Claverack Landing: A Riverport Develops
Although it is often assumed that American whaling began in colonial coastal New England, it actually started much earlier and further south in the Mid-Atlantic. The Dutch West Indies Company saw an opportunity to get rich in the whale oil trade when they observed the Lenape hunting whales in Poutaxat or "near the falls" (Delaware Bay). Whale fishery began in the Dutch New Netherlands in 1630 when Captain David Petrus Devries sailed on the Walvis, which means whale in Dutch, from Holland on behalf of the company. He brought with him 28 men and supplies to build a patroonship or colony on the western bank of the Delaware Bay.
Commercial whaling did not begin in New England until the 1650s but it went on to far surpass the Dutch endeavor. How did our city of Hudson, one hundred miles upriver from the Atlantic, become a lucrative port in our nation’s whaling industry in the late 1700s?
1774 Map of Claverack Landing from Columbia County Clerk's office as shown in Margaret Schram's Hudson's Merchants and Whalers
In 1662, Jan Franz Van Hoesen purchased a tract of land from the Mohicans, which included the riverfront area known as Claverack Landing. His purchase extended along the Hudson River, was bound by Stottville Creek on the North, the South Bay near Mount Merino to the South, and on the East, by Claverack Creek. It took in present day Hudson, Greenport, and parts of Claverack.
There is a dispute amongst scholars as to why the area was named Claverack. The name is derived from the Dutch words “claver,” which means “clover” and “rack” or “reach,” a term used by the early Dutch mariners to define a certain distance on the river. The landscape included fields of white clover native to this land. However, there is another possibility: the translation of the Van Hoesen “Indian” deed of 1662 describes Van Hoesen’s parcel as including“three of the Klavers.”
From Robert M. Terry, The Hudsonian: Old Times and New, 1895
In an early mariner’s journal, cliffs at this location are mentioned as “three bare spots which appear on the land,...possibly cliffs in the shape of a trefoil.” These cliffs are indicated on a section of the 1799 Penfield Map as “The Clavers” in the area of today’s Promenade Hill.
Originally Claverack Landing’s commercial endeavours consisted of two wharves, a store and a gristmill purchased and run by Jeremiah Hogeboom. In addition to fishing, the fertile and productive farming inland led to profitable trading with the Native Americans and Dutch settlements in the area. Canoes and boats were loaded continuously at the “landing” with flour, grain, lumber, hay and herring. Any goods brought inland were transported on wagons that led from the river, up Ferry Street to Partition Street, turning left at what is present day Fifth Street, before turning on what is now Green Street.
By 1768, Colonel John Van Alen had constructed a wharf and warehouses near The Clavers, which were next to the existing wharves owned by the second generation of Hogebooms. This is what comprised Claverack Landing and the demand for water lots began to grow. It is unclear if Van Alen or Hogeboom owned their own sloops, but they did own warehouses to store goods until new ships arrived and a storefront, where scarce items brought in by the sloops could be purchased.
The first census was taken in 1714, and the population of Claverack, including Claverack Landing, was 219 residents, 16 of whom were enslaved. At the time of the American Revolution, Claverack Landing was part of a small farming community whose income was derived from trading with the Native Americans and other nearby Dutch settlements.
Claverack Landing, Hudson, NY ca. 1764, Len Tantillo
Tantillo initially created a reconstruction of a surveyor’s drawing made in 1774 included in Margaret Schram’s Merchants & Whalers. Inscribed on the survey is the information: A draught of Claverack Landing taken this 21st September, 1764, at the request of William H. Ludlow, Henry J. Rensselaer, Stephen Hogeboom and other inhabitants of Claverack. P. William Ellison.
Kaaterskill Ketch, Hudson River, 1645, Len Tantillo
This painting depicts a Dutch ketch (a 2 mast sailboat originally from The Netherlands) of approximately 35 tons at low tide at the mouth of the Catskill Creek in 1645. During the 17th century the Hudson River was the primary trading route inland for the Dutch colonial possession of New Netherland. The river connected the settlement of Fort Orange (Albany) with the major transshipment hub of New Amsterdam (New York City). The ketch depicted is based on the research of the noted maritime historian, William A. Baker, from his book Colonial Vessels.
Jaspar Danckarts Sketch of whales in the Hudson River
1799 Penfield Map illustrating "The Clavers"