The first people of the river
More than 10,000 years ago, when much of the earth‘s water was locked up in glaciers, the coast of what we now call New York extended miles farther out to sea, and on its frozen shores, humans hunted walrus. They dressed in furs and carried spears and sharpened rocks. On a boulder in what we now call the Bronx, they chipped the outline of a turtle; on another, in what we now call Westchester, the outline of a bear. They lived in a wilderness – absolute attention to nature necessary if they were going to survive. In the thousands of years since, as melting glaciers cut the river‘s present channel, people continued to live by its shores – and continued to depend on its abundance. Bands of Lenape, speaking a dialect of the Eastern Algonquian Delaware language, spent spring to fall along the estuary. They harpooned whale and porpoise in New York‘s deep water harbor. They wove nets out of tree fiber and strung them in the river‘s bays. They felled tulip trees with controlled fires, hollowed them with sharpened rocks, and paddled them – 20 men and women per long canoe – from shore to shore.
Photo courtesy of Lenape Lifeways, Inc.
Lenape Map, The Salomon Collection, The Historical Society of Rockland County
Lenape mask, Photo: Tom Sobolik
Natives with dugout canoes
By the year 1 A.D., the Lenape were making pottery with elaborate designs. During each spring‘s massive run of shad, sturgeon, and striped bass, men would bring their catch to the shore, and women would dry the surplus on heated stones, then store the fish in clay pots: provisions against the coming winter. In the river‘s floodplains, where spring melt-off deposited rich black soil, the Lenape had learned to clear the young saplings and plant fields of maize. The crop ripened during the hot valley summers, while children swam in the shallows, and families feasted on fresh-water clams and oysters “the size of dinner plates.“ Along with preserved fish and deer meat, the maize helped the Lenape survive the harsh winter. They‘d travel inland then, behind the mountains, where the wind didn‘t bite quite as hard. In 60-foot longhouses, a dozen families might live together in the smoky, half-dark. It wasn‘t an easy life: infant mortality was high, and most Lenape didn‘t live more than 35 or 40 years. An estimated 6,000 to 12,000 inhabited the valley. There was no formal government, but the communities of 300 or so respected each other‘s fishing and hunting grounds and traded amongst themselves and with outside tribes. Lenape religion declared that all forms of life – animal, plant, and human – had spirits.
Stewards of the river
Knowledge of and respect for the river (which the Lenape called Muhheakunnuk, The River that Runs Both Ways) was essential for survival. The Lenape believed in a single creator and a series of gods who looked after both people and animals. One of their gods, Mësingw, was their Keeper of the Game. With his face half black, half red, he balanced the human being‘s need for food with the fish and animal‘s need to survive. While women planted maize along the shore, and men hunted deer, Lenape children were taught to take only what they needed from the environment.
If the thousands of years of Lenape history seems to have been erased from the Hudson Valley, that's partly due to the disease and intolerance that European settlers brought with them. But it's also a result of how lightly the Lenape lived on the soil. Their homes made of wood and bark eventually dissolved back into the forest floor. Generations of river dwellers left little more environmental change than some ancient oyster middens, rock drawings, and scattered arrowheads.
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Before European contact, whales swam where the Manhattoes tribe lived, the Sinsink band fed off huge oyster beds that grew in the bays, and the upriver shallows provided shad, sturgeon, smelt, and crab for the Iroquois nation.
In 1609, when the Lenape spotted the sails of The Half Moon, thousands of years in the region had taught them how to live in harmony with the river: dependent on its natural cycles, thankful for its bounty. Now, the new stewards had arrived, and all that was about to change.
Henry Hudson first came upon the Hudson River by accident in 1609. Hired by the Dutch East India Company to find a short passage to India, the Englishman sailed his ship Half Moon 150 miles up the Hudson to Albany before realizing that it was not the route he was seeking. At that time, there were approximately 10,000 natives living on both sides of the river. The tribes were part of the Algonquin Confederacy which included the Delaware, Mohican (aka Mohegan) and Wappinger tribes. The Mohican tribe was friendly and peaceful, but Hudson‘s crew distrusted them and fighting followed. As Dutch and other European settlers arrived in the Hudson Valley, they struggled with the natives for land. By the end of the century, most of the native tribes had been forced west or were destroyed by war and smallpox brought in by the Europeans.
The Lenape: the night before
Photo courtesy of Lenape Lifeways, Inc
In the darkness of the river valley, there have always been only three tiny sparks visible from here: the orange campfires of the Alipkonck, the Sintsinck, and the Kichtawanck bands.
Tonight, there's been a fourth light reported, riding on the black water just downriver, already changing the world.
All of these people are Lënape. On this, the side where kishux — the sun — goes down, is the camp of the Tappan who speak Munsee, a dialect of the Delaware language. There are other bands, of course. Upriver are the Haverstraw, the Esopus, and the Warranawankng. About four days hard walk that direction, Lënape land ends, and the main Iroquois nation begins. Going downriver, there are the Hackensack, the Navasink, and the Raritan. A half day's hard walk that direction brings you to the harbor, where the river meets the ocean. Tonight, the Wiechquaeskecks will have a fire going on the rocky north end of the island, Manhatta. But from here, on the shore of the Tappan bay, none of these can be seen or heard. Bands of a dozen families or more camp all up and down this river valley, and there is almost no sign of them.
Photo courtesy of Lenape Lifeways, Inc
But there's also the constant hum of mosquitoes that keep pressing in despite the protective layer of raccoon grease and the smoke off the small fire. Somewhere out in the dark, enormous rafts of kwikwinkëm — duck — mutter in their sleep; now and then, one startles awake, quacking, then settles back. Out beyond them, in deep water, the occasional booming splash is wisahosid — the sturgeon — twice the size of a grown man, leaping out of the water and crashing back down. Just inland off the beach, the dark forest of hickory and oak is tangled with vines as big around as an arm. A sweet smell wafts down from the ripe grapes and berries. Firewood has gotten scarce here — it'll be time to shift camp soon — but the chestnuts and black walnuts have started to drop. In the daytime, the women, and children collect them in woven baskets and store them for the coming winter.
The river during the American Revolution
Forcing a passage of the Hudson River, 1776, CC, National Maritime Museum
During the 1700s, the colonists realized that the river was essential for the transport of troops and supplies and that if the British gained control of it, they would be able to divide and conquer the American forces. West Point, Fort Montgomery, Fort Clinton and Fort Constitution had all been built in the Bear Mountain region to prevent the British from advancing up the river.
In 1778, colonists created the Great Chain, two-foot long iron links which stretched across the river between West Point and Constitution Island to prevent the British from sailing upriver from New York City. The British, however, never came that far up the river so the chain was never put to the test. General Benedict Arnold, in command of West Point, was offered 20,000 pounds sterling by the British if he would help them take control of the Hudson and in 1780, he attempted to surrender the fort to the British. Fortunately for the colonists, the plot was discovered when the American forces captured Major John André, the British officer to whom Arnold had passed plans for West Point. Arnold narrowly escaped to a British war ship.
Trade and art in the Industrial Revolution
Erie Canal, Lockport New York, 1855
A stone aqueduct of the Erie Canal crosses the Mohawk River in Rexford, New York
The Erie Canal
After the invention of the steamboat in 1807, the Hudson River became a destination for leisure travelers. By 1850, there were approximately 150 steamboats used for commerce, industry, and leisure, carrying a million passengers up and down the Hudson. Once the Erie Canal opened in 1825, linking Lake Erie to the Hudson River, the Hudson became a trade channel, which fostered much economic and industrial development along the river.
Artists and writers
Colman, Storm King on the Hudson, 1886
John Frederick Kensett, 1857, MET
View of the Hudson River Valley from Olana, Frederic Edwin Church, Brigham Young University Museum of Art
From Washington Irving book Stories from the Hudson, 1912
During this period, artists and writers flocked to the area. Painters such as Thomas Cole, John Casilear, John Frederick Kensett, Sanford Gifford, Thomas Doughty, George Inness, David Johnson, Thomas Rossiter, Jasper Cropsey, Robert Weir and Frederic E. Church, became known as the Hudson River School of Painting. On the literary side, writers Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper and William Cullen Bryant found inspiration for their works in the Hudson River Valley as well.
Millionaires Row
Frederick and Louise Vanderbilt, 1898, CC, National Park Service
In the 1840s, German and Irish immigrants flooded into New York City, driven from their home countries by famine and revolution. As the crowded city became a breeding ground for tuberculosis and other diseases, city dwellers sought out the Hudson Valley as a health retreat. Wealthy industrialists also began buying land and building magnificent weekend retreats along the river. “Millionaires Row“ in the mid-Hudson region includes the Vanderbilt Mansion, Franklin Delano Roosevelt‘s home and Val-Kill, Eleanor Roosevelt‘s home, in Hyde Park, and Boscobel in Cold Spring.
Preservation in the Victorian Era
At the end of the 19th century, a struggle to preserve the Hudson Valley‘s natural beauty and environment began. Industry and railroad lines had sprung up along the river and much of the valley had been clear cut. The federal government established the Division of Forestry and created the first national parks. The Palisades Interstate Park Commission bought up land from Fort Lee, NJ to Piermont, NY in order to preserve the high cliffs along the Hudson known as the Palisades which were being eaten away by the quarry mines. And in 1910, E.W. Harriman and other businessmen donated land to create Bear Mountain-Harriman State Park. With the entry of the U.S. into World War II, however, all conservation efforts came to a halt.
The modern environmental movement
In 1962, the modern environmental movement was forged in the battle for Storm King Mountain near Cornwall. Con Edison was planning to build a huge hydro-electric plant at Storm King, the beautiful high ridge that sits at the mouth of the Hudson Highlands. Local activists, determined to protect this natural resource, formed the Scenic Hudson Preservation Coalition and brought suit against the utility giant. After much legal wrangling, the court decided, for the first time in U. S. history, that environmental impacts had to be considered in such projects. Congress then passed the National Environmental Policy Act which mandated that all major projects needing federal approval had to have an environmental impact study done. The battle between Con Ed and the activists dragged on until 1979 when Con Edison finally abandoned the project and donated the land for a park.
Con Ed proposed hydroelectric project, courtesy Marist College
Storm King, Joeseph Squillante
