CHAPTER XII 



THE CHURCHES 



THE earliest settlers in the Borough, Throgmorton's 

 colony of 1642 and those who settled at Westchester 

 in 1653, were refugees from the New England col- 

 onies who sought the Dutch colony of New Netherland for a 

 freer exercise of their religion; the policy of the Dutch in 

 regard to religious matters being much more liberal than that 

 pursued in Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Salem, or the Con- 

 necticut colonies. Most of these settlers were Independents, 

 the rest were Quakers. 



In 1646, Father Jogue, a Jesuit missionary, visited New 

 Amsterdam and wrote: "No religion is publicly exercised but 

 the Calvinist, and orders are to admit none but Calvinists, 

 but this is not observed; and there are in the Colony besides 

 the Calvinists, Catholics, English Puritans, Lutherans, Ana- 

 baptists, here called Mnistres, &c, &c. " 



Sir Edmund Andros, the Governor, in an account of 

 New York in 1678, says: 



"There are Religions of all sorts, one Church of England, 

 severall Presbiterians & Independents, Quakers & Anabaptists, 

 of severall sects, some Jews, but presbiterians & Indipend ts 

 most numerous & substantial!. . . . And all places oblidged 

 to build churches and provide for a minister, in w ch most very 

 wanting, but presbiterians & Independents desirous to haue 



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