The Churches 259 



corporate and politic without regard to the authorities and 

 inhabitants of the town. The names of the incorporators were 

 Rector John Milner, John Bartow, Isaac Willett, Lewis 

 Morris, Jr., Peter De Lancey, Nathaniel Underhill, James 

 Graham, and James Van Cortlandt, a list which includes the 

 most prominent names of the Borough of colonial times. 



Mr. Milner went to considerable expense in 1 764 to repair the 

 parsonage house and to erect new barns and outhouses upon 

 the glebe lands. In addition, the church-wardens notified 

 the Society that 



"-ve have purchased a glebe of thirty acres with a house, 

 which, when we have repaid Mr. Milner the expense 

 he has been at, will cost us, in the whole, near seven 

 hundred pounds, which we spend with cheerfulness, as our 

 minister's behaviour has very much endeared him to the 

 people ; and his diligence has been attended with such success, 

 that whole families of Quakers — the only dissenters in this 

 parish — have conformed to the Church. " 



In the fall of 1765, Mr. Milner severed his connection with 

 the parish, for what reason does not clearly appear, though 

 it was probably due to a difference in money matters between 

 him and the vestry, who were slow in paying him the money he 

 had expended. In fact, the vestry must have refused to pay 

 him at all ; for in his letter to the secretary of the Society from 

 his new cure in Virginia, under date of February 3, 1768, he 

 says: 



"I am very sorry to inform you that the people of West- 

 chester pay very little regard, either to their promises, or 

 the Society's expectations; for I am informed by my lawyer 

 that they absolutely refuse to refund me one penny of all 

 the money I have expended on their glebe, which, without 

 the repairs and buildings I made, would have been entirely 

 useless." 



