The following is an account of the missionary efforts of Rev. Thomas Thompson in old Monmouth, nearly a century and a half ago.

In his account of his visit it will be noticed that he speaks disparagingly of the early settlers in what is now Ocean county. His zeal for the tenets of the society by which he was employed, seems to have led him to make animadversions against the people here, which it would appear were not deserved according to the testimony of ministers of other denominations. It will be noticed that while he accuses them of great ignorance, he yet acknowledges having many conferences and disputes on religious topics with them, which shows that they were considerably posted in scriptural matters, but undoubtedly opposed to the Church of England.

Mr. Thompson says: In the spring of the year 1745 I embarked for America, being appointed Missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts upon recommendation of my Reverend Tutor Dr. Thomas Cartwright, late Archdeacon of Colchester and a member of the Society, myself then a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge. I went in a ship called the Albany, belonging to New York which sailed from Gravesend on the 8th day of May and providentially escaping some instant dangers on the passage, arrived at New York on the 29th of August. The Sunday following I preached both Morning and Afternoon at the Episcopal Church in that city, whereof the Reverend Mr. Commissary Vesey had then been rector more than forty years. On the next Sunday I passed over to Elizabethtown in New Jersey on my journey to Monmouth County in the Eastern Division where I was appointed to reside and have the care of Churches in that county, being also licensed thereto by the Right Reverend the late Lord Bishop of London.

Being come to the place of my mission I presented my credentials and was kindly received and took the first opportunity of waiting upon the governor Lewis Morris Esq., at his seat at Kingsburg which is in the Western Division, and took the oath of allegiance and supremacy and also the abjuration oath and subscribed the Declaration in presence of his Excellency.

Upon making inquiry into the state of the churches within my District, I found that the members were much disturbed and in a very unsettled state, insomuch, that some of them had thoughts of leaving our communion and turning to the Dissenters. The particular occasion of this I forbear to mention.

That part of the country abounding in Quakers and Anabaptists, the intercourse with these sects was of so bad influence, as had produced among the Church people thus conforming with their tenets and example. However, the main fault was rather carelessness of the baptism and a great deal was owing to prejudice respecting the matter of godfathers and godmothers.

I had three churches immediately in my charge, each of them situated in a different township, which had regular duty in such proportion as was agreed upon and subscribed to at a general vestry meeting soon after my coming there. The names of the townships are Freehold, Shrewsbury and Middletown. I also officiated at Allentown in Upper Freehold while that church was destitute of a minister. These four townships comprised the whole county although 40 or 50 miles in length and in some parts of it considerably wide. I also did occasional duty at other places.

As to the church buildings I have found them all much out of condition, especially the church at Middletown, which was begun to be built but the year before I came there, and had nothing done on the inside, not even a floor laid. So that we had no place for the present to assemble in Divine worship, only an old house which had formerly been a meetinghouse.

I had now a great and very difficult task of it to bring people to the communion. They that were conformable to this sacred ordinance were in very small numbers. Many persons of 50 or 60 years of age and some older had never addressed themselves to it. I took all possible pains to satisfy their scruples, gave them frequent opportunities of the communion, and by the blessing of God gained most of the ancient people besides many others, who gave due and devout attention to it ever after.

The number of my catechumens began now to increase and several of riper years presented themselves with a seeming earnestness to receive the benefit of this instruction. So I carried it further and put Lewis' Exposition into their hands and appointed them a day about once a month to come to the Court House and say the parts which I set them to get by heart, and this course I continued till some of them could recite it from end to end.

In the year 1746 the church at Middletown, which had stood useless, being, as I have before mentioned, only a shell of a building, had now a floor laid and was otherwise made fit to have divine worship performed in it. The congregation of this church was but small and as the service could not be oftener than once a month, it was morally impossible to increase the number much, especially as there was a weekly meeting of Anabaptists in that town, so that it was the most I could propose to prevent those that were of the church from being drawn away by dissenters.

St. Peters, in the township of Freehold, which had been built many years but was never quite completed, was afterward fitted up.

The situation of St. Peters Church at Toponemes, which is distant from any town, is however, convenient enough to the congregation and was resorted to by many families in Middlesex county living within the several districts of Cranberry, Macheponeck and South River, their missionary, my friend and brother, Mr. Skinner, gladly remitting to me the care of them.

At a town called Middletown Point I preached divers times, the place being remote, and few of the settlers having any way for convenience of coming to church.

The inhabitants of Freehold township were at least half of them Presbyterian. The church people and these interspersed among each other, had lived less in charity and brotherly love than as becomes churches. But they began on both sides to think less of the things in which they differed in opinion than of those in which they agreed.

The Church of England worship had at Shrewsbury been provided for by the building of a church before there was any other in the county; but this church was now too small for the numerous congregation. People of all sorts resorted thither and of the Quakers, which are a great body in that township, there were several who made no scruple of being present at divine service, and were not too precise to uncover their heads in the house of God.

I went sometimes to a place called Manasquan, almost twenty miles distant from my habitation where, and at Shark River, which is in that neighborhood some church families were settled who were glad of all opportunities for the exercise of religion.

From Manasquan, for twenty miles further on in the country, is all one pine forest. I traveled through this desert four times to a place called Barnegat, and thence to Manahawkin, almost sixty miles from home, and preached at places where no foot of minister had ever come.

In this section I had my views of heathenism just as thoroughly as I have ever since beheld it. The inhabitants are thinly scattered in regions of solid wood. Some are decent people, who had lived in better places, but those who were born and bred here have neither religion nor manners, and do not know so much as a letter in a book.

As Quakerism is the name under which all those in America shade themselves that have been brought up to none, but would be thought to be of some religion; so these poor people call themselves Quakers, but they have no meetings, and many of them make no distinction of days, neither observing Lord's Day nor the Sabbath.

In my journeying through this part of the country I had many conferences and disputes with the people. Some of them were willing to see their errors, and others were as obstinate in defending theirs. It pleased God that I brought some to a true sense of them, and I gained a few to the communion, and baptised, besides children, seventeen grown persons, of which number was Nicholas Wainright, nearly eighty years of age.

I had now seen a great change in the state of my mission within the space of three years, through the grace of God rendering my labors effectual to a good end; in particular as to the peace and unison which the church members, after having been much at variance among themselves, were now returned to, and the ceasing animosities betwixt them and those of other societies. For these I account the most valuable success that attended my ministry.

In the latter end of the year 1750, having then been about five years in America upon this mission, I wrote to the venerable and honorable society a letter requesting of them to grant me a mission to the coast of Guinea, that I might go to make a trial with the natives and see what hopes there would be of introducing among them the Christian religion. My request was granted and on November 25th, 1751, I went on board the brigantine "Prince George," bound for the coast of Africa.

The most noted among the first clergymen of the Protestant Episcopal Church who held services in the county, was the celebrated Rev. George Keith. When he first located at Freehold he was an active member of the Society of Friends, as it would seem were others of the first settlers. He left Freehold in 1689 and went to reside in Philadelphia. In 1694 he went to London, and soon after abjured the doctrines of the Quakers and became a zealous clergyman of the Church of England. He officiated some time in his mother country, and in 1702 he was sent to America as a missionary of the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts." He sailed from England April 28, 1702, in the ship "Centurion," bound for Boston. After his arrival he traveled and preached in various parts of New England and New York, accompanied and assisted by the Rev. John Talbot who had been chaplain of the ship, and who, a few years later, located in Burlington, N. J., in charge of the Protestant Episcopal Society there. Mr. Keith arrived at Amboy and preached his first sermon in New Jersey in that place October 3, 1702. He says that among the audience were some old acquaintances, and some had been Quakers, but were come over to the church, particularly Miles Forster and John Barclay (brother to Robert Barclay, who published the "Apology for Quakers"). After stopping a few days with Miles Forster he left for Monmouth county, where he preached his first sermon October 10, 1702. He traveled and preached in various parts of the county for about two years, then went to Burlington and Philadelphia, and shortly sailed for England.