On the second Sunday after his ordination, in fulfilment of a promise which he had made, the Rev. Mr. Van Dyck visited the church in Fishkill, but he was only a bird of passage in doing this. His private affairs were in the way. He had become indebted to a gentleman in New York to the amount of L125, and under the trespass law of the State, if he entered it and remained, he was liable to arrest and imprisonment. The Legislature, by vote, permitted him to return, and finally an amicable adjustment was effected with the creditor through the agency of the vestry in Poughkeepsie, and he was established as rector of Christ Church, Whitsunday, May 27, 1787, and continued in charge till 1791. He then removed to New Jersey and became rector of St. Peter's Church, Amboy, and Christ Church, New Brunswick; but in July, 1793, he accepted the rectorship of St. Mary's, Burlington, which he held for three years. His residence in this place was saddened by painful domestic afflictions. The death of his widowed mother, who had been an inmate of his family for many years, followed by that of two of his daughters under peculiarly sorrowful circumstances, must have made him quite willing to leave Burlington, and assume, in 1797, the charge of St. James's Church, Newtown, L. I. Here he continued to officiate for five years, and he is said to have been the first clergyman who devoted his entire services to that parish. This was his last and longest rectorship, for he left Newtown in 1802, and on the 12th of September in that year he conducted the services in Grace Church, Jamaica, then vacant, "and offered to officiate further." Davis [Footnote: John Davis, _Travels of four Years and a half in the United States_ (1798-1802), p. 155.], in his travels in the United States, speaks thus vividly of a visit he made to Newtown, and of his entertainment in the place: "I was fortunate enough to procure lodgings at Newtown under the roof of the Episcopal minister, Mr. Vandyke. The parsonage-house was not unpleasantly situated. The porch was shaded by a couple of huge locust trees, and accommodated with a long bench. Here I often sat with my host, who like Parson Adams always wore the cassock; but he did not read AEschylus. Mr. Vandyke was at least sixty; yet if a colt, a pig, or any other quadruped entered his paddock, he sprang from his seat with more than youthful agility, and vociferously chased the intruder from his domain. I could not but smile to behold the parson running after a pig and mingling his cries with those of the animal."