But truth compels the admission that the first notable proprietor of land at Kingston (or Atkarkarton) was not a Dutchman. This is on the authority of the Rev. I. Megapolensis, the third stated minister of the Collegiate Dutch Church of New^ York, who, in 1657, wrote: Thomas Chambers and a few others removed to Atkarkarton or Esopus, an exceedingly beautiful land, in 1652, and began the actual settlement of Ulster County; it was also known among the savages as " the pleasant land."

Ron do lit and Kinoston 44

This Thomas Chambers, for services rendered the country during Indian troubles, was rewarded in the time of Governor Lovelace by having his house (near Kingston) erected into the Manor of Foxhall. This grant was confirmed by Dongan in 1686. The fc.- name of Foxhall subsequently disappeared. The Dutch church of Kingston had a settled pastor as early as 1660, in which year Doniine Hermanns Blom commenced his labours. His salary was j^ayable in wheat, and his accounts for the same are still preserved in the county records. The name Wiltwyck signified the Indian (or wild) district, yet even then the little church, worshipping in a rude building of logs, had a membership of sixteen souls. Two other edifices succeeded each other on the ground where the first one stood, and from the tower of the last the Holland bell, imported in 1794 from Amsterdam, used formerly to ring three times a day to notify the good people of their meal hours. In those far-off days sober and respectable people did things in an orderly and customary way. It required unheard-of temerity to break away from the honoured traditions of a neighbourhood, and breakfast, dine, or sup at unheardof hours. The church sanctioned the established order and lent its bell for the promotion of sobriety and regular habits.