page_title: Baháʼí Faith in Greater Boston
section_title: Growing community
hierarchical_section_title: Baháʼí Faith in Greater Boston / Growing community
caption_attribution_description: English: Harlan Ober in 1907
context_page_description: The Baháʼí Faith in Greater Boston, a combined statistical area, has had glimpses of the religion in the 19th century arising to its first community of religionists at the turn of the century. Early newspaper accounts of events were followed by papers on the precursor Bábí religion by Dr. Rev. Austin H. Wright were noted, materials donated, and lost, and then other scholars began to write about the religion. The community began to coalesce being near to Green Acre, founded by Sarah Farmer, who publicly espoused the religion from 1901. From then on the institution would progressively be associated with Baháʼís - a place where both locals and people from afar came to learn of the religion, and who officially took over controlling interest from 1913. Leaders rising to national prominence with a national level of organization soon arose after ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, then head of the religion, traveled through the area for about 40 days and across the United States for some 239 days. Most prominent were Harlan Ober, William Henry Randall, and Alfred E. Lunt, who served in events in the Boston area, Green Acre boards, and national institutions of the religion.
context_section_description: After marrying in 1904, Khan gave a talk at Alice Ives Breed home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. By 1905 regular Baháʼí meetings were established in Boston whether in homes or in public venues. Khan was visible at a women's club meeting in March 1905 at Sewall Hall. Baháʼís began to be profiled in the news in 1909. Mary Lucas, returned from her pilgrimage, published an account of her journey. Lucas would be visible at occasional Baháʼí events until her death in 1934.
  Harlan Ober and Alfred E. Lunt were Bostonians who joined the religion in the summer of 1905 at Green Acre with Ober learning of the religion first through Alice Buckton, and then Lunt learned of the religion from Ober. Ober had been in shipping interests. Ober and Lunt were leaders in Republican party politics on college campuses, in the era of the Fourth Party System also known as the Progressive Era. Ober's parents lived in Beverly, Massachusetts, and Lunt was a Harvard Law school graduate. Picture of Lunt
  In the summer of 1906 Stanwood Cobb learned of the religion from a series of articles in the Boston Transcript and went to Green Acre to learn more of the religion. He successively conversed with Sarah Farmer and Mary Lucas. Thornton Chase was also there giving a series of talks. It was on that occasion that Cobb joined the religion.
  By the Winter of 1906 Louis Bourgeois, later architect of the Baháʼí House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois, and his wife had joined the religion after having "come into association with the Baha'i Faith through Marie Watson and Mary Hanford Ford." Khan and his family went on Baháʼí pilgrimage in 1906.
  Circa early 1907 or late 1906 Ober went on Baháʼí pilgrimage and was asked to go with Hooper Harris on a trip to India promulgating the religion, an effort noted as lasting "... no less than seven months, in India and Burma, visiting Bombay, Poona, Lahore, Calcutta, Rangoon and Mandalay." ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's guidance to them amounted to behaving very differently than Christian missionaries. Ober returned and was visible at Green Acre late summer 1907. Ober went on a second pilgrimage in May 1909 with the MacNutt family and others. One early joke in the history of the religion comes from Ober about whether he was going to India or America ...
  One day in the Holy Land He told Harlan Ober, an American Baháʼí, that he was to go to India. Harlan Ober did travel far and wide in the interests of the Faith, but at that particular time he did not cherish making that journey. A few days later ʻAbdu'l-Bahá told him to go to America. "But Master," Ober said, "I thought I was going to India." "So did Christopher Columbus," ʻAbdu'l-Bahá replied.
  Lunt continued to be active in Republican politics in 1908 and was visible at Green Acre in 1909.
  The Khans returned and he was visible in Boston by 1908. That year the first Baháʼí governing board was elected, the forerunner of the first Local Spiritual Assembly of Boston. The community sent a delegate to the first national convention in 1909, and the existence of the community was noted in a national journal. The first known meeting in a public meeting space was held November 7, 1909. The following were present: Harriet Sprague, Lily Ostburg, Frances Godard, Helen Campbell, Francis Harding, Anise Rideout, Julia Culver, Raffie Esphahani, Althea Dorr, George Ostburg, Maria P. Wilson, Alice Ives Breed. On March 24, 1910 the assembly was composed of: officers Harlan Ober, Grace Robarts, Julia Culver, George Ostburg, and members Mrs. H. Sprague; Mrs. F. Goddard, Alice Ives Breed, Helen Campbell, and Mrs. E. Flees. Notable speakers at events in the Boston community included Stanwood Cobb, Lua Getsinger, and Edna McKinney.
  Khan was then appointed Iranian Charge D'Affaires in Washington D. C. in 1910.
  In 1911 Lunt was visible as a solicitor for Beverly, Mass., member of the national executive board of the Baháʼís, and participating in a Bostonian Baháʼí Naw-Rúz commemoration with guests.
  Fannie Fern Andrews of Boston was the second vice president of the Persian Educational Society in 1912 with strong connection
caption: Harlan Ober in 1907
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