Re: Wessel Ten Broeck, first TB immigrant?
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In reply to:
Re: Wessel Ten Broeck, first TB immigrant?
James Lawton 9/16/00
It's funny--you mention how honest states are in their depiction of their history.In 1643 there was a massacre of Indians, primarily women and children, in what's now Jersey City.I live in Jersey City and we have a brand-spanking-new light rail system that goes from Bayonne and the West Side to the train and ferry stops in and around Exchange Place (formerly Paulus Hoek).
The new Liberty State Park Station on the light rail sits right on top of the massacre site, give or take a hundred yards, but there's no plaque of any sort.(By my reckoning, the massacre took place somewhere along a line moving from the northwest corner of the new park-and-ride lot, down to the NJ Turnpike overpass just southeast of the train platform.It is unclear to me where the water line of the river may have been in 1643)
I don't have my books in front of me, but the massacre was initiated at the request, I believe, of Director Kieft, and of course resulted in a war between several Indian tribes on the one side, and the Dutch on the other.Most of the Dutch settlements in what's now New Jersey were wiped out, and had to begin again fifteen years later.Supposedly the Indians found a bronze field-piece cannon at the settlement of Achter Col (now probably Teaneck), and threw it in the Hackensack River.It is probably still there, deep in the muck.