A Look Into the Past

A Lenni-Lenape chief, a Brainy Borough, and a hole in the doughnut

BY RYAN GALLAGHER

Many have wondered about life outside modernday New Jersey. If time travel were an option, what would this town look like 100 or 200 years in the past? Who lived there, and why?

Daily, it’s easy to neglect these thoughts to past civilizations and communities. However, much like the entire Garden state, Metuchen has a long, uncertain background that dates back farther than modern humans fully understand. Some of the most recent history recorded has to do with a mysterious Native American chief, and a community full of intellectuals—amongst Metuchen’s changing landscape. Most humans tend to forget history and (willingly or unwillingly) lose true historical facts. Luckily, Metuchen’s community includes those who seem hell bent on finding answers and preserving the past.

The American Indian Chief

Conversation buzzed about this topic when the Metuchen Police Department’s illustration of the Lenni-Lenape Chief on the department’s uniform patches and police cruisers came into question, according to CentralJersey.com.

Current Mayor Jonathan Busch said the former Police Chief Joseph Perrino was lent what some historians believe was an original life sketch of the Lenni-Lenape Indian Chief from 1693.

“[Chief] Perrino took a picture of the sketch with the department camera and created the painting we have all seen,” the Mayor said, adding Perrino was creating a painting from a life sketch. “The original [painting] hangs in the office of the police chief and a copy can be seen at the [Metuchen Public] library.”

For years, there have been recordings and illustrations that depict a notable Native American Chief who was well known in the modern-day Metuchen-Edison region. It is thought that this person was called Chief Metuchen, or Matouchin, among various spellings or misspellings over recorded history.

“I have done a little looking into it,” said Nancy Zerbe, the chair of Metuchen’s Historic Preservation Committee. Zerbe got a degree in history and studied historic preservation at Columbia for her graduate degree. She spent 14 years with the New Jersey State Historic Preservation office, she’s been a consultant in this capacity, and been active in local historic preservation efforts since. Even still, she was hesitant when I called her an expert on this specific subject matter.

“So, it’s still a real mystery. I went back and looked at old issues of the Metuchen Recorder. Old papers were cautious to say this. I believe we were named after a chief in this area. But I am skeptical still, even more so about the 1968 illustration from the original sketch by Percy Milligan in the 1690s. Published in 1900, on the 60th anniversary of the Recorder the caption says, Legendary Chief Matouchin—this is probably what he’d look like. So, the publicity about it was hypothetical.”

On the other hand, there is a written letter preserved from 1720 that refers to this Indian Chief. One woman has read and studied this old letter.

“The excerpt is from a letter written by John Ayers to his mother in London, dated ‘Ye tenth of October, 1720,’” said Tyreen Reuter, who is a Metuchen resident, historian, and volunteer for the Metuchen Historical Society. “In the letter, he first please see HISTORY, page 17

PHOTOS COURTESY OF TYREEN REUTER

RIGHT: In December 1905, Harpers president Colonel George Harvey invited the Mary Wilkins Freeman and her husband to a banquet at Delmonico’s in New York City in honor of Samuel Clemens’ (Mark Twain) 70th birthday. As reported in The New York Times, when it was time for the 170 guests to proceed into dinner, “Mr. Clemens led the way, with Mrs. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman on his arm.”

HISTORY continued from page describes his voyage and fellow travelers, then the land in which he settled.”

MeTochen is a faire and healthy spotte about two leagues from ye bay of Perth Amboy where we landed from our ship. Heare be many little hilles which go uppe and down like ye wartes on a toades backe.

Heare also be many fine trees of oake and a kind of nutte which is in a podde or huske with many sharp spines. Ye Indians calle them “dampsh arps” which in their tounge means “needle-nutt.

MeTochen is called from ye name of ye chief of this place and meanth “slowe-dog” for that chief is lame and goeth slowly. Ye land heare is redde like a foxe and yt is wet yt sticketh lustily.

The letter is seemingly conclusive—there was a Chief that Metuchen, New Jersey is named after. Or is it? Those who study history qualify this artifact from the past, since the letter was personal and never meant to be published. Plus, there is no way to verify the “slow dog” translation, Reuter conceded.

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