He was apprenticed to learn the trade of a mason and stone cutter. When his apprenticeship ended he and a young friend took the contract to build a large arch for a bridge being constructed near Dublin. Tradition says: One Saturday night the work was nearly done and the arch finished but for the keystone. He begged the men to remain and put it in place, so completing the work, but they refused. On going down to see it on the next morning he found it fallen and his fortunes with it. It had carried with it his all and imprisonment for debt--as far as he knew it might be for life--stared him in the face. There was a ship lying at the dock which he knew was sailing that day for New York. He searched his pockets and discovered five guineas with which and a few books he boarded the vessel. The captain on being asked if that much money would take him to America, answered it would. On reaching New York the captain told him the money had brought him, but had not paid his full passage and he must be sold for the balance. Bull was highly indignant and refused to leave the ship. He replied that he would return to Ireland and face his debts. Daniel Cromline, who also had a share in the Wawayanda patent, heard that an Irish ship was in dock, and hoping to procure some workmen had it proclaimed on board the ship. Bull felt that Providence and strangers would help him, and on telling his story to Mr. Cromline the money was advanced and they traveled together as far as Greycourt. Here he did the mason work on the old stone Greycourt house in 1716. This was long a public inn on the way from the Hudson to New Jersey, and was a famous resort for the people around. William Bull lived in the Cromline family, whose patent was not far from that part of the Wawayanda patent on which Mr. Denn had settled. They were in fact neighboring families, and so William Bull met Sarah Wells. They loved each other and were married in 1718. The ceremony took place in the new double log house of Christofer Denn, and as Bull was an Episcopalian and desired to be married by the rites of his church they did not know how to proceed. There was no church nor a clergyman who could proclaim the banns three weeks, but courts of justice had been established and a magistrate was in the neighborhood. They decided that circumstances alter cases and summoned their guests. All being assembled the magistrate carrying the prayer book proceeded first to the front door and proclaimed the banns to the trees of the forest, then through the hall to the back door where he proclaimed it to the cattle and the outbuildings. He made proclamation then once more from the front door to the wilderness at large and then performed the marriage ceremony. The wedding dress was of homespun linen delicately embroidered by the bride, and is now in the possession of one of her descendants, who has exhibited it at the family picnic held each year on the last Wednesday in August in the grove at Campbell Hall.