New Jersey has not always had strange characters skulking around the State House. Despite a recent Associated Press series tracing this state's corruption back to colonial times, we actually are mostly honest people. We just have to go far back enough in time to see New Jersey in its uncorrupted form.

Thus we come to the subject of prehistory.

This, of course, was the period before events were recorded in any standardized way that we understand. So we need to look at pottery fragments from archeological sites – New Jersey's first signs of honest toil, and its possibly last.

They show not only that people have been living here for at least 2,800 years, but also that only a select few craftsmen actually made the pottery. Tribal elders contracted out the work to some friends of theirs who, by coincidence, had hired those same elders to lucrative consulting jobs at various tribal planning boards. The pottery reportedly cost the indigenous tribes $30 million and had holes.

The first recorded Native Americans in the area were the Lenni-Lenape, whose name translates as “the original people.” It is a mystery why people would call themselves “original” before anyone else even showed up. But it certainly impressed early British settlers, who, themselves, honored a long-ago king who had the foresight to call himself Henry I.

The Lenni-Lenape traveled with the seasons, but had well-organized habits and a strong sense of tradition. For example, those who lived in the north were known as the Minsi, which translates as “the people of the stony country.” In the central area, inhabitants were called the Unami, meaning “the guys who get all the transportation contracts.” In the south were the Unilachtigo, or “Benny's cousin's sister's nephew, who has a warehouse and owes me a favor.”

In traveling between their villages and their summer residences, the Lenape created trails that ultimately evolved into the early highway system for Europeans setters. As travelers along today's New Jersey Turnpike may have guessed, the Lenape laid out their roads according to the location of Roy Rogers fast-food restaurants, which scientists believe were created by glaciers. However, archeologists cannot always understand why some roads went where they did or who on earth is going to use South Jersey Light Rail once it's finished.

All scientists agree, though, that the only reason the Lenape trails got done at all was because, after some struggle, the tribal sub-chiefs broke down and agreed to play along with the unions.

Yes, it was truly idyllic. But it had to end. First, Sir Henry Hudson discovered Cape May in 1609. (It wasn't named after him, but rather after Capt. Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, who arrived 11 years later. Hudson had his eye on bigger things, discovering that same year the river that now bears his name and, two years later, the car.) Then settlers started arriving from Holland.

Actually, the first group of European emigrants had meant to sail only to France rather than thousands of perilous miles to New Jersey. However, the captain of their ship, a certain Jaams Magreevee, hired one of his fishing friends as navigator without interviewing any other candidates.

“I saved passengers money on their fares by not hiring someone qualified,” he boasted, shortly before passengers and crew ordered him to be eaten by larvae.

That pretty much brings us up to date.

(Any actual information in this article that was not twisted into some stupid joke comes from the American Local History Network.)