On Henry’s Behalf

Linda Burton posting from Albany, New York – A lot of good things are discovered while somebody is looking for something else, like a passage to China. The Hudson River Valley is one such example. Now, the river was there eons before Englishman Henry Hudson sailed the Half Moon about as far north as where Albany sits today. That was 1609, when Henry was commissioned by the Dutch East India Company to find a way to get to Asia in a hurry, where they could trade for exotic spices. Henry wasn’t the first European to observe the river; in 1524 Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano (sailing for France) sailed all around the Upper Bay; he just didn’t go as far north as Henry did. And before Verrazano came along, the Iroquois, who lived along both banks of the lower portion of the river (now New Jersey and Manhattan) had already named the river “Muhheakantuck” – translate that to “river that flows two ways.” Because the Hudson River is subject to the rise and fall of the tides; as far north as Albany there is a four-foot tide twice a day. The river comes out of Henderson Lake in the Adirondack Mountains and flows 315 miles south before emptying into Upper New York Bay. Its lower half is a tidal estuary; tidal water influences the flow as far north as Troy. I learned that today while sailing on the river myself, on a daily afternoon run of the Dutch Apple Cruises. The cruise started, appropriately enough, with a full-on description of the buildings of Albany alongside the river; with particular attention called to the 800-pound weathervane atop the SUNY headquarters. Hard to make out from a distance, but the narrator assured us it was an exact replica of Henry’s ship, the Half Moon. » read more