Organization

The Board of Water Supply consists of three Commissioners appointed by the Mayor. Its forces are divided into Administration, Real Estate, Police, Claims and Engineering Bureaus. In the first four bureaus are the Secretary, the Auditor, the Chief Clerk, the Examiner of Real Estate, Taxes and Legislation, the Superintendent of Board of Water Supply Police and the Chief of Bureau of Claims. The Engineering bureau is composed of five departments, namely: Headquarters, Reservoir, Northern Aqueduct, Southern Aqueduct and City Aqueduct. The Board and the various bureaus are at present made up of the following men, with the necessary assistants:

APPENDIX D

THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
OF NEW YORK

Some Historical Notes on the Beginning of the Presbyterian Denomination in the City of New York, with Particular Reference to Two of Its Earliest Landmarks, the First Church in Wall

Street and the First Brick Church.

By EDWARD HAGAMAN HALL, L. H. D.

[567]

THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF NEW YORK

I.

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE DENOMINATION

Presbyterians During the Dutch Regime

The occurrence in September, 1916, of the two hundredth anniversary of the organization of the first Presbyterian Synod in the New World, soon to be followed by the bicentennial of the formation of the First Presbyterian Church of New York, draws attention to not only an important chapter in the ecclesiastical history of the United States, but also many interesting facts relating to the landmark and civic history of New York City.

Although other denominations may claim chronological precedence over the Presbyterians with respect to their organization in New York City, yet a church which was formed when the destined Metropolis of the World had less than 7,000 inhabitants, and whose first house of worship stood on the line of the old city wall in Wall street only 20 years after the city had so outgrown that narrow barrier that it had to be removed, has a very considerable claim to veneration on account of age. And that veneration is increased when one reflects upon the active part in behalf of the patriot cause which the members of this denomination took at the time of the War of Independence, in consequence of which they were obliged to suffer the privations of self-exile, while their houses of worship, used as hospitals and barracks, witnessed scenes of human suffering almost beyond description.

The part which the Presbyterian played in the American Revolution could not have been unexpected by those who realized the spirit of that church, and in fact was not unexpected; for we shall see by a document hereafter quoted that long before the War for Independence broke out, the distaste of the Presbyterians for monarchy was fully realized by the royal Governor of the province.

The earliest evidences of Presbyterian growth in the vicinity of Manhattan Island were outside of the little old City of New

Amsterdam, but as the Puritans of England found hospitality in the liberal atmosphere of the old Netherlands, so the Puritans of New England found hospitality in New Netherlands. The Puritans were Calvinists, and, generally speaking, were either Presbyterians or Congregationalists, and while they would have been as welcome in New Amsterdam as in old Amsterdam, if they had come at first to Manhattan Island, it happens that the earliest representatives of the Presbyterian denomination to settle on Long Island came through New England. As early as 1640, a Presbyterian congregation, organized in Lynn, Mass., moved to and settled in Southampton, L. I. (Hodge's "History of the Presbyterian Church," I, 40.)

Coming nearer to New Amsterdam, we find a closer interest, perhaps, attaching to the settlement of Presbyterians at Hempstead, L. I. That town was settled in 1644 during the Dutch regime. Among the original proprietors of Hempstead was Rev. Richard Denton. Mr. Denton was born in Yorkshire, Eng., in 1586, graduated from Cambridge University in 1623, then served as a Presbyterian minister in the parish of Halifax (northern England) for seven years. About 1630 he came to New England, followed by part of his flock, and in 1644, as above stated, came to Long Island. (See more extended biographical note in Ecclesiastical Records of the State of N. Y. III, 1464. Also personal reference in Eccl. Rec. N. Y. I, 411.) That he preached at Hempstead, and was highly estemed, even by the members of the Dutch church, is indicated in a letter written on August 5, 1657, by Dominie Megapolensis, who said that there were at Hempstead many Presbyterians who had "a Presbyterian Preacher named Richard Denton, an honest, pious and learned man." (Doc. Hist. N. Y. III, 106-7.)

Twelve years after the settlement of Hempstead, the Presbyterians became so numerous that they decided to form a colony and settle a new town near by; and on March 10, 1656, Nathaniel and Daniel Denton, sons of the preacher, and a number of their brethren petitioned to Director General Stuyvesant for permission to buy land of the Indians and settle at a place subsequently called Jamaica, and on March 21, 1656, the petition was granted. (Docs. Rel. Col. Hist. N. Y., XIV, 340) and this event brings