Novelist Frank R. Stockton, in Stories of New Jersey, sets out in narrative form the history of Garden State -- beginning with the meetings in the Council House of the Lenape or "Grandfather Tribe," the landing of Henry Hudson at Bergen Point, and the colony-making efforts of the West India Company of Holland.

On his way toward modern times, Stockton stops to take in the most interesting and colorful tales from city and country -- such as that of Penelope Stout, shipwrecked and then attacked by a party of natives, who then manages to survive within a hollowed-out tree -- or that of the schoolmaster who discovers his one-room schoolhouse is turning into a gambling house in the dead of night!