New Jersey [antikvár]

The first European to gazé upon the shores of what is now New Jersey was the Florentine navigator Giovanni da Verazzanno, who in 1524 explored off Sandy Hook and in upper New York Bay. Then, in 1609, Henry Hudson sailed the Half Moon up the river that is named for him. His sailors ventured in small boats into what is now Sandy Hook Bay. A few years later a trading station was set up west of the Hudson site of Hoboken. In 1624, Fort Nassau was created on the Delaware River near the present location of Gloucester, but it soon disappeared. The reluctance of Dutch navigators to venture across the ocean prevented the colonization of New Jersey for somé time, although Dutch outposts were built in modern Bergen and Hudson Counties by 1650. A Swedish settlement was established on the western shore of the Delaware River between 1638 and 1655. Peter Stuyvesant, governor of New Netherlands, took over the Swedish outposts, but all of New Jersey ultimately passed to colonial British control in 1664. The English set to colonizing the territory with a will. Two provinces, East New Jersey and West New Jersey, were created. Settlements were encouraged at Elizabeth, Shrewsbury, Middletown, Woodbridge, Piscataway, and Newark. These East New Jersey towns and villages were populated mainly by religious dissenters from New England. Puritanism in time became entrenched in the northern part of the colony. Quakers settled West New Jersey. The guarantee of religious liberty was upheld to attract settlers. Somé notable cultural contributions of the colonial period were the Dutdi-colonial style of architecture, the typical American log cabin (which found its origin in the Swedish settlements), and the founding of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) and of Queen's College (later Rutgers University), which made New Jersey the only colony with more than one college.