History
The Stone's Folly mansion was built by Erastus Stone between 1887 and 1888. The mansion had 18 rooms, three floors and was designed after a medievil castle Mr. Stone admired in Europe but with embelishments of Asiatic origin. The basement was hand dug and 50 ft in length with varying widths. The building appeared larger because of 2 story balcony / porches around the front of the structure with a large tower section that contained the staircase to the basement and the three levels. It had a wood frame with red brick veneer with white cornices.
There was a real estate Boom in the 1870's and 1880's as Topeka was rapidly growing. Erastis Stone had a nursery a short distance to the west and he was providing Trees and shrubs for the new homes being built. He decided to get into the Real Estate side of things himself and bought 30 acres of land between, what is now, Gage Blvd and Stone Ave. After earning about $20,000 for his homestead Mansion, he bought 10 acres on the east side of Stone Ave. He had to sell his dream house in August of 1890 when the economy fell into a depression and the housing market dried up. Craftsmen had finished the first two floors beautifully with the finest imported woods but ran out of money as they were about to move on to the third floor. The house sold to four people over 3 years, but it was forclosed on in 1894 and sold at a tax sale in July of 1895 to the American Sunday School Union of Philadelphia PA for $ 500. The land became known as Stone's Folly, because he built without the funds to finish. Stone died at 81. He and his wife are buried in Chanute KS
(insert picture of Charles Parham) In 1900, Charles Fox Parham a Holiness minister who had run a healing home at 4th and Jackson in Topeka rented the unoccupied mansion from the American Sunday School Union for his Bible school. With family and a small core of friends he began to recruit students, and in mid - October he opened the Bethel Bible College,
One of the first things they did in the building was to make one of the towers a "Prayer Tower" They cut a door into the tower and built a stairway to get to it from the roof. Inside they put a small wood stove for heat and students took 3 hour shifts in the prayer tower for continuous prayer.
Just after Christmas, Parham went for three days of preaching in Kansas City and to bring back some friends to the Watch night meeting. Before he left he told the students to read through the New Testament and see what they thought would be the sign of infillment with the Holy Spirit. When he returned on December 31st, 1900 at about 10 am, he rang the school bell to call the students and find out what they concluded on the question he left them with; "What was the scriptural sign of Baptism in the Holy Spirit?". To his surprise, they all came back with the same answer. "When the Pentecostal Blessing Fell, the indisputable Proof on each occasion was, that they spoke with other tongues"
As the New Years Eve watch service began, the house had about 75 visitors plus the 40 students. Prayer continued all night and into January 1st, 1901. After 24 hours of constant prayer. A student, Agnes Ozman asked Parham to lay on hands and pray for her to receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. As he prayed, a glow surrounded the Ozman and she began to speak in a chinese dialect (This was identifed by linguists who were brought in to prove or disprove the validity) Ozman tried to write what she was experiencing and her writing came out in chinese. Her Tongues continued for three days.
On January 3rd Parham and one of the students went to teach at the Free Methodist Church. When they got back to the school and went in they saw a bright light coming from a room on the second floor, brighter than the oil lamps could provide. They walked up the stairs and toward the bright light. As they were about to go in the room, rthey were told that “Just before they got there tongues of fire came down and rested above the heads of many of the students and guests”.
Parham walked into the room and heard a chorus of voices, ministers from various nearby churches, all singing “Jesus Lover of my Soul” in different languages. After basking in the Holy Spirit Glory for time, Parham asked God for the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and he started speaking in a Swedish tongue which later changed to other languages and contnued until morning.
The school started sending Parham and some of the students to surrounding cities and towns, spreading the word of the New Pentecost, and it must have made it’s way to the American Sunday School Union in Philadelphia who decided to, evict the school and sell the building. The Buyer was a notorious Bootlegger of the time, who poured his Spirits from a bottle, and who turned the house into a Brothel. God would not allow this building that had only heard praise to God and was now hearing the revelry of the world to stand. For unknown causes the the building burned to the ground on December 6, 1901.
In 1902 Thomas Owen and his wife Emily bought the 10 acres of land, complete with the basement full of burned up remnants of the glorius building. He had already bought and inherited some of the adjacent land to the south of it. He cleaned out the fire burned brick, wood and other debris, buried it around the yard and built a modest home for his family on that same basement. In 1905 he completed construction of their modest home. (Insert picture of Owen home here)
Thomas Owen raised his family here. He died in 1937 and his wife sold the property in 1946 the Catholic Diocese for an Orphan Home an a new Catholic parish to be named for The Most Pure Heart of Mary (spouse of the Holy Spirit)