The Bridge Prophecy

Hello and welcome to another episode of Woodland's William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host John Collins, the author and the founder of William Brannum Historical Research, and with me I have my co-host, researcher, minister, and friend Charles Paisley, the founder of ChristianGospelChurch.org, and together we're examining the history and the intersections in history between William Brannum and other key figures that either influence or were influenced by the post-war War II healing revivals.

Charles, last week set the stage for some exciting stuff. I'm ready to dig into it. I know John, we was really getting to an interesting spot when we got done last week, right? Right.

I know we ended with William Brannum coming into contact with Roy Davis in the mid-1920s, touring with him, and by 1929 the two of them had opened a church in Jeffersonville, and that's where we landed when we finished our last episode.

Right. And I was surprised to learn that according to the missionary Baptist Church claim that he was Brannum was consistent about throughout his entire ministry, the last date that that claim could have been possible to have been ordained by Roy Davis was 1926.

What's interesting, according to the timeline, John, is that when you overlap the split in the clan in the 1920s, here in Evans and Joseph Simmons go in separate ways as clan leaders happens at the same time that Roy Davis is excommunicated from the Baptist Church, right?

Which gives you a strong indication that it's actually related to the split in the clan when he loses his position in the Baptist Church. What happened to you right, John, in 1926? So if William Brannum was ordained a missionary Baptist by Roy Davis, it would have had to happen prior to his excommunication from the Baptists in 1926.

Putting your information together with my information is opening so many avenues of research that I had never even considered. So think about this. William Brannum's initial stage persona was a man who was claiming that the churches are apostate and that of course grows, you know, more strongly towards the end, but he's He's talking about bringing people out of the mainstream churches and into his sect.

Think about the name of Roy Davis's sect, the Pensacostal Baptist Church of God sect. And he's been banished from these organizations, right? He was kicked out of a Baptist church, he was kicked out of a Pentecostal church.

And I believe I found somewhere where he was initially with the Church of God as well. There is evidence he was at Church of God, preaching at Church of God as well. Right. So yeah, he's definitely trying to put something together to appeal to all of these people that he has exited from, that he's left behind.

And he's starting in 1926 after he's kicked out of the Baptist church. He, along with Caleb Ridley, the Imperial Club, the Chaplain of the Clan, they start touring, putting together that new denomination. And that's what's going on in 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929.

They're touring, they're building this new denomination. They're building themselves a new set of churches because Caleb Ridley was also excommunicated from the Baptist in the St. Louis. Oh wow, I agree with that. Yeah, they're both actually put out together.

Ridley had been in the William Simmons faction too, right? So it all breaks down along this faction breakup of the clan. And so this new faction with Simmons, with Davis, with Caleb Ridley, they're building a new religious front end because not only did they lose their power in the original clan organization, they also lost their religious position.

So they're rebuilding everything from scratch, really starting from 26. So here's the power of the combination of the two of us. This has put together a puzzle piece that I have tried for. I can't tell you how many years to put together.

William Brannum tells the story. It's all fiction about how he just stumbled on to Pentecostalism in Mishawaka. And I've had conversations, I think I've told you about this with a Pentecostal historian who knows this exact meeting that William Brannum was at.

He is in contact with people who were at that meeting. And William Brannum in his fictional life stories, he's claiming that he's a Baptist. He says, I've never seen Pentecostals before. While he's got a Pentecostal church back home in Jeffersonville.

And he's in this sect where they're trying to suck people out. I did know that it was, it looks appears to be an in response to the knights to the victim of the flaming sword.

So the Pentecostal sect that's very powerful in Indianapolis, it looks like Davis rose in opposition to that. But here's the puzzle piece that I was missing. According to the Pentecostal historian, this was, this was no ordinary meeting that he just quote unquote stumbled into.

This was was one of the early discussions where they were trying to decide how Pentecostalism would merge and which Pentecostal sex would be dominant. Site. Branum is a representative in that meeting. And according to the Pentecostal historian and the witnesses who were there, William Branum drove up in a truck.

I think this is 19, what's the date 1934 or something like that? I've got on the website. He drove up in one of these trucks advertising his healing revivals. Right. I've read that and saw that evidence as well, John.

He was, he was touring as a healing evangelist in Roy Davis's Pentecostal Baptist church. You got and it's actually under those auspices that he shows up to that convention in Mishawaka, where the leading ministers from these multiple other Pentecostal

sex groups are come together. And they're having a general assembly to determine whether or not they can merge together until a single united Pentecostal denomination. Yeah. And think about the guilt that a man would carry if his wife is back home dying of tuberculosis, and he's out on the road touring.

He even states that he leaves her at home for all of these. He went, quote, unquote, vacation, went fishing at this lake resort, right? Right. And I definitely want, and we, we definitely going to do a whole episode here before too much longer on the truth around William Branum's wife and daughter's death.

Right. Because he also very strongly misled us and told a whole lot of stuff around that. That's not true as well, John, that we're, we're looking forward to getting into. Right. Every one of these stories is worthy of a full episode.

But yes. So let's get into today. What have you got for me today? So today, we're going to talk about something that happened while William Branum was out of Indiana. So we know he left Indiana early 1927, right?

So, and time wise, this is when the Ku Klux Klan is being burnt to the ground in Indiana by DC Stevenson out of revenge, the William Branum, at this point, according to his official life story, leaves Indiana right exactly as this is happening and goes and lives into branch on Arizona for two years.

However, during that two year period, we find newspaper articles and other things that suggest he's actually, at least some of that time, touring with Roy Davis. We also have some evidence that indicates he was perhaps attending college or seminary during that period as well.

So whatever the case, he does seem to be out of the area of Indiana while during these two years. But something's happened in Indiana during that time that is really huge and really important for his life story, John, and you and I both know this.

Throughout his life, there is a story he tells about the construction of the municipal bridge in Indiana in Jeffersonville, and for our listeners, there's a bridge it goes from Louisville, Kentucky across the Ohio River to Jeffersonville, Indiana, and this is actually the widest point of the Ohio River right there, John. I think you probably know that.

So this bridge is across the Ohio River at its widest point. It's a really, you know, it's a very important bridge at that time. It's the most important bridge across the river in the region for sure, and it's still a pretty important bridge. I actually drive across that bridge almost every day, John, on my way to work.

So William Branham, when he was a young person, said he had a vision about that bridge, and he saw its construction, and I'll just read the quote, John. Here's one from the principles of divine healing that he preached on September 13, 1951. He said, When I was a child, 22 years before this beautiful bridge spanned the river, sitting down in my yard, I seen this thing go across the river, and seen the man that lost their life on it.

And my mother thought I was nervous right here in Mr. Wathen's yard on Utica Pike. And as you read on down here, I'm just going to skip a few verses, but he goes on to say he saw 16 men fall off the bridge and drown in the river, and he told this vision over and over and over and over again through his life.

It was huge. It's in his in his life story here. It's in sermon after sermon, sermon after sermon. And the sad thing, John, you and I know is he made that story up. It never happened.

Well, and for the people who were raised in the message like myself, who are version of the history came literally from these cassette tapes. I live here in Jeffersonville, so I have access to all the history archives, et cetera. And we need to paint the correct picture of what was actually going on when he was a child.

This so Jeffersonville was the was the main port city crossing into Louisville, Kentucky, the quadrangle where the voice of God headquarters used to be was actually a civil war depot. And this was the main crossing into the South region.

So the Union soldiers could send their supplies back and forth. And there was a bridge when he was born that he would have probably seen. There's no way he would have missed it. It's only a few miles from his house. That was basically the main train depot, but it's not the only bridge here.

There was also a system of like little trolleys that went around into three or four different cities crossing another bridge further downstream. And the problem was even with this system of a train and the trolleys, et cetera, it could not handle the volume of people needing to cross.

So they needed another bridge and whenever he was, you know, when he was a child at the time he's mentioning this, the bridge that he is referring to late in his later years did not exist, but there were other bridges.

Right. And, you know, there was multiple attempts to fund and build this bridge, why Brennan was a young person, right? But it was always the cities here had trouble, how are we going to pay for it?

How are we going to pay for it? So, you know, like any big, expensive projects, the cities just kept putting it off and putting it off and putting it off. So, you know, it's entirely possible that William Brownham heard about the city's plans to build these bridges when he was a young person because it goes back to that long that they were going to build it, right?

Anyway, and they had the plans and everything and then they just finally started building it after they decided to figure it out how to pay for it in 1926. Yeah, so 1926 was the year they started building the bridge and it was finished in 1929, actually got done just a couple months after William Brownham has come back to Jeffersonville.

Right. And, maybe you can talk about what you was doing, John, when you started digging into this because, you know, this is one of the early things that people leaving the message had started to discover and point out was that the story about the man falling off the bridge that William Brownham told us he had prophesied and foretold that it never happened.

This was one of the early big things that was found and I know myself, you and others have done lots of digging and research and maybe you can talk about a little bit about the research that you did specifically.

Yeah, so for the people who weren't raised in the message who are curious to learn more about William Brownham and, you know, the ministry that other ministries today are built on top of his, you know, his stage personas, you need to understand that this is very, very critical to the message.

This is a big deal. This is, many of William Brownham's prophecies are either vague or in the future and there's no way to prove or disprove some of them. A lot of them he makes after the fact and there's no way it's literally his word against, you know, everybody else.

Did he really have the prophecy we don't know? He says he did. But this is one that is clearly provable to be false. So for the cult of William Brownham, the cult, the cult of personality of the message, this is a significant deal for cult leaders who are trying to promote this ministry because it's definitely provable false.

Yeah, and this is, William Brownham had this belief that you were born a prophet. Right. Right. So he believed in he he wanted to cultivate this persona that he was born a cult, a prophet from birth. Right. And and this vision about this bridge is one of the two key things that he uses to prove that he was a prophet from birth. Yes. The first thing he does to prove he's a prophet from birth, we talked about in our think our second episode, he says that when he was living in Kentucky, a point in time, which he was 18 months old,

he had a vision that he was going to move to New Albany. So this was his first proof, but he was a he was a baby. You know, he probably couldn't even understand English, let alone hear someone tell him he's moving to New Albany. Right. So so that's probably bogus.

And then we come to the second thing that he's using to prove he's a prophet from birth. He has this vision of the bridge being built in 16 man. He prophesized 16 men are going to fall off this bridge and dies. He claims to be what seven or eight roughly years old when this happens. And so this is the second big proof that he's a child from birth. But just like the first one, this one turns out it's it's there's no question. This is a fake prophecy. This is a fake vision. It never happened. Yeah. So I'm going to tell a story. I don't think I've ever told it in public like this

before, but this will this will give you a key as to how significant this is and how how the cult would like to suppress this information. When when news broke about this, there was a couple who were in the message they had been born and raised in the message. And you know, there was some information about William Branham, his prophecies and you know, the questions are being raised. But this couple were devout followers of William Branham. And they wanted to prove all of these critical people faults. So they wanted to say, let's find a vision,

let's just pick one and let's prove it to be true. And we'll create a website and everybody can go to it. And they'll see that William Branham is the one true prophet. And the reason they chose this one is because this one has significant history. It was one of the public works projects, the Coast Guard, United States Coast Guard were involved. And when it's that significance of a government project, everything has to be documented. Every single thing. I mean, right down to the going to buy loaves of bread for sandwiches has to be documented. Right. And the number of bolts

that was riveted into the side, right? Yeah. It's unbelievable. So they they went on, I can't even imagine how much time that they spent. But they went on this journey to dig up all these archives.

They went to I think two different historical libraries, one in Atlanta, one in Indianapolis. They say they spent at least a couple of years, just dig, dig, dig, dig. A lot of research, right? So they suddenly became aware that William Branham's claim cannot be true, not at all. And for listeners who aren't aware of what the actual prophecy was, which we'll discuss the details further on in the show, but William Brandham claims that as a child, he's standing on a hill next to this rich millionaire Otto Wathen, who his father reign his whiskey for, for the Chicago mom, et cetera, that we discussed last episode. He's

standing on this hill and he sees a vision of this bridge and he sees in the vision this sign that says 22. And he says 22 years from that vision, 16 men fell to their death because in the vision 16 men died. And so this couple went to try to prove this. Let's find the 16 men because there is no record of 16 men that anybody can find, right? The cult headquarters and cult leaders have tried to tell the local cult members that all the records were destroyed in the 1937 flood.

Right. That's a common excuse. The funny part is I believed this. So when I began my research, I actually did not even go to the archives because why would I? They're all destroyed. This couple came here and they met with me and they said, John, you're not going to believe this.

Every single newspaper article, every single government document, you can find it all. It's either in the courthouse, the libraries or the state archives. They said even the newspapers, they apparently picked all the boxes up and put them up in attics of buildings. So the newspapers were spared. Plus there are original copies that were sent to other state archives. So they literally have everything. And as bad as the flood was, John, it was a terrible flood. It only extended about, you know, maybe five miles in land at its worst point in the universities and the places where all these archives were housed were out of the reach of the flood. So not only

did William Brannum lie to us about this event that he foretold, you know, the leaders in the cult lie to us also about the destruction that happened in the 37 flood in order to try and keep us from discovering the truth. And the question is, why would they do it?

Why, right? And unless, you know, if I was, if I was, if I really thought that this was true, and I knew an archive exists, I would point people to it. I say, go look for yourself. This is truth. But these men are not doing this. They're saying, no, it doesn't exist. Don't go look in this archive. But all of the, all of the records exist, John, you're spot on the state of Indiana, the state library keeps a record of every single newspaper in the state. All the way back to the day, the state was founded, John. Right. They're all there. There's not a single missing one. All

of the records for the construction of the bridge still exist, you know, everything is there. All of the reports from the Coast Guard station and so forth that was around the bridge. Every single report is still there. There's not a shred of documentation about the construction of this bridge that is missing. And if you get it and you look at it, you know, you and I have done similar things to what the barones did, right? I mean, we, we start hearing all these things about the message is fake and William Brown have made all this stuff up. Well, I mean, when

I heard it, I mean, I didn't believe it. I never, I couldn't believe it could possibly be true. And so I figure, well, brother, Brown told us the truth. If we go look at these records, just the same as these other people did, we're going to find it, right? And when I look at the barones research, at first, I'm like, well, they must have missed something. Obviously. And so they were very nice enough, too, to scan everything, to document everything and tell where they found all the stuff. And a lot of the same research that they did, I repeated you repeated and

other people we know have all repeated it, thinking the same thing this can't possibly be true. I mean, this is how we know brother Brown was a prophet from birth is the story. But our research comes to the same point. He made it up. Yeah. Here's the crazy part. After they published this research, this was a big deal. Because now they not only did they publish the research, they publish the tools so that people could come to Jeffersonville and research for themselves. Yeah.

Literally the unraveling of this cult. So to stop this voice of God recordings, the cult headquarters, produce this video of a former mayor son who's also an attorney and not a message believer who basically gets in the video and says, yes, I remember this story when I was a kid. I overheard, which is hearsay, I overheard that two men fell into the concrete and of the pillars that held up the bridge and they died. So William Brannum's prophecy of 16 men was true because two men died.

That was their response to this. So I have friends who have left the message who are in various different businesses and careers, one of them as a structural engineer. And so I shared this video with them and I said, look, this is actually working because people are not coming. They're listening to this video instead. And he said, John, if even one body were in this, when the body decomposes, it creates a void in the structure and the entire bridge would collapse. You're right, John. And we also, we have too. I didn't send you a shot of this, but we

even have pictures of, we have the copies of the concrete pouring record. from the bridge, right, for the piers, with the amount of concrete that went into them, how long they said and everything, and nobody fell into these piers.

There are no bodies in those piers, and it's completely, that's a made up story, too. Here's the shocker. So he had me go pull the architectural drawings, and you can actually find them on my website if you search bridge architectural drawings.

So I go down to the library, and I've got with me my laptop, my hard drives, my equipment, basically everything that I do to run the historical research, and I find the couple told me where the architectural drawings were kept, so I went and I got them, and I set my bag down literally right beside the copy machine, and I started copying, and then I turned to grab another page, turned back, and when I turned back, my bag, my laptop, my hard drives, all of it stolen.

This is, again, immediately right after all of this video came out, et cetera, we scoured the entire library, shelf by shelf, myself and the security, could not find it, and I left the building, I was really upset because I just lost everything, right?

I left the building, I go to another place that I had to go after there, and I get a phone call from the library and they said, John, you're not going to believe this, somebody just returned everything, and I'm driving back thinking, what in the world, what thief steals everything, especially the things that I had in this bag, and then gives it all back.

That's not your normal thief, right? No. So I get back, and sure enough, my laptop's there, I start going through the bag, I knew exactly what was in this bag, I had cables, wires, tools, wire cutters, so I laid every thing out on the table, and sure enough, every single thing was there except for one hard drive that had some of my archive information that was soon to be published on William Branham Historical Research, including these drawings, which I later went and got again anyway, but things like that, I can't say that the cult did this, but this is a pretty

strong coincidence, if you know what I mean. There's definitely a pattern here, there's certain, you go to the library and the archives are on the page that have Branham's name on it, the pages have been ripped out of the book.

I saw that too, they're torn out, right? They go to the libraries, they tear out any reference to Branham out of the book, they do everything they can to prevent anybody from looking into this stuff, and they have to do that because they know that what's in the books does not match the truth of what really happened.

I was just, just what two months ago, I was in the Jeffersonville Clark County Courthouse, actually gone into the courthouse archives and ripped out pages where it's showing that William Branham and his brothers were, you know, William Branham performed re-marriages of his divorce brothers, which is against his own doctrine. And some other details that were very critical to William Branham, they actually ripped out the Branham pages, which is a felony. I mean, we're talking in the courthouse they did this. It's a big deal. But anyway, so the strangers, yeah, let's get back to the vision, the strange story beside.

I just, I wanted to share that because that is how significant this information is to this cult. It's critical to them. This is critical proof that William Branham was born a prophet. And I would say it is the key proof that he was born a prophet that he offered to us. And so when we find out that this is completely made up, it undermines all evidence that he was born a prophet. So at any rate, as we get talking about it, you know, there's three or four key points that William Branham makes every single time he

tells this vision. One, 16 men fell off of the bridge and died drowned in the river, specifically drowned in the river. It happened 22 years to the day, more or less, after he saw this vision, because he saw the sign 22. And he was also standing at a spot. And he said he saw, he saw where the bridge went up, you know, from his vision. And he would even say in that same spot. And so as we, we maybe think on those three things, number one thing, he was at Mr. Wathen's house, right, when he had his vision, John. And he, his father and

mother at that time were living in a house, more or less than Mr. Wathen's backyard, right, working for him. And he, he says he's out playing marbles a lot of times in that story.

He's playing marbles with his brother out. And, and just like the quote I read at the beginning, he says right here at Mr. Wathen's house on Utica Pike, like he even tells, you know, right where he's at when this stuff happens. Well, John, I know where Mr. Wathen's house is. I've been there not very long ago. And I don't think you can see, I don't think you can see the municipal bridge for Mr. Wathen's property there. Like I don't, there's no line of sight. I don't believe it's, it's around the bend of the river. What do you

think about that? I have a boat on the river. So I take that, um, that curve in the river frequently. You can see it from in the middle of the river. But I don't think you can see it off to, you know, the side where he was at. Um, however, you know, in all fairness, he says, I could see the bridge as a kid. I think he's referring to like a vision, right? I, I saw this thing in my head, you know, I saw this vision of this bridge coming across. So I don't, I don't

know if he's meant to live. early seeing the bridge. That's true. See, I've always taken it that he meant he was looking literally at the river and he saw the exact spot where the where where the bridge came up and got built. Let me just read one one quote kind of along that line, which has always given me that opinion. And this is the quote from the copy of his life story that I heard that I have on tape back here behind me that I heard so much growing up, right? You've got your coon grease your coon grease

tape. This is the tape I grew up listening to. And he says here, I'm just going to read from it, says, and about four days after that, it appeared to me in a strange feeling come upon me as it always does. And I seen the municipal bridge at Jeffersonville cross come up out of the wilderness on the hill where I was standing and cross the river. And I seen 16 men fall off it. They put them down and 22 years from that day, the municipal bridge spanned the river at the same place and 16 men lost their life on it. And oh, wow. And in lots of the tellings I've heard, he says the

exact same place he was is where that bridge went across the river. So he was literally talking about a place that his eyes could see. There's no I've been there. There's no way you can see it's four miles and the river curves right there. You can't see the bridge. Exactly. The bridge was not built there. The bridge is miles from that point. And that's yeah, that to me is that's that's the first thing that's hard for me to understand looking back now. I realized that where he was is not where the bridge was built at all. Wow. I wonder if that's why some people were asking about the tours. The

cult has this, you know, this brochure and they've given tours for years of key places to William Branham's history. And oddly enough, Watham's house is not on it. I wonder if that's why they left it off because you know that see the bridge. That's true. That's true. That's entirely possible.

The other, the another key detail before we get to the 16 men that didn't die is that he said that, you know, 22 years, 22 years, 22 years from the time he had the vision, this all happened, right? So one, he sets the parameters, right? He does give us a date range to look at for this to be fulfilled. But the problem is the bridge was finished in October of 1929. That was when it was done. It was started in 1926, the outbuildings and stuff. So, you know, roughly a four-year construction period, a little over three-year construction period. And the problem is 22 years

before October 1929, William Branham wasn't even born yet. I know. Right? That's a problem, John. I remember how shocked I was when I did that math. You knew what's even more shocking. People are so under this mind control, this group thing.

that they'll take one, if they can make any little detail seem vaguely possible, not even true, but just possible. They'll run with that detail and forget that he said, if one single detail of my vision's fail, you can hang a sign on my back.

This is a false profit, right? A false profit, right? But the thing is, like this vision, I mean, every key detail is made of every key detail, right? So 22 years before 19, or 1929, William Brown was not even born, according to his official life story, right?

This is one of those things, though, that feeds into this. He gave us four different birthdays, right? But no matter which one of them we take, he could have, even if you take his earliest birthday, he had the same thing be a baby, like less than a year old when he had this vision, if the most earliest possible birthday he gave, he would be under a year old.

Most likely, based on the census records and everything we can look at, he was not even born yet when he's 22 years before the bridge happened. So there's that, right? So there's that. I went to, you can actually, if you visit Jeffersonville at the foot of the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge, there's the bridge authority, and they don't have all the records, but they have people there who are the historians of the bridge, and I went in and spoke with one of them, and I asked them, you know, I said, I didn't go deeply into what I was doing,

but I said, my grandfather was the pastor at Branham's Tabernacle, and I was curious to know how many people died on the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge, and he kind of chuckled. So he's apparently been asked this a few times, and he says, this was one of the safest bridge buildings at that time in the nation.

And he said, in fact, if you look at the structure, and I never really thought of this, the way in which it's built, they used to build bridges in sections, and each section could fall and collapse, but this one was built differently, the way in which they built it was so safe that that is basically the strategy that they use for several decades after this bridge.

Yeah, it was a pioneer in this new concept of bridge construction, which proved to be much safer, much better manner of construction than all the bridges prior. The bridges lasted longer, too. Yeah, the bridges lasted longer.

Yeah, it's a great bridge today. I mean, we still drive across it on a regular basis. Right. So what I was hoping maybe to do was kind of just walk through some of the research that the Barones did.

Their website searchingforvindication.com. It's a great resource for anyone to check that out when it comes to the bridge. Just kind of walk through some of the, the manner which they researched, they did a really great job in presenting it.

And so essentially the bridge construction had started in 26. linked some of the outbuildings, but really going across the river, that span, they started that in 1927. So, and then it was finished in October 1929.

And overlying that with William Brownham's life story, 26, he was still here. 27, he leaves the state 29, when it's finished, he comes back. And Roy Davis is back at about that time, that's when he migrated to Louisville.

Exactly. And it really was a huge deal when it was built, John. You talked about it being a new concept and stuff for the manner that they constructed it. Well, it was such a big thing when it was built.

President Hoover came from Washington DC to dedicate the bridge, right? I read that. It was, this was a really big thing when this bridge was built. Because back then, there was not a lot of bridges on these rivers like this.

Like so, this is the widest point of the Ohio River. This is a huge engineering feat of the time when they use this bridge. They, I've got the copy on the website, but they dedicated almost the entire courier journal newspaper to the bridge, his and bridge history of building.

Right. And it was covered in all of the regional newspapers. And, you know, we have access to all the newspapers like we talked about for all of the records, everything from this period of time.

And during that period of time, there were two men who did die while the bridge was being built. And I want to just share the details of those two men who did die, right?

Because that's actually part of the key to helping us see that 16 men never fell off the bridge and drowned. And the first one that died, died in June 19th, 1929. And I'm just going to show the picture of it here, John, and you might be able to get a better one for the people.

But on June 29th, 1929, they ran in the newspapers that someone had died on the bridge. And what happened in this case is the man was crushed by a crane on the bridge. He didn't fall off the bridge and died, right?

It was an equipment accident on the bridge. And it says here very clearly in the article, John, the title, first life loss, right? And this is from June 19th, right? So we're in the last four months of bridge construction here.

Yeah. That confirms to us no one died in year one, two, and all the way up into the middle of year three of bridge construction. Yeah. And there's two main points I want to make about that article.

The first one is the, again, William Brandham said, if one single detail is off, hang a sign on my back that says false profit, right? His vision wasn't that they would just die. His vision was that they would specifically drown.

They would fall into the river and drown. So whenever Colt headquarters published this video of them falling into the case on, not into the river, there's so much aware that this vision failed, that they were willing to publish a, a statement by this former mayor's son that it happened differently than William Brannum said, so that's the first point I want to make. The second point is that to counter this massive huge problem that they had because this information is getting out, the claim that was made, and this was somewhat successful in strategy two, they started saying, well, newspapers back then didn't

report everything and especially something like this whenever they were wanting to build the bridge, they didn't want the critical information like this to get out or the public would just go nuts. So there were things withheld from the newspapers. You know as well as I do that there was no Facebook, there was no Twitter back then if you and your wife went over to somebody else's house for dinner, there's a strong possibility, it's going to be in the paper, that's the way it was back then. Exactly, that was social media. Yeah, that was social media everybody read, you know,

and you you would actually there were these little kids going around trying to figure out what people are doing so they could publish it in the news, right? So the fact that they published this and then specifically wrote first meant that they were not only detailing, you know, every man who died, they were very open about who died, they were not covering anything up.

Exactly and so this first case did not die like William Brown have said he did not fall off the bridge and drown in the river. He was crushed by a basically the the end of a crane piece wax him a crank wax him crushes him fractured his skull and that's what killed him. So and again, June 19th 1929, it's very clear it says this was the first death on the bridge and interestingly here it tells that the Coast Guard comes out and is involved in helping to, you know, take this man and you know, find out that he has passed away and see medical care and stuff for. So the second

one happens on September 11th 1929 and I'll hold this one up too John you might be able to get a better picture for the people as well but here's the second one that that has passed away and the same thing he has not fallen off the bridge and drowned in the river. He falls off the bridge and lands on some equipment on a lower level below the bridge that that's that's down there working on the construction piece and he breaks his back when he lands on the equipment that's being used to construct the bridge. So same thing he he passes away the the Coast Guard is there involved

helping to check the man make sure he's you know see if he's okay but actually he's passed away and this happens September 11th so we are less than we were less than 60 days from the completion of the bridge at this point the bridge is done in October and this article tells us very plainly this was the second man to die. And these are the only two people that actually died during the construction of the bridge. And neither of them fell into the water, neither of them drowned. Right.

It's just, it, and what, so what William Brown, I'm told us was, was falls, right? He told us over and over again that he saw them fall into the river. He saw them drown in that 22 years from that date, it happened just the way that he said it that there was a terrible accident on the bridge and 16 men fell off the bridge and drowned in the river that day. It was such a different world.

I don't know if you're, I will mention this often. I always go back to it as my example, but the snake whale salesman in the Bonanza show or these western shows, the guy who goes from town to town saying, hey, in this other town, I did X, Y and Z, just go ask them. And, you know, usually they give details that can't be proven. But in William Branham's era, he was one of many who were doing this kind of thing. Go and say that, you know, I could heal, I had visions, etc. Just go ask them, right? And if they were, if the people were to go ask, was a bridge built? This was the

perfect opportunity for a quote unquote, just go ask them strategy. Yes, a bridge was built, right? And if the people were to go ask, did 16 men die? Well, there would actually have been some locals who would agree to this because I found this article and I will, I will put a better picture of it up, but you can see it here this evening Gazette. There is an article that says basically 16 men drowned like rats. And this was a, this was a common disgust event that happened in Jefferson Villain Louisville, Kentucky, but not for the bridge that was the target of the vision. This was for

a bridge that came years before William Branham's was even born, right? This was a tragic event. Exactly, John. That, that bridge was built before William Branham was born. And let me just read a quote, one more quote, real quick from Brother Branham. Again, I've read this one before, but he says, I seen 16 men fall off the bridge, the municipal bridge. They put that down in 22 years from that day, the municipal bridge spanned the river and at the same place, 16 men lost their life on that bridge. He told us over and over that that happened verbatim, but as we've looked at here,

it definitely did not happen, but it did happen on a bridge before William Branham was born, right? And, and here's the thing, John, they converted that bridge where this did happen in the 1800s, you know, before William Branham was born into a walking bridge, not too long ago in recent past, right? And you know, up on that bridge, John, they put a memorial up there to the men who died. And you can walk across that bridge, you can read the plaques to the memorial to those men who died on that bridge. And it seems like William Branham just pretended

like he had the vision of the men that died on that bridge and he just transferred it over to the other bridge. Right. And you know, claim that he saw the 16 men falling to their death, but really he was just stealing the story from the other bridge and pretending that he had prophesied it. When in reality, that happened before he was ever born. Yeah.

It's incredible. There's also this weird thing that I fully don't understand. For me, a lie is a lie, no matter how you tell it. If it's not, it's either true or it's false. It can't be in between. There are some people that even people that I know who are okay with bending the truth a little bit as long as it will make somebody believe in God or, you know, some some faith thing. They learned that from their prophet. Exactly. Well, think of this. He's with a group of men who could have easily gone and verified some of these

claims. And if you were to ask them, did 16 men die on a bridge in Jeffersonville? There are actually some people that knowing that William Branham was making this claim about this bridge that it did not happen, they could in their minds feel okay with saying, yes, William Branham is right. 16 people died. Knowing that it didn't happen on this bridge. It happened on this other bridge before it was born, but they try to feel good about themselves by bending the truth. And I found this Gnostic group. I don't know if you've studied Gnosticism, but there

was this one Gnostic group that basically thought it was okay for, quote, lies for the sake of a holy end. And I've strongly feel like this is one of those cases. This is their lies for the sake of a holy end. And you know, the thing is the Bible tells us, John, let me get in my, put on my preacher hat for a second. You know, the Bible tells us the Apostle Paul says that if a lie abounds to God's glory, then God is unjust, right? And it says that shall we be judge centers if

God uses lies to his prophet, right? You cannot use. I mean, it's explicit what Paul is saying. You cannot use a lie to advance the gospel. And in fact, if you have, you have, you have turned God into a liar. And it just can't be done, right? When you, when you go down that path using evil to bring good, you're, which is exactly what you're doing when you're using a lie to try and advance a cause, you've, you've departed really from the true Christian faith, which is sadly what, what some of them have done. Well, for me, it the way I explain it to people,

If God is all-knowing, God knows all of this that we're talking about. God knows which bridge it happened on. God knows that sixteen men did die in the other bridge, even though they did not fall into the waters, when we in Brannum claimed. If you're claiming to have a vision by God and God is the all-knowing, it would be like this newspaper article I have that says sixteen men drown like rats. So if God is holding this paper and he's reading it to you, you have the exact verbiage. If you are claiming that you are having a vision

by God and you get it incorrect, it can't be God that gave you this vision. And if you're doing this kind of thing, you're a person who is pretending to be a prophet and pretending for some unknown cause and that cause is what we're trying to get to with this podcast.

Right. And I know I keep saying it. Sixteen men did not fall off this bridge and drown. Not a single man fell off this bridge and drown when it was built. And you know, there's other leads, right? So, you know, one thing we might say is well, William Brannum said 22 years from the time he had the vision. So maybe since he wasn't born yet, maybe he wasn't talking about when the bridge was built. Maybe he's talking about another point in time, right? And so the same thing we can pull all the records and the barones did this. I mean, they did

this exhaustively, John. I mentioned that the Coast Guard was involved in both of those two, the first of those two accidents on the bridge during the construction. And the Coast Guard came and was involved in both of them and in recovering the, you know, the bodies and taking them off to the board. And there actually is that Coast Guard station where that happened is there to the present day. And I'm going to show a quick one more picture here, John, and you again, can get a better one. This is a sample of the Coast Guard's logs that

they kept down here. And there is a log for every single day beginning to end for years and years and years and years until the until the day came that they invented computers and they start putting them on paper. And they're all still there. And you can go pull them all up and look at them. And they went and you and I can go, anybody can go down to this place and look at this log book. And I hope the cult, maybe we should call and warn them. So the cult is going to probably go rip all the pages out of this now, John. But maybe we should go

all more in the Coast Guard. But they fortunately, we already have copies of every single page out of the book. So, right. But we should and we should qualify that we don't know that it's the cult. But this is a very strange coincidence. Yes. Yes, you know, who knows somehow they all the pages disappear whenever they get talked about. So you can go through every single page for years and years on in this ever happened. Right. Sixteen men never fell off this bridge and drown ever in the whole history of this bridge. Sixteen men never fell off it and drown. In fact, John, I do not believe to

the best of my knowledge that a single person has ever fallen off of this bridge and drown to this day, ever. Right. I do not believe it's happened. Nothing I have seen has indicated a single person ever has fallen. Even the people that jumped off the bridge to try and commit suicide, I'll survive. Because the Coast Guard is literally right next to the bridge and they come out and they pop out of the water, right? And the fall is not so big that you can't break any bones. It's not a big enough fall to actually kill you. And the Coast Guard's right literally

right there with a boat. They're just going to sweep out and pick you up and you're fine. No one has ever fallen off this bridge and drown ever into the best of my knowledge. And yeah, I haven't found any records of anybody drowning from it. Right. So there is no case whatsoever that that that that this has happened. And in fact, there's a bridge. Here's another article, John, and this is one last one which you might I'll show and you might get a better one. This is an article from 1937 after the floods done happen. And this article tells that this is the first person

that's died on the bridge since it was built, right? And so we just and if this was a traffic accident when that happened. So again, 22 years. Yeah. You have to think 22 year, which is impossible anyway, but even if you try to reconcile that in your mind, it can't work. Exactly. So beyond a shadow of a doubt, this never happened. Yet William Brannum A told us it happened over and over again, which makes him dishonest, right? Be clainty had a vision from God about it, which C makes him a B makes him a false prophet, honestly, because it never happened, right? So you have a prophecy that never happened

and you have him falsely telling us it happened for decades on end, right? So you know, what do you do with that? What do you do with that when you're in the message? And and the difficult thing is this is the pattern as you get going through his life. And this bridge is really an excellent place for anybody that wants to start investigating William Brannum to look. This is a very easy thing to research. It's very easy to get the record. It's very easy to look at. It's a great place to start.

But this pattern that you see with the bridge repeats over and over and over through his life. Every single thing that we can look into and pull out the evidence, he's made up this stuff over and over and just presents it to us as truth. But it wasn't. And watch the cult's response, not just with the Brannum cult, but if you're trapped in any cult that, you know, William Brannum's cult splintered into, I don't know how many hundreds of different cults. If you're in any one of these and you find something critical, don't put it on the shelf and

think about it later, critically examine it. Because if this is a man who is bringing truth, then if you examine it, it will further prove his truth. And just watch the cult response. I'm reminded of whenever we learned that William Brannum wasn't under this cloud formation that has became a cult icon, the cult's response was, well, he went to another dimension.

And just watch the cult's response for this podcast. Maybe he went into another dimension, and in that dimension, 16 people drowned. Well, it's good for sci-fi, but it's not really good to prove a profit.

Exactly, right? And one good thing about less looking at this bridge vision early on in the series is it gives our listeners a really clear window into the depth and the degree to which William Brannum misled his audiences, right?

Because if you go back on tape and listen to him tell the story, he told the story dozens of times. He tells it with such a passion. He never skipped a beat. There's not even a hint in his voice that he's just making this thing up, right?

And when you listen to that, him telling this with such passion, so convincing, right? And then you realize, wait, this was a total fraud, it never happened, right? Right. It makes it very hard to have any confidence in anything he says, because it sets up this realization.

By the time you get about to the 10th or 12th time, you realize that he's done this, because there is story after story after story, after story that he's done this exact same thing, totally made it up, told it with such passion.

Even sometimes he throws in some, thus say at the Lord's that it happened, right? Right. You realize I can't even trust a word coming out of this man's mouth, right? And that's where you end up with.

And by the time we get done, John, if our listeners keep listening, they're going to hear all of these cases and all of these examples, and they'll have probably, hopefully, have the same questions we did come to some of the same conclusions that we did.

Well, take it to a broader scale. It's not just that we're studying William Brannum. William Brannum strongly influenced American Christianity into some extent global Christianity. There were hundreds of evangelists that were under this umbrella of this, well, you know, it was the latter-rain message, and then it became just, quote unquote, the message, and it sprung out into all these other groups.

Well, many of these men were in on the same schemes, and many of them basically used William Brannum as the prototype to create their own schemes. So if you look at William Brannum as the prototype for all of these ministries, William Brannum, who copied John Alexander Dowey as his prototype, we're going to show over the course of the series of this podcast, a pattern that begins to emerge with all of these ministers.

Right, right. And one thing you get there, John, is they'll back each other up a lot of times, too. Right. Even though they have maybe no idea what they have- person is talking about or maybe even they do know what it is and it's it's fake they'll still kind of go on records supporting them like yeah that's right that's true because how many people did William Brennan would point to and say you're a witness you know this happen you're a witness you know that happen but the thing is like I know those witnesses like I know those people that he talked to and I know that they don't they don't they would

you know privately tell me no that never happened you know and he would just point to them out as a witness and they never was but when they're put on the spot they'll they pretended and went along with what brother Branham would say and so when I I think back here in this area John a lot of people here in Jeffersonville especially in Jefferson so I grew up in in this area John I'm from the I'm probably from we might my church might have possibly been closer to the bridge in the brand of tabernacle I'd have to get out a ruler on a map and see but I was if not the

closest the second closest church to the actual location where these things happened right we had hundreds of people in our church and dozens of them lived in Jeffersonville in the 20s when these things happened and a whole bunch of them John I'm going to tell you when I started looking as they knew William Brennan made this up they admitted to me privately he made this up yet from the platform the same people will get up there and say that these things actually happened and were true when they know they know it's not true and and John you you maybe can speak to this from your own

perspective but from mine I know the highest ranking people in the message in this area all know that this is made up every single one of them and we've heard stories I've heard them tell some of them tell me firsthand and I've heard second hand from members of William Brennan's family that these things they know these are made up right yet they'll get up and they'll say that we're we're the devil right right because we tell the truth but they're the ones that go along with keeping up this facade of lies it's incredible my grandfather the pastor the brand of tabernacle

said people have known these things for years John what does it hurt for you to believe them anyway and if you dissect that people have known these things are not true for years what does it hurt for you to pretend to believe this in other words keep the public face John I could not keep a public face this is this is either true or it's false exactly and and you know we have to know that William Brennan knew this story was false right there's also the the argument could be made well William Brennan was out of town this time and he just got it you know he didn't realize

he was wrong and he thought he was right but but William Brennan came back to town in the summer of 1929 the bridge finished in October the deaths the two people who did die happened after William Brennan was back in town right And and we see the newspapers clearly tell how they died and that they were the only ones that died and so William Brannum knew Just as the other people here in Jeffersonville knew that 16 men never fell off this bridge and drown He knew that all of the years that he was telling people it happened. He knew it, right?

So and that's breathtaking. It's breathtaking when you actually realize he knew Yeah, and he was saying these things wrong on purpose. Yeah, I mean he he was out of town So it makes sense that he would get his story not straight because if he wasn't here to watch it happen Then you know, he could only rely on hearsay of what other people said He might have actually heard somebody say that 16 men drowned just like the newspaper said Because I'm sure this was the one that I have is the evening Gazette from Sterling, Illinois So this story apparently hit the associated press that 16 men drowned back in this is what 1890

Yeah, I've I've to pull up the data. It's hard for me to read that paper, but Yeah, so he he got a story incorrect, but where this sets us up for the next episode picture this so now we have multiple bridges going from Jeffersonville into Louisville Kentucky and Kentucky at that time was pretty large. You had the you know the Kentucky Kentucky Derby you had the distilleries you had a really booming city and So this bridge opens now automobiles can cross before this it was only train and Roy Davis comes and sets up camp and that's where things really start to get interesting

That's right because 1929 when William Brownham's come back to Jeffersonville Contrary to what his life story tells us he was already working with Roy Davis. He was already Doing whatever they were doing together, you know, they were we know for sure they were Revivals together just exactly what brother Brownham's role in those revivals is not perfectly clear But he was at those revivals with Roy Davis before 1929 and And They come back there and land in Jeffersonville and they start opening a church and attracting a congregation Which will eventually transform into what we call today the Brannum Tabernacle

I found recently after we learned that William Brownham's ministry was in you know 1929 he was with the Imperial Supreme religious chaplain of the clan and Roy Davis There's a statement he makes which is worth looking up And he's he's talking about he's appealing to the poison drinking snake handling sect and he says basically Roy Davis Praise God drink drink strict nine or or acid drink drink poison basically and Praise God all these people were saved and he says We, not Roy Davis, but we got the notary public statements on this, which meant not only

was he involved. He was coordinating and cooperating and working with Davis. Yeah. Producing documentation. Exactly. Although nobody's seen this documentation, right? Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure it probably didn't exist. Right. Yeah. So this is going to be exciting.

We're going to get back into this. And I'm now I'm getting really antsy because we're getting to the fun stuff. And this, as we go, I think people are going to be pretty excited.

If you enjoyed the show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org and Christian-GospelChurch.org. And for an overview of the historical research of William Brannum and the Healing Revivals, read preacher behind the white hoods at critical examination of William Brannum and his message, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

We have an exciting episode next week. Join us again for more.