Francis Marion Thorpe came to the House of David in 1904, and became the community's first Secretary. He is credited with the formation and management of the first base ball teams at the House of David and their subsequent success and traveling odessey. Francis also was the scribe of the community in taking down the oral sermons of Mary and Benjamin from 1905 through 1948. Francis was involved in all of the legal issues brought to bar from the earliest through the Purnell case of 1954. Francis would step down to Judge Dewhirst in 1921, in becoming the assistant-secretary under Mr. Dewhirst, from 1921-1929. He was part of the team that went to Lansing to win the Supreme Court ruling in 1929. Always a staunch supporter of Mary and Benjamin, he became the leading figure of the financial/legal and political affairs of the reorganization, under Mary Purnell, in 1930, and was more than partly responsible for its early and great success. He was the City of David secretary from 1930-1956, a trustee and pillar also of the reorganization. He remains one of this history's most important figures, second only to Mary and Benjamin Purnell.