Still in New York

As of this writing we are still in New York. Or I should say Tarrytown which is a 2 hr boat ride north of New York.
We will meet Val and Bart, and Christie and Andy at noon today. (June 23)
We will take them south (into New York) by boat, and do some more New York sight seeing, before leaving to go further up the Hudson river.

From the little that we have moved back and forward on the Hudson (From New York to Haverstraw) it is clear to see that the Hudson will be an interesting (and big river) to explore. Not only it's scenic beauty, but also the history is very interesting. There is no doubt who the first settlers of this area were. If not by the architecture, than by names you see all over, like Beekman street, Harlem, Wall street, Tappan zee, and Rockefeller's estate, called Kykuit just to name a few.

Henry Hudson ( who the river is named after ) obviously was not of Dutch descend, but was hired by the Dutch East Indies company, and thus claimed the territory for the Dutch in 1613.

In the mid 1600 Peter Stuyvesant was send to the area to govern, and control a settlement that had clearly gotten rowdy and out of control.
In the sixteen sixties the British came to take over the territories.
If Peter Stuyvesant would have had his way the dutch would have had control of the area much longer than the 50 or so years they did. However he could not convince the people to take up arms against the British, and Mr Stuyvesant had no choice but to surrender. Perhaps it was the hard life, internal bickering, and fight for survival the first settlers were subjected to that caused them to feel the way they did about fighting the British. Who knows why, but it is said that the take over of New Amsterdam (as it was called then) by the British was one of the easiest of all. The British renamed the area New York (after the Duke of York) and the name stuck to this day.