The Walloon Settlers are represented by this nearly 10-foot-tall granite stele at the northwest corner of Battery Park. It was designed by noted architect Henry Bacon (1866-1924). The monument and its gilded inscription commemorates the Walloon Settlers, a group of 32 Belgian Huguenot families who joined the Dutch in 1624 on the ship 'Nieu Nederland' ('New Netherland') to colonize New Amsterdam, in what is now called the island of Manhattan. The Walloons were natives of the County of Hainaut in Belgium who had fled to nearby Holland to escape religious persecution. Unwelcome in Holland, the Walloons, led by Jesse de Forest, appealed to the British in 1621 for permission to settle in the British-controlled Virginia colony. Their request denied, they petitioned the Dutch West India Company to allow them to settle in the Dutch-controlled colony of New Amsterdam. Their application was granted and the Walloons left Holland in March 1624, landing in New York on May 20, 1624.

The piece was dedicated May 20, 1924, the 300th anniversary of the Walloon settlers' arrival in New York. The monument was a gift of the 'Conseil Provincial du Hainaut' and is made of Hainaut granite, a Belgian stone. That year Governor Alfred E. Smith (1873-1944) and the New York State Senate issued an official proclamation recognizing the Walloons' place in New York history and the Federal Government issued three commemorative stamps and a silver 50-cent coin to mark the anniversary.

He worked his way up the political ladder. In 1922, he was elected New York governor. He was called the 'Happy Warrior' and was a popular figure. Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated Smith as the Democratic Party's presidential candidate the second time, in 1928. In a campaign marked by virulent anti-Catholicism, Smith lost the election to Herbert Hoover. Later, Smith founded the American Liberty League, a group of conservative financial and industrial leaders who allied with conservative Democrats to oppose many New Deal programs. He was the public face of the group that built the Empire State Building. In 1936 and 1940, he supported Republican presidential candidates.

The following year, he represented the firm on the construction site of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Among other projects, he worked on the design of McKim's Rhode Island State House (1891–1903) in Providence. In 1897, Bacon formed a partnership with James Brite (1865–1942), a colleague from the McKim office, with whom he had traveled in Europe. Brite & Bacon specialized in the design of public buildings; they entered competitions, including those for the Philadelphia Art Museum in 1895 and the New York Public Library in 1897; and executed designs for public libraries in Jersey City, NJ (1898–1900), and Madison, CT (1899–1900). Eventually Bacon practiced alone.

Bacon worked with a number of sculptors on the design of monuments and memorials. He made the settings for several monuments in which Augustus Saint-Gaudens did the figures, including: the memorial to James McNeill Whistler (1903–7); US Military Academy, West Point, NY; the monuments to Charles Stewart Parnell (1900–11), Dublin; Marcus Alonzo Hanna (1905–8), Cleveland, OH, and the Christopher Lyman Magee fountain-stele (1905–8) Pittsburgh, PA.

With Daniel Chester (French designed the figures) Bacon designed the settings for the following memorials: the Melvin brothers ('Mourning Victory,' 1897–1907), Concord, MA; Spencer Trask (The Spirit of Life, 1913–15), Saratoga Springs, NY; Abraham Lincoln (1909–12), Lincoln, NB; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (c. 1913), Cambridge, MA; and the Marquis de Lafayette monument (1916–17) Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY. He also designed the lampposts for Central Park in New York. For his Lincoln Memorial, he received a gold medal from the American Institute of Architects.