Henry Hudson | Page 3

are regarded as of his discovery and to which have been
given his name. But I hold that his just fame is not lessened by the fact
that his discoveries, nominally, were rediscoveries. Within the proper
meaning of the word they truly were his dis-coveries: in that he did
un-cover them so effectually that they became known clearly, and
thereafter remained known clearly, to the world.

II
Because of his full accomplishment of what others essayed and only
partially accomplished, Hudson's name is the best known--excepting
only that of Columbus--of all the names of explorers by land and sea.
From Purchas's time downward it has headed the list of Arctic
discoverers; in every history of America it has a leading place; on every
map of North America it thrice is written large; here in New York,
which owes its founding to his exploring voyage, it is uttered--as we
refer to the river, the county, the city, the street, the railroad, bearing
it--a thousand times a day.
And yet, in despite of this familiarity with his name, our certain
knowledge of Hudson's life is limited to a period (April 19, 1607-June
22,1611) of little more than four years. Of that period, during which he
did the work that has made him famous, we have a partial record--much
of it under his own hand--that certainly is authentic in its general
outlines until it reaches the culminating tragedy. At the very last, where
we most want the clear truth, we have only the one-sided account
presented by his murderers: and murderers, being at odds with moral
conventions generally, are not, as a rule, models of veracity. And so it
has fallen out that what we know about the end of Hudson's life, save
that it ended foully, is as uncertain as the facts of the earlier and larger
part of his life are obscure.
An American investigator, the late Gen. John Meredith Read, has gone
farthest in unearthing facts which enlighten this obscurity; but with no
better result than to establish certain strong probabilities as to Hudson's
ancestry and antecedents. By General Read's showing, the Henry

Hudson mentioned by Hakluyt as one of the charter members (February
6, 1554-5) of the Muscovy Company, possibly was our navigator's
grandfather. He was a freeman of London, a member of the Skinners
Company, and sometime an alderman. He died in December, 1555,
according to Stow, "of the late hote burning feuers, whereof died many
olde persons, so that in London died seven Aldermen in the space of
tenne monthes." They gave that departed worthy a very noble funeral!
Henry Machyn, who had charge of it, describes it in his delightful
"Diary" in these terms: "The xx day of December was bered at Sant
Donstones in the Est master Hare Herdson, altherman of London and
Skynner, and on of the masters of the gray frere in London with men
and xxiiij women in mantyl fresse [frieze?] gownes, a herse [catafalque]
of wax and hong with blake; and there was my lord mare and the
swordberer in blake, and dyvers oder althermen in blake, and the
resedew of the althermen, atys berying; and all the masters, boyth
althermen and odur, with ther gren staffes in ther hands, and all the
chylders of the gray frersse, and iiij in blake gownes bayring iiij gret
stayffes-torchys bornying, and then xxiiij men with torchys bornying;
and the morrow iij masses songe; and after to ys plasse to dener; and
ther was ij goodly whyt branches, and mony prestes and clarkes
syngying." Stow adds that the dead alderman's widow, Barbara, caused
to be set up in St. Dunstan's to his memory--and also to that of her
second husband, Sir Richard Champion, and prospectively to her
own--a monument in keeping with their worldly condition and with the
somewhat mixed facts of their triangular case. This was a "very faire
Alabaster Tombe, richly and curiously gilded, and two ancient figures
of Aldermen in scarlet kneeling, the one at the one end of the tombe in
a goodly arch, the other at the other end in like manner, and a comely
figure of a lady between them, who was wife to them both."
The names have been preserved in legal records of three of the
sons--Thomas, John and Edward--of this eminent Londoner: who
flourished so greatly in life; who was given so handsome a send-off
into eternity; and who, presumably, retains in that final state an
undivided one-half interest in the lady whose comely figure was
sculptured upon his tomb. General Read found record of a Henry
Hudson, mentioned by Stow as a citizen of London in the year 1558,

who may also have been a son of the alderman; of a Captain Thomas
Hudson, of Limehouse, who had a leading part in an expedition set