The History of the Several Towns, Manors, and Patents of the County of Westchester (1881 revised edition, Vol. I)
Tlio church which I expect will soon be bui!t in Salem, will be about five or six miles to the southward, and about two or three miles to the westward from Ridgefield, Conn., where I have been informed there are near thirty families of Church people, besides a considerable number in places very contiguous, for whom it ia extremely difficult to attend public worship, either at Ridgefield, or at the church towards the north end of Salem, in the borders of Cortlandt's manor, where I reside. When this church is built, (if the Society approves of my officiating in it sometimes, besides my attendance at the other three churches,) I would request the favor of the Society to give a quarto Common Prayer Book and Bible to that, as they have to the other churches of Salem and Ridgebury. I know that my fatigue in attending so many churches must be great ; and that people cannot receive so much profit as might be wished from the labors of a minister, when they are divided between so many places. But as for the fatigue, I trust that God will enable me to bear it; and I hope yet, in some future time, the Society will be able to provide better for the edification of the people, by dividing the mission, as it might conveniently be done, into two equal parts. I beg leave to request some Common Prayer books, which are very much wauted for the poor. I brought but two dozen, together with a great number of small tracts, but a much larger number of Prayer Books is required ; as many people in my mission are poor and unable to purchase books or any thing that is not absolutely necessary to the maintenance of their families. I beg leave to acquaint the Society likewise, that, besides the attending the duties of my own mission, I preached last spring, on the next Sunday after Easter, at Woodbury, a town in Connecticut, thirty miles distant from Salem, to a congregation of upwards of one hundred and fifty, who behaved with the greatest decency and devotion -- most of them being professors, and many of them worthy members of our Holy Church.