Hudson River: History and Geography + Erie Canal

choi

John Steele Gordon, The American Rhine; The Erie Canal put the empire in Empire State, reducing the cost of shipping a ton of freight from Buffalo to New York from $100 to $15. Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2014
online.wsj.com/articles/book-review-a-history-of-the-hudson-valley-by-vernon-benjamin-1406760791
(book review on Vernon Benjamin, A History of the Hudson Valley; From wilderness to Civil War. Overlook, 2014)

Note:
(1) Rhine
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhine
(section 1 Etymology and names: from [Proto-]Indo-European [PIE] *Reynos, from the root *rey- "to flow, to run", which is also the root of words like river and run)
(2) "Vernon Benjamin [is] a lifelong resident of the valley and a teacher at Bard College"

Bard College
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bard_College
(John and Margaret Bard founded the private college in 1850 at the village of Annandale-on-Hudson)

(3) "The Hudson River is the most scenic river on the east coast, the American Rhine. It runs from Lake Tear of the Clouds, high in the Adirondack Mountains, to Upper New York Bay, 315 miles to the South."
(a) Lake Tear of the Clouds
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Tear_of_the_Clouds
(on the southwest slope of Mount Marcy, the state's highest point [with an elevation of 5,343 feet (1,629 m)]; the highest lake in the state [surface elevation 4,293 ft (1,309 m)])
(b) Adirondack Mountains
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adirondack_Mountains
(section 4 Naming, spelling, and pronunciation)
(c) Upper New York Bay
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_New_York_Bay
(is connected to Lower New York Bay by the Narrows [the channel between Staten Island and Brooklyn])

choi

(continued)

(4) “The southern half of the Hudson River is actually not a river at all, but an estuary that goes as far north as Troy, NY. That estuary, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean, allowed oceangoing ships to reach 150 miles into the fur-rich interior, as, indeed, Henry Hudson did in 1609, searching for the northwest passage. In an era when goods moved by water or they didn't move at all, that geographic fact jump-started the economy of the little Dutch colony founded in 1624.”
(a) Troy, New York
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy,_New_York
(now a city; The name Troy (after the legendary city of Troy, made famous in Homer's Iliad) was adopted in 1789; “Through much of the 19th and into the early 20th century, Troy was not only one of the most prosperous cities in New York State, but one of the most prosperous cities in the entire country. Prior to its rise as an industrial center, Troy was the transshipment point”/ When the iron & steel industry moved to Pennsylvania and beyond, and with a similar downturn in the collar industry, Troy's prosperity began to fade)
(b)
(i) Henry Hudson
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hudson
(c 1565-1611; English; Hudson Strait)

section 3 [The] 1609 voyage [with a map]: "In 1609 Hudson was chosen by merchants of the Dutch East India Company in the Netherlands to find an easterly passage to Asia. He was told to sail through the Arctic Ocean north of Russia, into the Pacific and so to the Far East. Hudson departed Amsterdam on 4 April in command of the Dutch ship Halve Maen [Dutch for ‘Half Moon’]. He could not complete the specified route because ice blocked the passage * * * On 3 September he reached the estuary of the river that initially was called the 'North River' or 'Mauritius' and now carries his name. He was not the first European to discover the estuary, though, as it had been known since the voyage of Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524. * * * reaching a point about where the present-day capital of Albany is located.

(ii) Hudson River
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_river
"The lower half of the river is a tidal estuary occupying the Hudson Fjord, which formed during the most recent period of North American glaciation, estimated at 26,000 to 13,300 years ago. Tidal waters influence the Hudson's flow from as far north as Troy, New York"/ The Dutch called the river the "North River" – with the Delaware River called the "South River" – and it formed the spine of the Dutch colony of New Netherland)
(iii) Portal:Hudson Valley
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Hudson_Valley
(The Hudson River was originally named the Mauritius River, which is claimed to be the name given by Hudson in honor of Prince Maurice of Nassau [1567 –  1625; a son of William the Silent; Prince of Orange 1618-1625])

* Dutch Revolt
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Revolt
(against Spain;  independent, first in 1581 de facto, and in 1648 de jure)
(c) Manhattan
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan
(section 1 Name; A permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624 with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island; According to the document by Pieter Janszoon Schagen our People (ons Volck), Peter Minuit and Dutch colonists acquired Manhattan in 1626 from unnamed American Indian people)

choi

(continued)

(5) “The Dutch would rule the lower Hudson Valley for only 40 years, but they left a deep imprint on the area, as Mr Benjamin shows, with place names such the Bronx, Brooklyn, Tappan Zee and Esopus. Even the word ‘Yankee’ was coined by the Dutch, the author notes, ‘to characterize the New England farmers who harassed them.’ Their commercial mindedness and live-and-let-live attitude would fundamentally shape the culture of New York City.”
(a) New Netherland
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Netherland
(section 5 Capitulation, restitution, and concession: “the continual troubles, threats, encroachments and invasions of the English neighbors”)
(b) The_Bronx
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bronx
(section 1.1 Etymology: Jonas Bronck, a Swede, settled in 1639)
(c) Brooklyn
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn
(Settled 1634[,] Named for Breukelen, Netherlands)
(d) Tappan Zee
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tappan_Zee
(stretches about 10 mi (16 km) along the boundary between Rockland and Westchester counties, downstream from Croton Point to Irvington. It derives its name from the Tappan Native American sub-tribe of the Delaware/Lenni Lenape, and the Dutch word zee, meaning a sea)
(i) Tappan Zee Bridge connects South Nyack in Rockland County with Tarrytown in Westchester County.
(ii) Go to images.google.com and search with (map Tappan Zee) and you will see it, sometimes with a line signaling teh bridge. The widening of Hudson River there is no bo deal, because more wider expanses of the River are located upstream.
(e) Yankee
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee
(section 1.3 Dutch origins)

choi

(continued)

(6) “North of the navigable part of the Hudson lie a series of lakes, principally Lakes George and Champlain, that, with portages, provided a water route to Canada and the St Lawrence River. This made the Hudson Valley the strategic apex of North America during the colonial and revolutionary eras, as the French and British fought for control of North America, and then Americans fought for independence. In 1777, the British tried to cut the American colonies in two by seizing control of the Hudson Valley and thus winning the Revolutionary War. The result, however, was the Battle of Saratoga, the first major victory of the Continental Army, which convinced the French to come into the war on the side of the nascent United States.”
(a) For “Lakes George and Champlain,” or Champlain Valley, see this map
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/19/Champlainmap.svg/220px-Champlainmap.svg.png
, which shows Lake George drains into Lake Champlain and that the upstream of Hudson River curves around the southern end of Lake George. Lake George was renamed (from an earlier name) for George II of United Kingdom.
(b) portage (n)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/portage
(c) Battle of Saratoga
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Saratoga
(“6,222 [British soldiers] captured”)

(7) “In 1780, George Washington put General Benedict Arnold in charge of West Point, then not a military academy (it was founded in 1802) but a fortress that commanded the Hudson River north of the Tappan Zee. It was a bad choice, of course, but Arnold's attempt to turn over the fort (and thus control of the Hudson River northward) was foiled when a messenger, British Major John André, was captured by a patriot patrol. Arnold escaped—his name in the American lexicon has been a synonym for traitor ever since—but André was hanged.”
(a) Benedict Arnold
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_Arnold
(1741-1801)
(b) John André
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_André
(1750-1780; born in London to wealthy Huguenot parents, Antoine André, a merchant from Geneva, Switzerland, and Marie Louise Girardot, from Paris)

His surname explained.

(8) “Mr Benjamin affectingly relates André's sad fate: Both sides loathed the fact that André had to die, he notes. Gen Nathaniel Greene and the British governor of New York ‘walked along the shore of the Hudson River and talked about their options." The governor offered any British prisoner in exchange. ‘Green responded . . . that only one would do: the hated Arnold.’”
(a) Nathanael Greene
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathanael_Greene
(1742-1786; (frequently misspelled Nathaniel) was a major general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War, known for his successful command in the Southern Campaign, forcing British general Charles Cornwallis to abandon the Carolinas and head for Virginia
(b) Nathaniel
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel
(alternate spelling: Nathanael)

choi

(continued)

(9) “In 1807, the first commercially viable steamboat sailed up the Hudson as far as Albany, captained by the American engineer credited with its invention, Robert Fulton. The quick transport provided by the new technology quickly made the cities along the river, such as Haverstraw, Poughkeepsie and Schenectady, powerhouses in the emerging Industrial Revolution. Soon after Fulton traversed the Hudson, New York state took advantage of the geographic fact that the Mohawk River, which empties into the Hudson near Albany, provided the only feasible route for a canal through the Appalachian Mountains.”
(a)
(i) Albany, New York
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany,_New_York
(has close ties with the nearby cities of Troy, Schenectady, and Saratoga Springs, forming a region called the Capital District; “When New Netherland was captured by the English in 1664, the name Beverwijck was changed to Albany, in honor of the Duke of Albany (later James II of England). Duke of Albany was a Scottish title given since 1398, generally to a younger son of the King of Scots”)
(ii) Duke of Albany
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_Albany
("Albany" was a broad territorial term representing the parts of Scotland north of the River Forth [Scotland capital Edinburgh is on the bank of Firth of Forth], roughly the former Kingdom of the Picts)
(iii) Duke of York
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_York
(“Since the 15th century, it has, when granted, usually been given to the second son of English (later British) monarchs [first son, and thus heir apparent, is Prince of Wales]. The equivalent title in the Scottish peerage is Duke of Albany”)
(iv) Duke of Rothesay
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_Rothesay
(was a title of the heir apparent to the throne of the Kingdom of Scotland before 1707; The title is named after Rothesay on the Isle of Bute, Argyll and Bute)

* pronunciation: Rothesay
www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/rothesay
(b) Robert Fulton
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fulton
(1765-1815; widely credited with developing the first commercially successful steamboat [in 1807; first called the "North River Steamboat" (later known as the "Clermont"), the ship “was able to make the 150-mile trip in 32 hours”)
(c) Poughkeepsie, New York
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poughkeepsie,_New_York
(The name derives from a word in the Wappinger language, roughly U-puku-ipi-sing, meaning "the reed-covered lodge by the little-water place," referring to a spring or stream feeding into the Hudson River south of the present downtown area)
(d) Schenectady
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenectady
(e) For Mohawk River, see a map in
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_River

choi

(continued)

(10) “The Erie Canal, which opened in 1825, put the empire in the Empire State, capturing much of the rapidly growing commerce of the West that previously had gone down the Mississippi. As Mr Benjamin notes, ‘The Erie reduced the cost of shipping a ton of freight from Buffalo to New York from $100 to $15.’ New York City quickly became the greatest boomtown in history, emerging in the 20th century as the world's most powerful city—the global center of finance, art, commerce, theater and fashion.”
(a) Erie Canal
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_Canal
("about 363 miles (584 km) from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie. Built to create a navigable water route from New York City and the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, the canal helped New York eclipse Philadelphia as the largest city and port on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States"/ Jesse Hawley finally got the canal built)
(b) Canal History. New York State, undated
www.canals.ny.gov/history/history.html

Quote:

“the Erie Canal is considered the engineering marvel of the 19th Century. When the federal government concluded that the project was too ambitious to undertake, the State of New York took on the task of carving 363 miles of canal through the wilderness with nothing but the muscle power of men and horses.

“Jesse Hawley in debtor’s prison "wrote a series of essays which were published in the Genesee Messenger beginning in 1807, describing in great detail the route, costs, and benefits of what would become the Erie Canal.Hawley’s essays caught the eye of Assemblyman Joshua Forman * * * [who] even traveled to Washington to make a case for federal support for the Canal, at which point Thomas Jefferson described the proposal as ‘a little short of madness.'

“Within 15 years of the Canal's opening, New York was the busiest port in America, moving tonnages greater than Boston, Baltimore and New Orleans combined.

(c) Erie Canal, American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), undated
www.asce.org/People-and-Projects/Projects/Landmarks/Erie-Canal/
(”Before construction of the canal, New York City was the nation's fifth largest seaport, behind Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New Orleans.”)

* My comment: Old Boston hands lament about the opening of Erie Canal and the consequent declining fortunes of seaport of Boston, which has never recovered (but Boston has compensated with renovation, reinventing itself).


(11) “There are also a goodly number of errors [in the book]. The Plains of Abraham are outside of Quebec City, not Montreal. Lord Richard Lovelace was not the third English governor of New York. The author probably means Francis Lovelace, who was not a lord (but was the younger brother of the cavalier poet Richard Lovelace). He was the second governor.”
(a) goodly (adj): “significantly large : CONSIDERABLE <a goodly number>”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/goodly
(b) Plains of Abraham
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_of_Abraham
(site of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham; section 1 Name and features)
(c) Battle of the Plains of Abraham
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Plains_of_Abraham
(a pivotal battle in the Seven Years' War (referred to as the French and Indian War in the United States); Sept 13, 1759; “Result  Decisive British victory; British occupation of Quebec City”)

(12) “It seems as though the author assembled a vast number of facts about the Hudson Valley, arranged them in chronological order, and wrote the book. To use Churchill's memorable phrase, the pudding has no theme.”

The following two book reviews exemplify the wording “the pudding has no theme.”  There is no need to read the rest of the two reviews.
(a) Warren Bass, What Happened; A brave historian examines the the second half of the 20th century. New York Times, Mar 12, 2000
www.nytimes.com/books/00/03/12/reviews/000312.12basslt.html
(“The story goes that Winston S Churchill once pushed an ornate dessert away and declared, '’This pudding has no theme.’' That is roughly how it sometimes feels to read '’One World Divisible,’' David Reynolds's sprawling new history of the postwar world, all of it, absolutely all of it, from Adenauer to apartheid, from the Beatles to Bosnia”)
(b) Themeless pudding. Times Higher Education, June 8, 1998
www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/162752.article
(“Winston Churchill, who liked his food, once turned up his nose at a dish that was put before him. ‘This pudding,' he said, ‘has no theme.'’ The jaded gastronome would have recognised this book. [‘]Contemporary Europe and the Atlantic Alliance[‘] is a pudding without a theme”)