signing the testimonials of the Bishop Church in particular, that he has submitelect. Thus was happily accomplished a ted to very great sacrifices in order to acmeasure, that in the anticipation had oc-complish the object, which, nevertheless, casioned much solicitude. The next thing after securing his acceptance, which was in due time communicated to the standing committee, was to procure the consecration of our Bishop. This was done in General Convention in the city of New York the 31st day of October, 1832. In three weeks from this time Bishop Hopkins with his family took up his residence in Burlington, where he became Rector of St. Paul's, and where he has continued to the present time.

the arrival of the first Catholic missionary, the Rev. Jeremiah O'Callaghan, in the year 1830. So great and rapid has been the tide of immigration since that period from Ireland and from the Canadas, that numerous congregations have already sprung up in several places, and although two additional missionaries, the Rev. John B. Daly and the Rev. William Ivers, are now employed in the state, they are hard-was purchased in 1836, on which is a ly adequate to the wants of the popula

FANATICAL SECTS.

DORRILITES.

PILGRIMS.

promised his adversary, upon the penalties of his life, never to impose upon the people more.

of Windham county in the State. The founder was an impostor by the name of Dorril, a refugee from the British army under Gen, Burgoyne. Dorril pretend- Pilgrims.-This was another vagabond ed to be possessed of supernatural powers, sect which infested some parts of this and that, as he was armed with attributes State in the year 1817. Their leader was of Deity, it was not in the power of man a man by the name of Isaac Bullard. He to hurt him. He and his followers ab- commenced his career at Ascot in Lower stained from eating flesh; made use of Canada, a long confinement by sickness neither food nor clothing, which was pro- having previously rendered him a visionacured at the expense of life, and, if they ry, or afforded him an opportunity to mahad full faith in him, he assured them in ture his plans for imposing upon the crethe name of God, they should never die. dulity of the ignorant and weak minded. They put off their leather shoes and had He assumed the character of a prophet, others made of cloth or wood. One was wore a leathern girdle and rough garments a blacksmith; he procured and used a to deceive, and with a few adherents enpair of cloth bellows, and all lived upon tered the north part of the State, and promilk and vegetables. They discarded all ceeded southerly. Having received but revelation except what Dorril received, few accessions to his number, when he set at defiance all the laws of man, and reached Woodstock in Windsor county were governed in all their conduct, as his whole company amounted to only they expressed it, "by the light of na-eight persons. Here in a back and reture." Meetings were held once a week, tired part of the town he found materials at which their worship consisted in eat- suited to his purpose, and soon succeeded ing, drinking, singing, fiddling and dan-in making proselytes of two simple, but cing, and hearing lectures from Dorril, who was well qualified for that purpose. They had a covenant by which they placed a large share of their property in common stock, and the blacksmith became their treasurer. In a short time Dorril collected a large society, among whom were some very respectable families in the towns of Leyden and Barnardston, Massachusetts. People went from all the neighboring towns to hear and see the marvellous doings of Dorril and his associates. At length, at one of their meetings, a goodly number having assembled, Dorril opened with music, &c. and began to deliver his lecture. At that meeting one Captain Bullard professed to be governed and Ezekiel Foster, of Leyden, attended as a to govern by immediate inspiration from spectator. He was a man of good sense, heaven, and he taught his followers to reof a giant frame, and had a countenance gard his authority as paramount to any that bespoke authority. When Dorril other human or divine. The property of came to the doctrine of his mysterious those who joined the company all went powers, he had no sooner uttered the into the common stock, and was used or words, "no arm can hurt my flesh," than distributed according to the dictation of Foster rose indignant at his blasphemy, the Prophet, who also controlled at his and knocked down Dorril with his fist. will all their most intimate domestic reDorril, affrighted and almost senseless, lations, marrying and unmarrying, reattempted to rise, when he received awarding and punishing, according to his second blow, at which he cried for mercy. Foster promised to forbear, on condition that he would renounce his doctrines, yet continued beating him. Soon a short parley ensued, when Dorril consented and did renounce his doctrines in the hearing of all his astonished followers. He further told them that his object was to see what fools he could make of mankind. His followers, chagrined and ashamed at being made the dupes of such a base fellow, departed in peace to their homes. Dorril

well disposed and honest families by the name of Ball. One of these, Joseph Ball, was a Christian minister, and the other, Peter Ball, was the owner of a small farm with a large family. Having by decep. tion and intimidation secured these to his interests, he made the residence of Peter Ball his head quarters for several months, in which time, by beguiling weak and unstable souls in that and the neighboring towns, he increased the number of his followers, consisting of men, women and children, to about 40, among whom was a Methodist minister by the name of Holmes, a resident in Shurburne.

sovereign pleasure; and none dared to resist his authority or lisp a murmur of complaint. Filthiness they seemed to regard as a virtue; and they were frequently seen, even the adult females, rolling in the dirt of the highway, and presenting a spectacle as indecent and loath. some as can well be imagined.

Bullard himself said little when spectators were present, but the tap of his staff was well understood and instantly obeyed by his deluded followers. The

FANATICAL SECTS.

chief speaker among them was a fellow by the name of Cummings. He would sometimes attempt to defend their peculiarities by arguing with those whom curiosity had brought to them. At such times the Prophet would listen with stern and mute attention to the discussion, and whenever he discovered that his champion was likely to be worsted, he at once secured a victory by a peculiar tap of his staff, which instantly raised such a howling and groaning among his followers as put an effectual end to the argument.

NEW LIGHTS OR HOLY ROLLERS.

or yell, passages or parts of passages of scripture, pretending to act under the influence and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Soon they become the chief actors in these meetings, and such numbers began to be drawn together to hear and see their strange doings, that it was found inconvenient to hold their meetings in private houses, and they therefore held them for a while in a school house. But this proving too small for the multitudes that came together, they went into the south meeting house in Hardwick, which had been built some years before by a private individual, with the nothing-arian motto, Liberty of Conscience, inscribed on its front. They also changed their time of holding meetings from the evening of a week day to the Sabbath; and there, Sabbath after Sabbath, for several months, the spacious house was crowded with a motly and tumultuous assemblage from that and the neighboring towns. The exercises consisted of the most ludicrous and foolish performances, such as frightful yellings,

After nearly exhausting their means of subsistence at Woodstock, they crossed the Green Mountains and stopped for a while in Bennington county. Here they received some accessions to their number and then proceeded to the west in quest of an unknown region which their leader designated as the "Promised Land." With a wagon to carry their baggage, they travelled on foot, procuring most of their subsistence by begging from house to house. When they reached a point on the Ohio river near Cincinnati their num-barking in imitation of dogs, foxes and ber was augmented to 2 or 3 hundred. cuckoos, jumping, swinging the arms and There they sold their wagon, took boats, rolling on the floor. From this last cirand proceeded down the river, and a more cumstance they were sometimes called filthy, lousy squalid and miserable set of holy rollers. The leader in this drollery, beings the world never saw. From this as it was called, professed to have had it time their number rapidly diminished. revealed to him that the men should not Many died by sickness produced by hard-shave; they accordingly suffered their ship and privation, and others abandoned beards to grow for several months, and the company to avoid the same catastro- thereby acquired the appellation of the phe. Their final stopping place was at long beards. At length it was revealed New Madrid, 75 miles below the mouth of to another of their number that they must the Ohio. At this place Peter and Jo- all be shaved, and it was done. seph Ball left them with the surviving Although no more than six or eight members of their families, and from this persons took a very active part in these time we have no knowledge of the move-meetings, still they were countenanced ments or fate of the impostor, or those who and encouraged by large numbers of the adhered to him, but there can be little inhabitants of Hardwick and the neighdoubt that they miserably perished. Of boring towns. Many of these were ig those who went from Vermont a few beg-norant and weak minded persons who ged their way back, but far the greater were deluded and led astray, but the part were either ashamed, or too poor and feeble, to return.

greater part were the idle and irreligious, who were better pleased to spend the New Lights.-This is a name assumed the Sabbath in attendance upon what was by a small band of fanatics, who com- denominated the Hardwick Theatre, than menced a brief career in the town of Hard- with those who were engaged in rational wick in the early part of 1837. Their religious worship. But, as happens to leader, whose name was Bridgeman, had most fanatics, their career was short. The been a professed Universalist, but having publication of a discourse, in the summer his mind discomposed by frequent atten- of 1838, leveled at their absurdities, by the dance upon prayer meetings in his neigh-late Rev. Chester Wright, at that time borhood, and becoming, as some thought, minister of Hardwick, and the imprisonpartially deranged, he professed to be in- ment of some of their number for the disspired from on high, and was not long in turbance of religious worship, soon put a enlisting several followers. They com- stop to their droll meetings, and for the menced their career by interrupting the honor of our common nature, and of the regular exercises of the religious meet- state of Vermont, and of our holy religion, ings of the neighborhood, by occasionally it is hoped that such disgraceful proceed. uttering in a tremendous sing-song screamings will not be repeated within our state.

ABORIGINES OF VERMONT.

CHAPTER X.

STATE OF SOCIETY.

COOSSUCK INDIANS.

turned up by the plough. On the OxBow, the remains of an Indian fort were still visible, when the first settlers came to Newbury. The mound forming its circumference, was, at that time, overgrown with trees five or six inches in diameter, and the ground in the vicinity is overspread with a profusion of white flint stones and arrow heads.*

The Indians, who resided along the upper parts of Connecticut river, were a branch of the Abenà qui tribe, whose chief location, in modern times, has been at St. Francis. There was always an intimate connexion between them and the Indians at St. Francis, and they have been commonly spoken of, by American writers, as St. Francis Indians; and yet they had the distinguishing appellation of Coossucks, which is descriptive of the country where they resided. Coos, in the Abenâqui language signified the pines, and this name was applied by the Indians to two sections of country upon Connecticut river, one above the fifteen mile falls, about Lunenburg, and the other below, about Newbury, on account of the great abundance of white pine timber in those places; and the termination, suck, signified river, so that Co-os-suck, signified the river at the pines.

The Coossucks and St. Francis Indians, who always acted on the part of the French in the wars between the French and English colonies, were for many years the most blood-thirsty and cruel enemies, which the frontier settlements of New England had to encounter. But the desperate battle, fought in 1725, between Capt. Lovewell with 46 men, and about twice that number of Indians, in which the latter were beaten, and Paugus, their chief, together with a large number of their warriors, was slain,struck such terror to the Coossucks that they mostly retired into Canada and became identified with their kindred at St. Francis.

It was remarked in a preceding chapter that at the time of the first settlement of this continent by Europeans, and subsequently, causes were in operation, which prevented the aborigines from making our territory, to any great extent, a permanent residence, and still there are indubitable proofs that they have,at some former period, resided here in considerable numbers. When the Coos country was first visited by the whites, large clearings were found upon the intervales overgrown by a kind of coarse grass, and there were various other indications of former extensive settlements by the natives. On the high grounds east of the mouth of Cow-Meadow brook, in Newbury, domestic implements of various kinds, of Indian manufacture, were formerly found in such numbers as to afford conclusive proof of its having been the site of a considerable After the conquest of Canada by the Indian village. On the meadow, a short English, several Indian families returned distance below was their burying ground, to Coos and remained until they became where the ashes of many of the sons of extinct. Among these were two Indians. the forest now lie. They were buried in the sitting posture, peculiar to the Indi-in the Historical sketches of the Coos country, by *See the communication of David Johnson, Esq. ans, and their bones have been frequently the Rev. Grant Powers, page 30.