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Stranded in a Strange Land

Dutch trader Adrian Block reaches America, and then sees his ship destroyed by fire

By Steve Wick | Staff Writer

Few visitors to New York had more problems than Adrian Block. Four years after Henry Hudson explored the big river that now bears his name, a Dutch ship called the Tiger left Holland en route for the same waters. Block, an enterprising Dutchman who had made two earlier visits to these waters, was the captain.

From a business point of view, the area was a gold mine waiting to be dug. Unlike Hudson -- who sailed into New York waters hoping to get somewhere else -- Block sailed here on purpose. An attorney in the Netherlands, Block was an inveterate explorer with an eye for profitable enterprises. The market for furs in Europe was enormous, and his earlier visits had convinced him that he could fill up his ship with furs and transport them back to the Netherlands for sale as coats and hats. Fortunes were waiting to be made.

Block's third voyage west began in the summer of 1613. Instead of approaching the harbor from the south, the way Hudson did, Block sailed down the coast and approached from the north, meeting coastal Algonquian Indians along the way and collecting some of their highly prized sea shells.

Two months after he left the Netherlands, he passed through the narrows that guard the entrance to what is now New York Harbor. Just where he went from there is not known, but within a few weeks he was anchored almost where the river emptied into the harbor, nearly at the southern tip of modern-day Manhattan Island, his ship filled to the gunwales with beaver and otter pelts.

While Block and his crew were camped on the island -- close to where the World Trade Center now sits -- disaster struck. While they stood helpless on the shore, the Tiger caught fire and burned to the waterline.

``I think we can all imagine what it must have been like to watch their ship burn,'' said Charles Gehring, director of the New Netherlands Project in Albany. ``They were thousands of miles from home -- with no way to get home.''

The story of what happened to Block after the Tiger was destroyed by fire is one of the great sea stories of all time. Over a long, hard winter, Block and his crew did the incredible -- they built a new ship.

``What they did was fantastic,'' Gehring said. ``Just fantastic.''

Block's men cut down trees, hewed the trees into planks, and with whatever tools they could salvage from the Tiger, they built a 44-foot-long sailing vessel. They christened it the Restless, a name that may well have reflected their moods during the long winter, and slid it into the river to begin a long voyage back to the Netherlands. A voyage in which they discovered that the land mass east of where the Tiger had burned was an island -- a place known today as Long Island.

It is likely that the ship was built with few, if any, nails they were able to retrieve from the wreckage of the Tiger. The mast was hewed from a single tall tree. What they used for a sail is not known, nor just how long it took to construct the ship.

``Another incredible thing is that Block kept a journal,'' Gehring said. ``We know this because a Dutch historian named Johannes DeLaet said he read it. This is our only clue, but that journal has never been found. We can only hope that one day it is found. But it is clear that Block had people on board who were carpenters and blacksmiths and others who could get the job done. But we don't know what he was thinking when the ship burned, how he felt, or just how they did the work. We just know they did it.''

Block's journey is significant not only because of the construction of the Restless. It is likely, Gehring said, that Block found the keys to the Dutch's new kingdom -- that upstate New York Indians such as the Mohawks would trade furs for wampum.

``I think it's Block who takes the wampum up the river, sees that the Mohawks were traveling hundreds of miles to the coastline to get wampum of their own, and strikes up a deal to trade shells for furs. He sees this and is the first to start it.''

In the spring of 1614, after a long winter making the ship and living in huts, Block prepared the Restless for the long, uncertain trip home.