Like Amityville and Salem, Matawan is famous for a legacy of horror. This summer, the NJ town where shark mania was born finally embraces its history.
MATAWAN -- It happened once when John Savolaine was checking in at a London hotel. And again when he was buying a tire at a garage in Illinois. And really, almost anywhere he travels.
He fills out his address as Matawan, New Jersey, and people start talking sharks.
"Oh, I know Matawan!'' he recalls the London hotel clerk saying. "That's the place where the shark attacks happened.''
As in, the famous Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916, in which two swimmers were killed along the beaches in Beach Haven and Spring Lake and then two more in the brackish creek that runs through this town.
The shark attacks that sent scientists scrambling to revise their theory that sharks never attack humans. The attacks that wove a thread of worldwide fascination that runs from "Jaws" to "Sharknado" to Shark Week and a thousand aquarium displays worldwide.
The attacks that George Burgess, keeper of the International Shark Attack File, calls "the most unique set of shark attacks that have ever occurred."
Video: The 1916 Jersey Shore shark attacks - 'Like they happened yesterday'
But search this town of 8,700 people for any sign or marker or monument to what happened here 100 years ago this summer and you'll be out of luck. Try to get to the water's edge where the attack took place and unless you've brought a machete to cut down the 6-foot-high knotweed and scramble down the steep slope, you're not going to see it.
People like Savolaine's London hotel clerk know more about what happened here than some of Matawan's own residents.
"There's definitely some people who have no clue,'' about what happened here, said Scott Cole, whose yard abuts the creek not far from the attack.
For most of a century, this small town alongside the Garden State parkway has grappled with a question perhaps no other town in the world faces: how do you properly commemorate people getting mauled by a shark?
In some ways, Matawan finds itself in the company of places like Waco Texas, Amityville, Long Island and Salem, Massachussetts, locales most well known for horrific or even gruesome events -- and whose approach has ranged from ignoring it altogether to blatant efforts to cash in.
Facing east, a view of the Matawan Creek just yards upstream from where, in Matawan in 1916, a shark attacked and killed Lester Stillwell, 11 and Stanley Fisher, 24. A third attack took place farther east. The victim survived. The Garden State Parkway is at rear. (Star-Ledger file photo) By any standard, the shark attack story is irresistibly gripping.
The attacks began 70 miles to the south, when Charles Vansant, 25, was fatally mauled while swimming at Beach Haven on Long Beach Island. Five days later, on July 6, 28-year-old hotel bellhop Charles Bruder was attacked while swimming in Spring Lake and died in the lifeboat as he was rowed to shore.
The attacks had already knocked news of World War I off the front pages and prompted flotillas of shark hunting boats when the Matawan attacks occurred on July 12.
Eleven-year-old Lester Stillwell, released early from his job at a basket-weaving factory on a sweltering day, was mauled while swimming with friends off a fallow steamship dock.
Stanley Fisher, who ran to the creek along with hundreds of townspeople to search for Stillwell, was mauled after pulling the boy's remains to the surface. A fifth victim, Joseph Dunn, 12, was attacked a short time after swimming near Cliffwood Beach, but survived.
The attacks have been the subject of multiple books, entire concept albums by rock bands, documentaries by National Geographic and are often cited as a partial inspiration for Peter Benchley's "Jaws."
Matawan, meanwhile, has struggled with a delicate balance.
Savolaine, a retired school principal and the town historian, leads occasional tours of Rose Hill Cemetery to the grave sites of Stillwell and Fisher.
Matawan, NJ town historian John Savolaine discusses the 1916 New Jersey shark attacks which took place in Bradley Beach, Spring Lake and Matawan. Savolaine is the author of a new book about one of the Matawan victims entitled "Stanley Fisher: Shark Attack Hero of a Bygone Era." (Brian Donohue | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) And, then, back in 2006, there was "Sharkfest," the town's largest effort to commemorate the attacks to date.
The festival began with a graveside ceremony to honor Stillwell and Fisher. Tours of the attack site were led by Monmouth County author Richard Fernicola, who wrote "Twelve Days of Terror," the definitive account of the attacks.
The fire department set up a sprinkler for kids to cool off. There was face painting, an art exhibit, inflatable sharks for decorations and a smiling cartoon shark on the Sharkfest program.
It ran for two more years, then petered out amid political battles between Democrats and Republicans on the town council over how it should be run -- or whether it should be held at all. Underlying that debate was the uneasiness many have felt over an incident so horrific as the fatal attack of a child.
"There were people who were dead against what I was doing and they would say it to my face," Savolaine said, of his efforts organizing Sharkfest. "They'd say, 'How can you bring up something like that where people died."
Visitors to Matawan's 'Sharkfest' in 2006 (Star-Ledger file photo) Even today, there's some who scoff at making too much fuss.
"Why commemorate it -- people got killed,'' said John Fox, 74, as he walked down Main Street earlier this week. "I'd like to see a memorial, but that's about it."
Kevin Mendes, whose family owns Kay Auto Body, just across the gravel parking lot from the attack site has a front row seat on the demand for something more.
From his window in the body shop, Mendes has watched for years as visitors from around the world show up looking for the attack site. Recently, it was a group of tourists from Ireland he saw wandering around the gravel lot where a local livery company parks a half dozen 'Party Buses." Mendes had to assure them that yes, this was the place. But there was nothing to see. So they left.
"If you look out that way," he said pointing toward the creek, "With the exception of the Parkway, you're right back in 1916. Why not bring people into our little town to see it?"
Mendes, a former councilman said he'd like to see a walkway to the shore of the creek and an informational kiosk explaining what occurred there.
"Maybe there are areas of this creek that should be put on a historic registry,'' he said one day last week. "Why not take advantage?"
A lot of Matawan's reticence may have had to do with time. If 99 years was still too soon, an even hundred seems to have made it okay.
Because this year, Matawan is going all out.
At Memorial Park in the center of town, officials will unveil a new six-by-five foot granite memorial to Fisher and Stillwell. Descendants of the victims are flying in for the event.
From July 9 to July 17, dozens of events are scheduled, from guided trolley tours, kayak tours and concerts to lectures on shark research and exhibits. And yes, they're showing 'Jaws' in the community center.
The front page of a draft program for Matawan's 1916 shark attacks centennial commemoration. "It's been changing," Savolaine said of the mood over the last decade. "Some people were very hard line on this, but the other people in town are outweighing them. They're saying there's nothing wrong with what we're doing here, with learning about this. This is history."
Driving that change, Savolaine said, was an effort by himself and others on the Matawan Historical Society to emphasize a different narrative of attacks, with less emphasis on the macabre tale of blood and death, and more on the story of community and heroism.
That meant emphasizing the role of Fisher and the other townfolk who scrambled to try and find the 11-year old boy's body.
Savolaine has just released a book about the popular 24-year-old tailor who dove in to save a local boy from the wrong side of the tracks.
"The big picture -- what we remember from this day forward and what we can share with people who visit our town -- is there's something more to this than just the sensationalism," he said.
It also meant being careful, when designing the monument or planning the commemoration -- not to do anything that could be conceived as too, well, happy.
"There's no sharks on my monument, no things like that that could be misinterpreted by anyone" said Savoliaine. "This is not a celebration."
Back at the body shop, Mendes agrees the proper tone is important. But he also says there's no harm, once the moments of silence are over, the lectures are done, for a little bit of summer fun.
"Let's do what these folks themselves would want us to do," he said. "Enjoy the summer."
Brian Donohue may be reached at bdonohue@njadvancemedia.com Follow him on Twitter @briandonohue. Find NJ.com on Facebook.