Michaëlius, Jonas, Manhattan in 1628

(New York :  Dodd, Mead,  1904.)

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176          New Netherland  to   1628

Island to this day attest their French and Belgian
origin." There is, however, no documentary evidence
that either the Walloons or any other colonists settled
at the Waalboght as early as 1623. Several years later
Walloons, as well as Dutch, settled there, but there
is no reason to believe that the name was derived from
the Walloons, or Waalen \Walen\ as they are called in
Dutch. Mr. Brodhead was evidently led into the error
by the name given to this Waalboght (Wallabout).
The name meant an inner bay. The matter has been
explained by the Hon. Theodore M. Banta, in a chap¬
ter headed "Who founded New York?" in the Tear
Book of the Holland Society of New Tork for 1895.
On page 125 he says: "While ^Waal' is Dutch for
Walloon, it had for centuries been used to designate
that arm of the Rhine which flows through the Neth¬
erlands between the Rhine and the Maas — an inner
water; and the dictionaries give, as the primary sig¬
nification of the word, *an inner harbor.' It would
seem most likely, therefore, that the term was ap¬
plied to that little bay on the Brooklyn shore because
it was an * inner harbor' rather than because of the
proximity of the Walloons whose presence is assumed
to account for the name.    It was for a long time be-
  Page 176