From Sickness to Revelation in Ascot, Canada
Isaac Bullard first appears in historic records in Ascot, Canada, in 1817, 30 miles north of the Vermont border where he was healed from partial paralysis. This proved instrumental in his prophetic calling as a prophet. Reports describe him fasting 40 days during severe illness, recovering suddenly through divine intervention, and declaring he was commanded to plant the church of the Redeemer in the wilderness.
Bullard was not the first American - prophetically transformed from serious illness. In 1776, Jemima Wilkinson was thought to have died from a sickness - but resurrected with a male spirit and a new prophetic call. And a man named Handsome Lake nearly died in 1799, but recovered, receiving a series of visions leading to the Longhouse Religion of the Iroquois.
The newly healed Isaac Bullard left Canada hurriedly. For the "command of the Lord" led him to prescribe "a decoction of poisonous bark" to an infant who subsequently died. He and his group, known as Pilgrims, fled Canada to Woodstock, Vermont, 150 miles south.
Establishing the Pilgrims in Vermont
Chosen son
Bullard arrived near Woodstock in the late-Spring of 1817 with his followers, including his wife and infant son. He claimed his infant son was the "Second Christ."
While rare, the notion of a specially chosen child had precedent. Three years earlier, English woman Joanna Southcott, at age 64, prophesied she would have a son who would be the “Second Christ;” Joseph Smith expected a divine gift for his first-born son Alvin, to be able to translate golden plates. Smith also foresaw a "Davidic" son, and named his eldest surviving son Joseph Smith III as a seer and revelator.
The chosen son concept, though rare, appeared in some early American religious movements.
Prophet Equivalency
Bullard, like many charismatic leaders of his era, claimed a remarkable religious identity, ruling his sect as an absolute monarch in spiritual and secular matters. He styled himself as the prophet Elijah.
This pattern was common among American religious leaders such as Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers, who in 1770 claimed to be the female second coming of Christ; Jemima Wilkinson, who asserted she was possessed by a male spirit from heaven; Robert Matthews, also known as Matthias, would claim apostolic lineage in 1825; Joseph Dylkes would proclaim himself as the messiah in 1828 in Ohio; and Joseph Smith, who was code-named "Enoch" beginning in 1832 in certain revelations. Such grand titles helped distinguish these leaders from clergy and legitimize innovations.
Millennialist / Restorationist
By midsummer 1817, Bullard had about forty followers. His Pilgrims combined restorationist ideas with millennial beliefs that Christ would soon return. Observers described the Pilgrims as forerunners of Christ's second coming and unique followers called by God. One Pilgrim proclaimed the Lord's coming was near, with darkness covering the land and God’s kingdom about to be established.
Communal Experimentation
Bullard established an authoritarian communal theocracy in Vermont, pooling resources valued at $8,000–$10,000. His communal experiment mirrored others such as the Labadists (1670), Ephrata Cloister (1732), and the Shakers (1774). Others would follow suit such as the Mormons (1831) and Oneida group (1848) -- all emphasizing shared property and labor.
Complex Marriage
Bullard also implemented complex marriage, regularly dissolving existing unions and reassigning partners. Bullard rejected surnames, abolished marriage, and allowed promiscuous cohabitation according to reports. Marriages were "disannulled" with participants believing their sexual actions were sinless.
Bullard's complex marriage emerged from perfectionist theology. Earlier American precedents for spiritual wifery—where marriage was governed by prophetic or spiritual rather than legal norms—were found among the Immortalists in Rhode Island/Massachusetts in the 1740s to 1750s, and Shadrach Ireland’s sect in Massachusetts in the 1750s to 1770s. There is a lull in the reported practice of spiritual wifery of nearly 30 years until Bullard started his complex marriage system in 1817.
Just one year after Bullard began the practice, Jacob Cochran's group picked it up in 1818 in Maine, and closely paralleled Bullard’s pattern -- with Cochran claiming divine authority to assign and reassign "spiritual wives" by revelation. The two groups' similarity and geographic proximity (130 miles apart) suggest possible connections.
John Humphrey Noyes at Oneida, NY would develop an organized form of complex marriage in the 1840s centered on communal partner reassignment, rooted in perfectionist doctrine. Joseph Smith introduced plural marriage in Mormonism in the 1830s and 1840s—primarily as polygyny (men taking multiple wives), but with the additional complexity of polyandry, as some women were sealed to Smith while already married to other men.
Although all four leaders redefined marriage under prophetic authority, their approaches revealed key distinctions. Bullard's model relied on communal partner reassignment as did Cochran's system. Noyes implemented group marriage based on mutual consent and perfectionist doctrine. Smith's plural marriage, prioritized polygyny yet incorporated polyandrous sealings for Smith during its early practice.
Bullard's complex marriage was short-lived. It exemplifies how radical spiritual authority could affect the most personal aspects of religious life.
In search of a New Jerusalem
In mid-summer 1817, Bullard revealed a revelation that Pilgrims must leave Woodstock to find their New Jerusalem—a literal pilgrimage to a land of holiness.
This quest for sacred places recurred in American religion, seen with Jemima Wilkinson in 1794, German Harmonists in 1805, and Mormons in 1831. Bullard's call reflected the cultural expectation that renewal came through founding a separate community.
Divining Rod
In addition to night visions, Bullard used his staff to divine the way to the Promised Land. He interpreted its fall to identify their direction of travel.
Rod use falls within American folk-religious tradition, where divining rods were tools not only for locating water, mineral or treasure, but also for communicating with spirits or receiving supernatural signs. Beginning in the seventeenth century, treasure seekers or "money diggers" used rods in ceremonial attempts to locate hidden wealth guarded by spirits. In German-American communities of Braucherei (BROW-ker-eye), rods were employed for healing, blessing homes, contacting the dead, and receiving revelations in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Similarly, Connecticut Valley Spiritualist groups in the late 18th and early 19th centuries used rods "to receive revelation about community decisions, to evaluate prophetic visions, and to heal." Nathaniel Wood's New Israelites, operating in the 1790s in Vermont, also practiced "folk-magic divining" with a rod. Among the group was William Cowdery Jr., whose son, Oliver Cowdery, would become Joseph Smith's primary associate during the early years of the Mormon movement.
Early Mormon scripture affirms Oliver tried to translate golden plates with a rod, although unsuccessfully. Mormon rod revelation persisted into the 1860s through Heber C. Kimball, counselor to Brigham Young.
Bullard's Woodstock location near William Cowdery Sr. and Jr. suggests possible influence by New Israelites, but perhaps it was from the broader New England rod culture.
Bullard led his band westward through the Finger Lakes region of New York (south of Palmyra).
Contention with the Devil
In late November 1817, Baptist minister Ira Chase visited Bullard's Pilgrims in Dryden, New York where he noted the group's morning rituals of frantic outcries to expel Satan.
Local sources describe them wearing large white cloths as "marks for the Devil to shoot at" and howling like wolves to drive out Satan.
Such ritualized confrontations with evil positioned Bullard's group within the broader tradition of American religious movements that viewed themselves as spiritual warriors in a cosmic battle.
Uttering Curses
Bullard's Pilgrims became known for uttering curses. Shaker sources reported they "frequently denounced woes upon persons and villages" and "uttered many curses" against rivals like the Shakers.
Bullard's community, as far as I can tell, was the first religious group in America to institutionalize cursing as practice.
Later leaders integrated cursing into religious life. Joseph Smith formalized cursing through shaking dust or cleansing their feet beginning in 1830. Robert Matthews (Matthias 1832-1835) also used cursing extensively for prophetic control.
Asceticism
Bullard's radical asceticism permeated Pilgrim life. When Baptist minister Ira Chase visited, he noted the men wore long beards except on their upper lip and distinctive attire including bear-skin girdles. Bullard harshly rebuked him for worldly pride and comfort.
Elsewhere, Bullard also preached against vain attire and personal care. Observers regularly commented on the Pilgrims' ragged, dirty appearance.
Bathing and washing clothes were outlawed. Bullard boasted he had not bathed for seven years.
Their eating practices were severe: all food was eaten standing. Raw bacon was the only permitted meat.
Extreme fasting and bizarre mandates prevented followers from enjoying worldly luxuries.
In Troy, NY, they were described as having a "ludicrous appearance" with their short staves, forcing them to march humped over.
Bullard's clubbed foot and earlier injuries may have inspired the difficult edicts he imposed on his followers.
Various religious groups in America practiced asceticism—through celibacy, fasting, or simple living—but only the Ephrata Cloister approached Bullard's extremes. Its members lived sparsely, depriving themselves of material comfort, sleeping just a few hours on hard benches without bedding, and eating small vegetarian meals only at evening. Bullard's program stands out as one of the most severe expressions of American asceticism.
Tongues
The Pilgrims' worship was marked by distinctive "gift of tongues" featuring chanting, humming sounds, and droning. Observers described worshippers with closed eyes muttering unintelligibly while swaying, with men speaking "unknown tongues" and women lying face-down threshing their arms.
These expressive rituals were essential to the Pilgrims' identity.
In winter 1817–1818, Bullard's group reached eastern Ohio and gained converts from the Dancing Johnites—a nomadic, communal, apocalyptic group practicing ecstatic dancing under prophet John Turner. In Ohio, they abandoned their bear-skin girdles for patched rags. By March of 1818, their group of 55 continued westward, proselyting along the way.
Healing / Overcoming Death
By April, smallpox forced Cincinnati officials to request the Pilgrims detour around the city. Several died. Despite hardship, the Pilgrims claimed spiritual powers, including healing through incantations and eventually raising the dead.
Some Pilgrims claimed they would never die.
Such claims fit within American immortalist and perfectionist movements. Earlier figures such as Shadrack Ireland, Nat Smith (who went by “God Smith”) and the Cumberland Perfectionists had taught that true holiness transcends death.
These teachings persisted in later religious movements, including the New York Perfectionists in the 1820s-30s, and among Millerite circles in the 1830s and early 40s. In the 1830s, Joseph Smith produced scripture describing the "translation" of individuals which included John the Beloved, the Three Nephites, Elijah, Enoch and his community. Mormon scripture also taught that those who magnified their priesthood would be "sanctified unto the renewing of their bodies." While Mormon scripture avoided absolute immortalism, it presented a "lighter" version with bodily renewal, spiritual transformation, and translation to immortality without death.
Missouri
As Bullard's group pressed onward in their search for the promised land, practical hardships only intensified. The Pilgrims sold their wagons and teams to purchase a flatboat, intending to float down the Ohio River. That summer, they landed at a remote island which they named "Pilgrim Island." Sickness soon spread and some died, probably from malaria.
As losses mounted, Bullard's revelation took a grim turn. He declared their dead should not be buried; as a result, passing travelers on the river sometimes observed the bones of Pilgrims left behind. Just inland in Missouri, Bullard announced that they had reached the "promised land": The prophet's divining staff now stood still—he declared here he was commanded to build a church.
But fulfillment proved elusive. The landowner denied permission to remain, forcing the group to move on once more. In response, the community entered a period of ritual mourning: for three days and nights, each Pilgrim took a turn chanting, "My God, My God, Why hast Thou Forsaken me!"—a public sign of spiritual and emotional exhaustion, marking a major obstacle in Bullard's quest for a New Jerusalem.
Arkansas
After leaving Missouri, the remaining followers continued their journey down the Mississippi River into the even more remote Arkansas Territory. In late 1819, disaster struck when their flatboat hit a sandbar near the mouth of the Arkansas River. After deaths and departures by much of their group, just 15 Pilgrims remained. They abandoned their boat and established themselves on a swampy patch of land where the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers met. By autumn, most had died or deserted; only five remained.
By 1824, only two young women were left, reportedly living in a hut and refusing an offer of free passage to Cincinnati, testifying that they still inhabited the promised land and were faithful to Bullard's teachings.
Perhaps his final prophecy, Bullard promised to rise from the dead two years after his death.
Conclusion: Bullard, The “Mormon Delusion,” and the Making of American Prophecy
In 1826, couched between Joseph Smith’s “glass looking” trail, and before his second-to-last yearly sojourn to the Hill Cumorah, Palmyra's Wayne Sentinel published "Wonderful Infatuation: Modern Pilgrims," a critical account of Isaac Bullard's wandering religious sect.
The Sentinel listed Bullard's key features, which read like a shadow script of Joseph Smith, including prophetic authority, revelation by objects, restorationism, millennialism, a quest for Zion, and claims of being God’s select church.
Five years later and one year after the Mormon church formed, an 1831 article titled the "Mormon Delusion," observed that the resemblance between Pilgrims and Mormons suggested that "Old Isaac had re-appeared in the person of Joe Smith."
Joseph Smith may not have read these articles directly, but Bullard's legacy primed audiences for what a new "prophet" might resemble.
Of course, the parallels are not perfect. Bullard’s movement disintegrated—undone by internal excess and lack of renewal—while Joseph Smith, through continuous revelation and missionary vigor, created the most enduring of new American faiths. A continuing stream of scripture and revelation all far surpassed anything Bullard attempted or imagined.
This history can be read in multiple ways. Some will see in these patterns the marks of an American environment overflowing with spiritual experimentation—Smith as a product of his “burned-over” world. Believers may instead see providence itself: that God worked through the intense ferment, planting ideas and precedents that would prepare the soil for true restoration. As both the Wayne Sentinel and “Mormon Delusion” observed, innovation was always met with both skepticism and fascination—but a fully new faith could, and did, take root.
Ultimately, the legacy of both Bullard and Smith is a testament to how American prophetic voices emerge, adapt, or dissolve. Their stories—reveal what was possible, and what was at stake in the religious crucible of early 19th-century America. Whether guided by culture or providence, the outcome is the same: these movements changed the landscape, and their echoes are still heard today.
