John Alexander Dowie

John Alexander Dowie was a Scottish-Australian minister known as a Christian evangelist, faith healer, and early influence on Pentecostalism. He began his career as a Christian minister in South Australia. Working as a faith healer, he emigrated with his family to the United States in 1888, settling in San Francisco, where he developed his faith healing practice into a mail-order business. He moved to Chicago in time to take advantage of the crowds attracted to the 1893 World's Fair. After attracting an immense faith healing business in Chicago, with multiple homes and businesses, including a publishing house, to keep his thousands of followers, he bought an extensive parcel of land north of the city to set up a private community.