|
FORMATION OF BERGEN AND HUDSON COUNTIES
The first municipality within
the limits of New Jersey was erected by order of Director General
Stuyvesant and his council on Septem-
--------------------------
5
ber 5, 1661, and christened
"The Village of Bergen." The origin of the name "Bergen"
rests in some doubt. Some writers confidently claim it to have
been derived from "Bergen," the capital of Norway,
INSERT MAP 3
while others as confidently
assert it to have been derived from Bergen op Zoom, an
important town on the River Scheldt, in Holland, eighteen miles
north of Antwerp. Without expressing an opinion,
--------------------------
6
I may say that, so far as
my investigations have extended, the evidence seems to favor
those who claim the name to have been derived from the Holland
town. During the seven years following the christening new settlers
rapidly purchased and located on lands outside of the "Village"
limits. These, with a view to more effectually protecting themselves
from the savages, asked that they might be annexed to the main
settlement. Accordingly, on the 7th of April, 1668, Governor
Philip Carteret and his council, of East New Jersey, granted
to the settlers of Bergen (then comprising some forty families)
a charter under the corporate name of "The Towne and Corporation
of Bergen." This new "Towne" comprised the present
County of Hudson as far west as the Hackensack River. The line
on the north, as described in the charter, started "at Mordavis
meadow, lying upon the west side of Hudson's River; from thence
to run down upon a N. W. lyne [sic] by a Three rail fence that
is now standing to a place called Espatin [The Hill] and from
thence to a little creek [Bellman's Creek] surrounding N. N.
W. till it comes unto the river Hackensack [Indiana name for
"Lowland"], containing the breadth, from the top of
the Hill, 1 1/2 miles or 120 chains." During the next sixteen
years new settlements sprang up north of Bergen, but in matters
of government these were termed "out lands" or "precincts,"
without any corporate power whatever, and subject to the jurisdiction
of the authorities of the "Towne."
As time went on and population
increased, courts became necessary; and as all the colonial officials
were Englishmen, and many English immigrants had settled in the
colony, it was but natural that they should desire the adoption
of the English system of county government. On the 7th of March,
1682, the provincial legislature passed, and Deputy Governor
Rudyard approve, an act under which New Jersey was divided into
four counties: Bergen, Essex, Middlesex, and Monmouth. Bergen
County, as then defined, contained "all the settlements
between Hudson's River and the Hackensack River, beginning at
Constable's Hook and so to extend to the uppermost bounds of
the Province, northward between the said rivers with the seat
of government at the town of Bergen." (see Map No. 1.) Essex County comprised "all the settlements
between the west side of the Hackensack River and the parting
line between Woodbridge and Elizabethtown, and northward to the
utmost bounds of the Province." By this division the greater
part of the present County of Bergen fell within the limits of
Essex County, where it remained until 1709-10.
This division into counties
caused great dissatisfaction among the people, particularly in
Northern New Jersey. They complained that the counties were too
large, that the distance between their homes and the county seat
was too long, and that traveling such long dis-
--------------------------
7
tances, over the worst of
roads, in all sorts of weather, interfered with their pursuits
and subjected them to great expense and bodily discomfort. Sheriffs
found it difficult to summon and compel the attendance of jurymen
and witnesses. The administration of justice and the transaction
of all other public business were seriously retarded. From every
part of the province petitions came pouring into the colonial
assembly, sometimes accompanied by delegations of indignant citizens.
For several years the assembly stood out against these numerous
complains and petitions, but in the end it was passed and approved
directing a redivision. By the terms of this act the boundaries
of Bergen County were fixed as follows:
"Beginning at Constable's
Hook, so up along the bay to Hudson's River, to the partition
point between new Jersey and the Province of New York; thence
along the line and the line between East and West New Jersey
to the Pequannock and Passaic Rivers; thence down the Pequannock
and Passaic Rivers to the sound; and so following the sound to
Constable's Hook where it begins." (See Map No. 2.)
In the northwestern
part of the county, as above described, was included the County
of Passaic, and on the 22d of February, 1840, all that part of
it lying south of the original north bounds of the "Town
and Corporation of Bergen," together with a considerable
area of territory west of the Hackensack River known as New Barbadoes
Neck, were, by legislative enactment, erected into the County
of Hudson. A part of this was annexed to Bergen County in 1852,
leaving the boundaries of Bergen and Hudson Counties as they
are to-day. (See Map No. 3.) |
