192 HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



" The persecutions and privations to which the clergy were exposed 

 (says Dr. Hawkins) in the war, whether from the Royalist or American 

 armies, proved fatal to several of them. At Rye. Mr. Avery was a princi- 

 pal sufferer; his horses were seized, his cattle driven off, and his property 

 plundered. His death, by some supposed to have been occasioned by 

 these losses, happened soon afterwards."' 1 



The Rev. Isaac Hunt succeeded Mr. Avery in the rectorship, having 

 been appointed by the Propagation Society in 1777, with a salary of 



During the subsequent years the parish of Rye suffered considerably 

 from the confusion that attended the Revolutionary war. The church 

 was burned, the glebe lands hired out on terms which produced but a 

 small income, and the parishioners scattered. 



After the close of the war, the congregation received a letter from the 

 Rev. Samuel Provoost, rector of Trinity church, New York, Abraham 

 Beach and Benjamin Moore, dated April 17, 1786, inclosing the jour- 

 nals of the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, held in 

 Philadelphia, September, 1785. 



Upon the reception of this letter, a meeting of the congregation was 

 called, which assembled at the house of Mrs. Haviland, in Rye, on the 

 5th of May, 1786. 



Mr. Joshua Purdy was unanimously elected president of the meeting. 

 On motion, it was resolved to take the sense of the congregation, whether 

 they would comply with the request of the letter, and send delegates to 

 meet in convention at St. Paul's church, in New York, upon the third 

 Tuesday in May next. 



The sense being taken, it was unanimously agreed to send delegates. 

 William Miller and Alexander Hunt, Esqs., were chosen delegates to the 

 General Convention. 



September, 1787. The Rev. Richard Channing Moore (afterwards 

 Bishop of Virginia) was elected to the rectorship, the first since the close 

 of the war. 



At a vestry meeting held 5 th of March, 1788, it was determined by 

 that body to erect a new church on or near the place where the old ruins 

 stood. 



Upon the resignation of Mr. Moore, in 1788, the Rev. David Foote 

 accepted an invitation to the rectorship. This individual was called away 

 whilst in the morning of life from the field of his earthly labors to reap 

 an eternal reward, A.D. 1793. 



a Hawkins' ni-t. Not. Col. Chnrch, 281. Mr. Avery was a step-son of the celebrated Gen- 

 eral Putnam.— Editor. 



