124 STATEN ISLAND INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 
haume Bertholf, Dominie Gilliam, and Dominie Batoivius, he per- 
formed baptisms for the Dutch congregation in 1698, 1703, 1708, 
1709, 1713. His biographer, Rev. David Cole, says of the 
Staten Island church, which he believes he was instrumental in 
founding, “ for some time before 1700 much work had been done 
by the settlers themselves.” This work done by the settlers them- 
selves we construe as the building of the voorlezer’s house at 
Richmond, its sale and abandonment for a more convenient loca- 
tion at Bulls Head, to be followed by a final move to Port 
Richmond, where the burying ground was by 1704. 
In 1714 a license for the church was granted by Gov. Hunter, 
and according to the marble stone in the present church, the first 
church on the site was built in 1716. The deed for the land from 
Dirck Hooglandt is dated in 1721, but Mr. Vosburgh informs me 
the deed often followed instead of preceding the erection of the 
building. The original gift of land was the piece on which stood 
the church and contiguous to the burying ground. The form of © 
the church was hexagonal, as shown by the diagram made in 1751 
and preserved by the church, on which are written the names of 
the congregation at that time, the men around the wall, the women 
in the center. The names have been interpreted as those of pew 
holders, but as pointed out by Mr. Vosburgh, erroneously, for they 
indicate in reality sittings only; the church was about 35 ft. wide 
as shown by counting up the sittings and considering the size of 
the land deeded for the church. In this connection Mr. Disosway’s 
description of early Dutch churches is pertinent: “of the usual 
form, an octagon, with a cupola. It had no pews or gallery, the 
people furnishing their own benches or chairs, (p. 321). . . . The 
collection bags, small, black, velvet articles, attached to long poles, 
were in use a long while, each with a small bell at the bottom, to 
call the attention of the indifferent or drowsy to the important 
duty of making a benefaction. These sub-treasuries of church 
Sabbath collections were hung on pegs, or hooks, beside the pulpit, 
near the deacon’s pew, and this officer received the people’s gifts. 
_. . The voorleser, or clerk of the church, occupied a little pew in 
