Word: dewhirst
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Detroit last week the startled Appeal Board of the Michigan Tax Commission was confronted with a jungle-like black beard. Hiding behind it was Judge Harry Thomas Dewhirst, head of the famed House of David. Male members of this U. S. cult neither shave nor trim their locks, eat no flesh, in the stout belief that thus they will be among the 144,000 elect when Gabriel blows his horn. Judge Dewhirst, rich onetime California jurist, bearded the Appeal Board to beg his sect off from Michigan's unemployment-compensation taxes. He admitted his colony was in business...
...Judge Dewhirst revealed that the House of David, never very large, had dwindled somewhat in recent years. It has 171 members, who pool their possessions, employ some 70 other people on occasion. Like many another eccentric sect, it has a rival, and in its native Benton Harbor, Mich.-the House of David "As Reorganized by Mary Purnell," widow of its founder "King Benjamin." Mary Purnell specializes in tourist cabins, tourist-trade souvenirs. Judge Dewhirst runs the four famed House of David baseball teams, spry outfits all, a fruit-packing plant, his own tourist cabins and a cocktail room...
...Founded some 30 years ago by "King"' Benjamin Purnell. the House of David was divided by its founder's death in 1927. His widow and "Queen" took command of the ''Israelite House of David as Reorganized by Mary Purnell." A California judge named Harry T. Dewhirst won the right to the name House of David. With 300 followers apiece, the two cults live communally, subscribe to the same credo. They are vegetarians. They wear no garments of black, the color of death. They believe that non-sinners never die, that there is always a King David...
...Queen" Mary mustered about 200 followers; Judge Dewhirst the same. Thus it was not surprising that, after months of litigation, the question was settled out of court by dividing equally the cult's property and wealth, reputedly a matter of several hundred thousand dollars, farmlands in Michigan and Australia...
This occurred in February; Judge Dewhirst retained Shiloh and its hallowed manse. "Queen" Mary soon purchased ten acres of farm land not far away. There she and her faithful proceeded in quiet procession last week, distraught, injured, but somewhat heartened by thoughts of a new tabernacle, a new beginning...