Burning Bush

The Burning Bush Colony was a short-lived Methodist settlement on the Smith-Cherokee county line just south of Bullard, near the site of present Bullard High School. The colony was a project of the Society of the Burning Bush, a splinter group of Free Methodists who broke away from the Methodist Church in 1900 and organized the Metropolitan Church Association. The movement, commonly known as the Burning Bush, was headquartered in Waukesha, Wisconsin, just outside Milwaukee. Fervently evangelistic, the movement grew quickly during its first decade. The group was heavily subsidized by two wealthy members, Duke M. Farson, a bond broker from Chicago, and Edwin L. Harvey, a millionaire hotel keeper.

After 1900 the group established communal colonies in Virginia, West Virginia, and Louisiana. In 1912 plans were laid for a colony in Texas. The site chosen was a 1,520-acre farm near Bullard. The land had originally been part of the Joseph Pickens Douglas plantation, and the property included a stately two-story antebellum mansion. In 1907 it was purchased by Charles E. Palmer, who planted pecan, peach, plum trees on the land. Duke Farson, acting on behalf of the church, arranged to acquire the land from Palmer in exchange for a tract of land in Idaho, a small plot near Chicago, and a hotel and brickyard in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Representatives from the church arrived in Bullard in 1912 and set up headquarters in the old Douglas house. The next year 375 members of the church arrived on a chartered train. They were temporarily housed in the mansion and the surrounding grounds, while work began on small clapboard residences and a two large dormitories for single male and female colonists. Work was also started on a large wooden tabernacle, which became the focus of colony life.