SETTLEMENT OF THE MIDDLE STATES.
BERKELEY IN NEW JERSEY.
The present State of New Jersey was a part of New Netherland, and the Dutch had a trading-post at Bergen as early as 1618. After New Netherland passed into the hands of the Dutch, the Duke of York gave the land lying between the Hudson and the Delaware to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret for Christmas.
The first permanent English settlement made in the State was at Elizabethtown, named so in honor of Sir George's first wife.
Berkeley sold his part to some English Quakers. This part was called West Jersey. He claimed that it was too far from town. It was very hard for a lord to clear up land, and Berkeley missed his evenings at the Savage Club, and his nose yearned for a good whiff of real old Rotten Row fog.
So many disputes arose regarding the title to Jersey that the whole thing finally reverted to the crown in 1702. When there was any trouble over titles in those days it was always settled by letting it revert to the crown. It has been some years now, however, since that has happened in this country.
Thirty-six years later New Jersey was set apart as a separate royal province, and became a railroad terminus and bathing-place.
Delaware was settled by the Swedes at Wilmington first, and called New Sweden. I am surprised that the Norsemen, who it is claimed made the first and least expensive summer at Newport, R. I., should not have clung to it.