23^ HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



AN ACT TO ENABLE ALL THE RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS IN 

 THE STATE, TO APPOINT TRUSTEES WHO SHALL BE A BODY 

 CORPORATE FOR THE PURPOSE OF TAKING CARE OF THE 

 TEMPORALITIES OF THEIR RESPECTIVE CONGREGATIONS, 

 AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES THEREIN MENTIONED. 



Passed 6th of April, 1784. 



" The preamble of this act recites the 38th article of the Constitution. 



Article 1. — Directs that not less than three or exceeding nine in number of 

 Trustees, are to be elected, to transact all affairs relative to the temporalities of 

 their respective churches. 



Article 4. — Whether the same consist of lands, tenements, &c, and whether the 

 same shall have been given, granted or devised to and for their use, and they and 

 their successors shall lawfully have, hold, use, exercise and enjoy all and singu- 

 lar the churches, meeting-houses, parsonages, burying places and lands thereunto 

 belonging, with the hereditaments and appurtenances heretofore by the said 

 church occupied or enjoyed, by whatsoever name or names, person or persons, 

 as if the same were purchased and had, or to them given or granted, or by them 

 or any of them used and enjoyed for the uses aforesaid, to them and their succes- 

 sors, to the sole and only proper use and benefit of them the said Trustees and 

 their successors for ever, &c. 



Article 6. — And the Trustees are also to regulate and order the renting of pews 

 in the said churches, and the perquisites of the said church arising from the break- 

 ing of the ground in the cemetery, or church-yard, and in the churches for bury- 

 ing the dead, &c. a 



Under this Act, the following persons were elected Trustees : " Thomas 

 Bartow, John Wright, Isaac AVard, Elisha Shute, Lewis Guion and 

 Philip Pell, Tun. 



After this incorporation, all management of the Church and Church 

 property at town meetings is dropped. The Church now manages her 

 own affairs, her power and right to do so, being fully recognized by the 

 town • for upon the 3d of April, 1787, prior to the incorporation, it was 

 resolved at town meeting, " To erect a school house, and to set it on 

 the Green near where the stocks formerly stood " — but this resolution 

 was never carried into effect, because the Church had been incorporated, 

 and consequently claimed the Green exclusively as her own. The very 

 fact, too, that the old church erected since 1692, once stood upon the 

 Green is conclusive evidence that this property is still vested in the 

 Church. In 1790, therefore, it was ordered by the town, "To build the 

 school house on town ground, by Charles Guion's, where it formerly 

 stood." Again, at a town meeting in 1792, it was declared; "That the 



a "The trustees were directed to make an annual report between the first of January and' 

 the first of April, to the Chancellor, or one of the Justices of the Supreme Court, or any of 

 the Judges of ttif Court of Common Pleas, &c." Laws of N. Y., IT'S to ITS", Greenleaf's edi- 

 tion, vol. 1, chap, xviii, 71. 



