The Story of the Walloons

THE first permanent settlers who, in any number, came with wives and children to make homes and to till the soil in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were Walloons, or French-speaking people, from the Belgic Netherlands. Who were they, and why did they come? Few people from northern Europe, three hundred years ago, wanted to go and live in America, when it was a howling wilderness full of savage beasts and men. A great, wide, stormy ocean had first to be crossed, and many who made