442 HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



it has been connected with the Presbyteries of Bedford and Connecticut 

 and finally with that of Westchester. 



Under the long pastorate of Solomon Mead that church appears to 

 have had a peaceful and uneventful history. Its affairs do not seem to 

 have called for interference on the part of the Presbytery of Dutchess 

 County at any time. In the church records is the following entry which 

 is sufficiently concise : 



"September 5th, 181 2, departed this life the Rev. Solomon Mead, 

 aged eighty-six years, nine months and two days. He officiated in the 

 ministry forty-eight years three months and fifteen days.* In his minis- 

 try he baptized 912 children and adults, and married 666 (couples). 

 Here we see ended a long life of a venerable minister who may well be 

 remembered by this church for his great zeal in the cause of Religion, 

 for his planting a church in this place, and in letting his light shine in 

 such a manner as to be imitated safely by all." 3 



Mr. Mead was descended from " John Mead, one of two brothers, 

 who emigrated from England about the year 1642. The family was 

 then an ancient and honorable one, though it is not within the author's 

 means to trace their geneology previous to their emigration to this 

 country. One of their ancestors had been the friend and the physician 

 of the talented, though not very amiable, Queen Elizabeth. One of two 

 brothers emigrated to Virginia, where the family still exists." The late 

 venerable and Rt. Rev. William Meade, Bishop of Virginia, was of this 

 line. The other, John Mead, with his two sons, came to New Eng- 

 land about the year 1642. The name is spelled Meade as well as 

 Mead. Many claim that they emigrated from Greenwich, Kent County, 

 England. There were, we know, two families of this name settled at 

 an early period — the one in Essex, the other in Leicestershire.^ "John 

 Mead and his two sons, John and Joseph, having tarried awhile in Mas- 

 sachusetts, first settled at Hempstead, Long Island, where they re- 

 mained until October, 1660, when the two sons came to Greenwich 

 and bought land of Richard Crab and others, which was deeded to 

 John Mead, he being the elder. Either John, the father, never came to 

 Greenwich — or if so, he took no active part in life, now having become 

 quite an old man." 



John Mead the second died 1696, married Miss Potter, of Stamford, 



a Mr. Mead was settled at Salem from 1752 to 1800, jnst48 years, He explains this himself 

 by the following minute endorsed on the back of the old book of Record," ordained May ye 

 19th, A.D. 175-2, Dismist September, 1800." 



b Rec. of Presbyterian church, South Salem, vol. II. 



c The arms <>f both these families (who spelt their name Meade) were alike, viz., Sa a chev 

 betw three pelicans or, vulned gules. The arms of Mead were also Sa a chev, emiinois, 

 betw, three pelicans vulning themselves or,— Burke's Geu, Armory. 



