FtV - The Rod Men of Middletown
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Welcome, legendary listeners. Thanks for tuning in to From the Vault, a second look at some of our classic episodes. Look for a new episode every week. Now, can you go back and listen on your own at OurNewEnglandLegends.com? You bet. But you won't get the added bonus of an After the Legends segment featuring new commentary about that episode from your old pals Jeff and Ray. So let's open up the New England Legends Vault and revisit another legendary episode.

Welcome to The Vault. So glad you're with us in The Vault. Just a reminder, we're going to be back with all new episodes Thursday, January 9th. That will be back, but for now, we've got a few vaults as we get through the holiday season. This one, The Rodman of Middletown, first aired June 28th, 2018. Enjoy. Jeff, what in the world are you doing? What does it look like I'm doing?

If I knew, I wouldn't ask now, would I? I mean, I see you holding some brass metal rods. You're swinging around in your hands. I mean, you look like a human TV antenna. Ray, I'm dowsing. I'm looking for subtle energies in the environment. Okay, but why are you doing this in Middletown, Vermont? Because a pretty big event happened right here. Something that may have played a role in establishing a religion with over 16 million members today. Wow. And maybe it all started with dowsing rods right here in Middletown.

Hey, I'm Jeff Belanger. And I'm Ray Ogier. And welcome to episode 45 of the New England Legends podcast. If you give us about 10 minutes, we'll give you something strange to talk about today. We're on a mission to document every legend in New England, one week at a time. And we need your help, legendary listeners. Please consider joining our community of legend hunters by becoming a patron. Just go to patreon.com slash newenglandlegends.com.

And for as little as $3 per month, you can help us with our production and hosting costs, plus gain access to bonus podcasts no one else gets to hear, and join our super secret Facebook group. Now, we believe that sharing these stories helps us learn a little about our communities and ourselves. They do. So thanks for listening. All right, Jeff, let's get back to the dowsing rods.

Where do they come from? Well, the concept of dowsing is thousands of years old. It's also been called divining or water witching. Ah, yes, okay. I remember when I was a kid hearing about the old-timers, they used these fork sticks to... Exactly, yeah. Yeah, and they'd figure out where to dig a well for water. That's dowsing. Right. There's even a reference to that kind of dowsing in the Bible. Wow. I'm referring to the Old Testament, Book of Exodus, chapter 17, verses 5 to 6. And the Lord said to Moses...

pass on before the people taking with you some of the elders of israel and take in your hand the rod with which you struck the nile and go behold i will stand before you there on the rock at horeb and you shall strike the rock and water shall pour forth from it that the people may drink

And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. So Moses strikes the rock to find water using a stick. Many modern dowsers will tell you this is the story of Moses using a divining rod to find underground water so his people knew where to dig a well. I always thought the idea of using a stick to find water was a little kooky. You know, like witchcraft or folk magic. No, I get how weird it can look, but consider this. Human beings are still animals.

All right. And as animals, we have to find water to survive. It's a matter of life and death. I get that. So animals can sense water because they have to. And we're no different. We keep this ability mostly turned off today because when we want water, we can just, you know, go to the sink, pour ourselves a glass...

But take all that away, and now our very lives depend on finding a water source, whether a clean stream or a river or an underground spring we can tap into. All right, I'll buy that. But what does a forked stick or metal rods have to do with anything? I believe they have very little to do with anything at all. But before we get too far in this story, let's bring in an expert.

I am Leanne Potter. I am the president of the American Society of Dowsers. Well, I don't think it's a coincidence that the American Society of Dowsers is headquartered about 80 miles northeast of us in the town of Danville, Vermont. We asked Leanne for her definition of dowsing. Well, dowsing means a lot of things to a lot of different people there. Um, but when we talk about dowsing, um,

at my level, it's really about being able to access a source of information. People can do that by using tools or they can do it by any other means that they are comfortable with. Most people think of dowsing tools as L-shaped metal rods you hold in your hand or forked tree branches or even like a pendulum, a weighted object at the end of a string or a chain.

Over the millennia, people have used dowsing or divining to look for water, minerals, buried treasure, oil, and a host of other things that might just lurk out of sight. What you're really doing is searching for the energy field that the water is creating as it flows underground.

And you do this by starting at a fixed point in a field or on a property and you wander the property in a given direction to start with and do like a grid pattern.

And when you come upon the water, the dowsing tool that you're using will indicate that there is water there. Then you can use the water or the dowsing tool to identify how much water, what the flow rate is. Is the water potable? Can you drink it? How long it will last? Because some of these underground streams are seasonal.

So all of that is available to the dowser when they do dows for water. Leanne explained how dowsing or divining comes down to a person's focus and intent, asking questions, getting answers when it comes to specifics like how deep, how much, and so on. But she's quick to point out that there's nothing special about these rods, sticks, or pendulums.

My analogy is you are the radio and the tool that you use is nothing more than the antenna. And if your radio is tuned well enough, you may not even need the antenna. One other point we discussed is how in the 1600s there were plenty of dowsers coming over from Europe to the New World to help establish wells for farms and communities and really help build a country.

But then around the 1690s, especially in northern Massachusetts, it suddenly becomes really unpopular to have seemingly magical abilities. Ah, the Salem Witch Trials. Exactly, exactly. So that event drove some of these dowsers north to Vermont to escape the witch hunt. Now earlier you said that these dowsing rods started a major religion with millions of members. Right, over 16 million members. Well, how did that start here in Middletown, Vermont? Okay, picture this.

It's the late 1700s and Nathaniel Wood comes along with aspirations of becoming the minister of the new Congregational Church in Middletown. He was passed over for the position but was offered the empty title of unofficial elder of the church.

So Wood's insulted. I mean, he thinks, a man of my abilities and knowledge, I should be leading a congregation, not standing on the sidelines. So Nathaniel Wood does what many religious leaders have done before him. He splits and starts his own church. And the nice thing about starting your own church, Ray, is that you can give yourself any title you want. That's true. And pretty soon, he started referring to himself as Priest Wood. You know, I would have aimed higher. I would have been, you know, Bishop Wood, Guru Wood, Pope Wood.

Or maybe he was trying to show some humility. So Priest Wood begins his church by recruiting his family, but soon his congregation grows as others join. The fact that he's growing his church means he must be doing something right. He's got some message that's resonating with the people of Middletown. Which is great. I mean, what could go wrong when you start your own church, you know, with no oversight and no one to answer to? Yeah, pretty soon Priest Wood starts referring to his church members as the New Israelites.

Then he claimed a day of reckoning was coming, that God was going to destroy everyone who was not a member of Wood's church. And there it is. Okay, so God is going to kill everyone who's not a member of Wood's church, which is an awful lot of people. But in fairness to Wood, his isn't the first or last religion to make such a claim. This is true. But here's where our story takes a turn, a twist, a twist.

A twitch. A twitch? Around this time, a man named Winchell arrives in Middletown. The locals didn't know it when he showed up. Winchell was a wanted fugitive from Orange, Vermont, a town about 60 miles north. All right, what was his crime? Counterfeiting. But what made Winchell stand out was that he was a dowser. He carried dowsing rods made of witch hazel twigs and claimed he could detect buried treasure. He would carry the rods around and they would twitch.

Whenever he was over a point of interest. Priest Wood was enchanted by windshield and dowsing rods. And pretty soon, he began to incorporate the rods into his church. Not just Priest Wood, but soon other men of the church learned how to douse with witch hazel branches. By watching them twitch...

They could determine things like how long they will live. Or communicating directly with God and get replies. For example, one twitch for yes, two for no. Or dig for buried treasure to help fund Woods Church, right? Yeah. Following the dowsing rods, members of Woods Church once dug 70 feet into the ground in search of treasure. Yeah. But each time they got close, the rods told them that the treasure had been removed. Ha ha.

Their conclusion was that the treasure must be garnered by a magic spell. Okay, this sounds a little nuts, a little cult-like. A little. Pretty soon, members of Wood's church earned the nickname the Rodmen. Okay. But it's about to get worse. Hold on. Priest Wood claimed through the dowsing rods, God told him to build a temple in Middletown. He announced two apocalyptic events were coming.

First, some supernatural destroyer was going to arrive and wipe out half of the population. And second, this is the second one, a huge earthquake would come along and finish the job. Except for members of his church, of course. Of course. So did Priestwood say when these events were going to happen? Yeah, January 14th, 1801, of course. Okay.

Okay, that's incredibly specific. Well, when dealing with the end of the world prophecy, you have to be, Jeff. Okay, I don't mean to drop spoilers here, but I just checked the calendar, and I can see we're pretty well past January 14th, 1801. Oh, come on. Looks like you're right. Alright.

The world didn't end. But his prophecy did cause quite a panic back in Middletown as the day drew closer. So did locals outside of the church believe this prophecy? No, no, not at all. The concern was that when January 14th arrived and there was no destroyer or earthquake, the church members would take it upon themselves to fulfill the prophecy themselves.

And maybe go on a killing spree, starting with the Congregational Church that spurred wood just a few years earlier. So what did the people of Middletown do? They organized the militia, took up arms, and kept watching until...

Until January 14th, 1801 passed without incident. No natural disasters, no destroyers, no marauding rod men. Okay, one of the problems with betting your whole church and religion on a specific end-of-the-world date is that when that date comes and goes, so too does your credibility. So Priest Wood's temple was never built in Middletown, and he and his family left town for good and moved to New York.

And life got back to normal for Middletown. Dowsing was still around for those looking for underground water and treasure, but I don't see how a religion with millions of members came out of this. Priest Wood's group fell apart. Okay, on December 23rd, 1805, just a few years later, about 35 miles north of Middletown in the town of Sharon, Vermont, a boy was born. This boy grew up exposed to many of the ideas and practices that were circulating through central Vermont at the time, and that included dowsing.

The story of the rod men of Middletown was still swirling as this lad grew up. He heard about this religious group that used dowsing or divining rods to communicate with God, to find water, and to look for buried treasure.

The boy soon got his own set of witch hazel divining rods and started using them. A lot of people were doing this back then. This shouldn't be a surprise. No, but when this particular boy from Sharon, Vermont got older, he believed there was a great treasure buried somewhere in the United States, and he thought he and his divining rods could find it. And did people believe this guy? They sure did, and they followed him west. Pretty cool.

Pretty soon, others began to follow him, and he eventually dictated an entire book that he gleaned from staring at a stone. Unlike Priestwood, this boy's religion grew and is still around today. So who was this boy who was inspired by the Rodmen of Middletown? His name was Joseph Smith, and the religion he founded is called Mormonism.

Okay, mind blown. An entire world religion from a guy in Vermont with some witch hazel branches. No, no, everything starts somewhere. Today, Mormons, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, claims over 16 million members worldwide. Huge. It does make me curious to try those dowsing rods, Jeff. You can. Any bent rod or stick will do.

And something we're curious for you legendary listeners to try is calling or texting our legend line at 617-444-9683. We got a text this week from the 207 area code. That would be Maine. It reads, Dear Jeff and Ray, have you guys ever considered actually investigating some of these haunts and legends instead of just telling the story? Or are you scared? No, I'll do it. You'll do it? Any day of the week. I'm all for that as well. And I think the difference, though, between what we're doing and investigating is...

Investigations can often be very inconclusive. Right. And whereas we tell the story because, you know, you take it or leave it at that point. We're telling you the story as it's told. Absolutely. But I think it would be fun to go on an investigation. All right, I'm ready. We're going to try it. All right, call us or text us anytime, 617-444-9683. You can also visit our website at OurNewEnglandLegends.com and listen to all of our past episodes. That's right. And...

You can find out about the New England Legends television series on PBS and Amazon Prime. That's huge. That's amazing. And thank you to Dave Schrader for lending his voice this week. Thank you to our guest Leanne Potter of the American Society of Dowsers. And our theme music is by John Judd. Until next time, remember, the bizarre is closer than you think. All right, we'll break it down right after a word from our sponsor. This is it.

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Sounds like a punk band, doesn't it? The Rodmen. Well, sounds like something. Or a porno. I don't know. Right, right, right. So doomsday cults are great because every time some doomsday cult says the last day on earth, the end of the world is this day. Yeah. They have been wrong 100% of the time. They're literally winless. But they always spin it and say, oh,

Oh, Mitch was doing the math on that one and he totally blew it. It's actually going to be 79 years from now when we're all gone. Right, right, right. Talk about egg on your face. So dowsing is what we're talking about. Look what I brought. Ready? You brought dowsing. Is it Z? Is it like dowsing? D-O-W-S. Like if I were to douse you with a bucket of water. Right. Same pronunciation? Yes. Dowsing though. Dowsing.

So these are dowsing rods specifically. So they've got a copper sleeve and then just a bent metal wire, almost like a coat hanger. So go ahead, Ray. You hold one in each hand.

I don't know why I cleared my throat to do this. So you want to aim them down just ever so slightly. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, if they're level, they're going to, yes, point to the devil. Oh, pointing it right. So hold on. I got to get them straight. Yeah, and then just ever so slightly so they're not quite. And then so you would say, you know, you're trying to tune in. You're the compass. That's just the needle. And you're trying to tune in to subtle energies that might be in the room. Well, it's going to the left.

Okay. How about the dousing rods? No, but I mean, I'm trying to stay as still as I can. Yes. One of them is going to the left, now going to the right. Can you please cross the rods? Cross the rods into an X. Cross the rods or spread them wide apart. Either way. I think, oh, there, see, they're crossing. It's moving. Yeah, they're crossing.

Do you think that's me in my brain subtly moving my hands without me moving my hands? What you're asking, is that an ideomotor response? Oh, yes, that's it. No, no, no, same thing. So that's the same question people ask with Ouija boards. Is it an ideomotor response where you're very subtly pushing the planchette

Or is it something really manipulating? And I would tell you that the only judge that matters on that is you. And if this is something you wanted to work with, you know, doing it right now live on our podcast is not really a proper experiment. I feel like I'm being as still as possible. These things are crossing. Yeah, right. Can you spread them apart now? Spread the rods apart.

Spread apart. So if you were looking for water and your intent was to find water, you could walk around outside and say cross when we're over water. And this is how literally some people dig wells to this day. Really? As unscientific as this is, people swear by it. We have radars now.

They'll use a fork stick, a switch or whatever. That's cool. Yeah. So anyways, but people use this in paranormal too. And so if you lost your ring, that's the thing you're tuning into. So you would use this to sort of guide you. Or a metal detector. Or a metal detector. But I get it. That's more fun, I think.

So anyway, the American Society of Dowsers up there, we heard from one of the members. And think about this. So the whole earth is an energy field, right? I mean, if not, we'd die. The sun's rays would literally fry us. And I think about how paranormal people use EMF meters to look for energy fluctuations, whether that's a spirit or just the earth doing a thing. That's up for debate. But...

But if you think about that, like, of course, I mean, why wouldn't you, why wouldn't a metal rod pick up on something the same as anything else? I mean, if you put a strong enough magnet near that, that would pull the rod. Yeah. Right. And we live on a magnet. Right. So, so, and, and could water disrupt the magnetic flow of that energy and you pick up on it and you say, oh, there's what must be water here. Yeah.

We said it in the podcast. We're animals. We need water to survive. Animals have instincts to find water or they die. So who knows? Maybe just an extension, you know? I thought it was just magic, but you have a better explanation of it.

So, right. But like magic. That's in my head. That's what's going on. And that's the problem with people who call themselves skeptics say like, oh, that's just woo woo, like magic abracadabra. Like you're fooling yourself. But there is a explanation. However, there's something to all this and to dismiss it just to say like, oh, that can't be right. I don't think that's fair. You know what I mean? Like that's...

If we focus our intent and intentions, we can do amazing things. Right. I mean, the first people to notice stars thought that that was magic. Like, what are those blinking things? That one's moving. Right. Yeah, that's magic. The moving stars was the one that freaked everybody out because...

All but like eight, seven, you know, right? Don't move. Right. But there's a few that move. And by the way, we're talking about the planets. We know that now. Yeah, but like a shooting star, too. You see that. Right. And you go, oh, that's going to blow you away. A star just fell out of the sky. And it happens all the time. And it's going to hit me. And we don't realize that they're millions of light years away. And during meteor showers, you can have like...

five, six, seven in a minute. Yeah. Right. When it's a really... That could signify the end of the world for somebody seeing that for the first time. Right. They're all falling and we're in trouble. So anyway, but I love that. I love that we, you know, some people just dismiss it and say, ah, stop it. But I'm like, just give it a minute and go below the surface because I think there's always something more to the story if you just have a bit of an open mind. And the Rodman of Middletown...

that that launched a major world religion, basically, called Mormonism. Yeah. Joseph Smith, we touched on that. You know, so you trace stuff back far enough and, you know, there's a root that runs very deep. Yeah.

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