The New York Royal Governor Crosby’s allies tried to disenfranchise the Quakers by requiring them to swear an oath on the Bible, which violates their beliefs. In response, the colonial assembly voted in favor of religious freedom and protecting voting rights. The press coverage so annoyed the Governor, that he had the publisher arrested and tried at Federal Hall. But the publisher (Zenger) was acquitted in the case, resulting in expansion of freedom of the press.

The original church here was established by the British to impose the Church of England on the heretical Puritans and Quakers and others who lived here, including people like Anne Hutchinson, who fled both Boston and Rhode Island to avoid harassment over her belief that women could interpret scripture too. (The Hutchinson River Parkway is named after her). As the revolution approached, the people here split into factions of loyalists and patriots, and the graveyard contains families who fought on both sides, as well as Hessian mercenaries, slaves and free African Americans. There was some fighting nearby at Pell’s Point which helped Washington retreat to White Plains, and the church was used as a military hospital.

In addition to the fine old organ, family box-pews and flags pictured above, there’s also a bell cast in London in 1758 and a stained glass window. Much of the restoration work was done around WWII with fundraising led by FDR’s mother. But the surrounding neighborhood at the northeast border of the Bronx is now heavily industrial, not residential. (I walked from the Eastchester-Dyer Av station). The Episcopal church, which is related with yet independent from the Anglican Church, was deconsecrated around 1978 and is cooperatively managed with the parks service as a (secular) national historic site. Take some time to walk around the evocative colonial and early American graveyard.