cut in the part of
New Fairfield known as Vaughn's Neck. Under the house, recently
demolished, in which "Dr. Vaughn," his brother, is said to have lived
during the Revolution, was found rotted linen below the cellar floor.
Behind the great heap of the chimney also was found a secret cellar, for
years forgotten, in which, among other rubbish of no significance, are
said to have been found counterfeit coins of the Revolutionary period
and other evidences of outlaw practices in that time.[24]

Vaughn used to ride at night with his troop to Quaker Hill, through
Connecticut neighborhoods, which knew the sound of his passing. The
Pepper family still relate the tradition of his riding up "Stony Hill,"
past the point where stands Coburn Meeting House, in the night, while
they and their neighbors stayed discreetly indoors. This rendezvous was
a place in the woods on Irish land, about half way between Sites 96 and
120, now known as "The Robber Rocks." Here the Vaughns are said to have
concealed booty at times, and from this point they made forages upon
farmhouses in the richest neighborhoods of this vicinity. Probably they
spared the Quakers. I will speak later of the fact that Quakers have
ways of their own for protecting themselves against intruders. Moreover,
their men were not gone to the war.

The record of these years, on the pages of the clerk's minute-book, are
a disappointment. One searches in vain for even the slightest trace of
the presence in the Meeting House of the troops. There is no record of
the presence in the Meeting House of the "Tories" or guerrillas of the
Revolution; and not a word about the makers of the rifle-ports in the
gables of this building which the present writer discovered there,
unless it be the unruffled and serene utterance, under date of 8th
Month, 9th, 1781, the very period at which the "Tories" must have been
at their worst: "Samuel Hoag is appointed to take care of the Meeting
House, and to keep the door locked and windows fastened, and to nail up
the hole that goes up into the Garratt." The "Tories" robbed the store
on Site 28. They had hidden for that purpose in the loft of the Meeting
House and were discovered by some young Quakers who were skylarking in
the Meeting House under pretense of cleaning it. The story is that one
of the young men, being dared--of course by a maiden--to open the
trap-door into the garret, and look for the Tories, found them hiding
there. The bandits, being dis