THE TOWN OF NORTH SALEM. 76 1 



Cortlandt's manor and other places adjacent, to consult whether they 

 were desirous of uniting for forming into church order. Present, Peter 

 Benedict, Jehiel Tyler, Jonathan Rogers, Thaddeus Crane, Solomon 

 Close, Ezekiel Hawley, Jesse Trusdale, Joseph Doolittle, John Piatt, 

 James Wallace and Peter Ferris, voted Mr. Peter Benedict moderator." 

 "August 25, 1779, it was voted to form and unite as a church in the 

 order of the Gospel. Mr. Mead invited to attend." " At a meeting of 

 the Society of the upper end of Salem, nth of May, 1779, at the upper 

 Presbyterian Meeting House," it was voted "that Jesse Trusdale, Solo- 

 mon Close and Nathaniel Delavan should form a committee for one 

 year to get preaching." 



In the records of the North Salem Presbyterian Society is the follow- 

 ing : — " Agreeable to notice, the Society met at the meeting-house on 

 the 21st day of June, 1840. Richard Lockwood was elected moderator, 

 and John Close was appointed secretary. On motion, resolved, that a 

 quit-claim of the land whereon the Presbyterian meeting-house now 

 stands, given by Jesse Close to the said Society, be recorded in the 

 County Clerk's office."* 



The first settled pastor appears to have been the Rev. Joel Benedict, 

 in 1783. This individual was the son of Peter Benedict of North 

 Salem, who was deacon of this church for many years, and grandson of 

 Deacon James Benedict,** of Ridgefield, brother also of the Rev. Abner 

 Benedict, pastor of the Presbyterian church in this place, somewhere 

 between 1787 and 1792, and of Lieut. Peter Benedict, of the Revolu- 

 tion. The Rev. Joel Benedict was graduated A. M., at Princeton, in 

 1765, from whence he received his degree of D. D., and was settled in 

 the ministry at Lisbon, Conn., eleven years; and afterwards, leaving 

 North Salem, was settled at Plainfield, Conn., where he died February, 

 13, 1816. 



The incorporation of this church took place on the 1st of February, 

 1786, under the style of the " Congregationalist Society in Upper Sa- 

 lem;" John Piatt, Benjamin Wood, Abraham Lockwood, David Smith, 

 Bonage Starr, and Moses Richard, trustees/ 



In 1832, this church was placed under the jurisdiction of the Bedford 



a Ree. of North Salem Presb. Soc, L. 3. 



b The first ancestor of this family, of whom any trace has been found, was William Bene- 

 dict, who, tradition says, was born in Nottinghamshire, England, about the year 1500, and that 

 he was the only son of his father. This only son was William, of Nottinghamshire ; whose son 

 was also William, of the same county. Thomas, son of the latter, was born in England 1617 ; 

 he came to New England, and first settled in the Massachusetts Bay, then removed to South- 

 hold, L. I., from thence to Huntington, and finally to Norwalk, in 1665. He died in 1690. 

 John, his second son, was the father of James, born January 5, 1685, married Sarah, daughter 

 ol Thos Hyatt, of Norwalk, in 1709, and settled in RiUgefleld. He was one of the original 

 settlers of that place, and bought of the Indians. He died Nov. 25, 1762 ; he was the deacon 

 above alluded to— the father of Peter. 



c Religious Soc. Co. Rec. Lib. A, p 8. 



