Fred A. Hillery

[9] By 1878 Hillery was employed as a streetcar conductor for the Union Railroad Company, and he and his wife lived at the U.R.R.-owned house at 862 Eddy Street in Providence.

Hillary and his wife had five children, with only three surviving infancy: By 1881 Hillery was a member and class leader of the St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church which was located at the corner of Potter's and Prairie Avenues in Providence, Rhode Island[21] and was elected Sunday School superintendent by the church board.

[22] From 1881 there was a revival of the Wesleyan doctrine of entire sanctification in the congregation due to the efforts of pastor T.J. Everett and various holiness evangelists, especially by Methodist Temperance crusader Miss Lizzie M. Boyd of Wheeling, West Virginia, who preached at the church in 1881 and again in 1883.

[23] "Camp meeting-like scenes were repeated at the church, including persons lying prostrate under the power of the Holy Spirit.

[31] As a consequence, on May 12, 1886, the South Providence Holiness Association (SPHA) was formed in the home of Methodist local preacher George E. Perry, and Hillery was elected the founding president.

Due to the increase in attendance at these meetings, a hall was rented, and special services were held with holiness evangelists.

After the St. Paul church was destroyed in a fire on December 5, 1886, Hall removed all Holiness Association members from teaching Sunday School in January 1887.

[33] After unsuccessful appeals to the quarterly and annual conferences that confirmed his excommunication, Hillery wrote A History of the Revival of Holiness in St. Paul's M. E. Church, Providence, R. I., 1880–1887; or A Statement of the Circumstances which led to the Formation of the South Providence Holiness Association and the People's Evangelical Church, an 87 page apologetic defending his actions and those of his supporters.

[34] The church was incorporated in Rhode Island on February 11, 1888, and was described as Wesleyan in doctrine and independent and congregational in organization and polity.

[35] The 1895 Manual of the People’s Church shows that "it observed a strict rule designed to create a disciplined and faithful community.

[47] The APCA had founded the Pentecostal Collegiate Institute (PCI) in 1900 at the Garden View House in Saratoga Springs, New York.

In 1902 Hillery purchased new land on behalf of the Association when it moved the school to North Scituate, Rhode Island.

[57] There were attempts to merge the Beulah Christian with the Nazarene Messenger and other publications of the antecedent groups that formed the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene into a new publication, the Herald of Holiness, but Hillery believed the offer to purchase the equipment and other assets of the Beulah Christian was inadequate.