Famous Durhamites
While not all these famous Durhamites were born in Durham or lived out their whole lives here, they all once called Durham home.
Stephen King
Durham is peppered with places that reportedly inspired Stephen King’s stories.
His book Salem’s Lot was inspired by Marston’s House and Harmony Hill Cemetery where he and his friends used to hang out. The leech scene in King’s novella The Body (later made into the movie Stand By Me) happened at Runaround Pond.
His aunt and uncle lived just down the road from King’s childhood home. King once discovered a box full of spooky paperbacks in his aunt and uncle’s attic, which he claims helped to inspire him to pursue the horror genre.
1947-
Annie Louise Cary
The famous contralto opera singer was known the world over. She first studied singing in Durham under Colonel Joseph Tyler, the director of the Durham Brass Band. She sang in the Durham Parish Choir. During her time she was deemed the greatest singer in the world
1842- 1921
Col Joseph Tyler & His Brass Band
Charlotte MacLeod
1922-2005
Durham was home to the award-winning queen of the cozy mystery genre. Author Charlotte MacLeod published over 30 novels which sold more than a million copies.
F.W. Sandford
The evangelical cult leader Frank W. Sandford was originally a Baptist minister from Bowdoinham, ME. As his popularity grew, he decided to leave the baptist denomination and start a bible school in Durham, establishing what would eventually become the Kingdom Christian Ministries. He claimed to receive direct messages from god.
On January 23, 1897 Mr. and Mrs. Sandford, another minister and his wife, and about thirty-four students moved into Shiloh, The Holy Ghost and Us Bible School. The Shiloh Temple complex was a large set of buildings that sat on a hilltop on a 4 acre lot. Its massive structure was nearly a quarter-mile around, with the chapel attached to a three-story extension.
Calls began, locally and nation-wide for investigation into Sandford's treatment of his followers, particularly the children with reports of neglect and starvation. Sandford was arrested in 1904 for manslaughter related to the death of a child and then again in 1911 after the death at sea by scurvy of 6 members of his flock during an around-the-world missionary trip aboard a racing yacht.
1862 – 1948
The Shiloh Temple Campus
The Kingdom
The Kingdom was so massive it had its own postal code. Two 40-foot carved wooden gates led to an inner courtyard. The aviator Charles Lindbergh flew over it during his tour of the U.S. and thought Shiloh was Maine’s Capital building.
Sandfordites
Members prayed in two-hour shifts, 24 hours a day, continuously for more than 22 years. Somewhere between 500 and 1,000 people lived at Shiloh Temple.