Half Moon (ship)
| New Netherland series | |
|---|---|
| Exploration
| |
| Fortifications: | |
| Settlements: | |
| The Patroon System | |
| Directors of New Netherland: Cornelius Jacobsen Mey (1620-25) | |
| People of New Netherland | |
| Flushing Remonstrance
| |
 | |
 The Halve Maen in the Hudson River | |
| Career (Dutch Republic) |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | Halve Maen |
| Owner: |
Dutch East India Company Chamber of Amsterdam |
| Completed: | 1608 |
The Halve Maen (English: Half Moon) was a Dutch East India Company ship which sailed in what is now New York harbor in September 1609. It was commissioned by the Dutch Republic to covertly find an eastern passage to China. The ship was captained by Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the service of the Dutch Republic.
History
The Halve Maen sailed from Amsterdam to the Barents Sea, turning westward to traverse the Atlantic Ocean, then sailed from Newfoundland to the south in search of the Northwest Passage.
In his 1625 book New World,[1] which contains invaluable extracts from Hudson’s lost journal, Johannes de Laet, a director of the West India Company, writes that they "bent their course to the south until, running south-southwest and southwest by south, they again made land in latitude 41° 43’, which they supposed to be an island, and gave it the name of New Holland, but afterwards discovered that it was Cape Cod".
From there they sailed south to the Chesapeake and then went north along the coast navigating first the Delaware Bay and, subsequently, the bay of the river which Hudson named the Mauritius River, for Holland's Lord-Lieutenant Maurits. The Halve Maen sailed up Hudson's river as far as the presentday location of Albany, New York, where the crew determined the water was too narrow and too shallow for farther progress. Concluding then that the river was also not a passage to the east, Hudson exited the river, naming the natives that dwelled on either side of the Mauritus estuary the Manahata. Leaving the estuary, he sailed north-eastward, never realizing that what are now the islands of Manhattan and Long Island were islands, and crossed the Atlantic to England where he sailed into Dartmouth harbor with the Dutch East India Company yacht and crew.
In 1618 the ship was destroyed during an English attack on Jakarta (Dutch East Indies).
A map of 1610 depicts the Manahatas west and east of Hudson’s river and from which the name Manhattan originates.
Replicas
In 1909 a replica of the Halve Maen was gifted to the United States by the Kingdom of the Netherlands on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of Hudson's voyage. The ship was constructed at the Rijksmarinewerf in Amsterdam. The keel was laid on 29 Oktober 1908 and on 15 April 1909 the ship was launched and then transported to the US on the Holland America Lines freight liner Soestdijk.
Another replica of the Halve Maen (officially Anglicized as Half Moon) was constructed in Albany, New York in 1989 by the New Netherland Museum. The museum contracted with Nicholas S. Benton to design and build the replica. Mr. Benton, a master ship-rigger and shipwright, was president of the Rigging Gang of Middletown (Rhode Island), which specialized in colonial ship restoration and design. To prepare for building the Half Moon, a $1 million project, he visited maritime museums in the Netherlands and the United States. After his death while assisting with the rigging of another vessel, the construction of the Half Moon was completed by the New Netherland Museum. The year 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of the Halve Maen's voyage. This fact was marked in September 2009 with festivals, music, sailing ships parading around New York Harbor.[2]
The replica ship sails in and around the Hudson River and serves as a traveling museum that conducts programs for youth and adults about the history of the Dutch colony called New Netherland. With its Voyages of Discovery and 4th and 7th grade Interdisciplinary Curricula, the ship pursues a comprehensive education program. A non-for-profit organization, the Half Moon is run by a crew of volunteers that range in age from their teens to octogenarians.
An eight foot tall model of the Halve Maen serves as a weathervane on top of the SUNY System Administration Building in Albany, New York.
See also
References
- ↑ Johannes de Laet (Dutch Wikipedia) (1625). Nieuwe Wereldt, ofte beschrijvinghe van West-Indien (New World, or the description of West India). Leiden.
- ↑ NY400 website
External links
| Halve Maen
]]- Official Half Moon website
- Site about the Half Moon replica
- Nicholas Benton Obituary in the New York Times
- The "Halve Maan (1608)" at the VOC website (Dutch)
de:Halve Maen (1600) fr:Halve Maen (navire) nl:Halve Maen (schip) pl:Halve Maen (okręt)
