people from various towns in Massachusetts came and settled in Dogtown,
invested their money, were to do an equal share of work, and receive an
equal share of profits, and live together as happily as lambs. But
Dogtown did not long continue a paradise. Indeed, it soon became famous
for two things: for the name of Bigelow Chapman, and for having more
crazy and quarrelsome people in it than could be found in any other town
in Massachusetts, which was saying a good deal. The brothers and
sisters, for such they called themselves, got to quarrelling among
themselves on matters of politics and religion, though charity was a
thing they made no account of. In truth, there was more politics than
religion in their preaching.

Chapman constituted himself treasurer of the community, and some little
private speculations of his led to a belief among the brothers and
sisters that his mind was not solely occupied with schemes for reforming
the world. To tell the truth, Bigelow Chapman was not so great a fool as
his followers. He had intended, when Dogtown got thoroughly under way,
to sell out, put the money in his pocket, and employ his genius
somewhere else. He, however, undertook the enterprise of building a
church on speculation, being persuaded to do so by an outside Christian.

The church was to be a large, handsome building, with a butcher's shop
and a grocery, a shoe store and a confectionery in the basement, and a
school and a dancing academy up stairs; so that the brothers and
sisters could get everything they wanted, religion included, in one
locality. But the enterprise failed for want of funds to finish it, and
Dogtown went to the dogs, and the Chapman family to Nyack. Report has it
that the church was afterwards finished and converted into an insane
asylum, where several of the brothers and sisters lived for the rest of
their lives.