HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY. 



In giving an account of tlie first settlement by Europeans, of 

 any part of America, it has been customary with writers to pre- 

 cede their narratives by a detailed liistory, not only of the events 

 that were then transpiring in the Old World, but of every event 

 that had occurred for a century or more previously, having the 

 least possible bearing, upon the settlement in question. As the 

 history of a district of country so limited in extent as that of 

 Delaware County, must derive its chief value from the number 

 of local facts it may present, the transatlantic events that led 

 to its settlement in common with that of larger districts of our 

 country, will only be briefly adverted to. 



More than a century had elapsed, from the time of the dis- 

 covery of the Western Continent by the Cabots, before the noble 

 river that forms the south-eastern boundary of our County, be- 

 came known to Europeans. The first settlement of Virginia 

 was commenced at Jamestown in the year 1607. Two years 

 later, the celebrated English navigator Henry Hudson, after 

 having made two unsuccessful voyages in the employ of London 

 merchants, in search of a northern passage to the East Indies, 

 entered the service of the Dutch East India Company, and with 

 the same object in view, made his celebrated voyage that resulted 

 in the discovery of the great New York river, that most justly 

 bears his name. Sailing from Amsterdam on the 4th of 

 April, 1609, in a yacht called the Half-Moon, he doubled North 

 Cape with the object of reaching Nova Zembla. In this he was 

 foiled by reason of the dense fogs and the large bodies of ice he 

 encountered, when, changing his original plan, he directed his 

 course with the view of discovering a north-west passage to China. 

 He arrived off the banks of Newfoundland in July, and continu- 

 ing his course westwardly, after some delay on account of dense 

 fogs, entered Penobscot bay on the coast of Maine. Here Captain 

 Hudson had friendly intercourse with the natives of the country, 

 and after having repaired the damage his little vessel had sus- 

 tained, he pursued his course southerly in search, it is said, of a 

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