Abraham Shepard and his wife were received into the Newtown Church 11 Nov. 1770, and their first three children were baptized there. He is supposed thereafter to have joined the Sandemanian cult. His household in Newtown in the 1790 Census consisted of two males over 16, five males under 16, and three females.
On 28 June 1832, administration on the estate of Rhoda Shepard was granted to Sueton Shepard, with Lazarus Shepard and Abraham F. Shepard as sureties. Abraham's estate was distributed, 29 Mar. 1833, to Lazarus Shepard, Nathan Shepard, Samuel Shepard, Abraham Ferris Shepard, John B. Northrup in behalf of Rufus Shepard, and Sueton Shepard. [Newtown Probate.] from http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=worcmorgan&id=I0853
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Robert Sandeman established his church in the northern part of Danbury in 1763 and his tomb may still be preserved there. Sandemanianism in some parts of New England was promoted by converted Methodists.

In the 1720's a Calvinist, named John Glas began to redefine the orthodox ideas about saving faith. He believed that is was sufficient for a man to say that he simply believed the scriptures, and he began to believe that it was simply sufficient to define "saving faith" as "believing with the mind." He rejected the idea of faith having anything to do with putting full active dependency upon God. He was deposed from the Church of Scotland for this, and formed an independent church of his own.

His son-in -law, Robert Sandeman (1718-1771) aggressively took up these new views. He said Wesley and Whitefield's emphasis on repentance, will, and corresponding emotions were repugnant. He thought that John Wesley was "the most dangerous man that had ever appeared in the Church." In the 1780's many churches in Wales, Scotland, and England taught his views, which came to be know as Sandemanianism.1 With an American interest in His teaching, he migrated to America in 1764 and soon established Sandemanian churches in Massechusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. He resided in Danbury Connecticut, his largest congregation. His teaching met much resistance from the Baptists and Congregationalist of that time.2 Sandeman argued that saving faith issues from the mind accepting the testimony regarding Jesus Christ, thereby rejecting emotional experiences.3

from http://doffun.com/index.cfm?article_num=402

His views excited much controversy. They were similar to those of Calvin with the distinguishing tenet that faith was a " mere intellectual belief, a bare belief of the bare truth." He rejected all rays-tical and double sense from the Scripture, prohibited games of chance, " things strangled," according to the Jewish precept, and college training, and required weekly love feasts, and a plurality of elders. The sect was divided into two parts, the Baptist Sandemanians, who practised the sacrament of baptism, and the Osbornites, who rejected it. Sandeman came to this country in 1764, and organized societies in Boston, Massachusetts, and Danbury, Connecticut During the Revolution the Sandemanians were generally loyalists, and gave the Whigs much trouble.
from http://famousamericans.net/robertsandeman/

Glasites. This neoteric sect firmly believed in the “autonomy of the local congregation and the authority of Scripture.”7

and
Old Wooster Street graveyard.32  To this day, his gravestone reads:33

Here lies

Until the Resurrection

The body of

ROBERT SANDEMAN;

A native of Perth, North Britain; Who, in the face of continual opposition From all sorts of men, Long and boldly contended For the ancient faith; That the bare work of Jesus Christ, Without a deed, or thought on the part of man, is sufficient to present THE CHIEF [OF] SINNERS Spotless before God.To preach this blessed truth, He left his country—he left his friends; And, after much patient suffering, Finished his labours, At Danbury, Second April, 1771, Aged 52
from http://www.faithalone.org/journal/2002i/makidon.html

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In the fall of 1766 Sandeman settled permanently in Danbury Connecticutt. As in previous settings, he was met by resistance from town authorities. In 1770 a Danbury judge ordered Sandeman and a cohort arrested and fined £40 each because they ignored an order issued four weeks earlier to leave town as "strangers and undesirable persons." Sandeman pled his case, the sentence was never executed, and he continued to minister to a congregation that became the largest, most influential, and longest lasting in New England.

During his tenure in America, Sandeman gave himself wholly to missionary work and to establishing Sandemanian congregations. He had no family obligations (his wife died childless in 1746), nor did he need to work, for his followers shared their possessions with him. By the time he died, in Danbury, churches were formed in Taunton, Massachusetts, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Danbury and Newtown, Connecticutt. In the 1770s groups of followers worshipped regularly in New Haven, Providence, and Boston.

In several respects Sandeman’s convictions anticipated developments that recast America’s religious landscape in the quarter century after his death. His views on the separation of church and state, shared by Baptists (who otherwise opposed him) and other religious dissenters, achieved a legal status in the U.S. Constitution.

from http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bronwyn/ssbionotices.htm

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Mr. Sandeman was invited to come to this country by some who had heard of his views ; and, after forming a few societies, he died at Danbury in 1771. Three or four of the neighboring
ministers were favorably impressed by his views and came under his influence. Much trouble was caused thereby in Danbury and Newtown. A majority of the church in Danbury became Sandemanian, and that in Newtown became so weakened as to be reorganized with nine members in 1799. In 1768, the Fairfield East Association, who had taken a decided stand against the innovation, stated publicly that as a body, they were tinctured with Sandemanianism. See the Historical Sketch of that body in this volume. The influence of the
Sandemanian views has not spread, though they have not become extinct so rapidly as might have been expected. There is still a small community of them at Danbury. See Andrew
Fuller's Works ; Historical Sketch Fairfield East Consoc, 1859 ; Sprague's Annals. 1. 297 ; Relig. Encyc]
—
Com. of Pub.

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Mr. Smith adopted some of the errors of Sandemanianisra, and by his indiscretion and discipline, involved the church in trouble, from the disastrous effects of which, it became so reduced, as to be organized anew in 1799, having but nine male members. Under Mr. Atwater, 69 were added, the meeting-house repaired, a conference room provided, and the society brought into a more hopeful condition than for seventy-five years before. Without aid from the Home Missionary Societj-, from 1825, it would have beconi^ extinct. Minister Raised Up.—Isaac Beach.^
from

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Abraham Shepard (census neighbor and possibly an inlaw of Northrops) and his wife were received into the Newtown Church 11 Nov. 1770, and their first three children were baptized there. He is supposed thereafter to have joined the Sandemanian cult. His household in Newtown in the 1790 Census consisted of two males over 16, five males under 16, and three females.
On 28 June 1832, administration on the estate of Rhoda Shepard was granted to Sueton Shepard, with Lazarus Shepard and Abraham F. Shepard as sureties. Abraham's estate was distributed, 29 Mar. 1833, to Lazarus Shepard, Nathan Shepard, Samuel Shepard, Abraham Ferris Shepard, John
B. Northrup in behalf of Rufus Shepard, and Sueton Shepard. [Newtown Probate.]

Chestnut Ridge [Redding] episcopal

SANDEMANIAN CHURCH.
This ofifshoot from the old Presbyterian Church of Scotland was first called, as a sect, Glassites, after its founder, Rev. John Glas.* Later on it was known as Sandemanians, from the Rev.
* Rev. John Glas died at Dundee in 1773. His tombstone in that city bears the following inscription :" John Glas. Minister of the Congregational Church in this place, Died 2d November,
1778. Aged 78 years. He long survived Katharine Black His beloved wife, (Interred also in the same grave,) And all his children, Fifteen in number, many of whom arrived at mature age : And Nine lie here beside their Parents. His character in the churches of Christ is well known and will outlive all monumental inscriptions."^ Robert Sandeman, who reduced his opinions to a system. Sandeman was bom in the city of Perth, Scotland, about the year 1720. He married Catharine, a daughter of Rev. John Glas, and soon after became a Christian elder. In 1764, accompanied by Mr. James Cargill, Sandeman came to America, and assisted in the formation of several churches in New England. In 1769 there was a Sandemanian church in Portsmouth, N. H., on what was then called Brimstone Hill, now Richmond Street. During the time of his stay in Portsmouth for the organization of this church Mr. Sandeman occupied several times the pulpit of the Rev. Robert Drowne, one of the " New Lights." There was a Sandemanian church in Taunton, Mass., in the latter part of the last century which had quite a following, but it soon faded out of existence, as have all the churches of that belief, the only known members being the survivors of the church in Danbury. There was a small society of Sandemanians in Newtown many years ago.
This sect had also a place of worship in Plumtrees in the latter part of the last century. The last member of this society was" Uncle Isaac Williams," who long since passed to his rest, dying
July 11th, 1843. Soon after reaching America Mr. Sandeman settled in Danbury, where he died in 1771.* Many years ago the Sandemanians had in' Danbury a following of about fifty members. Twenty years ago this number had decreased to ten, and to-day there are but three members in this city. Its members in England and Scotland are fast diminishing, as additions are few. The only church building remaining of this denomination is now a thing of the past, and will hereafter figure only in the local history of Danbury. After the death of Robert Sandeman the church in Danbury was presided over by Elder Nathaniel Bishop, who died in 1857, after which time the position was filled by William H. Ely until his death in 1869. * Mr. E. A. Houseman, of tliis city, has a number of letters written in shorthand by Rev. Robert Sandeman to friends in England before his coming to America. These are beautifully done, and in a good state of preservation. There are five letters to Samuel Churchill, of date 1761, one to Mrs. Grace Jeffrey in 1759, and others to Mrs. Ma.xwell and " Mrs. Birch, Caldecot House. Abington, Berkshire." In these letters are mentioned " Battle and Allen," " Colin Robertson," and " Sallet." The little cliurch which so many remember—plain and simple, but glorified by its setting of green grass and tall trees upon the hill-top—was provided with a large circular table, around which the members gathered, each with a King James version of the Scriptures. As each felt individually disposed they read and commented on such passages as seemed interesting and iustructive. In this service females took no part, but were spectators and hearers. For a religion that antedates the Wesleyans and Baptists little is known of it, even here in Danbury, where it has flourished for so many years—that is, speaking in a general way. The following is taken from an old Danbury paper : " One of the peculiarities of the Sandemanian form of Worship is that they have a weekly love feast, in which the whole congregation dine together. It was the original intention to have
this take place in the churches, where a dining-room was provided, but in Danbury they find it more convenient to have this dinner served at the house of one of the members."
'
' Their rules prohibit games of chance, prayers at funerals, college training, as well as most nineteenth-century innovations, while in food they are forbidden to use flesh meat and ' all
things strangled.' " Webster defines the religion, as taught by its founder, as follows :
" He held that faith is only a simple assent to the divine testimony concerning Jesus Christ as set forth in the Scriptures. His followers hold to a weekly administration of the Lord's Supper ; to love feasts, which consist in dining at each other's houses in the intermission of public worship ; to the kiss of charity on the admission of members ; to mutual exhortation ; to abstinence from things strangled, and from blood ; to the washing of each other's feet ; to a modified community of goods ; to a plurality of elders, pastors, or bishops in each chiirch." Barber, in his " Connecticut Collections," published in 1836, says :" In 1764 Robert Sandeman, a native of Perth, Scotland, a man of superior abilities, came to this country. He settled in Danbury in July, 1765. The principal doctrines which he taught were similar to those of the Christian Church. His distinguishHISTORY OF DANBURY. 301 ing tenet was ' that faitli is a mere intellectual belief.' His favorite expression was, ' A bare belief of bare trutlis. ' He maintained that his chiu'ch was the only true church, then arisen from the ruins of Antichrist, his reign being near a close. The
use of means for mankind in a natural state he pretty much exploded." One of the things that caused the decline of the Sandemanians in Danbury was the introduction of divisions among them. The most prominent party that branched off from the church was called the Osbornites, from Levi Osborne, their teacher, at one time a deacon in the church. Another party was called the" Baptist" Sandemanians, from their belief in and practice of baptism. The greater majority of the latter dissenters finally merged into the Christian Church, in Danbury, the Church of
the Disciples. The following is the inscription upon the stone which marks the place in the old Wooster Street burial-groi;nd, where Robert Sandeman was laid to rest :" Here lies
until the resun-ection the body of Robert Sandem.\n, a native of Perth, North Britain, who in the face of continual opposition from all sorts of men, long and boldly contended for the ancient Faith that the bare work of Jesas Christ, without a deed or thought on the part of man, is sufficient to present the chief of sinners spotless before God. To declare this blessed truth as testified in the Holy Scriptures, he left his country, he left his friends, and after much patient suffering finished his labors at Danbury April 2, 1771. M 53 years." Deigned Christ to come so near to us as not to count it sbame To call us brethren, should we blush at aught that bears his name ? Nay, let us boast in his reproach and glory in his Cross, When He appears one smile from Him will far o'erjoy our loss." beyond the base of Sugar Hollow Mountain, near the corner of the present Starr's Plain and Long Ridge roads. One cold winter day Mr. Beatys was cutting wood in his door-yard, when Rev. James Coleman, known as "Uncle Jimmy," a Methodist preacher whose circuit extended from Ridgefield to the Canada line, passed by on horseback, on his homeward journey from Canada. According to the hospitable custom of that day, Mr. Beatys in\dted the traveller in to dinner, an invitation gratefully accepted. Finding that his guest was a minister, Mr. Beatys asked him to make an appointment to i^reach at his house, wliich he did two weeks later, giving the first Methodist sermon in Starr's Plain at the house of a very strong Episcopalian. The sermon made a deep impression, and was followed by another a little later, the result of which was a number of conversions, including the children of James Beatys, whose distress was great when he saw his children turn from the church of their father to Methodism. The outcome of these meetings was the organization of the first Methodist class in the town of Danbury, of which the original seven members were Daniel Beatys and Hannah, his wife, Levi Bronson and wife Abigail, John Mills and wife, and Joseph Sturges. Levi Bronson became a local preacher presumably about this time, and helped largely to build up Methodism in this town.