By the act of Assembly of September 21, 1693, the parish of Westchester was set off to include the precincts of Westchester, East Chester, Yonkers and the Manor of Pelham, and was required, as were the other parishes, to call "a good, sufficient Protestant minister." The Westchester freeholders and inhabitants failed to take any steps in conformity with this statute until May 7, 169o, when they deputized Church Wardens Justice Barnes, Justice Hunt and Edward Waters to agree with Warham Mather for a settlement among them.'

Pending Mather's acceptance, the town voted, May 5, 1696, to repair the old meeting-house, and on May 3, 1697, to build a town-house, which should also be used for public worship ; but as the General Assembly passed an act to aid the towns to build and repair their meeting-houses, the work on the town-house was 8topi)ed, and in 1700 a new parish church was erected under the supervision of Trustees Josiah Hunt, Edward Waters, Joseph Haviland, John Hunt, Joseph Bnyley and Richard Panton, who resolved that it should be twenty-eight feet square, with a "terret" on the top, and should cost forty pounds.

Meanwhile, the struggle which occurred in all the other towns between the Puritans and the adherents of the Church of England, the latter being supported by the provincial government, was in progress in Westchester. The Puritans, who were in the popular majority, contended that under the act of 1693, which merely specified " a good sufficient Protestant minister," they had the right to call in a clergyman of I their own faith. The Church of England people held { that the Assembly meant to particularize ministers of the Established Church. It is not necessary to go