In 1825 the Rev. Ethan Smith, pastor of the Congregational Church of Poultney, Vermont, published his View of the Hebrews, supporting the contention that the Indians were the Ten Lost Tribes. On the publication of this volume President Griffin of Williams College called his attention to the discovery of the phylactery in Pittsfield, and the reverend gentleman immediately undertook an investigation in order to use the find as further supporting evidence. He made a journey to Pittsfield. He interviewed "different aged people" and convinced himself that "no Jew was ever known in Pittsfield." He got an account of the discovery from Captain Merrick himself. He tried to see the phylactery, but found that it had been deposited with the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, and that it had been misplaced and could not be found. Having satisfied himself that it was Indian in its origin, he decided that the phylactery was a convincing proof of the Hebraic origin of the Indian, and inserted the story of its discovery in the second edition of his View of the Hebrews as an unanswerable argument to support his opinions.

I have made careful search to see if I could identify any of the early settlers of Pittsfield as Jews. Since Pittsfield, situated on the Mohawk trail, the main colonial thoroughfare of western Massachusetts, was not more than two days' travel from Albany, and was a trading center of a prosperous and growing agricultural district, it would not be surprising to find that enterprising Jewish traders had visited or settled there at an early date. But despite diligent search, I have failed to find trace of any Jew in the early records. The name of Isaac Isaacs indeed appears on the Pittsfield military rolls as in service in 1780-1781, and it has been suggested that he may have been a Jew. There is nothing to substantiate the supposition, and I am more inclined to believe that he belonged to the well-known Connecticut family of that name which was early settled in Greenwich, Stamford, and Norwalk.

But whether the phylactery was lost by an early settler or dropped by some pioneer traveler, it affords only another indication of the ubiquity of the Jew in early colonial America.