Fast and far is spread the alarm that John Rogers, just returned from his foolhardy visit to Boston, is prostrated at Mamacock with the dread contagion. There are in the house, including himself, thirteen persons. Adding the servants who live in separate houses on the place, it is easy to swell the number to “upwards of twenty.” The large farm, spreading upon both sides of the road, is itself a place of isolation. On the east is a broad river, separating it from the uninhabited Groton bank. On the north is wooded, uninhabited, Scotch Cap.[141] There is possibly a dwelling within half a mile at the northwest. A half-mile to the south is the house of John Bolles. What few other neighbors there may be, are well removed, and there are dwellings enough on the farm to shelter all not required for nursing the sick. To what degree the family might take the usual precautions, if left to themselves, or how efficacious might be their scriptural methods, can never be known; since the authorities take the matter in hand at the start. Footnote 141: The only house built at Scotch Cap before the present century was built about 1740, by Capt. Benj. Greene. Until within a few years, the cellar of that house remained and also the chimney. It was called “the chimney lot.” Had this illness occurred in the very heart of a crowded city, greater alarm or more stringent measures could not have ensued. There is a special meeting of Governor and Council at New Haven, October 14, on receipt of the news that John Rogers is ill at Mamacock with the smallpox, and that “on account of the size of the family, upwards of twenty persons, and the great danger of many persons going thither and other managements” (doubtless referring to scriptural methods of restoration and precaution) “there is great liability of the spread of the infection in that neighborhood.” It is enacted that “effectual care be taken to prevent any intercourse between members of the family and other persons, also that three or four persons be impressed to care for the sick.” There are a number of meetings of the Governor and Council over this matter (for full accounts of which see the published records of the General Court of Connecticut). Were it not for the court records, coming generations would be at loss to know whether the members of the family themselves, also John Bolles, John Waterhouse, John Culver and their wives, and others of the Rogerenes held firmly to their principles in this crisis, or whether they stood willingly and fearfully aloof, not daring to put their faith and theory to so dangerous and unpopular a test. Fortunately for Rogerene history, the testimony furnished by records of the special sittings of the Governor and Council on this occasion, fully establishes not only the fidelity of the Rogerenes to New Testament teachings, but also their attachment and loyalty to their leader.