Editing Cape May County, New Jersey (section)

===Etymology===
[[File:Cape May, New Jersey 1777.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.1|A 1777 map depicting Cape May County, the scene of the [[Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet]] on June 29, 1776, in the [[American Revolutionary War]]]]
Before Cape May County was settled by Europeans, the [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|indigenous]] [[Kechemeche]] tribe of the [[Lenape]] people inhabited [[South Jersey]], and traveled to the barrier islands during the summer to hunt and fish.<ref name="Story">{{cite book|author=John P. Snyder|url=http://www.state.nj.us/dep/njgs/enviroed/oldpubs/bulletin67.pdf|title=The Story of New Jersey's Civil Boundaries: 1606-1968|publisher=Bureau of Geology and Topography|year=1969|location=Trenton, New Jersey|access-date=March 26, 2018|archive-date=June 5, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120605161833/http://www.state.nj.us/dep/njgs/enviroed/oldpubs/bulletin67.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="his">{{cite news|title=History of the Ten Villages of Upper Township: The Island Village of Strathmere, Part 1|author=Robert F. Holden|url=http://www.shorenewstoday.com/upper_township/history/history-of-the-ten-villages-of-upper-township-the-island/article_0054a943-a234-5873-a079-99bf01a3956d.html|newspaper=The Gazette of Upper Township|date=August 9, 2017|access-date=March 26, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180313092417/http://www.shorenewstoday.com/upper_township/history/history-of-the-ten-villages-of-upper-township-the-island/article_0054a943-a234-5873-a079-99bf01a3956d.html|archive-date=March 13, 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="och">[http://www.ocnj.us/History/ A Brief History of Ocean City New Jersey] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180421084652/http://www.ocnj.us/History/ |date=April 21, 2018 }}, Ocean City, New Jersey. Accessed December 23, 2017.</ref> During the 17th century, the area that is now Cape May County was claimed as part of [[New Netherlands]], [[New Sweden]], the [[Province of New Jersey]] under the British crown, and later [[West Jersey]].<ref name="Story"/> On August 28, 1609, English explorer [[Henry Hudson]] entered the [[Delaware Bay]] and stayed one day on land, north of what is now [[Cape May Point, New Jersey|Cape May Point]].<ref name="getnj">{{cite book|title=Historic Roadsides of New Jersey|year=1928|author=The Society of Colonial Wars in the State of New Jersey|at=GetNJ.com|access-date=March 28, 2018|url=http://www.getnj.com/historicroadsides/capemay.shtml|archive-date=August 22, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070822231824/http://getnj.com/historicroadsides/capemay.shtml|url-status=live}}</ref> As early as 1666, the southern tip of New Jersey was known as ''[[Cape May|Cape Maey]]'', named after Dutch explorer [[Cornelius Jacobsen May]], who sailed the coastline of New Jersey from 1620 to 1621.<ref>{{cite web|series=Historical Background Maps|title=Coastal Charts|publisher=Princeton University|access-date=April 22, 2018|year=2014|url=https://library.princeton.edu/njmaps/background/coastal_charts.html|archive-date=October 26, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171026025811/https://library.princeton.edu/njmaps/background/coastal_charts.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1630, representatives of the [[Dutch West India Company]] purchased a {{convert|16|mi2|km2|abbr=on}} tract of land along the Delaware from indigenous people, and bought additional land 11 years later.<ref name="getnj"/> Due to the large number of whales in the region of Cape May, Dutch explorers founded Town Bank around 1640 along the Delaware Bay as a whaling village. It was the first European settlement in what is now Cape May County, and was populated by descendants of [[Plymouth County, Massachusetts|Plymouth County]].<ref name="getnj"/><ref name="proposed"/>