Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. At the time of first European contact, Bergen County was inhabited by Native American people, particularly the Lenape groups of the Tappan, Hackensack and Rumachenanck (later called the Haverstraw). Today, some of the Ramapough Mountain Indians who reside in the northwest of the county trace their ancestry back to the Lenape and Munsee peoples. The area comprising today's Bergen and Hudson counties was part of New Netherland, the 17th century North American colonial province of the Dutch Republic. It had been claimed after Henry Hudson (sailing for the Dutch East India Company) explored Newark Bay and anchored his ship at Weehawken Cove in 1609.