Jersey City Hudson New Jersey United States

A patent for the west bank of the Hudson River had been given to Michael Pauw, a burgermeester of Amsterdam and a director of the Dutch West India Company.

Pavonia is the Latinized form of Pauw's surname, which means "peacock".

As was required, Pauw had purchased the land from the indigenous population, though the concept of ownership differed significantly for the parties involved.

Three Lenape "sold" the land for eighty fathoms (one hundred and forty six meters) of wampum, twenty fathoms (thirty-seven meters) of cloth, twelve kettles, six guns, two blankets, one double kettle and half a barrel of beer.

These transactions, dated July 12, 1630 and November 22, 1630, represent the earliest known conveyance for the area.

It is said that the three were part of the same band who had sold Manhattan Island to Peter Minuit then "sold" this land, to which they had retired after that sale in 1626.

The area encompassed by Pauw's holdings on Bergen Neck likely includes the eight miles (thirteen kilometers) of shore line on each of the Hudson and Hackensack Rivers from Bergen Point to today's Bergen County line.

His agent had set up a small factorij and ferry slip at Arresick on the tidal island that stills bears his name, Paulus Hook.

A plantation worked by fifty enslaved Africans had been set up by 1630.

A homestead had been built at Gemoenepaen in 1633 for his representative Jan Evertsen Bout.

Pauw, however, had failed to fulfill the condition of establishing a community of at least fifty permanent settlers and was required to resell his speculative acquisition back to the company.

A homestead had been built at Ahasimus in 1634 for Cornelis Hendriksen Van Vorst (Voorst), whose later descendants will play a prominent role in the development of Jersey City.

Abraham Isaac Planck (aka Verplank) has received a land patent for Paulus Hook on May 1, 1638.

A small farm goes up at Kewan Punt.

A series of grants had been made in late 1654 for tracts "achter de Kol" or Achter Col at Pamrapo and Minkakwa.

The colony grows and the situation remains relatively peaceful until 1655, when Pavonia is attacked by a united band of about five hundred Lenape.

One hundred settlers are killed.

One hundred and fifty are taken hostage and held at Paulus Hook until their release can be negotiated.

This incident is known as the Peach Tree War, and is said to have been precipitated by the killing of a young woman who had stolen a peach from settler's orchard on Manhattan, but may have been a retaliation for the Dutch attack on the Lenapes' trading partners on the Delaware Bay in New Sweden.

Stuyvesant, wishing to further formalize agreements with the Lenape, agrees in 1658 to "re-purchase" the area "by the great rock above Wiehacken," taking in the sweep of land on the peninsula west of the Hudson and east of the Hackensack River extending down to the Kill Van Kull in Bayonne.