The History of Hudson City

Hudson City was founded in 1803 by Emil Hudson, a wealthy merchant, and Andre LeMastre, an expatriate Frenchman drawn to the New World by the promise of the nascent American republic. Hudson was seeking a place where he could establish a trading post and center of commerce. He recruited LeMastre, who had some training in architecture, to help him find the best location for the city and establish its layout. After considerable searching and exploration, Hudson settled on a site at the mouth of the Stewart River. 

Within a few weeks, Hudson had arranged to purchase the land from the government, had begun ordering building materials and had started to advertise for workmen and settlers. Meanwhile LeMastre had been hard at work establishing a preliminary plan for the city, which called for a network of broad roads in a gridwork pattern. The plan found favor with Hudson, and his legions of hired workers soon began to put it into effect.

Over the next two decades Hudson City grew rapidly. Not only merchants and workmen but many different types of craftsmen came to live there, and young farmers seeking good land moved into the area to provide the city with food. Most of the growth took place on the North Bank of the Stewart, but small settlements also sprang up on the South Bank. From 1825 until just after the Civil War, Hudson City continued to grow steadily. The War depleted the city's manpower somewhat, but served only to slow, not stop, its growth. 

In 1867, disaster struck Hudson City in what has become known as the Hudson City Riots. They began as an attack on the newly-formed black shantytowns that had formed just south of the Stewart River and the city proper after the end of the Civil War. Hudsonite members of the Ku Klux Klan considered the town, known as Freetown, to be a source of crime, sin and vice, and were determined to drive the blacks away. Led by Aloysius Flint and his band of followers (known as the White Riders), these men descended upon Freetown and began assaulting its inhabitants and setting fires. The blacks fought back, and the attack soon became a chaotic melee which gradually worked its way north as Flint and the rest were slowly pushed back by the force of numbers. Somehow, once they crossed back over the Stewart, several fires were started in Hudson City which soon spread out of control and burned almost two-thirds of the city to the ground. Exactly how these fires started has never been determined. Some people believe that the blacks set them in revenge for the attack, but Hudson City civil rights leaders have maintained to this day that Aloysius Flint and the White Riders deliberately started them so that the inhabitants of Freetown would be blamed for them. 

The citizenry soon began to rebuild the city, and within twenty years most of the damage had been repaired. The people killed by the fire, and by the influenza epidemic of 1888 that killed nearly one-fifth of the populace, were soon replaced by other settlers, including many immigrants from all over Europe. During this time many ethnic neighborhoods such as Little Italy got their start. So too did Chinatown, as increasing numbers of Orientals came to Hudson City in the hopes of becoming wealthy. 

However, this new wave of inhabitants also brought increasing amounts of crime. The Hudson City Police Department was able to keep most of it under control, but many historians see this period as the beginning of Hudson City's crime problem. Ethnic crime, such as Italian "Black Hand" extortion rings, was particularly prevalent and difficult to stop.

World War I ironically brought Hudson City new prosperity even as it took many of its young men away. War industries located in and near the city brought much new wealth, particularly to the Hudson City Shipyards and various arms manufacturers. 

The new prosperity carried over into the 1920s. However, that era had its problems, too, such as Prohibition. The Volstead Act gave many criminals the opportunity to prosper and form gangs. Of particular note are the various Mafia families that got their start in this period, such as the Morelli and Torccone families. Also of significance is the fact that Hudson City's first true crimefighter arose at this time to oppose these men. This enigmatic man, known only as the Raven, was assisted in his work by his companion, the lovely Velvet Phantom, and a group of agents known as the Midnight Brigade (which was the inspiration for The Master of Crime's Midnight Syndicate). The Raven fought the gangsters all over Hudson City, and also dealt with some allegedly "mystic" threats to the city, relying only on his strong right arm, his unerring accuracy and a deck of Tarot-like cards which he claimed could be used to foretell the future. 

In the 1930s, as the tide of organized crime continued to rise, the Raven was joined by several other "costumed do-gooders," including the Futurian (who used advanced technology such as his "Electro-pistol," a sort of early version of a taser, to fight crime) and The Cardinal. FBI agent Sam Spivey was also a well-known crimebuster during this period, and occasionally worked with these other crimefighters in a group dubbed "the Champions of Justice" by newspaper reporters.

World War II had about the same effect on Hudson City as World War I didÑan increase in prosperity muted only by the tremendous loss of life caused by the war. The Mafia and other criminal organizations subtly assisted in the war effort by preventing strikes by key workers. After the war, they returned to business as normal. During the Fifties and early Sixties there were no "costumed crimefighters" in Hudson City, but the city was relatively safe and stable and continued to grow.

The late Sixties, however, was a bad period for Hudson City. Growth slowed down considerably and unrest increased, spurred by protests over the Vietnam War. The worst incident of this period took place during the summer of 1967. A march by blacks to celebrate civil rights progress and commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Hudson City Riots turned into a riot itself as white bigots pelted marchers with stones and bottles, prompting retaliation by blacks both in Freetown (which had long since become simply a part of Hudson City) and in the rest of the city. Millions of dollars of damage were caused, as well as 21 deaths and untold injuries. 

The Seventies was a period of no or slow growth for Hudson City, as crime and other social problems continued to increase. Several vigilante crimefighters were active during this period, including the first Black Whisper, Shatter and Jason Scorpion. All of them were dead or retired by 1979. 

In the 1980s the crime problem only worsened, and many citizens fled the city itself for one of its many outlying suburbs, continuing a pattern of "white flight" that began after the '68 Riots. Several other vigilantes got their start during this decade. 1986 saw the first appearance of the most violent of them, the so-called Harbinger of Justice, who remains at large to this day and is considered responsible for more than 2,000 murders. Other crimefighters who first took the streets in the eighties include Renegade, The Sandman, the Samaritan, Black Whisper II, and Scarecrow. 

All of these crimefighters, having learned from the mistakes their Seventies predecessors made, are still alive and fighting crime today (except for Black Whisper II, who was murdered by the costumed criminal Predator). The Samaritan maintains semi-official relations with the police, whereas the Sandman and Scarecrow are wanted men. All of them (with the exception of Scarecrow) have tried in the past to capture or thwart the Harbinger of Justice, and have succeeded on several occasions, though they have never managed to hold him captive for more than a few hours.

Today, Hudson City is a thriving city which is nonetheless plagued by high levels of crime and social malaise. The same problems that afflict other urban areasÑorganized crime, drug dealing, drive-by shootings, and a thousand other evilsÑaffect it as well; in fact, surveys show that Hudson City has one of the highest crime rates in America. Still, citizens and businesses remain, willing to put up with the dangers of Hudson City to take advantage of its many opportunities and its unique "mystique."