Question

Does anyone know if the UK based post card photographer H. A. Randall is Horace A. Randall?

Paton's Larger Hope Church in Almont

This picture has already appeared on other related blogs, and shows John Paton’s Larger Hope Church in his home town of Almont.

Paton was expelled from the Baptists for teaching conditional immortality, and so built an Advent Church in Almont in 1872. As he moved into Universalism (and so parted from CTR) his Church became known as the Larger Hope Church. According to the book “Almont, The Tale of Then and Now” by Hildamae Waltz Bowman page 91 (1985 edition) from where the picture comes, it was founded in 1872 with fifteen members and folded twenty-five years later due to lack of support. By the twentieth century it was no more. Paton’s Buchanan Church featured in a post below lasted just a little longer.

The church subsequently became an extra school building, a rug factory, and then a private home. It still stands to-day in North Bristol Street, Almont. Intrepid net surfers can try and locate it using Google Earth.

Paton's Larger Hope Church in Buchanan

 

Paton’s Larger Hope Church (a former Advent Christian Church building) in his home town of Almont apparently closed before the end of the 19^th century.

Its sister church in Buchanan (pictured above) lasted a little longer. Like the Almont building, it was another former Adventist Church, and Lizzie Allen was pastor there for some time around 1890. There was a direct rail link from Buchanan to Imlay City, about eight miles north of Almont, and this allowed Paton to visit at will. Newspaper records show funerals conducted in Buchanan by John H Paton (sometimes as Elder sometimes as Rev.) for members such as Isaac Marble (1901), Aaron Miller (1904), Clarissa Mead (1905), Mary Miller Mowbray (1907) and Jane Wagner (1907).

The book Greetings from Buchanan (Goodsell and Myers 2005) describes how Paton’s Buchanan Church was ultimately sold off to the Seventh Day Adventists in 1921. It was then sold to the Church of Christ in the 1950s before eventually being torn down to make a parking lot.

We need a good scan or photocopy of this

J. W. Brite

We need to see a clear photocopy of J. W. Brite's Eternity: On the Plan of the Ages. This was published by Paton in 1891. A copy is at Harvard Divinity School Library. Our photocopy fund is at zero. Anyone want to help?