A Brief History of Jersey City, New Jersey

The land comprising what is now Jersey City was wilderness inhabited by the Lenape, a collection of tribes (later called Delaware Indian). In 1609, Henry Hudson, seeking an alternate route to East Asia, anchored his small vessel The Half Moon at Sandy Hook, Harsimus and Weehawken Cove, and elsewhere along what was later named the North River. After spending nine days surveying the area and meeting its inhabitants, he returned to The Netherlands. The Dutch organized the United New Netherlands Company to manage this new territory and in June 1623, The New Netherlands became a Dutch province, with headquarters in New Amsterdam. Scattered communities of farmsteads characterized the Dutch settlements at Pavonia, Communipaw, Harsimus, Paulus Hook, Hoebuck, Awiehaken, and other lands "behind Kil van Kull".

During the American Revolutionary War the area was in the hands of the British who controlled New York.After the war Alexander Hamilton and other prominent New Yorkers and New Jerseyeans attempted to develop the area that would become historic dowtown Jersey City and laid out the city squares and streets that still characterize the neighborhood, giving them names also seen in Lower Manhattan or after war heros (Grove, Varick, Mercer, Wayne, Monmouth, and Montgomery among them) The oldest surviving house in Jersey City is the stone Van Vorst house of 1742. The City of Jersey was incorporated by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on January 28, 1820, from portions of North Bergen Township, while the area was still a part of Bergen County. The city was reincorporated on January 23, 1829, and again on February 22, 1838, at which time it became completely independent of North Bergen and was given its present name. On February 22, 1840, it became part of the newly-created Hudson County.