HENRY HUDSON AND THE KNICKERBOCKERS.
Henry Hudson was the first white man who ever sailed up the Hudson
River. He was an English sailor in the service of the Dutch, who sent
him on a voyage to North America. While sailing along the Atlantic coast
he entered the bay of New York, and passing inland discovered the
beautiful river that bears his name. He was charmed with its clear
waters and banks which were covered with grass and flowers and trees,
and said that the country through which it flowed was "as beautiful as
one could tread upon."
The vessel was called the Half Moon, and had a crew of English and
Dutch--Hudson's own son being of the number. As they sailed up the river
the Indians put out from the shore in their canoes and paddled up to the
Half Moon. Hudson would not let them come on board at first, as one
of his sailors had been killed by an Indian; but as they seemed very
friendly, the sailors at last grew less timid, and traded with them,
giving them beads, knives, hatchets, etc., for the grapes, pumpkins, and
furs which they brought, and after a time Hudson and his men went on
shore and visited the country around.
[Illustration: THE HALF-MOON IN THE HUDSON.]
Hudson sailed up the river as far as he could with the Half Moon, and
then sent a small boat as far up as Albany. He was hoping to find a
strait through which he could sail to India; but of course he did not
find that, so he turned back and sailed down the river again, and out
into the ocean and back to Holland.
Some time after he came back to America, and, sailing to the north,
discovered Hudson's Bay; while here his men became angry because they
did not wish to go any farther in such a region, and taking Hudson and
his son and a few others, they bound them and put them in an open boat
and set them adrift in the sea. No one ever heard of them again. It is
supposed that the boat was dashed to pieces by the floating ice, and
that the bold sailor and his companions perished; but in the old stories
of the Hudson the legend runs that he and his companions did not die,
but found their way down to the Catskills and Highlands; and when it
thunders they say it is Henry Hudson and his crew rolling their ninepins
among the hills.
How that is we do not know. If the brave sailor and his friends really
are living there yet, why, we must admit they could not have chosen a
lovelier place, for nowhere in the world is a fairer spot than where the
Hudson goes down to the sea, passing on its way the misty blue
Catskills, rich with stories of fairies and legends of the old Dutch
sailors, and the beautiful Highlands, which stand strong and firm, as if
protecting the bright river that sweeps around their base.
This happened over two hundred and seventy years ago, in the year 1609,
two years after the settlement of Jamestown by the English.
About five years after a company of Dutch came to trade with the
Indians, and just as their ship was ready to sail home again it caught
fire and burned up; so they had to stay all winter with the Indians.
They had landed on Manhattan Island, on which the City of New York now
stands, and from this time the Dutch began coming there to trade with
the Indians, and after a few years they bought the island, paying about
one hundred and twenty-five dollars for it.
The little Dutch children used to do very much as the little New York
children do now. They had their lessons and their games; and although
they learned in a different way and about different things, still they
played a good deal and worked a very little, as is the way of children
all the world over.
Perhaps, though, you would like to imagine yourself a little Dutch child
living in New York (or New Amsterdam, as it was then called, after the
city of Amsterdam in Holland) over two hundred years ago.
Well, in the first place, you would not be living in a tall, narrow
house of brown stone or red brick, standing in a row with thirty other
houses just like it. You would be living in a wooden house with a gable
roof like a country church, and the ends of the house would be made of
black and yellow bricks. Over the door would be some iron letters
telling when the house was built, and on the roof a gay weather-cock
would be standing. When you came in from the street on a winter day and
wanted to warm yourself, you would go up to a great open fireplace and
sit up in the corner of it, close to where the great logs of wood were
burning.
The fireplaces were all tiled as many of those in new houses are now,
only the tiles then were all arranged so as to tell some story, usually
from the Bible, and around one fireplace you would read the story of
Noah and the Ark; around another, the story of the children of Israel
crossing the Red Sea, and so on.
The floors were not covered with carpet, but every day they were
sprinkled with fresh white sand, and the little Dutch girls were taught
how to draw pretty figures on the sand with their birch brooms; and at
night, when they gathered around to listen to the stories of the
Catskill fairies, the room would not be lighted with gas or lamps, but
with great pine knots or tallow candles, which with the flames from the
wood fire made the room full of queer shadows; and I do not doubt that
oftentimes the little girls and boys were just a little bit afraid to go
to bed after listening to some of these tales of Hendrick Hudson and Rip
Van Winkle, and their queer adventures among the mountains up the river.
But the best time in all the year was at Christmas, when the Dutch kept
the feast of Santa Claus, or St. Nicholas. What a gathering then of all
the little folks! what games were played over the nicely sanded floors!
and what a treat to sit around the great fire and eat the sweet cakes
and crullers, which no one but Dutch mothers knew how to make so well!
And you must remember, when at Christmas you have your Christmas tree
and invite your little friends to come and spend the evening with you,
that you are doing the very thing that the little Dutch boys and girls
did in New Amsterdam over two hundred years ago; and when your mamma
stands in the parlor on New-year's-day ready to receive callers, she is
doing just what the Dutch mammas did so long ago; and at Easter when you
have presents of colored eggs and ask your playmates to hunt for the
nests which you have hidden away, remember that this, also, was a Dutch
custom, for the Dutch were great people for holidays, and to this day
many of the Dutch manners and customs are to be found among the New
Yorkers who are proud to claim descent from the honest and hospitable
Knickerbockers, who looked on life as a thing to be enjoyed, and who
have left such pleasant customs to us, as the keeping of Christmas, New
Year, Easter, and other holidays.
One morning, about fifty years after the Dutch first settled on
Manhattan Island, a fleet of English vessels was seen in New York Bay,
and by and by a letter was brought from the English commander to Peter
Stuyvesant, the governor of New Amsterdam, asking him to give the town
up to the English. The English king, Charles II., thought that as the
Cabots had first discovered this part of America, the English had more
right to it than the Dutch, and he sent a fleet across the sea and
demanded the Dutch to give up the town.
Governor Stuyvesant got into a dreadful rage at this, and stumped
wrathfully around on his wooden leg, and threatened dreadful things if
the English did not hoist sail and go away again; but it all did no
good; the Dutch people themselves thought that they would be better
governed, and also better protected from the Indians, if they were ruled
by the English; so they made Governor Stuyvesant give their city up to
the English, who changed its name to New York, in honor of the king's
brother, the Duke of York, to whom the king had given all the Dutch
possessions in America. But for years and years the Dutch language and
customs held their own in the city, and there are many things about it
still which show that it was originally a Dutch settlement.