and he said he felt that it would be wrong for him to do anything
to help a church that believed false doctrines. Then they ran the
meeting-house out on the turnpike beyond the town, whereupon the
turnpike company notified them that its charges would be eight dollars
a day for toll. So they hauled it back again; and while going down the
hill it broke loose, plunged through the fence of Dr. Mackey's garden
and brought up on top of his asparagus-bed. He is an Episcopalian,
and he sued the meeting for damages; and the sheriff levied upon the
meetinghouse. The brethren paid the bill and dragged the building out
again.

They wanted to put it in the court-house yard, but Judge Twiddler, who
is a Presbyterian, said that after examining the statutes carefully he
could find no law allowing a Methodist meeting-house to be located
in that place. In despair, the brethren ran the building down to the
river-shore and fitted it on a huge raft of logs, concluding to tie it
to the wharf until they could buy a lot. But as the owner of the
wharf handed them on the third day a bill of twenty-five dollars for
wharfage, they took the building out and anchored it in the stream.
That night a tug-boat, coming up the river in the dark, ran halfway
through the Sunday-school room, and a Dutch brig, coming into
collision with it, was drawn out with the pulpit and three of the
front pews dangling from the bowsprit. The owners of both vessels sued
for damages, and the United States authorities talked of confiscating
the meeting-house as an obstruction to navigation. But a few days
afterward the ice-gorge sent a flood down the river and broke the
building loose from its anchor. It was subsequently washed ashore on
Keyser's farm; and he said he was willing to let it stay there at four
dollars a day rent until he was ready to plough for corn. As the cost
of removing it would have been very great, the trustees ultimately