Hudson River Path

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History
The Hudson River Path followed the Hudson River on its 315-mile (507 km) watercourse that flows from north to south through eastern New York State in the United States. The River Path did not follow every part of the River but most and appears that Hudson River Path was the final part of the Great Trail into the East coast. The river begins at Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York. The river flows southward past the state capital at Albany and then eventually forms the boundary between New York City and the U.S. state of New Jersey at its mouth before emptying into Upper New York Bay. The Hudson River begins several miles north of Tahawus at Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York. The Hudson is joined at Waterford (north of Albany) by the Mohawk River, its major tributary, just south of which the Federal Dam separates the Upper Hudson River Valley from the Lower Hudson River Valley or simply the Hudson River Valley. The Hudson river then flows south, passing between the Catskill Mountains and the Taconic Mountains, widening significantly at the Tappan Zee, finally flowing between Manhattan Island and the New Jersey Palisades and into the Atlantic Ocean at New York Bay, an arm of the ocean, where it forms New York Harbor.

The original Erie Canal, opened in 1825 to connect the Hudson with Lake Erie, emptied into the Hudson at the Albany Basin, just three miles (5 km) south of the Federal Dam in Troy (at mile 134). The canal enabled shipping between cities on the Great Lakes and Europe via the Atlantic Ocean. The New York State Canal System, the successor to the Erie Canal, runs into the Hudson River north of Troy and uses the Federal Dam as the Lock 1 and natural waterways whenever possible.

The river is named after Henry Hudson, an Englishman sailing for the Dutch East India Company, who explored it in 1609. It had previously been observed by Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano sailing for King Francis I of France in 1524, as he became the first European known to have entered the Upper Bay, but he considered the river to be an estuary. The Dutch called the river the "North River" – with the Delaware River called the "South River" – and it formed the spine of the Dutch colony of New Netherland. Settlement of the colony clustered around the Hudson, and its strategic importance as the gateway to the American interior led to years of competition between the English and the Dutch over control of the river and colony.

Records
Records of the migration into New York and the Hudson River Path area may be found in the following:

State Records
New York

County Records
Clinton County, New York Essex County, New York Warren County, New York Saratoga County, New York Schenectady County, New York Washington County, New York Albany County, New York Rensselaer County, New York Columbia County, New York Greene County, New York Ulster, New York Dutchess County, New York Orange County, New York Putnam County, New York Rockland County, New York Westchester County, New York New York County, New York Queens County, New York Kings County, New York Richmond County, New York

Websites
Wikipedia Hudson River History Hudson History THE HUDSON RIVER: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW TRAVEL ALONG THE HUDSON