It was hinted that Chapman had brought some money to Nyack with him, but
exactly how much no one knew. The only thing positively known about him
at that time was that he had a great number of new ideas, all of which
he was in great haste to develope. Indeed, he soon had Nyack in a state
of continual agitation. He declared it his first duty to open the eyes
of the Dutch settlers to truth and right; then to get them to thinking;
and finally to make fortunes for all of them. He begun business,
however, by quarrelling with nearly everybody in the village, and
asserting that he knew more than all of them.

Twice he had Titus Bright, the inn-keeper, up before the magistrate and
fined for selling liquor in opposition to law. He proclaimed it highly
immoral to sell liquor at all, and told Bright to his teeth that no
honest man would do it. For this he had been twice kicked out of the inn
by Bright, who damned him as a meddling varlet, not to be tolerated in a
peaceable village. Again he had Bright up before the magistrate, who
justified the aggression, but fined the aggressor ten dollars a kick,
which Bright considered cheap enough considering what was got for his
money. Bright declared it a principle with him to give his customers
what they wanted, and let them be the judge of their own necessities.
Bigelow Chapman held that mankind was a big beast, to be subdued and
governed by laws made for his subjection. It never occurred to him,
however, that there might be reason in the opinions of others. Finding,
however, that he could not get the better of Bright in any other way, he
organized a company and set up an opposition tavern, where a traveller
could feel at home and have none of the annoyances of beer. The new inn
was to be conducted on strictly temperance principles, and the price of
board was to be reduced a dollar a week. But the principle of temperance
was carried out so rigidly in the fare that travellers, although treated