Bridgeton Pioneer

WHALES IN THE HUDSON.

They Gave the Dutch Colonists a Scare In the Winter of 1646.

In 1646 the colony of Rensselaerswyck had a very hard winter of it indeed. On the 25th of November the North river was closed and remained frozen for four months. A very high freshet followed, which destroyed a number of houses in the vicinity, nearly carried away the fort and inflicted considerable damage in the colony.

This, however, was not an unusual thing to the colonists, who in Holland had been accustomed to equally hard winters. Much worse was the appearance of a sea monster that they had never seen in their native country.

"At the same time as the freshet," says Antonie de Hooges, secretary of Rensselaerswyck, "there appeared before us a certain fish of considerable size, snow white in color, round in the body and blowing water out of his head. What it portended God the Lord only knew. At the same instant this fish appeared we had the first thunder and lightning this year." The public astonishment had scarcely subsided when "another monster was seen, estimated at forty feet in length, of a brown color, having fins in his back and ejecting water in like manner high in the air."

This fish "which had first ascended the river (the North river) stranded on his return to sea on an island some forty miles from the mouth of the river, near which place four others grounded this year."

This island goes since by the name of Walvisch or 'Whale island.'—Gazette de Hollande.