How did New Jersey get its shape?

Answer 1

"The Arc" that forms most of Delaware's northern boundary with Pennsylvania was defined as an arc 12 miles in radius from the then-New Castle County courthouse in the town of New Castle. Delaware's southern border was set by agreement between the Penn and Calvert families of Pennsylvania and Maryland respectively as a line (the Transpeninsular Line) which basically ran 35 miles west from Fenwick Island to the mid-point of the DelMarVa peninsula. Delaware's western boundary, which makes up the first 86 miles of the Mason-Dixon Line, runs generally northward to a tangent point on the 12-mile arc and then continues north to Pennsylvania's southern border. This actually left a small "wedge" between the arc and Pennsylvania's southern boundary; it was claimed by both Delaware and Pennsylvania until agreement was reached in 1893 and it became part of Delaware.

Answer 2

It was shaped in the image of Abe Vigota.

For the most part, the boundaries of New Jersey are natural, formed by the Delaware and Hudson Rivers, Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. But I had always wondered about the borderline in the norther region of NJ. If you go to the Rutgers University Cartography site and click on the link for a boundary map from 1784, you'll see a line of demarcation starting at 41 degrees longitude on the NJ side of the Hudson River (what is now Station Rock) leading northwest to the Delaware River, at the point of the river where it bends Northwest. According to the map, the King of England commissioned for this line of demarcation in 1784, which divides NJ from NY, and doesn't seem to have changed much since then. There is a second line of demarcation but it doesn't resemble the boundary of today.

Answer 3

Delaware was once a part of Pennsylvania. At its beginnings it was a Swede named Peter Minuit and a Swedish company that "founded" this area.

It was later taken over by the British. Delaware became an important colony because it had access to the Atlantic Ocean and it had fertile farmlands.