48 HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



to take a list and make Mr. Jones his this year's rate and to gather it 

 for him. 



March 5th 1704-5 the town by a maijor vote chuseth Nathan Clark, 

 Colleckter to geather Mr Jones, his half year rate. 



John Jones was the eldest son of the Rev. John Jones ".a man of 

 some note in the early history of the New England churches," pastor 

 of the Congregational society at Fairfield, Conn. He was born at Con- 

 cord in 1639 and graduated at Harvard College" after preaching there 

 a short time finally went to Greenwich. 



Very little is known of the history of the Presbyterian Church in Bed- 

 ford for the next sixteen years; in the meantime the church had changed 

 its form of government, from that of Independent to that of Presby- 

 terian. Who supplied the people with the gospel, we have not been 

 able to find out; but God preserved and fostered the little band of 

 Christian men and women, while they planted their feet upon the good 

 sound scriptural principles of Presbyterianism : Here they stood, forti- 

 fied by faith and prayer, until God heard and answered, and sent them 

 from far over the sea a man after His own heart, to break unto them 

 the Bread of Life. 



May 3;/, 1720. — Rev. William Tennent was invited here to preach 

 the gospel. It is not certain whether he was ever regularly installed — 

 probably not, as he united first with the Presbytery of Philadelphia after 

 he left here — for he remained here only a short time. The church, in 

 all probability, belonged at this time to the Presbytery of Long Island, 

 which numbered but two or three ministers, and it was not convenient 

 then, as now, to hold a meeting of the Presbytery. Mr. Tennent was 

 born in Ireland in 1673, where he received a liberal education at Trin- 

 ity College, Dublin, and where also he entered the ministry of the 

 Protestant Episcopal Church and afterward became a dissenter and a 

 Presbyterian from conviction. He was first settled in East Chester, 

 New York. From there he came to Bedford, and from Bedford, after a 

 little more than a year's labor, he went to Bensalem and Smithfield 

 churches, in Pennsylvania. From there he accepted a call to Nesha- 

 miny, 1726, where a rich man, by the name of Logan, a relative of his, 

 gave him fifty acres or land, on the Neshaminy Creek, on which to lo- 

 cate and carry on a school, which he had already commenced. Here 

 he built a small house, about twenty feet square, mostly of logs, rudely 



a The will of Rev. John Jones Pastor of the Church of Fairfield in New England is recorded 

 in that place. In it he mentions his wife Susanna, six children, John Eliphalet, four daugh- 

 ters, Sarah Wilson, widow, (Ruth Jones), Rebeckah Hull, Elizabeth Hill. To his eldest son 

 John Jones, he leaves part of his library to whit the works of St. Augustine, Chrysostom, 

 and other Authors usually called the " Father's." Mr. Gold and Mr. Pell of Fairfield were 

 appointed overseers there on Jan'ry 17th, 1G(U. Fairfield Book of Rec. vol. ii p. 5, 1G65, 1675. 



