Under the tolerant rule of ‘Good Queen Anne,’ many French refugees obtained peaceful abodes in Richmond county.  In their escape from their own land, multitudes had been kindly received in England, and afterward accepted a permanent and safe shelter in the Province of New-York.  What a noble origin had the Staten Island Christian refugees!  Their ancestors, the Waldenses, resided several centuries, as a whole people, in the South of France, and like the ancient Israelites of the land of Goshen, enjoyed the pure light of sacred truth, while Egyptian darkness spread its gloom on every side.  In vain have historians endeavored to trace correctly their origin and progress.  All, however, allow them a very high antiquity, with what is far better, an uncontaminated, pure faith.  A very ancient record gives a beautiful picture of their simple manners and devotions: 

’They, kneeling on their knees, or leaning against some bank or stay, do continue in their prayers with silence, as long as a man may say thirty or forty paternosters.  This they do every day, with great reverence, being among themselves.  Before meat, they say, ‘Benedicite.’ etc.  Then the elders, in their own tongue, repeat:  ’God, which blessed the five loaves and two fishes, bless this table and what is set upon it.  In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  Amen.’  After meat, they say:  ’Blessing, and worship, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, honor, virtue, and strength, to God alone, for ever and ever.  Amen.  The Lord which has given us corporeal feeding, grant, us his spiritual life; and God be with us, and we always with him.  Amen.’  Thus saying grace, they hold their hands upward, looking up to heaven; and afterward they teach and exhort among themselves.’

To Staten Islanders it must be a pleasant reminiscence, that among their earliest settlers were these pious Waldenses.

Like their brethren in Utrecht, the descendants of the Huguenots on the Island sometimes occupy the same farms which their pious ancestors obtained more than a century and a half ago.  The Disosways, the Guions, the Seguines, on its beautiful winding shores, are well-known examples of this kind.  The Hollanders, Walloons, Waldenses, and the Huguenots here all intermarried, and the noble, spiritual races thus combined, ever have formed a most excellent, industrious, and influential population.  Judges, Assemblymen, members of Congress, and ministers, again and again, in Richmond county, have been selected from these unions.  During the Revolutionary struggle, the husband of Mrs. Colonel Disosway had fallen into the hands of the common enemy; she was the sister of the well-known and brave Captain Fitz-Randolph, or Randell, as commonly called, who had greatly annoyed the British.  When one of their officers had consented to procure her husband’s release, if she would persuade her brother to quit the American ranks, she indignantly replied:  ’If I could act so dastardly a part, think you that General Washington has but one Captain Randolph in his army?’