[J. Thomas Scharf (1886)] Jonathan Ferris was the leader, and the meetings were held at his house, which is now the cottage on the property of Henry Ward Beecher. An old record shows that Rachel Baden joined the class in 1788, Catharine Osborne in 1790, Catharine Start in 1791 and Mary Banker in 1792. June If), 1789, Freeborn Garretson again preached in Peekskill, and " found much freedom in preaching j the word of truth." He stopped overnight with General Van Cortlandt, whose hospitality received his warn praise. An indenture was made February 2(i, 179"), between John Drake, of Fishkill Town, and Catharine, his wife, and William Helleck, Thomas Clarke. William Weeks, Absalom Travis and Stephen Weeks, man-agers of the Methodist Society at Peekskill, convey-ing to the latter parties for the sum of fifty pounds (two hundred and forty-two dollars) three-quarters of an acre of land in Peekskill. This land included most of the present site of the church, and some ground to the eastward. Upon it was a blacksmith shop, sixteen by thirty feet in extent and ten feet high, which was converted into a meeting-house, and I so used until 1812. In that year a larger meeting-house, located just west of the present church, took the place of this humble structure. August 1. 1S<>8, the Methodist Church at Peekskill was incorporated. In 1886 a third house of worship was erected at a cost of three thousand five hundred and fifty dollars.