Page:Historic towns of the middle states (IA historictownsofm02powe).pdf/156



"From the banks of the Rhine the germ of free local institutions borne on the tide of western emigration found along the Hudson a more fruitful soil than New England afforded for the growth of those forms of municipal, state and national government which have made the United States the leading Republic among nations, and thus in a new and historically important sense may the Hudson river be called the Rhine of America."

The patent granted the Lutherans known as the Palatine Parish by Quassaick contained within its boundaries forty acres for highways and five hundred for a Glebe. The Glebe is bounded by North Street on the north and by South Street on the south. Across its western border ran Liberty Street, then the King's Highway, although no king save Washington, who refused the title, ever trod its dust. The Glebe was "for the use of the Lutheran minister and his successors forever," but they really possessed it only about forty years,—thus liberally was "forever" interpreted two centuries ago.

"Here's a church, and here's a steeple, Here's the minister and all the people,"

says the nursery rhyme. Here the evolution of a parish has for its germ the church and steeple, the minister and all the people be