After securing these funds and many
settlers, also Ex-Governor Chamberlain of Maine as president of our
board of directors, I moved to the new town with my family, there to
reside permanently.
Here our duties were in many respects agreeable, because useful, for
quite a long time. My wife was mother of the town, going from house to
house ministering to the wants of the newcomers who had become sick
by their carelessness in exposing themselves by night and day while
intoxicated with the delights of this incomparable climate. She formed
a union church, sang in the choir, and sometimes played the organ. I
was the father of the town in many senses of the word, being the only
person having any legal authority, and was expected to settle all
disputes whether between man and man or between man and wife.
Our town was overrun by hungry clergymen of many denominations and
from nearly every state, all clamoring for the lucre to be obtained by
preaching in our union church. I might have obtained the friendship of
one by appointing him as pastor; but I made malicious enemies of all
by insisting upon each one officiating in turn and taking therefor the
contents of the contribution box on his day.
The air resounded with the prayer-meeting shouts of these
ecclesiastics who all secretly worked against me, because I would not
allow them to found as many churches as there were inhabitants.
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