There was a decided Dutch influence, it is
said, in the part nearest New York, emanating from the Bergen
settlement in which the Dutch had succeeded in establishing
themselves in 1660 after the Indians had twice driven them from
Pavonia. Many descendants of Dutch families are still found in
that region. Many Dutch characteristics were to be found in that
region throughout colonial times. Many of the houses had Dutch
stoops or porches at the door, with seats where the family and
visitors sat on summer evenings to smoke and gossip. Long Dutch
spouts extended out from the eaves to discharge the rain water
into the street. But the prevailing tone of East Jersey seems to
have been set by the Scotch Presbyterians and the New England
Congregationalists. The College of New Jersey, afterward known as
Princeton, established in 1747, was the result of a movement
among the Presbyterians of East Jersey and New York.
All these elements of East Jersey, Scotch Covenanters,
Connecticut Puritans, Huguenots, and Dutch of the Dutch Reformed
Church, were in a sense different but in reality very much in
accord and congenial in their ideas of religion and politics.
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