Shooters Island facts for kids

Shooters Island is a small, empty island located in Newark Bay. It's about 43 acres big, which is like 30 football fields! You can find it near the north side of Staten Island in New York City.

This island is special because the border between New York State and New Jersey goes right through it. A small part of the island is in New Jersey, belonging to the cities of Bayonne and Elizabeth. The rest of the island is part of Staten Island in New York City.

Today, Shooters Island is a quiet place, but it has a very interesting past!

Island's Early Days

In the old days, when America was still a group of colonies, Shooters Island was a place for hunting. People would go there to find animals.

During the Revolutionary War, the island played a secret role. George Washington, who led the American army, used it as a hidden spot. Messages were secretly left there for spies to pick up. This made the island a safe place for people working in secret.

A Busy Shipyard on the Island

This old ship, Jane Moseley, was later called Minerva.

The Minerva ship in the boat area around 1936.

The first shipyard on Shooters Island was built in 1860 by David Decker. But the island became really famous for shipbuilding between 1898 and 1910. This was when the Townsend-Downey Shipbuilding Company was there.

A famous ship designer named Theodore E. Ferris worked at this company. He later designed many ships used by the American government in World War I. Later, another big company, Standard Shipbuilding Company, bought the island in 1915.

The whole island was filled with buildings for making ships. There were places to melt metal, shops to make patterns, and offices. Big docks and shipways faced the east, ready for new ships to be launched.

Building Famous Ships

The Townsend-Downey Company built a special yacht called Meteor III. It was made for Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was the leader of Germany.

When this yacht was launched in February 1902, hundreds of people watched. Even President Theodore Roosevelt and Prince Henry of Prussia were there! Alice Roosevelt, the president's daughter, officially named the boat.

Thomas Alva Edison, the famous inventor, sent a cameraman. This person made one of the very first news movies of the event. You can still watch it online today!

The next year, another amazing ship was launched from the yard. It was a fast, three-masted sailboat called Atlantic. In 1905, this ship raced across the Atlantic Ocean. It won the Kaiser's cup and set a speed record for sailing across the ocean. This record stood for almost 90 years!

Another well-known ship built here was Carnegie. It was made for the Carnegie Institution of Washington. This ship was used to study Earth's magnetic field in the Pacific Ocean. It was named after Andrew Carnegie, a rich businessman and helper of good causes. The ship was built only from wood and special metals that were not magnetic. This was so it wouldn't mess up the magnetic measurements.

Changes in Ownership

In 1903, the Tidewater Oil Company took control of the island. Then, in 1905, the Colonial Trust Company bought the shipyard. It had eight buildings and 33 acres of land. They paid $516,000 for it. At that time, the shipyard was worth about two million dollars!

The island was used for making ships and other industrial work until 1922. After that, old, abandoned ships started to pile up around the island by 1930.

A Home for Birds

For many years in the late 1900s, the island was left alone. But then, it was made an official bird sanctuary. This was partly to stop the United States Army Corps of Engineers from blowing up the island. They wanted to do this to make it easier for ships to pass by.

Today, the island is slowly breaking apart into Newark Bay. You can see the island and the old parts of piers from the Bayonne Bridge. This bridge connects Staten Island and Bayonne, New Jersey. The remains of the old shipyard are still there, but they are getting smaller each year.

Nesting Birds and Wildlife

Shooters Island started to become a home for nesting wading birds, cormorants, and gulls in the early 1970s. These birds came to the island to build their nests and raise their young.

In 1995, the island was at its busiest with birds. It had 400 pairs of nesting herons, egrets, and ibis. There were also 121 pairs of double-crested cormorants nesting there.

Now, the City of New York owns the island. The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation takes care of it. They make sure it stays a safe and protected place for birds.