Sometime in the early 1880s, Samuel Donnelly stumbled out of a San Francisco waterfront bar and into a Salvation Army meeting. His life of fighting and hard drinking ended and he became a street preacher for the benevolent organization where he "gradually developed his own religious ideas." He was sent to Tombstone in 1886 to organize a Salvation Army station there. The rough mining town was in need of a "two-fisted preacher." In Tombstone, Donnelly acquired an interest in a mining claim and founded the Copper Glance Mine and the Sunnyside colony high in the Huachuca Mountains. Depending upon the source, the "Donnellites’" religious community was devoted to Bible reading, hymn singing, and generosity, or they were religious fanatics, a cult under the hypnotic influence of the crooked and charismatic high priest, Samuel Donnelly, "who claims to be a divine teacher sent by God."

Donnelly found himself fighting the community for his reputation in the courts of Cochise County, and he even appealed a case of child abuse against him to the Supreme Court of the Territory of Arizona. For the most part, he faired well in the courts. Nevertheless, the secondary literature and folklore of the ghost town of Sunnyside, does not reflect the battle the town’s founder had with the surrounding communities. In Arizona travel literature, Sunnyside is billed as a ghost town with a special history of peace, caring, and piety as opposed to the degenerate, greedy, and violent history of the other mining communities of Chochise County.

The story of Sam Donnelly and the intriguing community he formed is a history that needs to be accurately told for its own sake. The myth and legends surrounding the community should be adjusted with more evidence. But Sam Donnelly's life is important beyond the history of southeast Arizona--he is an extraordinary religious figure. His life and writings are important to a deeper understanding of the American religious milieu at the turn of the century. He developed a penetrating and absorbing theology while he gathered some 80 converts to his secluded community high in the Huachuca Mountains. His critique of the major religious denominations of his day, their doctrines, actions, and social policies are recorded in rich and copious letters to the "future" members of his mountain community. At one point in Donnelly’s career, he found that his congregation was copying the letters he had written and they were sending them to family members and friends. He had a great fear that a "Donnallite" denomination might arise; so he collected all the copies he could find in his camp and burned them. Yet, many of the letters and copies survived. Rich in history and theology, they describe social and personal problems of the day, and Donnelly’s relationship to the landscape and the mining operations in the Huachucas are reflected in his letter ministry. The depression of 1893 brought many of his letter flock to the mountain community. A biography of Sam Donnelly and a record of his community’s impact and relationship to the landscape of his sky island, how they related to the ranches of the San Raphael Valley, the surrounding mines, and the society of the neighboring communities will provide a rich insight into turn of the century historiography. Beyond this, the U.S. Forest Service has sponsored studies of the historic land use patterns of the area to assist in long range planning for the mountain environs and the secluded San Raphael Valley. Another wave of population growth and recreation use imposes itself on the area. A detailed account of Sunnyside will greatly enhance the work they have already done.