Nathaniel Wood
Encyclopedia
Nathaniel Wood, Sr., was the leader of a sect
Sect
A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...

 called the New Israelites
New Israelites
The New Israelites were a radical sect founded by Nathaniel Wood in Vermont in the 1790s. Wood declared his followers "modern Israelites," and the group practiced a strict dietary code as they understood to be instructed in the Law of Moses. Like most radical sects, the group displayed spiritual...

, which was formed in Middletown, Rutland County, Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...

 at the end of the 1790s. Wood emigrated from Newent Parish in Norwich, Connecticut
Norwich, Connecticut
Regular steamship service between New York and Boston helped Norwich to prosper as a shipping center through the early part of the 20th century. During the Civil War, Norwich once again rallied and saw the growth of its textile, armaments, and specialty item manufacturing...

 to Bennington, Vermont. From Bennington he moved to Rutland County in 1761. Wood may have been influenced by the Newent Separates of Norwich, who believed in perfectionist immortalism and spiritual wifery, and the preaching of Rev. Joel Benedict, who taught that Hebrew was the angelic tongue. Wood was excommunicated from the local Congregationalist church in 1789. Subsequently, he began to preach to small meetings whose attendees were mostly family and relatives.

Wood claimed literal descent from the Ten Lost Tribes
Ten Lost Tribes
The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel refers to those tribes of ancient Israel that formed the Kingdom of Israel and which disappeared from Biblical and all other historical accounts after the kingdom was destroyed in about 720 BC by ancient Assyria...

 of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 and to possess the powers of revelation. After coming into contact with a treasure seer by the name of Justus Winchell, the New Israelites commenced looking for buried treasure and embarked on the construction of a temple. The group employed the divining rod for both treasure hunting
Treasure hunting
Treasure hunting is the physical search for treasure which has been a notable human activity for millennia. -In modern times:In recent times, the early stages of the development of archaeology included a significant aspect of treasure hunt; Heinrich Schliemann's excavations at Troy, and later at...

 and other forms of revelation. It was suspected that these efforts masked a counterfeiting operation. Wood predicted the arrival of a "Destroying Angel" that would bring down plagues and earthquakes upon the "gentiles." For this reason one might arguably call the New Israelites a Millennarian group. The locals were so alarmed that on the night in question the militia was called out. When this apocalypse failed to occur, Wood and his family moved to Ellisburg, Lawrence County, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. This event was subsequently known as the "Wood Scrape."

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