Samuel Sackett was sent by the Presbytery of New Brunswick to preach in West Chester County. The special field of labor assigned him was Cortlandt Manor, embracing Yorktown, Cortlandtown, North Salem and Somers. There is little doubt that he preached occasionally in this village. His ministry of forty-two years (i742-'84) was chiefly confined to Yorktown and Bedford." " He died on the fifth day of July, 1784; at the age of seventy-two years," and was buried in the cemetery of Crompond or Yorktown.

"The Rev. Abner Brundage, who came to Peekskill in May, 181 5, ssys that there were at that time in the village, from Mr. John Oppie's,

a Relic. Soc. Lib. B. SO, 82.

b Co. Ree. Religious Soc. Lib. a. pp. 102, 1SS.

THE TOWN OF CORTLANDT.

where Mr. John W. Hait now lives, to Captain Requa's, just one hundred buildings of all kinds. At that time the Presbyterians had two places of worship, one on South street, where the first Presbyterian church now stands, the other on the hill north of Main street, to which we have already alluded, but no organization. In May, 181 6, a church of seventy-five members was formed, with Mr. Brundage as pastor, and John Lent, deacon, and Ezra Lockwood, as officers; when Mr. Brundage resigned his charge in 181 9, the church numbered over a hundred members. Some years later the influence of a large congregational element from Connecticut gave great dissatisfaction to some who preferred the faith and government of the Presbyterian church, and in 1826 a division took place. Those who remained were finally merged into the Dutch Reformed Church. Those who withdrew founded the present Presbyterian Society." We give the details of the organization in the words of the first entry that appears upon the record of the session :