HELP (MICHIGAN) !

[AndrewX]

What's the bet that Stewpid paid this bloke to divert peoples attention from a rape victim of his?

lol

[Mercy Now]

The baby pic and the adult Barnes have a very strong resemblance and according to preliminary dna results there is a strong possibilty that they are one and the same.They compared the dna results to the surviving sister of the kidnapped boy.This was reported on CNN.

 

 

[Mercy Now]

Nope. The reported dna results indicate he and the sister of the kidnapped boy do not share the same mother.

 

[AndrewX]

Stewart made him do it!!!

lolol

[Richard]

[size="2"]Today I was talking with a friend about the House of David and he surprised me by saying Ben Purnell and Walt Disney were best friends and that Walt would come out here all the time. Walt even bought a train from Ben to start Disney Land. Walt got the idea for Disney Land from the House of David. So it seems like the House of David was a pre-Disney Land experiment. I tried to find info on the net about that but the only mention I could find is about Walt buying a train from Ben but that does establish a connection.[/size]


House of David book coming

By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Monday, August 27, 2007 10:24 AM EDT

A Sept. 10 release by the publisher of "Sister Lakes" by Rick Rasmussen chronicles in 200 vintage images the amazing-but-true saga of Kentucky broom maker "King" Benjamin Purnell and Benton Harbor's House of David.

Author Christopher Siriano, born and raised in Riverside, is a historian of local history and a graduate of Western Michigan University.

Siriano signs copies at the House of David Museum, 2251 Riverside Road, Benton Harbor, on Saturday, Sept. 22, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

He founded the House of David Museum in the spring of 1997, the same year the religious sect inspired Dowagiac playwright Paul Pugh.

After building the world's largest collection of House of David memorabilia, Siriano founded the House of David Historeum and Preservation Society, a not-for-profit corporation established to save and restore the House of David Amusement Park and mansions that exist today on the colony grounds.

Under his guidance, Siriano's preservation society completely restored Diamond House, a nearly 9,000-square-foot mansion with stone staircases, stone interior and exterior columns, intricate carvings and passage ways.
*

Presently, his preservation society is slowly trying to restore the 100-room Shiloh Mansion with its three-story interior staircase. It was said to be the biggest home in Michigan.

Partial to float-building, the House of David won the Blossom Parade grand prize for 36 years. The colony last entered in 1964 because fire destroyed its art department the next year.

He owns and operates Siriano Real Estate Co. in several southwest Michigan locations and spends his time trying to compile an accurate history of what more than 100 years have been like at the House of David colony.

Siriano is working with a movie producer to create a documentary for PBS.

Siriano hopes his work will bring back fond memories and inspire the telling of what he feels is the most fascinating story in American history.

Purnell "arrived in Benton Harbor with only a covered wagon and a dream and would set out to create an empire of huge mansions, bearded baseball teams, world-class entertainers, a giant pre-Disneyland amusement park (with a beer garden, eight steam trains, a zoo and a mini-mansion constructed from 6,000 pieces of granite and marble), diamond, gold and coal mines and a 2,600-acre island in Lake Michigan," the author says.

It has been 80 years since Michigan sued the House of David and Purnell for fraud. Purnell was born in 1861 and died in 1927, with a split from Mary Purnell and her followers occurring in 1929. The only book he had to read until he was 13 was a Bible.

Pugh, owner of Olympia Books in downtown Dowagiac and a founding member of Beckwith Theatre, assembled a 29-member cast to revisit the 1927 trial.

Pugh's adaptation of "The State of Michigan vs. the House of David and Benjamin Purnell" portrayed the three-month trial which sought to abolish the House of David as a public nuisance.

The trial ran to more than 15,000 pages of transcript and called more than 300 witnesses.

Pugh attributed the continuing fascination with the House of David to "unmistakable" parallels with modern cults, such as David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in Waco.

Best known outside Benton Harbor for its barnstorming bearded baseball team, the House of David also benefited from building a self-sufficient business empire with its own print shop, tailors to make band and baseball uniforms, machine and carpenter shops, farming, a vegetarian restaurant which pioneered the first mock-meat kidney-bean burgers and an ice cream store which invented the waffle cones introduced at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904.

Eden Springs, a 33-acre amusement park opened in July 1908, sustained the colony with revenue it produced despite free admission and helped membership thrive to more than 1,000 adherents during World War I.

Music played a key part, too. When 85 Australians joined in 1905, they brought with them some of the best musicians in the world, including maestro Clarence "Chic" Bell, a trumpeter.

Park concerts were performed by a variety of bands when there was little money for more elaborate entertainment in the 1930s.

Plays were acted on an auditorium stage so big they could play basketball on it.

There was a girls band, a ukulele band and a famous jazz band which appeared on stage with their backs to the audience, long tresses flowing out behind them.

They whirled around while they were playing a snappy tune and delighted the audience to find out they were young men instead of young women.

They were all young people who grew up in the colony who became quite professional and skilled musicians, dazzling audiences throughout the 1920s.

The Syncopep Serenaders did a number of tours where they did openings of hotels and vacation spots throughout America.

The "whiskered wizards" danced around the stage while they played, which the country had never seen before.

They toured in a Ford Model T they had to carry over muddy roads.

The Symphonic Jazz Orchestra was invited to play before every American president from Woodrow Wilson through Gerald R. Ford.

But the baseball team, organized to entertain local teams and to raise revenue selling tickets at the gate, was the House of David's most famous advertisement and its most successful revenue venture.

Sports Illustrated profiled the team in 1970.

Grover Cleveland Alexander pitched for the "Jesus boys" in 1931-1935 and was not required to grow a beard.

In 1928, pitcher Percy Walker struck out Babe Ruth twice in one game.

With a colony full of young families, they were one of the first to try Christian daycare and they had their own school.

House of David had Lakeside Vineyards in the 1920s, making and selling grape juice. In fact, with the help of the "World's Largest Cold Storage Facility" built in 1932, the House of David invented the first process of putting acidic grape juice in a can, which it sold to Welch's.

It had holdings of more than 100,000 acres of farmland.

The House of David also had a camper trailer factory, a celery factory on the Paw Paw River, world-class jewelers, three cruise ships, a dairy farm, a four-story hotel with handmade 40-foot columns that combined 16 minerals (exterior hematite made it sparkle in the sun), a vegetarian restaurant, a jam and jelly factory and, because of the colony's reluctance to rely on the outside world for anything, used gigantic turbine engines to generate its own electricity.

During World War II, it implemented the very first German Prisoner of War work camps in America on its farming and cold storage facilities.

The House of David was also one of the largest Oldsmobile dealers in America.

Walt Disney bought one of the trains pre-Disneyland.

The stone-terraced hillside entering the amusement park "valley" with a large fountain in the center "looked like something out of the Roman Empire," Siriano writes.

An archway connected the Bethlehem and Jerusalem mansions. The Bethlehem mansion collapsed during a storm.

In 1932, the House of David introduced midget gasoline-driven autos for children.

They invented bowling alley pin-setting machines in 1934 and later sold the patent to industry leader Brunswick.

They also built their own pool tables for the billiard room and penny arcade.

http://www.dowagiacnews.com/articles/200...nnews1.txt

[Richard]

[size="2"]Today I was talking with a friend about the House of David and he surprised me by saying Ben Purnell and Walt Disney were best friends and that Walt would come out here all the time. Walt even bought a train from Ben to start Disney Land. Walt got the idea for Disney Land from the House of David. So it seems like the House of David was a pre-Disney Land experiment. I tried to find info on the net about that but the only mention I could find is about Walt buying a train from Ben but that does establish a connection.[/size]


House of David book coming

By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Monday, August 27, 2007 10:24 AM EDT

A Sept. 10 release by the publisher of "Sister Lakes" by Rick Rasmussen chronicles in 200 vintage images the amazing-but-true saga of Kentucky broom maker "King" Benjamin Purnell and Benton Harbor's House of David.

Author Christopher Siriano, born and raised in Riverside, is a historian of local history and a graduate of Western Michigan University.

Siriano signs copies at the House of David Museum, 2251 Riverside Road, Benton Harbor, on Saturday, Sept. 22, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

He founded the House of David Museum in the spring of 1997, the same year the religious sect inspired Dowagiac playwright Paul Pugh.

After building the world's largest collection of House of David memorabilia, Siriano founded the House of David Historeum and Preservation Society, a not-for-profit corporation established to save and restore the House of David Amusement Park and mansions that exist today on the colony grounds.

Under his guidance, Siriano's preservation society completely restored Diamond House, a nearly 9,000-square-foot mansion with stone staircases, stone interior and exterior columns, intricate carvings and passage ways.
*

Presently, his preservation society is slowly trying to restore the 100-room Shiloh Mansion with its three-story interior staircase. It was said to be the biggest home in Michigan.

Partial to float-building, the House of David won the Blossom Parade grand prize for 36 years. The colony last entered in 1964 because fire destroyed its art department the next year.

He owns and operates Siriano Real Estate Co. in several southwest Michigan locations and spends his time trying to compile an accurate history of what more than 100 years have been like at the House of David colony.

Siriano is working with a movie producer to create a documentary for PBS.

Siriano hopes his work will bring back fond memories and inspire the telling of what he feels is the most fascinating story in American history.

Purnell "arrived in Benton Harbor with only a covered wagon and a dream and would set out to create an empire of huge mansions, bearded baseball teams, world-class entertainers, a giant pre-Disneyland amusement park (with a beer garden, eight steam trains, a zoo and a mini-mansion constructed from 6,000 pieces of granite and marble), diamond, gold and coal mines and a 2,600-acre island in Lake Michigan," the author says.

It has been 80 years since Michigan sued the House of David and Purnell for fraud. Purnell was born in 1861 and died in 1927, with a split from Mary Purnell and her followers occurring in 1929. The only book he had to read until he was 13 was a Bible.

Pugh, owner of Olympia Books in downtown Dowagiac and a founding member of Beckwith Theatre, assembled a 29-member cast to revisit the 1927 trial.

Pugh's adaptation of "The State of Michigan vs. the House of David and Benjamin Purnell" portrayed the three-month trial which sought to abolish the House of David as a public nuisance.

The trial ran to more than 15,000 pages of transcript and called more than 300 witnesses.

Pugh attributed the continuing fascination with the House of David to "unmistakable" parallels with modern cults, such as David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in Waco.

Best known outside Benton Harbor for its barnstorming bearded baseball team, the House of David also benefited from building a self-sufficient business empire with its own print shop, tailors to make band and baseball uniforms, machine and carpenter shops, farming, a vegetarian restaurant which pioneered the first mock-meat kidney-bean burgers and an ice cream store which invented the waffle cones introduced at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904.

Eden Springs, a 33-acre amusement park opened in July 1908, sustained the colony with revenue it produced despite free admission and helped membership thrive to more than 1,000 adherents during World War I.

Music played a key part, too. When 85 Australians joined in 1905, they brought with them some of the best musicians in the world, including maestro Clarence "Chic" Bell, a trumpeter.

Park concerts were performed by a variety of bands when there was little money for more elaborate entertainment in the 1930s.

Plays were acted on an auditorium stage so big they could play basketball on it.

There was a girls band, a ukulele band and a famous jazz band which appeared on stage with their backs to the audience, long tresses flowing out behind them.

They whirled around while they were playing a snappy tune and delighted the audience to find out they were young men instead of young women.

They were all young people who grew up in the colony who became quite professional and skilled musicians, dazzling audiences throughout the 1920s.

The Syncopep Serenaders did a number of tours where they did openings of hotels and vacation spots throughout America.

The "whiskered wizards" danced around the stage while they played, which the country had never seen before.

They toured in a Ford Model T they had to carry over muddy roads.

The Symphonic Jazz Orchestra was invited to play before every American president from Woodrow Wilson through Gerald R. Ford.

But the baseball team, organized to entertain local teams and to raise revenue selling tickets at the gate, was the House of David's most famous advertisement and its most successful revenue venture.

Sports Illustrated profiled the team in 1970.

Grover Cleveland Alexander pitched for the "Jesus boys" in 1931-1935 and was not required to grow a beard.

In 1928, pitcher Percy Walker struck out Babe Ruth twice in one game.

With a colony full of young families, they were one of the first to try Christian daycare and they had their own school.

House of David had Lakeside Vineyards in the 1920s, making and selling grape juice. In fact, with the help of the "World's Largest Cold Storage Facility" built in 1932, the House of David invented the first process of putting acidic grape juice in a can, which it sold to Welch's.

It had holdings of more than 100,000 acres of farmland.

The House of David also had a camper trailer factory, a celery factory on the Paw Paw River, world-class jewelers, three cruise ships, a dairy farm, a four-story hotel with handmade 40-foot columns that combined 16 minerals (exterior hematite made it sparkle in the sun), a vegetarian restaurant, a jam and jelly factory and, because of the colony's reluctance to rely on the outside world for anything, used gigantic turbine engines to generate its own electricity.

During World War II, it implemented the very first German Prisoner of War work camps in America on its farming and cold storage facilities.

The House of David was also one of the largest Oldsmobile dealers in America.

Walt Disney bought one of the trains pre-Disneyland.

The stone-terraced hillside entering the amusement park "valley" with a large fountain in the center "looked like something out of the Roman Empire," Siriano writes.

An archway connected the Bethlehem and Jerusalem mansions. The Bethlehem mansion collapsed during a storm.

In 1932, the House of David introduced midget gasoline-driven autos for children.

They invented bowling alley pin-setting machines in 1934 and later sold the patent to industry leader Brunswick.

They also built their own pool tables for the billiard room and penny arcade.

http://www.dowagiacnews.com/articles/200...nnews1.txt

[Mercy Now]

Richard,

I can't comment on the Disney connection however I recall reading somewhere?? that Mary Purnell was the one that was "shown " where to go  to build their community. She was "told" that there ,Benton Harbor , they would be protected and would meet people with " spiritual power." I cannot recall where I read that but did find a link  to LAKE magazine that more recently ran an article. 

http://lakemagazine.com/magazine/article...B-20084658

[Mercy Now]

Richard,

I can't comment on the Disney connection however I recall reading somewhere?? that Mary Purnell was the one that was "shown " where to go  to build their community. She was "told" that there ,Benton Harbor , they would be protected and would meet people with " spiritual power." I cannot recall where I read that but did find a link  to LAKE magazine that more recently ran an article. 

http://lakemagazine.com/magazine/article...B-20084658

[Richard]

It amazes me that they still have a cult going on there.

[Richard]

It amazes me that they still have a cult going on there.