Palisade is derived from the same root as the word pole, ultimately from the Latin word palus, meaning stake. A "palisade" is, in general, a defensive fence or wall made up of wooden stakes or tree trunks. The Lenape called the cliffs "rocks that look like rows of trees", a phrase that became "Weehawken", the name of a town in New Jersey that sits at the top of the cliffs across from Midtown Manhattan.
The basalt cliffs are the margin of a diabasesill, formed about 200 million years ago,[3] at the close of the Triassic period by the intrusion of molten magma upward into sandstone.[4] The molten material cooled and solidified before reaching the surface. Water erosion of the softer sandstone left behind the columnar structure of harder rock that exists today. The cliffs are about 300 ft (100 m) thick in sections and originally may have reached 1,000 ft (300 m).
The end-Triassic extinction event that coincided with the formation of the Hudson Palisades, Central Atlantic magmatic province, 200 million years ago ranks second in severity of the five major extinction episodes that span geologic time.[4][5]
Franklyn Van Houten completed groundbreaking research on a rock formation known as the Newark Basin. His discovery of a consistent geological pattern in which lake levels rose and fell is now known as the "Van Houten cycle".[6][7][8][9]
History
A colored postcard of the Palisades c. 1898
The Palisades appear on the first European map of the New World, made by Gerardus Mercator in 1541 based on the description given him by Giovanni da Verrazzano,[10] who suggested they look like a "fence of stakes".[11]
During the early stages of the American Revolution, British military Commander Lord Cornwallis landed a force of between 2,500 and 5,000 at Huyler's Landing on November 20, 1776.[12][13] In an effort to ambush American General George Washington and crush the rebellion in the wake of the rebel's defeat in the Battle of Brooklyn and the Battle of Fort Washington, Cornwallis marched his men up the steep Palisades and southward through the Northern Valley. Washington, stationed near Fort Lee, was alerted to the ambush effort by an unknown horseback patriot, remembered only as the Closter Rider, and successfully fled west through Englewood and over the Hackensack River, avoiding capture in what is remembered as Washington's Retreat.[14][15]
It is hardly possible to imagine one of greater attraction; a broad belt of light underwood and flowering shrubs, studded at intervals with lofty forest trees, runs for two miles along a cliff which overhangs the matchless Hudson; sometimes it feathers the rocks down to its very margin, and at others leaves a pebbly shore, just rude enough to break the gentle waves, and make a music which mimics softly the loud chorus of the ocean. Through this beautiful little wood, a broad well gravelled terrace is led by every point which can exhibit the scenery to advantage; narrower and wilder paths diverge at intervals, some into the deeper shadow of the wood, and some shelving gradually to the pretty coves below.
The price of entrance to this little Eden, is the six cents you pay at the ferry.[17]
After the Civil War, signs advertising patent medicines and other products covered the rock face in letters 20 feet (6.1 m) high.[18]
In the 19th century, the cliffs were heavily quarried for railroadballast, leading to local efforts to preserve them. Beginning in the 1890s, several unsuccessful efforts were made to turn much of the Highlands into a forest preserve. Fearing that they would soon be put out of business, quarry operators responded by working faster: in March 1898 alone, more than three tons of dynamite was used to bring down Washington Head and Indian Head in Fort Lee, New Jersey, producing several million cubic yards of traprock. The following year,[10] work by the New Jersey Federation of Women's Clubs led to the creation of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, headed by George W. Perkins, which was authorized to acquire land between Fort Lee and Piermont, New York. Its jurisdiction was extended to Stony Point, New York in 1906.
In 1908, the State of New York announced plans to move Sing Sing Prison to Bear Mountain. Work was begun in the area near Highland Lake (renamed Hessian Lake) and in January 1909, the state purchased the 740-acre (3.0 km2) Bear Mountain tract. Conservationists, inspired by the work of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, lobbied successfully for the creation of the Highlands of the Hudson Forest Preserve. However, the prison project was continued. Mary Williamson Averell, whose husband, Union Pacific Railroad president E. H. Harriman died in September of that year, offered the state another 10,000 acres (40 km2) and one million dollars toward the creation of a state park.
In the 1910s, when Fort Lee was a center of film production, the cliffs were frequently used as film locations. The most notable of these films was The Perils of Pauline, a serial which helped popularize the term cliffhanger.[19]
On April 28, 1940, the Boy Scout Foundation of Greater New York announced the donation of 723 acres by John D. Rockefeller Jr. to establish a weekend camp for New York City Boy Scouts.[20]
On June 23, 2015, officials of the South Korean conglomerate LG Group announced that their planned new North American headquarters building in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, which was originally designed to be 143 feet (44 m) tall, and would have broken the tree line on top of the Palisades, would be reduced to 69 feet (21 m) in height, thus preserving the contour of the ridge. The new building had been opposed by numerous conservation groups and politicians, including four former governors of New Jersey.[22]
![The Palisades, with fall foliage. On the left is the George Washington Bridge. A controversial plan to build a high-rise that would have broken the tree line was proposed, and later modified, by LG Electronics.[22]](File:NJPalisades.JPG)
