The immigrants erected a church, cultivated portions of their lands and maintained their settlement several years. Then sales were made to newcomers, and there were changes in ownership and population. After twenty or thirty years the later Dutch and English comers were largely in the majority, and in 1747 elected trustees of the Glebe, closed the church to the Lutheran minister, and in 1752 obtained from the governor and council a new charter whereby the revenues might be applied to the support of a minister of the Church of England, with the title of "Palatine Parish of Quassaick" changed to "The Parish of Newburgh." At this time there were forty-three real estate lease holders in the settlement. Ruttenber characterizes as prominent among them the following: Alexander Colden, son of Lieutenant-Governor Colden; Duncan Alexander, brother of William Alexander, the Lord Sterling of the Revolution; James Denton, son of Daniel Denton, the first historian of New York; Jonathan Hasbrouck, from the Huguenot settlement of New Paltz. Colden, Denton and Hasbrouck erected grist mills, and in 1743 Colden obtained a charter for the Newburgh ferry. "The names of Hasbrouck and Colden have never been absent from the list of inhabitants since 1750," says Ruttenber. The trustees elected in 1747 were Alexander Colden and Richard Albertson. When the first service was held after the Church of England was substituted, the Lutheran minister and his flock made public protest at the door, and afterward went away and had service in a private house. Tradition says that the Lutherans attempted a forcible entry, and there was a fight in which the church door was torn from its hinges and one Lutheran was killed. This was after the election of trustees in 1847, and previous to the receipt of the new charter. The new trustees, Colden and Albertson, established a public landing, started agricultural fairs, took temporal charge of the church, erected a parsonage, a residence and school-house combined for the schoolmaster, and did much other work which contributed to the growth of the settlement. In 1762 Newburgh was set off from the precinct of the Highlands and made a precinct by itself. In 1767 a petition was granted for licenses for more taverns, as being necessary "to accommodate the country people, travelers and passengers." In 1769 a petition asking for a charter of lands for the Newburgh mission, signed by missionary, vestrymen and wardens, was granted. In 1770 another petition to the governor for "a royal charter of incorporation of St. George's Church" was granted. [Illustration: John Schoonmaker] The old patent of the Highlands, after serving its purpose 50 years, had given way in 1762 to the precincts of Newburgh and New Windsor, the latter being constituted nearly as now, and the former embracing the towns of Marlborough and Plattekill in Ulster County as well as the present town and city of Newburgh.