The story of Shiloh Temple
Isadore Haines was born in Fort Fairfield on January 27, 1848, the youngest daughter of Joseph Wingate and Mary Briggs Haines. At the age of 48, she left The County for Durham, Maine, after meeting the charismatic Reverend Frank W. Sandford (1862-1948) at a tent revival.
While we don’t have many records on Isadore herself, we do have a lot of information about the community she joined and subsequently helped build. Isadore, or Izzy, was among the first seventy members of Sanford’s movement, and became a respected elder in the community in the years to come.
Frank Sandford, born in Bowdoinham, Maine in 1862, was the tenth child of a farming family. Described as a natural leader, Sandford’s religious journey began when he reluctantly attended a revival meeting at his mother's Free Will Baptist church. Soon thereafter, he was converted on February 29, 1880. He then received a general scholarship to Bates College, where he was elected class president. Sandford also served as both coach and catcher of the baseball team. He graduated in 1886 with honors. Given his natural leadership skills and knack for public speaking, he was chosen to give the commencement address. Sandford captained a semi-pro baseball team for one summer and was even approached by professional scouts. However, after a teammate ridiculed him for attending church during Maine's Fast Day (a day of public fasting and prayer), he returned to Bates to attend Cobb Divinity School.
Sandford never finished seminary and instead was called to pastor the Free Will Baptist church in Topsham, Maine. Described as energetic and fervent, within three years his revivals resulted in three hundred conversions and more than a hundred baptisms. The pastor also led the Topsham schools and organized sports programs for local children and mill workers.
There's no denying he was a prominent figure in the community. He was a popular preacher, and as his reputation grew, so did interest in his services. In August 1891, after performing an exorcism and claiming to hear the voice of God warning him of "Armageddon," he established a commune called "Shiloh" in Durham, Maine.
After the commune was established, and the population began to rise, the Reverend set his sights on starting a Bible School to spread his specific brand of Christian teachings. Shiloh served as a closed community where adherents could focus on living according to Sandford's strict interpretation of God's will. However, Frank Sanford was a man of God, not means, and the money to make his vision a reality was not something he had on his own, but many of his converts did.
In March 1896, Reverend Sanford's vision started to come to fruition due to a generous donation by a local farmer and convert. Gifted a barren sand hill behind a farm, Sanford and company began Shiloh's expansion. Starting with just six men, and only one experienced builder among them, the Reverend and his followers performed what some would call a miraculous feat. During the summer and fall of 1896, Sandford and his crew constructed a twenty-seven-room structure, including an impressive tower named the "Jerusalem Tower," which rose 7 stories above the ground.
On January 23, 1897, Frank Sanford and his wife, another minister and his wife, and about 34 students, including our own Isadore Haines, moved into Shiloh, The Holy Ghost and Us Bible School. As word spread, more followers joined his movement. As more people came, more buildings sprung up on the hill to support the growing population of “Sandfordites.” Eventually, over 500 families would come and join the community. A quadrangle was formed by these new buildings, with the "Jerusalem Tower" at the head and the shorter “David’s Tower” across the quadrangle. It was 260 feet long, 40 feet wide, and three stories high, said to be the world's largest Bible school building. Other notable structures on the campus included Bethesda, a hospital for faith healing built in 1898, and Olivet, a Children’s Building built in 1903. It was a fully functioning micro-community with tinsmiths, carpenters, blacksmiths, a post office, bakery, print shop, and a school for 200 children.
“The complex looked so impressive that aviator Charles Lindbergh flew over it during his tour of the United States after his famous solo flight to Paris in 1927 and reportedly thought Shiloh was the state Capitol in Augusta” – Lewiston Sun Journal
This rapid growth was mostly made possible by the steady stream of new followers, who eagerly sold their properties and donated all their money to Shiloh. Having left their “worldly connections” behind, converts were "free" to worship, work, and live full-time within the community without distractions from the secular world.
Many men in the community actively farmed and cut wood. For example, potatoes alone occupied 27 acres of land. A livestock census taken in 1906 at Shiloh listed the community's animals: 50 horses and mules, 81 cattle, 81 sheep, 32 goats, and 586 fowl, providing them with 12,000 eggs a year. Despite the abundant resources, nothing was sold; everything was used to support the community. At its peak, Shiloh encompassed 1,470 acres (over two square miles) and accounted for the majority of the town's taxes.
The Reverend was no longer building just a Bible school; he had a round-the-clock prayer center for evangelism, a training center for missionaries who would follow Sanford to the ends of the world to share the Gospel, and a holy home base for those lucky enough to believe and adhere to the Reverend’s strict rules.
Shortly after 1900, while Reverend Sanford and his movement were gaining numbers, they were also raising eyebrows among local authorities. Reports of strict rules and harsh punishments for parishioners were reaching the outside world. Outsiders grew concerned about the power Sandford had over so many people. Claiming to be the Prophet Elijah and believed by his followers, those who didn't risked repercussions or worse, abandonment. Over time, he announced other biblical roles, giving him more leverage to assert his authority over his faithful followers.
According to a Portland Press Herald article, the Durham Historical Society refers to the Shiloh Chapel of the early 1900s as “a home for a secretive apocalyptic Christian cult," which was very “secretive” and “unconventional.”
In the early 1900s, Sandford led several followers on a round-the-world voyage on a racing yacht named Coronet. This trip would prove to be a fatal error for Sanford in more ways than one. In 1911, he was arrested on manslaughter charges. A voyage to Greenland aboard Coronet ended with six of the crew members dying from scurvy, which local authorities in Maine considered preventable. When Sanford returned to Maine, he was arrested. In his absence from Shiloh, Sandford issued directives to his followers from prison.
In 1918, he returned to Shiloh after being released from prison, but Shiloh's glory days were over. In 1920, the Bible School was shut down, and Sandford moved to Hobart, NY to spend the remainder of his days.
The legacy of Shiloh Temple remains a significant chapter in American religious history and communal living experiments. It embodies the complexities of charismatic leadership within religious communities, the challenges of communal solidarity, and the scrutiny of external authorities. Sanford's ambitious vision for Shiloh, characterized by its impressive structures and comprehensive communal life, continues to captivate scholars and historians studying early 20th-century American religious fervor and communal identity.
