314 HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



19th of March, 1813, entitled, "An act relative to the duties and priv- 

 ileges of towns."* The 28th section of which directs : — 



"That the freeholders and inhabitants of the town of Westchester, in the 

 county of Westchester, may, on the day of their annual town meeting, under the 

 usual manner of electing town officers, choose six freeholders resident in this 

 town for trustees ; and the said trustees or a majority of them, shall and may 

 order and dispose of all or any part of the undivided lands within the said town, 

 as fully to every purpose, as trustees have been used to do, under any patent or 

 diarter to the said town, and may continue to lease out the right and privilege of 

 setting and keeping a ferry across the East river from the said town of Westches 

 ter to the town of Flushing, in Queens county, in like manner, at the same rates 

 of ferriage, under the same rules and regulations, and for the like purposes, as 

 they have lawfully been accustomed to do, since the eighteenth day of April, one 

 thousand seven hundred and eighty-five."'' 



The first settlers of this town, who were Puritan emigrants from New 

 England, and chiefly from Connecticut, appear to have made early pro- 

 vision for the establishment of religion, according to the Independent or 

 Congregational order. Mr. John Throckmorton and his thirty-five 

 associates, were mostly the friends and associates of Roger Williams, or 

 Anne Hutchinson ; who, tired of the turmoils of Old England and New, 

 obtained leave of the Dutch to settle here in 1642, on a tract of land 

 they were pleased to call " Vrede-land; or, Land of Peace." In 1650, 

 a body of Puritans settled near the same place, being favored by the 

 Dutch, " with the free exercise of their religion," calling it " Oost dorp," 

 (East Town). These, too, were Puritans or Independents ; but, they 

 had no minister until 1674, and then only for a short period; indeed, 

 they seem to have been without a settled minister for most of the time 

 to the end of the century, of their mode of worship. The Dutch Commis- 

 sioners, who visited Oost-dorp in 1656, give in the journal of their 

 expedition, the following account : — 



"31 Dec. after dinner, Cornelius van Ruyven went to the house where 

 they held their Sunday meeting, to see their mode of worship ; as they 

 had, as yet, no preacher. There I found a gathering of about fifteen 

 men, and ten or twelve women. Mr. Paly said the prayer, after which, 

 one Robert Basset read from a printed book a sermon, composed by an 

 English clergyman, in England ; after the reading, Mr. Baly gave out 

 another prayer and sang a psalm, and they all separated."" 



a ThetOWQ property prior to its division, ia 1846, amounted to sixteen or twenty thousand 

 dollars, (arising from the .sale of the common lands) the interest of whicli was appropriated 

 to the common schools. 



b Laws of New York, 1S13. The above confirm* a former Act of Legislature, passed lSth 

 AprlL 1785, in whicn tin- freeholders of \h>- town were authorized to choose six trustees, who 

 should have the right to order and dispose of the undivided lauds, etc. 



c O'Callaghan's Hist of X. Neth., vol. ii.. 310. 



