Bergen Township was a township that existed in the U.S. state of New Jersey, from 1661 to 1862, first as Bergen, New Netherland, then as part Bergen County, and later as part of Hudson County. Several places still bear the name: the township of North Bergen; Bergen Square, Old Bergen Road, Bergen Avenue, Bergen Junction, Bergen Hill and Bergen Arches in Jersey City; Bergen Point in Bayonne; and Bergenline Avenue and Bergen Turnpike in North Hudson. New Netherland The name Bergen was originally given to the peninsula between the Hudson River and Hackensack River by the European settlers to New Netherland. There are various opinions as to the origin. Some believe it comes from the Dutch word bergen, which in the Germanic languages of northern Europe means hills, and could describe the most distinct geological feature of the region, The Palisades. A more farfetched interpretation is that it comes from the Dutch word bergen, meaning to save or to recover, inspired by the settlers return after they had fled attacks by the native population after the Peach Tree War in 1655. Others say it is so called for the town of Bergen, North Holland in the Netherlands or (less likely) Bergen op Zoom, also in the Netherlands or the city of Bergen in Norway. Another theory is that the Dutch residents named their city after an early Scandinavian settler of New Amsterdam, Hans Hansen Bergen, who arrived in Manhattan in 1633 as a ship's carpenter. Bergen initially settled on Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan and later owned extensive plantations elsewhere on the island, none of which were in Bergen Township. From Bergen, Norway, he was one of the few Scandinavian settlers of New Amsterdam. Previous European settlements in present-day Hudson County included a small town called Communipaw (at the current Liberty Science Center) and other settlements that were all within Pavonia, which included only the lands surrounding of Harsimus Island (Harsimus), Aressick (Paulus Hook) and Hobocan Hacking (Hoebuck), all of which had been burned to the ground twice after an unprovoked massacre of Native Americans in 1643 at Communipaw and a series of raids and reprisals between the Netherlanders and the Lenape that followed, in what is known as Kieft's War and the Peach Tree War. In late 1654 a series of land grants were made for farms for lands at Achter Col behind Kill Van Kull. In 1658, Peter