A HISTORY OF
THE PARISH OF TRINITY CHURCH
 

chapter I.

EARLY DISCOVERIES AND RIVAL CLAIMANTS IN NORTH AMERICA.

Pre-Columbian Voyages—The Cabots—Verrazano—The Discoverer of our Bay and
River—Cartier and AUefonsce—First Celebration of the Holy Communion by the
Anglican Rite—The Virginia Colony—Later Appearance of the Dutch—Hudson's
Voyage, and Reconnaissance up the River San Antonio, now known as the Hudson—
Claim of the Dutch to Rights as Discoverers steadily resisted by the English—The
West India Company—The North Virginia Company.

THE chroniclers of old time in beginning their narra¬
tives were wont to take a departure from the epoch
of the creation of the world. Of the class of annals referred
to are the Nuremberg Chronicle; the Historia Ecclesi-
astica of Petrus Comestorius ; the Chronicles of Orosius ;
the bulky Chronycke Van Hollandt, which commences
" Van't beginne des werelts," and runs on, " tot op Keyser
Karel den vijfden " ; not to mention the History of New
York, by our own learned and veracious countryman, Die-
drich Knickerbocker. It is not proposed to start so far
back in the present history ; on the contrary, mention
shall be omitted of many things which have some claim, if
not a strong one, to attention. Thus, for instance, no
special reference shall be made to the voyages referred to
by Pliny, nor to the acts of the pre-Columbian navigators ;