Stuyvesant: Henry Hudson Stopped Here
Near Albany, New York
In sixteen oh nine, Henry Hudson sailed up the river that now bears his name, and according to early accounts, the Half Moon came to anchor near the present town of Stuyvesant, and a small boat went on upriver toward present Albany. The area was Mohican territory for thousands of years before that voyage, and the later river landing here took the name Kinderhook Landing.
This stretch of the Hudson became part of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, whose great land grants included Rensselaerswyck, held by the Van Rensselaer family. The town that eventually formed here was named for Peter Stuyvesant, the peg-legged Dutch director-general who governed New Netherland from sixteen forty-seven until the English takeover in sixteen sixty-four. Stuyvesant separated from the town of Kinderhook in eighteen twenty-three and quickly became a busy river shipping dock, with farmers from the surrounding countryside bringing goods to load onto Hudson River boats.
