After completing the engraving for John James Audubon's The Birds of America in 1838, Robert Havell, Jr. disposed of his engraving business and left England, sailing for New York in 1839 with his wife and daughter. After staying briefly with Audubon and his family and then living for a short while in Brooklyn, Havell took up residence in the town of Sing Sing, now Ossining, in Westchester County, where he lived for the next fifteen years. Havell later moved to Tarrytown, where he built a house near Sunnyside, the home of Washington Irving, which he helped design. Havell spent the remainder of his life sketching along the Hudson, a subject that had captivated him since his arrival in the United States.

Like many artists before and after him, Havell was attracted to the Hudson and its ever-changing appearance. His depictions record the river as a life-line connecting New York's upstate counties with the port of New York, then the largest and most important on the Eastern seaboard. For example View of the Hudson at Haverstraw Bay includes a complete array of modes of transportation available at the time. The river is filled with steam-driven paddle wheelers carrying both cargo and passengers, as well as celebrated Hudson River Sloops, the workhorse vessels of the river. In addition, a steam engine moves through the landscape on tracks laid along the river's shoreline. Both trains and river-borne vessels stopped at various towns such as Sing Sing as they transported raw materials down river to the port of New York for export abroad. Havell has composed the picture with an open, expansive horizon -- a gesture to the seemingly limitless potential of American resources and commerce.