Jersey City New Jersey History & Facts

Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark. It is the county seat of Hudson County and the county's largest city. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census was 292,449.

Constituting part of the New York metropolitan area, Jersey City is bounded on the east by the Hudson River and Upper New York Bay and on the west by the Hackensack River and Newark Bay. A port of entry, with 30.7 miles (49.4 km) of waterfront and extensive rail infrastructure and connectivity, the city is an important transportation terminus and distribution and manufacturing center for the Port of New York and New Jersey. Jersey City shares significant mass transit connections with Manhattan. Redevelopment of the Jersey City waterfront has made the city one of the largest centers of banking and finance in the United States and has led to the district and city being nicknamed Wall Street West. By the early 2020s, the construction of residential high-rises made median rental rates the highest of any city in the United States.

The land comprising what is now Jersey City was inhabited by the Lenape, a collection of Native American tribes (later called Delaware Indian). In 1609, Henry Hudson, seeking an alternate route to East Asia, anchored his small vessel Halve Maen (English: Half Moon) at Sandy Hook, Harsimus Cove and Weehawken Cove, and elsewhere along what was later named the North River. After spending nine days surveying the area and meeting its inhabitants, he sailed as far north as Albany. The contemporary flag of the city is a variation on the Prince's Flag from the Netherlands. The stripes are blue, white and yellow, with the center of the flag showing the city seal, depicting Hudson's ship, the Half Moon, and other modern vessels.

By 1621, the Dutch West India Company was organized to manage this new territory and in June 1623, New Netherland became a Dutch province, with headquarters in New Amsterdam. Michael Reyniersz Pauw received a land grant as patroon on the condition that he would establish a settlement of not fewer than fifty persons within four years. He chose the west bank of the Hudson River and purchased the land from the Lenape. This grant is dated November 22, 1630, and is the earliest known conveyance for what are now Hoboken and Jersey City. Pauw, however, was an absentee landlord who neglected to populate the area and was obliged to sell his holdings back to the Company in 1633. That year, a house was built at Communipaw for Jan Evertsen Bout, superintendent of the colony, which had been named Pavonia (the Latinized form of Pauw's name, which means "peacock"). Shortly after, another house was built at Harsimus Cove and became the home of Cornelius Van Vorst, who had succeeded Bout as superintendent, and whose family would become influential in the development of the city. Relations with the Lenape deteriorated, in part because of the colonialist's mismanagement and misunderstanding of the indigenous people, and led to series of raids and reprisals and the virtual destruction of the settlement on the west bank. During Kieft's War, approximately eighty Lenapes were killed by the Dutch in a massacre at Pavonia on the night of February 25, 1643.

Jersey City is the seat of Hudson County and the second-most-populous city in New Jersey. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city had a total area of 21.13 square miles (54.74 km2), including 14.74 square miles (38.19 km2) of land and 6.39 square miles (16.55 km2) of water (30.24%). As of the 1990 census, it had the smallest land area of the 100 most populous cities in the United States.

Jersey City is bordered to the east by the Hudson River, to the north by Secaucus, North Bergen, Union City and Hoboken, to the west, across the Hackensack River, by Kearny and Newark, and to the south by Bayonne.

Famous Peoples From Jersey City New Jersey

Alphaeus Philemon Cole

Alphaeus Philemon Cole (July 12, 1876 – November 25, 1988) was an American artist, engraver and etcher. He was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of noted wood-engraver Timothy Cole. At the time of his death, at age 112 years and 136 days, Alphaeus was the world's oldest verified living man and the oldest living person in the United States.

Cole studied art first under Isaac Craig, in Italy, then in Paris from 1892 to 1901 with Jean Paul Laurens and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant at the Académie Julian, and later at the École des Beaux-Arts. In the mid-1890s, he began to produce many vibrant works, mostly various still lifes and portraits. His painting of Dante was exhibited in the 1900 Paris Salon, and more artwork was displayed at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.

Cole moved to England and married sculptress Margaret Ward Walmsley in 1903. He began to venture into the fields of wood/steel engraving and etching, but these works sold less than his portraits. He contributed several drawings to the Encyclopædia Britannica. They moved again, to the United States, in 1911. In 1918, Cole became a member of the Salmagundi Club, the nation's oldest professional art club. From 1924 to 1931, he taught portrait and still life classes at Cooper Union. He was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1930. He was the president of the New York Water Color Club from 1931 to 1941. In the 1940s, Cole worked as a judge of paintings in Max Pochapin's Manhattan Hall of Art, a merchandising art gallery, which was a revolutionary idea at the time. From 1952 to 1953, he was president of Allied Artists of America. His first wife died in 1961, and Cole married Anita Rio (1873–1971), a singer, and the widow of painter Eugene Higgins, in 1962. She died in 1971.

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