122 STATEN ISLAND INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 
passed Sep. 22, 1693, “ An Act for Settling a Ministry and Raising 
a Maintenance for them in the City of New York, Cons of 
Richmond.” 
This act received the royal signature May 11, 1697 (Col. Doc. 
6: 21), and was the beginning of the work here though apparently 
not immediately operative. The Society for the Propagation of 
the Gospel, otherwise called the Venerable Society, sent Rev. 
George Keith as missionary in 1702 and Rev. John Talbot be- 
came his assistant. Both preached on Staten Island. Rev. William 
Vesey, rector of Trinity Church, N. Y., by his urgent letters aided 
in the coming of the Rev. Aeneas Mackenzie as the first settled 
missionary of the English church on Staten Island. His first 
report, Nov. 8, 1705, shows that he preached in the French church 
afternoons and deplored the lack of schools and, teachers. By 
1707 he had secured from the Venerable Society money for three 
teachers. In August 1708 he announced the name The Church 
of Saint Andrew. On June 13, 1709, he was still preaching on 
sufferance in the French church! in the afternoons but in that 
year the foundations of the church were laid and it was completed 
in the summer of 1712. Aug. 6, 1711, William Tillyer and wife 
gave a deed for the site. This church Mackenzie described as 
“a pretty handsome church of our own, built of stone.” It was 
probably 25 by 40 feet in size. ‘a 
Queen Anne succeeded to the throne Mar. 8, 1702, and from 
1704 supported generously the cause of religion. She did not 
however build the church, the undertakers of which were Staten 
Islanders, urged thereto by Mackenzie and aided by Caleb Heath- 
cote. Queen Anne gave bible, prayer book, silver communion 
service, and a royal charter which opened the way for land grants 
and the future growth of the parish. The first rector Rev. Aeneas 
Mackenzie was born about 1675, educated in Scotland, and 
died in 1723; during his short life he did much for Staten Island, 
so much that after his death the justices united in a testimonial 
to the man “ whose unblamable life and splendid labors have done 
so much for the cause of religion on Staten Island.” 
I shall not follow the history of the Church of St. Andrew 
