THE TOWN OF LEWISBORO. 445 



With regard to this instrument we have had occasion to show, in one 

 or two instances, that it was given by those who had received their title 

 from Connecticut which title was abrogated by the transfer of the entire 

 Oblong or Equivalent Lands to the Crown in 173 1, and that the latter 

 in 1752 granted Letters Patent to James Brown and William Smith for 

 four thousands acres of land within the Oblong or Equivalent, consisting 

 then of about eleven thousand acres of land, which were not included in 

 or granted by Letters Patent 8th of June, 1731, to Thomas Hawley and 

 others (the above grantors). We now see by the date of the above con- 

 veyance that it was not proved until twenty-two years after it was given, 

 and it never has been recorded at all to our knowledge. The reason 

 for proving it so late as 1774 was probably owing to the fact that James 

 Brown, Jr., was conveying or had already conveyed the very same lands 

 to the ^church. Yet we still find the said deed kept in abeyance for 

 several years after the Revolution when it was most absurdly claimed 

 that the "professors of the Church of England" were mixed into the 

 "Presbyterian Society of Lower Salem. " a Now it was, that the Board of 

 Trustees moved the sale of those lands, as appears by the following 

 record taken from their minutes in 1797 : 



"At a meeting of Gould Bouton, Jacob Hayt, Enoch Mead, Nathan Adams 

 and Abijah Gilbert, trustees of the church and congregation known by the name 

 of the Presbyterian church and Congregation of the town of Lower Salem con- 

 vened at the meeting house on the 14th day of February, 1797. Together with 

 the society, who being warned to meet to deliberate on matters which respect the 

 Society. 



The said meeting unanimously agreed by a vote then taken to sign and for- 

 ward a Petition to the Legislature for a law to be passed to authorize the trustees 

 to sell a part of the Parsonage Lands not exceeding fifty acres, 



Kec'd. by Abijiah Gilbert, Clerks 



The real and personal estate belonging to the Presbyterian Society in 

 1798 is thus stated: 



" An inventory and account of the real and personal estate belonging to the 

 Presbyterian church and Congregation, called and known by the name of the 

 Presbyterian church and Congregation of the town of Lower Salem made by 

 the subscribers, trustees of said church and congregation which is as follows (to 

 wit) : The real estate consisting chiefly of unimproved lands occupied by the 

 Rev. Solomon Mead the minister of the said church arid congregation and two 

 small pieces of ground rented at four shillings and six-pence per annum. The 



a Testimony of Col. C. M. Ferris, of Norwalk for many years a Justice of the Peace in this 

 town, 



b Kec. of the Trustees of Presbyterian church, South Salem, vol. T. p. 11. The Protestant 

 Episcopal church was now about reorganizing under the act of 1795, but no election for 

 officers appears to have taken place in Lower Salem until Oct. 1810. 



