.MTI4NA.MTAzMTE0

Oct 31 to Nov 8 Rufus Holton of Northfield is a very good sort of fellow not being very long in the service, but promises to be a very useful one. These four made my party, except the "Old Man", as they call the head of the party. A. R. Field Esq. is called a very fine man. I do not think very highly of him as an Engineer, he is a little short sighted, and that is as great a defect as once can have. He has however had a good deal of practice, and probably thinks himself much superior to some above him. Joseph A. Stevens is particularly a friend of his, and his father I expect thinks Field has badly influences Joseph's religious opinions. Uncle & family, & Parsons & Hannah you know are, or call themselves, Evangelical Unitarians belong to the Religious Unitarians; are very religious as Wooster Parker said of the Universalist affairs; their religion consist in these things. Field is a great admirer of Parker. Theodore Parker you know whom some of the other Unitarians consider little better than an infidel. And in fact I think Field is but little better. And Joseph is slightly of the same sort. It is a sort of natural tendency of Unitarianism; if its believers get tired of trying to work out salvation by their own good works, they very naturally turn towards infidelity, perhaps a little afraid of it, the name at least, but in reality getting towards it. How long I should stay between here & Bellow's Falls I know not, the last week we have stopped here at Brattleboro', This week we shall be at Putney; the next probably at Westminster, and the next perhaps at the Falls. That is if we are not before that called over upon the mountain, to the Bennington & Troy Survey