THE TOWN' OF WESTCHESTER. 



359 



distances his neighbor from him ; but then they make up for the rareness of their 

 buildings by enlarging the compass of th«lr towns, in that they generally make 

 townships many miles in length, it may be twenty or thirty. 



"In iny parish arc two meetinghouses, one of which is of Quakers, built within 

 a stone throw of the church of Westchester, and is indeed a better building than 

 that. The other is at New Rochelle. The church of Eastchester is about four 

 miles east of that of Westchester, and the church of New Rochelle is about four 

 miles east of Eastchester. In New Rochelle, besides tbe church there is a meet- 

 ing house of French Protestant Dissenters; no such meeting house being in 

 Eastchester, they supply that want by an intrusion into the Church: to which 

 they plead a right, as being the chief builders thereof. But I being legally pre- 

 sented and inducted, as was likewise my predecessor, I laid claim to it as my 

 own proper right, exclusive of them ; and so kept them out of it for a time, but 

 they but rarely meeting in it, and threatening a law suit, I permitted them to 

 do as they had done in my predecessor's time : being somewhat at a loss how to 

 behave in that affair, I should be glad to have the Society's direction therein. 



"In the winter time we have severely cold weather, with very hard frosts and 

 deep snows, which hold us at least four months, beginning generally about the 

 middle of November, and ending about the middle of March ; but we have very 

 cold winds sometime before and likewise sometime after the time aforesaid, so 

 that we reckon, six months of cold and six months of hot weather, four of these 

 being extremely cold, and four extremely hot. It is the business of the summer 

 here, to provide for the winter, by which means few of our farmers rise, or are 

 so much as beforehand with the world : but the far greatest number are involved 

 in debts and difficulties by means of the iutemperature of the climate, and the 

 indolence and restiveness of the inhabitants, but few here improve in their for- 

 tunes ; so that for ought I could hitherto learn by any observation I could make 

 in my parish, the number of those that die in it exceeds not the number of those 

 that run out of it. 



. "To the third head of enquiry I answer, that there are three meeting houses in 

 my parish — one of the Quakers of Westchester, one of the Dutch, from it three 

 miles west, and one of the French at New Rochelle. The Dutch church has no 

 settled teacher, but is supplyed once a quarter from New York ; at other times it 

 is supplyed only by a reader. The Quakers preach against hireling priests, and 

 pretend to give nothing to their teachers. The other Dissenters support their 

 teachers by a free contribution raised amongst themselves. 



"To the fourth head of enquiry, I say, there are three schools and three school- 

 masters. The first school is at Westchester, William Forrester, master, who has 

 a salary from the Venerable Society, whom we have the honor to serve. The 

 second is at Eastchester, one Delpech master, who is very well adapted and 

 fitted for that business, and is well spoken of as being diligent in it : the third is 

 at New Rochelle, where both French and English are taught. The two last have 

 no other encouragement than what the parents of the children taught, do give. 



"To the fifth, there have been no donations that 1 know of, made either to the 

 Church of West or Eastchester, nor any benefaction to the minister or school- 

 master of either place, nor is there any Library belonging to either church, save 

 a few books Mrs. Bartow delivered to me. 



"To the sixth and last head of enquiry, I answer, that in the Township of 



