William Branhams Childhood

Hello and welcome to another episode of William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm John Collins the author and the founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org and with me I have my co-host, researcher, minister and friend Charles Paisley, the founder of ChristianGospelChurch.org. Together we are examining the history and the intersections in history between William Branham and other key figures that have either influenced or were influenced by the post-World War II healing revival. Charles, last week was exciting. I'm even more excited about today.

How about you? Yeah I'm excited too John. I'm really excited and glad to start diving into actual the subject matter. We've got some excellent episode ideas lined up for people and today we're just gonna start off John talking about the early life of William Branham really in his days leading up to him coming into Indiana and then just the early time in Indiana and so that that's a fun topic. I remember growing up I would watch my grandfather who was the pastor at William Branham's Branham Tabernacle and you know back then I looked at it as

this holy thing but now I realize he was trying to recruit people into the message cult and one of his tools for recruiting was he had this device that he could stick in a cassette tape of William Branham's life story and stick in this blank copy of a blank cassette tape and in like two minutes flat it copied the entire recording of the life story and he would you know write on it William Branham's life story and that's how he quote unquote witness or now I realize he recruited into the message cult and growing up he gave me one of these

copies and I listened to it until I literally wore the recording off of the tape the voice and many places you could not hear this tape and now I look back and it's similar to what we discussed last week it's just so much of it is just fable it's I look at it like it one of Aesob's fables yeah I I'm gonna have a similar experience you know in our part of the message where we come from we were a little bit strange in the fact we We did not listen to William Brownham's tapes on a constant loop.

We had different things we would listen to on loop from our own preachers, and our knowledge of Brother Brownham's early life just came from what was handed down to us orally for the most part, John.

And I remember when I was a teenager, I had an aunt who went over, she visited the tab knackles, she was more connected to your sect than mine. And she brought back some tapes, there was like a little tape library you could get like the best of William Brownham, you know how they sold them and stuff.

So she brought back this little package of the best of William Brownham and she gave it to me. It starts out with one of his life story tapes and that's the only really life story tape he has ever listened to or paid much attention to it.

Yeah, I listened to that lots of times, heard the life story version he told on there and it matched up pretty close to what we had been told where we were at. I know one of the things on there that really jumped out to me though, I know after I became a preacher, we won't get into all this today, but I preached a sermon and referenced some stuff on my life story tape and as soon as I had done preaching, the pastor got up and said, no, that's not how that happened.

And gave the alternate version of one of the, you know, the multiple alternate versions of William Brownham's life story, I'm like my goodness, I thought for sure I listened to that off that tape correctly.

And so that was really the first time John, after I had done a preacher that I really became aware, there are these wildly, wildly different versions of William Brownham's life story that he told.

And so that maybe can be a segue into us talking about the most prominent life story version John that you and I certainly are most familiar with and heard growing up the most. Yeah.

And I'm actually curious to know if the version that I have stuck in my head from childhood is the same version as you. I've learned that my version doesn't match many people that, you know, they had a different version of the life story.

And so that's the one that they, they listened to. My grandfather also had several real to real recordings. I believe many of them weren't, not many, but I believe some of them weren't in the collection that people have access to here.

When he died, I am told that the staff at Voice of God recordings, William Brownham's cult headquarter, swarmed his house and they made this military-like train to get all of the stuff out of his house that, you know, I have many questions about this stuff.

All of the, yes, yes. There's lots and lots of stuff that these older first-generation message preachers have, John. I think, thank goodness I was able to leave with photocopies of vast amounts of things.

things. They accuse me of stealing a lot of it, but of course, I didn't steal it anything, but I did take some photocopies of stuff and I found replica stuff as well. But yeah, the stuff they have, John, is incredible. And they know and have known a lot of these discrepancies existed for decades, John. They just hid it from us. It's just incredible.

But yeah, I know for me, the version of the life story that I grew up with was most familiar with was, you know, what about April 1909? William Brownham was born in the hills near Berksville, Kentucky, right? And it was just a little one-room log cabin. You know, we had that picture in his book, which I might hold up here. I think I've got it, or maybe not.

Yeah, here's the picture right here. You know, the picture in his book, John, you might be able to get a better picture for the viewers, but he grew up and he was born in this one-room log cabin.

It was right about Don and as he was born, the pillar of fire, which followed him all his life, a swirled into the window, came down, landed on the pillow next to him in bed, and the noise of that, the rumor of that went all over the community and everyone knew that he was born under this mystical sign. So he was peculiar from birth. He spent several years growing up in Kentucky, running the hills, the woods. He even, I believe, you know, he said he was old enough to go to school there, but he didn't go much. His grandfather was a principal in the school

system, and he eventually had this vision or this experience. He walked past a tree, and when he walked past the tree, a voice spoke to him from the tree and said, you're going to move to a place near New Albany, and shortly thereafter his family moved to Jeffersonville, which is near New Albany.

And there he grows up, his father dies shortly thereafter, and he ends up having to take care of his mother, his brother, his sister, so he can't get an education. And you know, as he goes through that, eventually he decides he's going to leave home, go out for a better life, and he heads out Arizona as a teenager. But when his brother dies suddenly and unexpectedly, he comes back to Indiana, and that's when he has his conversions experience. And I think that's maybe the point in time maybe we'll talk about today up that phrase of time. But anyways, that's kind of

the official story. Is that close to what you believe John or heard? You know, that's fairly close. So my father traveled a lot. We grew up in churches from Arizona to South Carolina. Everywhere in between. And some of the churches that we visited or attended were similar to you, they would tell what brother Brannum said about the, you know, whatever doctrine or experience, etc. And it was interesting to me because a lot of the churches won't actually quote the Bible in the sermons, they'll quote what William Brannum said about the Bible.

They'll say, remember William Brannum said that in chapter such and such a Romans X happened or remember brother Brannum said X, Y, and Z about Malachi, whatever. They never really actually open up and read it.

And so we started a tape church and my grandfather copied the entire, what is it, 1200 sermons of William Brannum onto these blank copies for my father. And I started experiencing new life stories and I still never noticed that they were different.

But that was because in my mind, the original copy to the order, the recording off was exactly what you described. He lived this Huckleberry Finn lifestyle in the hills of Kentucky, trapping and fishing.

He, the copy that I had, he talked about all of his siblings in the log cabin with him. And the mother would pour coon grease in their eyes and he would say some ridiculous thing.

Like that's what we need today. We need more coon grease in your eyes or ridiculous stuff. But that's the version that I had in my head. And my family, I have family members that actually make money off of taking people to tours to go see Berksville and see this big open field.

This is where the cabin used to be. And I never will forget the surprise that came on to me. The first time I saw the Voice of Healing magazine when William Brannum's giving a different, earlier version of his life story.

And he says, and there is a, there's now a city neighborhood where that log cabin used to be. Right there in Voice of Healing. And that's his words, that's his writing. And even the writing isn't the same persona that we had.

It's a lot more, a lot more educated, you know, this was, this was very clearly written. And then I went back and I started listening to some of these recordings that I had. And I was shocked, man.

It's some versions. He's in Kentucky, some versions. He's in Indiana. Yeah, you know, I'm like you, John. I've been down to Berksville a different time, certainly. And have seen the area been there, known people.

You know, we have known certainly at our church people of William Brannum's family in the Berksville area as well. And you know, heard the stories. There's people from our church who lived even in the Berksville area, you know, back as early as the 30s, 40s, and knew some of the people all the way back then.

And, you know, we know for sure, John, that that cabin that William Brannum pointed to was a prop, you know, that was not his- actual home where he was born in. The location that most people go to is completely wrong.

They've misled them about the actual location of the cabin. And we know that from William Brownham's older family members who live in that area. And we also know, John, and this is something interesting. In fact, none of William Brown's family in the area of Berksville, none of that extended families in the message. Not one of them that I know of, right?

Like none of them, right? Right, not one. None of them believe the stories he told, right? So, I mean, that's an interesting thing as well. And we know too that William Brownham, that version of the story that we know about, especially that part about the pillar of fire, coming in the window, right? Coming down and landing on the pillow.

I'm curious, you've got this big library behind you. And this is a big deal. I wasn't made aware of this until like 2015 or 16. I believed the story of the angel or the light coming down and circling around in the room. I'm told that the earlier versions of that story are different.

Do you have in that library? Right. I have a copy. So I pulled off my shelf before this. This is a first edition copy of William Brownham, a man sent from God. This was wrote why William Brownham's mother was still alive. And you'll find it, it really wasn't up until about the time she died that he made up the pillar of fire story coming down on the bed. And all of the, yeah, and all of the early versions of his, of the telling of the story. And even up, you know, through her life, this is 1950.

The version of the story does not include a pillar of the fire coming down on the bed. In fact, what it says, if you, you would have come into here and read it, it says, and I can just kind of paraphrase it, says, as the day dawn, the birds had already begun singing. And it seemed to my father that the morning star shined a little brighter. That's it. That's much different than the version I had. Right. And so by the time you get a little, you know, a few years down the road from there and his mother's passed away, then that turns into a pillar of fire came in the window

and landed on the pillow where I was, right? So we, and the only witness, the only witness to the event is now gone. Right. Exactly. He waited until she was gone. His, his father was already passed away at that point. So, you know, did a pillar of fire come in the window? Certainly the only person that tells us that is William Brownham and he didn't start telling us that that version until after every other living witness was dead and gone as far as, as far as we know. So, so there's that, right?

And then the other thing is his birthday, John. And that's an interesting thing. We know, and certainly your research has done wonders, just pulling this information out, but William Brannem had multiple stage personas, right? Right. And before he was presenting himself as an Elijah figure, he was actually presenting himself as the Moses figure. Yes. I was shocked when I learned that. Yes. And maybe for our listeners, you kind of can pick that up. He was still in the Moses persona when he had his initial experience with the angel given in his gifts, because you remember the angel said, as Moses was given

two signs, so you'll be given two signs, right? He was still in his Moses persona at that time in his ministry. And his early, his birthday periods in that time that he would give was also tied to his Moses persona, right? And so maybe you can talk a little bit about his changing birthdays, John. Yeah. I mean, I was completely surprised because the, again, the life story cassette tape that I had that I grew up listening to, it told the story of, you know, how the stars and the planets aligned on this day. And it was, it was April to 6, 1909, I think is the date that he used. And

it had to be that date, you know, because the stars and the planets aligned, it had to be that specific date. And he tells the story of how a fortune teller who, you know, if you look on my website, you can read about Madame Mimi. I think I've identified who this fortune teller was, but he talks about how this fortune teller told him he's born on a sign, yada yada. And goes on, you know, in during the course of the story, he is giving the Moses stage persona. He says, the angel came down and met me in the room and said, as Moses was given two signs, so will you be

given two signs? And me, you know, I grew up in message churches and message cult churches where the pastors talked about, this is what William Brandham said about the Bible, not what actually the Bible says. None of us, myself, my family, nobody sitting there listening to the cassette tapes are talking about the sermons, nobody even stopped to think. Wait a minute, Moses was given three signs, not two, turning the water to blood, there was the staff. He even got wrong. Yeah, he even got this alleged angel got the got the number of signs wrong. And yeah, it's just whenever I go back

and I look at the different stage personas, it blows my mind that we didn't catch it, but in studying, you know, I'm no psychologist, but studying the limited psychology that I do know through cognitive dissonance, the mind will take two opposing fully contradicting thoughts and then try to merge them through cognitive dissonance.

So this will be very difficult for listeners to understand, but once I came in contact with the version where he went to Indiana and his father, I think he even preached his father's funeral.

His father died in 1936, I think it was. My mind actually merged those. I believe both that his father died whenever he was a child in the log cabin and also that his father died when he was a preacher.

Yeah, so we have these conflicting birth dates that he gave to his audiences, to his listeners. And there was one day he would use when he uses a larger persona. There was another day he used when he used his Moses persona.

Right. And that transition, that transition, he was using both overlapping for a while, but the full transition to that Elijah persona really started having the middle in late 50s. And he and the Moses piece he started to talk about anymore.

Start to phase out. Exactly. You know, it's interesting. I did not realize this until recently. There's this period of time that is unaccounted for. William Brennan just disappears, right? Yeah, yeah. And then he comes back and then Davis, what was it, 1938, I think, when Davis went to prison, William Brennan was a mentor.

Right. There's this, there's another period of time where there are some huge gaps. Yeah. You go from about what, 41 to 44, right? Almost nothing. Yeah, in about, I want to say it was about 1950.

William Brennan claims that there's a Mormon prophecy about him coming, right? And whenever I started looking at this, I thought, well, this must be the, you know, the Latter-day Saints, the Joseph Smith. And I was saying, how did Joseph Smith have a prophecy about William Brennan?

But no, it was the church. What was it? The church of Christ with the Elijah message is the actual sect of, as a splinter group of the Latter-day Saints. They started in 1938, I believe it was.

And William Brennan actually uses this, there was a, so there was a guy named William,

let me look up his name, his name is William Draves, I think it was. And William Draves started claiming that he was visited from John the Baptist and he called him the messenger. And, you know, he broke off from the main sect and he formed this alliance.

a message, and William Brannum says that William, he doesn't mention Draves by name, but he is referring to Draves alleged visitation, and he says that Draves has, quote unquote, thus say at the Lord, that I'll send my servant William Brannum up the West Coast.

And so about the same time that he transitions from his Mormon prophecy to his or his Mormon or his, sorry, about that same time he transitions from his Moses ministry and persona to his Elijah persona.

He starts doing this by transitioning using a prophecy from a splinter group of the Latter-day Saints. Yeah, I know, that's incredible, you know, I've looked at that same, those same quotes from William Brannum when he talks about that as well.

And he somehow, for some reason, was associating with these fundamentalist Mormon sects in that time period, which is again, it's like an entirely lost fact. What was William Brannum doing? I mean, we're talking like FLDS type sects of the Mormon church, you know, the polygamists, they're really out there, Mormon sects, and somehow he was with them, somehow he was there, somehow they told him these prophecies that apparently had come about him.

And he'd, he's quoting them in the 50s when he's out there and he'd say, hey, I fulfilled the Mormon's prophecy. Yeah. Well, and what it's bizarre. What's funny, I have a copy. If you go to the website, William-Brannum.org and type in William Draves, I have a copy of the actual prophecy.

And it wasn't even a prophecy. He says that the messenger came and met me. And here's the transcript of what this quote unquote messenger said. And if you read the whole thing, it's actually referring to members of the church body inside of this little tiny sect.

And does he give like 50 different names in there? Several names. Just one of the 50s, William Brannum. Yeah. And he's talking about this person is going to be, this group of people I've chosen to be elders, this group of people is a teacher, you know, he's basically the way in which a lot of these fundamentalist church sects work is they, when somebody asks to be an elder, they don't just say, okay, you're an elder.

A lot of them will say, well, I have to have the word of faith or the word of prophecy. Well, this particular sect had to have the word of the messenger. So Draves would go to his house and, you know, do whatever it was that he did and come back with this paper that, oh, the messenger said, yes, you can be an elder.

So the question that I have concerning that is when William Brannum made the transition, you know, William Brannum was still growing the Pentecostal Baptist Church of God's sect during those years. And I grew up a large part of my life in Canterbury.

and just right near Missouri, and their Brannemism spread quickly through Missouri. So what I wonder also, one of the obituaries, mentions William Brannem living in Kansas, when it spread there as well. Right, so what I actually wonder is William Brannem actually in that church, was it actually him that they were referring to or was it a different one?

And there's no way for me to answer that. Right, right, there's certain things along those lines that are just open questions, right John, that we don't really know. William Brannem says enough stuff to indicate he was there and he was part of it, but then in other places, he completely contradicts himself.

So there's definitely stuff going on there that we don't fully know about this, certainly be interesting to know more about. Maybe some of our listeners will, maybe some listeners in Kansas, who are part of those churches, will know and can tell us, right?

And if you can't tell, I'm chopping at the bit. We have so many exciting episodes. I've strayed far from the birchville. So back to Birchville. I've had several, not several, but I've had a few family members of the Brannem family contact me.

One of them deems himself to be the family historian and they're just in awe that this man was able to do this thing that they all realized was nothing but stage personas, but it grew so big and they're just shocked.

They don't recognize him as any spiritual leader at all. He was, you know, this was, if you watch the Bananza show, this was like the guy with the traveling snake oil, you know, go to town to town.

But so back to the story. Maybe we could mention what is William Brannem's real middle name? Yes, yes, that shocked me. Yeah, you know, so we all know William Brannem's name is William Marion Brannem, right, John?

It had to be. It had to be seven letters. It had to be M-A-R-I-O-L-N, right? Yeah, yeah. And so there's another thing that he didn't tell until actor, both of his parents had already died.

And that was his middle name, right. And we know John, you know, there's, we have government records, you know, for example, we have, I got a copy of his draft card, you might be able to put a better one up, John, but we've got, you know, like his draft card, his name is not William Marion Brannem, it's William Marvin.

Marvin Brannem is actually William Brannem's name, right? And so he, you know, after his parents died, he started telling people his middle name was Marion, because he needed to have seven letters in every name for that type, you know, which is, you know, it's kind of bizarre, honestly, when you think about that.

stuff. He said, and I'm paraphrasing a bit, but he said that there had to be a man with seven letters that came to the apostolic faith at the end time. He said it had to be like Abraham, and he was big into these numbers, right? So Abraham had seven letters in his name in the English version of Abraham. In the English translation of Abraham, the original did not, obviously, it had what four letter, four characters. But what's interesting is he says it had to be seven to the apostolics, and I, William Brannum, and the only one with seven letters. Look at Billy

Graham. He has six. Billy Graham was sent to Sodom. I was sent to, you know, the promised land. And he totally ignores parham, P-A-R-H-A-M. He says it had to end in him, and had to be seven letters.

Charles Parham had seven letters, and he was literally the founder of Phancosolum. Yeah. You know, about that numerology stuff, you know, you read the Bible. I mean, there's no chapter that explains numerology in the Bible. I mean, it's not there, right? Like, you wonder, where in the world did he, where in the world did he even get these ideas about this number means this, and that number means that, and that, that other number means the other thing, and there's actually a book. I could pull it off my shelf, but my fingers touching it right there. It's one

of Clarence Larkin's books, and the numerology that William Brannum used, it comes straight out of that book, right? Six is the number of a man, and so forth. All those things came right out of that book, and it seems like, you know, even his numerology was plagiarized stuff, John, so it's crazy.

But yeah, if you want to see the Marvin, you can go to the website, William-Brannum.org, just type in Marvin in the search, and you'll see the draft card that we're referring to. Yeah, and so those kind of things lead you wonder, and you know, like, what,

how could, how could, how could he do that kind of thing to us? And I'm not looking for an answer, but it just leaves us with this question of, you know, he presented these things to us as fact, and we can come back and, you know, we can pull up evidence as like this that just showed that he was just beyond a shadow of doubt, just completely making stuff up.

Well, what I've noticed, I read a lot, if you can't tell already. I used to come home with two paper sac, grocery sacs, full of books every week from the library, so I've read a lot, and I was fascinated. I really like to read mysteries and crime. I like to read about criminals and understanding the criminal mind, because my mind doesn't think like this, but there are people who are just wired differently, and it fascinates me. And I look at some of the way that the criminals escape their past. A lot of times, they will just make things up about themselves,

so that you can't really follow the rat- but trail of fact back to the actual history. And part of me wonders, was there some criminal element to this? Yeah, that's also certainly an interesting thing is we move on, because there's definitely criminal connections to William Brannum's family, right?

And when we maybe think about his move to New Albany too, when he talks about having that vision before he moved, well, John, we can go through the records, we can pull his birth information, the census records, and we can determine that William Brannum was roughly within a few months of two years old when his family moved to Indiana, right?

Yeah, only one other sibling would have been even in the cabin, and he mentions all of them. Exactly. So how could a, you know, I've had children, John, you've had children. Do two-year-olds speak?

And, you know, do two-year-olds even have a halfway decent comprehension of English language? I mean, I don't, not my two-year-olds. Well, I was born a historian, and I was born at this life came in the room and said, you, John, will be the history of, no, my kids didn't.

I mean, he was doing good to get him to say dad-dad. Right, so William Brannum would have been probably 18 months and two years old when this, when he's out by himself in the yard, and an angel or a whirlwind in a tree talks to him and tells him, you're gonna move to a place in your new Albany, and so you're, you're really, you look at that as a reasonable person, and you wonder, hey, I have, I mean, can you remember a single thing from when you was two-years-old?

I don't know anybody who has a single memory from when they were 18 months or two years old. So how did that happen, right? I asked that to somebody the other day, so one of the big arguments from the cult is, William Brannum gives different descriptions about this alleged angel and gives different, even different years that he was given his divine healing commission, and their argument is, well, can you remember back that long?

Will you remember everything? I mean, this wasn't, you know, this was a big event, an angel from God allegedly coming to the room. How can you forget that? But take it a step further, how could you, I couldn't even remember anything before age five that I said, you know, in fact, the earliest real memory that I have of a actual conversation, I think might have been age 14 or something, most of those memories are gone.

Yeah, and if you listen to when William Brannum tells that story, he, in those stories, he's always given the impression, you know, he's five, six years old in that neighborhood, right? And it really goes back to him, dismiss leading that whole story of his moved Indiana.

And gradually shifting the timeline. Exactly. William Brown, I've never grew up in Kentucky. He moved to, he moved to Indiana certainly in when he was around two years old. You know, all the stories he told about growing up down there and running in the hills and getting the cum grease with all his brothers and sisters in the eye, that never happened.

That never happened. And so- In fact, some of them weren't born until he was much, much older. You know, if you look at it, just the timeline span of when they were born, the siblings, there's no way this could even be possible.

Right. So when you get to their move over to Indiana, that's where, you know, we start to pick up some interesting facts around the criminal activities of his family, right? Right. And so we know from newspaper records that Charles Brannum, his father, certainly had quite a few run-ins with the law William Brannum even talks about, and maybe you want to talk about this, John, a point that he had a knife fight and nearly killed a man.

Yeah. Yeah, and the family, the family rumors that I'm told by the, the people that I've spoken with in Berksville, the rumors that he actually killed a man and there's no evidence of this.

I did search the newspapers for a long time looking. Brannum is a very common name and what's interesting, I found a William Brannum who did kill a man. It was a William that killed him.

And there was this Hatfield and McCoy situation over, you know, deep in Kentucky. But it never could find anything about William, but the family rumor is that the father did kill a man and he was running from the law, what's interesting and what makes me question that a bit, Jeffersonville is where the state pin was.

So if you were running from the law, why would you run to the city where the prison is? Prison is. Yeah. William Brannum did tell us in one of his 1959 life stories that his father did nearly kill a man and that's really what caused them to have to run from Kentucky and moved to Indiana.

Right. So, you know, we're not too far out on a limb when we say that and from there, the criminal activities of his family just kind of explode. We know his dad, his dad was involved in bootlegging and moonshining and William Brannum helped his dad with the family business and William Brannum talked a little bit about that, you know, in his career.

And I know for me, I always kind of imagine, you know, William Brannum was this, his dad was kind of like Otis from Andy Griffith, right? Like the town drunk, right? This friendly town drunk and if he got in trouble, you know, he'd kind of find his way out of it and, you know, never hurt nobody.

Just harmless as a fly and they just, he just enjoyed a drink of moonshine once in a while, right? That's kind of how I... That's the impression I had of his father, but that is very far from the truth, you know.

His father is like somewhere between Otis and John Dillinger to be more precise, right? Yeah, I will never forget. So I had, again, I had the Kentucky version of the, you know, the history.

Whenever I found the life story where he's running, where he's working the moonshine still, for the listeners that aren't aware of this, in this area, Jeffersonville, Indiana, we're right across the river from Louisville, Kentucky, is where all the big distilleries are.

If you want to buy bourbon in the United States or even in the world, bourbon comes from Kentucky. That's why it's called Kentucky bourbon. And in this area, especially during prohibition, this turned into a big thing because they're still producing liquor for the mob and, you know, for all of the people who are still drinking illegally.

And I'm going to read this quote about the father because this just blew my mind. Remember William D. Upshaw, who was a congressman, who is, you know, very famous in this message cult, was also the leader of prohibition.

He was the one who basically turned several states dry. Georgia was the first. He was working very closely with Roy Davis, William Brannum's mentor, and Upshaw in this area would have been public enemy number one.

If you're in this area and you're working a job at distilleries and this guy is telling you, I'm going to shut them all down, you're going to be very angry because this man's going to cost you your job.

So when I read this quote about the father, I never heard of in my life of this gallant man, Mr. Upshaw, you may know in my talk that I'm uneducated. I was raised in a big family of 10 children.

I got not even a grammar school education. Seventh grade was as far as I got in school. I had to work and take care of nine children. My father wasn't very healthy, died young, and I had to work.

I never got my education. I would have known. I would have knew Mr. Upshaw. So how does that fit with what you're talking about with, you know, the liquor distilleries? I just can't, I can't imagine in this city that he would even say something like this.

Yeah, I mean, there's no, there is zero chance that William Brownham did not know who William Upshaw was. You know, not saying he met him personally, but he knew that name. He knew what he was.

Upshaw was a national fame, just as other figures that we'll talk about in other episodes that are just incredibly notorious. William Brownham, there's no chance at all that he did not know or purge people, especially in the community in the area that he lived in.

You know, you, you, uh, as But as we talk about that too, there's this weird dichotomy, this weird paradox too. Because on one side, you've got William Brannum and his family is deeply involved in producing moonshine.

And there's newspaper records, there's court records of William Brannum's father's trial. There is a different historical documentation we can pull out to look at. It's all on the website that you have, John. I have some copies of it here.

But William Brannum's father, they were, he wasn't just got a moonshine still out in the backyard producing moonshine for his own benefit in a few of his neighbors, right? Now, they're mass producing alcohol.

They are part of the key supply network for alcohols, you know, speak easy network, right? So they are, they are literally supplying liquor directly to the mob in Chicago, right? And they're involved in transporting it.

They're involved in producing it. And you know, and William Brannum talks about helping his father at his stills. He's actually talking about his involvement with supplying liquor to Al Capone's criminal. And right, that's actually what's going on.

I was so shocked. And so William Brannum's father, of course, you know, ends up troubled, right? That obviously the anti saloon league different ones don't like what's going on or are fighting prohibition. And they come and they shut down his stills.

You know, there's a gun battle. He ends up going to prison for what he did. And all of this is, all this is, you know, completely well documented. And so this also is going on.

And so on one side, you've got this deep connection to alcohol and crime. But then, you know, William Brannum upshall different other figures seem to be so opposed to prohibition or so opposed alcohol, right?

And in favor of prohibition, yet these men are also working together. So you end, there's this really weird, it doesn't, to the mind, it don't make sense. How can you, how can you take this, these people over here who are literally the producers of the liquor during prohibition, the distributors ever, and these people over here who are the leaders against it and put them together in their friends.

How does that work? So it leaves these questions. Yeah, so from my research, and again, I was just, my mind was blown whenever I saw that this was for Al Capone. I remember, I think this was on the copy of the life story that I grew up, but he talks about his family was poor, they lived next to this Mr. Wathen hoodie.

know who he was. And I, you know, years later, whenever the searchable message transcripts came out, I remember looking up Wathen, you know, I was looking not from a critical perspective, but because I was this devout message cult believer, right? And he says a few things about Wathen. He says, his father was, and I'm quoting, his father was a chauffeur for Wathen. And yet the life that it describes for his father was not that of a chauffeur. They lived in, you know, in the horse stables in one story where they lived in a house next to Mr. Wathen. Well, here in Jeffersonville, you can go

see the mansion where Wathen lived. Wathen was the owner of the Louisville baseball team. He was the head of the distilleries. He was, when prohibition hit, he was one of the few who kept his distillery open under a medicinal license. So he was producing liquor on the books as medicinal.

But then he got busted because, or almost busted, because off of the record, he was, he had this whole supply network of people working their homemade liquor stills. And they were producing liquor off of the books outside of his factories. And that's how he was supplying the Chicago mob.

The government had no idea, right? And I found this article in, as an Indianapolis, you know, the clan was big in Indiana. In Indianapolis, they were, the clan was trying to clean up Indiana.

And they were bragging that they had winning invaded Jeffersonville. And they had just shut down a large network of liquor production, people who were operating these stills. Right. And we know the anti-Saloon League, the clan was, was very active and involved in trying to shut down these illegal operations. And so at that level, the clan and these, these bootleggers were at enemies with each other, fighting each other, right? And we have records in the newspaper of gun battles, of really vital and things happening between these two groups of people in the period. And it's about the same time that William Brannum has a mysterious hunting accident

in his shot in both legs, right? Yes. Okay. So William Brannum, he's shot in both legs. You know, the official version is that he told everyone, of course, is he had a hunting accident, right? But, but it's, it's happening in the same time frame that his father is getting in trouble going to prison. The clan, the anti-Saloon League is clamping down violently on the people who are legally producing liquor. And so William Brannum ends up shot in both legs in this period of time, rush to the hospital, life-threatening injuries. And that's where what William Brown is what 14 years old when that happened roughly approximately yeah yeah and

That's when the KKK connection really starts to come into the story too, which I know in our next episode We're gonna talk about that a lot more, but The KKK Comes and they pay William Browneum's hospital bills from After he shot in both legs and and that so that that leaves the interesting question, you know, why did the clan?

and Feel the obligation to step in and pay the medical bills of a boy who just was out having this hunting accident, right? What's going on right now? There's an interesting point that he makes that I want to bring up also so we can remember it in the next episode It's not just the KKK when he mentions that the clan paid his hospital bill He pauses and he says the KKK paid my hospital bill pause the mason's So he is linking the Masonic community in this area to the clan, which is significant if you look at the history

Yeah, definitely he's saying they're the same people the same really what that's exactly what he's saying Yeah, and so We know at that point in William Browneum's life 14 years of age He definitely had some Friendship some sympathy some connection of the clan at that point in his life because for whatever reason whether he was Part of them or whether they felt guilty maybe maybe they were the ones that shot him, right?

We don't know right. All we can do is guess whatever reason they felt An obligation to come pay his hospital bill He said there was a special place. I mean pictured this he's speaking During the time whenever the clan is widely recognized for killing African Americans for stringing them up I mean, this is a terrorist this is a domestic terrorist organization And he says they basically they have a special place in his heart He'll never forget them as long as he lives because of this moment Yeah, and I don't know about you John, but this this event where he was shot

In both legs and nearly died at 14 years old. This is something that was never ever talked about in the part of the message I cut right that these this part of his life story You know, what happened in his teenage years these criminal things

Did not know they existed right until you know you started to dig a little bit and my family talked about To some extent the criminal side of the Brannum family, but they never talked about Brannum's involvement It was always the brothers or the father, you know the my family did talk about in private never in public Yeah, I think a couple more points. Definitely. I hope we can include before we We wrapped this one up, John, but one is the criminal activity of William Branagh's family didn't end there, so they continue to be involved in these criminal enterprises for years

to come after his father goes to prison, because William Branagh about what, two years, roughly, two, three years after he shot, I believe, around 1927 or so, in his official version, he packs up, he moves to Arizona to go get a better life, right?

And while he's gone, his family has still definitely got these criminal things going on, his brother Edward murders a man, charged with murder in court, right? There's other mysterious deaths that's going on, other criminal things that's going on, and William Branagh actually comes back from Arizona, back to this area after his brother Edward mysteriously dies after also murdering somebody, right?

So that's another thing we're never, no one ever tells us Edward, William Branagh's brother was a murderer, and then mysteriously died, and William Branagh came back to his funeral from Arizona. And the Arizona story, I still have huge questions, I'm still trying to dig, because he talks about, he grew up on, was it Hinshaw or Khrinshaw Lane and, you know, and Phoenix, downtown Phoenix, this is a big place, right?

But whenever his brother dies, this is the, this is the obituary that's given by the funeral parlor, saying that William Branagh is saying that he's from Kansas, so he's telling us from he's at Arizona, and he's telling them that he's from Kansas, right?

Which is it, and why is he trying to hide where he is at? Exactly. Where was he during those years, and I don't think, correct me if I'm wrong, John? Do we have any firm evidence that he actually went to Arizona, right, other than his testimony?

I don't. We don't, right? Like, all the only thing, yeah. That we'll get into it more, but I do have four photographs of William Branagh from about that time, and they look like your book photos.

So I'm assuming he went to college somewhere, but I don't believe it was Phoenix as he claimed he was in Phoenix. Right. So there's a strong indication that those years that he was, you know, in his version of life story, he was on a ranch doing rodeo work instead of Arizona, that he might actually have been in college.

Right. And I know Doug Weaver in his book made some comments along that long too, because William Branagh, you know, to us certainly presented himself as this completely uneducated, backward, country-hit kind of a person, right?

But that could very well have just been part of his stage persona, because again, as Doug We've re-noted in his meetings and visitations to ministerial societies and educated groups. We and Bram have spoken in an entirely different manner.

No slang, perfect English, professional polished grammar, and there was definitely an indication that all of the slang usage, all of the country language that he used when he talked in a lot of his meetings that we are familiar with, was not the way he always talked or the only way he could talk.

He chose to talk that way in those meetings for whatever effect he was trying to get on his listeners. When remember, it was a Kentucky childhood stage persona. He put on the persona of a person who grew up where people talked like this.

In Jeffersonville, people don't talk like this. People talk like us. Yeah, I mean, so picture it, Berksville was very near to the Cumberland River. It was a booming place where if you're on the river, these locations on the river were usually the trade ports, so the cities grew rather large.

Jeffersonville before the flood was also large. It was nicknamed Little Las Vegas, and people like Al Capone did come to Jeffersonville because there were casinos here, and he would go into Louisville. There was the...

What is it? The Seal Bach Hotel, I think, in Louisville. This was a big, big city. I will never forget the first time that I came across some of the early newspaper letters to the editor that William Brannum himself wrote, some statements that he made to the early newspapers, and even some of his early writings.

This is not the Kentucky Hillbilly that I remember growing up. This was an educated man writing these things. Yeah, and when you listen to even his Hillbilly accent, John, I know you and I, we know lots of people from the Hills of Kentucky.

William Brannum's accent is not a Hills of Kentucky accent. Not even close. No. It reminds me. It reminds me. Have you ever seen a movie where somebody like Tom Cruise or somebody plays a Kentucky Hillbilly?

Exactly. They put on this fake accent that kind of sounds like Kentucky. That's what it is. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't... When you look back and you realize you're like, hey, wait a minute, William Brannum didn't have a Hillbilly Kentucky accent.

I don't know what it was. Now that I think about it, but it was not a Hills of Kentucky accent that he used. And it's not even close to Hoosiers. Hoosiers sound entirely different than this.

Yeah. They sound like me and you, John. For people who are in other countries listening to this, Hoosiers is the nickname you give for people that were raised in Indiana with their dialect and their ways.

They're usually known for basketball, right? Right, Indiana users. Exactly. You know, if William Brannon grew up in Indiana, which we know we did, his natural inclination to talk wouldn't be too far different, John, probably from what you and I are speaking in right now. I'm sure the accents changed a little bit in 100 years, but it hasn't changed, you know, that much. And I don't know if you've seen it, but the cult, so the cult is transforming themselves. They're trying to, they're doing a lot of PR. They're trying to make themselves look like this humble little thing and they're doing all of these outreach programs and good things

instead of condemning all other Christians to hell like they have for years. But one of the things they do, they're producing these little children's coloring books and videos and muppets. And I've looked at some of them and it blows my mind because they know, the family knows this history. They're in contact with family in Kentucky. They know this history, but they show these little videos and coloring books, etc. of the cabin where he grew up in, where he and the brothers grew up in. And then when they do the Indiana side, they they paint this picture that it's like

the old wild, wild west where they've got horses and carriages and they've got, you know, horses on the street and you go to the, I think one of them that I saw was a coloring photo of the general store in Indiana. If you look at downtown Jeffersonville from the era when William Branham was there, there was trains, there was a trolley that went all around through three cities, big buildings, businesses, not even close to what the stage persona had. Yeah, William Branham grew up in urban environment, you know, which, which was a really a nice community and city at the time, honestly.

I mean, I would think, but yeah, it's not at all what he sold us. And, you know, one, one, one last point, you know, when you read that quote a little earlier about William Branham talking about his childhood, that quote right there contains something that that we believe growing up as well.

William Branham said his father died young and he couldn't go to school and get education because he had to take care of his brothers and sisters, right? That was even in the quote you just read.

Well, again, there's a big key there because of her age. So there's no way that that's not true. I mean, we know William Branham's father died well after he'd become a preacher. What William Branham was, was William Branham in his 30s when his dad died, I think? His dad, I know his dad died. What about the year 38 or 39, roughly? There's only one point in history that I've identified where they all, if you look at their ages, I mean, William Branham is, he's, I think he's almost 20 when his sister is born. I have to go back and do the math. But there is one point at which

they're all in the same household, but they're grown men. After his wife hoped died. And he, you and I know, and we'll get into it later. His ministry started much earlier than he said.

So he's out on the road all the time. He had his mother watch his son, Billy Paul, after his wife, Hope died. And on the census reports, they are living in the mother's household.

And some of the other brothers are living there, not all of them. But there is a point in time, which he is with their brothers, but they're grown men, and they would probably slap the coon grease out with the mother's hand.

What are you doing to me? Yeah, one more interesting point, one more thing we can be absolutely certain that he just made up, right? And of course, there's versions of these stories where he gets bits that are more accurate than other bits.

But the primary version, he, at least I'm familiar with, that we grew up with, had these definitely terrible inconsistencies. And unfortunately, the kind that we're the version we're familiar with is the kind we find in books like this, right, God's Generals, the kind that, the versions that, you know, most people outside the message would read that fairy tale version of his life story that never happened.

And all of these other true details are covered up hidden or unknown. So I think if I was going to sum up what we've talked about in this is William Brown have definitely made up a whole bunch of stuff about his early childhood.

He definitely had connections. His family had connections to organized crime and the clan, you know, in his childhood. And why we can't necessarily hold William Brown on, we don't hold him his childhood against him, right?

You can't help what family you're born into, right, John? Right. You and I, you know, thank goodness for that, right? Absolutely. Some people are born into a criminal family. Some people are born into a cult family, John.

Right. So, you know, we don't hold that against him, but you know, it's important as a character study to know where people come from, what their early life influences were. Because a lot of that really does shape, shape them as a character, as a person, for the rest of their life a lot of times.

And, you know, the number of discrepancies is so serious in there that, you know, maybe we'll talk about this in a later episode. At a certain point, William Brown starts rewriting his early life history.

And a bit excited when we get to the point when he started doing that and why he started doing that. Yeah, it's really a big deal. I mean, I know for, we've got a wide audience.

Some people listening are, we're in the message cult of following of William Brannum and others like yourself grew up in either a splinter group or some offshoot. And then a wide majority are just curious because of William Brannum's foundational teaching that created the new apostolic reformation that exists today.

But for those of us who grew up in the primary sect and even in... some of the splinter groups. We'll understand this a lot, what I'm about to say a lot deeper than I think you who are in a different offshoot or some of the people never involved. But the life stories to us were almost as important as the text in the Bible. We viewed it as a, it was a new book of Acts and here's the life of the prophet. It was the, I've heard a minister say this is the second book of Elijah, right? And I've, Billy Paul, William Brandham's son used to go on these

tours talking about how he wasn't an old man yet because California had not sank. Even though he's, you know, he's almost passed his life at this point. But he would say it's like a gun. You hold the message up here and it's your hindsight and the Bible is here and you look through the Bible through the message at the Bible to hit your target. And these life stories, most people listening are going to say, what does it matter? What does it matter if you lied? And even in some of the splinter groups, what does it matter if you lied about his past? It's no big deal, right? But for

the cult of personality that William Brandham created and for the main sect and most of the splinter groups before those splinter groups emerged with a new prophet, new apostle leader, et cetera. This was a book of Acts. This was a big deal. This was our Bible. And like I said, people read not the Bible for the Bible, they would read what William Brandham said about the Bible. And even when reading the Bible, they would think in their minds, well, William Brandham said X, Y and Z.

This was a man who we were taught, brought the literal truth, that brought the truth for the end day. And he's not even honest about himself. So this is a huge deal for the cult of personality.

Right. You're spot on with all of that, John. And I hope we really get to an episode where we can talk deep about William Brandham's theological implications of what William Brandham said and did, because William Brandham is the principal architect of restorationist thought in charismatic Christianity. And that's not me saying that. That's Christian historians will say that.

Right. William Brandham was key to defining the restoration doctrines that are carried on into charismatic Christianity, the third wave of Pentecostalism, the Jones, the Brownstown revival, the Toronto blessing, you know, the Kansas City prophets, the association of vineyard churches, his restoration teachings flowed into all of these groups all the way down into the new apostolic reformation that we see that's out there today. And all the way up to the family that you see in Netflix, the ones that are influencing politicians is the big deal. Right. And the people our group, John, where I came from, where you came from, we would look at all of these

new apostolic reformation types, these charismatic types. And we'd say, well, we've got the original. We are the true successors of William Branum, right? And you guys are the frauds, right? Like, that's how we would we would have approached them. We got the genuine. You got some corrupt version of what he taught. And we're not interested. But just take one time where any one of them says anything positive about William Branum. And they'll quote it behind poor people.

Yeah. You remember when Benny Han come out and he said, and William Branum had the most accurate deserve this went all through the message, man, this, and this is the guy that slings his coat and knocks people down, right? Exactly. And remember Jim Baker did his peace one time on the 33 vision. You know, it just spreads like like, oh, look, see, we told you we've we've influenced all these people. They just don't have as much revelation as we do. But see, they're all are, they're all are for the Branum's product as well. So yeah, craziness. This is exciting. So we,

as you can tell, I've jumped all over the place because I'm chomping at the bits. We have so much information. And it's really hard because it's all connected. It's all interconnected. And I want to make sure that we're bringing up the points that we're going to have in future episodes. So hope I didn't confuse the audience. But if, if you like what you hear, there's going to be a lot more. If you've enjoyed the show and the one information will, on the website, you can find us at www.WilliamdashBranum.org and www.ChristianGospelChurch.org. And Charles might be, might be good because

you're about to open your church. So it'd be good to maybe talk about what's coming. Yeah, well, that's the plan. We've been working on getting a building here for a little while. And you know, if everything goes through and the Lord blesses it, while we'll have a lease and have a building here in fairly short order, that's certainly my hope. And things are going great.

We've got a good ministering team that's come together for the church. And we've got a good network of people that we're working with to move things forward. So we're very thankful for that. Awesome. Awesome. Well, that's, that's exciting. Now this episode will come out after all of this happens. But I wanted to make sure people will wear this, this was coming. So if you enjoyed our show and one information, check it out, www.WilliamdashBranum.org and www.ChristianGospelChurch.org for an overview of the historical research of William Brannum and his healing revivals.

You can also read preacher behind the white hoods, a critical examination of William Brannum and his message available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible. And join us next week. We've got another exciting episode coming.

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