| 1901 | January 1, 1901. Agnes Ozman, later LaBerge, was the first to speak in tongues at the opening of the 20 century with the understanding that this was the Bible evidence of Spirit baptism. This momentous event took place at Charles F. Parham’s Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas. Parham would pass the teaching on to W.J. Seymour, leader of the famous 1906 Azusa St. Revival in Los Angeles. Parham had met Fire-Baptized adherents and even founder B.H. Irwin before the end of the 19th century. In any event, many historians consider Agnes the first Classical Pentecostal even though she may not have initially thought tongues-speech the exclusive evidence of Spirit baptism.
There is some reason to believe that Agnes had been exposed to Fire-Baptized enthusiasts prior to attending Parham’s school in Topeka. In 1911, Agnes and her husband joined the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church in Oklahoma. Joseph Campbell writes in his Pentecostal Holiness Church that she was “pastor and evangelist”. The Oklahoma Conference minutes places Agnes in Perry, Oklahoma. She was also apparently connected with Harry Lott, well known for re-organizing the FBHC in Oklahoma and opening a Rescue Home in 1908. |
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| 1906 |
January-February. W.J. Seymour attends Parham’s school in Houston, Texas. Due to Jim Crow laws, Seymour can not sit inside the classroom but must listen from the hallway. Seymour met Parham in December, 1905 then started school in January and attended for about six weeks |
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February. Seymour preaches in Holiness Church in Los Angeles |
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March. Prayer meetings commence in Asberry home on Bonnie Brae street led by Seymour | ||
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April. First service held at Azusa St. in former African Methodist Episcopal Church on April 14 led by W.J. Seymour. The congregation was known as the Apostolic Faith Mission but the revival that continued here until 1909 would become known simply as the Azusa St. Revival. |
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Daniel Awrey attended the first national Fire-Baptized Holiness Association conference which met in Anderson, South Carolina in 1898. He was subsequently appointed FBHA Ruling Elder for Tennessee. Awrey had spoken in tongues in 1890 in Ohio, circled the globe in 1909 and participated in a pentecostal world conference in Europe. Awrey first participated in the Azusa St. Revival in 1906 and became known in Los Angeles as an extraordinary Bible teacher. Awrey returned to the states to take charge of the Emmanuel Bible School in Beulah, Oklahoma which produced many members for the Pentecostal Holiness Church named in Joseph Campbell’s Pentecostal Holiness Church (p. 509). In 1910/11, Awrey was in India and China with Frank Bartleman, the famed chronicler of the Azusa St. Revival. Tragically, Awrey died in Liberia from malaria in 1913. |
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September. J.H. King, General Overseer of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church, learned about the Azusa St. Revival while in Canada from a friend, Rev. A.H. Argue who would come to make a substantial contribution to the Assemblies of God. Argue told him about the revival and gave him a copy of Seymour's The Apostolic Faith. King put it aside for later reading. |
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November. G.B. Cashwell is baptized in the Spirit at the Azusa St. Revival. Cashwell is a minister of the [Pentecostal] Holiness Church of North Carolina |
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November or December. An unidentified female at Altamont Bible and Missionary Institute speaks in tongues. N.J. Holmes did not know how to interpret the event at the time. | ||
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December 11, 1906. Glenn Cook brings the Azusa Revival message to Lamont, Oklahoma. Due to B.H. Irwin’s moral failure, the host church may not have still been officially connected to the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church, but the members were certainly followers of distinctive FBH tenets. |
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December 24, 1906. B.H. Irwin, founder of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church who was removed in 1900 for immoral conduct, writes that he was baptized in the Spirit on Christmas Eve, 1906. He was in Salem, Oregon at the time. Our last extant record places him in Oakland, California in 1908. |
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| 1907 |
December 31, 1906 – January, 1907. G.B. Cashwell’s meeting continued for about a month in a rented tobacco warehouse in Dunn, North Carolina. This revival ultimately transformed the Pentecostal Holiness Church and Fire-Baptized Holiness Church into Pentecostal bodies and accounts for Free-Will Baptist Conferences, like Cape Fear, adopting Pentecostal tenets and eventually organizing the Pentecostal Free Will Baptists headquartered in Dunn, North Carolina. There is where PHC minister T.J. McIntosh, the first Pentecostal missionary to China, receives his call to China. Also on hand was J.M. Pike, editor of the Way of Faith who gave much publicity to the Azusa St. Revival and its spread across North America. |
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February 13. Live Coals, edited by J.H. King, came out against the doctrine of initial evidence. King carried a refutation of the teaching by J. Hudson Ballard but also included a report from S.D. Page about people receiving their Pentecost. |
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February 15. J.H. King speaks in tongues in Toccoa, Georgia. Cashwell held a revival at King’s Toccoa church in the month of February. |
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February or March. The Apostolic Evangel appears as successor to Live Coals and shows unmistakable evidence of the Azusa Revival well beyond its new name. |
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March. Pentecostal Revival at West Union, South Carolina. Several students from the Altamont Bible and Mission Institute are baptized in the Holy Spirit in this revival. | ||
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April. N.J. Holmes is baptized in the Spirit in a prayer service. |
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Uncertain date. Pentecostal Revival in Danville, Virginia. | ||
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April 5-18. Pentecostal Revival at Anderson, South Carolina. |
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April 17-18. G.B. Cashwell Revival in Birmingham, Alabama, in the famous congregation that became part of the Pentecostal Holiness Church in 1915. | ||
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April 19. Pentecostal revival starts in Memphis, Tennessee. | ||
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April 20-30. Pentecostal revival in Iva, South Carolina. |
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April 25 – May. Pentecostal revival in Greenville, South Carolina. |
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May 10-30. Another Pentecostal revival is held in a tent erected close to a Holiness church in Lamont, Oklahoma. Glenn Cook was again the primary speaker, but this time he was joined by J.H. King, General Overseer of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church. |
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May 15. A.B. Crumpler, founder of Pentecostal Holiness Church, rejects initial evidence and carries attacks in his Holiness Advocate |
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June. G.F. Taylor preached the Pentecostal message at the Altamont Bible and Missionary Institute. At this point N.J. Holmes’ entire school accepts the Pentecostal message. A female from the church in Birmingham, Alabama church had begun to speak in tongues. It could have been Anna Dean Cole, the legendary Pentecostal Holiness Church missionary to Hong Kong. Holmes would later form the Southern Pentecostal Association after the Azusa message was rejected by McClurkan’s Pentecostal Mission in Nashville. |
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June 13. Camp meeting in Alliance, Ohio was led by Quaker Levi Lupton. J.H. King and G.F. Taylor attended this meeting and King was placed on The Apostolic Faith Association board. |
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October 1. First issue of Bridegroom’s Messenger, edited by G.B. Cashwell. | ||
| 1908 |
January. G.B. Cashwell travels to Cleveland, Tennessee. A.J. Tomlinson, General Overseer of Church of God (Cleveland, TN), speaks in tongues and the Church of God is swept into the Pentecostal Movement. |
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April. The Fire-Baptized Holiness Church officially adopts Pentecostal position while meeting in Anderson, South Carolina. |
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November 26, 1908. The climatic battle occurred at the 1908 Pentecostal Holiness Church convention which met in Dunn, North Carolina on November 26, 1908 in the Holiness Tabernacle. Crumpler who had been unanimously re-elected there, finally brought the matter to a head by walking out of the convention. Only a small portion of the church supported him. Soon he returned to the Methodist Church where his ministerial credentials were restored in 1913 and he served many years as a supply pastor. The convention ended with A.H. Butler as the president and the church totally in the hands of the pentecostal preacher. Cashwell was named Chairman of Committees to examine applications for the ministry and to revise the Discipline. Cashwell's Bridegroom's Messenger was adopted as the official organ of this church until further arrangements. A pentecostal view of Spirit baptism was incorporated into the Articles of Faith in 1908. |
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1909 |
The Pentecostal Holiness Church convention which met in 1901 in Magnolia, North Carolina, decided to change the name of the church. The problem was that previously many of the members wishing to save social embarrassment said simply, "I am a member of the Pentecostal church," rather than including the word holiness. The official deletion of the word Pentecostal—opposed by Crumpler—was to insure that people were more straightforward about their commitment to holiness.
In 1909 the word pentecostal was restored after embracing Pentecostalism. |
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Dates unknown K.E.M. Spooner attended the Azusa St. Revival and became one of the Pentecostal Holiness Church’s most effective missionaries in Africa. Dr. A.G. Canada, the first superintendent for the PHC of the Western North Carolina Conference attends the Azusa St. Revival and comes out against the initial evidence doctrine. Dr. Canada becomes a well known radio preacher in Oakland, California S.D. Page and F.M. Britton visit the Azusa St. Mission. (See photo) |
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| 2001 |
May. Dr. Vinson Synan and Dr. Harold D. Hunter plant ceremonial tree at site of original Azusa St. Mission during the 2001 Pentecostal World Conference in Los Angeles, California. (See photo) |
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| 2006 |
April 25-29. This date will be the official centennial celebration of the Azusa St. Revival in Los Angeles. Complete information is available at http://www.azusastreet100.net/ Bishop James D. Leggett serves on the planning committee. Dr. Harold D. Hunter and Professor Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., of Fuller Theological Seminary, are co-chairs of the Theology Track. |
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