1643.

The next settlement of Westchester was commenced in the year 1654, also
by some Puritans from Connecticut, who adopted its present name, and the
Rev. Ezekiel Fogge was their first 'independent minister;' and in 1684 a
Mr. Warham Mather was called 'for one whole year, and that he shall have
sixty pounds, in country produce, at money price, for his salary, and
that he shall be paid every quarter.' Governor Fletcher, however,
declined inducting the Presbyterian into that living, 'as it was
altogether impossible,' he said, 'it being wholly repugnant to the laws
of England to compel the subject to pay for the maintenance of any
minister who was not of the national Church.' The Episcopal Governor,
however, proposes 'a medium in that matter.' Some French emigrants had
already found their way to this region, and M. Boudet, a French
Protestant minister of Boston, who was in orders from the Bishop of
London, could preach in French and English, and the people called him to
the living, the parish being large enough for two clergymen. M. Boudet
was accordingly sent for, hoping, as the English Governor writes, 'to
bring the congregation over to the Church;' but, 'when he came, they
refused to call him.' The Yankee Puritans were evidently not to be
outmanaged by the English churchman. Westchester then numbered 'two or
three hundred English and Dissenters; a few Dutch.'

On the 20th September, 1689, Jacob Leisler, of New York, purchased of
Mr. Pell 6,000 acres of land in Westchester, a portion of the manor of
Pelham, obtained from the Indians in 1640-'49. The grantor, heirs, and
assigns, as an acknowledgment, were to pay Mr. Pell 'one fatted calf on
every fourth and twentieth day of June, yearly, and every year, forever,
if demanded.' It is a well known fact that every Huguenot, on the
festival of St. John, pays his proportion toward the purchase of the fat
calf whenever claimed.

During the year 1690, Leisler leased to the banished Huguenots these
lands, purchased for them, as they came directly here from England, and
were a portion of the 50,000 who found safety in that glorious
Protestant kingdom four years before the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes. At the revocation itself, not less than half a million escaped
from bigoted France to Holland, Germany, and England; and to those in
the latter country, Charles II., then on the British throne, granted
letters of denization under the great seal, and Parliament relieved them