[J. Thomas Scharf (1886)] The number of members in 1884 was one hundred and fifty-six, and of Sunday-school pupils one hun-dred and forty-eight. The Fikst Methodist Episcqpal Chltrch.1 — George Whitefield, a Calvinistic Methodist, who died in 1770, is said to have preached in the parlors of the Birdsall mansion, on Main Street, and was probably the first Methodist preacher ever heard in the village. During the Revolutionary War the Methodist itiner-ants, on account of the advice of neutrality given by Wesley, were looked upon by the people with dislike and suspicion, and in Peekskill, as in other place?, the society made no advance. Thomas Ware, who was appointed to Long Island, in 178ti, as a Metho-dist preacher, is the first person who is known posi-tively to have attempted the promulgation of the Methodist faith in Peekskill. He did not confine himself to this large field, but, as he states in his autobiography, crossed the Sound, and extended his labors from New Rochellc to Peekskill. At this time he says, " there was not a Methodist on the east side of the Hudson above New York." He was kindly treated in the town of Cortlandt, and makes special mention of the courtesy of Lieutenant-Governor Van Cortlandt, at Croton. Bishop Asbury followed not long after.