Page:The history of yachting.djvu/121

Rh Along the shore of the North River, between the old Castle Garden and Rector Street, at that time was a high bluff covered with fine oaks, suitable for ship timber. Seeing that these could be easily lowered to the sandy beach below, the place was selected by Block for building his little vessel. Long afterward, there were flourishing ship-building yards along this strand, till the timber was all cut down, and the ridge, later, levelled.

Block and his companions suffered much from cold, and would have suffered from hunger also had not the kind-hearted Indians supplied them daily with food. Enabled thus to work through the dreary winter, they were, in the spring, ready, to launch their little ship, known in history, according to De Laet, as the yacht Onrust, or Restless, of eight lasts, or sixteen tons burden; her length on deck, 44 feet 6 inches, and 38 feet on the keel, with 11 feet 6 inches beam. The Onrust was the first vessel built in this section of the country, and the second decked vessel built within the present limits of the United States; the first was the Virginia, of thirty tons burden, built at the mouth of the Kennebec River, in the year 1608.

When the Onrust was fitted out and ready for sea, Block sailed upon an exploring expedition through Hell Gate and the Sound, discovering Block Island, which bears his name. Then, six years before the Pilgrim ship Mayflower anchored in Plymouth harbor, he visited the unsettled shores of Massachusetts Bay. Subsequently, in 1616, Skipper Hendericksen sailed the Onrust into the