THE TOWN OF LEWISBORO. 415 



Bequests by me made, and declare this only to be my Last Will and Testament ; 

 and In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal the day and year 

 first above written. JAMES BROWN. 



Signed, sealed, published, 

 pronounced and delivered 

 by the Testator to be 

 his last Will and Testament 

 in presence of 



Sttssanna Vengaeaue, 

 William Tennent, Je. 

 Thomas Fitoh, Jb.<* 



This shows that the Testator at the time of his death in 1769, was in 

 possession of Lands, (which he styles the Patent,) on the north side of 

 the road leading from Ridgefield to Bedford, which extended north as 

 far as Long Pond, and that he held a one-half moiety of land on the 

 south side of said road bounded west by the twenty mile line, and south 

 by Cross Pond, which made one-half of that part of land which he own- 

 ed adjoining the Patent on the south side of said road; and, also, that 

 he had other lands which he was then endeavoring to recover possession 

 of. James Brown, Esq., the eldest son of James Brown, and second 

 Patentee of Lower Salem, was born at Norwalk, Conn., Dec. 18, 1720. 

 He was for some time a Justice of the Peace, and a warm friend and 

 supporter of the Church of England, and for the endowment of this par- 

 ish gave one hundred acres of land said to be the " Parsonage Zands." b 

 The services of the Church of England were held in his house prior to 

 the erection of the church edifice in 1771, which stood on land donated 

 by him, directly opposite the cross roads leading from South Salem to 

 Ridgefield. This land is now held by the family of the late Thaddeus 

 Keeler. The Rev. Ebenezer Dibblee, D. D., rector of St. John's church, 

 Stamford, and missionary of the venerable Propagation Society, who 

 considered Salem at that time to be within his cure, records the follow- 

 ing in his parochial register: "1758, May 12th, baptized, Obediah, 

 slave of James Brown, Esq., of Salem." 



Upon the 20th of September, 1775, we find James Brown, of Salem, 



a The will on the back has this endorsement— James Brown's will Proved March 7th, 1769, 

 Exec. Accept. Recorded. Copied from original will on file in Probate office, Eairfield, Conn. 

 There is no pronf of its ever having been recorded. [Editor.] 



6 This deed of gift has always been withheld from the Episcopal Church, since and even 

 prior to the Revolution. It is asserted on the testimony of the late William Watson Wellman, 

 of New Haven, for many years a vestryman of this parish, that Stephen Pardee, of South 

 Salem, was once heard to declare, between the years 1830 and 1836, that " a Mr. Joseph Bene- 

 dict of the same piace had m his possession the deed from James Brown to the church for the 

 Parsonage Lands in question." It is not a little singular that this same Stephen Pardee, on 

 two or three occasions in 1849-1S50, visited the present Alfred S. Hawley, Esq., for the purpose 

 of ascertaining whether the Presbyterian title to these Parsonage Lands was valid or not. 

 The Prot. Episcopal Church was then re-organizing and there was much talk about erecting a 

 new edifice and claiming the lower " Parsonage Lands." 



o St. John's Parochial Register, Stamford, Conn. 



