Bergen County History
Bergen was one of the four original counties in New Jersey. Its early borders reached into what are now Passaic and Hudson counties. Bergen County today is a 239-square-mile parcel of land in the northeast corner of the state, with a population of over 900,000 people.
Although Bergen was designated a “judicial district” in 1675, it was not until 1683 that the Provincial Assembly passed an act creating the counties of Bergen, Essex, Middlesex and Monmouth.
In 1710, Hackensack was designated as the county seat. The oldest records of the Bergen County Board of Freeholders and Justices are dated May 19, 1715. At that meeting, it was decided to build a combined courthouse and jail which was erected on Hackensack’s historic Green in 1716.