THE TOWN OF CORTLANDT. 125 



THE CHURCH WARDENS AND VESTRY OF ST. PETER'S 

 CHURCH TO THE SECRETARY. 



" Peeks kill, in the Province of New York, in America,\ 



Oct. i$tk, 1770. j 

 Rev. Sir: 



Permit us, as wardens and vestrymen for St. Peter's church, to ad- 

 dress you, and acquaint you with the steps we have taken for settling a 

 church, according to the established Church of England, and to solicit 

 your assistance and interest with the Venerable Society, that we may be 

 so happy as to be patronized by them, and obtain their charitable assist- 

 ance towards maintaining a minister. 



It is about four years since a few of us first attempted to begin the 

 building of a church in the Manor of Cortlandt, near Peekskill, in the 

 county of Westchester; and on the 9th day of August, 1767, had got it 

 so far finished, as to get the favor of the worthy and Rev. Dr. Ogilvie of 

 New York, to open and consecrate it, which he did, calling it St. Peter's 

 church; and have since (tho' not yet completely finished) made it a 

 decent and a comfortable building for performing divine worship in. 

 The next step we took, to enable us further to prosecute our design, was 

 to apply to his honor, Lieut. Governor Colden for a charter, which he 

 was pleased to grant us. Being so far advanced in our undertaking, 

 Mr. John Doty, a gentleman educated at King's College in New York, 

 offered himself as a candidate for our church, and has performed divine 

 service for us most part of last summer; and has given such general 

 satisfaction, that we have unanimously agreed to give him a call as soon 

 as he is properly ordained, and authorized to peiform the office of a 

 minister. And as we are well acquainted with his moral life and con- 

 versation, we beg leave to recommend him to the Venerable Society as a 

 person worthy of that sacred function, and don't doubt but he will have 

 ample testimonials from the worthy clergy of New York, of his educa- 

 tion and abilities. We send by Mr. Doty, our petition to the Venera- 

 ble Society, a copy of our charter and of our subscription paper for his 

 maintenance, which amounts to p£6i, 15s. New York currency, an- 

 nually; but as many of the subscribers are very poor, and some of them 

 we apprehend will be necessarily obliged to leave the neighborhood, we 

 fear it will be difficult to collect some of the subscriptions ; but that Mr. 

 Doty may be certain of receiving something, we have given our bond to 

 the Rev. Dr. Auchmuty as trustees for the Society, obliging us to pay 

 annually to Mr. Doty the sum of £40 currency during his continuance 

 amongst us, as our minister, and if the whole subscriptions are received 

 it is all to be paid to him. The church is in a very thickly settled coun- 

 try, (tho' no kind of public worship is established in the neighborhood) 

 yet at present there are but very few that profess to be of the Church of 

 England, which makes it fall very heavy upon those few, so heavy, that we 

 could not have gone thro' with our undertaking but by entering into an 

 agreement with the people on the lower end of Philipse's upper patent, 

 in the county of Dutchess, that if they would join in the building of St. 

 Peter's church, and in the subscription for the support of a minister, 



