remained at Branford. They are quite full and in a reasonably good state of preservation. In a manuscript history of Branford from which the above account is taken, the name of the first town clerk, John Plum, in 1645, and a list of his successors, are given with the date of their service. It is interesting to note how much alike are the ways and customs of this old Puritan town to those of the town of Harlem, built by the Dutch a little later and now part of New York City. In both places the history of the town and the history of the church are one. They are so interwoven that they can hardly be separated. The division of the meadow-lands is the same; mutual protection from the Indians, and the manner of defence are also alike. The official appointment, by the town, of a man to gather in all the cows of the settlers, take them out to graze in the morning, and bring them back at the proper time to be milked, and many other such customs, are very much alike in both settlements. The second church, or meeting-house, was built on the common, of wood, and was succeeded by the present house of worship, which is built of brick. Mr. Plant remembers the high galleries in the old church where the seats were arranged in slips, the boys on one side, and the girls on the other; neither could see the minister, and it is very doubtful whether any of them heard him. There were no children’s sermons in those days. The babes, of whom Paul writes, were not fed on milk, but on strong meat, which even the rigorous doctrinal appetites of the fathers sometimes found hard to digest. Some of the modern church movements, such as women preaching, and Salvation Army barracks, would have sufficiently alarmed those good orthodox people to make them call for a day of fasting and prayer. Nevertheless they were a noble race, among whom misappropriation and embezzlement of funds, trust swindling and corporation stealing and political corruption were unknown.