History of Elizabeth, New Jersey

Natives of the Soil-Discovery by Europeans - Early Traders - Werckhoven s Manorial Purchase - Failure to perfect a Title-Restoration of Charles II -Alarm of the New Haven Colony-Attempts to Colonize in New Netherland -Petition of John Strickland and others - Dutch Proposals - Negotiations of Fenn and his Associates-Failure thereof Long Islanders frustrated in planting a Colony on the Raritan.

THE territory now occupied by ELIZABETH, in New Jersey, was formerly the abode of savage tribes, unknown to fame. Whence they came, and how long they had dwelt on these shores, are questions that neither authentic history nor plausible tradition pretends to answer. They have long since passed away, without memorial. Another, and a very different, population have taken their place, possessed their lands, and made the wilderness, in which they dwelt and roamed, a fruitful field. The history of the town dates back to the coming of these new settlers-the era of its occupation by civilized and cultivated humanity.

It was on Sunday, the sixth day of September, 1609, that the eye of the stranger from the old world first rested on this goodly site. Three days before, the two-masted "vlieboat," called the "Half Moon," of eighty tons' burden, under the command of the renowned Henry Hudson, had cast

anchor in Sandy Hook Bay. The adventurous craft was manned by twenty men, Dutch and English, in the service of the East India Company of the United Provinces. Their design was to explore a passage to China and the Indies, by the northwest. The day after their arrival, they were visited by the natives, who seemed, as the journalist describes it, Very glad of our comming, and brought greene Tobacco, and gaue vs of it for Kniues and Beads. They go in Deere skins loose, well dressed. They haue yellow Copper. They desire Cloathes, and are very ciuill. They haue great store of Maiz or Indian Wheate, whereof they make good Bread. The Countery is full of great and tall Oakes.

The day following, some of the crew landed, who

Saw great store of Men, Women and Children, who gaue them Tabacco at their comming on Land. So they went vp into the Woods, and saw great store of very goodly Oakes, and some Currants. One of them came aboord, and brought some dryed. Many others, also, came aboord, some in Mantles of Feathers, and some in Skinnes of divers sorts of good Furres. Some women also came with Hempe. They had red Copper Tabacco pipes, and other things of Copper they did weare about their neckes.

On Sunday, the 6th, John Coleman and four other men were sent out in a boat to explore the harbor. Sailing through the Narrows, they found

Very good riding for Ships; and a narrow Riuer to the Westward betweene two Ilands. The Lands were as pleasant with Grasse and Floweres, and goodly Trees, as euer they had seene, and very sweet smells came from them. So they went in two leagues and saw an open Sea, and returned.*

The "narrow river," through which they sailed, was The Kills, between Bergen Point and Staten Island; and the "open sea" was Newark Bay. That part of the town that borders on the Bay was, of course, in full sight. These five men, therefore, of whom John Coleman † was one, were the first discoverers of this particular tract. The name by which the land was known among the natives, was Scheyichbi. The account of the natives, as given by Juet, applies to those

*Juet's Narrative, in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Col., L. 135.

+ Coleman was slain, the same day, on his return, by the treacherous arrow of one of the natives; an augury of no pleasant import.

then occupying this locality, as well as those further down the coast.

Public attention was soon called to this inviting region, and a profitable trade in peltries was presently opened with Holland. The Dutch merchants established a post at Manhattan, as early as 1613, and thence dispatched, from time to time, small boats or shallops into the creeks and bays of this vicinity, to traffic with the natives for skins and furs,— the country then abounding with game and herds of wild beasts. These traders were thus made acquainted, at an early day, with this particular locality, its beauties, its capa bilities, and its desirableness. But no attempt, for various reasons, was made to occupy and cultivate the soil. At that period the natives were too numerous, and too treacherous, for a mere handful of foreigners to undertake any thing like permanent settlements. It was not until 1623, that, stimulated, probably, by what the English had accomplished at New Plymouth, the Dutch undertook to plant colonies of agriculturists in what they called New Netherland. But these enterprises were few and feeble--confined mainly to the neighborhood of their military posts. Their relations to the natives were not always very amicable, and sometimes. decidedly hostile. It was not deemed safe, therefore, to venture as far into the wilderness as the western shores of Achter Kol,* as Newark Bay was called by the Dutch. The difficulty was still further increased by the cruel and unprovoked massacre of the unsuspecting natives, fourscore in number, at Pavonia, or Paulus Hook, by the Dutch of New Amsterdam, on the night of February 25, 1643. An end was thereby put, for several years at least, to all thoughts of extending

the settlements into the interior.

But the land was too attractive not to provoke the greed of the Dutch Colonists. An attempt, and, so far as can now be discovered, the first attempt, was made to plant a colony in this locality, at the close of the year 1651. The policy of the Dutch government had been to encourage the settlement

* Behind the Bay, i. e., the second bay; since corrupted to "Arthur Cull," a perversion that ought to be at once corrected.

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Libros

History of Elizabeth, New Jersey: Including the Early History of Union County