II0 STATEN ISLAND INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 
what is now known as Wallabout.” It is true that this story of 
Clute has been generally discredited, yet it is so precise, he must 
have received it from an accepted tradition, and modern scholar- 
ship has shown that early traditions are more often right than 
wrong. : , 
In 1639 David Pietersen de Vries undertook fe make settle- 
ments on the island, at the request of Frederick de Vries, one of 
the directors of the West India Company, and in 1642 Cornelius 
Melyn received a patent for as much of the island as had not been 
occupied by de Vries, and set up a claim to a patroonship. Both 
de Vries and Melyn adopted the Dutch policy of treating with 
the Indians; but in this they came into collision with the mean 
measures of Director General Kieft. It was Kieft who aroused the 
ire of the natives, so that when Hendrick Van Dyck shot the squaw 
who was stealing his peaches, the Indians arose and attacked all 
the settlements along the lower Hudson. Staten Island was in- 
vaded in its turn, and twenty-two of its ninety inhabitants were 
murdered. The rest were carried into captivity. 
When Pierre Billiou and his associates applied for allotments 
of land on the island, it was almost bare of inhabitants.. Probably 
not more than two or three families survived the Indian insurrec- 
tion. It was no wonder therefore that a majority of those who 
joined in the petition, when they learned of the massacre in 1655, 
turned back; but Billiou pressed on. Fortunately for his enter- 
prise the Dutch West India Company had purchased from Mely: 
all his interest and had extinguished his title. 
I cannot consider the entries made in the Colonial Documents 
that relate to Pierre Billiou’s personal actions. They are many 
and diverse, as he acquired land not only on Staten Island but 
on Long Island as well, and in New Jersey too, at Piscataway. 
There is one entry however to which I wish to refer. On Octo- 
ber 2, 1661, we find written in the records of the Reformed 
Protestant Dutch Church of New Amsterdam (New York) that 
Pierre Billiou and his wife were received as members. 
Concerning his political actions, I will read three entries, namely : 
