Mr. Thomas had to encounter the difficult task of uniting a mixed and discordant population into one society, and of reducing them to order and regularity.

He immediately set about organizing a church, and introducing order and attention to religious duties.

In 1713, at his solicitation, the society for propagating the gospel, made a grant of £10 a year for the purpose of aiding the establishment of a school and support of a competent teacher, for which the vestry returned them their thanks.

Mr. Thomas seems to have been laborious and successful in his efforts to meliorate the condition of the town.

In 1720, he informed the society that within eighteen months he had baptized one hundred and sixty persons, many of whom were adults.

Mr. Thomas continued at Hempstead till his death. He died in 1724.

The Rev. Thomas Jenny succeeded Mr. Thomas in 1725, and continued in that church till 1742, when he removed from there. Little is known of the character of Mr. Jenny.

The Rev. Samuel Seabury succeeded Mr. Jenny in 1742. Mr. Seabury graduated at Harvard College in 1724, and shortly afterwards settled as a congregational minister at Groton, in Connecticut. After some time spent in that station, he became a convert to the discipline, rites and forms of the Episcopal church, and resigned his charge. He soon after joined the Episcopal Church, took the necessary steps to obtain orders, and was appointed to preach in New-London, April 10th, 1732. Mr. Seabury left New-London, and came to Long-Island and settled at Hempstead in 1742. He continued at Hempstead till his death in 1764.

Mr. Seabury was a popular preacher, and contributed to strengthen and extend the influence of the Episcopal Church in that part of the country.

The Rev. Thomas Poyer arrived at Jamaica in 1710, as a missionary from the society for propagating the gospel in foreign parts, and was the second Episcopal clergyman who settled on Long-Island. He found the town distracted with a controversy between the Episcopalians and Presbyterians respecting the legitimate ownership of the lands which had been set apart for the support of the gospel in that town, and of the building that had been erected in 1700, by a general subscription, for public worship. These had been seized by the Episcopalians in 1702, for their exclusive use, and their right to them was vigorously contested by the Presbyterians who at that time constituted much the most numerous proportion of the inhabitants.

Mr. Poyer, probably under the impression that the Episcopal Church in the colonies was entitled to the same ascendency over dissenters as in England, joined the Episcopalians, and became their organ in their controversies with the Presbyterians.

This controversy disturbed the harmony of the town during the life time of Mr. Poyer, and was calculated to diminish the beneficial effects of the sacred function.

Mr. Poyer was strongly attached to the church, and had he not been unhappily entangled with this controversy, he might have contributed probably essentially to her increase and extension. He died in 1731.

The Rev. Thomas Colgan succeeded Mr. Poyer in 1732. Mr. Colgan was also a missionary from the society for propagating the gospel in foreign parts. He arrived at Jamaica in 1732, about the time the Episcopalians relinquished the struggle for the church and parsonage land in that town, and were directing their efforts to the erection of a church of their own, which they completed in 1734.

The Episcopalians in Newtown and Flushing about the same time or shortly after, erected churches in those parishes. Mr. Colgan, freed from the distracting cares which had engrossed his predecessor, was left at liberty to devote his whole time to his ministerial duties. Mr. Colgan continued in the charge of the three parishes till his death in 1755.

The Rev. Samuel Seabury, jun. first bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, and bishop of Connecticut, succeeded Mr. Colgan in 1756, Mr. Seabury was the son of the Rev. Samuel Seabury of Hempstead. He was born in 1728, and graduated at Yale College in 1748. He shortly after visited Scotland with a view of studying physic, but soon turned his attention to divinity. He went from thence to London, and was admitted to the order of deacon and priest in 1753. On his return, Mr. Seabury preached two or three years at Brunswick, in New-Jersey. In 1756 he removed from that place and settled at Jamaica on Long-Island. In 1765 he left Jamaica and settled at Westchester, in which place he continued until the Revolutionary War, when he retired to New-York; after the return of peace he settled at NewLondon. In 1784 he went to England for consecration as bishop of Connecticut. In consequence of the occurrence of some difficulties (not of a personal nature) to the accomplishment of his wishes, he went to Scotland, and was consecrated by three nonjuring bishops. On his return he fixed his residence at New-London, where he continued in the faithful

discharge of the duties of his elevated function, till his death in 1796.

Bishop Seabury was held in high estimation--he was warmly attached to the interests of the church, of which he was an ornament, and was indefatigable in his exertions to extend its limits, and to add to its reputation and influence.

The bishop published a few detached discourses, and two volumes of sermons in his life time, and another volume was published after his death.

Within forty years past, there have been a number of Methodist societies formed on the island, but the number is not exactly known.

There are a number of parishes in the several towns, and there are several congregational societies in the eastern part of Suffolk county, but the number and names of the ministers are not ascertained.

The Friends formed societies in Flushing and Oysterbay at an early period of those settlements, which have increased and form a large proportion of the population of those towns, but the number of the societies is not known.

There are a number of Baptists scattered about the island, but no organized societies are known, except at Oysterbay and Brooklyn.

Of the several tribes of Indians on Long-Island.

When the first settlements were made on the island by the Dutch and English, it appears, from the original Indian deeds, that the principal tribes that occupied it, were as follows:

The Canarse, the Rockaway, the Merikoke, the Marsapeague, the Secatague, and the Patchague, on the south sidethe Matinecoc, the Nissaquague, the Satauket, and the Corchaug, on the north side; the Shinecoc, the Manhanset and the Montauk, from the Canoe Place to Montauk point.

The Canarse appears to have been the only tribe, or the only tribe of any consequence, in Kings county. This tribe claimed the chief part of the lands in Kings county, and a part of the lands in Jamaica.

The Rockaway tribe claimed the territory around Rockaway, and more or less of the lands in Newtown and Jamaica. The Merikoke and Marsapeague tribes extended from Rockaway through Queens county into Suffolk, on the south side of the island.

The territory of the Matinecoc tribe extended from Flushing through Queens county to Fresh Pond in Suffolk, on the north side.

The Nissaquague tribe extended from Fresh Pond to Stonybrook.

The Satauket tribe claimed from Stony-brook to the Wading river.

The Corchaug tribe extended from the Wading river thro' South Old on the north side.

The territory of the Manhanset tribe was Shelter-Island. The territory of the Secataug tribe adjoined that of the Marsapeagues and extended to Patchogue.

The territory of the Patchogue tribe extended to South Hampton.

The Shinecoc tribe extended from the Canoe Place to Montauk, and that peninsula was the seat of the Montauk tribe.

There are one or two other tribes named in the old records, but the place they occupied cannot be ascertained, and it is evident from that circumstance, that they must have been very small, perhaps the mere remnants of tribes which had been destroyed in their wars.

Those above enumerated are the principal tribes that occupied the island when the English and Dutch commenced their settlements there, and the original purchases of the several towns were made of these tribes.

The Indian settlements were all on the bays, creeks, and harbors on the north and south sides of the island, and their territories were divided from each other by the middle of the island.

At the time of the first settlement of the island, the whole Indian population was considerable, but by no means as great as the facilities of subsistence would have authorized us to expect, nor as great as it probably had formerly been.

The shell banks which indicate the sites of their villages, on the western half of the island, are large and numerous, and beds of shells of some size or other are found at intervals of a few miles all around the margin of the island. From these it would seem that the population of some parts of the island was once very numerous, or must have been stationary there a long time.*

The state of the Indian population must be ascribed to their perpetual wars, by which they had been diminished. All savage nations are addicted to war. The causes of war

The shell banks in the western towns of Suffolk county are much larger and more numerous than in the eastern towns, where shell fish are as abundant: which proves that the western part of the island had been the longest settled, and that the Indian emigration proceeded from west to east.

among them are numerous, and the mode of carrying it on destructive to their numbers.

It appears that Long-Island had been overrun by hostile tribes, and many of the natives must have been destroyed by them.

Of the political state of the Indians.

The confederacy of the five nations extended their conquests as far south as Manhattan Island, and had passed over to the west end of Long-Island, and subdued the Canarse Indians.

There is a tradition among the Dutch, that at the time of the first settlement of the island, the Canarse tribe paid the Mohawks an annual tribute of wampum and dried clams, and that they discontinued the payment of it on the persuasion of the whites, in consequence of which a party of the conquerers came and destroyed the whole tribe, except a few who happened to be from home.

Some writers have supposed that the conquest of the Mohawks extended to the whole island, but there is no tradition to support it, and it is believed that the conquest never extended beyond the territories of the Canarse Indians.

This may have been owing to the fact, that all the other Indians were in subjection to the Pequots. It is well known that this tribe never was subdued by the five nations, and it would have been a violation of their rules of warfare, to have turned their arms against a tributary people, when they had not subdued the power that held them in subjection.

The Montauks had prohably been the most warlike tribe on Long-Island, had overrun the other tribes on the island east of the Canarse territory, and had reduced them to some kind of subjection.

At the time of the first settlement of the island, the Montauk sachem claimed and exercised some kind of sovreignty over the whole territory, and it is stated that he justified his claim before the governor and council in virtue of a former conquest of the country. *In 1659, he conveyed the territory which constitutes the town of Smithtown, then occupied by the Nissaquague Indians, to Lyon Gardiner.

It is a little uncertain what was the general Indian name of Long-Island. In several old deeds the Montauk chief is styled the sachem of Paumanacke,or Long-Island.' Hubbard, in his history of New-England, states that at the time of the grant to the Earl of Stirling in 1635, it was called by the Indians Mattanwake, and in the patent to the Duke of York in 1664, it is called Meitowax. It is believed that the name given by Hubbard was the general Indian name for the island.

By a statute passed April 10th, 1693, it was enacted that the island should be called Nassau, and should be so styled in all legal proceedings, which has never been repealed, but has by general consent been suffered to become obsolete.