French Draught of a Part of Staten Island in the Vicinity of 
Great Kills + 
GeorcE W. TutTTLe 
“La grand Kil,” the only place name on the map, at once sug- 
gests the locality represented, to anyone familiar with what we 
know as Great Kill, and this opinion is confirmed by examination 
of the stream and marsh lines shown on the map. 
When the writer visited this locality with this French map in 
hand, on arriving at the Guyon House? he noted at once the ori- — 
entation of that ancient house (said to have been erected in 1675). 
It squarely faces down the point of land to the south precisely as 
shown on this old map. He also observed that the field southeast 
of the house and between it and Mill Road, planted in corn when 
visited, corresponds with the enclosed area adjoining the house as 
delineated on the map, both in size and location. The Mill Road 
along the edge of the marsh bounds this area on the east and south. 
Marshes both to the east and to the west of the Guyon House 
are to be found, as well as the island at the southerly point of land 
which the Guyon House faces, and on which a Lake House of 
later date is located, in close agreement with this ancient document. 
We may be confident therefore that this map shows the present 
Guyon House, or an earlier one in substantially the same place and 
having the same orientation. | 
A comparison of this map with Vermeule and Bien’s map of 
Staten Island, 1890, which is about three-fourths the scale of the 
copy in the archives of the Association, also makes it quite certain 
1 Read at the annual meeting of the Section of Historical Research. 
2 Original in Land Papers, Vol. 1, p. 99, Office of the Secretary of State, 
Albany, N. Y. The map is not dated but it was with papers dated 1676, 
and. nothing appears to make this date improbable. A photostat copy is 
among the archives of the Association. 
3 See The Guyon House, by Edward C. Delavan, Jr., Proc. Staten Is. 
Assoc. Feb. 1916. 
