History of Westchester County, New York, from its Earliest Settlement to the Year 1900
All of a sudden, as is wont to happen to navigators, a violent contrary wind blew in from the sea, and forced us to return to our ship, greatly regretting to leave this region which seemed so commodious and delightful, and which we supposed must also contain great riches, as the hills showed mamT indications of minerals." This description, although perplexing in some of its statements, and therefore suggesting caution as to conclusions, reasonably admits of the belief I allowing for the inaccuracies in detail which nearly always occur in the reports of the early explorers) that Yerrazano entered and inspected the Upper Bay. But it hardly justifies the opinion that he passed ni» the river; the "lake three leagues in circuit " could have been no other body of water than the Upper Bay, and the " river " up which he went " about half a league " to reach it was evidently the Narrows. In the following year (1525) Estevan Gomez, a Portuguese sailor employed by Spain to seek a passage to India, explored the coast,
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which, he says, k* turns southward twenty leagues to Bay St. Chripstapel in 39°. From that bend made by the land the coast turns northward, passing said bay thirty leagues to Rio St. Antonio, in 41°, which is north and south with said bay." Gomez's "Bay St. Chripstapel" was unquestionably the Lower New York Bay, and his "Rio St. Antonio" (so named in honor of the saint on whose day he beheld it) the Hudson River. The latter conclusion is clearly established by his description ofthe river as "north and south with said bay," which, taken in its connections, can not possibly apply to any other stream. To have established the north and south direction of the river he must have explored it for some distance.