Adrian Block / Dutch Exploration

Adrian Block, also, Dutch Exploration. . , Adrian Block was an attorney and an explorer from the Netherlands that had an eye for profitable enterprise. The market for furs in Europe was tremendous in the early 17th century and Block was looking to make his fortune by selling beaver pelts which were to be made into clothing and hats. , On Block's third trip to the New Word in the late summer of 1613 he anchored the his ship, the Tiger, off the southern tip of Manhatten. Block and his crew were camped on the island close to where the World Trade Center was located when his ship caught fire and burned to the waterline. , Over the following winter Block and his crew built a new ship. They cut down trees, hewed the trees into planks and built a 44 foot long sailing vessel with a mast hewn from a single tree. They christened the boat the Onrust, or Restless a name that may have reflected their moods during the long hard winter. The Restless was the first European built vessel to sail Long Island Sound and believed to be the first decked vessel built by Europeans in North America. , Block discovered the enthusiasm for trade of the Native Americans for wampum. Block and his crew set out in the spring to continue their exploration and trading before returning home. Block entered the wide mouth of the Connecticut River, the Onrust of a shallow draft, and continued north to Enfield Rapids. A journal was kept of this voyage that describes the landscape and the trading adventures. , This voyage into the Connecticut River Valley opened up a multitude of trading opportunities for the Dutch Their homes were located on Manhatten Island, however in the 1620s, the Hollanders at New Amsterdam decided to establish settlements, along the Connecticut River. The Dutch, who were chiefly interested in trading for furs with the Native Americans, took over ten thousand beaver skins annually from the river valley between 1615 and 1626. The settlements they planned were to be fortified in case their relationship with the Native Americans changed as the white man's population increased. They claimed Saybrook Point as their first settlement and named it “Keivets Hook”, a name derived from the cry of the pewit (in Dutch “kievet") a bird common to the Dutch homeland. , John Winthrop, Jr. of Massachusetts Bay was overseeing the English settlement at the time and was ordered to remove the Dutch from their for at Keivet's Hook. A twenty man contingent arrived from the Bay Colony in 1635. They but ashore two stout cannons where they discovered the Dutch West India Company's coat of arms nailed to a tree. Tearing down this ineffectual token of Dutch possession, the English soldiers nailed in its place another shield on which they painted a grinning face! A few days later a Dutch ship arrived at the river's mouth. However, after observing the English soldiers and their well-placed cannon, the Hollanders withdrew. The English hoisted the cross of St. George over the fort. Keivet's Hook disappeared and Say-Brooke Point, named for Viscount say and Seale and Lord Brook, was established. The Dutch had lost their holdings to the numerically superior English.