Your Excellency we find by the return of the Justices, that our divident of the late rate ought not to have been more than .£'7 5s. 6d., and the Vestry have layd £15 10s. upon us, and there being i'7 10s. layd on the parish, besides the Minister's rate and the Constable's allowance for leavying the same, under the name of incidental charges, and that some, by the inequality of the division falling wholly upon us ; we therefore, most humbly implore your Excellency to direct that we may pay no more at this time than £S, and for the future only our equal divident, and as in duty bound, your Excellency's Petitioners shall Ever Pray, &c.

John Dkake, Joseph Dkake, William Chatterton."<*

The foregoing petition shows conclusively, that although Eastchester had been declared a separate parish from Westchester, as early as 1700, yet the Colonial Governors still considered it as joined to that parish according to the prior act of 1693.

This the inhabitants also acknowledged by the annual election of three Vestrymen for the precinct and paying the yearly rates laid on the the parish. The choice of a minister, however, and providing for his support, had been lodged by the act of 1693, in the Vestry; and the choice of a Vestry in the people. Into the church and freehold of the parsonage lot (as it was then styled) of Eastchester, Mr. Bartow had been legally presented by the Vestry and inducted by the Governor's mandate, as we have already seen.