In 1()75 Peter Prudden preached at Rye, and Thomas Denham settled there in 1677. Thus within twelve years there were five Presbyterian clergymen exercising their functions in Westchester County. They and their flocks shared in the struggle which all Dissenters liadtomake with GovernorSloughter's efforts to establish the Church of England as the State Church, but still Presbyterianism flourished. In Westchester County Rev. John Woodbridge located at Rye and Rev. Warham Mather at Westchester in 1684.

These two clergymen were among the most important personages in the lively episode which followed the conversion of Rev. William Vesey, a Puritan pastor in New York, to the Church of England His change of faith is said to have been procured by Colonel Heathcote, who, upon his settlement at Scarsdale, Westchester County, in 1692, showed himself a still zealous proselyter for the Church of England. In a letter to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, dated April 10, 1704, he relates a contention that was of great moment at the time :

The people of Westchester, East Chester and a place called Lower Yonkers agreed Avith one Warren Mather, and the people of Rye with one Mr. Woodbridge, both of New England, there being at

wrested from its true bearing, it admitted a construction in their favor. In fact, it was arbitrarily and illegally wrested from its true hearing anil made to answer the purpose of the Knglish rimrcli i>arty, whicli was a very small minority of the people affected by the operation of the law. The act itself is a conclusive argument against the alleged establishment of the Church of England in the province of New York. It was not established of any law of the province, nor by the ecclesiastical law of lOngland extending over the province, wliich was thus excluded or modified by express law made by competent authority.