[FN] Mr. V. B. moved to his farm in the Clove near Deckertown, N. J., in 1792, where he preached to the church organized under his ministry. He likewise preached occasionally to the churches in this valley until 1799. He died at the Clove in 1815.
Van Benschoten was a man well calculated for the rudeness of the time in which he officiated in those congregations.
After Van Benschoten's services were ended, a term of about four years elapsed before another regular preacher served this congregation. In, or about the winter of 1803 and 1804, the Rev. John Demarest commenced his services for the congregations mentioned and performed one-half of his preaching in the Dutch tongue, and the other half in English. He continued until about the year 1806. [FN] After this a term of about ten or eleven years elapsed in which no regular preacher officiated in this congregation, but supplies were sometimes had.
[FN] Mr. Demarest died in New York city in 1837.
On the 25th of January, 1817, the Rev. Cornelius C. Elting was installed pastor of the two congregations, Mahackemeck and Minisink, and performed his services in the English language. He died the 24th of October, 1843. [FN]
[FN] Mr. Elting is the only minister of this Church who has died during the pastorate of the Church.
All religious services have since been performed in the English tongue in our congregation. Within the term of his services a new church was built in Port Jervis, after which the name of "Mahackemeck Church" was altered by an act of the Legislature, in 1838, to that of "The Reformed Dutch Church of Deerpark." The materials of the old church were removed after the new one was finished, and the spot where the first and second churches had stood during a term of about one century, from the time the first was erected until the last was taken down, became vacant, and the ancient and latter occupants who formerly repaired to it for the worship of their Creator now generally sleep in their graves.