THE TOWN OF NORTH SALEM. 745 



Clarke* to read divine service and sermons on Sundays. He was suc- 

 ceeded by Mr. Epenetus Townsend, who had been strongly recommended 

 by Dr. Dibblee, as a lay reader. 



On the 17th of October, 1767, the Rev. Samuel Auchmuty, D.D., rec- 

 tor of Trinity church, New York, addressed a letter to the Venerable 

 Propagation Society, enclosing the following petition from the church- 

 wardens and vestrymen of Salem : — 



THE CHURCH-WARDENS AND YESTRY OF SALEM, &o., TO THE 



SECRETARY. 



"Salem in Westchester County, Province of New York, \ 



August 31st, 1767. j 

 May it Please the Yenerable Society : 



We, the church-wardens and vestry of Salem, and parts contiguous in the 

 Province of New York in America, beg leave in behalf of ourselves and poor 

 brethren, professors of the Church of England, to lay before you our unhappy 

 circumstances ; for want of proper religious instruction and constant administra- 

 tion of God's word and sacraments, according to our religious profession, there 

 being no minister of our Holy Church in the Province nearer than Rye, between 

 thirty and forty miles distant to Salem, and upon Cortlandt's manor and Phil- 

 ipse's patent. Many of us already have a high esteem for the doctrines, worship 

 and government of the Church of England ; some of us embrace every opportu- 

 nity we have of communicating with the same, and a number of others are well 

 disposed to the Church, many of whom are not under the care of a minister of 

 any denomination. Through the goodness and compassion of the Rev. Mr. Dib- 

 blee, the nearest missionary (about twenty-five miles distant), who for many years 

 hath annually visited, preached and administered divine ordinances to us and our 

 children, as often as he judges consistent with the duties of his extensive cure, 

 our numbers, and zeal to the Church establishment have increased. To prepare 

 the way for the settled administration of religion, we have erected a decent 

 church with galleries, on the borders of Cortlandt's manor, a convenient spot of 

 ground for the church and burying yard, being given us for that purpose by the 

 good Mr. Stephen De Lancey, present proprietor. We have covered, closed and 

 glazed the house, and have met in it for some time. As the laws of this Govern- 

 ment have made no provision for the establishment and support of religion in 

 general, and the Lord's Day is too little regarded ; in tender regard to ourselves 

 and families, and to prevent our children falling a prey to one or more of the nu- 

 merous sects, which abound among us — such as Quakers, New Light Independ- 

 ents, Baptists, Antinomians, &c, whose principles, both civil and religious, we 

 think destructive of all religion, peace and good order — we formerly united with 

 our brethren of the Church at Ridgefield and Ridgebury, on the borders of Con- 





a Richard Clarke was tlie fifth son of Samuel Clarke, of West Haven, Conn., where he 

 was born A.D. 1737. He was graduated A.M. at Tale, in 1762. He received also the degree of 

 B.A. from Kings (now Columbia) College, New York, the same year, and that of A.M. in li66. 

 In 1776, went to England for Holy orders, and was licensed February 25, 1767. He was frrst 

 appointed to Guilford, Conn., where he remained until 1786; then went to New Brunswick 

 and was settled at Gazetoria, in that Province. A son of his is the present minister of that 

 parish. He died at St. Stephen's, on the St. Crois, in 1824. 



