New Jersey

Established as an English proprietary colony in 1664 on land taken from the Dutch, New Jersey sat between the rival ports of New York and Philadelphia, a patchwork of farms, Quaker and Puritan settlements, and busy roads.

Those roads made it the Crossroads of the Revolution: Washington fought the pivotal battles of Trenton, Princeton, and Monmouth on New Jersey soil. The state ratified the Constitution third, in December 1787.