The Early Dutch and Swedish Settlers in New Jersey (The New Jersey Historical Series, Volume 10)

xiv, 139 pp. "New Netherland, and not least of it Dutch New Jersey, is greater than the sum of its parts. It would deserve a place in history if it had produced nothing but the Dutchmen of Washington Irving's wonderful imagination: the simple, good-natured fellow of the name of Rip Van Winkle, the bumbling, cheerful, obtuse, self-assured Dutchmen of Knickerbocker's "History of New York," and the Jersey Dutchmen of Communipaw. Irving's Communipaw was not the Communipaw of reality, certainly not the Communipaw where Captain Guert Tysen and his freebooters from the Spanish Main celebrated their exploits, and the Dutchmen of Knickerbocker's "History" were not the Dutchmen who opened the Jersey wilderness, but no one need concern himself for a moment about that. The New Netherland that Washington Irving made part of the American heritage will survive long after all of the histories of the Jersey Dutch have been written and forgotten. [From the Preface]"