The land on which the town was situated was at one time owned by the Surveyor General of New Netherland Jacques Cortelyou, some "12,000 morgens at Aquackanonk on the Passaic, purchased by himself and associates of the Indians.

[7] The Acquackanonk were a Lenape group who spoke the same Algonquian language dialect and shared the same totem (turtle) as the neighboring Hackensack and Tappan.

They were so called by the exonym by the New Netherlanders, who commonly referred to the people by the indigenous word for their territory.

[8] Alternatively, at the lamprey stream from contemporary axkwaakahnung (spellings include Achquakanonk, Acquackanonk) [9] Lastly it may mean where gum blocks were made for pounding corn.

[12] A bridge crossing of the Passaic River at Acquackanonk was first created in the colonial era, and was burned during Washington's 1776 great retreat from Fort Lee.