The Rev. J. F. Halsey, who was for two years a pastor of the church, wrote to the editor of the Monmouth Democrat in 1873, giving him information relating to this historical old church, which we copy. He writes:

"In the early history of the Presbyterian Church in Monmouth county, N. J., a special meeting was held to pray that the Lord would send them a minister, and at that meeting a Mr. Carr was selected to go to the Log College (now Hartsville, Pa.), where the Father of the Tennents preached and taught. Though it was at harvest time, so eager was Mr. Carr to execute his mission that he started the very next day. When he had made known the object of his visit, he could get none of the sons to consent to go. But as he left to return home he said: 'So sure am I that I have come on the Lord's errand, and that our prayers will be favorably answered, that I shall not reach home before you will send for me and assure me that I have not taken this journey in vain,' and so bid them farewell.

"And sure enough, he had not gone on his way more than a few miles before a messenger overtook him, calling him back, and assured him that Rev. John Tennent would return with him as their minister, which he did. He lived and labored among them less than two years, and was succeeded by his brother, Rev. William Tennent, who labored at Freehold forty-eight years, and is buried in the aisle of the church.

"I said that Mr. Carr went on his mission to Neyhamings, Pa., leaving his harvest unreaped. When the farmers had hurriedly gathered in theirs, feeling that he had gone on their business as well as his own - that be was the church's servant - they turned out and cut his grain for him, and Mr. Carr, on his return, found it put up in shocks in the field. A sudden and long rain compelled him to leave it standing so, and so it happened that when the next season for sowing arrived the best seed grain was Mr. Carr's, as his neighbors had gathered in theirs before it was thoroughly ripened, and many applied to him for seed.

"Such was the tradition told me more than half a century ago by some of my aged elders, who themselves had been gathered into the church under the ministry of Rev. William Tennent.

J. F. HALSEY."