As far as possible the narrative has been divested of the recitation of events which do not pertain to it, and though necessarily running beyond the limits of the territory regarded as the valley of the Hudson, has been as closely confined to it as possible, too closely perhaps,

as

it

is

believed

that

the

eastern

PREFACE.

v

Indians have the same claim to consideration as a con federacy as the western.

The work is submitted to

the

judgment of the

public, with a desire that the author may be lost in the

theme which he has presented, and the truth of history vindicated in behalf of a people that have left behind no monuments to their memory save those erected by their destroyers.

NEWBURGH, N. Y.

HUDSON IN THE MAHICANITUK His INTERCOURSE WITH THE INDIANS THEIR TRADITIONS CONCERNING HIS VISIT.

|

AILING under the auspices of the Dutch West India Company, HENRY HUDSON, an intrepid Eng lish navigator, moored his vessel, the Half

Moon, on

the morning of September 3d, 1609, in the waters of the river which now bears his name. Lingering off Sandy

Hook a week, he passed through the Narrows, and anchored what is now Newark bay. On the I2th, he resumed his

in

voyage, and slowly drifting with the tide, anchored over night, on the 1 3th, just above Yonkers, the great river stretching on before him to the north and giving to his ardent mind the hope that he had at last discovered the