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The Lenni Lenape Native Americans were the first known organized inhabitants of this area, having settled here about one thousand years ago and forming an agricultural society, occupying small villages that dotted what was to become Marlboro Township. Their villages were known to be in the Wickatunk and Crawford’s Corner sections of the township.

In 1600, the Delaware / Lenape Native American population in the surrounding area may have numbered as many as 20,000. Several wars, at least 14 separate epidemics (yellow fever, smallpox, influenza, encephalitis lethargica, etc.) and disastrous over-harvesting of the animal populations reduced their population to around 4,000 by the year 1700. Since the Lenape people, like all Native Americans, had no immunity to European diseases, when the populations contacted the epidemics, they frequently proved fatal. Some Lenape starved to death as a result of animal over-harvesting, while others were forced to trade their land for goods such as clothing and food. They were eventually moved to reservations set up by the US Government. They were first moved to the only Indian Reservation in New Jersey, the Brotherton Reservation in Burlington County, New Jersey (1758-1802). Those who remained survived through attempting to adapt to the dominant culture, becoming farmers and tradesmen. As the Lenni Lenape population declined, and the European population increased, the history of the area was increasingly defined by the new European inhabitants and the Lenape Native American tribes played an increasingly secondary role.

Dutch arrival[edit]

Within a period of 112 years, 1497-1609, four European explorers claimed this land for their sponsors: John Cabot, 1497, for England; Giovanni de Verrazano, 1524, for France; Estevan Gomez, 1525, for Spain, Henry Hudson, 1609, for Holland. After the Dutch arrival to the region in the 1620s, the Lenape were successful in restricting Dutch settlement to Pavonia in present-day Jersey City along the Hudson River until the 1660s and the Swedish settlement to New Sweden (1655 – The Dutch defeat the Swedes on the Delaware). The Dutch established a garrison at Bergen allowing settlement of areas within the province of New Netherland. For 50 years, 1614-1664, the Monmouth County area came under the influence of the Dutch, but it was not settled until after English rule in 1664.