Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VI. THE OLD TOWNSHIP OF HACKENSACK. "In 1682 Bergen County embraced only the territory between the Hackensack and Hudson Rivers, from Constable's Hook up to the province line—a narrow strip of land along the west side of the Hudson, at no place over five or six miles wide, and from twenty-five to thirty miles in length. The old township of Bergen, from the date of its charter, in 1658, comprised the southern portion of this strip of territory, as far up as the present northern boundary of Hudson County ; and the settlements above that, being regarded as "outlaying plantations," were attached to Bergen for judicial purposes, and so remained until 1693, when an act defining the boundaries of townships was passed by the General Assembly. That act recites as follows : "That the Township of Hacksack shall include all the land between Hackin- ;ick and Hudson's River that extends to the Corporation Town Bounds of Bergen to the Partition line of the Province." So spelled in the act. It appears from this act that the township of Hackensack was bounded on the north by the province line of New York, on the east by the Hudson River, on the south by the corporation line of Bergen, and on the west by the Hackensack River. It covered nearly the whole tableland of the Palisades Mountains, and the beautiful valley of the Hackensack on its eastern side from the New York State line to the northern boundary of Hudson County. The scenery of this region, including the Palisades and the views of the Hudson and its valley from their summits, is among the most picturesque and romantic in America. Here the Indians loved to roam before the advent of the white man, and their bark canoes glided down the smooth waters of the Hackensack to their summer resort on Staten Island. This was thei...