John Colman
I have found a book entitled Dutch and English on the Hudson by Maud Wilder Goodwin.The book lies in the public domain as it was published in 1919.I am currently working on getting the book up on my homepage (http://www.extremezone.com/~misskris/tree)
Here is a passage with a John Colman listed.
"Everything seemed to breathe assurance of peaceful relations between the red man and the white; but if the newcomers didnot at the moment realize the nature of the Indians, their eyes were opened to the possiblities of treachery by the happenings of the next day. John Colman and a boat's crew were sent out to take further soundings before the Half Moon should proceed on her journey.As the boat was returning to report a safe course ahead, the crew, only five in number, were set upon by two war-canoes filled with Indians, whose volley of arrows struck terror to their hearts. Colman was mortally wounded in the throat by an arrow, and two of his companions were seriously, though not fatally, hurt.Keeping up a running fight, the survivors escaped under comver of darkeness.During the night, as they crouched with their dead comrade in the boat, the sailors must have thought the minutes hours asn the hours days.To add to their discomfort rain was falling, and they drifted forlornly at the mercy ofthe current.Whenat last dawn came, they could make out the shio at a great distance; but it was ten o'clock in the morning before they reached her safe shelter.So ended the brief dream of ideal friendship and confidence between the red men and the whites.
After Colman had been buried in a grave by the side of the beautiful sheet of water which he had known for so short a time, the Half Moon worked her way cautiously from the Lower Bay through the Narrows to the inner harbor and reached the tip of the island which stands on its head.What is now a bewildering mass of towers adn palaces of undustry, looking down upon a far-extended fleet f steam and dailing vesseles, was then a point, wooded to the water's edge, with a scattered Indian village nestling among the trees."
After Colman had been buried in a grave by the side of the beautiful sheet of water which he had known for so short a time, the Half Moon worked her way cautiously from the Lower Bay through the Narrows to the inner harbor and reached the tip of the island which stands on its head.What is now a bewildering mass of towers adn palaces of undustry, looking down upon a far-extended fleet f steam and dailing vesseles, was then a point, wooded to the water's edge, with a scattered Indian village nestling among the trees."Enjoy...