254 The Story of The Bronx 



upon, that there should be a Town House built, to keep courts 

 in, and for the publick worship of God." 



In 1699, an act of the Provincial Assembly authorized 

 the towns of the Province to build and repair meeting-houses, 

 and to lay taxes for the same. In view of this act, the idea 

 of building a town-house was abandoned, and a new parish 

 church was erected in 1700, the expense of building the same 

 being laid upon all the inhabitants, irrespective of religious 

 belief or faith. It was twenty-eight feet square, with a "ter- 

 ret " on top for a bell tower, capping a pyramidal roof, and was 

 built of wood by Richard Ward at a cost of forty pounds. It 

 occupied the site of the present Episcopal Church of St. 

 Peter's, on the Town Green, adjoining the court-house and 

 jail. It was used as a church until 1788, when it was in such 

 bad order after the Revolution that it was sold to Mrs. Sarah 

 Ferris and removed. 



The Reverend Warham Mather served as minister until 

 1 70 1, but was never inducted into the living, owing to the 

 adverse efforts of Colonel Heathcote, who had been elected a 

 church-warden of the parish and who, stout churchman as he 

 was, opposed the installation of a dissenting clergyman. In 

 his letter of April 10, 1704, to the secretary of the Propagation 

 Society, Colonel Heathcote says: 



"Sir, being favor'd with this opportunity, I cannot omitt 

 giving you the state of this county in relation to the church, 

 and shall begin the history thereof from the time I first came 

 amongst them, which was about twelve years ago, when I 

 found it the most rude and heathenish country I ever saw in 

 my whole life, which called themselves Christians — there 

 being not so much as the least marks or footsteps of religion 

 of any sort. Sundays being the only time sett apart by them 

 for all manner of vain sports and lewd diversions, and they were 

 grown to such a degree of rudeness, that it was intolerable; 



