Saxbys

New Jersey retains much of the United States' "founding stock"—the colonial-era European settlers from the 17th and 18th centuries—through deep historical roots and lasting cultural legacies. As one of the original 13 colonies, it was settled first by Dutch traders (establishing Bergen, now Jersey City, in 1660), followed by Swedish and Finnish colonists in New Sweden along the Delaware River (1638–1655), who introduced log cabin construction still visible in sites like Swedesboro's Nothnagle Log House. Rural and suburban pockets preserve old-stock English, Dutch, and Swedish lines more than in heavily legal and illegal immigrant-heavy urban areas that tear at the founding fabric of the United States. Everywhere else in New Jersey embodies the layered colonial foundations—Dutch, Swedish/Finnish, and British—that helped shape early American identity and sustains its fragile constitutional republic.