After Henry Hudson's initial explorations of the Delaware River area, some Dutch settlements were attempted in New Jersey as early as 1618 but were soon abandoned because of real or imagined threats from the Lenni-Lenape (or Delaware) original inhabitants. A more lasting settlement was made from 1638 to 1655 by the Swedes and Finns along the Delaware as part of New Sweden, which continued to flourish although the Dutch eventually gained control over this area and made it part of New Netherland. From 1660 to the end of the century, many Dutch from New York established farms in northern New Jersey. Throughout the colonial period, only the English outnumbered the Dutch in New Jersey. When England conquered the Dutch in 1664 King Charles II gave his brother, the Duke of York (later King James II), all of New York and New Jersey. The duke in turn granted New Jersey to two of his creditors, Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. The land was named Nova Caesaria for the Isle of Jersey, Carteret's home. Within the year that England took control there was a large influx of English from New England and Long Island who, for want of more or better land, settled the East Jersey towns of Elizabethtown, Middletown, Piscataway, Shrewsbury, and Woodbridge. A year later, Newark was founded by migrants from New Jersey. In 1685 a large group of Scots came to Perth Amboy, but they were not part of the great wave of Ulster-Scots who in the 1720s began their immigration to the New World, including New Jersey. For a brief period in 1673-74, the Dutch regained control of New Jersey and New York, but it soon reverted back to the English.

 The southern part of the state drew English Quakers, some of whom spilled over from the Philadelphia area. They gained control of the southern part when it was sold by Lord Berkeley to Quaker John Fenwick. In 1676 New Jersey was divided into two provinces, East and West, controlled by proprietors, with capitals at Perth Amboy and Burlington, respectively. William Penn, a proprietor of both provinces, forced the setting of a boundary. It was poorly surveyed but cut across the state such that all of the more settled southern part fell in West Jersey. For two years beginning in April 1688, New Jersey was, with New York, part of the Dominion of New England, but no significant records of New Jersey seem to have been generated in its capital of Boston. The proprietors of both provinces gave up their right to rule in 1702 but continued to control first sales of the land, as they still do today. New Jersey was then under united rule by the royal governor of New York until 1738, after which she had her own royal governor.

 Significant migrations and immigrations continued into the eighteenth century. These included French Huguenots fleeing France, and Long Islanders who settled at Cape May in the 1690s and Morris County in the 1730s. Many of the Palatines who immigrated to New York in 1709 came to New Jersey, as did Germans who entered through Philadelphia throughout the 1700s. Descendants of some of these families migrated to northwestern New Jersey.

 New Jersey was a major battleground during the Revolutionary War and many American and British troops passed through, to and from New York and Pennsylvania, all of which caused some destruction of records. Like New York, New Jersey residents were quite divided by the war, and a large number of Loyalists left for Canada.

 Throughout the nineteenth century, the state continued to grow through increased development of transportation, including the completion in 1834 of a canal connecting the Delaware and Raritan rivers that enabled faster travel between Philadelphia and New York. (Except for its 48-mile border with New York, New Jersey is completely surrounded by water, which remains one of its major modes of transportation.) This was also the time of the coming of the railroads and eventually the roadways, which today make New Jersey the major corridor between the northeast and the south. The 1800s saw New Jersey develop industrially, starting with the establishment of the nation's first factory town at what is today Paterson. New Jersey is one of the more densely populated states in this country, with many of its residents commuting to work in neighboring New York and Pennsylvania.