Communipaw

{{Short description|Populated place in Hudson County, New Jersey, US}}

{{Infobox settlement

|name = Communipaw, Jersey City

|settlement_type = Unincorporated community

|nickname =

|motto =

|image_skyline =

|imagesize =

|image_caption =

|image_flag =

|image_seal =

|pushpin_map = USA New Jersey Hudson County

|pushpin_label_position = left

|pushpin_map_caption = Location of Communipaw in Hudson County Inset: Location of county in the state of New Jersey

|subdivision_type = Country

|subdivision_name = United States

|subdivision_type1 = State

|subdivision_name1 = {{Flag|New Jersey}}

|subdivision_type2 = County

|subdivision_name2 = Hudson

|subdivision_type3 = City

|subdivision_name3 = Jersey City

|elevation_footnotes =

|elevation_m =

|elevation_ft = 20

|coordinates = {{coord|40|42|31|N|74|03|40|W|region:US-NJ_type:city|display=inline,title}}

|blank_name = GNIS feature ID

|blank_info = 875597{{cite gnis|875597|Communipaw}}

|website =

|footnotes =

|unit_pref = imperial

}}

Communipaw is a neighborhood in Jersey City in Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.[http://www.state.nj.us/infobank/localnames.txt Locality Search], State of New Jersey. Accessed February 7, 2015. It is located west of Liberty State Park and east of Bergen Hill,{{Cite web |url=https://arcims.redcross.org/website/maps/images/NewJersey/NJ_Hudson_evac.pdf |title=· HC areas map |access-date=2009-08-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727204633/https://arcims.redcross.org/website/maps/images/NewJersey/NJ_Hudson_evac.pdf |archive-date=2011-07-27 |url-status=dead }}{{Cite web |title=Communipaw, NJ, USA, Earth - Things to do in Communipaw - Geody |url=https://www.geody.com/geospot.php?world=terra&ufi=100875597&alc=cmm |access-date=2024-06-26 |website=www.geody.com |language=en}} and the site of one of the earliest European settlements in North America. It gives its name to the historic avenue which runs from its eastern end near Liberty State Park Station through the neighborhoods of Bergen-Lafayette and the West Side that then becomes the Lincoln Highway. Communipaw Junction, or simply The Junction, is an intersection where Communipaw, Summit Avenue, Garfield Avenue, and Grand Street meet, and where the toll house for the Bergen Point Plank Road was situated. Communipaw Cove at Upper New York Bay, is part of the {{convert|36|acre|m2|adj=on}} state nature preserve in the park and one of the few remaining tidal salt marshes in the Hudson River estuary.

Communipaw-Lafayette

Communipaw was part of Bergen City, New Jersey between 1855-1870 before merging with Jersey City, and was urbanized during the late half of the 19th century. Some streets of the neighborhood are part of the Communipaw-Lafayette Historic District.{{Cite web |title=NJ State Register of Historic Places in Hudson |url=http://www.state.nj.us/dep/hpo/1identify/lists/hudson.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100705114811/http://www.state.nj.us/dep/hpo/1identify/lists/hudson.pdf |archive-date=2010-07-05}} Lafayette Park is likely named for the Marquis de Lafayette, who was stationed in Bergen in 1799,[http://www.city-data.com/us-cities/The-Northeast/Jersey-City-History.html Battle with British] and later re-visited in 1824.{{Cite web |title=Apple-Tree House |url=http://www.cityofjerseycity.org/appletreehousejerseycity.shtml}}Harriet Phillips Eaton, Jersey City And Its Historic Sites, 1899:{{cite book

|last=Grundy

|first=J. Owen

|title=The History of Jersey City (1609 - 1976)

|year=1975

|publisher=Walter E. Knight; Progress Printing Company

|location=Jersey City

}} It is a city square, similar to Van Vorst Park and Hamilton Park; the buildings surrounding it were constructed in different periods. Whitlock Cordage{{cite web|url=http://www.jclandmarks.org/history-whitlockcordage.shtml|title=Jersey City History: The Whitlock Cordage|year=2007|publisher=The Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy|access-date=2009-06-24}} {{Dead link|date=October 2010|bot=H3llBot}} is an intact complex of industrial buildings built in the Lafayette section along the long ago filled Morris Canal.{{cite web| url = http://therealdeal.com/.../in-bergen-lafayette-a-canal-runs-through-it| title = In Bergen-Lafayette, a canal runs through it - The Real Deal}}{{Cite web |date= |title=Jersey City Online - Everything you want to know about Jersey City New Jersey "Let Jersey City Prosper Online' |url=http://www.jerseycityonline.com/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180308153358/http://www.jerseycityonline.com/ |archive-date=2018-03-08 |access-date= |website=}} The Housing Trust of America purchased the property to preserve the structures as affordable housing. The section near Johnston Avenue was the site of a stop on the Underground Railroad and African-American burial ground.{{Cite web |date= |title=Underground Railroad in Jersey City |url=http://www.njcu.edu/programs/jchistory/Pages/U_Pages/Underground_Railroad.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180102161723/http://www.njcu.edu/programs/jchistory/Pages/U_Pages/Underground_Railroad.htm |archive-date=2018-01-02 |access-date= |website=}} Ficken's Warehouse, once the site of Bergen City's main post office, is on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Hudson County, New Jersey.

Berry Lane Park was formerly an industrial area.

History

File:Manatvs gelegen op de Noot Riuier.jpg

File:Lehigh Valley Jersey City Terminal.png

=Lenape=

At the time of European settlement in the 17th century, Communipaw was the site of the summer encampment and council fire of the Hackensack Indians,{{cite book| author = Edward Manning Ruttenber| title = Indian Tribes of Hudson's River: To 1700| date = 1992-07-01| publisher = North Country Books| isbn = 978-0-910746-98-4 }} a phratry of the Lenape. They, along with the Raritan, Tappan, Wecquaesgeek, Canarsee and other groups who circulated in the region were collectively known as the River Indians by the immigrating population.

It is likely that the name is based in the Algonquian language Lenape. Earlier spellings are numerous and have included Gamoenapa, Gemonepan,{{cite book| author = Joan Doherty Lovero| title = Hudson County: The Left Bank| date = March 1986| publisher = Windsor Publications| isbn = 978-0-89781-172-9 }} Gemoenepaen, Gamenepaw, Comounepaw, ComounepanNew Jersey Colonial Records, East Jersey Records: Part 1-Volume 21, Calendar of Records 1664-1702 Communipau,{{Cite web|url=http://www.cityofjerseycity.org/oldberg/chapter15.shtml|title = Jersey City History - Old Bergen - Chapter XV}} Goneuipan{{cite web |url=http://www.nj.gov/state/darm/links/pdf/pasevensettledtowns.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2008-11-01 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090327031023/http://www.nj.gov/state/darm/links/pdf/pasevensettledtowns.pdf |archive-date=2009-03-27 }} There are a variety of interpretations of the meaning, though most sources relate it to being from {{not a typo|gamunk}}, "on the other side of the river", and pe-auke, "water-land", meaning "big landing-place from the other side of the river".{{Cite book |last=Shriner |first=Charles Anthony |url=http://archive.org/details/fourchaptersofpa00shri |title=Four chapters of Paterson history: I. The war for independence. II. The early white settlers. III. Struggle for industrial supremacy. IV. Municipal administration |date=1919 |publisher=Paterson, N.J., Lont & Overkamp Pub. Co., Printers |others=The Library of Congress}} (Current: "gamuck" meaning "other side of the water" or "otherside of the river"

{{Cite web |title=gilwell.com: The Lenape / English Dictionary |url=http://www.gilwell.com/lenape/ |access-date=2024-06-26 |website=www.gilwell.com}} or "landing place at the side of a river"{{Cite web |title=Indian Place Names in New Jersey |url=http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~njmorris/general_info/indian.htm}}).

=New Netherland=

Henry Hudson, commissioned by the Dutch East India Company, anchored along the shore at Communipaw in 1609 during his explorations of the Upper New York Bay, North River (Hudson River) and Hudson Valley.

{{Cite web|url=http://www.jerseycityonline.com/jc_history.htm|title = History of Jersey City New Jersey}} On September 12 he sailed up to Communipaw, where Robert Juet, his mate, wrote in the log that it was "...a very good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land to see."{{Cite web |date= |title=JERSEY CITY HISTORY OF FORMS OF GOVERNMENT FROM EARLY DUTCH DAYS TO THE PRESENT TIMEThe territory comprising what is now known as Jersey City was a wilderness, occupied by the Lenni Lenape or Delawares, and governed by their tribal laws, until Henry Hudson, an English navigator, in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, seeking another route that would not require the passing of the Spanish coast to the East Indies, and failing in his mission, found these shores. |url=http://www.jerseycityonline.com/history_of_jersey_city.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180309091220/http://www.jerseycityonline.com/history_of_jersey_city.htm |archive-date=2018-03-09 |access-date= |website=}} In 1634 one of the first "bouweries", or homesteads, in the colony of New Netherland was built at Communipaw as part of Pavonia, a patroonship of Amsterdam businessman Michiel Pauw. (Some have suggested that the name comes from Community of Pauw, which likely is more a coincidence than a fact.{{Cite web |url=http://members.home.nl/pushkar/oranje11.html#1626 |title=Archived copy |access-date=November 4, 2008 |archive-date=May 9, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120509135109/http://members.home.nl/pushkar/oranje11.html#1626 |url-status=dead }}{{Cite web |title=Ron-C-Myers - User Trees - Genealogy.com |url=https://www.genealogy.com/ftm/m/y/e/Ron-C-Myers/GENE31-0099.html |access-date=2024-06-26 |website=www.genealogy.com}}Gannett, Ganett, Henry, The Origin of Certain Place Names in The United States{{Cite web |title=New Jersey State Library - The Origin of New Jersey Place Names |url=http://www.njstatelib.org/NJ_Information/Digital_Collections/Digidox7.php |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070223152025/http://www.njstatelib.org/NJ_Information/Digital_Collections/Digidox7.php |archive-date=2007-02-23 |access-date= |website=}})

For a time it bore the name of the Dutchman who settled there, Jan Everts Bout,{{Cite web |url=http://www.greenapple.com/~cshart/ROOTVIEW/HTML/i0770nt.htm |title=Jan Evertsen Bout at Pavonia |access-date=January 11, 2009 |archive-date=September 4, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170904060429/http://www.greenapple.com/~cshart/ROOTVIEW/HTML/i0770nt.htm |url-status=dead }} and was called Jan de Lacher's Hoeck,{{Cite web |url=http://www.njcu.edu/programs/jchistory/Pages/C_Pages/Communipaw.htm |title=Communipaw |access-date=2008-11-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160604221020/http://www.njcu.edu/programs/jchistory/Pages/C_Pages/Communipaw.htm |archive-date=2016-06-04 |url-status=dead }} or "Jan the Laugher's Point", apparently in reference to his boisterous character. Plantations, worked by enslaved Africans, spread across the low-lying areas between the shoreline and the hill.{{cite book| last = Hodges| first = Graham Rusell| title = Dutch New York:Roots and Branch:African Americans in New York and East Jersey| year = 1999| publisher = University of North Carolina Press| location = Chapel Hill| isbn = 0-8078-4778-X| page = 9| chapter = Free People and Slaves, 1613-1664 }} It was here that Tappan and Wecquaesgeek fleeing dominant tribes from the north had taken refuge in 1643. They were attacked in the incident known as the Pavonia Massacre, subsequently leading to Kieft's War.{{Cite web|url=http://www.greenapple.com/~cshart/ROOTVIEW/HTML/i0770nt.htm|title=Jan Evertszen Bout|access-date=January 11, 2009|archive-date=September 4, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170904060429/http://www.greenapple.com/~cshart/ROOTVIEW/HTML/i0770nt.htm|url-status=dead}}

Originally the village of Communipaw was part of the colony under the jurisdiction of the Dutch West India Company. In 1653 it became part of the Commonality of New Amsterdam,{{cite book| author = Russell Shorto| author-link = Russell Shorto| title = The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America| date = 2005-04-12| publisher = Random House| isbn = 1-4000-7867-9 }} which included all the settlements at Pavonia, Manhattan, Staten Island, and Long Island). It became a separate village in 1658,{{Cite web |url=http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nycoloni/annals.html |title=Register of New Netherland, Annals of New Netherland |access-date=2008-12-14 |archive-date=2008-10-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081017150611/http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nycoloni/annals.html |url-status=dead }}{{Cite web |date= |title=History Of Jersey City New Jersey |url=http://jerseycityonline.com/jc_history.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160112192929/http://jerseycityonline.com/jc_history.htm |archive-date=2016-01-12 |access-date= |website=}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.gutenberg.lib.md.us/2/3/2/5/23258/23258-h/23258-h.htm#Page_82|title=The Project Gutenberg eBook of Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680, by Jasper Danckaerts}} under the jurisdiction of Bergen, established at contemporary Bergen Square. By 1669, regulated ferry service to New Amsterdam had been established.{{cite book| author = Arthur G. Adams| title = The Hudson River Through the Years| url = https://archive.org/details/hudsonthroughyea00adam| url-access = registration| date = 1996-04-01| publisher = Fordham University Press| isbn = 978-0-8232-1677-2| page = [https://archive.org/details/hudsonthroughyea00adam/page/174 174] }}{{cite book| author = william a. whitehead| title = contributions to the early history of perth amboy| url = https://archive.org/details/contributionsto00whitgoog| year = 1856| page = [https://archive.org/details/contributionsto00whitgoog/page/n292 272] | publisher = D. Appleton & Company}} After the last English takeover of New Netherland in 1674 it became part of the Province of New Jersey, in the county of Bergen, though it retained its Dutch character for hundreds of years. Washington Irving visited it often (at least once with future US president Martin van Buren) for inspiration. Writing in the early 19th century, he often referred to Communipaw as being the stronghold of traditional Dutch culture.;{{Cite web |title=Knickerbocker's History of New York/Book II/Chapter II - Wikisource, the free online library |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Knickerbocker%27s_History_of_New_York/Book_II/Chapter_II |access-date=2024-06-26 |website=en.wikisource.org |language=en}} he refers to it in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. James Fenimore Cooper's The Water-Witch and Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man both mention Communipaw as stronghold in a similar vein. John Quidor, an American Romantic painter, created works inspired the village: Embarkation from Communipaw and The Voyage from Communipaw to Hell Gate. Suydam Street, which can be translated as "south dam", runs for one block south of Communipaw Avenue is taken early Dutch family, whose descendant, Rev. J. Howard Suydam, D.D, was member and historian of the Holland Society of New York.{{cite book| last = Vookles| first = Laura| editor = Roger Panetta| title = Dutch New York The Roots of Hudson Valley Culture| date = 2009-06-12| publisher = Hudson River Museum| location = Yonkers, New York| isbn = 978-0-8232-3039-6| pages = 275, 279 }}

=Railroads=

Originally, the waters of the Upper New York Bay facing the village (situated near the site of today's Liberty Science Center) hosted vast oyster beds that were harvested well into the 19th century.{{cite book| author = Mark Kurlansky| author-link = Mark Kurlansky| title = The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell| date = 2007-01-09| publisher = Random House Trade Paperbacks| isbn = 978-0-345-47639-5 }} As it was industrialized, first with the construction of ports and later with rail infrastructure, the shoreline was expanded with landfill, notably by the Lehigh Valley Railroad and the Central Railroad of New Jersey. Communipaw Terminal, officially known as the Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal, was the waterfront terminus.

The cove just to the south of the station is sometimes still called Communipaw Cove. The railroad also maintained a Communipaw Station in the neighborhood farther inland along the right of way now used by the Hudson Bergen Light Rail. Johnston Avenue is named for an early president of the company.

Transportation

Buses traveling southbound through The Junction are New Jersey Transit routes 6,{{Cite web |url=http://www.njtransit.com/pdf/bus/T0006.pdf |title=NJT bus 6 schedule |access-date=March 16, 2010 |archive-date=March 28, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180328182744/http://www.njtransit.com/pdf/bus/T0006.pdf |url-status=dead }} and 81{{Cite web |url=http://www.njtransit.com/pdf/bus/upcoming/T0081.pdf |title=NJT 81 schedule |access-date=March 16, 2010 |archive-date=July 4, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090704192246/http://www.njtransit.com/pdf/bus/upcoming/T0081.pdf |url-status=dead }} through Greenville to Curries Woods, with the 81 continuing to Bayonne. On some trips the 6 alternates its routes along the Lafayette Loop. Northbound the 6 travels to Journal Square, while the 81 travel through Downtown Jersey City to Exchange Place. The nearest stations of the Hudson Bergen Light Rail are located along the southern periphery of the neighborhood at Garfield Avenue in Claremont neighborhood and at Liberty State Park.

References

External links

[https://web.archive.org/web/20100529183647/http://www.njcu.edu/programs/jchistory/Images/G_Images/Greenville_grove_map_1860_NJR_Large.jpg 1860 Map]
[http://www.readprint.com/work-3982/Communipaw-Washington-Irving Communipaw by Washington Irving]
[http://www.readprint.com/work-3984/A-Legend-of-Communipaw-Washington-Irving A Legend of Communipaw by Washington Irving]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20111008123349/http://www.jcha.us/SiteMap/NJ9-19,%20Lafayette%20Village%20Map%20Sheet%201.pdf Lafayette Gardens site map]
[http://njchurchscape.com/JerseyCity-LafayetteRef.html NJ Churchscape: Lafayette Reformed]
[http://www.stevens.edu/sds/wiki/index.php?title=Good_Ship_Pride_of_Communipaw_Flats Good_Ship_Pride_of_Communipaw_Flats]

Category:Neighborhoods in Jersey City, New Jersey

Category:History of Jersey City, New Jersey

Category:New Netherland

Category:Historic towns of Hudson County, New Jersey

Category:Dutch-American culture in New Jersey

Category:1634 establishments in the Dutch Empire

Category:17th-century establishments in New Jersey