HIS DEATH. change "appointed unto all men." proved January 23d. 79 The will was On a plain horizontal slab of brown stone in the old graveyard may be read the following: "Survivers, let's all imitate The vertues of our Pastor, He did his Lord and Master. To us most awfull was the stroke By which he was removed Unto the full fruition of The God he served and loved." And below it "Here lyes the pious remains The omission of the numeral before years, has left it impossible to determine just when he came to the parish. We have already spoken of his family. His first wife, buried at Smithtown, was probably the mother of his daughter Jemima, who bore her name, and who, as we may infer from the will, was considerably older than her sisters. Daniel and Mary were nearly of an age, and are supposed to have been children of his second wife. As the will implies that at least one of his daughters was a minor at the time of his decease, we suppose Elizabeth and her younger brothers to have been children of his third marriage. The grave of his second wife, if she was buried here, is without a headstone and its place unknown. Daniel,* the oldest son, who lived on a farm beyond the mountain, died Oct. 17, 1794, aged 74 years, and was buried near his father. Of the daughters, Mary became the wife of Deacon Amos Baldwin, and died Sept. 30, 1795, in her 75th year. In common with many of his parishioners and ministerial contemporaries, Mr. Taylor was a slaveholder. His will indicates a humane regard for the wishes of his servants in the disposition to be made of them after his decease. We should like to be able to pay a due tribute to some of those worthy men who were the helpers of Mr. Taylor's ministry; but with a single exception, the names of the church officers of that period are unknown. Their only record is on high. There is presumptive evidence that Samuel Pierson, the carpenter, was one of the first deacons. The evidence is found in the following lines upon his head stone: * Daniel and Anne Taylor had a son Oliver, who died Aug. 11, 1785, in his 31st year. Also a son Daniel, who lived to old age and had several children. Among them was the late Mrs. Charlotte, wife of John M. Lindsley. The descendants of the old pastor are found among the Lindsleys, Baldwins, and Cranes. None of the Taylor name, now resident here, have been traced. CHURCH OFFICERS. "Here lies interred under this mould By Church of Christ and children dear, 81 His decease occurred March 19, 1730, in his 67th year. Joseph Peck, one of the "beloved friends and brethren in covenant relation" selected by Mr. Taylor to be the executors of his will, held subsequently the double office of elder and deacon. He was forty-six years old at the time of Mr. Taylor's decease. It is not known that he was then an officer. The same may be said of the "pious and godly Mr. Job Brown," who was in his full manhood-thirty-eight years old. Deacon Samuel Freeman, whose name will occur in the following chapter, was six years younger. These and others soon to be mentioned, received the bread of life from the first pastor of the flock, and formed a part of the sorrowful procession that followed him to his rest. CHAPTER IV. REV. CALEB SMITH. F, when Samuel Harrison was writing the accounts of his fulling-mill and saw-mill, he could have foreknown what was yet to be the historic value of a single leaf of his account-book; that after a hundred years and more the church records of that day would all be lost, the names of its officers lost, and all knowledge of the age and origin of the old parsonage lost, till the said account-book should open its bronzed and tattered lips to reveal the interesting secrets; possibly that knowledge would have secured for the volume a more careful handling and a choicer place in his writing-desk. Beyond a doubt, it would have put in exercise all his clerkly skill. The pen would have striven for a little more method and grace, and the dictionary would have corrected sundry slips of orthography. This Samuel Harrison was the second of that name in Newark, and a grandson of Sergeant Richard. He exercised the quadruple functions of magistrate, farmer, fuller and sawyer. He was, withal, THE PARSONAGE. 83 a loyal rent-payer, as appears from à petition addressed to Governor Belcher in 1747, and signed by Nathaniel Wheeler, Jonathan Pierson, John Condict, Nathaniel Camp, Samuel Harrison, Samuel Baldwin, and others, asserting their loyalty, and vindicating themselves against an implied connection with recent disturbances and riots. From the entries in his day-book, we learn that in July, 1748—the summer following Mr. Taylor's death-he was sawing "oke plank" "gice," "slepers," and other material, and also receiving sundry sums of money, "on account of the parsonage." The money was received, in sums ranging from a few shillings to near twenty pounds, from David Ward, Jonathan Shores, David Williams, Thomas Williams, David Baldwin, Nathaniel Crane, Noah Crane, Azariah Crane, Stephen Dod, John Dod, Eleazer Lamson, Gershom Williams, Ebenezer Farand, Peter Bosteda, William Crane, Jonathan Ward, Jonathan Sergeant, Samuel Cundict, Joseph Peck, Deacon Samuel Freeman, Bethuel Pierson, Thomas Lamson, Samuel Wheeler, Robert Baldwin, and Joseph Jones; a list of twenty-five names, chiefly representing (we may presume) heads of families. It thus appears that the society took occasion from the loss of its pastor to provide a home for his successor. Instead, however, of placing it on the parish lands, a new lot of four acres was bought of Matthew Williams, lying "on the north side of the |