* * *

In the beginning of May they entered the Hudson, found a "Frenchman"
lying in the mouth of the river, who would erect the arms of the King
of France there, but the Hollanders would not permit him, opposing it
by commission from the Lord's States General and the Directors of the
West India Company, and "in order not to be frustrated therein, they
convoyed the Frenchman out of the rivers." This having been done, they
sailed up the Maikans, 140 miles, near which they built and completed
a fort, named "Orange," with four bastions, on an island, by them
called "Castle Island." This was probably the island below Castleton,
now known as Baern Island, where the first white child was born on the
Hudson.

In another volume we read that "a colony was planted in 1625 on
the Manhetes Island, where a fort was staked out by Master Kryn
Fredericke, an engineer. The counting-house is kept in a stone
building thatched with reed; the other houses are of the bark of
trees. There are thirty ordinary houses on the east side of the river,
which runs nearly north and south." This is the description of New
York City when Charles the First was King.

* * *

Behold the natural advantages of our State; the situation
of our principal seaport; the facility that the
Sound affords for an intercourse with the East, and the
noble Hudson which bears upon its bosom the wealth
of the remotest part of the State.