40 HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



to parties visiting the town for the salubrity of its air or the beauty of 

 its scenery. 



The old burying ground of the Town is situated on the declivity near 

 the Methodist meeting house in the village directly under Bates's hill — 

 This spot was formerly a part of the "common" (of which only "the 

 green" now remains), laid out in 1681. 



Tradition says that the Indians at one time interred their dead here. 

 It is quite certain, however, that the white settlers used it from the be- 

 ginning for burying their dead. April 7th, 1784, it was voted at a town 

 meeting " That the Burying Ground be fenced in agreeable as it was 

 laid out for or sett apart for Burying the dead." Again it was "voted 

 that James McDonald, Philip Peck and James Trowbridge be a com- 

 mittee to superintend the work and see that it be done."** 



Occasional notes in the town records refer to repairing the fence by 

 setting new posts &c, until 1802, the care of it was made over to the Presby- 

 terian Society; this continued three years, when the town voted to raise 

 by subscription money to build a stone wall about the ground ; after- 

 wards it was the practice to rent it "for the pasture of sheep and calves 

 only." & 



The ground contains many curious memorials. 



The Sacred W. W. 



Decea to the memory of here lies the 



sed Col. Lewis McDonald Esq. body of Thomas 



Thomas and Sarah his wife Woolsey 



Woolsey being a native of North Britain also 



born in boine at Strathspey 1709 Jacob Brian 



the year and departed this life 2-i July, 1777. son of Thomas 

 A. D.^ 16G5. born Sept. 1773 ob. 1760. 



The first religious society organized at Bedford in 1 680-1 wasCongre- 

 gregational, at that time the established religion of the Colony of Con- 

 necticut — so that it was a kind of Church and State affair, for the town at 

 regular meetings transacted all the business of a religious nature. 



The proprietors of the Hop Ground appear to have made early pro- 

 vision for the erection and support of a church, for, on the 2 2d of 

 March, 1680, the "proprietors agree that what the committee had done 

 in laying out ye town plot and the house lots shall stand, and the place 

 they reserved for the town common, and the town lot to be as they laid 

 it out and the meeting-house sh^ll be set upon the common so layed out, 

 namely, the rock called Bates his Hill." 



a Bedford Town Bee, Book ii, p. 4. 



b Address of Joseph Barrett, July 4, 1ST6. 



c Hist, of Presb. Cli. Bedford, by Rev. P. B. Heroy. 



