After sketching Knapp's house, printed on page 403, I walked down to the old burial-ground, toward the lower part of the village, where the remains of many of the men of the
* This small sect derives its name from its founder, Robert Sandcman, a native of Perth, in Scotland. He came to America in 1764, and in Boston and Danbury organized societies in accordance with his peculiar religious notions. His doctrines were similar to those of Calvin, and his distinguishing tenet was, that "faith was a mere intellectual belief—a bare belief of the bare truth." Like other founders of sects, he claimed to belong to the only true Church. His followers meet on the Sabbath and Thursday afternoons of each week, and, seated around a large circular table, each with a copy of the Scriptures, the men read and comment on them as they are moved by desire. The females are silent. The attending congregation not members are mere spectators, and the worshipers seem not to notice their presence. They have prayer and singing, after which they go to the house of one of the members, and partake of a feast of love. Their morals are of the purest kind, and their influence in society is exceedingly salutary. The two divisions are known as the Baptist Sandemanians and the Osbornites. The former practice baptism, the latter do not. Of late years none have joined them, and death is reducing their number. There are a few in England. Mr. Sandcman died at Danbury in 1771, aged fifty-three years. His grave is marked by a handsome marble slab, bearing his name and an epitaph.
Obscurity of Wooster's Grave.—Resolves of Congress.—A centenarian Loyalist—Treatment by his Neighbors
Revolution rest, and among them those of the brave General Wooster, who fell, as we shall presently observe, while gallantly opposing Tryon and his marauders on their retreat from Danbury. Not even a rough stone of the field marked his grave, and no person could then identify it! The fact is a disgrace to the people, past and present, among whom he fell in battle; and the government, whose representatives, with grateful appreciation of his services, long ago voted money to erect a monument to his memory, * is guilty of positive ingratitude in so long withholding the paltry sum, while the long grass is weaving a web of utter obscurity over his dust.
From the cemetery I strolled down the winding road along which Tryon entered Danbury, and, returning, called to see the venerable Joseph Dibble, then in his hundredth year.
He lives with a nephew, near the same as the first hue of light in the east appeared. Time softened the asperities of feeling, and
* On the 17th of June, 1777, the Continental Congress adopted a resolution, "That a monument be erected to the memory of General Wooster, with the following inscription: 'In honor of David Wooster, brigadier general in the army of the United States. In defending the liberties of America, and bravely repelling an inroad of the British forces to Danbury, in Connecticut, he received a mortal wound on the 27th day of April, 1777, and died on the 2d day of May following. The Congress of the United States, as an acknowledgment of his merit and services, have caused this monument to be erected.' "Resolved, That the executive power of the state of Connecticut be requested to carry the foregoing resolution into execution, and that five hundred dollars be allowed for that purpose."—Journals of Congress, iii., 197.