John Colman (died September 6, 1609) was a crew member of the Half Moon under Henry Hudson who was killed by Native Americans by an arrow to his neck.
On September 6, 1609, only five days after the arrival of the first Dutch and English sailors, John Colman was reportedly killed by attacking Native Americans by an arrow to his neck. [1] Colman was an "accomplished sailor" and served as second mate on Henry Hudson's ship. The Half Moon sailed into New York Harbor and was anchored between Coney Island and Sandy Hook. Colman was part of a 5 man crew that was aboard a rowboat that was scouting the area. Allegedly, two Lenape canoes filled with Native Americans attacked and fired a volley of arrows, killing Colman and wounding two others. [2] The survivors of the attack returned to the Half Moon at 10 a.m. on September 7, 1609, with Colman's body. He was buried that day either at what is now Coney Island, Staten Island, Sandy Hook or Keansburg, New Jersey. The forgotten location was then named Colman's Point. A contemporary account of his death was written in the journal of Robert Juet, the first mate of the Half Moon. [3] [4] The most likely point of Coleman's burial may have been Sandy Hook, or "Coleman's Point". [5]
"He was shot in the throat by an arrow: and as he had been a companion of Hudson's in his Polar adventures, having burind him on the beach, he named Sandy Hook "Coleman's Point," in honor of him"
-Excerpt from "The Catskill Mountains and the Region Around" 1867 [5]
The murder of John Colman was the basis for a poem by Thomas Frost, "The Death of Colman", where he writes:
Then prone he fell within the boat,
A flinthead arrow through his throat
And now full many a stealthy skiff
Shot out into the bay;
And swiftly, sadly, pulled we back
To where the Half Moon lay;
But he was dead our master wept
He smiled, brave heart, as though he slept.
His death is commemorated by a mural at the Hudson County Courthouse in Jersey City. The New York Times has called it "the first recorded murder in what became metropolitan New York". [3]
People of the Hudson Highlands area believed that Colman's spirit became the Dwerg, Heer of Dunderberg, a goblin who dressed in Dutch clothing, who raise storms to sink ships at World's End (the area just north of West Point where the Hudson is over 200 feet deep.) The Heer appears in writings by Washington Irving. [6]
Evan Pritichard, author of " [7] " speculates the attack on Colman occurred because he strayed too near a wampum making outpost, provoking a preemptive strike by wary Native peoples living near Manhattan.
New Netherland was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic located on the East Coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva Peninsula to Cape Cod. Settlements were established in what became the states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut, with small outposts in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
Henry Hudson was an English sea explorer and navigator during the early 17th century, best known for his explorations of present-day Canada and parts of the Northeastern United States.
Lenapehoking is widely translated as 'homelands of the Lenape', which in the 16th and 17th centuries, ranged along the Eastern seaboard from western Connecticut to Delaware, and encompassed the territory adjacent to the Delaware and lower Hudson river valleys, and the territory between them.
The New York–New Jersey Harbor Estuary, also known as the Hudson-Raritan Estuary, is in the northeastern states of New Jersey and New York on the East Coast of the United States. The system of waterways of the Port of New York and New Jersey forms one of the most intricate natural harbors in the world and one of the busiest ports of the United States. The harbor opens onto the New York Bight in the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast and Long Island Sound to the northeast.
The year 1609 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Cape May consists of a peninsula and barrier island system in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is roughly coterminous with Cape May County and runs southwards from the New Jersey mainland, separating Delaware Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. The southernmost point in both New Jersey and the northeastern United States lies on the cape. A number of resort communities line the Atlantic side of the cape, including Ocean City, the most populous community on the cape, The Wildwoods, known for its architecturally significant hotel district, and the city of Cape May, which has served as a resort community since the mid-1700s, making it the oldest such resort in the U.S.
The Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York, was a 225-foot-tall, 14-story hotel that opened on May 5, 1927, on the Riegelmann Boardwalk at West 29th Street. The Half Moon was built to help Coney Island compete with the beach resort Atlantic City, New Jersey. The hotel was designed by the architectural firm of George B. Post and Sons and built by the Cauldwell-Wingate Co.
Weehawken Cove is a cove on the west bank of the Hudson River between the New Jersey municipalities of Hoboken to the south and Weehawken to the north. At the perimeter of the cove are completed sections the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway, offering views of Manhattan and the Palisades. The name Weehawken comes from the Lenape, and can translate as "at the end of", either the Hudson Palisades or the stream which flowed from them into the cove, later the site of the nearby Lincoln Tunnel.
Halve Maen was a Dutch East India Company jacht that sailed into what is now New York Harbor in September 1609. She had a length of 21 metres and was commissioned by the VOC Chamber of Amsterdam in the Dutch Republic to covertly find a northern passage to Asia. The ship was captained by Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the service of the Dutch Republic.
The Twelve Men was a council of citizens chosen by the residents of New Netherland to advise Director Willem Kieft on relations with the Native Americans in the wake of the murder of Claes Swits. Elected on 29 August 1641, the temporary council was the first representational form of democracy in the Dutch colony. The next two such bodies were known as the Eight Men and the Nine Men.
The history of New York City has been influenced by the prehistoric geological formation during the last glacial period of the territory that is today New York City. The area was shortly inhabited by the Lenape; after initial European exploration in the 17th century, the Dutch established New Amsterdam in 1624. In 1664, the British conquered the area and renamed it New York.
The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, is a physiographic province and subrange of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York.
The Raritan Bayshore is a region in central sections in the state of New Jersey. It is the area around Raritan Bay from The Amboys to Sandy Hook, in Middlesex and Monmouth counties, including the towns of Perth Amboy, South Amboy, Sayreville, Old Bridge, Matawan, Aberdeen, Keyport, Union Beach, Hazlet, Keansburg, Middletown, Atlantic Highlands, and Highlands. It is the northernmost part of the Jersey Shore, located just south of New York City. At Keansburg is a traditional amusement park while at Sandy Hook are found ocean beaches. The Sadowski Parkway beach area in Perth Amboy, which lies at the mouth of the Raritan River, was deemed the "Riviera of New Jersey" by local government. In recent years many of the beaches on the Bayshore area have been rediscovered and upgraded.
The Wappinger were an Eastern Algonquian Munsee-speaking Native American people from what is now southern New York and western Connecticut.
Pavonia was the first European settlement on the west bank of the North River that was part of the seventeenth-century province of New Netherland in what would become the present Hudson County, New Jersey.
Bergen was a part of the 17th century province of New Netherland, in the area in northeastern New Jersey along the Hudson and Hackensack Rivers that would become contemporary Hudson and Bergen Counties. Though it only officially existed as an independent municipality from 1661, with the founding of a village at Bergen Square, Bergen began as a factory at Communipaw circa 1615 and was first settled in 1630 as Pavonia. These early settlements were along the banks of the North River across from New Amsterdam, under whose jurisdiction they fell.
The Catskill Escarpment, often referred to locally as just the Escarpment or the Great Wall of Manitou, and known as the Catskill Front to geologists, is the range forming the northeastern corner of the Catskill Mountains in Greene and Ulster counties in the U.S. state of New York. It rises very abruptly from the Hudson Valley to summits above 3,000 feet (910 m) in elevation, including three of the Catskill High Peaks, with almost no foothills. The plateau to the south and west averages 2,000 feet (610 m) above sea level.
The Navesink, or Navisink, were a group of Lenape who inhabited the Raritan Bayshore near Sandy Hook and Mount Mitchill in eastern New Jersey in the United States.
Half Moon is a replica of Halve Maen, the famed ship that English mariner Henry Hudson sailed up the Hudson River in 1609. The ship was constructed between 1988 and 1989 at the Snow Dock in Albany, New York, its construction commissioned by Dr. Andrew Hendricks. The ship's construction fulfilled Dr. Hendricks' dream to use the historic icon as an educational instrument, bridging the gap between the American way of life and the Dutch heritage in New York state. In March 2015, the replica ship departed the Hudson River Valley to a new home, Hoorn, The Netherlands. In February 2019, it was announced that the Hoorn government would not extend their contract to serve as the Dutch homeport of the Half Moon. Hoorn's contract expired on April 1, 2020. The Half Moon is currently at port in Kampen, Netherlands. The board of directors of the New Netherland Museum have not announced what the future of the ship may hold.
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