Everingham Family History Public Record Reprint Early New Jersey History 1524 Giovanni da Verrazzano explores New Jersey shore. 1609 Henry Hudson ascends Hudson River. 1618 Dutch trading post built at Bergen (now Jersey City). 1623 Fort Nassau built near present Gloucester City by Capt. Cornelius Mey. 1638 Swedish settlers build forts on east bank of Delaware River; expelled by Dutch in 1655. 1660 The Dutch establish a permanent colony in Bergen. 1664 England grants region to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. The Dutch surrender New Jersey to England. 1674 Edward Byllynge and John Fenwick, Quakers, buy Berkeley's interest in western New Jersey. 1676 Colony divided into East and West Jersey. 1702 East and West Jersey surrender government to English Crown; reunited as royal colony under New York governors; separated from New York in 1738. 1746 College of New Jersey (now Princeton) chartered. 1766 Queens College (now Rutgers, The State University) founded at New Brunswick. 1774 First Provincial Congress meets at New Brunswick; adopts constitution in 1776. 1776 Gen. George Washington retreats across state into Pennsylvania, recrosses the Delaware River, takes Trenton. State adopts its first constitution. 1777 Americans defeat British at Princeton. 1778 British retreat across New Jersey from Philadelphia; Washington defeats them at Monmouth. 1779-80 Washington and Army winter at Morristown. 1783 Princeton is national capital, June 30-November 4; Trenton, Nov. 1 -Dec. 24, 1784. Washington gives farewell address to Army at Rocky Hill. 1787 New Jersey represents smaller states at Constitutional Convention; is 3rd state to ratify United States Constitution, December 18. 1790 Trenton becomes state capital; original Capitol completed in 1792. 1804 Vice-President Aaron Burr kills Alexander Hamilton in duel at Weehawken. 1831 Morris Canal opened; Delaware and Raritan Canal, in 1834. 1838 Samuel F.B. Morse demonstrates telegraph near Morristown. 1844 New state constitution grants free-male suffrage. 1846 In the first organized game of baseball, the New York Nine defeat the Hoboken Nickerbocker Giants 23-1 in Hoboken. 1869 In the first intercollegiate football game, Rutgers defeats Princeton 6-4 in New Brunswick. 1879 Thomas Alva Edison demonstrates first effective electric lamp at Menlo Park. 1881 John P. Holland launches first practical submarine in Passaic River. 1885 Grover Cleveland, born 1837 in Caldwell, becomes 22nd president of United States; the 24th, in 1893. (c)1999-2000 Everingham Family History Archives