The first in importance and most lasting in tenure was the position of clerk; and for fifty consecutive years the duties connected with that office were discharged by Caleb Hyatt.

In 1726 the Rev. John Walton, a graduate of Yak- College, and a lay preacher, purchased a farm which was bounded on the north by the road to Dobbs Ferry, which ran a few feet north of the present Presbyterian Church, and on the south by land then of Jonathan Lane, now of Elisha Horton, and the

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WHITE PLAINS.

south side of Railroad Avenue. Mr. Walton was a mau of great activity. On the Sabbath he preached; during the rest of the week he devoted himself with energy to the carrying on of divers secular enterprises. He donated the land where the Presbyterian Church now stands ; and it was mainly through his eflbrts that a church was erected there in 1727.

The houses of the first settlers were small, and of but a single story. The furniture was scant and simple; each room, even the kitchen, contained a bed; a cupboard held the household dishes, which were mostly wooden ; a few only, of pewter, were kept and handed down as heirlooms from generation to generation. Several wooden chests did double duty as receptacles of the family bedding and clothing, and as chairs, which, if not remarkably comfortable, were at least solid and substantial; these, with a rude bench or stool, constituted the furniture of an ordinary farm-house. Carpets there were none, even on the spare room; but excellent feather-beds and pillows, the pride of every good housewife, were never wanting. A great fire-place, ten or twelve feet wide and three or four feet deep, formed one side of every kitchen, which was also the sitting-room of the family.