first, to see if I can join.' 'Oh!' said he, 'that is not for you to see or read now; but the Bible, and at a proper time I will hand you the Discipline.' So, she said, 'after I had taken the Lord's supper, he handed me the Discipline. I took it home and began to read it in the family, and was so displeased with it that I threw it across the room, and said it was too bad to read before my children. I am now in the church, and I know not what to do; all the food that I get for my soul is among the Methodists.' When I heard this, I pitied her from my heart," Woolsey wrote.
    "Not far from where this lady lived there were others in almost the same condition, only they took courage and came off and left the church to which they had formerly belonged. They said they had joined the Presbyterian Church, that they had been converted at the camp meeting; and they thought they would go to the minister and tell him what great things the Lord had done for them, and then they would have a time of rejoicing with their minister. But instead of that, he ridiculed them and on the sabbath he preached so pointedly at them that some of the congregation turned their heads and laughed them in the face. Being grieved at this, they left him, and sought a place among the Methodists."
    The story of the group leaving the Presbyterian Church fits in with the history of the Great Hill Ecclesiastical Society. This was formed by the Connecticut General Assembly in October of 1775 and was the earliest religious society in the area that later became Seymour. It is interesting to note that some of the petitioners for this society's formation later are listed as active members in the Great Hill Methodist Society. The Presbyterian meeting house was built on land now owned by the Ajello family, near the Seymour Grange Hall. The Rev. Abner Smith or "Priest Smith", as he was called, lived in the present Bomba house and served as pastor from 1786 to 1829, a period of forty-three years. As the years progressed, the church went into a decline, at the same time the Methodist Society in he area increased in number. When Smith left the parsonage, no effort was made to replace him or to continue the church, presumably because the people by that time were predominantly Methodists.
    It may well be that Woolsey's ministry on Great Hill was one of the reasons for the demise of the Great Hill Ecclesiastical