combination that there are fewer members there were I could play because they're all getting too old so I'll half the team most the team at this point were people they had hired or neck you know they'd hire some good ball player and tell Mackay grow a beard for next season so you can pass off as you know a colony member but you know in the head I'll you know some pretty famous people if they actually hired I'm in the 30s the house of David hired and Grover Cleveland Alexander who was at the very end of his career and he's one of the most famous and best pitchers of all time and he was one of the few people they did not make girl beard probably cause he was like no way he would have done it but they also know they were famous for playing you know against you know sexual pages you know his traveling team they played against other Negro teams and if they Barnstorm across the country but yeah they got too old to do it and by the 1950s and you know television is catching the people's attention so fewer fewer people are going to games so by the time George Anderson retires it's a it's no longer profitable so that was the end of that okay so shifting gears quite a bit to high island now one of their another thing they're known for for you know how various reasons that a little bit less positive reasons in the ball team in nineteen nineteen oh eight oh and something like that they lease a large percentage of High Island for the lumbering rights so they set up a lumbering camp up there and that's where they are going to get a lot of their timber to build you know the buildings and the colony grounds the building using Park and they also you know are getting timber for you know to sell there's a picture of the sawmill up there and they had a fatality may made a you know kind of ill know faded attempt to running some boats too you know transport this lumber back and forth between you know dial and back to Benton Harbor in the first boat they had was I should call the Rising Sun they purchased this old steamer and ran it for a few seasons before that thing you know was ran aground and but fortunately nobody was lost in that accident but the ship was destroyed so they had to buy a new ship they bought a schooner called the Rosabelle and that thing ran for a few years and then that thing capsized and killing everybody on board and after that accidentally gave no more boats but they know they the lumber camp ran for a few more years and then it kind of you know was one of the victims of when the colony split is basically you know most of the people that were up on High Island were supporters of Mary and her new factions so judge Dewhurst kind of abandoned them there and they had to make their own way back to pit Harbor now being up in the middle of Lake Michigan you know fairly far North High Island you of course was had very long hard winters and was in many respects to be seen as an unpopular assignment because you know if you were had to live up there year round and have to you know deal that kind of snow for much of the year that's probably one part of the reason why it's gained kind of an urban legend reputation as being the Siberia for the gulag for the house of David that if you displease Benjamin in some way that they would ship you up there as punishment although I'm not exactly true sure I'm sure not everybody that went up there was very thrilled with the prospect but it also wasn't you know necessarily like a gulag and it was just oozing you know you work there you work at a farm you know there's you had to do something now one of the more ambitious projects there was also a victim of the colony's troubles in the 20s and then split in 1930 was this hotel that they were going to build in downtown Benton Harbor they wanted to build a hotel in part to get some year-round income because you know the baseball teams and the park were seasonal and hotel you know could be something to be year-round and they bought a bunch of property and had their you know architect draft up these you know plans from this enormous seven storey concrete building that was going to be covered in that you know sparkling haematite but they actually began construction but then in the early 20s Macallan II begin starts to having more and more legal trouble where you have for the most part this grunt told former members that you know decide you know okay we no longer want to be part of this and they leave and then when they leave they want their money back they had to give all their money to the colony when they joined and they start to sue and Benjamin also at this time is going into declining health so he becomes bit kind of like isolated in the diamond house and building you know this massive project is no longer in the cards so the the tall seven story section is eventually never built the shorter you know section and the other end is as far as they got and for race from the mid-twenties up until you know the early 30s it's this is how it stood you know the ground floor and you know they had some businesses in there about the upper floors were never finished and then when the colony you know splits and they divide up the assets marry in the City of David will get this hotel and they'll finish it and you know finally get it opened but they all the big tall seven storey part which we've been really cool had been built you know it never materializes you say you know because at this point were being the legal troubles and here you see this photograph of Benjamin is he's being wheeled into the courthouse in 1927 and it shows it at this point yet he's in really frail health he's no longer you know the regal individual you can spot on all the photographs of crowds because he knew this really stands out he's you know on his last legs and you know the county is being sued by people who don't makes it they want their money back there are you know people that are accusing the Benjamin in particular of you know having inappropriate sexual relations with some of the younger female members again most of these people are from people that have financial gain if the county had been broken up and people that are claiming if basically the house of David was you know religious fraud and nuisance in this goes to trial with you but and Benjamin is basically you know by law banished from the colony but then he dies like shortly thereafter and months later so I mean the decision is ultimately kind of moot and then it's over to mediately overturned by the state Supreme Court so all this is this was a you know huge sensational episode that kind of ended up coming to nothing but unfortunately from Benjamin's perspective you know made his last few years really miserable and contrary to popular opinion our cotton you know legend he was never actually tried are convicted for any you know sexual misconduct that's something that you know he's kind of lived on in urban legends in become you know far more you know snow balled you know the things that he's been accused of doing but he was never actually you know tried for anything of that nature said when Benjamin passes away you know the leadership of the county goes to judge Dewhurst who was a he would join the house David in 1920 and in quickly rose you know in amongst the leadership for among other reasons he was you know in the right place at the right time because as a judge he knew a lot about the law and is very good at what he did this is the house the day was coming into legal trouble you know we can really use this guy so think this is him with his family and his sons Bob and you know Tom who was the baseball player I already mentioned now I do her see he never takes you know any religious role you know once Benjamin's gone you know that's you know there's no more you know religious leader but he's you know kind of the administrator this does not sit well with Mary who and never really like Dewhurst and did not like that she's kind of be pushed to the side and for you know basically from Benjamin's death in the late in twenty seven to nineteen thirty if there's like this really you know bitter infighting taking place that leads to the colony splitting in half with half of the people basically siding of Mary who Mary is claiming that you know she and Benjamin were jointly the seventh messenger and she and her followers basically take you know half of colony's assets and March two blocks down the street and found the house of David as we organized by Mary prunella or as it's more commonly known the City of David and the rest of the colony stays on the old property which is you know run by a judge to hers and nowadays you know a lot of people haven't no no don't really realize that you know there's actually two separate groups or were you know that there's actually a dividing line because you know the counties are right next to each other and it don't really know the history but the fact is I mean there is a very real division and it was a very bitter division like families and you know split apart and some people never you know talk to you know their friends or families again because you know they you know what either side and from you know you know the house today of perspective you know people that except Mary is a messenger are kind of it's you know a religious heresy and it was same thing from the city of Davis perspective even though they're both you know followers of the you know same Israelite faith from my a historical perspective I think it's unfortunate the way you know because Mary was whether you accept her as the messenger or not she was you know fairly important in the early history of the house of David so it's kind of she's she hasn't been erased from the county's memory but she certainly not really mentioned a lot after the split you know the colony enters a I say a kind of a second Golden Age you know you know the membership is never going to you know remotely come close to what it was in the early years but it's this is the time period because Judge Dewhurst is you know nothing else me a very good administrator and businessman and this is when they get some of them really you know famous businesses going as I said you know at this point they've rebuild the ball they rebuild the park they have the baseball team still going and even though they'd never build that cool seven storey hotel they do the building thing he actually purchased continue to tear down you know that's becomes the house of David hotel you know a little less glamorous than what was planned but you can see behind it you know the Mary's fireproof hotel which was what ended up being built so they both Kali's had their hotels running side by side they did build a motel outside of st. Joseph along the lakefront called the Grande Vista which is you know rather innovative and cool complex it had you know you know smolder Court units had a restaurant and nightclub and here you see a judge Dewhurst talking to some individual who I don't know who that is but you know that's the restaurant building behind them and there's a view of the motor courts what you know I got all the rooms have their own little private garages so you can park your car under roof in this this complex was on either side of the streets you can see some more of it in the background there in the interior of the club room so they would they could have entertainment acts which was you know in addition to the you know the house of day of entertainers they have a lot of traveling you know entertainers and musicians that come through and play here they also bought a motel down in Texas and I guess you know the only reason I can find why they did this is because Judge Dewhurst like to give you the old vacation down there so but this was this was a case where they bought an existing proper hey Benton Harbor was you know really well known for its massive fruit market at the time they had one of the largest fruit markets in the world so the house today would built this you know large cold storage warehouse you know which you know helped you know it was a profited off the fruit market but it also helped the fruit market grow because you know gave you know some nice long-term storage for all the farmers here's a interior view of the cold storage warehouse you know lots and lots of you know know some kind of fruit they ran their own you know may say food products they had bakeries which were you know open to the public they had you know they had their farms which they did there oh they had canning factories which I took the produce from their farms and you know could sell it in stores as well as I believe by mail order of course you know was all everything strictly vegetarian for a while they had an automobile dealership in downtown Benton Harbor and this building is actually still there it's you know kinda it's one of the room big landmarks down the x2 the big Eagle on the roof and it's a real seal resale shop now but at the time it was a you know there was a car dealership they had one of the members Frank Rosetta was you know talented artists and making sculptors so they had a you know art department that made like a little knickknacks and souvenirs put in your home that they sold Moffatt the ball at the amusement park they sold that you know when they had a booth at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1933 and they also you know sold it through the mail and one of the things that's really unique about you know the artwork was you know it's maybe sits me out of plaster but it was covered in a unique finish just kind of like a parolee ivory finish that I'm told you know the formula was something that Frank Rosetta came up with and took with him to his grave so you know don't know exactly how it was made but when you look at it like it's you know the sculptor is made from a giant pearl and you're gonna see if they're applying that in the coating to some of the art pieces talk a little bit about you know some of the stuff that we have and I've been finding in our collection and when I started none of the stuff was really well organized I basically walked into a room they had a massive mound of postcards that wasn't sorted at all and I had to you know start getting things sorted by subject but you know I've been finding you know obviously there's the postcards at the colony published in for sale to sell and there is souvenir stands but also a lot of you know snapshots from you know the members lives like here you have a picture on the left shows that's Mary her friend Cora mone sitting and then even Edith Meldrum sitting and to the right of them and I believe the girl and Mary's arms was heavy which was been their granddaughter and this other photograph shows I know it's a Mabel Blackburn and her mother and I'm guessing probably some family friends you know and I will all trip to the beach so you see the photographic collection arranges from you know more formal like studio poetry our you know our professional photographs of buildings and that nature but also you know a lot of pictures that people are taking of their vacations and then of the daily lives which gives it a nice personal touch and then helps me feel a little bit connected to some of these people that I obviously I've never been a meek they died you know decades before I came along yeah but you know the photograph on the left here this young boy on the swing is William Robinson who is actually still alive he's he just turned 90 a few months ago and he's still a member so as I was there's one person I actually have met and photograph on the right there's you know a common thing that we have is the park had a you know little photo studio where visitors could get their pictures taken and then you know they when the negatives got developed there'd mail the prints out to you and we have a lot of these or you know showing the different visitors that came to the park over the years and this one shows I guess probably around the time of the first world war and yeah I think the flag says 1918 so it's probably some army nurses or something on those lines we have you know some artifacts you know the drama and you know let left there is you know really cool and then you see a lot of band pitchers you know the shows the painted drums but I haven't found a photograph that shows this one in it yet unfortunately but still the drums cool artifacts you can see it says you know the Israelite house of david band and all that you know the other photograph shows some of the art pieces that we still have in our collection on display in one of the display cases in Shiloh you know my boss Brian keeps buying more and more of the stuff from various places so he's got you know probably hundreds of pieces at this time but never satisfied the buildings today after for many decades after the particularly from the 1960s onward a lot of the houses start to deteriorate because even they no longer really bothered to maintain them is that as I mentioned earlier Bethlehem basically fell finally fell down one day so you know these photographs these are the inside Jerusalem I artists I showed you a old photograph of the parlor this is the parlor today or you know it's this photograph actually makes it look a little less cluttered than it really is and it's also makes it look like it's a lot brighter than it really is it's probably a 30 second exposure it's really dark in there but you know they cut the power and based Jerusalem's vacant and here you see this was the front entryway this beautiful curved staircase you can see what I meant by some of the beautiful woodwork that was inside these buildings and in this photograph you can kind of see where there's something's been cut away and there was originally a beautiful carved arch that would have been you know led you into the building in that doorway in that wall when the building was first built was not there because the ground floor was all open well this archway would have been the most beautiful thing to greet you when you first walk in the building and they removed that arch you know actually a little while before I actually got hired so I I'm kind of miffed I never actually got to see it in its original spot but they've installed it in the stairway in Shiloh which has been you know for the past several years they've been doing a lot of work on restoring so this is you can see that you know archway as it is now and actually I I would not have known that it was not always there had they not told me all this came from Jerusalem and was not originally in Shiloh they did a fairly good job integrating it this is the staircase in Shiloh taken from the top floor and you see the I said Shiloh has been beautifully restored you know inside and out over the past several years and it's big it's being you know people are asking you know you know what they're doing all this work what's going on and you know the short answer is they're preparing for the Millennium they still believe if the in galleries going to happen so they're making buildings ready for people who live in so always you know they're putting in new bathrooms and making all these rooms you know in the livable condition because I got so few years ago you know I never saw what chaila looked like before they started doing the work but I'm told it was really rough and almost uninhabitable but you know I can tell you they've done a beautiful job this is the staircase in the diamond house this is you'd come in through the front door and see you know the that kind concrete use in the columns and on the floor and this I took this picture last winter when the building was they're still working on the building they've since finished and you know the family members was some one of the members are living in there currently I can see it's you know somewhat somewhat different architecture but still you know really fantastic and you can't really tell from the photographs but as I said those railings are really low to the ground here's the you know the staircase from the you know second floor and on either side there's you know groups of bedrooms and the bedroom that would be in the corner in the middle there has a cool walk-in bank vault in it as well as the bridge that goes over to the annex now the park property was sold by the colony and I want to say six or seven years ago to a group that's been spending you know the years restoring it you know they when the park closed in the mid 70s it was basically you know for the most where they just kind of walked away from the lot of buildings and a lot of it just kind of decayed back into nature so they've been putting an awful lot of effort in you know not only clearing away although you know the jungle type growth that was there to reveal you know the buildings and structures are still surviving but they've also you know laid new railroad track they've gotten some trains running so on weekends in the summer you can go to the park and walk around and see you know the grounds and ride the trains and you know it's something I recommend you if you're in the area and I believe they do have some events coming up in the next month I know they do like haunted Halloween train rides and I think there's some fliers and the table there for it but this shows the the current you know appearance of the old restaurant building you know we're a part of it's been young unfortunately had to be taken down because two dilapidated but they're hoping to preserve other parts of it here as you can see in the background the Park Depot as well as the old seed house are still there and in fairly good repair I want to talk to us a little bit about you know as I mentioned you know there's the scandals in the 1920s and how you know that you know kind of haunted Benjamin in those last days well unfortunately a lot of those stories have you know lived on in large part due to this book that came out in 1960 and this is based you know kind of like a trashy dime-store novel that take took all these accounts from they pulled in the newspapers in the 20s magnified them times 10 and made you know Benjamin out to be like a you know sexually depraved you know charlatan and all the members of the cowl need to be you know idiots basically and you know unfortunately I mean I can you know I when I like read the book you know I can use kind of funny cuz it's like so out there ridiculous but it's sad because you know this this is what a lot of people you know they base their idea what's the house of David is now because for a long time this was actually the only book out there since then there's been a book you know the next book that came out was the righteous remnant which is really the first like all work of scholarship on the house of David but it's not a whole lot better it's really do this book with academic kind of cover over it because you know that the author of that book pretty much took all the you know the newspaper scandal articles for value and didn't really look at the other side the story so it's a little more polite reading than this one but still pretty much the same thesis that you know Benjamin bad and you know everybody else is dumb theirs isn't the next book that came out by a cleric and called brother Benjamin is really you know I'd say it's the best book out there if you want to read you know get the history of the colony because he does you know a fairly a good balance he doesn't try to hide anything but he does you know the best balanced view and best overall view of the colony's history no you know Ron Taylor at the City of David has come out a number of publications now some of them there I think a lot of more limited runs so they might be hard to get but they they're doing pretty good because you know Ron Taylor being a you know and there's a delight himself he's not gonna you know make you make things up he cares about the history but you know his writings coming from the house to David I can tell there's the the bias when it comes to the split and his use of Mary and obviously what's the history get such as 1930 it becomes the City of David history and he doesn't talk about you know the house of David history so much there's a excellent book from Arcadia publishing on the baseball team that I'd highly recommend it's very well researched and it has you know all the photographs that I wish I could have had in this presentation but aside we do the county we don't have very many of the baseball pictures anymore you know but again that book is strictly about baseball so you're not going to learn anything else about the colony history but he's getting for being a baseball book is very well done there's a great book on High Island written by somebody that actually grew up there and we that's um island life Island toil it's a great book you can find it there's another Arcadia book that I would mention but about about the house of David but it's you know I can tell you that it's got a lot of things wrong in it so I would not recommend that one like those things are mislabeled and flat out you know incorrect so if you want to read more about it you get a copy of you know brother Benjamin or the baseball book they'll like but that's largely the extent of the literature out there which is I when I talked to the shaker group is like you know there's like hundreds of books about the shakers but like a handful about the house of David you

Channel: Kalamazoo Public Library

Views: 8,378

Rating: 4.6404495 out of 5

Keywords: Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo Public Library, Michigan, History, baseball, amusement park, religious colony

Id: 2_KaFO1uvIQ

Length: 74min 28sec (4468 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 07 2016