Colonial County of Cape May, Colony of New Jersey, British Colonial America (North America)

This location, at the southern-most point of New Jersey, has no recorded documents or images from that time. An English Captain Henry Hudson first documented the peninsula in 1609 as he was sailing his small yacht, named the "Half Moon", when he came upon the small peninsula situated between the Atlantic Ocean and the Delaware Bay The cape was formed around 1620 by a Dutch Captain, Cornelius Jacobsen Mey who came upon the peninsula while exploring the Delaware River. He named the area Cape Mey after himself; the spelling was later changed to Cape May There were many whaling families who came from Long Island (part of Connecticut at that time) and from the Massachusetts Bay Colony; the Hands, Ludlams, Spicers, Hildreths, Leamings, Shaws, Matthews, Swains, Stites, Corsons, Godfreys, Townsends, Taylors, Hughes, Carmans, Whilldins, Eldredges, Fosters, Cresses, Schellengers, Stillwells, Robinsons, Reeves, among others