other of the early churches of this country.  When every other church of our communion had for a long time been associated with an American Synod, this church retained its relations to the Classis of Amsterdam, and, after a period of independency and isolation, it finally allied itself with its American sisterhood as late as the year 1808.  We still have three or four members whose life began before that date.”

* * *

  Yet there are those who lie beside thy bed
  For whom thou once didst rear the bowers that screen
  Thy margin, and didst water the green fields;
  And now there is no night so still that they
  Can hear thy lapse.

  William Cullen Bryant.

* * *

Dominie Blom was the first preacher in Kingston.  The church where he preached and the congregation that gathered to hear him have been tenderly referred to by the Rev. Dr. Belcher: 

  “They’ve journeyed on from touch and tone;
    No more their ears shall hear
  The war-whoop wild, or sad death moan,
    Or words of fervid prayer;
  But the deeds they did and plans they planned,
    And paths of blood they trod,
  Have blessed and brightened all this land
    And hallowed it for God.”

=The Senate House=, built in 1676 by Wessel Ten Broeck, who would seem by his name to have stepped bodily out of a chapter of Knickerbocker, was “burned” but not “down,” for its walls stood firm.  It was afterwards repaired, and sheltered many dwellers, among others, General Armstrong, secretary of war under President Madison.  The Provincial Convention met in the court house at Kingston in 1777 and the Constitution was formally announced April 22d of that year.  The first court was held here September 9th and the first legislature September 10th.  Adjourning October 7th, they convened again August 18th, 1779, and in 1780, from April 22d to July 2d, also for two months beginning January 27, 1783.

It was in the yard in front of the court house that the Constitution of the State was proclaimed by Robert Berrian, the secretary of the Constitutional Convention, and it was there that George Clinton, the first Governor of the State, was inaugurated and took the oath of office.  It was in the court house that John Jay, chief justice, delivered his memorable charge to the grand jury in September, 1777, and at the opening said:  “Gentlemen, it affords me very sensible pleasure to congratulate you on the dawn of that free, mild, and equal government which now begins to rise and break from amidst the clouds of anarchy, confusion and licentiousness, which the arbitrary and violent domination of the King of Great Britain has spread, in greater or less degree, throughout this and other American states.  And it gives me particular satisfaction to remark that the first fruits of our excellent Constitution appear in a part of this State whose inhabitants have distinguished themselves by having unanimously endeavored to deserve them.”  The court house bell was originally imported from Holland.