“The kind of Church people that were made in the Colonial days of the Church in Connecticut may be illustrated by the name of Samuel Peet, a devout Churchman from Stratford, who came to settle in the New Milford North Purchase, in the vicinity of Rock Cobble, west of Peet Hill. He selected a site for his future home near a great rock, which, by some convulsion of nature, had been rent asunder, leaving a portion like an altar between, with two natural steps to ascend it. Here, Samuel Peet, the Hermit, knelt day by day to worship his God, and the holes he chiseled out for his knees on the top of that altar are to be seen to this day. He erected his house just west of the altar, and here reared his family, desiring to be buried between the rocks, but, as it was found they came together just below the surface of the ground, he was buried on the east side of the altar rocks, in one of the most romantic burying-places of this town. Now, in 1789, when the Rev. Mr. Clark had fled to Nova Scotia, and the church in New Preston was boarded up to save its windows from being destroyed, Samuel Peet was on his death-bed, desiring to receive the Holy Communion. He sent a messenger away down to one of the churches nearer the Sound, for a priest. It was in March, and the roads were very heavy, and a prolonged time was required. “Meanwhile, Samuel Peet was nearing his end. He asked that bread and wine be prepared and placed on a table beside his bed, that no time be lost when the priest of the Church arrived. Again and again, he sent out to see if the messenger and the priest might be seen coming in the distance; and, as the end grew nearer, and the priest had not arrived, Samuel Peet said, ‘Let us pray,’ and, when all had knelt around his bed, he prayed: ‘O Blessed Jesus, Our great High Priest, come down and consecrate this Bread and this Wine to be Thy Body and Blood.’ And, after silence had been kept for a space, he reached out his trembling hand and communicated himself, after which he soon fell asleep in Jesus. Who shall say that was not a valid consecration! “The priest of the Church arrived that night, and remained to commit his body to the earth, looking for the general resurrection in the Last Day.... “It is a tradition that some of the rectors of the Church of England had a habit of talking to themselves, and, behind the curtain while they were robing, would often repeat over the notices to be given out, the most interesting being the publishing of the banns of matrimony, which was the custom in those days. On one occasion the banns were published between Orin Marsh and Maria Hill, who lived upon the plains. Now, there were in the Church, Orman Marsh of Boardman’s Bridge, and Maria Hill, of Aspetuck, whom the congregation thought were the parties published, greatly to their confusion. That day, the second-named began their acquaintance, suggested by the banns, and, in due time, their banns were likewise published.