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These were Vaudois or Waldenses, who had fled to Holland from severe persecutions in Piedmont, and by the liberality of the city of Amsterdam, were forwarded to settle in New-Netherland. We wish that more materials could be gathered to describe the history of this minister and his early Huguenot flock upon Staten Island.
The Dutch and Huguenot settlers of New-Netherland were grave, firm, persevering men, who brought with them the simplicity, industry, integrity, economy, and bravery of their Belgic sires, and to these eminent virtues were added the light of the civil law and the purity of the Protestant faith.
Gangs of these marauders, we are told, penetrated into the New-Netherland settlements, and threw whole villages into consternation by their unparalleled volubility, and their intolerable inquisitiveness two evil habits hitherto unknown in those parts, or only known to be abhorred; for our ancestors were noted as being men of truly Spartan taciturnity, and who neither knew nor cared aught about anybody's concerns but their own.
Among the very earliest patents granted for lands in New-Netherland, we find one of June 19th, 1642, to Cornelius Melyn, a Dutch burgomaster. He thus became a Patroon of Staten Island, and subsequently a few others obtained the same honor and privileges.
It must be remembered that this is a part of the earliest chapter in the history of New-Netherland, which the 'West-India Company' now resolved to erect into a province. In 1625, three ships and a yacht arrived at Manhattan, with more families, farming implements, and one hundred and three head of cattle.
The application was referred to the Virginia Company, but its conditions seem to have been too republican, and many of these Walloons looked, toward New-Netherland, where some arrived in 1624, with the Dutch Director, Minuit.
They were all connected with the Dutch Reformed Church, in Holland; and when they emigrated to New-Netherland, always brought with them their Bibles and the 'Kranek-besoecker, or 'Comforter of the Sick, who supplied the place of a regular clergyman. Twice were the earliest settlers dispersed by the Raritan Indians, but they rallied again, until their progress became uninterrupted and permanent.
Fort Amsterdam became Fort James, and the city took its present name, imposed as it was upon its rightful owners. Staten Island was called Richmond County, and the province of New-Netherland New-York, the name of one known only in history as a tyrant and a bigot, the enemy of both political and religious freedom.
Several families of the latter requested permission to emigrate with the Dutch farmers to New-Netherland, at their own expense. They only asked protection for a year or two from the Indians; and the English, now in possession of the New-York colony, were most favorably disposed toward them. This transfer from the Dutch to the British rule took place in 1664.
In 1686, there were not less than sixteen French pastors to the Walloon churches at Amsterdam. Thus intimately, by a common faith, friendship, and interest, did the Huguenots unite themselves with the people of Holland, who, about this period, commenced the establishment of New-Netherland in America. We have traced this union the more fully for the better understanding of our general subject.
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