In the official instructions given by the directors of the Dutch West India Company, the official oath required '" the maintenance of the Reformed Religion in conformity to the word and the decrees of the Synod of Dordrecht, and not to tolerate in public any other sect."

In this the Governor had an excuse for his treatment of the Quakers. Some were imprisoned for a long time. Some were severely flogged, and a prominent member was sent to Holland to be tried before the company's college. He was at once released by the college and returned to his home, while a severe reprimand wassenttoStuyvesant. An ordinanceof the New Amsterdam Council, enacted in 1662, provided severe penalties for holding public meetings for wor- <i ship by any "besides the Reformed religion." The Quakers rapidly increased in numbers, and meetings were established at Flushing, Oyster Bay, The Farms, The Kills, Newtown, etc., in quick succession. In the year 1672, George Fax, the founder of the sect, visited America and attended the meetings on Long Island.

Flushing was the headquarters of the Quakers, and from that town the principal emigration to Westchester County took place. In the autumn of 1672 two Quaker ministers visited Rye, "in Governor Winthrop's government," and held meetings there. The first who settled here located in the town of i Westchester. When the first meeting was held there i we cannot learn, but one was in existence in 1685. \ Soon afterward numbeis of Quakers settled in Mama- i roneck. In 1695 a step was taken that proved of great moment in the future settlement of Friends in Westchester County. John Harrison, of Flushing, purchased of the Indians a tract of land about nine