On April 4, 1609, Henry Hudson, in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, departed Amsterdam in command of the ship "Halve Maen" (Half Moon). On September 3 he reached the estuary of the Hudson River. He sailed up the Hudson River to about Albany near the confluence of the Mohawk River and the Hudson. His voyage was used to establish Dutch claims to the region and to the fur trade that prospered there after a trading post was established at Albany in 1614.