A cranberry harvest in New Jersey. Men standing waist-deep in a cranberry bog loading cranberries onto a conveyer belt.
7 February 2022
“Old” Jersey is one of the Channel Islands, a crown dependency of the United Kingdom. A Roman text titled Antonine Itinerary (c. third century CE) dubbed it Caesarea, but the current name comes from Old Norse, Geirr + ey (Geirr’s island). The Norse name is recorded as early as c.1025. The name has had various spellings over the centuries, including Gersoi, Jersoi, and Gerseie.
The state of New Jersey in the United States is named for the Channel Island. The state forms the bulk of the territory known as Lenapehoking (land of the Lenape people). The Lenape were the Indigenous inhabitants of the territory at the time of European colonization. Decimated by diseases brought by Europeans and with the land claimed, often duplicitously, by European settlers, most of the Lenape had been driven from New Jersey by the eighteenth century, although some remain on the land to this day.
In 1638, the Swedes were the first Europeans to colonize what is now New Jersey, settling along the Delaware River as far north as what is now Camden and Philadelphia. The Dutch took control of the colony of New Sweden in 1655 and incorporated it into their colony of New Netherland. The English took control of New Netherland in 1664. The Dutch briefly regained control in 1673 but lost it again to the English the following year.
In 1664, Charles II granted the territory of what had been New Netherland to his brother, the Duke of York, who would later become King James II. The duke subdivided the territory of New Jersey and granted proprietorship of the eastern half to George Carteret and the western half to John Berkeley. The name New Jersey was chosen because Jersey had been both the birthplace of Carteret and the place where Charles II, then in exile, had been proclaimed king following the regicide of his father, Charles I, in 1649.
The 1664 grant to Carteret and Berkeley reads (the spelling here may have been modernized, but I have been unable to locate a facsimile of the original to check):
Now this Indenture witnesseth, that his said Royal Highness James Duke of York in hand paid by the aid John Lord Berkley and Sir George Carteret, before the sealing and delivery of these presents, the receipt whereof the said James Duke of York, doth hereby acknowledge, and thereof doth acquit and discharge the said John Lord Berkley and Sir George Carteret forever by these presents hath granted, bargained, sold, released and confirmed, and by these presents doth grant, bargain, sell, release and confirm unto the said John Lord Berkley and Sir George Carteret, their heirs and assigns for ever, all that tract of land adjacent to New England, and lying and being to the westward of Long Island, and Manhitas Island and bounded on the east part by the main sea, and part by Hudson's river, and hath upon the west Delaware bay or river, and extendeth southward to the main ocean as far as Cape May at the mouth of the Delaware bay; and to the northward as far as the northermost branch of the said bay or river of Delaware, which is forty-one degrees and forty minutes of latitude, and crosseth over thence in a strait line to Hudson's river in forty-one degrees of latitude; which said tract of land is hereafter to be called by the name or names of New Caeserea or New Jersey: and also all rivers, mines, mineralls, woods, fishings, hawking, hunting, and fowling, and all other royalties, profits, commodities, and hereditaments whatever, to the said lands and premises belonging or in any wise appertaining
The name Jersey is also used attributively for items associated with the Channel Island and with the US state. The island was famed for its cloth production, and Jersey worsted wool was a thing. From Phillip Stubbes Anatomie of Abuses, a 1583 tract complaining about the popular culture of the era and the “kids these days”:
Then haue they nether-stocks to these gay hosen, not of cloth (though neuer so fine) for that is thought to base, but of Iarnsey worsted, silk, thred and such like, or els at the least of the finest yarn yt can be.
And in the nineteenth century, Jersey worsted gave its name to the tunic often worn by athletes. From an 1837 translation of Aristophanes’s The Knights:
But though you saw poor People here
Was old, and weak, and pursey,
And had no flannel-waistcoat, ne’er
Have you given him a jersey
In winter-time.—Come, pocket it!
Here is the thing I mention.
[Presents a woollen under-waistcoat to PEOPLE, who takes off his coat, and puts it on with signs of great satisfaction.
And Jersey cattle are a breed of dairy cow originally bred on the island. From the 1843 Guide to Jersey and Guernsey:
The English reader need scarcely be told in what great estimation the Jersey Cows and Heifers are held. They are better known in England as Alderney cows, but they are mostly sent from Jersey—the former island exports comparatively few;—they are, however, of a similar character. The Guernsey cow, though good of its kind, is altogether a different animal. The Jersey cow is small and slender in its make, with short crumpled horns, having a resemblance to the finest formed Ayrshire cows; the Guernsey is larger, more like the mixed Devonshire and Holderness: the former gives by far the richer milk, the latter the larger quantity
A Jersey barrier. A concrete road barrier, wide at the bottom and tapering to the top.
And you’ve probably seen Jersey barriers as you’ve driven along the highway, so named because they were invented in New Jersey. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of 5 November 1969:
The 32-inch-high concrete divider has a two-foot-wide base and narrows to six inches at the top.
Called the New Jersey barrier because of its initial use on the turnpikes of that state, the median is designed to minimize the impact of vehicles, whose tires “scrub” and tend to ride up the side of the divider, dissipating their force and decelerating their speed.
Sources:
Aristophanes. “The Knights.” The Comedies of Aristophanes. Benjamin Dann Walsh, trans. London: A.H. Baily, 1837, 2.4, lines 881–83, 215. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Gaffiot, Félix. Dictionnaire Latin-Français. Paris: 1934, s.v. Caesarea, n. Brepols: Database of Latin Dictionaries.
Everett-Heath, John. Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names, sixth ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2020. Oxfordreference.com.
“Grant to Carteret and Berkeley” (1664). New Jersey Charters and Treaties. New Jersey State Library.
A Guide to Jersey and Guernsey, second edition. London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1843, 94. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Mills, A. D. A Dictionary of British Place Names, revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011. Oxfordreference.com.
“New Median on Lindbergh Reduces Impact of Crash.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 5 November 1969, 2-N. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2003, s.v. New Jersey, n.; second edition, 1989, s.v. jersey, n.1, Jersey, n.2.
Stubbes, Phillip. The Anatomie of Abuses, part 1 of 2. London: John Kingston for Richard Jones, 1583, sig. E3v. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Image credits: Cranberry bog: Keith Weller, a.2004, US Department of Agriculture, public domain image; Jersey barrier: CorreiaPM, 2008, public domain image.