Hendrick Hudson
Hendrick Hudson, with a mixed crew of eighteen or twenty men in the "Half Moon" explored the river bearing his name, from Sandy Hook to Albany and carried back to Europe a description of its beauty.
In the autumn of 1608 he was called to Amsterdam and sailed from Texel, April 5, 1609, in the service of the Dutch East India Company. He entered the Bay of New York September 3, passed through the Narrows and anchored in what is now called Newark Bay; on the 12th resumed his voyage, and drifting with the tide, remained over night on the 13th about three miles above the northern end of Manhattan Island; on the 14th sailed through what is now known as Tappan Zee and Haverstraw Bay, entered the Highlands and anchored for the night near the present dock of West Point. On the morning of the 15th beheld Newburgh Bay, reached Catskill on the 16th, Athens on the 17th, and sent out an exploring boat as far as Waterford.
He became thoroughly satisfied that this route did not lead to China--a conclusion in harmony with with that of Champlain, who the same summer, had been making his way south, through Lake Champlain and Lake George, in the quest of the South Sea. Hudson's return voyage began September 23.
Robert Fulton
Robert Fulton, a noted American engineer, was born of Irish parents in 1765 in what is now Fulton Township, Pennsylvania. He studied painting while in London under West, but he soon abandoned art and turned to mechanics, for which he had early shown a strong bent. He soon made a number of inventions in England; an inclined plane for canals to take the place of locks; a machine for sawing and polishing marble; a dredging machine, etc. In 1797 he went to Paris, where he invented a submarine boat to be used in torpedo warfare, but could get no government to take it up. He then turned his attention to use of steam in navigation, and in 1803 he launched on the Seine a small steamboat, which immediately sank; but a trial trip was made by a second boat, soon after, though without attaining any great speed. He returned to New York, and in 1807 he launched a steam vessel up the Hudson, which made a successful start on August 11, and made the voyage up the river to Albany (nearly 150 miles) in 32 hours. From this time steamers came into pretty general use upon the rivers in the United States. Fulton received a patent, which was employed by the government in various diretions. He constructed and launched in 1815 a steam warship, but it was never tested in warfarre. He died in New York Feb 24, 1815.
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