Piscataway, New Jersey

was the headquarters for General George Washington when he ordered a feu de joie for the second anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in July 1778. The earliest recorded settlers of the area were the Lenape Native Americans; who lived for generations in what they called Lenapehoking, a region spanning present-day New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, and parts of New York. In 1666, European settlers from New England obtained deeds for approximately 40,000 acres of land from Lenape leaders. These transactions were recorded by colonial authorities as land purchases under English law. However, historians note that Lenape concepts of land use emphasized communal stewardship rather than permanent private ownership, differing significantly from European legal traditions. As European settlement expanded, these differing interpretations and power imbalances contributed to the gradual dispossession and displacement of the Lenape from their ancestral lands. In 1666, the first proprietary Governor of the Province of New Jersey, Philip Carteret, granted 12 new settlers from Massachusetts a 100 square mile allotment of land that was later founded as the townships of Piscataway and Woodbridge. Similar types of settlements established by religious dissenters fleeing Puritan colonies in New England were being formed in other parts of New Jersey, notably the Elizabethtown Tract in Northern New Jersey near the mouth of the Raritan River and extending upwards into modern day Essex County, and the Monmouth Tract in Central New Jersey near the Raritan Bay and extending southward along the Jersey Shore to the Barnegat Inlet. Additional settlers from the Piscataqua River area of New Hampshire moved to Piscataway, bringing the name. Coming from a lumbering, shipbuilding and fishing background, these settlers, consisting of mostly Baptists and Quakers, were comfortable with their new surroundings, and looking forward to starting a new life away from political and religious persecution in the north. They were also enterprising and pioneering families who were already experienced in wilderness settlement. Before the original settlers, there were pioneer scouts who surveyed these new lands and waterways. The town name of Piscataway came from these early pioneers who originally came from the town of Piscataqua. During the original land purchase, the pioneers had signed 12 Articles of Agreement with Governor Carteret, which served as the legal basis for the government of Piscataway and Woodbridge and which shaped the democratic development of self-government. In short, these articles were mainly designed to provide liberty and land ownership for new families and to allow them to establish their own government representatives and religious freedoms. After a few line and boundary changes, Piscataway and its outer plantations were reported to total 40,000 acres, with 66 square miles of land in 1685. The Lenape Native Americans occupied the entire Piscataway area, but were dispelled as the encroachment of European settlers increased. Across multiple generations, the Lenape established defined trails that European settlers appropriated in order to traverse through the wilderness area and partition new lands. Over time, many of these primitive trails became the main routes of travel between communities and became the basis of roads that still exist today. The trails along the Raritan River were named after a local population of Native Americans called the Raritangs. Piscataway Township is the fifth-oldest municipality in New Jersey and among the fifty oldest municipalities in the United States. On February 8, 1777, the Battle of Quibbletown, a running battle took place between approximately 2,000 British and Hessian troops under the command of British General Charles Lord Cornwallis and the local patriot militia led by Colonel Charles Scott and a separate militia commanded by Brigadier General Nathaniel Warner. ==Geography==