Page:History of the Municipalities of Hudson County (1924), Vol. 1.djvu/19



In the early part of the Seventeenth Century, traffic between the different countries of the then known world was far more difficult than at the present time. Communication was slow and hazardous. Commerce could be carried on only through tedious land journeys or by slow sailing vessels. Neverthe- less, strife for commercial supremacy was very keen. Nation vied with nation for the enlargement of their trade areas, and every effort was made to secure additional trade facilities. The most valuable and therefore the most sought after trade by the maritime nations of Europe was that carried on with the countries of the Far East. If we spread out the map of the world and notice the relative positions of the European countries with China, Japan or the East Indies, we find the route then established to be long and circuitous as well as dangerous, for at times the vessels were not only in danger of shipwreck, but of capture by pirates. There was, therefore, an earnest desire for a safer and more direct route. Many attempts had been made to find a shorter and less expensive way of reaching these countries, but all had failed. Among the prominent nations of the world, Holland had become one of the first and foremost in commercial importance. Her ships were found on every known sea, and her colonial possessions rivaled in wealth of products that of any other nation. From these, much of her national wealth was obtained. Her ships came to her wharves laden with sugar, coffee, tobacco and spices from the Far East, in exchange for the products of the home land, and her merchants combined under the name of “The Dutch East India Com- pany,” the better to prosecute this valuable trade. : They engaged Henry Hudson, a skilled English navigator, to make a more extended search for the passage which it was thought would open up a more direct route by sailing westward. On April 4, 1609, he left the Texel in the “Half Moon,” a little vessel of something over sixty tons, with a crew of sixteen men, and turning first toward the north skirted the coast of Norway. He soon found himself in the region of ice and snow. Unable to continue in that direction, he turned toward the southwest, and sailing in a southerly direction reached the coast of North America and continued along the same to below the Virginia coast. Thence turning back and drawing nearer the land, on the 3rd of September following he saw a great body of water extend- ing into the land. Believing he had found the object of his search, he sailed in behind the point we now know as Sandy Hook, and as darkness was coming on he there anchored for the night. The next morning he saw the wooded shores of present Monmouth county stretching out before him, while on his right the waters of Raritan bay glis- tening in the sunlight, were bounded by the green hills of Staten Island. He states “the people of the country came aboard of us seeming very glad of our coming, and brought green tobacco and gave us of it for knives and beads.” He spent three days in exploring the adjacent country, and his enthusiasm was expressed in the words of his report, “that it was a good land to fall in