Little Egg Harbor Twp MU

Little Egg Harbor Twp MU Municipal Water Report Information

Originally established as part of Burlington County, Little Egg Harbor was named after a section of sound called Egg Harbor (now known as Little Egg Harbor) by Dutch sailors who discovered bird egg nests in the vicinity. The earliest documented mention of the town dates to Captain Cornelius Jacobsen May's exploration in 1614.

The township's first European settler was Hendrick Jacobs Falkenberg, who likely arrived by 1693 when his name disappeared from census records of Swedish settlements along the Delaware River where he had lived for nearly 30 years. Though from Holstein (now part of Germany), his first wife was Finnish and a member of the Swedish community. Falkenberg settled on an 800-acre tract acquired from the Lenni Lenape Indians in 1674, with a 1697 deed confirming this earlier purchase. This property included the islands of Monhunk and Minnicunk, later renamed Wills Island and Osborn Island.

Falkenberg was a skilled linguist fluent in the Lenape language, serving as southern New Jersey's primary interpreter for land transactions between indigenous peoples and European settlers, particularly English Quakers. Among the township's earliest recorded vessels was a sloop owned by Thomas Ridgway Sr. John Mathis Sr. also operated a ship that his son Daniel navigated through West Indian trade routes, generating profits from clam and shellfish sales.