690, the New-York
Consistory invited the Rev. Peter Daille, who had ministered among the
Massachusetts Huguenots, to preach occasionally on Staten Island.

In August, 1661, a number of Dutch and French emigrants from the
Palatinate obtained grants of land on the south side of Staten Island,
where a site for a village was surveyed. In a short time its population
increased to twelve or fourteen families, and to protect them from the
Indians, a block-house was erected and garrisoned with three guns and
ten soldiers. Domine Drissius visited them, and from a letter of his to
the Classis of Amsterdam, we learn the names of these early emigrants,
and some are familiar ones[3], Jan Classen, Johannes Christoffels, Ryk
Hendricks, Meyndert Evertsen, Gerrit Cornelissen, Capt. Post, Govert
Lockermans, Wynant Peertersen, etc., etc. Previous to this period, the
island had been twice overrun by the savages and its population
scattered; but now its progress became uninterrupted and onward. Crowds
of people from Germany, Norway, Austria, and Westphalia had fled to
Holland, and their number was increased by the religious troubles of the
Waldenses and Huguenots. 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. 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.

[3: Alb. Rec. xviii.]

From 1656 to 1663, some Protestant emigrants from Savoy came to Staten
Island, and a large body of Rochelle Huguenots also reached New-York
during the latter year. This fertile and beautiful spot, with its gentle
hills and wide-spread surrounding waters, became a favorite asylum for
the French refugees, and they arrived in considerable numbers about the
year 1675, with a pastor, and erected a church near Richmond village. I
have visited the place, but all that remains to mark the venerable and
sacred spot is a single dilapidated grave-stone! The building, it is
said, was burned down, and