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Shooters Island is a 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 dead drop for messages, and the place became a suitable isolated haven for spies.
Following the war, the island's large were heavily harvested, ultimately exhausted from over harvesting by the 19th century.
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 German Empire.
The following year the fast three-masted schooner 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 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 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.
The island and decayed remnants of old piers are visible to users of the Bayonne Bridge between Staten Island and Bayonne, New Jersey.
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