It was under the influence of such wholesome laws that the founders of White Plains erected the first school-house in which their children were to be educated; and it is but justice to this intelligent people to say, that the public records prove that, with very few exceptions, the proprietors of White Plains could both read and write. And yet it is of these people Colonel Heathcote wrote, from Scarsdale, under date of November 9, 1705, --

'* I dare aver that there is not a much greater necessity of liaving the (Jliristian religion preachetl any wliere than amongst them ; many, if not the greater number of them, being a little better than in a state of heath(^nisin.'' '

At another time (1704) he writes, --

" When I first came among them (li>S)2) I found it (Westchester) the most heathenish county I ever saw in my whole life which called themselves C'hristian, there being not so much as the least marks or footsteps of religion of any sort, Sundays being the only time set apart by them for all manner of vain spoils and lewd ilivei"sions."

The Rev. Mr. Pritcher also, who, by the warrant of that imbecile aristocrat, Governor Cornbury, had been put in possession of the dissenting church property in Rye, writes, in 1704, --

" I nuist not omit to inform you that his Excellency, my Lord Cornbury, is pleased to show an unparalleled zeal for the carrying on of that great and glorious design of propagating the faith and settling the Church as well in this as in othere of His Majesty's plantations, thereby rescuing them from the grossest ignorance, stupidity aud obstinacy, and therein righting them in those damnable and dangerous tenets which have been imbued and instilled into their poor, unwary, deluded souls by blind, ignorant and illiterate guides."