Hobock was an Indian village, which appears in at least one Dutch

On the Jersey Shore 'jT)

record, ah-eady cited, as Hoboquin. Ahiiost its first appearance in history is as the scene of murders and massacres, of arson and pillage. But the atrocity was not all upon the side of the Indians. In 1643, after a long feud, marked by excesses on both sides, a body of the Dutch, reinforced by Mohawk Indians, crossed the

l-L

A FLEET THRONGED THE RIVER (From ID! old print)

river at night and murdered a hundred men, women, and children at the promontory called Castle Point. There is no record that suggests any palliation for this crime, which is ])robably the blackest one that stains the annals of New Netherland. Hoboken should be celebrated wherever steam navigation has helped to solve the problem of tra\'el. Here it was that John Stevens lived ; indeed at one time the

74 The Hudson River

Stevens family owned nearly all of the land in that neighbourhood, and founded the city of Hoboken in 1804. John Stevens -- Colonel Stevens -- built the steamship Phccnix, the first vessel depending entirely upon steam propulsion to cross the Atlantic. The first steamer that crossed the ocean was the Savannah, built at Corlear's Hook, New York City; but she relied partly upon sail power. A century ago the woods of Weehawken were the scene of one of the most significant and famous private encounters that have ever been recorded. Not only did the participants hold exalted positions in the political and social world, l^ut at least one of them had connected his name indissolubly with the history of his country and the record of her progress. At the time of the celebrated Burr-Hamilton duel the former had just been defeated in his candidacy for the governorship of New York.