There is something almost mysterious in the figure of this second Father Nash rising from the mist of bygone years, and one is quite prepared to read of him[87] that he went forth to labor for souls with a double black veil before his face, like the minister in Hawthorne's weird tale whose congregation was terrified by the "double fold of crape, hanging down from his forehead to his mouth, and slightly stirring with his breath." Three miles north of Lowville in Lewis county, in Stow's Square churchyard, a marble shaft eight feet high, conspicuous from almost any point in the country which stretches away to the Adirondack wilderness, commemorates, in connection with the church that he erected there, the Father Nash who labored in Lewis and Jefferson counties, and in an obscure cemetery, not far distant, a modest headstone marks his grave. Returning to the story of Cooperstown's Father Nash, no estimate of his work can fail to take into account the character of the field in which he labored. When he came to this region the country, while partially settled, was mostly a wilderness. The difficulties of travel were great. The manner of life among pioneers was crude. Bishop Philander Chase visited Otsego county in 1799, and gives a vivid impression of the more than apostolic simplicity of Father Nash's surroundings.[88] The Bishop found the missionary living in a cabin of unhewn logs, into which he had recently moved, and from which he was about to remove to another, equally poor, inhabiting with his family a single room, which contained all his worldly goods, and driving nails into the walls to make his wardrobe. The bishop assisted the missionary in his moving, and describes how they walked the road together, carrying a basket of crockery between them, and "talked of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." In his missionary journeys Father Nash rode on horseback from place to place, often carrying one of his children, and Mrs. Nash with another in her arms behind him on the horse's back, for she was greatly useful in the music and responses of the services. Father Nash held services punctually according to previous appointment, but they were sometimes strangely interrupted. The terror of wolves had not been banished from Otsego, and on one occasion, at Richfield, the entire congregation disappeared in pursuit of a huge bear that had suddenly alarmed the neighborhood.[89] The bear was captured, and furnished a supper of which the congregation partook in the evening. While the bear hunt had spoiled his sermon, Father Nash cheerfully asserted that it was a Christian deed to destroy so dangerous a brute even on a Sunday, and a venial offense against the canons of the Church. It is further related that Father Nash ate so much bear steak, on this occasion, as to make him quite ill.