township
A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries.
Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, ...
that existed in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...
The land on which the town was situated was at one time owned by the Surveyor General of
New Netherland
New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva ...
Jacques Cortelyou
Jacques Cortelyou (ca 1625–1693) was an influential early citizen of New Amsterdam (later New York City) who was Surveyor General of the early Dutch colony. Cortelyou's main accomplishment was the so-called Cortelyou Survey, the first map of New ...
, some "12,000
morgen
A morgen was a unit of measurement of land area in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Lithuania and the Dutch colonies, including South Africa and Taiwan. The size of a morgen varies from . It was also used in Old Prussia, in the Balkans, ...
s at Aquackanonk on the Passaic, purchased by himself and associates of the Indians." and known as the Acquackanonk Patent. It was first settled in 1678 by Dutch traders, who in 1693 formed the Acquackanonk congregation of the
Dutch Reformed Church
The Dutch Reformed Church (, abbreviated NHK) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family and ...
, variantly named as late as 1697 as the ''Achquegnonck'' congregation.
The township was first formed on October 31, 1693, by the proprietors of the Province of East Jersey together with New Barbadoes Township, and was located in what was then the northern part of Essex County on the
Passaic River
Passaic River ( ) is a river, approximately long, in Northern New Jersey. The river in its upper course flows in a highly circuitous route, meandering through the swamp lowlands between the ridge hills of rural and suburban northern New Jersey, ...
. The English formed the
Province of New Jersey
The Province of New Jersey was one of the Middle Colonies of Colonial America and became the U.S. state of New Jersey in 1783. The province had originally been settled by Europeans as part of New Netherland but came under English rule after t ...
and appointed a royal governor in 1702. New Barbadoes Township became part of
Bergen County
Bergen County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of New Jersey.State of New Jersey. On February 7, 1837, Passaic County was created, incorporating the township and other portions of both Bergen County and Essex County. Over the years portions of the township were taken to create (or add to the territory of) Caldwell Township (February 16, 1798; now Fairfield Township), Paterson Township (April 11, 1831), Little Falls (April 2, 1868), Passaic village (created within the township on March 10, 1869, and independent from the township as of March 21, 1871), Paterson (1869) and Montclair (1907). The township became defunct on April 26, 1917, with the creation of
Clifton
Clifton may refer to:
People
* Clifton (surname)
* Clifton (given name)
Places
Australia
*Clifton, Queensland, a town
** Shire of Clifton
*Clifton, New South Wales, a suburb of Wollongong
* Clifton, Western Australia
Canada
* Clifton, Nova Sc ...
Lenape
The Lenape (, , or Lenape , del, Lënapeyok) also called the Leni Lenape, Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. Their historical territory inclu ...
group who spoke the same Algonquian language dialect and shared the same totem (turtle) as the neighboring Hackensack and Tappan. They were so called by the
exonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group ...
by the New Netherlanders, who commonly referred to the people by the indigenous word for their territory. The name may mean ''a place in a rapid stream where fishing is done with a net''.
Alternatively, ''at the lamprey stream'' from contemporary ''axkwaakahnung'' (spellings include Achquakanonk, Acquackanonk) Lastly it may mean ''where gum blocks were made for pounding corn''.
''Ackquekenon'' was the spelling used by European explorer Jasper Danckaerts in 1679 describe his visit there.
Passaic River
Passaic River ( ) is a river, approximately long, in Northern New Jersey. The river in its upper course flows in a highly circuitous route, meandering through the swamp lowlands between the ridge hills of rural and suburban northern New Jersey, ...
at Acquackanonk was first created in the colonial era, and was burned during Washington's 1776 great retreat from Fort Lee. Today's
Gregory Avenue Bridge
Gregory Avenue Bridge, earlier known as the Main Avenue Bridge, is road bridge over the Passaic River in northeastern New Jersey, United States. It is the 7th bridge to be built at the river crossing.
Originally built in 1905 as a moveable bridge ...