township
A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries.
Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...
that existed in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...
The land on which the town was situated was at one time owned by the Surveyor General of
New Netherland
New Netherland () was a colony of the Dutch Republic located on the East Coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva Peninsula to Cape Cod. Settlements were established in what became the states ...
Jacques Cortelyou, some "12,000 morgens 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 traditional denomination of the Dutch royal famil ...
, 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
The Passaic River ( or ) is a river, approximately long, in North Jersey, 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 suburb ...
. The English formed the
Province of New Jersey
The Province of New Jersey was one of the Middle Colonies of Colonial history of the United States, Colonial America and became the U.S. state of New Jersey in 1776. The province had originally been settled by Europeans as part of New Netherla ...
and appointed a royal governor in 1702. New Barbadoes Township became part of
Bergen County
Bergen County is the List of counties in New Jersey, most populous County (United States), 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.Snyder, John P ''The Story of New Jersey's Civil Boundaries: 1606-1968'' Bureau of Geology and Topography; Trenton, New Jersey; 1969. p. 209. Accessed November 14, 2012.
Lenape
The Lenape (, , ; ), also called the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada.
The Lenape's historica ...
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 (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...
by the
New Netherlander
New Netherlanders were residents of New Netherland, the seventeenth-century colonial outpost of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the northeastern coast of North America, centered around New York Harbor, the Hudson Valley, and ...
s, 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
The Passaic River ( or ) is a river, approximately long, in North Jersey, 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 suburb ...
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 was built on a slightly different alignment.