THE NARROWS, FROM FORT HAMILTON.

THE NARROWS

(From Fort Hamilton.)

Reproduced from a 7¼"x 5" Steel Engraving

from a Drawing by W.H. Bartlett

 

THE NARROWS, is  Print # 62 of 66 from Volume I

"AMERICAN SCENERY" or LAND, LAKE, AND RIVER

Published in 1839 by George Virtue, 26 Ivy Lane, London

                 Not quite one hundred years after Verrazzano's  discovery of the Bay of New York, during all which period we have no account of its having been visited by an European vessel, Hudson made the Capes of Virginia on his on his third cruise in search of the north-west passage. Standing still on a northward course, he arrived in sight of the Narrows, distinguishing from a great distance the Highlands of Never Sink, which his mate, Robert Juet, describes in the journal he kept as a "very good land to fall with, and a pleasant land to see."

            The most interesting peculiarity of our country to a European observer, is the freshness of its early history, and the strong contrast it presents of most of the features of a highly civilized land, with the youth and recent adventure of a newly discovered one. The details of these first discoveries are becoming every day more interesting: and to accompany a drawing of the Narrows, or entrance to the Bay of New York, the most fit illustration is that part of the journal of the great navigator which relates to his first view of them. The following extracts describe the Narrows as they were hundred years ago: The drawing presents them as they are.

            At three of the clock in the afternoone we came to three great rivers. So we stood along the northernmost, thinking to have gone into it, but we found it to have a very shoald barre before it, for we had but ten foot water. The we cast about to the southward, and found two fathoms, three fathoms, and three and a quarter, till we came to the souther side of them, then we had five to six fathoms, and anchored. So we sent in our boat to sound, and they found no less water than four, five, six, and seven fathoms, and returned in an hour and a halfe. So we weighed and went in, and rode in five fathoms, ose ground, and saw many salmons, and mullets, and rayes very great.

            The fourth, in the morning, as soone as the day was light, we saw that it was good riding farther up. So we sent our boate to sound, and found that it was a very good harbour; then we weighed and went in with our ship. Then our boat went on land with our net to fish, and caught ten great mullets, of a foot and a half long apeece, and a ray as great as four men could hale into the ship. So we trimmed our boat, and rode still all day. At night the wind blew hard at the north-west, and our anchor came home, and we drove on shore, but took no hurt, thanked bee God, for the ground is soft sand and ose. This day the people of the country came aboard of us, seeming very glad of our coming, and brought greene tobacco, and gave us of it for knives and beads. They go in deere skins loose, well dressed. They have yellow copper. They desire cloathes, and are very civill. They have  great store of maise, or Indian wheate, whereof they make good bread. The country is full of great and tall oaks.

            The fifth, in the morning, as soone as the day was light, the wind ceased; so we sent our boate in to sound the bay. Our men went on land there and saw great store of men, women, and children, who gave them tobacco at their coming on land. So they went up into the woods, and saw great store of very goodly oakes, and some currants.

            The sixth, in the morning, was faire weather, and our master sent John Colman with foure other men in our boate over to the north side, to sound the other river," (the Narrows.) "They found very good riding for ships, and a narrow river to the westward," (probably what is now called the Kells, or the passage between Bergen-Neck and Staten Island,) between two islands. The lands, they told us, were as pleasant, with grasse and flowers, and goodly trees, as ever they had seen, and very sweet smells came from them. So they went in two leagues and saw an open sea, and returned; and as they came backe they were set upon by two canes, the one having twelve, the other fourteen men. The night came on, and it began to raine, so that their match went out; and they had one man slain in the fight, which was an Englishman, named John Colman, with an arrow shot into his throat, and two more hurt. It grew so dark that they could not find the shippe that night, but laboured to and fro on their oars.

            "The seventh was fair, and they returned aboard the ship, and brought our dead man with them, whom we carried on land and buried."

            On the eight, Hudson lay still, to be more sure of the disposition of the natives before venturing farther in. Several came on board, but no disturbance occurred, and on the ninth he got under weigh, passed the Narrows, and proceeded by slow degree up the river destined to bear his name.

The above description of The Narrows, from Fort Hamilton, is copied from the original text published 1839 in "AMERICAN SCENERY" Volume I, Page 130 By George Virtue, 26 Ivy Lane, London.