George Whitefield, then making his last American tour. The society, however, waited until 1809 before building its first church edifice. In the same year Schenectady County was carved out of Albany County.
All this while the English speech was gaining over the Dutch. Children of Dutch parents, despite the teaching of the nursery, would acquire and use the English idiom. Finally some of the members of the Dutch Church ventured to suggest the propriety of having service now and then in the English tongue. The staid burghers were shocked. But, the question once raised, the younger generation grew bolder, and the elder began to listen. Domine Romeyn, a graduate of Princeton College, a fluent master of both languages, and eminent for his varied learning and as the founder of Union College, was pastor of the Church from 1784 to 1804. He so far yielded to the new demand as to preach in English upon occasions of which he was careful to give previous notice. It was not until 1794 that the leading members of the Church represented to its consistory the necessity of increasing the services in English,[1] "to the end that the church
- ↑ "Ten eynde de Gemeente niet verstroyt werde."
