History of North Bergen, NJ
Colonial era
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
At the time of European colonization the area was the territory of Hackensack tribe of the Lenape, who maintained a settlement, Espatingh, on the west side of the hills. And where a Dutch trading post was established after the Peach Tree War. In 1658, Peter Stuyvesant, then Director-General of New Netherland, repurchased from them the area now encompassed by the municipalities of Hudson County east of the Hackensack River. In 1660 he granted permission to establish the semi-autonomous colony of Bergen, with the main village located at today’s Bergen Square, considered to be the first chartered municipality in what would became the state of New Jersey. At the time, the area of North Bergen was heavily forested, traversed by paths used by the indigenous and colonizing population and became known as Bergen Woods, a name recalled in today’s neighborhood. After the 1664 surrender of Fort Amsterdam the entire New Netherland colony came into the possession of the British, who established the Province of New Jersey.
In 1682, the East Jersey legislature formed the state’s first four counties, including Bergen County, which consisted of all the land in the peninsula between the Hackensack and Hudson Rivers; that is, the eastern portions of what today is Bergen and Hudson Counties. In 1693, Bergen County was divided into two townships: Hackensack Township in the north, and Bergen Township, encompassing the Bergen Neck peninsula, in the south. The border between the two townships is the current Hudson-Bergen county line. While settlement was sparse, communities developed along the Bergen Turnpike at the Three Pigeons and Maisland, later New Durham. French botanist Andr © Michaux developed his gardens nearby. On the Hudson River, Bulls Ferry became an important landing for crossings to Manhattan. While ostensibly under British control during the American Revolutionary War, the area was patrolled by the Americans on foraging, espionage, and raiding expeditions.
Toponymy, secession, and urbanization
On February 22, 1838, Jersey City was incorporated as a separate municipality,[28] and in 1840 Hudson County, comprising the city and Bergen Township, was created from the southern portion of Bergen County. North Bergen was incorporated as a township on April 10, 1843, by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature, from the northern portion of Bergen Township. At the time, the town included everything east of the Hackensack River and north of what is now Jersey City. The entire region which is now known as North Hudson experienced massive immigration and urbanization during the latter half of the 19th century, and led to the creation of various new towns. Portions of the North Bergen were taken to form Hoboken Township (April 9, 1849, now the City of Hoboken), Hudson Town (April 12, 1852, later part of Hudson City), Hudson City (April 11, 1855, later merged with Jersey City), Guttenberg (formed within the township on March 9, 1859, and set off as an independent municipality on April 1, 1878), Weehawken (March 15, 1859), Union Township and West Hoboken Township (both created on February 28, 1861), Union Hill town (March 29, 1864) and Secaucus (March 12, 1900).
During this era many of Hudson County’s cemeteries were developed along the town’s western slope of the Hudson Palisades. At their foot in the Meadowlands the Erie, the New York, Susquehanna and Western, and the West Shore railroads ran right-of-ways to their terminals on the Hudson, the last building its tunnel through Bergen Hill at North Bergen. The area was important destination during peak German immigration to the United States, and is recalled today in Schuetzen Park, founded in 1874. Further north, the Guttenburg Racetrack became a notable and notorious destination which after its closing became a proving ground for new technologies, the automobile and the airplane.
