# Shooters Island

40°38′36″N 74°09′35″W﻿ / ﻿40.64333°N 74.15972°W﻿ / 40.64333; -74.15972
Shooters Island is a 43-acre (17 ha) uninhabited island at the southern end of Newark Bay, off the North Shore of Staten Island in New York City. The boundary between the modern states of New York and New Jersey runs through the island, with a small portion on the north end of the island belonging to the nearby cities of Bayonne and Elizabeth in New Jersey and the rest since 1898, as a part of the borough of Staten Island in New York City of New York state.
In colonial era times Shooters Island was used as a hunting preserve for colonists of nearby Province of New Jersey and New York Province and New York Town across the bays / harbors. During the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), Commanding General George Washington and his Continental Army used the island as a drop-off point for messages, and the place became a suitable isolated haven for spies.
Following the war, the island's large oyster beds were heavily harvested, ultimately exhausted from over harvesting by the 19th century.

## Shipyard

The first shipyard on Shooters Island by Newark Bay and Staten Island on the west shore of Upper New York Bay was established in 1860 by David Decker. From 1898 until 1910, the island was home to a major shipyard, the Townsend-Downey Shipbuilding Company. Theodore E. Ferris (1872-1953), who later was a prominent maritime architect designed ships used by the American government in the First World War (1914/1917-1918), was an employee of the firm. By 1903, the island site was acquired by the Tidewater Oil Company founded 1887 by E. W. Marland for the next decade, Around this time it was also home to the later Standard Shipbuilding Company (both firms later subsidiaries of the huge conglomerate Standard Oil Company and its Rockefeller family interests. Standard which bought the entire island in 1915, the year after the Great War began in Europe, anticipating future American military and shipping needs with access and expansion space alongside the New York Bay and bustling major port of New York on the East Coast of the United States. The entire island by the late 19th century was occupied by buildings, industrial facilities, shops, docks, including a foundry, pattern shop, and offices. There were major docks, piers and shipways that faced to the east and Upper New York Bay / New York Harbor..
The Townsend-Downey Company had earlier built a famous royal yacht, Meteor, for Kaiser Wilhelm II of the German Empire (Germany). Its launch in February 1902 was attended by many hundreds of spectators, including 26th President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919, served 1901-1909), and his guests Prince Heinrich (Henry) of Prussia (1862-1929, younger brother of Kaiser Wilhelm II). The President's eldest 18-year old daughter Alice Roosevelt (1884-1980), christened the boat for the German Emperor and Prince Heinrich of the House of Hohenzollern royal dynasty in Prussia and Imperial Germany. Famous scientist / inventor Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931), sent a motion pictures cameraman who made one of the first newsreel news recording movies / film of the event. It is available online / internet from the archived collections of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.. The next day a reception was held at the White House in Washington for Mr. Downey, owner of the shipbuilding yard and representatives of the Imperial German Government.
The following year the fast three-masted schooner Atlantic was also built and launched at the yard. The following year in 1905, it raced across the Atlantic Ocean and won the Kaiser's Cup with the winning prize and set a speed record for the crossing under sail which stood unbroken for almost 90 more years. The brigantine yacht Carnegie was built for the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C. for use in scientific / geographic magnetic surveys in the Pacific Ocean. Constructed entirely of wood and nonferrous metals so as not to interfere with taking the magnetic measurements, she was named after the Institution's founder / endowed of the famous steel industrialist and wealthy philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and New York City, who also was a friend of shipbuilder Mr. Downey.
The island came under the later control in November 1903 of the Tidewater Oil Company, founded in 1887 by lawyer, businessman and politician E. W. (Ernest Whitworth) Marland (1874-1941) of Pennsylvania and later Oklahoma. It later became a subsidiary after 1911 of the huge dominant Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, one of the several smaller firms remaining of the former oldest and larger Standard Oil Company and its later subsidiary Standard Oil Company of Ohio (a.k.a. the oil trust / monopoly) after being broken up. It was founded in 1870 by wealthy and famous industrial titan John D. Rockefeller, (1839-1937). Two years later in 1905, the eight buildings of the plant and its surrounding industrial complex of 33 acres were purchased by the Colonial Trust Company of New York City (now merged into the Trust Company of America) for $516,000. At the time, the shipyard was valued at two million dollars.
The island was used for continued industrial and shipbuilding operations through to 1922. Abandoned, scuttled and broken vessels began to accumulate around the perimeter of the island in Newark Bay, near Staten Island by the following decade in 1930.

## Bird sanctuary

Shooters Island began to support nesting wading birds, cormorants and gulls in the early 1970s. At its peak in 1995, the island supported 400 nesting pairs of herons, egrets, ibis and 121 nesting pairs of double-crested cormorants. The island is now owned by the City of New York and is maintained by New York City Department of Parks and Recreation as a bird sanctuary.
The island and decayed remnants of old piers are visible to users of the Bayonne Bridge between Staten Island and Bayonne, New Jersey.