Soon after this vote of the Town, in the year- 1699 an Act of General Assembly w^as made to enable the respective towns within the w^hole province to build and repair their meeting houses & other public buildings upon which they laid aside tlie prosecution of building according to the said Town vote and took hold of the said Act by virtue whereof the present Church was built and erected in the middle of the highway in tlie main street and distress was made on Churchmen Quakers Anabaptists people of the Dutch Congregation k<' promiscuously for the payment of the rates towards the same --

But before this time conformable to instructions from his late Majesty King William to the Governor for the encouragement of Religion in general and the Established Church in j^articular and to settle parishes within tlie said province in the year 1693 an Act of General Assembly passed whereby it was enacted that in the several Cities & Counties therein mentioned tliere should be called and Inducted and Established a sufficient protestant minister amonsfst which one was to be for Jamaica and the two adjacent towns and another for Hempstead and its adjacent towns but so unhappy was this province as to remain a scattered people without any true Shepherd till the year 1697 when the Rev<i W Vesey came to the City of New York, however that act remained in force to enable any of the places to esta;blish and induct Orthodox Ministers when tliey could obtain them from England, no others being intended by the express words of the act as is conceived neither have the Dissenters made any use of this, believing it not to suit their Church Government. --