German Lutherans from the lower Palatinate on the Rhine, to the later arrival of the English, Scotch, French and Irish. The Lutherans were religious exiles, whose villages had been burnt, whose homes had been destroyed and whose strong Protestant faith alone survived the wreck of their fortunes. Of this poverty-stricken company, nine with their wives and children were sent up Hudson's River to occupy the present site of Newburgh.
The first intention of Queen Anne of England to send these Germans to Jamaica where white people were needed, was set aside "lest the climate be not agreeable to their constitutions, being so much hotter than that of Germany." Apropos of the intelligent consideration of these Commissioners of Emigration in 1709, one questions if the half-clad travellers who are described in an old document as "very necessitous," found the climate of Hudson's River agreeable to their constitutions in winter-time.
In winter time! Sailing up the river in summer-time past Sleepy Hollow and Spuyten Duyvil, beyond the wide Tappan Zee, through the Gate of the Highlands where the waters
