Page:Historic towns of the middle states (IA historictownsofm02powe).pdf/42

 tiers of Anglo-Saxon civilization on the continent; for another century it has been the legislative seat of the most powerful State in the Republic.

On the 19th of September, 1609, old style, the yacht De Halve Maen, six months from Amsterdam, in command of Henry Hudson, dropped anchor a few miles below the present site of Albany. Four days spent in the exchange of civilities with the Indians and the taking of soundings from the ship's boat farther up the stream, convinced the speculative explorer that the beautiful river among the hills gave no promise of a water path to China, and the Half-Moon, freighted with wild fruits, peltries and pleasant impressions, turned her prow homeward.

From the Dutch and also the English point of view, the English skipper of the Dutch ship had discovered the river. It appears however that in 1524 Verrazzano put a French keel, La Dauphine, far up the same stream, to which he gave the name La Grande, and, some time after, French fur traders built a rude château, or, as we would say, fortified trading-post, on Castle Island, just off the hills of Albany. But the France of Francis I. had no colonizing