Lenape time of sustained European contact in the 1600s and 1700s the Lenape were a powerful Native American nation who inhabited a region on the mid-Atlantic coast spanning the latitudes of southern Massachusetts to the southern extent of Delaware in what anthropologists call the Northeastern Woodlands. Although never politically unified, the confederation of the Delaware roughly encompassed the area around and between the Delaware and lower Hudson rivers, and included the western part of Long Island in present-day New York. Some of their place names, such as Manhattan ("the island of many hills"), Raritan, and Tappan were adopted by Dutch and
Point Pleasant, New Jersey 1928. Point Pleasant is distinct from Point Pleasant Beach, which is a separate community. The borough is a Jersey Shore community situated on the Barnegat Peninsula, a long, narrow barrier peninsula that divides the Barnegat Bay from the Atlantic Ocean at the Manasquan Inlet, and the borough derives its name from this location. Around 1500, the area that included the future Point Pleasant was the ceremonial meeting place of the Lenape Native Americans, who called it the "Land of Tall Timber". In approximately 1665, the first European settlers arrived in the area, mainly fishermen, farmers and boat builders. On February