From The House of David Baseball Team by Joel Hawkins: “The House of David is a religious colony founded in 1903 by Benjamin and Mary Purnell and located in Benton Harbor, Michigan. Though small in number, their accomplishments were many. They were strong contributors to the agricultural community around them. It is thought that they developed one of the first cold storage facilities in the country and were the first to preserve jellies in jars. As early as 1908, they established a pre-Disney type amusement park, complete with miniature trains. A zoo and aviary were soon added to the park. They were also credited with inventing the automatic pinsetter used in their bowling alley. One of the tenets of their faith was vegetarianism, and the colony restaurant, serving original-recipe vegetarian meals, was credited with producing the first “sugar cone.” They built a three-story hotel in downtown Benton Harbor and an elaborate motor lodge, “The Grand Vista,” south of town. They built tourist cabins, bottled water from their own natural springs, erected a synagogue for their Jewish friends, and for a brief period of time even had an “on-site” hospital. They constructed a large amphitheater to accommodate their accomplished orchestra and world- renowned jazz band. They had a complete logging operation on High Island in northern Michigan. Another tenet of their faith was that they must neither shave nor cut their hair. When a few of the colony members were refused employment with a local streetcar company because of their appearance, the House of David bought controlling interest in the firm and soon all conductors were seen with long hair and beards!

The feature for which the House of David is perhaps best remembered, however, is the talented teams of bearded barnstorming baseball players that traveled to nearly every state in the Union, Mexico, and most of the Canadian Provinces.” Via -outlying-.