Like Assunpink Creek, the trail takes its name from the Lenape language Ahsën'pink, meaning "stony, watery place".
[1] At the time of European colonization the area was inhabited by an Algonquian people known as the Lenape[1] and later called the Delaware Indians.
[2][3] After the British takeover of the colony, and the establishment of the Province of New Jersey, the trail became a part major thoroughfare between Philadelphia and Perth Amboy,[4] the capital of East Jersey and a major port.
[5] By 1698 it was known as the Kings Highway,[2] and by the early 1700s had been cleared and widened near a new bridge crossing at Kingston.
[7] During the early automotive age, route became a portion of the Lincoln Highway, the United States' first transcontinental highway that was established in 1913 to run from New York City to San Francisco.