Did you know that there was one a war fought on the Navesink and her sister river, the Shrewsbury and no where else on earth? It was known as the OYSTER WAR!

The Navesink’s reputation as an oyster producer began in the early Colonial period. Not only were oysters a mainstay of the colonial diet, but also tons of the little eastern oyster were shipped daily from Red Bank’s docks on packet ships bound for New York.

By the mid 1700’s the natural oyster beds were depleted to the point that few oysters could be commercially harvested. As a result farmers and plantation owners whose land bordered the river began “seeding” oysters by planting imported small oysters into the areas adjacent to their properties.

Soon a dispute arose between the land owners and the local fishermen over the rights to harvest oysters in the Navesink River. The land owners considered those water areas as their property  but the fishermen considered it public property.

It wasn’t long before violence erupted and the era of Oyster wars had begun. In this story, The Oyster Wars, we read not only of the cause and effects of the dispute, but also learn the consequence when individual forget that sometimes history and folklore collide.