New Jersey

Minerals.

The total value of the State's mineral products was in 1934. The total value of clay production in was $10,539,018. Of this total, the value of pottery and of brick and tile was $10,249,477. The total zinc output of the State in 1934 was 76,553 short tons, valued at approximately $8,772,200.

In Warren and Sussex counties are abundant materials for the manufacture of Portland cement. In 1934, the chief stone prod ucts were trap rock, limestone, sandstone and granite, having a total value of $1,662,968. The manufacture of iron in New Jersey dates from 1674, when the metal was reduced from its ores near Shrewsbury, Monmouth county. The product of the iron mines in 1934 was only 145,326 long tons.

Transportation.

The total railway mileage of New Jersey on Jan. 1, 1934, according to the Interstate Commerce Commission, was 2,189 as compared with 2,299 in 1930. Owing to its geo graphical position, the State is crossed by all railways reaching New York city from the south and west, and all those reaching Philadelphia from the north and east. The eastern terminals of the southern and western lines running from New York city are situated on the western shore of the Hudson river, in Jersey City, Hoboken or Weehawken ; whence passengers and freight are carried by ferry to New York. An exception is the Pennsylvania railway which has constructed a tunnel under the Hudson river, and established a terminal on Manhattan island. Jersey City and Hoboken are also connected with New York by electric railway tunnels under the Hudson river; the Holland and Lincoln tunnels connect lower New York city with Jersey City. The 21 electric railway companies within the State operated 716m. of track in 1932.

New Jersey was the first state in the Union to pass (1891) a State aid highway act. Since that early beginning, New Jersey has spent many millions of dollars in constructing and maintaining a State highway system, which on Jan. t, 1935 consisted of 1,351 miles. Of this total 1,269 were surfaced. In 1935 a total of 888, 292 motor vehicles were registered.

The water-borne commerce of New Jersey in 1935 exclusive of that of Hoboken and Jersey City which is included in the port of New York, amounted to 58,472 cargo tons of imports and 64. 656 cargo tons of exports. The chief ports were Bayonne, New ark, Perth Amboy and Carteret.

History.

The earliest inhabitants of New Jersey of whom there is any certain record were the Lenni-Lennape or Delaware Indians, a branch of the Algonkin family. They were most numerous in the southern and central portions of the State, preferring the river valleys. In the year 1758 an Indian reser vation, said to have been the first established within the present limits of the United States, was established at Edgepelick or Brotherton (now called Indian Mills) in Burlington county.

The first authenticated visit of a European to what is now New Jersey was made under French authority by Giovanni da Ver razano, a Florentine navigator, who in the spring of 1524 sailed within Sandy Hook and dropped anchor in the waters of upper New York bay. In the following year Estevan Gomez, a Portu guese sailor in the service of the emperor Charles V., is said to have made note of the Hudson and Delaware rivers. Voyages to this region for exploration, trade and settlement, however, may be said to have really begun with the year 1609, when Henry Hudson explored the region between Sandy Hook and Raritan bay and sailed up the river which now bears his name. In Cornelis Jacobsen Mey explored the lower Delaware, and two years later Cornelis Hendricksen more thoroughly explored this stream. In 1623 the first party of permanent homeseekers ar rived at New Amsterdam, and a portion of these formed a set tlement on the eastern bank of the Delaware and built Ft. Nassau near the site of the present Gloucester City. On the western bank of the Hudson the trading post of Hobocanhackingh, on the site of the present city of Hoboken, was established at an early date. From these places and from New Amsterdam the Dutch spread into the Raritan valley.

In the meantime colonists of another nationality had set foot on the shores of the lower Delaware. In 1638, 5o Swedish colo nists landed on the western bank of the Delaware and built Ft. Christina on the site of the modern Wilmington. Five years later, on the eastern bank a triangular fort, called Elfsborg, was con structed near the present Salem. But the Swedish rule was short lived, as in 1655 the settlements surrendered to Peter Stuyvesant and passed under the control of the Dutch.