Hudson River

Names

The names of the Hudson River make a complicated story. It was called Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk, the Great Mohegan, by the Iroquois, or as the Lenape Native Americans called it in Unami, Muhheakantuck.

In the early days of European exploration the Hudson was known as the Mauritius River. This is said to be the name given it by Henry Hudson in honor of Prince Maurice of Nassau, but it is also said to be the name given by sixteenth-century European adventurers, explorers, and fishermen who knew it as River Mauritius, ‘The River of Mountains’.[citation needed]

The Hudson was named the “North River” by the Dutch, who called the Delaware River the “South River.” The name “North River” was used in the New York City area up until the early 1900s, with limited use continuing into the modern day. The term persists in radio communication among commercial shipping traffic, especially below Tappan Zee.

It was the English who originated the use of the name “Hudson”ecause Hudson had found the river while exploring for the Dutch.

Geography

The official source of the Hudson is Lake Tear of the Clouds in the Adirondack Mountains. However, the waterway from the lake is known as Feldspar Brook and the Opalescent River, feeding into the Hudson at Tahawus. The actual Hudson River begins several miles north of Tahawus at Henderson Lake. The Hudson is joined at Troy (north of Albany) by the Mohawk River, its major tributary, just south of which the Federal Dam separates the Upper Hudson River Valley from the Lower Hudson River Valley or simply the Hudson River Valley. The river then flows south, passing between the Catskill Mountains and the Taconic Mountains, widening significantly at the Tappan Zee, finally flowing between Manhattan Island and the New Jersey Palisades and into the Atlantic Ocean at New York Bay, an arm of the ocean, where it forms New York Harbor.

View of the Hudson in the 1880s showing Jersey City

The lower Hudson is actually a tidal estuary, with tidal influence extending as far as the Federal Dam at Troy. Strong tides make parts of New York Harbor difficult and dangerous to navigate. During the winter, ice floes drift south or north, depending upon the tides. The Mahican name of the river, Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk, means “the river that flows both ways.”[citation needed] The Hudson is often mistaken for one of the largest rivers in the United States, but it is an estuary throughout most of its length below Troy and thus only a small fraction of freshwater, about 15,000 cubic feet (425 m) per second, is present. The mean freshwater discharge at the river’s mouth in New York is approximately 21,400 cubic feet (606 m) per second. The Hudson and its tributaries, notably the Mohawk River, drain a large area. Parts of the Hudson River form coves, such as Weehawken Cove in Hoboken and Weehawken.

The Hudson is sometimes called, in geological terms, a “drowned” river. The rising sea levels after the retreat of the Wisconsin glaciation, the most recent ice age, have resulted in a marine incursion that drowned the coastal plain and brought salt water well above the mouth of the river. The deeply eroded old riverbed beyond the current shoreline, Hudson Canyon, is a rich fishing area. The former riverbed is clearly delineated beneath the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, extending to the edge of the continental shelf.

Looking upriver from Battery Park City in Manhattan

Hudson from Midtown Manhattan with Javits Convention Center in foreground. The New Jersey Palisades is visible across the river.

The Delaware and Hudson Canal ended at the Hudson at Kingston, running southwest to the coal fields of northeastern Pennsylvania.

Notable landmarks on the Hudson include West Point, Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site, Bard College, the Culinary Institute of America, Marist College, the Thayer Hotel at West Point, Bannerman’s Castle, Metro-North Railroad’s Hudson Line (formerly part of the New York Central Railroad system), The Tappan Zee, the New Jersey Palisades, Hudson River Islands State Park, Hudson Highlands State Park, Sing Sing Correctional Facility, New York Military Academy, Fort Tryon Park with The Cloisters, Liberty State Park, and Stevens Institute of Technology. Cities and towns on the New Jersey side include Tenafly, Fort Lee, Edgewater, West New York, Weehawken, Hoboken, and Jersey City. Cities in New York State include Troy, Albany, Kingston, Poughkeepsie, Glens Falls, Yonkers, and New York City.

The natural beauty of the Hudson Valley earned the Hudson River the nickname “America’s Rhine”, being compared to that of the famous 40 mile (65 km) stretch of Germany’s Rhine River valley between the cities of Bingen and Koblenz. A similar 30-mile (48 km) stretch on the east bank of the Hudson has been designated the Hudson River Historic District, a National Historic Landmark. The Hudson was designated as one of the American Heritage Rivers in 1997.

The Narrows

The Narrows, a tidal stream between the New York City boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn, connects the upper and lower sections of New York Bay. It has long been considered the maritime “gateway” to New York City and historically has been the most important entrance into the harbor.

The Narrows were most likely formed about 6,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. Previously, Staten Island and Long Island were connected, preventing the Hudson River from terminating via The Narrows. At that time, the Hudson River emptied into the Atlantic Ocean through a more westerly course through parts of present day northern New Jersey, along the eastern side of the Watchung Mountains to Bound Brook, New Jersey and then on into the Atlantic Ocean via Raritan Bay. A build up of water in the Upper Bay eventually allowed the Hudson River to break through previous land mass that was connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn to form The Narrows as it exists today. This allowed the Hudson River to find a shorter route to the Atlantic Ocean via its present course between New Jersey and New York City (Waldman, 2000).

North River

Main article: North River (Hudson River)

Lower Hudson River as seen from Riverside Park in Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

North River is an alternate name for the southernmost portion of the Hudson, usually referring to all or part of the waterway located between Manhattan and Hudson County. The colonial name given by the Dutch to the entire river in the early seventeenth century, the term fell out of popular use for most of it some time in the early 1900s, but continues in use locally by mariners and others as well as on some nautical charts and maps. The term also lives on in the names of a variety of facilities such as the North River piers, North River Tunnels, and the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant, and has strong historical ties with New York Harbor.

Haverstraw Bay

Haverstraw Bay, just north of the Tappan Zee (the widest part of the river), is located between Croton Point in the Southeast and the town of Haverstraw in the Northwest. Haverstraw Bay is a popular destination for recreational boaters and is home to many yacht clubs and marinas, including Croton Yacht Club, Croton Sailing School, Half Moon Bay Marina (Croton), Pennybridge Marina, Minisceongo Yacht Club, Stony Point Bay Marina, and Haverstraw Marina, and is traversed by NY Waterway’s Haverstraw-Ossining Ferry.

Transportation

Looking downriver from the Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises boat. George Washington Bridge can be seen in the background.

The Hudson River is navigable for a great distance above mile 0 (at 4042.1′N., 7401.5′W.) off The Battery. The original Erie Canal, opened in 1825 to connect the Hudson with Lake Erie, emptied into the Hudson at the Albany Basin, just three miles (5 km) south of the Federal Dam in Troy (at mile 134). The canal enabled shipping between cities on the Great Lakes and Europe via the Atlantic Ocean. The New York State Canal System, the successor to the Erie Canal, runs into the Hudson River north of Troy and uses the Federal Dam as the Lock 1 and natural waterways whenever possible. The first railroad in New York, the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, opened in 1831 between Albany and Schenectady on the Mohawk River, enabling passengers to bypass the slowest part of the Erie Canal.

In northern Troy, the Champlain Canal split from the Erie Canal and continued north along the west side of the Hudson to Thomson, where it crossed to the east side. At Fort Edward the canal left the Hudson, heading northeast to Lake Champlain. A barge canal now splits from the Hudson at that point, taking roughly the same route (also parallel to the Delaware and Hudson Railway’s Saratoga and Whitehall Railroad) to Lake Champlain at Whitehall. From Lake Champlain, boats can continue north into Canada to the Saint Lawrence Seaway.

The Hudson Valley also proved attractive for railroads, once technology progressed to the point where it was feasible to construct the required bridges over tributaries. The Troy and Greenbush Railroad was chartered in 1845 and opened that same year, running a short distance on the east side between Troy and Greenbush (east of Albany). The Hudson River Railroad