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At 21, his father's dream about a career in the ministry for Josiah seemed near to becoming a reality. The youth spent a year in intensive study preparing for examinations to enter the freshman class a Williams College over the mountain in Williamstown. He learned the first three books of the Aenied, two or three selected orations of Cicero, and memorized the four evangelist books of the Bible in Greek. Yet, professors at Williams told him he was not quite ready for college, and advised one more year of study.

Bitterly disappointed, Mr. Spaulding began anew the tutoring of his son, but Josiah's enthusiasm waned, and he seemed to lose his life-long interest in books. He began to spend what his father considered too much time alone. The worried elder Spaulding talked to some of Si's friends who convinced him he should mingle with people more, and who secured a job for him teaching school in the neighboring town of Ashfield.

For a time, the therapy of work cheered the young man, and he seemed happy, but after a while, his father felt, his "sulleness" returned. He shocked the old man anew one night by not coming home from Ashfield to continue his nightly studying, preferring rather to spend the night in the school. Such actions caused more concern for his welfare, and when, because of a disciplinary problem in the classroom, Josiah was dismissed from his school position, his father's anguish was nearly complete.

The onset of "insanity" became unmistakably clear to Mr. Spaulding, and loud arguments between the two could be heard by townspeople passing the country parsonage. Convinced his son had lost his reason, Mr. Spaulding informed is parishioners he had found it necessary to chain Josiah in his room.

A strong chain was secured from the barn and one end was riveted around his ankle, while the other was fastened onto a round staple, placed firmly in the bedroom floor. On being restrained in that manner, Josiah became boisterous and his heartsick father said, used extremely offensive and profane language.

The 24-year old youth, left to himself in his room, continued ranting about the state of his condition. In a constant rage, he clamored for freedom and shouted to his friends for assistance. None came. He discovered eventually that, by clanking the chain, friction was produced on one side of its links, and he worked for nearly a year trying to free himself. The evening prayers were said to the background of clanging chains that winter.

Late one night, after the family had retired, the weakened link snapped, and Josiah was free at last. His ankle, rubbed raw by the tightness of the chain, ached as he hobbled toward the locked bedroom door. His sister Lydia, awakened by the unusual noises coming from Josiah's room, ran terrified down the parsonage stairs and out the front door for help. Josiah placed his weight against the door and struggle to break the bolt that stood between him and freedom. Mr. Spaulding also awakened by the commotion, made his way from the master's bedroom in the front part of the house and arrived at his son's room just as the door gave way.

The disheveled Josiah pushed his father aside and limped down the back stairway, leading to the kitchen. As his mother pleaded for him to come back, Josiah, in a frenzy with escape so near, cursed his father and made his way to the barn where the horses were bedded down for the night. The elder Spaulding overtook him as he tried to open the door, and with the assistance of a strong neighbor summoned by the distraught Lydia, finally subdued him.

Mr. Spaulding, convinced his son had tried to kill him during the scuffling near the barn door, told his congregation no chain could keep Josiah permanently secure, and he sorrowfully ordered the local blacksmith to build a strong wooden cage in Josiah's bedroom. Here the minister's son was placed and here he was to spend the next 57 years of his life.

A remarkable change came over Josiah during the first week in the heavy cage. His ravings stopped and the once boisterous "maniac" simply sat in the corner and wept. As the years past, a once rational human being turned into what the townspeople described as a "horrid and revolting wreck." Contemptuous of the clothing supplied by his family, he ripped them from his back and threw them through the bars of the cage. Naked, except for the blanket, he crouched in the cage, and refused to speak.

His grieving father, overcome by the calamity that had struck his family, went on in his Christian ministry to Buckland, never again mentioning Josiah to his friends or his congregation. Townspeople, whose hearts went out to the suffering Spauldings, expressed admiration for the old "priest's" courage in bearing a nearly unbearable cross, and in deference to the Spaulding's, tried to forget the "human wreck" caged in the upstairs bedroom of the parsonage. But, on Sunday mornings, when Mr. Spaulding preached about the consequences of over-indulgence by parents on their children, church members would glance knowingly at one another and vow not to let a similar misfortune occur in Buckland again.