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Macy's Fourth of July extravaganza will be on Jersey side to celebrate explorer's arrival 400 years ago
BY JOE TYRRELL
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
New Jerseyans enjoying a better than usual view of this year's Macy's Fourth of July fireworks should celebrate poor Henry Hudson, who made it happen.
It is 400 years since the chronically unsuccessful explorer made his way into what is now New York harbor and up the river that bears his name. As usual, he was, if not precisely lost, at least misguided.
En route to China, though, Hudson encountered what his ship's journal described as "very good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land to see." Captaining the cramped Dutch vessel Halve Maen, Hudson was nosing around Sandy Hook.
In September 1609, Hudson's cruise would take him up a river to a point just north of Albany, where he turned around and retraced his course back down the river to the Raritan Bay, then out to sea.
Along the way, Hudson and crew reputedly stopped at Jersey locations closer to this year's fireworks, such as the vicinity of Communipaw Avenue in Jersey City and Weehawken Cove.
"He was interested not in sailing up the river, but in finding a passage across the continent to the Indies," said historian Kevin Wright, noting the obvious problem that Hudson could not have expected to discover it by sailing north.Stymied in previous attempts to find a Northeast Passage along Russia, Hudson had turned his attentions west. Eventually, his energy and persistence would be his downfall.
In honor of the anniversary of Hudson's failed pathfinding, the massive Independence Day fireworks were moved this year to the Hudson from their normal location in the East River. The shift created good viewing locations at many elevated spots in North Jersey, including front-row seats in communities like Hoboken and Weehawken for the 9:20 p.m..
While a windfall for many towns and businesses, the change had some planning for overwhelming crowns and gridlock. On the Hoboken waterfront, the Stevens Institute of Technology closed all classrooms and offices and limited authorized spectators to 1,000. Cities closed some waterfront streets, adding to chronic traffic and parking challenges.
For a description of the planning, see the New York Times.
The change is fitting, because Hudson's first landfalls around the area occurred in New Jersey, at the time it part of the larger region inhabited by bands of Lenape.
Sailing up and down the North American coast, Hudson and his small crew of about 16 men, had spent only 24 hours exploring the Delaware Bay. But the barrier islands and river mouths farther north up the coast proved more enticing.
The voyagers' contacts with the locals provides some of the new material Wright highlights in his forthcoming book, 1609: A Country That Was Never Lost, 400th Anniversary of Henry Hudson's Visit with North Americans of the Middle Atlantic Coast.
A long-time historical site interpreter for the state and former president of historical societies of both Bergen and Sussex counties, Wright "started the research on the book back about 30 years." On July 19, he hosts a sail on the schooner A.J. Meerwald to view some sites associated with Hudson. Information on the voyage is available at the Bergen County Historical Society website.
While fairly well established that the ship anchored within Sandy Hook in early September, 1609, Wright closely analyzed surviving journals from the voyage and extensively researched local Lenape. He believes Hudson and crew made landfalls near present-day Toms River and Shrewsbury, as well as near Keyport within Raritan Bay.
If so, Monmouth County may have to plan yet another extension of its Henry Hudson Trail. One segment currently runs for 10 miles inside Sandy Hook, from Lloyd Road and Clark Street on the Aberdeen-Keyport border to Avenue D on the Middletown-Atlantic Highlands border. Another segment, with portions still under construction, will link Matawan and Freehold.
Wright's analysis of the Halve Maen's movements and native habitations also pointed him toward explanations of the varied receptions the explorer and crew received by local Lenape.
"There were three distinct populations in New Jersey alone, and another on Manhattan," he said.
The Sanhicans living to the south of Sandy Hook were closely related to another group on Long Island, Wright said. But they had less-than-friendly relations with the Manhatta of Hoboken and environs, whom Hudson encountered as he sailed north, he said.
Coupled with the propensity of European captains to kidnap the occasional coastal native to serve as slaves or translators, the political differences between the bands could have contributed to Hudson's welcomes at some settlements and battles with others.
An Englishman sailing for Holland, Hudson was not the first European to see the river that ran north from the harbor. Giovanni da Verranzano, an Italian sailing for France, had noted the high palisades of the "Rio de Montagnes" in 1524, but had not ventured up it.
For those interested in Hudson and the area as he encountered it, The Museum of the City of New York offers two current exhibitions, "Amsterdam/New Amsterdam: The Worlds of Henry Hudson," through Sept. 27, and "Manhatta/Manhattan" through Oct. 12.
Hudson did not linger, pressing on toward further misadventures. He did not know it, but 1609 was an eventful year in the region that has come to be associated with him.
Late on the night of July 29, the French explorer Samuel de Champlain was paddling down the lake that now bears his name with a party of Huron and Petit Nation Algonquin. The year before, Champlain had established a post at Québec. Unlike many Europeans, he made a concerted effort to befriend the tribes he encountered in that region.
As a result, he discovered they were in the midst of a great war with the Huron's southern cousins, the Iroquois confederation of New York. On this night, Champlain's party encountered a larger flotilla of these enemy. The two sides parlayed, and agreed to fight the next morning. Shortly after dawn, he and his two French companions discharged their arquebuses, killing several Mohawks and changing warfare on the continent.
Champlain extensively documented his adventures with books, illustrations, maps and would shepherd the French colony to the north for decades.
We have far fewer particulars about Henry Hudson, but the same mixture of hope and violence shaped his story. Only fragments of his journals survive, and even the log of his stops around New Jersey and New York largely relies on observations written by his mate, Robert Juet, or other members of the crew.
Two years after his stops on these shores, Hudson, his son John and several crew members were set adrift by mutineers in Hudson Bay. After spending the winter hemmed in by ice, most of the crew had had enough. Hudson and his loyal associates were never seen again. The killers included members of the Halve Maen crew, notably Juet.
An interactive map of Hudson's local stops, including brief quotes from Halve Maen journals, is available at Hudson Happenings.
