USA > Connecticut > The Connecticut River and the valley of the Connecticut, three hundred and fifty miles from mountain to sea; historical and descriptive > Part 2
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Unkind and partisan historians have sought to rob the
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Dutch of the credit of the River's first discovery and its opening to civilization. Some have belittled Block's achievement by dwelling upon the unfruitful discoveries, or reputed discoveries, of earlier navigators. Some insist that Estevan Gomez, the Portuguese navigator in the ser- vice of Spain, was the true discoverer, when he skirted the coast from Labrador to Florida in 1525. Others are dis- posed to credit its discovery to Giovanni de Verrazzano, the Florentine corsair, commanding the first North Ameri- can expedition sent out by the king of France, who sailed the coast from North Carolina to Newfoundland two years before Gomez, and discovered New York, Block Island, and Narragansett Bay. But it is not at all clear that either of these mariners even sighted this River. Verrazzano appar- ently was quite ignorant of its existence, for he passed Long Island on the sea side. In his letter to the king (the genuineness of which is no longer questioned by most authorities) he records no incident of his voyage between New York and Narragansett Bay. His first mention is of Block Island, to which he gave the name of "Luisa," in compliment to the King's "illustrious mother," Louise of Saxony. As for Gomez, there is little or nothing substan- tial of record concerning his voyage. Indeed, Professor George Dexter, most thorough of investigators, has shown that it is impossible to determine with certainty in what direction Gomez explored the American coast. His ex- plorations were of no value whatever with respect to our River. While these and perhaps other navigators may have coasted in its neighborhood, it remained virtually unknown to Europeans and untouched by European craft till Block, under the Dutch flag, turned his prow into its placid waters.
Just as to the Dutch, and Henry Hudson sailing under
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their patronage, belongs the credit of the practical dis- covery and opening of the great river of New York, so to the Dutch and Adriaen Block is due the honor of the dis- covery and occupation of the great river of New England, an achievement as important in its way in the consequences that followed.
That the Dutch were unable long to hold the River after the English pushed in is no justification for filching from them the laurels that they fairly won. Nor was the successful elbowing of them from the fertile lands and the River's trade, by virtue of conflicting claims, warrant for the assumption that they, albeit the first comers, were the interlopers. While it is apparent that the rich intervals of the Valley were lovelier in the Dutchman's eye for the profitable beaver-skins to be gathered here than as the " home and inheritance of his race," he had doubtless come to stay. It is doubtless as true that when the Englishman had once got the "smell of the excellence and conveni- ence of the River," he was bound to possess it whether or no, quieting his conscience with the reflection that it were " a sin to leave uncultivated so valuable a land which could produce such excellent corn." True, too, that the fixed settlement of communities, the establishment of the town, and the organization of government came with the Eng- lish. But let the Dutch have the credit which is justly theirs for discovering and opening the way; and not the less for carrying themselves on the whole with patience and discretion when their stolid eyes witnessed the pressing of their more rapid competitors upon their preserves.
Adriaen Block was no ordinary mariner. He had made a previous voyage from Holland to Manhattan in or about 1612, in company with another worthy Dutch captain, Hendrich Christiaensen. That was a venture planned by
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Christiaensen for observation and trade about Hudson's River. Christiaensen had been in the neighborhood of Manhattan the previous year, when returning from a voy- age to the West Indies, and had then determined that his next adventure should be to this region. Thus it was that the scheme with Block was projected. The two comrades came out in a ship presumably chartered by themselves. They remained at Manhattan only long enough, apparently, to take on a cargo of furs and two "passengers." The passengers were natives, sons of " the chiefs there," whom they captured or had enticed to their vessel. Back in Holland the reports which they made of the riches of the new country, with the exhibition of the two Indians, - Orson and Valentine the dusky natives were called, - " added fresh impetus to the awakened enterprise of the Dutch merchants." For now, with the United Netherlands just emerged as an independent nation, the Dutch were leading in maritime commerce. Three merchants of Am- sterdam, one of them Hans Horgers, a director of the East India Company, which had fitted out the "Half Moon " for Hudson in 1609, were quickest to act. Two vessels, the "Fortune " and the "Tiger," were equipped, and, placed respectively under the commands of Christiaen- sen and Block, were despatched forthwith for traffic and exploration in the new region.
This was the voyage, begun in the summer of 1613, that brought Block to his discoveries. Other Dutch mer- chants almost immediately joined in the adventure, and close upon the "Fortune " and the "Tiger" three more ships were sent out under venturesome captains. These Dutch mariners were all exploring this region at the same time with Christiaensen and Block.
Had not Block's "Tiger " met with disaster, the course
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of our history might have been changed. Certainly a different story would have been told. Block was at Man- hattan making ready to return to Holland with a full cargo of peltry on board his ship when she suddenly caught fire and was entirely destroyed. Her loss was his opportunity. He at once set about the building of a new craft from the fine ship's timber then abundant on Manhattan. Winter approaching he and his companions put up some rude huts for shelter near the southern point of the island. These were probably the first white men's habitations in New York. The work on the new ship occupied the winter, during which the Dutchmen were generously supplied with food " and all kinds of necessities " by the friendly native savages. In the spring the vessel was ready for launching. She took the water with the name of Onrust, -the " Restless," - a fitting title, as it proved, for the animated career in store for her. Her measurements were thus of record : thirty-eight feet keel, forty-four and a half feet upper length, eleven and a half feet wide; and about eight casts or sixteen tons burthen.
Such was the little craft that has sailed into history as the " first American-built yacht." But the "Virginia of Sagadahoc," that "pretty pinnace " of thirty tons, built by the unhappy Popham Colony and launched on the Kenne- bec of Maine six years earlier, should not be ignored. The " Virginia," to be sure, had no such brilliant record as the " Restless." Her employment was not in gallant adventure, but in the dismal task of conveying a freight of disheart- ened colonists back to Europe upon the abandonment of an ill-advised settlement. Yet she was the pioneer American yacht, the forerunner of the great ship-building interests on the Kennebec, and should have the head place in the line. The "Restless " has glory sufficient as the " pioneer
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vessel launched by white men on the waters" of commer- cial New York ; the first of American build to sail through Long Island Sound, around Cape Cod, and up Massachu- setts Bay, when no white man's plantation was anywhere in the region; and the first of all craft of white men to enter and explore "The Beautiful River."
It was a spring day, one of those fragrant days which bloom upon Manhattan in the vernal season, it is pleasant to fancy, when Block embarked with his crew in his " Restless " and pointed her nose eastward. Sailing boldly through the whirlpool of Hell Gate, the first European pilot to make this perilous strait, and giving it its expres- sive name, he entered the Sound, -the " Great Bay" as he termed it. Cautiously skirting the northern shore, he passed the group of islands off Norwalk, which he called the " Archipelagos." Farther along he discovered the Housatonic, the "river from over the mountains," as its Indian name is said to imply, which enters the Sound at the present Stratford. This he described as a "bow-shot wide," and named it the "River of Roodenberg" or Red Hills. Passing by the bay at the head of which New Haven lies, he coursed on till he came to "the mouth of a large river running up northerly into the land." Observing here but few natives about the shores, he turned from the " Great Bay " and ventured the unknown stream.
So it happened that this River was discovered and its exploration begun by a Dutchman in an American-built yacht.
Block, as he sailed up the River, made careful notes of stream and shore. He found the water at the entrance " very shallow," and soon observed the fresh downward current which suggested his name for the River. Follow-
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A Dutch Yacht of the Early 17th Century-Yacht of the East India Company, 1630.
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ing the winding course, now between greening meadows, now past hilly banks, again by fertile intervals, by forest- fringed shores and through the narrow pass, the explorer saw little of human life till a point which he reckoned as about forty-five miles above the mouth was reached : the first principal bend at the present Middletown. Here In- dians became numerous, and he marked their lodges on both sides for a considerable distance up the stream, and learned that they were of the "nation called Seguins," one of the largest of the River tribes. Farther along, at about the present Hartford, and above, he came to "the country of the Nawaas," where "the natives plant maize." At a point on the east side, where is now South Windsor, be- tween the two tributaries, the Podunk and Scantic Rivers, was their fortified village. This was palisaded or paled about for defence against the intruding Pequots, the com- mon enemy of the River tribes, and originally of the Mo- hican nation of the Hudson River country, who, driven from their old homes by the Mohawks, had invaded Con- necticut and planted themselves in seized territory on the Sound shores west of the Thames River.
At this village Block made a landing and had "parley" with the curious people, whom he found friendly and com- municative. From them he learned of another nation of savages dwelling "within the land," presumably about the lakes west of the far upper parts of the River, who navi- gated it in " canoes made of bark," and brought down rich peltry : very practical information to carry back to the trading merchants in Holland. Reembarking, our intrepid mariner continued up stream without further incident, so far as his relation indicates, till he reached the Enfield Rapids, through which he could not pass. Here, therefore, his exploration ended, and putting his ship about he re-
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turned to the Sound, after exploring practically the entire length of the River in the present state of Connecticut. He never saw the River again.
His voyage continued down the Sound eastward with a succession of important discoveries. He took note, first, of the Thames River, to which he gave the name of " River of the Siccanomos." Here he found the Pequots -Pequatos he termed them - in possession of the country. Observing land across the Sound and making for it, he discovered it to be the eastern extremity of Long Island. He was thus the first to determine the insular character of that great strip of territory. The point, now Montauk, was named " Visscher's Hoeck." Sailing then northeast- ward he came upon Block Island, Verrazzano's discovery of nearly a century before. Upon this his own name was bestowed, and it remains the sole memorial of his exploits. Next, following Verrazzano's track, he explored Narragan- sett Bay. Point Judith he named Wapanoos Point, from the Indian tribe whom he found dwelling along the west- ern shore of the bay, and described as " strong of limb " but of "moderate size." Rhode Island he called " Roodt Eijlandt" from its " reddish appearance," through the prev- alence of red clay on parts of it. Still onward, he "ran across " the mouth of Buzzard's Bay, by Cuttyhunk, where Bartholomew Gosnold had attempted a plantation twelve years before. Thence he sailed by Martha's Vineyard, and, southward, by No Man's Land, naming the latter " Hen- drick Christiaensen's Island," in compliment to his brother mariner ; passed through Nantucket Sound; explored the shores of Cape Cod; coasted Cape Cod Bay ; glanced per- haps toward Plymouth Harbor; and, entering Massachu- setts Bay, explored its primeval shores as far north as Nahant Bay, -the "Pye Bay " of the Dutch navigators.
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About Nahant he found dwelling " a numerous people." They were " extremely good looking," but "shy of Chris- tians," and it required " some address " to approach them, -fit forerunners of the latter-day summer dwellers on this choice rocky peninsula reaching out into the sea, which rare "Tom Appleton " of the dead and gone " Bos- ton wits" so artfully renamed "Cold Roast Boston." Salem, also, Block may have approached, for on the Dutch map afterward made in accordance with his narrative its harbor is set down as "Count Hendrick's Bay."
This was the extent of Block's adventure, to which the stock histories give scant attention. Going back to Cape Cod, he there fell in with the "Fortune," Christiaensen, apparently, having been exploring northward from Man- hattan. Comparing notes, the comrades determined to re- turn at once to Holland and report upon their discoveries. So Block turned his " Restless " over to Cornelis Hendrick- sen, a companion of Christiaensen, and the two captains set sail on the " Fortune " for home.
At Amsterdam Block appears to have told his story so well that the merchant traders took instant action to secure the benefits of his exploration. They organized the Amsterdam Trading Company ; caused a "Figurative Map " to be prepared from Block's data, if not under his personal supervision; promptly laid this map with an account of the discoveries before the States General; and on the strength of the documentary evidence asked for a trading license in accordance with an ordinance passed a few months before, offering to " whosoever should .. . dis- cover any new passages, havens, lands, or places," the exclu- sive right of navigating the same for four voyages. The charter for the four voyages was duly executed, their High
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Mightinesses giving the company a monopoly of trade in the region described for a period of three years. This in- strument bore date of October 11, 1614, and in it appeared for the first time the term "New Netherland " as the offi- cial designation of the "unoccupied region of America lying between Virginia and Canada." The sea coast of New Netherland was declared to extend from the fortieth to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude, the Dutch discoveries being defined as lying between these latitudes. On the " Figurative Map" the English possessions under the gen- eral term of Virginia are represented as extending south- ward of the fortieth degree, and the French Canada and Acadia northward of the forty-fifth degree. The interme- diate region, which the Dutch now claimed, Block and the other Dutch navigators described correctly as then " inhab- ited only by aboriginal savage tribes," and yet " unoccupied by any Christian prince or state." This was the first Dutch charter, obtained upon the report of the discoverer and first navigator of our River.
Although the intermediate region was included in the general English claim long set up to vast parts of North America in right of discovery by the Cabots, and although part of it was covered by King James's first Virginia pa- tents of 1606, possession by colonization, held by all to be requisite to complete title by discovery, had not been ac- complished within it, the settlement at Jamestown being below the fortieth degree. It is true that at the same time that Block was exploring our River and down the coast, Captain John Smith, with colonization in view, was taking his observations up the coast between Penobscot Bay and Cape Cod. It was certainly a remarkable coincidence, quite a romance of history, that almost at the very moment that the Figurative Map with Block's description was be-
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fore the States General at the Hague, Smith's map with the story of his adventures was engaging Prince Charles at London; and that the names of New Netherland and New England should be applied simultaneously to over- lapping territories, neither body at the time being aware of what the other was doing. But had the statesmen at the Hague been cognizant of the proceedings at London, they might, as Brodhead (History of New York) says, " justly have considered the territory which they now form- ally named New Netherland as a ' vacuum domicilium' fairly open to Dutch enterprise and occupation." Subse- quently, however, the New Netherland bounds were more closely defined as between "South Bay," or the Delaware, on the south, and "Pye Bay," or Nahant, on the north. Thus matters remained till 1620, when James of England granted his sweeping Great Patent for New England in America, which embraced all the region extending from the fortieth to the forty-eighth degree of latitude, and be- tween the Atlantic and the Pacific, and so absorbed the territory of the French Acadia and the Dutch New Nether- land. In 1621 the Dutch West India Company received their charter from the States General with power to " col- onize, govern, and defend " New Netherland. Then the trouble began.
With the issue of the charter of 1614 Adriaen Block disappears from our story. He was named with the other ship-captains in the employ of the Amsterdam merchants for the four voyages authorized; but he did not return to American waters. Lambrecht van Tweenhuysen, one of the joint owners of the lost "Tiger," having become con- cerned in the Northern Company, chartered earlier in 1614 for the whale fishery in the Arctic Ocean and for the
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exploration of a new passage to China, prevailed upon him to take command of some ships for this business. That he sailed for the Arctic Ocean early in 1615 is the last fact concerning him which history records.
And what of the "Restless " ? Skipper Hendricksen sailed her in further exploration of the coasts. In 1616 she explored the Delaware and the adjacent shores from that river's mouth to the upper waters, discovering the Schuylkill and other streams. She was also engaged in traffic with the Delaware Indians in sealskins and sables ; but she does not appear again on our River, and her ultimate fate is unknown.
The Amsterdam ships coming out under the charter of 1614 were soon here trading in peltry with the River In- dians, as well as cruising about Manhattan and the Hudson. Others in the service of the West India Company followed, enjoying a profitable trade. As a rule these Dutch traders treated the natives decently and kept their good will. But Jacob Eelkens, commissary at Fort Orange, smirched the record by a treacherous act. While here in the sum- mer of 1622, trading with the Sequins, he invited their confiding chief to his ship, and when the savage was en- joying Eelkens' hospitality he was seized, and held captive till a handsome ransom in wampum was paid over. This performance so incensed the River tribes that they cut off all dealings with the Dutch till they heard that Eelkens had been removed from his post; as he fortunately was soon after.
For nearly eighteen years after Block's entry Dutch ships only visited the River and cultivated the profitable Indian trade. Neither Pilgrim nor Puritan vessel appeared in its waters till 1631. It was unknown to the Plymouth
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men till the Dutch at Manhattan told them of it and in- vited them hither. "Seeing them seated in a barren quar- ter" on the Plymouth sands, the Dutch commended the region to them "for a fine place both for plantation and trade," and " wished them to make use of it." This was about the year 1627, when messages of " friendly kindness and good neighborhood " were passing between New Am- sterdam and New Plymouth. The Pilgrims' "hands " " being full otherwise " at that time they expressed their thanks for the invitation, and let the matter pass. But at the outset, in these exchanges of courtesies, Bradford was politely cautioning the Dutch against settling or trading within the limits of the patent of New England, while Minuit was as politely asserting their right and liberty under the authority of the States General to settle and trade where they were.
These were the first rapier thrusts, sharp, though given with delicacy on both sides, which opened the struggle for supremacy on our River, in which the English finally triumphed.
II English Occupation
First Move by the Plymouth Men in 1633 - Banished River Sachems in Plymouth and Boston - Edward Winslow's Preliminary Exploration - Disingenu- ousness of the Bay Colony Leaders - Their Prospecting Parties in the River Region - Exchange of Letters as to Dutch and English Rights - Affairs Shaping for a Pretty Quarrel-The Dutch "House of Hope "-The " Lords and Gentlemen's" Patent-Entry of the Pilgrims - Ignoring the Dutchmen's Challenge - Van Twiller's formidable Protest.
T HE Pilgrims of Plymouth were the first English to plant on the River, coming in 1633, six years after the Dutch had invited them to the region. Long before, however, the Dutch had repented that invitation, and now, having strengthened their preserves, were fortifying them- selves against English intrusion.
The Pilgrims began seriously to consider the move in 1631, after a visit from some of the River sachems who had been banished from their country by the conquering Pequots, and were seeking English aid to their restoration. These sachems appeared in Plymouth early that year and urged the colony to set up a trading house on their territory, promising "much trade" and other advantages. Their proposition was heard with attention, but no assurance of acceptance was then given.
Accordingly the sachems next went up to Boston and solicited the Puritans of the Bay Colony "in like sort." Thus the Baymen first heard of the nature of the rich region. Of their interview Winthrop makes note in his Journal under date of April 4, 1631. The ambassadors appeared
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in Boston in state. The chief, the sagamore "Wahgin- nacut," as Winthrop spells him, was supported by two east- ern chiefs friendly to the colonists, and " divers of their san- nops." The sagamore expressed his desire to have some Englishmen "come plant" in his "very fruitful country," and offered to "find them corn and give them yearly eighteen skins of beaver." He asked to have some men sent back with his party to look over the country for them- selves. Winthrop and the council listened interestedly, but like the Pilgrim leaders were non-committal. The gov- ernor entertained his savage guests at dinner, and treated them handsomely, but he found it impracticable just then to send any representatives to the River. It was not till after their departure that the governor discovered that "the said sagamore" was "a very treacherous man and at war with the Pekoath [Pequot], a far greater sagamore." So Winthrop apparently dismissed "the incident " as closed, just. as the Indians fancied Bradford had done. But the picture of the "very fruitful lands" and the prospect of a bountiful trade ready for profitable harvest were pleasing to the commercial minds of both colonies; and both bided their time.
Meanwhile investigations were quietly made through their own agents. In the summer or early autumn follow- ing the visit of the sachems, Edward Winslow sailed into the River with a Pilgrim crew on a voyage of exploration. So impressed was he with the smiling shores that he straight- way "pitched upon a place for a house." The Dutch as yet had only a rude palisaded trading post on the River banks, at the point where Hartford now stands. From the fact that there appeared to be no evidence of colonization, coupled with the general claim of the English to the re- gion, Winslow was afterward assumed to have been the
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true discoverer of the River. It was the dictum of the commissioners of the United Colonies, in their declaration against the Dutch in 1653, that "Mr. Winslow discovered the Fresh River when the Dutch had neither trading house nor any pretence to a foot of land there."
After this opening voyage Pilgrim ships frequented the River and trade with the natives was pursued by them "not without profit." So matters continued through about a year and a half, or till the summer of 1633, when the Pil- grims had at last become ready to adopt the repeatedly re- newed plan of the banished sachems. They were the more speedily moved to this course by reports of the activity of the Dutch in preparations to head the English off the River. From a Plymouth trading pinnace returned from Manhat- tan it was learned that the Dutch had already procured an Indian title to strengthen their claim, and were about to build a fort to defend it.
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