Appalachian Figures Series – The Story of Mary Stallard Purnell of Scott, Virginia
Mary Stallard Purnell’s life began far from the strange headlines that would one day follow her name through Michigan newspapers and American courtrooms. She was born Mary Stallard near Nickelsville, in Scott County, Virginia, on November 13, 1862, during the hard years of the Civil War. The mountains of Southwest Virginia shaped her earliest world, but they did not contain the life she would lead.
Her story carried her from Appalachia into one of the most unusual religious communities in the United States. With her husband, Benjamin Purnell, she helped lead the Israelite House of David, a Christian Israelite colony that settled at Benton Harbor, Michigan, in the early twentieth century. Later, after lawsuits, scandal, and a bitter division inside the colony, Mary led her own branch known as Mary’s City of David.
To followers she became “Sister Mary” and “Queen Mary.” To critics she was part of a religious empire marked by secrecy, controversy, and strange public customs. To historians, she is more complicated. She was a woman from Scott County who became a religious author, community organizer, institutional leader, and central figure in one of America’s best-known communal religious movements.
Mary Stallard of Scott County
The official Mary’s City of David history preserves a tintype of Mary Stallard from the mid-1870s. In it, she appears as a young girl with long dark hair and a steady expression, years before she became a public religious figure. The image matters because it takes the story back before the court cases, newspapers, baseball teams, and tourist attractions. Before all of that, she was a mountain-born girl from the Nickelsville area.
Mary married Benjamin Purnell at Aberdeen, Ohio, in 1880. Benjamin was a Kentucky-born religious seeker and itinerant preacher. Together they entered a world of Christian Israelite belief, prophetic writings, and millennial expectation. Their path led through years of travel and preaching before they found a temporary base in Fostoria, Ohio.
The religious world Mary and Benjamin entered did not begin with them. It grew out of earlier British and American prophetic traditions associated with Joanna Southcott, John Wroe, James Jershom Jezreel, and others. The Purnells claimed their place in that line of messengers. Their message centered on the gathering of Israel, the preparation for Christ’s kingdom, and a disciplined communal life that rejected much of ordinary society.
The Star of Bethlehem
In Fostoria, Ohio, in 1902, Mary and Benjamin Purnell founded the nucleus of what became the Israelite House of David. Their major religious text was The Star of Bethlehem: The Living Roll of Life. The official City of David history describes it as a 780-page manuscript completed after years of writing.
Mary’s role should not be treated as merely decorative. The official Mary’s City of David page identifies her as co-author of The Star of Bethlehem and co-founder of the Israelite House of David. That matters because later histories often center Benjamin Purnell, partly because of the accusations and court cases surrounding him. Mary’s place in the movement was older and deeper than her later leadership after his death. She helped build the message from the beginning.
In 1903, Mary, Benjamin, their son Coy, and a small party of followers moved from Fostoria to Benton Harbor, Michigan. The official history says they arrived on Saint Patrick’s Day. There they acquired property, gathered believers, and began the work of building a communal religious settlement beside Lake Michigan.
The House of David at Benton Harbor
The Israelite House of David became one of the most distinctive communal societies in America. Members lived together, worked for the commonwealth, and gave up personal property to the community. They practiced vegetarianism, avoided alcohol and tobacco, and followed religious customs that made them instantly recognizable. Men wore long hair and beards. Women kept modest dress and long hair. The community emphasized bodily purity, obedience, and preparation for the kingdom of God.
The House of David was not only a religious settlement. It became a business, agricultural, and entertainment institution. It operated farms, shops, hotels, restaurants, printing work, an amusement park, musical groups, and baseball teams. Eden Springs Park became a major attraction. The House of David baseball teams, with their long-haired and bearded players, carried the colony’s image across the country.
For visitors, the colony could look like a curiosity. For members, it was meant to be a sacred commonwealth. Mary Purnell’s own writing shows that she understood the community as a religious separation from the world. In her “Letter from Home,” she explained the Nazarite vow, vegetarianism, the absence of formal ceremonies, the rejection of ordinary religious display, and the idea that members came not for ease but for spiritual discipline.
Her words are stern, direct, and often demanding. Mary wrote that the community did not persuade uncertain people to join. It offered a home to those who believed they were called to separate from worldly life. That is one of the clearest windows into how Mary wanted the movement understood from the inside.
Scandal, Courtrooms, and the Death of Benjamin Purnell
By the 1920s, the House of David was famous, wealthy, and controversial. Accusations against Benjamin Purnell brought state investigation, public scandal, and legal action. The Michigan Supreme Court case People v. Israelite House of David became one of the major primary sources for the colony’s history.
The court described the House of David as a voluntary, unincorporated religious society founded and dominated by Benjamin and Mary Purnell. It also noted that the group came to Benton Harbor in 1903, acquired property through adherents, and began spreading its gospel. The case discussed communal property, member obligations, allegations of public nuisance, and the legal problem of whether the state could take control of the colony’s property.
Benjamin Purnell died in December 1927 while the litigation was still shaping the future of the colony. His death changed the legal situation. The Michigan Supreme Court left some injunctive relief in place but vacated other provisions. Importantly for Mary, the court removed the part of the decree that would have barred her from going upon the association’s premises or participating in management.
That legal point is important. It did not end the colony’s troubles, but it left room for Mary Purnell to remain an active leader.
The Split and Mary’s City of David
After Benjamin’s death, the colony divided. One faction followed Judge H. T. Dewhirst. Another followed Mary Purnell. In 1930, Mary reorganized her followers into a separate community that became known as Mary’s City of David. It stood across from the original colony and carried forward Mary’s claim that she had shared in the founding authority of the House of David.
Mary’s City of David was not a small footnote. It developed its own religious identity, buildings, publications, farms, restaurant work, and tourist presence. Mary preached, wrote, and governed. A new auditorium was built in the early 1930s, and the community continued the vegetarian and communal practices associated with the older House of David.
The Great Depression years made Mary’s leadership especially striking. At a time when much of the country struggled with unemployment and uncertainty, Mary’s City of David built, farmed, fed visitors, and offered a distinctive place on the Benton Harbor landscape. The community also became known as a summer haven for Jewish visitors, partly because its vegetarian food could serve those who followed kosher dietary concerns.
A Woman Leader in a Communal World
Mary Purnell’s leadership deserves attention because it complicates the usual story of the House of David. The colony was often remembered through Benjamin Purnell, the scandal surrounding him, and the famous bearded baseball teams. Those parts of the story are real, but they do not explain Mary’s influence.
Mary was not simply the widow who inherited a movement. She had helped write its central text, helped found the community, traveled through its early years, and later held together a separate body of followers. Her community published and preserved her writings, including works such as Mother’s Book, “A Letter from Home,” and later religious articles.
The official City of David tradition also presents Mary as a figure of authority after Benjamin’s death. One 1912 image of Mary became, in the community’s own memory, an emblem of her authority to govern the House of David. That memory may be internal and devotional, but it shows how her followers understood her place.
Women in communal religious societies often exercised more authority than women in the outside world, though that authority remained bounded by the beliefs and structures of the group. Mary Purnell’s life belongs in that larger history. She moved from a rural Appalachian birthplace into a national religious role at a time when most American women were still fighting for public recognition.
The Written Record
Mary Stallard Purnell’s life is unusually well documented, though not always in easy or neutral sources. The primary sources include community publications, photographs, legal records, archival collections, and National Register materials. UCSB Library holds an Israelite House of David collection that includes materials from both the original House of David and Mary’s City of David. The Newberry Library preserves pamphlets and ephemera from about 1906 to about 1970, covering religious writings, legal problems, vegetarian recipes, and the period before and after the split.
Hamilton College also holds a large digital collection connected to the Israelite House of David and Mary’s City of David, including photographs, publications, and related material. HathiTrust catalog records point to major printed works such as The Star of Bethlehem and Mary Purnell’s The Comforter: The Mother’s Book. These sources are valuable because they allow researchers to look beyond later retellings and return to the words, images, and printed record of the movement itself.
The legal record is equally important. The Michigan Supreme Court case shows how the state understood the colony during its crisis. It also shows how difficult it was for courts to separate religious liberty, communal property, alleged misconduct, and internal authority.
Death and Legacy
Mary Stallard Purnell died at Benton Harbor in August 1953. By then, she had lived more than ninety years and had spent half a century tied to one of the most unusual religious colonies in the United States. Her body was eventually associated with the City of David grounds, the place where her followers preserved her memory.
Mary’s City of David later gained recognition as a historic district. Its National Register listing confirms the importance of the surviving landscape, buildings, and community history. The place remains connected to religion, architecture, social history, entertainment, recreation, and community planning.
For Appalachian history, Mary’s story is worth telling because it does not remain in the mountains. It begins in Scott County, Virginia, then travels through Ohio and Michigan into the wider currents of American religion, women’s leadership, communal living, court controversy, tourism, vegetarian reform, and popular culture. Mary Stallard Purnell was not a typical Appalachian figure, and that is exactly why she matters.
She reminds us that people born in mountain communities did not only shape coal towns, farms, churches, courthouses, and battlefields. Some carried Appalachian roots into stranger and wider worlds. Mary Stallard of Nickelsville became Sister Mary, then Queen Mary, then the founder of her own City of David. Her life stretched from a Civil War-era Scott County childhood to a Lake Michigan religious community that still leaves its mark on the American historical record.
Sources & Further Reading
Mary’s City of David. “Israelite House of David, Church of the New Eve, Body of Christ.” Accessed June 18, 2026. https://www.maryscityofdavid.org/
Mary’s City of David. “Mary Stallard.” Accessed June 18, 2026. https://www.maryscityofdavid.org/html/mary.html
Purnell, Mary. “A Letter from Home in Answer to Our Numerous Inquiries of Faith and Practice in Community at Mary’s City of David.” Mary’s City of David. Accessed June 18, 2026. https://www.maryscityofdavid.org/html/letter.html
Mary’s City of David. “Museum.” Accessed June 18, 2026. https://www.maryscityofdavid.org/html/museum.html
Mary’s City of David. “On-line Gift Shop.” Accessed June 18, 2026. https://www.maryscityofdavid.org/html/gift_shop.html
Purnell, Benjamin Franklin, and Mary Stallard Purnell. The Star of Bethlehem: The Living Roll of Life. Benton Harbor, MI: House of David, 1910. HathiTrust. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005099154
Purnell, Mary Stallard. The Comforter: The Mother’s Book. Benton Harbor, MI: Israelite House of David as Re-organized by Mary Purnell, 1932. University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library. https://findingaids.lib.umich.edu/catalog/umich-bhl-9997_aspace_7523bd43a66b7a70cc7dffb36e240740
Purnell, Benjamin Franklin, Mary Stallard Purnell, and Mary’s City of David. Seven Baskets of Fragments. Benton Harbor, MI: Mary’s City of David, ca. 1930s. WorldCat. https://search.worldcat.org/title/692197978
University of California, Santa Barbara Library. “Israelite House of David Collection, Early to Mid 20th Century.” Online Archive of California. Accessed June 18, 2026. https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c83j3mvr
The Newberry Library. “House of David Pamphlets and Ephemera.” Modern Manuscripts and Archives. Accessed June 18, 2026. https://archives.newberry.org/repositories/2/resources/1094
Hamilton College Library. “Israelite House of David and Mary’s City of David.” Digital Collections. Accessed June 18, 2026. https://litsdigital.hamilton.edu/collections/israelite-house-david-and-marys-city-david
University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library. “D. C. Allen House of David Collection, 1795-1980.” Accessed June 18, 2026. https://findingaids.lib.umich.edu/catalog/umich-bhl-9997
Michigan Supreme Court. People v. Israelite House of David, 246 Mich. 606. 1929. Casemine. https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5914a6acadd7b049346df296
Michigan Supreme Court Records and Briefs. People v. Israelite House of David, 246 Mich. 606: Reply Brief for Part of Defendants and Appellants. 1929. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books/about/People_v_Israelite_House_of_David_246_MI.html?id=t1XGwl6xtHcC
National Park Service. “National Register of Historic Places Weekly Lists, 2009.” Accessed June 18, 2026. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalregister/upload/weekly-list-2009-national-register-of-historic-places.pdf
Federal Register. “National Register of Historic Places; Notification of Pending Nominations and Related Actions.” March 23, 2009. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2009-03-23/pdf/E9-6179.pdf
Michigan State Historic Preservation Office. National Register of Historic Places, Michigan Single Property Listings. Accessed June 18, 2026. https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MI/MI_SPFindingAid_updated_20210831.pdf
Michigan Economic Development Corporation. “Mary’s City of David Museum.” Pure Michigan. Accessed June 18, 2026. https://www.michigan.org/property/marys-city-david-museum
Frost, Julieanna. The Worthy Virgins: Mary Purnell and Her City of David. Clinton, NY: Richard W. Couper Press, 2014. https://www.hamilton.edu/offices/lits/special-collections/couperpress/american-communal-societies-series-only/p/the-worthy-virgins-mary-purnell-and-her-city-of-david/view
Adkin, Clare E., Jr. Brother Benjamin: A History of the Israelite House of David. Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1990. https://www.amazon.com/Brother-Benjamin-History-Israelite-House/dp/0943872553
McRae, Shannon. “Mary’s City of David.” World Religions and Spirituality Project, July 18, 2024. https://wrldrels.org/2024/07/18/marys-city-of-david/
McRae, Shannon. “Israelite House of David.” World Religions and Spirituality Project, July 5, 2020. https://wrldrels.org/2020/07/04/israelite-house-of-david/
Shaw, Jane, and Philip Lockley, eds. The History of a Modern Millennial Movement: The Southcottians. London: I. B. Tauris, 2017. https://dokumen.pub/the-history-of-a-modern-millennial-movement-the-southcottians-9781350988736-9781786731906.html
Encyclopedia.com. “Southcottites.” Accessed June 18, 2026. https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/southcottites
Taylor, R. James. Mary’s City of David: A Pictorial History of the Israelite House of David as Reorganized by Mary Purnell. Benton Harbor, MI: Mary’s City of David, 1996. https://www.northberrienhistory.org/shop/marys-city-of-david-a-pictorial-history-of-the-israelite-house-of-david-as-reorganized-by-mary-purnell
Taylor, R. James. Portraits, the Face of a Century in Faith: The Israelite House of David, 1903 and the Reorganization by Mary Purnell, 1930. Benton Harbor, MI: Mary’s City of David, 2005. HathiTrust. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005027166
Wikimedia Commons. “Category: Mary Stallard Purnell.” Accessed June 18, 2026. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mary_Stallard_Purnell
Author Note: Mary Stallard Purnell’s story begins in the mountains of Scott County, Virginia, but it reaches into one of the most unusual religious communities in American history. This article follows the record carefully, using community publications, court records, archives, and later scholarship to separate history from rumor.