Henry Hudson
Henry Hudson, d. 1611, English navigator.
Little is known of Hudson's early life. In 1607, Hudson, working
for the English Muscovy Company, reached the polar pack ice in a
search for the Northeast
Passage. An attempt in the following year took him as far as
Nova Zembla. In 1609 he sailed to America for the Dutch East
India Company, and traveled to Albany, 150 miles up what was
later named the Hudson River. The trip gave the Dutch a claim on
the area. In 1610 he sailed again, passing through the Hudson
Strait and into Hudson Bay in a search for the Northwest Passage.
There his crew mutinied in 1611, and cast him adrift with his son
and seven others, where he died.
