Bayonne, New Jersey

Originally inhabited by a collection of Native American tribes known as the Lenape, the region presently known as Bayonne was known as Lenapehoking. It was claimed by the Netherlands after Henry Hudson explored the North River, later named after him, on behalf of the Dutch East India Company in 1609. By 1621, the Dutch West India Company was organized to manage the new territory and in June 1623, New Netherland became a Dutch province, with headquarters across New York Harbor in New Amsterdam. In 1646, Director-General of New Netherland Willem Kieft, granted land to Jacob Jacobsen Roy, the chief gunner or constable at Fort Amsterdam. The land become known as "Constable Hook" (''Konstapel's Hoeck'' in Dutch), after his title. Roy, however, never settled or farmed on the land. On January 10, 1658, Peter Stuyvesant, the new Director-General, "re-purchased" the scattered communities of farmsteads of Communipaw, Harsimus, Paulus Hook, Hoebuck, Awiehaken, Pamrapo, and other lands "behind Kill van Kull" from the Lenape. The village of Bergen (predecessor to Jersey City) was established in 1660 and officially chartered by Stuyvesant on September 5, 1661 as what would be the state's first local civil government. The charter partially removed Bergen from the jurisdiction of New Amsterdam and put the surrounding settlements under its authority. On August 27, 1664, four English frigates sailed into New York Harbor and captured Fort Amsterdam, and by extension, all of New Netherland, a prelude to the Second Anglo-Dutch War, and renamed it New York. Later in 1664, the Duke of York (later James II), granted the land between the Hudson River and Delaware River to Sir George Carteret in recognition of his loyalty to the Crown through the English Civil War. Carteret named the land New Jersey after his homeland, the Channel Island of Jersey. In 1776 ahead of the American Revolutionary War, General George Washington ordered American patriots to construct several forts to defend the western banks of the Hudson River and New York Harbor, one of which was Bergen Neck Fort near Pamrapo. It was constructed in July 1776 and later abandoned by patriot forces on October 5, 1776. It was taken over and occupied by Loyalists in 1777 who renamed it Fort Delancey in honor of prominent Loyalist Oliver De Lancey. The fort was occupied by Loyalists for most of the war until they abandoned and burned it in 1782. A historic sign marks the location of the fort at Avenue B between 51st and 52nd Streets. In 1836, the Morris Canal was extended from Newark linking Bergen Neck with the interior of Northern New Jersey and the Delaware River. Steamboats linked the peninsula with New York City as early as 1846. The Central Railroad of New Jersey linked Bayonne to the west with the opening of the Newark Bay Railroad Bridge and to Manhattan via ferry with the opening of Communipaw Terminal at Jersey City in 1864. However, there is no empirical evidence for this notion. Whitcomb gives more credence to the idea that Erastus Randall, E.C. Bramhall and B.F. Woolsey, who bought the land owned by Jasper and William Cadmus for real estate speculation, named it Bayonne for purposes of real estate speculation, because it was located on the shores of two bays, Newark and New York. Furthermore, "Bayonne Avenue", now 33rd Street, was a cross-town street that ran from Newark Bay to New York Bay and is officially recognized as the inspiration for city's name. The Morris Canal became the northern most boundary or the "city line" separating Bayonne and what is now Jersey City. In the mid-nineteenth century, wealthy New Yorkers and Americans, including presidents and authors, came to Bayonne to stay at its hotels and enjoy its brief status as an early beach resort. It was also an early boat building and yachting center where its fishers and oystermen supplied the regional market. As Bayonne began to urbanize and industrialize in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, it became home to thousands of European immigrants landing at Ellis Island in New York Harbor. In 1888, Bayonne Medical Center opened in response to the city's growth. Bayonne became one of the largest centers in the nation for refining crude oil and Standard Oil of New Jersey's facility—which had grown from its original establishment in 1877—and its 6,000 employees made it the city's largest employer. Four striking workers were killed when strikebreakers, allegedly protected by police, fired upon a violent crowd. At the turn of the 20th century, the City Beautiful movement had spread throughout cities in the United States. Part of its mission was to preserve public space for recreational activities in urban industrial communities. The Hudson County Parks Commission was created in 1892 to plan and develop a county wide park and boulevard system similar to those found in other cities. From 1892 to 1897, Hudson Boulevard (now John F. Kennedy Boulevard) was built to connect the future park system from Bayonne through Jersey City to North Bergen. In 1916, Stephen R. Gregg—Bayonne Park opened on the Boulevard along the city's western shore line on Newark Bay. At , it is the largest park in Bayonne and was designed by Charles N. Lowrie, landscape architect for the Hudson County Parks Department. The park was named after Bayonne resident and World War II veteran Stephen R. Gregg in 1995. Named after Revolutionary War General Hugh Mercer, the Mercer Park, was developed on the Boulevard from portions of Curries Woods on the border of Jersey City and Bayonne as a project of the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s. In 1931, the Bayonne Bridge opened as the world's longest steel arch main span connecting Bayonne and Staten Island over the Kill Van Kull and was designed by bridge builder Othmar Ammann and architect Cass Gilbert. The bridge physically linked Bayonne to New York City for the first time. From 2013 to 2019, the bridge was rebuilt and its span elevated to accommodate the new Panamax ships for the widened Panama Canal. The Military Sealift Command (MSC) used the base during the Persian Gulf War and during operations in Somalia and Haiti. The facility closed in 1999 under a 1995 directive from the Base Realignment and Closure commission. In 2004, Cape Liberty Cruise Port opened at the former MOTBY, now known as the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor, with the Voyager of the Seas becoming the first passenger ship to depart from a New Jersey port in almost 40 years. From 1996 to 2011, NJ Transit constructed the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail as one of the largest public works projects in state history. The system was built and extended through the city utilizing the former right-of-way and station locations of the Central Railroad of New Jersey. The system links Bayonne with Jersey City and its neighboring cities while connecting to several NJ Transit bus lines, PATH stations and ferry terminals. ==Geography and climate==