Blaeu - Nova Belgica et Anglia Nova (Detail Hudson Area)

Achter Kol (or Achter Col) was the name given to the region around the Newark Bay and

Hackensack River The Hackensack River is a river, approximately 45 miles (72 km) long, in the U.S. states of New York (state), New York and New Jersey, emptying into Newark Bay, a back chamber of New York Harbor. The drainage basin, watershed of the ri ...

northeastern New Jersey The Gateway Region is the primary urbanized area of the northeastern section of New Jersey. It is anchored by Newark, the state's most populous city. While sometimes known as the Newark metropolitan area, it is part of the New York metropolitan ...

by the first European settlers to it and was part of the 17th century province 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 P ...

, originally administered by the Dutch West India Company. At the time of their arrival, the area was inhabited by the Hackensack and Raritan groups of Lenape.

Toponymy

Placenaming by Dutch explorers and settlers during the era often referred to a location in reference to other places, its shape, its topography, and other geographic qualities. Today Newark Bay is connected to

Upper New York Bay New York Harbor is at the mouth of the Hudson River where it empties into New York Bay near the East River tidal estuary, and then into the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of the United States. It is one of the largest natural harbors in t ...

by the Kill Van Kull and to

Raritan Bay Raritan Bay is a bay located at the southern portion of Lower New York Bay between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey and is part of the New York Bight. The bay is bounded on the northwest by New York's Staten Island, on the west by Per ...

by the Arthur Kill. The names of the channels reflect the period of Dutch colonialization. The area around the bay and the rivers that feed it was called Achter Kol. (achter meaning behind and col, meaning a mountain pass) which translates as ''behind or beyond the ridge'' and refers to

Bergen Hill Bergen Hill refers to the lower Hudson Palisades in New Jersey, where they emerge on Bergen Neck, which in turn is the peninsula between the Hackensack and Hudson Rivers, and their bays. In Hudson County, it reaches a height of 260 feet. Rai ...

. The emergence of the

Hudson Palisades The Palisades, also called the New Jersey Palisades or the Hudson River Palisades, are a line of steep cliffs along the west side of the lower Hudson River in Northeastern New Jersey and Southeastern New York in the United States. The cliffs s ...

begins on

Bergen Neck Bergen Neck is the peninsula between the Upper New York Bay and the Newark Bay in the Hudson County, New Jersey municipalities of Bayonne and Jersey City. Its southernmost tip, Bergen Point, is separated from Staten Island by the Kill van Kul ...

, the peninsula between the bay and the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

. ''Kille'' in

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

means stream or channel. During the British colonial era the bay was known as ''Cull bay''. Kill van Kull literally translates as ''channel from the ridge''. Arthur Kill is an anglicisation of ''achter kill'' meaning ''back channel'', which would speak to its location behind Staten Island.

Early settlement

Achter Kol was nearby the

patroon In the United States, a patroon (; from Dutch '' patroon'' ) was a landholder with manorial rights to large tracts of land in the 17th century Dutch colony of New Netherland on the east coast of North America. Through the Charter of Freedoms ...

ship called Pavonia, patented in 1630, and reverted to the Dutch West India Company in 1636. Homesteads of Pavonia where clustered at

Communipaw Communipaw is a neighborhood in Jersey City in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. It is located west of Liberty State Park and east of Bergen Hill, and the site of one of the earliest European settlements in North America. It gives its nam ...

and Harsimus on the

North River (Hudson River) North River is an alternative name for the southernmost portion of the Hudson River in the vicinity of New York City and northeastern New Jersey in the United States. The entire watercourse was known as the North River by the Dutch in the earl ...

. David Pietersen de Vries (c. 1593-c.1655), a Dutch sea captain, explorer, and trader, who had established settlements at the

Zwaanendael Colony or was a short-lived Dutch colonial settlement in Delaware. It was built in 1631. The name is archaic Dutch for "swan valley." The site of the settlement later became the town of Lewes, Delaware. History Two directors of the Amsterdam ch ...

, Staten Island, and nearby Vriessendael, as was an early European proprietor of the area. In his ''"Korte Historiael Ende Journaels Aenteyckeninge"'' (Short Historical Notes and Journal Notes of Various Voyages), published in 1655, de Vries described a Lenape hunt in the valley of the ''Achinigeu-hach'' (or ''Ackingsah-sack'') in which one hundred or more men stood in a line many paces from each other, beating thigh bones on their palms to drive animals to the river, where they could be killed easily. Other methods of hunting included lassoing and drowning deer, as well as forming a circle around prey and setting the brush on fire. In 1642, Myndert Myndertsen received a patroonship for much the land north of the Newark Bay. An absentee landlord, Myndertsen hired a superintendent Johannes Winckelman to construct a farmhouse (a combined dwelling and barn), completed the same year. The homestead was at present day Bogota near the Hackensack tribe's encampment at Tantanqua, today's

Overpeck Creek Overpeck Creek is a tributary of the Hackensack River, approximately long, in Bergen County in northeastern New Jersey in the United States. The lower broad mouth of the creek is part of the extended tidal estuary of the lower Hackensack and of t ...

. Originally spared in the reprisals for the attacks at Pavonia and

Corlear's Hook The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...

that began Kieft's War in 1643, the residents were ordered back to the relative safety of Fort Amsterdam and replaced by a regiment of soldiers with cannons. Perceived as an act of war by the Hackensack it was later plundered and destroyed. The Achter Col Colony was not replaced. The area was later settled and become known as the

English Neighborhood The English Neighborhood was the colonial-era name for the towns in eastern Bergen County, New Jersey, along the Hudson Palisades between the Hudson River and the Hackensack River, particularly around its main tributary, Overpeck Creek. The region ...

. After some time, relations with Hackensack Lenape improved.

Oratam Oratam (or Oritani/Oratamin) was sagamore, or sachem, of the Hackensack Indians living in northeastern New Jersey during the period of early European colonization in the 17th century. Documentation shows that he lived an unusually long life (almo ...

, the

sachem Sachems and sagamores are paramount chiefs among the Algonquians or other Native American tribes of northeastern North America, including the Iroquois. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms (c. 1622) from different Eastern Al ...

, or sagamore, of the Hackensack engaged peacefully and shrewdly with representatives of the Dutch West India Company. Both parties were helped considerably by Sarah Kiersted, who had mastered the Algonquian language and acted as translator and scribe. For her help Oratam, in 1666, gave her a large tract of (2260 acres) at Achinigeu-hach (or "Ackingsah-sack") between the

and

in gratitude for her work as emissary and interpreter. In late 1654 a series of grants were made for land "achter Kol", which became the small communities of Pamrapo and Minkakwa. Eventually, Oratam, deeded the land to the Dutch in 1665. A representation of Chief Oratam of the Achkinhenhcky appears on the Hackensack municipal seal.Cheslow, Jerry
" If You're Thinking of Living In/Hackensack, N.J.; After Long Decline, Downtown Rebounds"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', May 3, 1998. "Hackensack is named for the Achkinhenhcky branch of the Leni Lenape Indians, who traded with Dutch settlers along the Hackensack River as far back as the 1660s. The portrait of their chief, Oratam, who negotiated a treaty with English and Dutch settlers in 1690, appears on the municipal seal." By that time the lands west of the

(today's

Hudson County Hudson County is the most densely populated county in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It lies west of the lower Hudson River, which was named for Henry Hudson, the sea captain who explored the area in 1609. Part of New Jersey's Gateway Region in ...

, the Palisades, the Meadowlands, and the

Valley) was called

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula o ...

. Its administrative headquarters at the garrisoned village at today's

Bergen Square Bergen Square, at the intersection of Bergen Avenue and Academy Street in Jersey City, is in the southwestern part of the much larger Journal Square district. A commercial residential area, it contains an eclectic array of architectural styl ...

were later established in 1660. When area was taken by the English it kept its Dutch name and in 1675, the

East Jersey The Province of East Jersey, along with the Province of West Jersey, between 1674 and 1702 in accordance with the Quintipartite Deed, were two distinct political divisions of the Province of New Jersey, which became the U.S. state of New Jersey. ...

Legislature officially established the first four counties of present-day New Jersey, (

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

, and Monmouth). Philip Cartaret, governor of the

proprietary colony A proprietary colony was a type of English colony mostly in North America and in the Caribbean in the 17th century. In the British Empire, all land belonged to the monarch, and it was his/her prerogative to divide. Therefore, all colonial proper ...

granted land to Captain John Berry in the southern part of area where he soon after took up residence and called it New Barbadoes, after the island of Barbadoes, where he had resided.

References

{{Reflist Geography of Bergen County, New Jersey Geography of Hudson County, New Jersey New Netherland History of Jersey City, New Jersey Dutch-American culture in New Jersey 1641 establishments in the Dutch Empire 17th-century establishments in New Jersey Bogota, New Jersey

Toponymy

Early settlement

See also

References