Post 3. First Occupants, 1750s-1780s

Early land ownership in present-day Wyckoff Township can be traced to the Romopock [or Ramopock] patent, a colonial land grant with a tangled history of claims and counterclaims involving indigenous tribes, proprietors (the official owners of the lands in the Province of East Jersey as originally determined by the British monarchy), land speculators and settlers. The first known settler at the Cedar Hill was likely Daniel Rutan. He acquired 469.2 acres no later than 1745 per a survey conducted in 1767-68 by the Proprietors of East Jersey to try and sort out the many competing claims.

Daniel Rutan was a close descendant of Abraham Rutan (b.1658 in Metz, France-d. 1713), a French Huguenot who escaped his home country to avoid religious persecution. Abraham and his soon-to-be wife, Marie Petilion, traveled to New York from Mannheim, Lower Palatinate, Germany in 1680. The couple married that same year and settled in New Paltz, New York. Abraham and Marie Rutan had twelve children, including their eldest son Daniel (b. circa 1684-d. 1735). Eventually, Abraham and Marie Rutan’s children and grandchildren established households of their own in various parts of northeastern New Jersey and New York. The patriarchal tradition that sons inherit their father’s or grandfather’s name is prevalent in the Rutan family tree. The name Daniel Abraham or Abraham Daniel is seen in almost every branch of the early Rutan family, making it difficult to determine which generation of Daniel Rutans first owned and settled on the Romopock Tract. Nonetheless, archaeology has the potential to provide an important window into the culture of early French Huguenot settlers in this part of New Jersey and New York.