Among all the rivers of the world the Hudson is acknowledged queen,
decked with romance, jewelled with poetry, clad with history, and
crowned with beauty. More than this, the Hudson is a noble threshold
to a great continent and New York Bay a fitting portal. The traveler
who enters the Narrows for the first time is impressed with wonder,
and the charm abides even with those who pass daily to and fro amid
her beauties. No other river approaches the Hudson in varied grandeur
and sublimity, and no other city has so grand and commodious a harbor
as New York. It has been the privilege of the writer of this handbook
to see again and again most of the streams of the old world "renowned
in song and story," to behold sunrise on the Bay of Naples and sunset
at the Golden Gate of San Francisco, but the spell of the Hudson
remains unbroken, and the bright bay at her mouth reflects the
noontide without a rival. To pass a day in her company, rich with
the story and glory of three hundred years, is worth a trip across a
continent, and it is no wonder that the European traveler says again
and again: "to see the Hudson alone, is worth a voyage across the
Atlantic."
* * *
A very good land to fall in with and a pleasant land to see!
_Hendrick Hudson_
* * *
How like a great volume of history romance and poetry seem her bright
illumined pages with the broad river lying as a crystal book-mark
between her open leaves! And how real this idea becomes to the Day
Line tourist, with the record of Washington and Hamilton for its
opening sentence, as he leaves the Up-Town landing, and catches
messages from Fort Washington and Fort Lee. What Indian legends
cluster about the brow of Indian Head blending with the love story of
Mary Phillipse at the Manor House of Yonkers. How Irving's vision of
Katrina and Sleepy Hollow become woven with the courage of Paulding
and the capture of Andre at Tarrytown. How the Southern Portal of the
Highlands stands sentineled by Stony Point, a humble crag converted by
the courage of Anthony Wayne into a mountain peak of Liberty.
How North and South Beacon again summon the Hudson yeomen from harvest
fields to the defense of country, while Fort Putnam, still eloquent in
her ruins, looks down upon the best drilled boys in the world at West
Point. Further on Newburgh, Poughkeepsie and Kingston shake fraternal
hands in the abiding trinity of Washington, Hamilton and Clinton,
while northward rise the Ontioras where Rip Van Winkle slept, and woke
to wonder at the happenings of twenty years.
What stories of silent valleys told by murmuring streams from the
Berkshire Hills and far away fields where Stark and Ethan Allen
triumphed. What tales of Cooper, where the Mohawk entwines her fingers
with those of the Susquehanna, and poems of Longfellow, Bryant and
Holmes, of Dwight, of Halleck and of Drake; ay, and of Yankee
Doodle too, written at the Old Van Rensselaer House almost within a
pebble-throw of the steamer as it approaches Albany. What a wonderful
book of history and beauty, all to be read in one day's journey!
* * *
Roll on! Roll on!
Thou river of the North! Tell thou to all
The isles, tell thou to all the Continents
The grandeur of my land.
_William Wallace._
* * *
The Hudson has often been styled "The Rhine of America." There is,
however, little of similarity and much of contrast. The Rhine from
Dusseldorf to Manheim is only twelve hundred to fifteen hundred feet
in breadth. The Hudson from New York to Albany averages more than five
thousand feet from bank to bank. At Tappan Zee the Hudson is ten times
as wide as the Rhine at any point above Cologne. At Bonn the Rhine is
barely one-third of a mile, whereas the Hudson at Haverstraw Bay is
over four miles in width. The average breadth of the Hudson from New
York to Poughkeepsie is almost eight thousand feet.
The mountains of the Rhine also lack the imposing character of
the Highlands. The far-famed Drachenfels, the Landskron, and the
Stenzleburg are only seven hundred and fifty feet above the river;
the Alteberg eight hundred, the Rosenau nine hundred, and the great
Oelberg thirteen hundred and sixty-two. According to the latest United
States Geological Survey the entire group of mountains at the northern
gate of the Highlands is from fourteen hundred to sixteen hundred and
twenty-five feet in height, not to speak of the Catskills from three
thousand to almost four thousand feet in altitude.
It is not the fault of the Rhine with its nine hundred miles of
rapid flow that it looks tame compared with the Hudson. Even the
Mississippi, draining a valley three thousand miles in extent, looks
insignificant at St. Louis or New Orleans contrasted with the Hudson
at Tarrytown. The Hudson is in fact a vast estuary of the sea; the
tide rises two feet at Albany and six inches at Troy. A professor of
the Berlin University says: "You lack our castles but the Hudson is
infinitely grander." Thackeray, in "The Virginians," gives the Hudson
the verdict of beauty; and George William Curtis, comparing the Hudson
with the rivers of the Old World, has gracefully said: "The Danube
has in part glimpses of such grandeur, the Elbe has sometimes such
delicately penciled effects, but no European river is so lordly in its
bearing, none flows in such state to the sea."
* * *
I have been up and down the Hudson by water. The entire river is
pretty, but the glory of the Hudson is at West Point.
_Anthony Trollope._
* * *
Baedeker, a high and just authority, in his recent Guide to the United
States says: "The Hudson has sometimes been called the American Rhine,
but that title perhaps does injustice to both rivers. The Hudson,
through a great part of its extent, is three or four times as wide
as the Rhine, and its scenery is grander and more inspiring; while,
though it lacks the ruined castles and ancient towns of the German
river, it is by no means devoid of historical associations of a more
recent character. The vine-clad slopes of the Rhine have, too, no
ineffective substitute in the brilliant autumn coloring of the
timbered hillsides of the Hudson."
* * *
A stately stream around which as around
The German Rhine hover mystic shapes
_Richard Burton_
* * *
What must have been the sensation of those early voyagers, coasting a
new continent, as they halted at the noble gateway of the river and
gazed northward along the green fringed Palisades; or of Hendrick
Hudson, who first traversed its waters from Manhattan to the Mohawk,
as he looked up from the chubby bow of his "Half Moon" at the massive
columnar formation of the Palisades or at the great mountains of the
Highlands; what dreams of success, apparently within reach, were his,
when night came down in those deep forest solitudes under the shadowy
base of Old Cro' Nest and Klinkerberg Mountain, where his little craft
seemed a lone cradle of civilization; and then, when at last, with
immediate purpose foiled, he turned his boat southward, having
discovered, but without knowing it, something infinitely more valuable
to future history than his long-sought "Northwestern Passage to
China," how he must have gazed with blended wonder and awe at the
distant Catskills as their sharp lines came out, as we have seen
them many a September morning, bold and clear along the horizon, and
learned in gentle reveries the poetic meaning of the blue _Ontioras_
or "Mountains of the Sky." How fondly he must have gazed on the
picturesque hills above Apokeepsing and listened to the murmuring
music of Winnikee Creek, when the air was clear as crystal and the
banks seemed to be brought nearer, perfectly reflected in the glassy
surface, while here and there his eye wandered over grassy uplands,
and rested on hills of maize in shock, looking for all the world like
mimic encampments of Indian wigwams! Then as October came with tints
which no European eye had ever seen, and sprinkled the hill-tops
with gold and russet, he must indeed have felt that he was living an
enchanted life, or journeying in a fairy land!
How graphically the poet Willis has put the picture in musical prose:
"Fancy the bold Englishman, as the Dutch called Hendrick Hudson,
steering his little yacht the 'Haalve Maan,' for the first time
through the Highlands. Imagine his anxiety for the channel forgotten,
as he gazed up at the towering rocks, and round the green shores, and
onward past point and opening bend, miles away into the heart of the
country; yet with no lessening of the glorious stream before him and
no decrease of promise in the bold and luxuriant shores. Picture him
lying at anchor below Newburgh with the dark pass of the Wey-Gat
frowning behind him, the lofty and blue Catskills beyond, and the
hillsides around covered with lords of the soil exhibiting only less
wonder than friendliness."
If Willis forgot the season of the year and left out the landscape
glow which the voyager saw, Talmage completed the picture in a rainbow
paragraph of color: "Along our river and up and down the sides of the
great hills there was an indescribable mingling of gold, and orange
and crimson and saffron, now sobering into drab and maroon, now
flaring up into solferino and scarlet. Here and there the trees looked
as if their tips had blossomed into fire. In the morning light the
forests seemed as if they had been transfigured and in the evening
hours they looked as if the sunset had burst and dropped upon the
leaves. It seemed as if the sea of divine glory had dashed its surf to
the top of the crags and it had come dripping down to the lowest leaf
and deepest cavern."
* * *
So fair yon haven clasped its isles, in such a sunset gleam,
When Hendrick and his sea-worn tars first sounded up the stream.
_Robert C. Sands._
* * *
On such a day in 1883 it was the privilege of the writer to stand
before 150,000 people at Newburgh on the occasion of the Centennial
Celebration of the Disbanding of the Army under Washington, and, in
his poem entitled "The Long Drama," to portray the great mountain
background bounding the southern horizon with autumnal splendor:
October lifts with colors bright
Her mountain canvas to the sky,
The crimson trees aglow with light
Unto our banners wave reply.
Like Horeb's bush the leaves repeat
From lips of flame with glory crowned:--
"Put off thy shoes from off thy feet,
The place they trod is holy ground."
Such was the vision Hendrick Hudson must have had in those far-off
September and October days, and such the picture which visitors still
compass long distances to behold.
"It is a far cry to Loch Awe" says an old Scottish proverb, and it
is a long step from the sleepy rail of the "Half Moon" to the
roomy-decked floating palaces--the "Hendrick Hudson," the "New York"
and the "Albany." Before beginning our journey let us, therefore,
bridge the distance with a few intermediate facts, from 1609, relating
to the discovery of the river, its early settlement, its old reaches
and other points essential to the fullest enjoyment of our trip, which
in sailor-parlance might be styled "a gang-plank of history," reaching
as it does from the old-time yacht to the modern steamer, and spanning
three hundred years.
* * *
The prow of the "Half-Moon" has left a broadening wake whose
ripples have written an indelible history, not only along the
Hudson's shores, but have left their imprint on kingdoms over the
sea.
_William Wait._
* * *
=Its Discovery.=--In the year 1524, thirty-two years after the
discovery of America, the navigator Verrazano, a French officer,
anchored off the island of Manhattan and proceeded a short distance up
the river. The following year, Gomez, a Portuguese in the employ of
Spain, coasted along the continent and entered the Narrows. Several
sea-rovers also visited our noble bay about 1598, but it was reserved
for Hendrick Hudson, with a mixed crew of eighteen or twenty men in
the "Half Moon," to explore the river from Sandy Hook to Albany, and
carry back to Europe a description of its beauty. He had previously
made two fruitless voyages for the Muscovy Company--an English
corporation--in quest of a passage to China, _via_ the North Pole and
Nova Zembla.
In the autumn of 1608 he was called to Amsterdam, and sailed from
Texel, April 5, 1609, in the service of the Dutch East India Company.
Reaching Greenland he coasted southward, arriving at Cape Cod August
6th, Chesapeake Bay August 28th, and then sailed north to Sandy Hook.
He entered the Bay of New York September the 3d, passed through the
Narrows, and anchored in what is now called Newark Bay; on the 12th
resumed his voyage, and, drifting with the tide, remained over night
on the 13th about three miles above the northern end of Manhattan
Island; on the 14th sailed through what is now known as Tappan Zee and
Haverstraw Bay, entered the Highlands and anchored for the night near
the present dock of West Point. On the morning of the 15th beheld
Newburgh Bay, reached Catskill on the 16th, Athens on the 17th,
Castleton and Albany on the 18th, and sent out an exploring boat as
far as Waterford. He became thoroughly satisfied that this route did
not lead to China--a conclusion in harmony with that of Champlain,
who, the same summer, had been making his way south, through Lake
Champlain and Lake George, in quest of the South Sea.
* * *
O mighty river of the North! Thy lips meet ocean here, and in deep
joy he lifts his great white brow, and gives his stormy voice a
milder tone.
_William Wallace_
* * *
There is something humorous in the idea of these old mariners
attempting to sail through a continent 3,000 miles wide, seamed with
mountain chains from 2,000 to 15,000 feet in height. Hudson's return
voyage began September 23d. He anchored again in Newburgh Bay the
25th, arrived at Stony Point October 1st, reached Sandy Hook the 4th,
and returned to Europe.
=First Description of the Hudson.=--The official record of the voyage
was kept by Robert Juet, mate of the "Half Moon," and his journal
abounds with graphic and pleasing incidents as to the people and their
customs. At the Narrows the Indians visited the vessel, "clothed in
mantles of feathers and robes of fur, the women clothed in hemp; red
copper tobacco pipes, and other things of copper, they did wear about
their necks." At Yonkers they came on board in great numbers. Two were
detained and dressed in red coats, but they sprang overboard and swam
away. At Catskill they found "a very loving people, and very old men.
They brought to the ship Indian corn, pumpkins and tobaccos." Near
Schodack the "Master's mate went on land with an old savage, governor
of the country, who carried him to his house and made him good
cheere." "I sailed to the shore," he writes, "in one of their canoes,
with an old man, who was chief of a tribe, consisting of forty men and
seventeen women. These I saw there in a house well constructed of oak
bark, and circular in shape, so that it has the appearance of being
built with an arched roof. It contained a large quantity of corn and
beans of last year's growth, and there lay near the house, for the
purpose of drying, enough to load three ships, besides what was
growing in the fields. On our coming to the house two mats were spread
out to sit upon, and some food was immediately served in well-made
wooden bowls."
"Two men were also dispatched at once, with bows and arrows in quest
of game, who soon brought in a pair of pigeons, which they had shot.
They likewise killed a fat dog, (probably a black bear), and skinned
it in great haste, with shells which they had got out of the water."
* * *
Down whose waterways the wings of poetry and romance like magic
sails bear the awakened souls of men.
_Richard Burton._
* * *
The well-known hospitality of the Hudson River valley has, therefore,
"high antiquity" in this record of the garrulous writer. At Albany the
Indians flocked to the vessel, and Hudson determined to try the chiefs
to see "whether they had any treachery in them." "So they took them
down into the cabin, and gave them so much wine and _aqua vitae_ that
they were all merry. In the end one of them was drunk, and they could
not tell how to take it." The old chief, who took the _aqua vitae_,
was so grateful when he awoke the next day, that he showed them all
the country, and gave them venison.
Passing down through the Highlands the "Half Moon" was becalmed near
Stony Point and the "people of the Mountains" came on board and
marvelled at the ship and its equipment. One canoe kept hanging under
the stern and an Indian pilfered a pillow and two shirts from the
cabin windows. The mate shot him in the breast and killed him. A boat
was lowered to recover the articles "when one of them in the water
seized hold of it to overthrow it, but the cook seized a sword and cut
off one of his hands and he was drowned." At the head of Manhattan
Island the vessel was again attacked. Arrows were shot and two more
Indians were killed, then the attack was renewed and two more were
slain.
It might also be stated that soon after the arrival of Hendrick Hudson
at the mouth of the river one of the English soldiers, John Coleman,
was killed by an arrow shot in the throat. "He was buried," according
to Ruttenber, "upon the adjacent beach, the first European victim of
an Indian weapon on the Mahicanituk. Coleman's point is the monument
to this occurrence."
The "Half Moon" never returned and it will be remembered that Hudson
never again saw the river that he discovered. He was to leave his name
however as a monument to further adventure and hardihood in Hudson's
Bay, where he was cruelly set adrift by a mutinous crew in a little
boat to perish in the midsummer of 1611.
* * *
The sea just peering the headlands through
Where the sky is lost in deeper blue.
_Charles Fenno Hoffman._
* * *
=Names of the Hudson.=--The Iroquois called the river the "Cohatatea."
The Mahicans and Lenapes the "Mahicanituk," or "the ever-flowing
waters." Verrazano in 1524 styled it Rio de Montaigne. Gomez in 1525
Rio San Antonio. Hudson styled it the "Manhattes" from the tribe at
its mouth. The Dutch named it the "Mauritius," in 1611, in honor of
Prince Maurice of Nassau, and afterwards "the Great River." It has
also been referred to as the "Shatemuck" in verse. It was called
"Hudson's River" not by the Dutch, as generally stated, but by the
English, as Hudson was an Englishman, although he sailed from a Dutch
port, with a Dutch crew, and a Dutch vessel. It was also called the
"North River," to distinguish it from the Delaware, the South River.
It is still frequently so styled, and the East River almost "boxes the
compass" as applied to Long Island Sound.
=Height of Hills and Mountains.=--It is interesting to hear the
opinions of different people journeying up and down the Hudson as to
the height of mountains along the river. The Palisades are almost
always under-estimated, probably on account of their distance from
the steamer. It is only when we consider the size of a house at their
base, or the mast of a sloop anchored near the shore, that we can
fairly judge of their magnitude. Various guides, put together in a day
or a month, by writers who have made a single journey, or by persons
who have never consulted an authority, have gone on multiplying
blunder upon blunder, but the United States Geological Survey
furnishes reliable information. According to their maps the Palisades
are from 300 to 500 feet in height, the Highlands from 785 to 1625,
and the Catskills from 3000 to 3885 feet.
* * *
Beneath the cliffs the river steals
In darksome eddies to the shore,
But midway every sail reveals
Reflected on its crystal floor.
_Henry T. Tuckerman._
* * *