Half Moon

From New York

The Half Moon was the ship used by English explorer Henry Hudson to find a faster route to the Orient. It was granted to him by the Dutch East India Company.

Weighing eighty tons, with three masts and a flat bottomed hull, the ship (called Halve Maen in Dutch tounge) was ideal for an exploration of continental waterways. The ship spent ten days anchored in New York Harbor while the crew explored the region via small boats. It sailed as far north as present Troy, New York before Hudson decided to head back for open waters, judging the Hudson River was not the fabled passage to China. While leaving, the Half Moon engaged in a three day running battle with the native populations of the Hudson Valley.

A recreation of the Half Moon was built in 1989.

[edit] References

Burns, Ric, et al. New York: An Illustrated History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.

Jackson, Kenneth T. The Encyclopedia of New York City. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Kroessler, Jeffrey A. New York, Year by Year: A Chronology of the Great Metropolis. New York: New York University Press, 2002.