Yet Pillar of Fire owes its existence to Bishop White, the first female bishop of any Christian denomination in American history. Her traces remain everywhere in Zarephath, the agrarian faith community she founded here in 1905 and named for the town where Elijah found comfort from a widow in the Bible. And yet her complicated legacy is virtually ignored by church leaders, who can still disagree about the extent of her intolerance.

As a result, many people who worship each week in Zarephath don’t know about the church’s history, or even that their church is part of the Pillar of Fire. (Or that the 750-acre parcel that makes up what is essentially the town of Zarephath is owned by the denomination.) The new church is built on the opposite side of the Delaware and Raritan Canal from the denomination’s historic home, so it is easy to get there without seeing the old brick Pillar of Fire sign at the entrance to those grounds.

“We like that the church is nondenominational, because we are nondenominational as well,” said Sabrina Da Cruz, 34, who drove 40 minutes from Elizabeth, N.J., with her husband and infant to attend a service this summer. “They talk about Jesus, which is what a lot of people need. It’s Jesus from beginning to end.”

The woman at the center of Zarephath’s story was born in 1862 to a poor family in rural Kentucky. Mollie Alma Bridwell, as she was known then, grew up wanting to be a preacher, but was told to marry one instead. Chafing at the restrictions, she started preaching in Denver, where her Methodist preacher husband was posted, and ultimately formed her own church. When a New Jersey widow, inspired by her writings, deeded her 70 acres of farmland between the Millstone River and the Delaware and Raritan Canal, she left Colorado, ultimately separating from her husband, and moved the denomination’s headquarters here.

Pillar of Fire gained considerable fame in the first decades of the 20th century, in part because of the oddity of a woman running a religious sect years before women had the right to vote. Puritianical and strident, Bishop White described her church’s guiding principles as “emancipation for women and ultra-fundamentalist doctrine.” Yet her followers also tried to capture the joy of Christianity in their worship.