December 2009
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David Gargill’s most recent article for Harper’s Magazine, “Not What It Takes: Running for President on Less Than $2,000 a Day,” appeared in the February 2008 issue. He lives in upstate New York.
On the shoulder of Mount Marcy, New York’s highest peak, it rises. From lofty yet humble beginnings at Lake Tear of the Clouds, the river winds through the Adirondacks, coursing 300 miles south to the harbor at the foot of Manhattan. Henry Hudson, an Englishman lost on the way to Cathay, arrived at the estuary’s mouth in 1609, following its path until declining depth and salinity disqualified it as a potential northwest passage to “the islands of spicery,” the ultimate prize of a cartographically challenged age. His Dutch sponsors, hoping to emulate French success in the fur trade, founded New Amsterdam beside what they termed the “North River.” In 1664, the English seized all of New Netherland, rechristening New Amsterdam “New York” and the North River the “Hudson.”
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