Story - The White Whale in the Hudson River

In 1647 colonists of New Netherland living along the Hudson River must have had a hard time believing their eyes. To their amazement a whale swam by on March 29th of that year, and the whale, it is said, was all white. Although the mammal obviously belonged in salt water, it swam up the Hudson which at the time was called Noort Rivier (North River), all the way past present day Albany. The Dutch colonist Anthony Hodges, secretary of the subcolony of Rensselaerswijck, wrote notes about it. Not only did he think it a mystery that the whale was white and was swimming in fresh water, he also marveled about the fact that the animal had avoided the many sand bars between Manhattan and Rensselaerswijck.
 
He noted that the whale returned later that night to swim back toward the ocean. Mr. Hodges also remarked that on that very day the first thunder and lightning of the year 1647 occurred – as if that had something to do with it.

In any case, it must have been an event that everyone living near the Noort Rivier turned out for. Even today, with lots of entertainment and amusement from television, movies, and social media, a whale in the Hudson River – and certainly a white one – could count on lots of attention. In 2016 the media did report a whale in the Hudson, and it probably had been there the year before. But it didn’t make it past Manhattan. And it wasn’t white.
 
Herman Melville, who lived along the Hudson River in Lansingburgh, north of Albany, was the son of Maria Gansevoort. The Gansevoorts were a prominent family of Dutch descent. Melville’s most famous book, ‘Moby Dick’, was about a white whale. It’s tempting to fantasize about a possible connection between his book and the white whale in the Hudson River, which may have been talked about in the centuries thereafter. However, a more direct link is probably the fact that Herman Melville worked as a whaler for a while.