River Island: The Summer People at Barley Point

By Joseph lanciotti and Joanne Emery

River Island is the history of a small, humble island called Barley Point, located on the Navesink River, in the affluent shore town of Rumson, N.J.

It starts with the first humans here, the Lenni Lenappi, who came to hunt and fish in this beautiful place during the summers before the Europeans discovered and bought it.

The main story is about the summer people of the Island who rented summer shacks there before they joined together to buy it. In particular, the author who is one of the 57 owners, describes his observations and the philosophy of life that he developed while spending his summers there for over twenty five years.

From its start as a collection of summer shacks built by unique people seeking a place in the summer sun, this little Island has constantly sought the acceptance of its parent, the wealthy town of Rumson. Its early years were obscure, and mostly unnoticed, but then it sought to join the mainstream. It applied for building permits to improve its humble condition, but found itself impeded in its efforts. Its real estate is still very modest despite small improvements, but the Islands natural beauty on the Navesink River is priceless.

If you are a lover of nature, you should buy this book to read it during those times of your life when you take the world too seriously. The descriptions of the Island and the people since the Depression to the present, and the joys they received from a simple life with nature will convince you that really the best things in life are free. Whenever you read it, it will be summer again at River Island.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 21, 2000
• ISBN: 9781475922257

Joseph lanciotti

The author is a professional writer with over thirty years of experience in various subjects. He is married and lives in New Jersey with his wife, children, and grandchildren.

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All Rights Reserved © 1999, 2000 by Joseph Lanciotti

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Authors Choice Press an imprint of iUniverse.com, Inc.

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Originally published by Overview Ltd.

ISBN: 0-595-14581-7

ISBN13: 978-1-4759-2225-7 (ebook)

Contents

INTRODUCTION

Return To Barley Point

BEGINNING

APPENDIX

References

Acknowledgements

Vivian who shared my days on River Island, and island Earth, with enduring patience and support.

Joanne who began as my pupil and became my teacher. My thanks for editing, illustrations and advice; and her husband Doug.

Vivian J. and her daughters Meredith and Allison who gave me even more joy than River Island when they explored it with me; and her husband Paul.

The people of Barley Point who shared their experiences and some summer days of their lives with me, even when we didn’t see each other.

DEDICATION

To the Summer People at Barley Point Island. Rums on, N.J., those who were, those who are, and those who will be.

&

And especially to the memory of Edward Guinan and Oliver Boswell.

INTRODUCTION

I have always loved islands, and the idea of an island . That sense of isolation and privacy that excludes those not specifically invited is rare. So, I have a feeling of pride when I tell people that I own an island, that is, a l/57th part of an island with 56 other owners. A modest Island it is, surrounded by river water that washes it daily as the tides of the Atlantic are pumped back and forth by the urging of the moon.

Many islands have been part of my life and I never saw one that I didn’t like. There has always been some beauty or redeeming quality even if the islands were inhospitable during times of distress or at war. My experiences with islands started when I was eighteen and landed on Guadalcanal in the South Pacific. Since then, I’ve known many other islands throughout the world .

Guadalcanal in the Solomons was hot, lush, green and full of coconuts and the debris of the fierce fighting that occurred there. Guam in the Marianas was the same but a little more civilized with beautiful beaches and cool mountains and hills. Both places had heavy rainfalls that kept them wet and humid.

Okinawa had Japanese temples, gardens and a fragile beauty interspersed between green mountains and lush rice paddies. Small, frightened people always looking at me in fear, I remember them in nightmares. Our governments told us we were at war.

The Florida Keys in the late forties were still primitive and beautiful. Fishing shacks and roadside stands selling Key Lime pie were everywhere. I fished and speared lobsters there for three years on Conch Key, a small, sandy island midway down the string of keys, primative then, but commercialized today

Puerto Rico, and the San Juan Islands of the Northwest are exciting to visit, and filled with beauty. Pristine Bermuda is a tourist island, Madiera is for romance and love, and Manhattan, where I worked for over twenty five years, is for everything but peace.

I could go on talking about many more islands I’ve known, but I think I’ve established my credentials sufficiently as an island lover for the sake of this book . This story is about a very special Island that I own with a group of summer people who mainly live there during the summer season, the only season we see each other.

The story is about Barley Point Island, in Rumson, Monmouth County, New Jersey, just a stone’s throw west of Sea Bright whose sea wall protects it from the mighty Atlantic Ocean during severe storms. I call it River Island. I will talk about earlier people who knew this place and how the present summer people came, and then formed a plan to buy it in 1955.

I have researched the history of the area, and talked with many of the people who experienced some of the events written about I then added my own memories, philosophy and observations of people, crabs, fish and events of the world including activities of turtles and stars.

My purpose was to gather a dispersed body information, and personal thoughts, into one concise volume. The reader can get an overall grasp of what occurred on this Island, since it was formed out of sea sand to its present existence as a summer place for fifty seven families.

I feel that the Island’s history is rapidily changing and the small events that occurred very slowly in the past are now accelerating and will soon require recording or be lost Those who carried the memories from personal experience as children are passing away. Their children are getting older and many no longer summer on the Island, but I know they dream about it at times no matter where they are.

Also, we are entering a time when the need to change the former shacks into summer homes will accelerate. The Depression people are mostly gone or going, and the newer generations will be assuming their roles here. As the former shacks of Rumson’s first settlers evolved into the spacious homes of today, so too will the people here seek to improve their homes on this Island they love.

The story starts from the very beginning of people and things and takes you on a surprising and deceptive journey

Return To Barley Point

It’s June once more.

You, an illusion across the river from the Oceanic Bridge.

In the water’s mist, you shimmer under the sixth month’s early sun

Cruel winter winds

That froze your sand and water

Have released their grip, and you awake.

You live again Barley Point.

Your birds sing, and your flowers bloom .

Summer returns to you, once more,

Oh, River Island.

BEGINNING

The Glacier Comes

About fifty thousand years ago the Laurentide Glacier scraped its way down from what is now generally known as Canada, and covered the northern part of what is now the United States. When the glacier eventually slid its grinding way to Central Jersey where it came to rest, it moved south no further. As the climate warmed, the glacier began to melt and retreat north. It left a debris of rocks, indentations, which became rivers, and a compressed and barren land

One of these rivers was to be come known as the Navesink. The compressed land beneath the glacier once relieved of the enormous pressure began to rise and formed the soaring 260 feet of the Atlantic Highlands which give a unique character to this part of the Jersey shore

The ancient sea then washed and beat against the rocks. The wind and water working together with the chemicals of the earth pulverized stone to sand, creating beaches, and about 3,000 to 4,000 years ago the salt marshes were born.

Many call the marshes, the nursery of the sea. The marshes feed the small fish and give refuge to birds. They provide a place for turtles and crabs to lay eggs and they supply nutrients that fall into the waters and wash out to feed the things of the sea. Constantly changing, and often endangered, this fragile and important landscape is often misunderstood or not understood at all. If cared for, it will flourish, if abused it will die. Each small abuse, oil and gas spills, littering, etc. kills it a little each day.

The years of tides and currents and storms fashioned Barley Point from the sand of the river and ocean, built it higher and wider and then separated it from the mainland with two small creeks that funnel the sea water back and forth up and down the river in tidal action The creeks were also deepened by local boaters who needed a better channel to the main water of the Navesink. Nature and man made it an Island

Over the centuries wind and water molded the Jersey shoreline, adding and removing huge amounts of sand to form and destroy their creations like a whimsical child that builds sand castles and then stomps on them with glee So the tides, currents and cutting winds developed during seasons of storm furiously cut and remodeled the shore

Daily, the normal movement of tides and current insiduously changed the topography so that the day to day changes were not discernible to the human eye. But each day, each hour, each minute, the movement of water and wind over sand transforms boundaries like sly magicians making the sand appear and disappear.

The tides, ocean currents, and storms along the East Jersey shore annually relocate many tons of sand and other material along the coast in a northerly direction. Sand from the beach at Long Branch is carried to Monmouth Beach, Sea Bright, and Sandy Hook. This process has been going on for hundreds of years and explains how the sand bar at North Long Branch finally choked the entrances of the Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers and formed the sand bar on which parts of Monmouth Beach, Sea Bright, and Sandy Hook are located.

It is known that the shoreline sank fourteen feet below low water mark many years ago. Tree stumps were found at this level at many places along our coast from Boston to Cape May, showing that trees grew on land which is now several yards below water level and often far out in the ocean . This drop in the shore level inundated many square miles of shore lands and helps to explain how the sandbars and other land changes may have started.

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Europeans Sail By

On or about April 15, 1524 a clumsy, bobbing 100 ton wooden ship flying the French flag approached the Atlantic Highlands and dropped anchor before entering the river. The boat was the Dauphine. Its captain was a young man from Florence name Giovanni da Verrazzano. He ordered a few of his crew to