while the homesick Elijah went to visit his parents and friends.
    "But strange to tell, I had not been long at home, before I felt as great an anxiety to return to my circuit as I did to leave it in order to visit my friends. So before six weeks had elapsed I went to my work again and in a short time was appointed to another circuit, leaving my brother in the first appointment," the itinerant wrote.
    The practice of circuit riding was a rigorous occupation, as illustrated by the following text:
    "Our appointments for preaching were numerous, and the distance between them very considerable. 'Sponging' was not the 'besetting sin' of those days, nor 'large salaries' our greatest snare. Sometimes I had no bed to lie on, nor blanket to cover me in the coldest weather. My saddle bags were my pillow, and my great coat my 'comfortable.' The consequence was repeated and violent colds, which laid the foundation for those infirmities which for the last two years made me a 'supernumerary.' Could we have had wherewith to purchase a buffalo robe and convenience for carrying it, we might have escaped some of the 'shadows of itinerancy."'
    Woolsey's itinerancy for a time took him out of the country into Canada. The strains of the colder climate and the extended circuit route caused him "considerable bodily affliction." So he wrote to Bishop Asbury, the first bishop of the American Methodist Church, and asked for another district. He was assigned the Middletown circuit in 1813.
    "From this place I went to Stratford circuit in 1814, where we had some very good times. I had for my colleague, Henry Eames, a good man of God," Woolsey said of the year spent in this area. The Stratford circuit of that year included Stratford, Milford, Derby, Humphreysville, Pines Bridge, Great Hill, Quaker Farms, Georges Hill, Bridgewater, Brookfield, Newtown, East Village, Stepney, Trumbull and Pleasant Vale.
    William C. Sharpe in his Seymour Past and Present said "the Rev. Elijah Woolsey, in his book called 'The Lights and Shadows of the Itinerancy,' gives space to incidents of his experience on Great Hill. Capt. Bassett heard Mr. Woolsey preach in the schoolhouse and was so impressed with the sermon that he asked Mr. Woolsey on his next round to preach at his home."