Adriaen Block, Explorer
BLOCK, or BLOK, Adriaen, explorer, was a native of Holland, who, it is said, first studied law, but soon gave up that profession to follow the sea. In 1611 Capt. Hendrick Christiaensen, a Dutch trader, returning from the West Indies, visited New York bay, and was convinced that a profitable trade with the Indians might be developed there. On his return to Holland he induced Block to join him in the enterprise, and having obtained a quantity of goods on commission they chartered a small vessel and sailed for the Mauritius river, as the Hudson was then called. Their adventure proved successful, and their account of the region awakened so deep an interest in the fur trade that in 1613 some merchants of Amsterdam formed a partnership and sent over a fleet of vessels in charge of Christiaensen, the regularly appointed agent of the company. Block was in charge of one of the vessels named the Tiger, which was accidentally burned while lying off the battery in New York harbor, the captain and crew barely escaping to shore. Christiaensen continued up the Hudson, and soon after lost his life at the hands of the Indians, while Block and his companions wintered on Manhattan island. In the summer of 1614 he completed and launched a new vessel of sixteen tons, which he named Onrust (The Restless), which is said to have been the first decked vessel built in North America. He thereupon set out on an exploring expedition, and he was the first European to pass through the East river to the Sound. He gave the name to Hell Gate, after a turbulent stream in Zealand called Hellegat. Sailing through the Sound he named the Housatonic river the Rodenberg from the red color of the hills through which it flows, and the site of New Haven received the same name from those prominent landmarks, East and West rocks. He discovered the Connecticut river, naming It Fresh (Versch) Water, and ascended that stream to a point between Hartford and Windsor. Continuing his voyage eastward he passed the Thames; then crossed the Sound to Montauk point (Visscher's hook); touched at the island that now bears his name, although it is possible that it was discovered by Verrazano; entered Narragansett bay, which he called Nassau bay, and on account of the color of the soil gave the name Roodt Eylandt to Aquidneck (now Rhode Island). Martha's Vineyard (Vineland), Nantucket (Vlieland), and the end of Cape Cod were next visited; and at Salem (Pye) bay he ended his explorations, considering that point the limit of the Dutch possessions. Block arrived in Holland early in October, and on the 11th appeared before the assembly of the states general in behalf of an association of merchants and shipowners of Amsterdam, asking for the privilege of exclusive trade with the newly discovered lands "between New France and Virginia." A map prepared under his supervision did much to strengthen his arguments, and on the same day a charter was issued. This document, in which the name New Netherlands was first used, gave the petitioners exclusive right to trade in the region designated. As early as 1615 Block entered the service of a company formed to carry on whale fishing, and probably never revisited America.
source: Derby, George and James Terry White. The National Cyclopedia of American Biography: Being the History of the United States as Illustrated in the Lives of the Founders, Builders, and Defenders of the Republic, and of the Men and Women who are Doing the Work and Moulding the Thought of the Present Time, Volume 10. New York: James T. White & Company, 1900. 295.
source: Derby, George and James Terry White. The National Cyclopedia of American Biography: Being the History of the United States as Illustrated in the Lives of the Founders, Builders, and Defenders of the Republic, and of the Men and Women who are Doing the Work and Moulding the Thought of the Present Time, Volume 10. New York: James T. White & Company, 1900. 295.
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