[Scott Pitta]

On a whim, I decided to write the biography or discover who Harry Morse was. I wondered what impact he had on what I learned as a student at CLC. CLC was founded by Clyde Haney, a former student of Harry Morse.

At first, Harry Morse was a ghost. No one knew him. No one had written about him.

Those who did know him, his ministry peers, were also unknown people.

This was complicated by the fact that I had no skills in researching a biography.

Now, 7 years later, putting together a timeline for an unknown person, like Lemuel C. Hall is easy. I know where to look. I know how to save my data.

New data about Harry Morse is still coming in. Understanding the context of his life is a bit beyond my intellectual reach. I am no historian.

In the process I have put together timelines, biographies of a couple of dozen unknown Oneness Pentecostals. Some are mentioned by others, but no one has bothered to write their biographies.

I wrote the story of the spread of Pentecostalism from Los Angeles. Harry was not the first one to the San Francisco Bay area.

Harry was part of the Peniel Mission movement prior to Azusa Street. There is no written record of the Peniel Mission. So I ended up writing about it, at least in California.

Harry believed unique doctrines. But since he wrote very few articles, and since what he believed changed over time, documenting his theology is impossible. He was very open minded to the views of others.

Harry started and or pastored in British Columbia, Oregon and Idaho. His students started churches and pastored churches in California and the pacific northwest.

This project is a bit like writing a mystery. Each character has a different story. On a slow day, I can work on a mystery person. Or buy yet another obscure self published out of print Oneness book.

I do not conduct as many interviews as I did in the beginning. But I did do one the other day. Most data comes from online newspaper archives.

Eventually, the collections of unknown, or nearly unknown Oneness Pentecostals will be published. Included will be the relationship between the Peniel Mission and Oneness Pentecostalism, as well as the spread of Pentecostalism from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay area.

It will not be a rehashing of the same ideas and persons everyone else had done.