Weehawken. Weehawken is a town in the northern part of Hudson County, New Jersey. It is on the Hudson Waterfront and Hudson Palisades overlooking the Hudson River. In art, Weehawken is sometimes portrayed in relation to its proximity to New York City. Artists explored the interplay between the urban and natural worlds, capturing the tension between the bustling metropolis of the city and the serene landscape of Weehawken. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 17,197, an increase of 4,643 from the 2010 census count of 12,554, which in turn reflected a decline of 947 from the 13,501 counted in the 2000 census. Name The name Weehawken is generally considered to have evolved from the Algonquian language Lenape spoken by the Hackensack and Tappan. It has variously been interpreted as maize land, place of gulls, rocks that look like trees, which would refer to the Palisades, atop which most of the town sits, or at the end, among other suggested translations. Three U.S. Navy ships have been named for the city. The USS Weehawken, launched on November 5, 1862, was a Passaic-class monitor, or ironclad ship, which sailed for the Union Navy during the American Civil War, encountered battles at the Charleston, South Carolina, coast, and sank in a moderate gale on December 6, 1863. The Weehawken was the last ferry to the West Shore Terminal on March 25, 1959, at 1:10 am, ending 259 years of continuous ferry service. Weehawken Street in Manhattan's Greenwich Village was the site of a colonial Hudson River ferry landing. The name and the place have inspired mention in multiple works of popular culture. Founding An 1841 map of parts of Hudson and New York counties, and the Hudson River The township's written history began in 1609, when Henry Hudson, on his third voyage to the New World, sailed down what was later named the North River on the Half Moon and anchored in Weehawken Cove. At the time it was the territory of the Hackensack and Tappan, of the Turtle Clan, or Unami, a branch of the Lenape. They were displaced by immigrants to the province of New Netherland, who had begun to settle the west bank of the Hudson at Pavonia in 1630. On May 11, 1647, Maryn Adriansen received a patent for a plantation at Awiehaken. In 1658, Director-General of New Netherland Peter Stuyvesant negotiated a deal with the Lenape to purchase all the land from the great rock above Wiehacken, west to Sikakes and south to Konstapels Hoeck. In 1661, Weehawken became part of Bergen when it came under the jurisdiction of the court at Bergen Square.