Jones was a contemporary of other religious leaders at that time including Daddy Grace, Father Divine, C. L. Franklin, Charles Harrison Mason and Elijah Muhammad.

[4][5] Smith claimed, and his followers believed, that he was divinely inspired to found and lead the Triumph Church and that God spoke directly to him.

As an adult Jones said when he was a little boy God spoke to him and told him he was destined to "distil" great and good thoughts in the minds of men.

In 1924 Jones, popularly called "sonny" and "son", became an officially ordained minister in the Southern-based Triumph the Church and Kingdom of God in Christ at age 18.

In 1938 the expanding Triumph sect sent Jones, accompanied by his adolescent personal secretary James G. Walton, to Detroit as a missionary.

Jones, had traveled extensively on Triumph Church business for many years without 'purse or script' in such states as Missouri, Tennessee and Georgia.

Jones proclaimed that the split with Triumph was purely for spiritual reasons as around this time he received word from God to manifest the Kingdom with himself as Prophet and Ruler preaching the "true gospel".

From a small frame church building Jones' following was moved to larger headquarters at the old Oriole Theater at 8450 Linwood Avenue in 1953.

In a religious subculture of competing claims, Jones declared that the almighty God spoke solely to him and that he was the second coming of Christ and thus was the world's 'one and only true prophet' and savior.

His teachings revolved around him heralding God's incoming 'New World' of 'perfect bliss', in which the wicked would be destroyed but the faithful would live for ever in incorruptible physical bodies.

This mansion is located in the East Ferry Avenue Historic District and was formerly the Fritz Funeral Home, one of the oldest black-owned firms of this type in Detroit.

According to Hue magazine the Arden Park Dominion parsonage was previously a fifty-four-room former gambling casino, which Jones purchased from gambler Danny Sullivan.

[3] The interior of the home was hand-carved woodwork, gold-painted ceilings, ornate brocade drapes and wall-to-wall carpeting with pile as deep as an English lawn.

Some of these gifts, such as a $7,000 grand piano, $8,000 worth of silver plate, a stained glass window installed at a cost of $1,200 and other rooms of expensive furniture, were so opulent that reports stated that 'they awed visitors'.

A massive double door guarded the front entrance to the mansion, and Dominion security inspected visitors carefully through a glass panel before unlocking it.

It was also reported in the press that of all of Jones' possessions, he cherished his expansive wardrobe of almost five hundred expensive matching suits and ties, exotic, colorful and bejeweled robes and ensembles, some foreign imported, others tailor-made specifically for him.

[3] Jones received visitors to the 'French castle' parsonage in a small paneled study, dominated by a life-size portrait of himself in a white robe.

At his Arden Park home in the 1950s Jones hosted lavish eight-day-long birthday banquets, called Philamethyu and Hushdomcalama in his honor that were much covered in the press.

[1] In addition to his high level parties and celebrations at his Arden Park parsonage the press also covered Jones's visit to Father Divine at his Pennsylvanian estate in 1953.

Jones died of a heart attack at 63 years old on August 12, 1971, at the Dominion parsonage on La Salle Blvd in Detroit under the care of a church "prince", "Lord" Claude Haley.

At the time of his death, according to contemporary accounts in Jet magazine, church leaders were trying to design a crypt to place his body near his mother's at Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit.

It was also reported that cars jammed the intersection and the front of the funeral home as the line of viewers stretched out to the street by the late afternoon.

[11] Jones was buried at Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery in his silver embroidered robe, in a bronze coffin which had had his signature white mink coat placed on it during the services.

Noted for his ardent U.S. patriotism, Prophet Jones opened his religious radio broadcast with the national anthem and the pledge of allegiance to the flag.