History of Westchester County, New York, Volume 1. Frederic Shonnard
adventure after the northwestern passage, and ended his career in 1611 as a miserable castaway on the shores of Hudson's Bay. The " Half-Moon " was destined for a somewhat like melancholy fate, being wrecked five years later in the East Indies.
By the delimitations of its charter granted in 1602, the Dutch East India Company was excluded from all commercial operations in America; and accordingly no steps were taken by that corporation to develop the promising country found by Henry Hudson. But the alert and enterprising private traders of Holland were prompt in seeking to turn the new discoveries to profitable uses. While Hudson and his ship were held at Dartmouth, that is, during the winter of 1609-10, an association of Dutch merchants was organized with the object of sending out a vessel to these lands, and for a number of years voyages were annually made. Of the first ship thus dispatched Hudson's mate was placed in command, having under him a portion of the crew of the " Half-Moon." These early private undertakings were mainly in connection with the fur trade, which offered especial advantages on the shores of the Hudson, where at that period fur-bearing animals, notably the beaver and otter, were very numerous. So abundant, indeed, was the beaver in this part of the country that for a long period of years beaver-skins formed one of the principal items in every cargo sent to Europe. A representation of the beaver was the principal feature of the official seal of New Netherland.
In 1612 a memorable voyage was made to Hudson's River by Henry Christiansen and Adrian Block, two hot landers, in a vessel which they owned jointly. They returned with a goodly cargo of furs, carrying with them to the home country two sons of Indian chiefs, by one of whom Christiansen, several years subsequently, was murdered on a Hudson River island. In 1613, with two vessels, the " Fortune " and the " Tiger," they came back. Christiansen, commanding the " Fortune," decided to pass the winter on Manhattan Island, and built several houses of branches and bark. Upon the spot where his little settlement stood (now 39 Broadway) the Macomb mansion, occupied by Washington for a time while President, was constructed; and the officers of the Netherlands-American Steamship Line are now located on the same site. Block's ship, the " Tiger," took fire and was completely destroyed while at her anchorage in the harbor. This great misfortune operated, however, only to stimulate the enterprise of the resourceful Dutchmen, who forth with, in circumstances as unfavorable for such work as can well be conceived, proceeded to build another, which was named the " Onrust," or " Restless," a shallop of sixteen tons' burden, launched in the spring of 1614. With the " Restless " Block now entered upon an exploration almost as important as Hudson's own, and certainly far more dangerous. Steering it through the East River, he came suddenly into the fearful current of Hellgate, whose existence was previously unknown to Europeans, and which he navigated safely. Passing the mouth of the Harlem River, he thoroughly explored the Westchester coast along the Sound and emerged into that majestic body of land-locked water. To Block belongs the undivided honor of the discovery of Long Island Sound, which had never before been entered by a European mariner. Indeed, it was assumed up to that time that the coastline north of the eastern extremity of Long Island was continuous, and the separation of Long Island from New England is not indicated on any of the maps of the period. Block sailed through the Sound to Cape Cod, discovering the Connecticut River and the other conspicuous physical features. The name of Block Island, off the coast of Rhode Island, commemorates this truly distinguished discoverer, and his momentous voyage. A highly interesting result of Block's achievement was a chart of the country, which he prepared and published, here reproduced in part. Although the outlines in certain respects, particularly in the case of Manhattan Island, are extremely crude, they are surprisingly faithful in the parts representing his individual responsibility. It will be observed that the general trend of the Westchester coast on the Sound is traced almost exactly.
Returning to Holland in the fall of 1614, with the " Fortune," having left the " Restless " with Christiansen, Block at once became a beneficiary of an attractive commercial offer which had been pro claimed some months previously by the States-General, or central government, of the Netherlands. He and his companion Christiansen were by no means the only seekers of fortune in the splendid realms made known by the captain of the " Half-Moon." Other trading expeditions had gone there, and interest in the resources of this quarter was becoming quite active. To further promote such interest, and to arouse fresh endeavor, the States-General, in March, 1614, issued a decree offering to grant to any person or number of persons who should discover new lands a charter of exclusive privileges of trade therewith. Upon Block's return there was pending before the States General an application for the coveted charter by a strong organization of merchants, which was based upon Hudson's discovery and the representation that the hopeful organization was prepared to make to the region in question the number of voyages conditionally required in the decree. On October 11, 1614, Block submitted to the States General, at The Hague, explicit information of his discoveries, and a charter bearing that date was accordingly granted to him and a number of individuals associated with him (of whom Christiansen was one), comprising a business society styled the New Netherland Company. This company had for its formally defined aim the commercial exploitation of the possessions of Holland in the New World, to which collectively the name of New Netherland was now applied. It was in the same year and month that New England was first recalled by Prince Charles of Wales (afterward Charles I.).
The grant of the States-General establishing the New Netherland Company, after naming the persons associated in it — these persons being the proprietors and skippers of five designated ships, — describes the region in which its operations are to be carried on as " certain new lands situate in America, between New France and Virginia, the seacoasts whereof lie between forty and forty-five degrees of latitude, and now called New Netherland." The Range of territorial limits in latitude thus claimed for Holland's dominion on the American coast is certainly a broad extension of the rights acquired by the discoveries of Hudson and Block, and utterly ignores the sovereignty of England north of the Virginian region proper. On the other hand, the entire coast to which Holland now set up pretensions had already been not only comprehensively claimed by Great Britain, but allotted in terms to the corporate ownership and jurisdiction of two English companies. In 1606, three years before the voyage of Hudson and eight years before the chartering of the New Netherland Company, the old patent of Sir Walter Raleigh having been voided by his attainder for treason, James I. issued a new patent, partitioning British America, then known by the single name of Virginia, into two divisions. The first division, called the First Colony, was granted to the London Company, and extended from thirty-four degrees to thirty-eight degrees, with the right of settlement as far as forty-one degrees in the event that this company should be the first to found a colony that far north. The second division, or Second Colony, assigned to the Plymouth Company, embraced the country from forty-one degrees to forty-five degrees, with the privilege of acquiring rights southward to thirty-eight degrees, likewise conditioned upon priority of colonization. Throughout the long controversy between England and Holland touching their respective territorial rights in America, it was, indeed, the uniform contention of the English that the Dutch were interlopers in the interior, and that the exclusive British title to the coast was beyond question.
Attached to the charter given by the States-General to the New Netherland Company was Block's " figurative map," already alluded to. The grant accorded to the company a trade monopoly, which, however, was only " for four voyages, within the term of three years, commencing the 1st of January, 1615, next ensuing, or sooner." During this three years' period it was not to be " permitted to any other per son from the United Netherlands to sail to, navigate, or frequent the said newly discovered lands, havens, or places," "on pain of confiscation of the vessel and cargo wherewith infraction hereof shall be at tempted, and a fine of 50,000 Netherland ducats for the benefit of the said discovers or finders."
No obligation to settle the land was prescribed for the company, and, indeed, this charter was purely a concession to private gain-seeking individuals, involving no projected aims of state policy or colonial undertaking whatever, although wisely bestowed for but a brief period. Under the strictly commercial regime of the New Netherland Company other voyages were made, all highly successful in material results, the fur trade with the Indians still being the objective. That the scope of operations of these early Dutch traders comprehended the entire navigable portion of the Hudson River is sufficiently evidenced by the fact that two forts were erected near the site of Albany, one called Fort Nassau, on an island in the river, and the other Fort Orange, on the mainland. It is hence