Hudson, Henry

c.1570-c.1611. English explorer and navigator. His three exploration voyages were attempts to find a Northwest passage to China. Hired by the Dutch East India Company in 1609, on his second voyage, in the Half Moon, he sailed down the Maine coast, stopping in Penobscot Bay and cutting some trees for masts. Passing Cape Cod, he sailed south to the Chesapeake then up the Atlantic Coast attempting to get into the Delaware Bay and finally finding and sailing up what is now called the Hudson River. This gave the Dutch their claim to this area. On his third voyage in 1611, he sailed up into what is now Hudson's Bay and was set loose in a small boat by a mutinous crew.