Benton Harbor, Michigan, USA
The House of David (formally The Israelite House of David) is a religious society co-founded by Benjamin and Mary Purnell in Benton Harbor, Michigan, in March 1903.

The House of David was a religious group. Some would say it was a cult.

For years, they had their own zoo and amusement park, their own electricity plant, their own hospital, their own schools, and dozens of their own businesses. They built elaborate mansions to house all their followers. They even fielded one of the most popular baseball teams in the country at one time. They were like a city within a city, and when people out here talk about the old days, they inevitably mention the legend of the House of David...

It all came crashing down in the 1920s, when more than a dozen girls in the colony told authorities they’d had sex with Benjamin Purnell while they were still underage. Sex with the leader, they claimed, was presented to them as a necessary step in their salvation...

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