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39-630: In September 1609, the Halve Maen (Dutch for Half Moon), anchored along the shores of the Raritan Bay, and remained for five days to explore the estuary and establish contact with local Lenape people (who later become known as the Navesink and Raritan ). Four his crew were sent up the Arthur Kill and to Newark Bay . Upon their return they were attacked and one of them, John Colman

78-402: A landscape dominated by spruce and pine forests. These forests gradually gave way to the modern deciduous forest in the region by mid- Holocene time. Lagoons and bays in the area around Sandy Hook hosted oysters, hard and soft shell clams, lobsters, blue crabs, and a variety of other invertebrates common in bays in the region today. South of western Long Island, tidal flats and wetlands occupied

117-596: Is a bicycling and hiking rail trail which runs parallel to the southern shore of Raritan Bay and connects the Bayshore communities to inland sections of Monmouth County. The trail starts in Freehold Borough and ends at Highlands , with missing links in Atlantic Highlands, Aberdeen/Matawan, and Marlboro . The Bayshore area is mostly flat areas of beach, with the exception of the hills between

156-669: Is also provided to the public beaches in Sandy Hook a few times each day by SeaStreak . NJ Transit 's North Jersey Coast Line crosses the Raritan River on River Draw between Perth Amboy and South Amboy continuing south to Aberdeen-Matawan , Hazlet , and Middletown . 40°26′28″N 74°02′40″W  /  40.441199°N 74.044418°W  / 40.441199; -74.044418 Halve Maen (ship) Halve Maen ( Dutch pronunciation: [ˌɦɑlvə ˈmaːn] ; transl.  "Half Moon" )

195-567: Is claimed to be the largest working weathervane in North America. Halve Maen is mentioned in the 1819 story of Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving , when the protagonist ventures into the Catskill Mountains and discovers Henry Hudson and the ship's crew. Raritan Bay Raritan Bay is a bay located at the southern portion of Lower New York Bay between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey and

234-698: Is formed along the south side of the Lower New York Bay by Sandy Hook , a spit of land that protects the bay from the open Atlantic Ocean . The bay provides a sheltered marina for pleasure craft, as well as a harbor for the United States Coast Guard . It is fed by the Shrewsbury River estuary . It is bounded on the west side by the Naval Weapons Station Earle pier. The Henry Hudson Trail

273-643: Is now Albany. Since Hudson could not find a passage to the Pacific this way, he returned to the Netherlands. In his 1625 book New World , which contains invaluable extracts from Hudson's lost journal, Johannes de Laet , a director of the West India Company , writes that they "bent their course to the south until, running south-southwest and southwest by south, they again made land in latitude 41° 43’, which they supposed to be an island, and gave it

312-738: Is part of the New York Bight . The bay is bounded on the northwest by New York's Staten Island , on the west by Perth Amboy, New Jersey , on the south by the Raritan Bayshore communities in the New Jersey counties of Middlesex and Monmouth , and on the east by Sandy Hook Bay . The bay is named after the Raritans , a branch of the Lenape tribe who lived in the vicinity of the bay and its river for thousands of years, prior to

351-524: The 2016 Monmouth County Master Plan , an effort to beautify, maintain, and revitalize Monmouth County. The new master plan combined four separate regional plans within the county to create one large master plan, fully taking into consideration what each plan had to offer. Sandy Hook Bay is a triangular arm of the Raritan Bay , along the coast of northern New Jersey in the United States . It

390-660: The Laurence Harbor section of Old Bridge , the Cliffwood Beach section of Aberdeen , Keyport , Union Beach , Keansburg , and the East Keansburg , Port Monmouth , Belford , and Leonardo sections of Middletown . There are also non-commercial boardwalks in Perth Amboy and Keansburg . Because many of the towns date back to the 17th and 18th century, as well as the important naval history in

429-855: The Navesink River and the Sandy Hook Bay . Mount Mitchill , a 266-foot (81 m) hill in Atlantic Highlands , is the highest. To the east of Mount Mitchill are the Twin Lights Lighthouse of Highlands , with unobstructed views of Sandy Hook and the New York City skyline. Hartshorne Woods Park is also located in the Monmouth Hills to the south on the banks of the Navesink River . The Gateway National Recreation Area Sandy Hook Unit on

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468-878: The barrier peninsula includes two park sites: The New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail Route and Cheesequake State Park are also here. Ferries to New York City and Exchange Place travel across the Lower New York Bay and enter the harbor at The Narrows , a trip that take approximately 40 minutes. SeaStreak routes connect the towns of Atlantic Highlands and Highlands to the East River at Pier 11 at Wall Street and East 34th Street Ferry Landing in New York City . The Belford ferry slip Raritan Bayshore terminal with service to Paulus Hook Ferry Terminal in Jersey City and Wall Street -Pier 11 and West Midtown Ferry Terminal in New York City . From Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend, service

507-493: The 400th anniversary of Halve Maen' s voyage. For the anniversary, the crown prince of the Netherlands and his wife were on board, as well as students from a Dutch school. This anniversary was marked in September 2009 with festivals, music, sailing ships parading around New York Harbor. A non-for-profit organization, Half Moon is run by a crew of volunteers that range in age from their teens to octogenarians. In April 2015

546-729: The Atlantic to England where he sailed into Dartmouth harbor with the Dutch East India Company ship and crew. In 1618, or a few years after, the ship was destroyed during an English attack on Jakarta in the Dutch East Indies. In 1909 a replica of Halve Maen was given to the United States by the Kingdom of the Netherlands on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of Hudson's voyage. The ship

585-824: The Kearny Cottage Museum, the Perth Amboy Ferry Slip , and Proprietary House in Perth Amboy. Additionally, there are various historical markers and sites from these early time periods, especially several from the Revolutionary War and the British retreat to Sandy Hook from the Battle of Monmouth . The Bayshore Regional Strategic Plan was an effort by nine municipalities in northern Monmouth County , New Jersey to reinvigorate

624-494: The Netherlands presented the United States with a replica of Halve Maen to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Hudson's voyage; the replica was destroyed in a fire in 1934. Over fifty years later, in 1989, the New Netherland Museum commissioned a second replica. Halve Maen was built on a wharf on Rapenburg . On behalf of the Dutch East India Company, she set sail from the Netherlands on April 6, 1609 under

663-575: The Ohio Valley became the dominant cultural influence in the region. Large shell middens were found around Raritan Bay and on Staten Island, a testament of the utilization of the bay for food by Algonquin Indian tribes (Lenapes) who occupied the area when early Colonialists arrived. Early settlers used these shell piles for road construction and field fertilizer. Tottenville was once well known for its roads paved with oyster shells. The Raritan River

702-520: The area's economy, especially along the Route 36 corridor along the Sandy Hook Bay . Municipalities participating in the effort were Aberdeen , Atlantic Highlands , Hazlet , Highlands , Keansburg , Keyport , Matawan , Middletown and Union Beach . In August 2006 a report was released, and Monmouth County was asked to vote to have the county planning board approve the plan the Bayshore organization has created. This plan has since been replaced by

741-1105: The area, there are numerous historical locations throughout the Bayshore area. Historical attractions include Fort Hancock in Sandy Hook, the Twin Lights State Historic Site in Highlands, the Strauss Mansion in Atlantic Highlands, Portland Place and the Taylor-Butler House in Middletown, Longstreet Farm in Holmdel, the Burrowes Mansion in Matawan, the Thomas Warne Museum in Old Bridge, and

780-539: The arrival of Dutch and English colonists in the 17th century. Archeological evidence suggests that humans were already in the region at the close of the Pleistocene . The early "Big Game Hunters" vanished, but the coastal regions were resettled by peoples accustomed to village-style living ("tidewater communities") that subsisted on hunting and gathering marine shellfish, and eventually, on agriculture. In pre-Columbian times "woodlands cultures" probably centered in

819-507: The bay. For most of the 20th century, the shores of Arthur Kill have been home to the largest petroleum importing, refining, and storage facilities on Earth; as a consequence the estuary has been host to major and minor oil spills. In addition, Arthur Kill drains the area encompassing the second largest landfill on Earth ( Fresh Kills Landfill ). This landfill, and others along the Raritan River, provide an ample supply of leachate to

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858-496: The bay. The peak of the fishing industry occurred in the late 1880s to 1910s. Fishing and farming slowly gave way to industries including ship building, ceramics, chemicals and paint manufacturing, electrolytic copper refining, and petroleum refining. In the Keasbey, New Jersey area, large pits were dug to extract the clays for ceramics and bricks, and huge chemical dumps, fly ash piles, and landfills were created to accommodate

897-497: The coast since colonial times. The bay supported a lucrative fishing and shellfish industry during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially oysters , which helped to support a stable population around the bay and aided, in part, to feed the flood of immigration. Stable communities continued to grow and change with new industries supporting a larger population base. Advances in methods of fishing and shellfish collecting resulted in overextraction of these resources from

936-757: The command of the Englishman Henry Hudson to explore the northwest passage to the Pacific. After a severe storm in ice and snow in the North Cape, the expedition finally reached the Newfoundland Bank and what is now Canada. From Cape Sable , Hudson followed the eastern American coast south to the Delaware River , past Manhattan and Long Island. In the summer of 1609, Hudson sailed the Hudson River named after him to what

975-511: The fish catch and prompted government recommendations against its routine consumption. The bay is crossed by a dredged channel allowing commercial ships to enter the Arthur Kill. Raritan Bay's fish include striped bass , fluke , winter flounder , bluefish , porgy , black sea bass , smoothhound shark , northern puffer , northern king fish , oyster toadfish , tautog and weakfish . The crustacean species represented include

1014-803: The lowstand in sea level caused by the Wisconsin glacier, the Raritan River carved back into its headlands and captured the major drainages from the Newark Basin . As the Wisconsin glaciers melted, the Flandrian Transgression eventually flooded the deeper valleys of the Hudson , Raritan, and Arthur Kill. During warming at the end of the Pleistocene and Early Holocene , the area encompassing Raritan Bay changed from tundra to

1053-401: The margins of a tidal estuary (now submerged by marine waters). Inner Raritan Bay began to fill about 2,500 years ago with large oyster beds forming along the estuarine tributaries. Sea level continued to rise about one foot per century. This rise in sea level has resulted in the landward migration of the shoreline (aided by storm-induced coastal erosion ) as much as two miles in some portions of

1092-625: The name of New Holland, but afterwards discovered that it was Cape Cod". From there they sailed south to the Chesapeake Bay and then went north along the coast navigating first the Delaware Bay and, subsequently, the bay of the river which Hudson named the Mauritius River , for Holland's Lord-Lieutenant Maurits . Halve Maen sailed up Hudson's river as far as Kinderhook, and the ship’s boat with five crew members ventured to

1131-840: The ship was transported on loan to the Westfries Museum in Hoorn, Netherlands. The replica took part in SAIL Amsterdam 2015. In 2019, the Hoorn Council decided not to renew their lease. Today, Halve Maen is located in the port of Enkhuizen and is open to the public at a permanent mooring. At 10 feet (3.0 m) in both height and length, the model of Halve Maen on top of the SUNY System Administration Building in Albany , New York ,

1170-581: The vicinity of present-day Albany, New York , where the crew determined the water was too narrow and too shallow for further progress. Concluding then that the river was also not a passage to the west, Hudson exited the river, naming the natives that dwelled on either side of the Mauritius estuary the Manahata. Leaving the estuary, he sailed north-eastward, never realizing that what are now the islands of Manhattan and Long Island were islands, and crossed

1209-503: The waste from the growing industrial empire. The building of shore management structures (dikes, groins, seawalls), the spraying of DDT (and other pesticides ) to control the mosquito problem, the carving of ditches to drain wetlands, the filling of shore lowlands, the channelization of creeks, highway and sewer construction, neighborhood development, and a myriad point and non-point sources of household, automobile, industrial chemicals, and ocean dumping all contributed to growing toxicity of

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1248-440: The waterways. Chemical wastes cause stress and disruption of the life cycles of plankton, shellfish and other invertebrates, and the fish, birds, and other wildlife that they support. The result was an ecological disaster. The bay approached sterile conditions at the peak of pollution and algal bloom-induced anoxia. Environmental actions from the 1970s to present have helped slowly bring back sea life, but current conditions pale to

1287-454: The wealth of marine resources of the past; certain species of fish and birds continue to decline, and the introduction of tenacious exotic species from around the world contribute to their decline. As a sign of optimism though, oysters are beginning to naturally reappear in the Hudson River after having vanished completely about the time of World War II . Regional industrial overdevelopment and other pollution factors have raised PCB levels in

1326-593: Was a Dutch East India Company jacht (similar to a carrack ) that sailed into what is now New York Harbor in September 1609. She had a length of 21 metres and was commissioned by the VOC Chamber of Amsterdam in the Dutch Republic to covertly find a northern passage to Asia. The ship was captained by Henry Hudson , an Englishman in the service of the Dutch Republic. In 1909, the Kingdom of

1365-826: Was constructed at the Rijksmarinewerf in Amsterdam. The keel was laid on 29 October 1908, and on 15 April 1909 the ship was launched and then transported to the US on the Holland America Lines freight liner Soestdijk in order to attend the 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration in New York, arriving in July. She appeared in a parade with the American replica ship Clermont celebrating Robert Fulton . This replica

1404-408: Was eventually towed to Cohoes, New York , and perished in a fire in 1934; the Clermont was broken up for scrap 3 years later. Another replica of Halve Maen (officially Anglicized as Half Moon ) was constructed in Albany, New York, in 1989 by the New Netherland Museum . The museum contracted with Nicholas S. Benton to design and build the replica. Benton, a master ship-rigger and shipwright,

1443-405: Was fatally shot by arrow. Taken ashore to be buried, the spot was christened Coleman's Point. The location Keansburg still bears the name. Popular attractions in the Bayshore area include Keansburg Amusement Park and Runaway Rapids Waterpark in Keansburg , Mount Mitchill in Atlantic Highlands , and Longstreet Farm in Holmdel . There are also beaches and waterfronts in both of The Amboys ,

1482-515: Was perhaps the major drainage channel along the ice front throughout the Wisconsin glaciation (Stages 1, 2, 3 and 4). Prior to that time the region drained southward across the saddle between the Atlantic Highlands and the Newark Basin into the Delaware River Valley. This saddle area is a very broad flood plain that preserves river terrace gravels ( Pensauken Formation ) from the Sangemon Interglacial State (Stage 5), as well as older Pleistocene fluvial deposits ( Bridgetown Formation ). During

1521-479: Was president of the Rigging Gang of Middletown, Rhode Island, which specialized in colonial ship restoration and design. To prepare for building Half Moon , a $ 1 million project, he visited maritime museums in the Netherlands and the United States. After his death while assisting with the rigging of another vessel, the construction of the Half Moon was completed by the New Netherland Museum, following delays and additional expenses. The year 2009 marked NY400 ,

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