The Scotch-Irish settlement at Salem in Washington county, New York, came from Monaghan and Ballibay, Ireland. Under the leadership of their minister, Rev. Thomas Clark, three hundred sailed from Newry, May 10, 1764, and landed in New York in July following. On September 30, 1765, Mr. Clark obtained twelve thousand acres of the "Turner Grant," and upon this land he moved his parishioners, save a few families that had been induced to go to South Carolina, and some others that remained in Stillwater, New York. The great body of these settlers took possession of their lands, which had been previously surveyed into tracts of eighty-eight acres each, in the year 1767. The previous year had been devoted to clearing the lands, building houses, etc. Among the early buildings was a log church, the first religious place of worship erected between Albany and Canada. March 2, 1774, the legislature erected the settlement into a township named New Perth. This name remained until March 7, 1788, when it was changed to Salem. The Scotch-Irish first settled in Somerset county, New Jersey, early in the last century, but not at one time but from time to time. These early settlers repudiated the name of Irish, and took it as an offense to be so called. They claimed, and truly, to be Scotch. The term "Scotch-Irish" is quite recent, but has come into general use. From the three centers, Worcester, Londonderry and Wiscasset, the Scotch-Irish penetrated and permeated all New England; Maine the most of all, next New Hampshire, then Massachusetts, and in lessening order, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island. They were one sort of people, belonging to the same grade and sphere of life. In worldly goods they were poor, but the majority could read and write, and if possessed with but one book that was the Bible, yet greatly esteeming Fox's "Book of Martyrs" and Bunyon's "Pilgrim's Progress." Whatever their views, they were held in common. The three doors that opened to the Scotch-Irish emigrant, in the New World, were the ports of Boston, Charleston and New Castle, in Delaware, the great bulk of whom being received at the last named city, where they did not even stop to rest, but pushed their way to their future homes in Pennsylvania. No other state received so many of them for permanent settlers. Those who landed in New York found the denizens there too submissive to foreign dictation, and so preferred Pennsylvania and Maryland, where the proprietary governors and the people were in immediate contact. Francis Machemie had organized the first Presbyterian church in America along the eastern shore of Maryland and in the adjoining counties of Virginia.