There had been a movement to destroy the community. It was led by a professor named John Meers who was appalled at the community practices and inflamed the clergy in the area. They could not convince the authorities to go after the O'Nida community. But they gathered together on Valentine's Day in 1879 and leaked to the press false information that John Humphrey Nois was going to be arrested. The leaders of the community were seriously alarmed by this because they were very afraid that there would be all kinds of negative publicity. So they begged him to leave and get outside the jurisdiction of New York state. He escaped to Canada and he eventually made his way to Niagara Falls, where the