The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-03-01
ANCIENT HISTORY.
Facts and Theories Con-
Corning the Ea. rly Days
of New JERSEY.
THE ORIGINAL MANHATTAN
Henry Hudson in Newark Bay
The First Census-Was
Jersey Vineland.
THE ORIGINAL

lAc bureau u STATISTICS at Washing
ton has prepared a mass of information
concerning population, finance, agricul-
ture, etc, in which much is told of New
Jersey. This report states that the first
census taken in New Jersey was taken in
1880. and according to the documents the
real history of the State started about
that tirne. As a matter Of fact, several
censuses had been taken before that time
in the colonial days, and there is also
much of great interest In the history Of
New Jersey for much over a century pre-
vious to 1890. Mr.. William r. Weeks, of
Newark, who has for some time been busy
getting together information pertaining to
the early lays of New Jersey, gave in
q recent issue of the Sunday Call" the
following, which is the result of several
months of careful RESEARCH, and which
gives many facts not generally known be-
FORE
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries
New Jersey was frequently visited by the
Norsennen, though their settlements were
not continuous and their location is a mat
ter of much doubt, no evidence other
than in their writings being left to tell
the story, except, perhaps, the tradition
Of the Indians Of their learning from the
whites the use of Intoxicating liquors.
This tradition has been by some writer's
wrongly attributed to the Dutch, at the
time of Henry Hudson's discovery but
that 10 now proved to be incorrect.
The Norsemen gave TO New Jersey the
name of vinland, because they found wild
grapes here in p~rofusion. The Savage In
stinct had no thought of the grapes
other than to pluck ard eat them, and to
dry them for use during the winter. Much
effort and printers ink have been wasted
in the vain attempt to locate these Morse
settlements on the Massachusetts coast,
but, while they no doubt visited those
shores, their much-loved vinland, the
land of flowers as we'll as vines, must be
located where the climate was more gen
ial and the breeze from the ocean more
temperate. Amboy, protected from the
Northerly blasts by the hills of Staten Is
land, has been thought to have been the
scene of their operations.
which the savage contended for the mas
terry Of the great waterway se ,a5o nar the G Goa-
the example of the Norsemen. explored
the shores of the Raritan, and after try
ing to force a passage to China by way
the mosquitoes and mud, assembled the
following year, 1910, brought another ship
from the indians on New York Island a
murderous lot of savages, at war before
and after. with all the world, ppe col
mate Colman, the Dutch made their first
settlement at Hoboken, the original Man
na-hata or manhattan of the Indians,
which name they gay it, meaning to tell
Hudson that it was an island, the name
being. merely an equivalent for the Eng
lish word of island.
Hoboken then was, and continued until
the present generation at high tides, an
island in fact as In name. The Dutch
bought Hoboken from the Indians in 1915,
who sold them as much land as a bull
locks hide would cover, the Dutch cut
ting the hide into strips and using 1t as
a string to encompass rather than to COW
er the land they wished to buy. The In
dams were at first amused by their clev-
ernesss, but rave their consent to the i'm
position. Some settlers were left to trade
with the Indians, and frequent visits were
made by Dutch ships, the settlements ex-
and Long Island, and to the Delaware
River at Gloucester. 1t was NOT posi-
BILE for the Dutch to overcome the oppo-
sitfon of the Indians to their settling
New York until 1926, when they induced
the Indians there to sell them the island,
to which the am of Manhattan was
then extended, all the Dutch settlements
then and for many years being known as
the Manhattans' including even those
on the Delaware River,
The first census of the settlements in
East Jersey, which they called Achter
Coll, or Aghter Gull, the country behind
the Coll. or Bay, was In September, 1873.
ana the men only were enumerated. IT'S
object was to compel the English settlers
TO render allegiance to the Dutch. In the
absence of Governor Carteret In England.
1t resulted as follows:-