New York

The first railway in the State and the second in operation in the United States was the Mohawk and Hudson, opened from Albany to Schenectady in 1831. The first great trunk line in the country was that of the Erie railway, opened from Piermont, on the Hud son river, to Dunkirk, on Lake Erie, in 1853. The New York Cen tral railway, nearly parallel with the water route from New York city to Buffalo, was formed by the union, in 1869, of the New York Central with the Hudson River railway. In 1886 the New York Central Railroad company leased the West Shore railway for a term of 475 Years, and this company operates another paral lel line from Syracuse to Buffalo, a line following closely the entire north border of the State, and several cross lines. Other important railways are the Lehigh Valley, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western, and the Pennsylvania in the central and western sections, the Delaware and Hudson, the Rutland, the Boston and Maine, the Central New England and the New York, Ontario and Western in the east, and the Long Island on Long Island. In 1935 the operated steam railway mileage in New York was 8,187. In 1932 there were 3,243m. of electric railways with a passenger revenue of $156,220,000. The road mileage in the State highway system on Dec. 31, 1934 was 13,946, of which 12,410 were surfaced. In the mileage of surfaced road, New York ranked first among the States. In competition with the railways, traffic on the existing canals suffered a marked decline. As this decline was accompanied with a considerable decrease in the proportion of the country's export which passed through the port of New York, interest in the canals revived, and in 1903 the electorate of the State authorized the issue of bonds to the amount of $101,000,000 for the purpose of increasing the capacity of the Erie, the Champlain and the Oswego canals, to make each navigable to barges of I ,000 tons burden.

The project adopted by the State for the enlargement of the Erie provided for a new route up the Hudson from Troy to Waterford and then to the Mohawk river above the Cohoes falls. The improvement projects were completed in 1918. In addition to the canalized rivers and lakes (382m.) the State has a canal mileage of 525. Of the total tonnage (4,489,172) moved on the State barge canals in 1935, 3,898,506 tons were on the Erie divi sion. The water-borne commerce of New York State in 1935 con sisted of 10,839,092 cargo tons in imports and 5,138,124 cargo tons in exports. Of this total, the Great Lakes contributed 2,482, 644 tons in imports and 1,592,90o tons in exports. The imports to the port of New York amounted to 11,915,000 short tons and the exports to 5,979,000 short tons in 1934 ; coastwise shipments were 6,946,00o short tons. Buffalo was by far the most important of the Great Lakes ports.

The aboriginal inhabitants of New York had an important in fluence on its colonial history. Within its limits from the upper Hudson westward to the Genesee river was the home of that powerful confederacy of Indian tribes the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas, known to the French as the Iroquois and to the English as the Five (later Six) Nations. When supplied with firearms by Europeans they reduced a number of other tribes to subjection and extended their dominion over most of the territory from the St. Lawrence to the Tennessee and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. They were at the height of their power about 1700. Of much less influence in New York were several Algonkin tribes in the lower valley of the Hudson and along the sea coast.

Early Dutch Traders and Colonists.

New York bay and the Hudson river were discovered by Giovanni da Verrazano in 1524, and were probably seen by Esteban Gomez in 1525; for many years following, French vessels occasionally ascended the Hudson to trade with the Indians. The history of New York really begins, however, in 1609. In July of that year Samuel de Champlain discovered the lake which bears his name and on its shores led his Algonkin Indian allies against the Iroquois, thus provoking against his countrymen the hostility of a people who for years were to hold the balance of power between the English and the French in America. On Sept. 3 Henry Hudson, in the employ of the Dutch East India company, entered New York bay in the "Half Moon" in search of the "northwest passage " He conceived that a vast trade with the Iroquois for furs might be established. His report aroused great interest in Holland, and the United Netherlands, whose independence had been acknowl edged in the spring, claimed the newly discovered country. In 1610 a vessel was despatched with merchandise suitable for traffic with the Indians, the voyage resulted in profit, and a lucra tive trade in peltries sprang up. Early in 1614 Adriaen Block explored Long Island sound and discovered Block island. The merchants of Amsterdam and Hoorn soon formed themselves into the New Netherland company, and on Oct. Io, 1614, received from the States-General a three years' monopoly of the Dutch fur trade in New Netherland; i.e., that part of America between New France and Virginia or between latitudes and north. Late in the same year or early in 1615 a stockaded trading post called Ft. Nassau was erected on Castle Island, now within the limits of Albany, and a few huts were erected about this time or earlier on the southern extremity of Manhattan island ; but no effort at colonization was as yet made. On the expiration of the charter of the New Netherland company (1618) the States-Gen eral refused to grant a renewal, and only private ventures were authorized until 1621. When the West India company was first chartered for a term of 24 years, to it was given a monopoly of Dutch trade with the whole American coast, authorized to plant colonies and to govern them under a very limited supervision of the States-General. In June, 1623, however, New Netherland was formally erected into a province and the management of its affairs assigned to the chamber of Amsterdam, which in March, 1624, despatched the "New Netherland," with the first permanent colonists (3o families mostly Walloon), under Cornelis Jacobson Mey, the first governor or director of the colony. Arriving at Manhattan early in May, a few of the men remained there, but more than one-half of the families proceeded up the Hudson to Ft. Orange, and there founded what is now Albany. Three more vessels arrived in 1625, and when in that year Mey was succeeded as director by William Verhulst the colony had a population of 200 or more. The Government of the province was fully estab lished in 1626 and was vested mainly in a director general and council. Peter Minuit, the first director general, arrived with more colonists in May, 1626, and soon afterwards Manhattan island was bought from the Indians, Ft. Amsterdam was erected at its lower end, and the settlement here was made the seat of Government.