Page:History of West Hoboken NJ.djvu/21

 At this time the population of the county was 9,436, and there were only 60 houses from Hackensack south to the Jersey City line.

On February 10, 1843, old Bergen Township was again divided in half, when all that part lying north of what is now the Pennsylvania Railroad cut and Snake Hill, was set off from it and named the Township of North Bergen. This latter township, the same as old Bergen, has from time to time been despoiled of its territory for cities and towns, until to-day it consists chiefly of swamps and cemeteries. The breaking up of the Township of North Bergen began when Hoboken seceded by becoming the Township of Hoboken on March 1, 1849, and being incorporated as a city in 1855; then came Hudson City, which was set off from North Bergen on March 4, 1852, and then Weehawken parted company from Hoboken March 15, 1859. The Town of Guttenberg also become incorporated in 1859, then came the Township of West Hoboken and the Township of Union (now West New York), which adopted a government of their own on February 28, 1861; then the Town of Union (Union Hill) divorced itself from the Township of Union (West New York) on March 24, 1864.

It is perhaps proper to say a few words here in regards the name "Hoboken," although our town is only 43 years old. The name West Hoboken is perhaps 100 years old, because all the land between South street, Jersey City, and the Hackensack Plankroad was known by that name in the latter part of the eighteenth century. It has been said by many writers that "Hoboken" is a Dutch name, but Chas. Winfield, in his "Monograph of Hoboken," has the following to say on this much discussed subject:—

"In the first deed from the Indians conveying this property to the Council of New Netherland the name was spelled Hopoghan. Hackingh meaning "Hopokhan" smoking pipe, and "Hackingh" the land, which would infer that the Indian name of Hoboken, was the land of the smoking pipe. This is all the more true because at Castle Point there was a certain kind of stone from which the Indians made pipes. The name was also used by the Indians in a symbolic sense to express crookedness, and may have been used in reference to the shore of the river, which, at that time, was very irregular at Hoboken.

Considering these facts it is nonsense to believe that Hoboken is a Dutch word, even if there is a town in Holland by that name, it is not to be expected that the Indians knew of that city and copied its name for their land, because it was called by that name by them before the advent of the white man in