Europeans Explore Waters of Pennsylvania, Delaware Bay So Named August 27, 1610

Quite different from all other colonies was Pennsylvania in the fact that many settlements were made within its borders and many races contributed to her people.

In 1608, the famous Captain John Smith, of Virginia, sailed up the Chesapeake Bay to its head, where he was stopped by the rocks.

At this same time the Dutch of Holland, during a lull in their war with Spain, were sending maritime expeditions over the world. They sent Henry Hudson to America. He sailed up the coast, on August 28, 1609, in his ship the “Half Moon,” entered the bay now called Delaware 589Bay, and cast anchor. Hudson was an Englishman, but in the service now of the Dutch.

The republic of the Netherlands, after a struggle never surpassed for heroism and constancy, had won a truce with King Philip of Spain, and the Dutch merchants had sent the English captain out upon the old quest, a short route to China.

Hudson’s appearance in Delaware Bay was before his discovery of the Hudson River, and, therefore, New Netherlands had its origin on the Delaware, called by the Dutch the Zuyd Revier, or South River.

Hudson navigated his little ship into the bay with great caution. He spent the day in making soundings, and learned that “he who would thoroughly discover this great bay must have a small pinnace to send before him, that must draw but four or five feet to sound before him.”

Hudson then sailed up the New Jersey coast, on the third day of September, anchored his ship within Sandy Hook, and the 12th he entered New York Bay through the Narrows, and discovered the great river that since has borne his name.

So far as the history of Pennsylvania is concerned there is much import in the exploration of Hudson in Delaware Bay. He made known to his employers, the Dutch East India Company, and to the seafaring nations of western Europe, the existence of this wide bay, into which, as he perceived, a great river must discharge. His discovery laid the ground for the claim by the Dutch to the country on the Delaware. Exploration followed, then trade, then occupancy, then a new State, in which the present Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and New York were united under one government, called New Netherlands.

On August 27, 1610, Captain Samuel Argall, from Jamestown, Va., sailed into the Delaware Bay, and, remaining a few hours, gave it the name of Delaware, in honor of Lord Delaware, then Governor of Virginia. Thus we notice that neither Captain John Smith nor Henry Hudson entered Pennsylvania, they approached the very doorway, but did not come inside.

The first actual visit of a white man seems to have been six years later, when Etienne Brulé, a Frenchman, and a follower of Champlain, the first Governor of New France, came into Pennsylvania via the headwaters of the Susquehanna River and explored its entire length.

Hudson’s report of a land rich in furs attracted the attention of the Dutch, and before 1614, five vessels came to Manhattan on the North River. One of them, the “Fortune,” commanded by Captain Cornelius Jacobson Mey, sailed in the Zuyd River, and he named the cape at the east entrance of the bay Cape Mey, and the cape on the west Cape Cornelius.

One of these vessels, the “Tiger,” was burned and her captain, Adrian Block, built a yacht forty-four and a half feet long, eleven and a half feet wide, of sixteen tons burden, to take her place. This boat, 590the “Onrust,” was the first built within the limits of the United States, and she was destined to fame. Cornelius Hendrickson brought the “Onrust” to the Delaware in 1616, and made the first exploration of the Delaware River, and discovered the mouth of the Schuylkill and first saw the site of Philadelphia. Here he ransomed from the Indians a Dutchman named Kleynties and two companions, who had come down from the North River by land, and who may have been the first Europeans in Pennsylvania.

On June 3, 1621, the Dutch West India Company was formed. The charter by the Dutch Government gave it the exclusive right to trade on the coast of America between Newfoundland and the Straits of Magellan. This company, by virtue of its charter, took possession of the country, and dispatched the ship “New Netherland,” with a number of people, under command of Captain Mey, to the Delaware, where, on the eastern bank, fifteen leagues from its mouth, Captain Mey erected Fort Nassau.

The site of this fort was about five miles above Wilmington, and here four married couples and eight seamen lived. This was, probably, the first settlement on the Delaware River. Fort Nassau was a log structure, capable of defense against bows and arrows, sufficient for a depot of furs, but badly situated to command the commerce of the river. It stood for nearly thirty years, until 1651, and in that time was the center on this continent of Dutch authority and trade. It was to this fort that the Indians of Pennsylvania brought their peltries to exchange for articles that served their use or pleased their fancy, or for rum that made them drunk.

Another settlement was made farther north, on the same side of the river, which consisted of three or four families.

The administration of the affairs of New Netherlands was confided by the Dutch West Indian Company to Peter Minuit, who arrived at Manhattan, May 4, 1626. He came from Wesel, and was commissioned as director-general. It was he who soon after his arrival “purchased the island of Manhattan from the Indians for sixty guilders, or the sum of twenty-five dollars in real money.”

In spite of the fact that the Dutch West Indian Company in 1629 granted special privileges to all persons who should plant any colony in New Netherland, up until 1631 no white man had made a settlement on the west bank of the Delaware.

On December 30, 1630, David Pieterzoon De Vries, with thirty-two people and a large stock of cattle, sailed from the Texel, in the ship “Walrus,” and arrived at the southern cape, Cornelius, now Henlopen, and made a settlement near the present town of Lewes, and called it Swanendael, or the Valley of the Swans. De Vries is the finest figure among the early pioneer history of the settlement of this part of our country. He was intelligent, energetic and humane.

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