Delavan : The Guyon House 115 



All of these settlements were probably in the vicinity of what 

 is now called Tompkinsville, formerly known as the Watering 

 Place (11). Johannes Bogaert, " Schreiver," returning on the 

 ship "De Waegh" (the Balance), one of the fleet sent by Di- 

 rector-General Petrus Stuyvesant to reduce the Swedish forts on 

 the Delaware, wrote under date of October 31, 1655, "We sailed 

 for the North River of Staten Island by the watering place, and 

 saw that all the houses there and about the beer house were 

 burned up by the Indians" (12). A copy of this interesting and 

 important letter was recently rediscovered by Mr. George W. 

 Tuttle, of New Brighton. 



Van der Capellan attempted to establish a new settlement, but 

 in 1659 only two or three families, with five or six soldiers for 

 their protection, remained on Staten Island (13), and all the 

 rights of Melyn and van der Capellan to land on the island were 

 then surrendered to the Company (14). Acting under instruc- 

 tions from the Directors, Stuyvesant took possession of the 

 island (15), and in the following year a treaty of peace was made 

 with the Indians (16). 



In August, 1 661, nineteen settlers, whose names appear in full, 

 appHed for land on Staten Island (17). Some of them were 

 certainly Walloons, but it is yet to be proved that any were 

 Waldenses. Stuyvesant referred to them as " Dutch and French 

 from the Palatinate" (18). Many of the persecuted French 

 Protestant refugees had sought asylum in the Unterpfalz or Rhine 

 Palatinate before emigrating to America (19) ; hence is derived 

 the name of New Paltz, an early Huguenot settlement in Ulster 

 County, New York. The Huguenot settlement at New Rochelle, 

 Westchester County, New York, was not made until later (20). 



The new settlers established their village on a site in the im- 

 mediate vicinity of the Vreeland Farm House, built in 1786, 

 which still stands on land of the Cameron family, bounded south 

 and west by the Old Town Road (21). The village at Old Town 

 was probably intended to be similar to that at Gravesend, Long 

 Island, as shown on the James Hubbard Map of 1666, traces of 



