THE TOWN OF EAST CHESTER. 



2 35 



"The people of Eastchester have laid the foundation of a new church 

 of stone, seventy-one feet by eighty-eight, in the room of a small decayed 

 wooden building erected in the infancy of the settlement." 



In the year 1766, Mark Christian was appointed sexton for the town, 

 an office which he subsequently held under the trustees of the church. 

 Upon the 1st of April, of that year, he was directed,' "To take care of 

 the Green, to see that hogs don't dig, and to dig graves, and to find a 

 good bier." a 



On the resignation of the Rev. Mr. Milner, the Rev. Dr. Seabury, 

 afterwards Bishop of Connecticut, and the first American Bishop, was 

 inducted rector of the parish church of Westchester and its precincts, 3d 

 of Dec, 1766. June. 25th, 1767, he writes to the secretary in these 

 words : — 



"At Eastchester, which is four miles distant, the congregation is gen- 

 erally larger than at Westchester. The old church in which they meet, 

 as yet, is very cold. They have erected and just completed the roof of 

 a large well built stone church, on which they have expended, they say, 

 ^700 currency; but their ability seems exhausted, and I fear I shall 

 never see it finished. I applied last winter to his Excellency, Sir Henry 

 Moore, for a brief in their favor, but the petition was rejected." 



In 1777, he wrote to the Society: — "With regard to my own mission, 

 I can only say, that it is utterly ruined." Services had been suspended 

 for some time in Eastchester, and the congregation dispersed. At this 

 period the church was used as an hospital, and subsequently served the 

 purpose of a court house. The following item occurs in the records of 

 the Court of Common Pleas : — 



"At a Court of Oyer and Terminer and General Jail Delivery, held at 

 the church at Eastchester, in and for the County of Westchester, on 

 Tuesday, the 12th day of June, in the year of our Lord, 1787, present, 

 the Honourable Richard Morrris, Esq., Chief-Justice of the Supreme 

 Court of Judicature, for the State of New York, Stephen Ward, Jona- 

 than J. Tompkins, Ebenezer S. Burling and Benjamin Stevenson, Jus- 

 tices of Oyer and Terminer and General Jail Delivery for the County of 

 Westchester, &c." 



St. Paul's^ church, Eastchester, was first incorporated on the 12th of 

 March, 1787, in pursuance of an Act of the Legislature, entitled: — 



a At a town meeting held 7th of April, 1767, "It was agreed that Dr. Wright should not be 

 tnolested in his hurrying yard on said Green in said town."— Town Records. 



