Before we talk any more about millionaires and monuments, let me set the record straight about who knew this high ground first — because it wasn't the Kusers, and it wasn't the hotel guests. It was the Lenape.
Long before New Jersey was New Jersey, this whole country belonged to the Lenape people — the Munsee, up here in the north — and they knew this ridge intimately. That long stony spine of the Kittatinny wasn't a scenic curiosity to them; it was a highway. The high ground gave good travel and good hunting, and trails ran the crest of these mountains for untold generations, carrying people and trade up and down the eastern country long before any European set eyes on the view.
In fact, that footpath along the ridge we keep mentioning — the Appalachian Trail — follows, in more than a few places, the same high routes Native people walked for thousands of years. So when you stand up top and take in that enormous three-state view, know that yours are far from the first eyes to find it worth the climb. The Lenape stood on this roof of New Jersey and looked out over the same rolling world, ages before us. Give them their due.
Photo: Dietmar Rabich · CC BY-SA 4.0
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