Port Hudson

“ From an old-time English history we read that Hudson grew more rapidly than any other town in America except Baltimore. Standing at the head of ship navigation it would naturally have become a great port had it not been for the railway and the steamboat which made New York the emporium not only of the Hudson, but also of the continent. ”

“ At the western extremity of Canada, upon the waters which fall into Lake Winnipeg and which in the great river of Port Nelson discharge themselves into Hudson Bay, is a country which the Indian traders represent as fertile, and of a climate far more temperate than the shores of the Atlantic under the same parallel, and not more severe than that of Germany or Poland. ”

“ Driven to desperation by what they considered a persecution, and no doubt influenced by their being Protestant in faith, the adventurers now turned their faces toward the English. In 1664 they went to Port Royal, in Acadia, and thence to New England. Boston was then the centre of English enterprise in America, and the French explorers brought their case before the merchants of that town. They asserted that having been on Lake Assiniboine, north of Lake Superior, they had there been assured by the Indians that Hudson Bay could be reached. ”

“ The Hudson’s-Bay Company’s charter is said to confirm to that body the whole and sole right of trading with the Indians, within the limits of Hudson’s Straits; and they have no less than six factories established at the mouths of as many different rivers, which empty themselves into the Bay. The northernmost of these factories is called Churchill: it stands on the 144 west side of the Bay, in latitude 58°. 50′. N.; longitude, 93°. 4′. W. The port is tolerably good, and ships of any size may anchor in it. At the entrance is a danger, called Cape Mary’s Rock; but it is easily to be avoided. ”

“ Therefore we may fall back upon the assured fact—in which I see again the touch of fatalism—that not until Hudson came at the right moment, and at the right moment gave an accurate account of his explorations to a power that was ready immediately to colonize the land that he had found, were our port and our river, notwithstanding their earlier technical discovery, truly discovered to the world. As for the river, it assuredly is Hudson's very own. ”

“ A new pilot came on board to take us into port. We advanced cautiously amongst floating lighthouses and dropped anchor in Hudson Bay near the quarantine office, in order to land in the morning.
22nd June.—Sergy woke me at six o’clock and took me up on deck to admire the grand sight of Hudson Bay, with picturesque villas strewn along the banks, and menacing fortresses rising on green hillocks. In the middle of the immense bay, battleships, merchant vessels and yachts are anchored. A big ship, carrying only fishermen, passes by going out into the open sea. ”

“ After the usual struggle with the ice in Hudson Strait, as it was impossible to explore southward during the first season, the Dobbs galley and the California sailed for Port Nelson, intending to winter there. They arrived on August 26th. Ellis states that they were badly received by the Hudson's Bay officers at the first. They, however, laid up their ships in Hayes River, and built an erection of logs on the shore for the staff. The officers' winter quarters were called "Montague House," named after the Duke of Montague, patron of the expedition. ”

“ In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. ”

“ A number of safe harbours easy of approach have been explored on the southern side of the strait, and others equally good and safe are known to be located on the north side, although they are at present unsurveyed.
The passage from the western entrance of the strait to the port of Churchill, on the western side of Hudson bay, is five hundred miles. From the mouth of the strait the course is due west for seventy miles to the eastern end of the wide channel between Coats and Mansfield islands. ”

“ Well provisioned, and manned by as happy a crew as ever left New York harbor, the Sea Ranger had set out on her long trip through the Hudson River and through the canals, to Buffalo. From Buffalo, they voyaged by easy stages to Detroit, and thence to Port Huron. Till that afternoon when they had started on the last "leg" of their cruise, from Alpena, on Thunder Bay, they had not encountered any but ordinary incidents of travel. ”

“ We ascend the Lackawaxen, finding the route up the gorge along the canal towpath, once the great water way of the Delaware and Hudson Company for bringing out coal, but now abandoned, as the railway route is cheaper. This canal, opened in 1828, was one hundred and seventeen miles long, and ascended from tidewater on the Hudson at Rondout to four hundred and fifty feet elevation at Port Jervis, and nine hundred and sixty-five feet at Honesdale. Its route throughout is through grand river gorges and the most magnificent scenery. ”

“ THE broad surface of the Hudson is scored by passage of craft of all trades and industries. Tugs and barges crowd the waterway in unending succession, threading their courses in a maze of harbour traffic; high-sided ferry-boats surge out from their slips and angle across the tide—crab-wise—towards the New Jersey shore; laden ocean steamers hold to the deeps of the fairway on their passage to the sea. Up stream and down, back and across, sheering in to the piers and wharves, the harbour traffic seems constantly to be scourged and hurried by the lash of an unseen taskmaster. ”

“ At any rate he continued to steer south in spite of the old mate's mutterings. Men in unwilling service at a few shillings a month do not court death for the sake of glory. The shore line of rocks and pine turned westward. So did Hudson, sounding the ship's line as he crept forward one sail up, the others rattling against the bare masts in the autumn wind—doleful music to the thoughts of the coward crew. The shore line at the south end of Hudson Bay, as the world now knows, is cut sharply by a [Pg 12] ridge of swampy land that shoals to muddy flats in what is known as Hannah Bay. ”

“ Grand Portage ends on a bay of Lake Superior. It is partially sheltered by a rocky island which has the appearance of a robber's keep, but has one inhabitant, the only white man of the region, a French Canadian of very fair means. On the bay is to-day an Indian village, chiefly celebrated for its multitude of dogs. A few traces of the former greatness of the place may be seen in the timbers down in the water of the former wharves, which were extensive. Few traces of forts are now, a century after their desertion by the fur traders, to be seen. ”

“ Among all the rivers of the world the Hudson is acknowledged queen, decked with romance, jewelled with poetry, clad with history, and crowned with beauty. More than this, the Hudson is a noble threshold to a great continent and New York Bay a fitting portal. The traveler who enters the Narrows for the first time is impressed with wonder, and the charm abides even with those who pass daily to and fro amid her beauties. No other river approaches the Hudson in varied grandeur and sublimity, and no other city has so grand and commodious a harbor as New York. ”

“ The city itself comes into the left of the picture to an advantage seen from no other point of view, the flocks of river-craft scud past in all directions, men-of-war, merchantmen, steamers, and ferry-boats, fill up the moving elements of the panorama; and far away beyond stretches the broad harbour, with its glassy or disturbed waters, in all the varieties of ever-changing sea-view. It was on this side that Hudson, who had felt the hostility of the Manhattan Indians, found a friendlier tribe, and made his first amicable visit on shore. ”

“ Novelists are frequently accused of sensationalism and exaggeration, but if, as tradition seems to suggest, Hudson were still alive seven hundred miles south at the lower end of the Bay, strain [Pg 22] ing vain eyes for a sail at sea, like Alexander Selkirk of a later day—with a Button and a Gibbon and a Bylot and a Baffin searching for him with echoing cannon roll and useless call in the north—then the life and death of the old pathfinder are more like a tale from Defoe than a story of real life. ”

“ A contemporary writer states: “This idea had been suggested to Hudson by some letters and maps which his friend Captain Smith had sent him from Virginia, and by which he informed him that there was a sea leading into the Western Ocean by the north of Virginia.” So westward Hudson turns the bow of his ship, to make a first landfall on the coast of Newfoundland, a second at Penobscot Bay, and a third at Cape Cod. Thence he takes a southwest course, but again fails to strike land under the 40th degree ”

“ Life on the shores of Hudson Bay is as unchangeable as the shores and scenery of the coast are monotonous. The swampy, treeless flats that surround the Bay simply change from the frozen, snow-clad expanse which stretches as far as the eye can see in winter, to the summer green of the unending grey willows and stunted shrubs that cover the swampy shores. For a few open months the green prevails, and then nature for eight months assumes her winding sheet of icy snow. ”

“ A company of clerks and engagés had been obtained in Montreal, and the party leaving Canada went in their great canoe up Lake Champlain, took it over the portage to the Hudson, and descended that river to New York. They transferred the picturesque scene so often witnessed on the Ottawa to the sleepy banks of the Hudson River, and with emblems flying, and singing songs of the voyageurs, surprised the spectators along the banks. Arrived at New York the men with bravado expressed themselves as ready to endure hardships. ”

“ While the old Chevalier de Troyes paused to rig up a sailing sloop for the voyage across the bottom of James Bay to the Rupert river, Pierre Le Moyne—known in history as d'Iberville—with eight men, set out in canoes on June 27 for the Hudson's Bay fort on the south-east corner of the inland sea. Crossing the first gulf or Hannah Bay, he portaged with his men across the swampy flats into Rupert Bay, thus saving a day's detour, and came on poor old Bridgar's sloop near the fort at Rupert, sails reefed, anchor out, rocking gently to the night tide. ”

“ When Hudson stepped from the wheel-house or cabin next morning, they leaped upon him like a pack of wolves. No oaths on Scripture and Holy Cross this break of day! Oaths of another sort—oaths and blows and railings—all [Pg 18] pretence of clean motives thrown off—malice with its teeth out snapping! Somewhere north of Rupert, probably off Charlton Island, Hudson, his son, and eight loyal members of the crew were thrown into one of the boats on the davits. The boat was lowered on its pulleys and touched sea. The Discovery then spread sail and sped through open water to the wind. ”

“ Everywhere he presented gifts to the Indians to induce them to go down to the Bay. On the way back to York, the explorers canoed all the way down the Saskatchewan, and Hendry paused at Fort La Corne, half-way down to Lake Winnipeg. The banks were high, high as the Hudson river ramparts, and like those of the Hudson, heavily wooded. Trees and hills were intensest green, and everywhere through the high banks for a hundred miles below what is now Edmonton bulged great seams of coal. The river gradually widened until it was as broad as the Hudson at New York or the St Lawrence at Quebec. ”

“ Before coming to America, Henry Hudson, an Englishman in Dutch service, had sailed to the east coast of Greenland, visited Spitzbergen, and attempted to find a northeast passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It was his attempt to find a northwest passage which led him, in September, 1609, into the harbor of New York and up the river named after him. In the following year he sailed again from Holland, seeking a northwest passage and thus entered Hudson Bay. Here he spent the winter. ”

“ Although it is certain that the four great geographical landmarks which to-day serve to keep Hudson’s memory alive, namely the Hudson Bay, Strait, Territory and River, had repeatedly been visited and even drawn on maps and charts before he set out on his voyages, yet he deserves to take a very high rank among northern navigators for the mere extent of his discoveries and the success with which he pushed them beyond the limits of his predecessors. The rich fisheries of Spitzbergen and the fur industry of the Hudson Bay Territory were the immediate fruit of his labours. ”

“ Hudson is not yet obliged to become busy North River, and there is plenty of water between a white-sailed schooner yacht and a dirty tug slowly towing in silence—for there is no utter excuse for whistling—a cargo of brick for a new country house up at Garrisons; while on the shore itself instead of wharves and warehouses and ferry-slips there are yacht and rowing club houses and an occasional bathing pavilion ”

“ The route from York Factory to Fort Garry being a long and continuous waterway, was a favourite course for the York boat brigade. Many of the settlers of the Red River settlement became well-to-do by commanding brigades of boats and carrying freight for the Company. In the earlier days of Governor Simpson the great part of the furs from the interior were carried to Fort Garry or the Grand Portage, at the mouth of the Saskatchewan, and thence past Norway House to Hudson Bay. ”