Early Delaware Bay explorers viewed this area as a plentiful and prosperous place, praising very good and fruitful land, woods and stately timber, abundant low grounds, a river rich in beavers, otters, and other furs, country well replenished with deer and in some places elk, immense numbers of fowl, and plentiful fish, and one account from 1634 called the river the most healthful, fruitful, and commodious in all of North America. Colonial settlement here began in the middle of the 17th century, with settlements oriented to the narrow necks of land bordering navigable streams including Duck Creek to the east and Taylors Gut to the south. Archaeological surveys on this land recovered hundreds of artifacts, including bricks, glass, fragments of earthenware, and pieces of a cast iron kettle, indicating domestic dwellings here from the mid-1700s to the 1800s. Early European explorers also encountered native people who negotiated rather than fought and, having no concept of land ownership, entered into treaties and trades with settlers, a process that led to widespread diminishment of the lands and resources that had sustained them, as shown by Ephraim Herman's 1680 purchase of a 1280-acre tract between Duck Creek and Cedar Sypory Swamp from an Indian chief called Mehocksett for drink, a blanket, a matscoat, axes, knives, powder, lead, and a kettle.