116 STATEN ISLAND INSTITUTE oF ARTS AND SCIENCES 
41), we can select some French names later known on Staten 
Island and in some cases their place of origin. Among such are 
Pierre Billiou, Pierre Niu, Moillart Journeay from “ Walslant,” 
erroneously identified by some authors as Pays de Vaud, but in 
reality French Flanders. This settlement was on the south side 
of the island and soon involved the localities now known as Old 
Town, New Dorp, and Great Kills, for in 1664 Gov. Nicholls had 
promised Jacques Guyon a grant of the land there on which he had 
settled. | 
It will be apparent from the facts thus set forth and abundantly 
supported by documentary evidence, how utterly impossible is the 
legend of a Waldensian church on Staten Island in 1650. If the 
term Waldensian is used in its true sense of inhabitants of the 
Vaudois valleys of the Cottian Alps of Italy it is doubtful if any 
ever came to Staten Island at all; if it is used in the broader sense 
of French Protestants they began to come in 1661 and, mingled 
with Dutch, were then our first permanent settlers. So far as 
ecclesiastical history is concerned, without losing sight of the two 
bouweries that survived the Indian attack of 1643 or the possibility 
of Drisius having ministered to Post’s colony in 1653, or to the 
two families, protected by soldiers, in 1659, we may safely pass 
in our search for established congregations and churches to the 
third period, commencing in 1663. 
As to the beginning of this period we rely upon a letter of 
Rey. Samuel Drisius to the Classis of Amsterdam dated Aug. 
14, 1664, reading in part as follows: 
“The French on Staten Island would also gladly have a 
preacher, but their families are few in number and poor. ... In 
the meantime that they may not be wholly destitute, Gov. Stuyve- 
sant, at their request, has permitted me to go and preach there 
every two months and administer the Lord’s Supper. This I have 
done for about a year; in the winter season it is troublesome on ac- 
count of the great water or bay, which must be crossed, and the 
showers and storms, which occur ”’ (Doc. Col. Hist. 13: 391). 
In this letter we have the first conclusive evidence of preaching 
of the gospel on Staten Island and we should pause a moment to 
interpolate what we can learn of our first preacher. Rev. Samuel 
