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Excerpt from Industries of New Jersey, Vol. 4: Middlesex, Somerset and Union Counties The first successful attempts to colonize within the district embraced in this State were made by the Dutch, a small party of whom settled in the year 1618 in that part of Jersey City which until 1870 was the village of Bergen; and five years later a second colony established itself at the mouth of Timber Creek, south of the subsequent site of Gloucester city, where the leader of the expedition, Captain Cornelius Jacobse Mev built Fort Nassau. It is quite possible that this old fort stood where the little village of Red Bank (gloucester County) now stands, and where a small body of Americans gallantly withstood a much larger body of Hessians, in October, 1777. Other settlements were effected by the Dutch, both in East and West New Jersey, and in 1627 several parties of Swedes settled along and near the Delaware shore, chiefly within the present limits of Gloucester County, their chief settlement being still known as Swedesboro'. The Dutch had made their principal settlement in New York, while the main colonies of the Swedes were in Delaware and southeastern Pennsylvania; the former designated their American possessions New Netherlands, and New York city was called New Amsterdam, while the Swedes gave the name of New Sweden or New Swede land to their settlements, and. Their chief tpwn they called Christeen, or Christiana. As was to be. Expected, the two could not long continue to live and rule peaceably so near one another, and the Dutch, being the stronger, after repeated attempts, succeeded in obtaining the mastery. The greater part of the Swedes were permitted and consented to remain. Meanwhile, the English had established themselves in New England and in Virginia and Maryland, and the Dutch were not long to hold the intervening territory. The English had the same right to dispossess the Dutch as the latter to dispossess the Swedes-the right of might. The Swedes had made common cause with the Dutch against the English and for some years the two succeeded in preventing English settlements upon the Hudson and Delaware Rivers, and within the territories of New Netherlands and New Sweden; but the British government had only awaited its own convenience, without relinquishing its so-called claims, and in 1664, Charles II. Issued a patent to his brother, the Duke of York, giving him the entire district from New England to Maryland, and to make good the patent sent an expedition to seize the territory ceded. The Dutch governor of New Amsterdam, Petrus Stuyvesant, was a brave and accomplished soldier, but he was utterly unable to withstand the British fleet and land force, and wisely surrendered without the firing of a gun. New Amsterdam (new York), the seat of government of the entire Dutch possessions on the continent, having been surrendered by the governor, the forts and settlements on the Delaware, of course, could offer no resistance, and were likewise seized without difficulty. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
