Lake Paw Paw

Paw Paw Lake, Michigan is an unincorporated resort community located northeast of Benton Harbor[1] just off of Lake Michigan, across the lake from Chicago.  At the turn of the century, it was nicknamed "The Playground of Chicago" due to the large number of people from Chicago that visited.[2]  It was also a favorite vacation spot for many people throughout Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, and Indiana.[3]  Paw Paw Lake is also part of some versions of William Branham's fictional life story accounts.[4]

When William Branham spoke about his conversion experience in Roy E. Davis' Pentecostal Baptist Church of God sect and described what he claimed to be his first Pentecostal experience in versions of his stage persona that used a "Baptist minister" back story,[5] Branham described fishing at Paw Paw Lake.   According to Branham, he visited the resort community shortly after his conversion into Davis' Pentecostal sect, which would have also been shortly after marrying his first wife, Hope.

And I remember one day I had saved up my money and I was going to take a little vacation, going up to a place, the Paw Paw Lake, to fish. And on my road back… And during this time…I'm leaving out my conversion. I was converted. And was ordained by Doctor Roy Davis, in the Missionary Baptist church, and had become a minister and have the tabernacle that I now preach in in Jeffersonville.[6]

According to those versions of his stage persona, William Branham left Hope in Jeffersonville[7] while he went fishing at the resort.  Branham claimed that he accidentally stumbled onto the General Pentecostal Assembly as they met to merge the Pentecostal Assemblies of Jesus Christ and the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World.  Though he did not specifically mention the General Assembly, Branham gave the location and the description of the event.  Though William Branham was ordained as a Pentecostal minister in Roy E. Davis' Pentecostal sect and later founded the Billie Branham Pentecostal Tabernacle,[8] Branham claimed that he ignored the "Pentecostal call" which resulted in delaying his "gift of healing"[9] and the deaths of his father, brother, wife, and daughter.[10]

And when I was coming back from the lake, I begin to see, coming into Mishawaka and South Bend, Indiana, and I begin to notice cars that had signs on the back, said, 'Jesus Only.' And I thought, 'That sounds strange, ‘Jesus Only.' And I begin noticing those signs. And it was on anywhere from bicycles, Fords, Cadillacs, and what-more, 'Jesus Only.' And I followed some of them down, and they come to a great big church. And I found out they were Pentecostal. I'd heard of Pentecostal, but they were a bunch of 'holy-rollers that laid on the floor and frothed at their mouth,' and everything that they told me about. So I didn't want nothing to do with it. So I heard them all carrying on in there, and I thought, 'Believe I'll just walk in.' So I stopped my old Ford and walked in, and all the singing you ever heard in your life! And I come to find out there were two great churches, one of them called a P.A. of J.C., and the P.A. of W., many of you people might remember those old organi-…I think they're united, called now, and called the United Pentecostal church. Well, I listened at some of their teachers. And they were standing there, oh, they were teaching about Jesus and how great He was, and how great everything was, and about a 'baptism of the Holy Ghost.' I thought, 'What are they talking about?'[11]

When William Branham visited the General Assembly, however, he was driving a panel truck with advertisements of his "healing revivals".  Witnesses in the meetings held in G. B. Rowe's church in Mishawaka noted Branham's advertisements.  As a Pentecostal minister visiting the General Assembly of Pentecostals in Mishawaka while advertising those "healing revivals", it would appear that Branham's visiting Paw Paw Lake resort community was actually a recreational stop on the way to the General Assembly.  As he was working with Roy E. Davis at the time, Davis apparently had sent Branham to represent the Pentecostal Baptist Church of God sect.

1934. Mishawaka Indiana. September 17-23. General Assembly held at Bishop G. B. Rowe’s church. William Branham reportedly visited this meeting driving a panel truck with advertisements about his ‘healing revivals’.  Later Branham would claim this is where he first saw Pentecostalism. He would also claim he was again water baptized at this time in Paw Paw Lake (near Mishawaka) but no one has ever claimed to be the one who baptized him. Branham was not impressed with the multi-cultural aspects of the PAJC as it was contrary to the dogmas advanced by his friends in the Klu Klux Klan (KKK).  Branham later claimed he did not start his evangelism until 1948.  He said that in 1934 he was a Baptist. He claims to have been baptized in Jesus name but no Jesus name minster ever presented to have baptized Branham.  The only baptism of record for Branham is one apparently by Klansman Alonzo Roy Davis in 1922. It seems that faced with the arrest and conviction of Branham associate Davis for a variety of fraudulent charges that Branham shifted away from the Baptist meetings he and Davis had conducted and turned to wooing the attention of the more gullible Pentecostals. In the 1920’s Branham and Davis were frequent guests of meetings held in Nashville, TN at the Shrine of the Goddess Athena.[12]