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Community Corner

The Blue Point Oyster

Although oysters were not natural to Blue Point's waters, the variety of oysters harvested in the hamlet's section of the Great South Bay were enjoyed by many and put Blue Point on the world map.

Blue Point Oysters garnered worldwide recognition during the latter part of the 19th century and first half of the 20th. 

Although the Great South Bay has produced shellfish for much longer, the region of bay floor that falls under Blue Point's town line did not feature the "Blue Point oyster" until around the 1850's, or possibly even sooner.

The late 19th century marked the beginning of the Blue Point oyster industry.  Before then, oysters were naturally occurring in waters to the east of Blue Point. Right before the industry boom, baymen moved seed oysters, which are young oysters that have only reached as much as two inches, from the east bay to Blue Point.

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This practice of transplanting a population of oysters to Blue Point forced many baymen to lease land of bay floor and split the industry between "planters," who were people who had the capital to start up a business, and baymen, who either worked independently or for planters.

In the mid-1890's, this old strategy of getting seed oysters from the eastern part of the Great South Bay to fuel the Blue Point Oyster industry was no longer sufficient.  Demand for the shellfish rose and planters needed more seed oysters.  Therefore, seed oysters were coming in from all over the Atlantic, but the Long Island Sound offered the most numbers.

Connecticut harbors and Long Island harbors on the north shore, such as Huntington and Northport, provided enough young oysters to expand the Blue Point oyster industry worldwide.  Supposedly, Queen Victoria from England prefered this Long Island shellfish above any other.  The Long Island Sound continued to feed the Great South Bay with seed oysters until  World War I.

In 1910, the company Sealshipt Oyster purchased all of the bay bottom land between Blue Point and Nicholls Point.  Utilizing a sealed metal container to ship oysters to customers throughout the US and the world, the Sealshipt Oyster company was able to consolidate most of the Blue Point oyster industry under their company, forcing most planters out of the business.  

A few years after the merger the Sealshipt Oyster company faced harsh economic times and merged with Jacob Ockers, creating the Blue Points Company.

By the time of World War I, the Industrial Revolution caused enough pollution to greatly effect the Long Island Sound's production of seed oysters.  In 1931, a storm opened up Moriches Inlet into Moriches bay, increasing the salinity of the Great South Bay as well as the number of oyster drills, a snail that eats oysters.  

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In 1938, a hurricane demolished many of the bay's oyster beds.  Each of these events negatively affected the ostyer's ability to set in Blue Point's bay and by the 1950's, the Blue Point oyster was becoming a matter of history.

Although some sources concluded the Blue Point oyster business started in the 1850's, Emeline Avery Williams disagreed.  In an article she submitted to the Long Island Forum in 1942, Williams declared it was her great-grandfather, Joseph Avery, who "made the first planting of "foreign" oysters at Blue Point a few years after the War of 1812."

Joseph Avery's parents, Humphrey and Joanna, married shortly after the War for Independence.  The newlyweds moved into a house, then referred to as "the Shore House," on the bay in Blue Point.  Born on May 8, 1790, it was in this Blue Point home where Joseph enjoyed his childhood.  When he was not attending school Joseph spent time working on the bay.

Upon returning home after serving as captain in the War of 1812, Joseph Avery continued working on the bay.  During winter months Avery ran oysters on his boat from the Chesapeake Bay to New York markets .  After seeing other baymen move oysters from one area of the bay to another, Avery decided to transport a shipment of his own, but to the waters of his home town just off the shore of the house he grew up in.  "And here they multiplied and Captain Joseph became not only the first planter of Blue Points, but the first to market them under that now famous name."

However the Blue Point oyster industry got it start does not change the fact that these Virginica oysters were enjoyed by many through out the world.

Oysters have not been harvested in Blue Point's waters for some time and these days almost any North Atlantic oyster can be passed off as a "Blue Point."  However, the Blue Island Oyster Farm has once again begun breeding oysters in the Great South Bay.  The company's facility is near the Fire Island inlet and offers such varietieis of oyster as the Naked Cowboy and the bonafide Blue Point.

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