In 1620, Thijmen Jacobsz Hinlopen became the business partner of Cornelis Jacobsen Mey in the now washed out Cape Cornelius and the incorrectly spelled Cape May with the ships Blijde Boodschap (English: "Good News") and Bever both of which focused on exploration and trade with the Indians on the Delaware River (then Zuidt Rivier).
The 38th and 39th parallels region came under the final jurisdiction of the Dutch West India Company on behalf of the States General with the delivery of the first settlers to Governors Island in New Netherland in 1624.
Those settlers were subsequently spread out onto Verhulsten Island (Burlington Island) in the Delaware, at Fort Orange (now Albany) in the Hudson River and at the mouth of the Connecticut River in order to finalize the claim to New Netherland as a North American province according to the Hugo Grotius Law of Nations (?
In 1782 during the American Revolutionary War, the young Continental Navy Lieutenant Joshua Barney fought with a British squadron at Cape May and Delaware Bay.
Barney's force of three sloops defeated a Royal Navy frigate, a sloop-of-war and a Loyalist privateer.