The village of Oyster Bay originally started on a farm called Graskop, owned by Mr Henry Potgieter. In 1956 the directors of Tsitsikamma Estates (Carel and Phoebe van Tonder) approached Mr Potgieter with an offer to purchase his farm.
Consequently, in 1956/7 Oyster Bay developed into a holiday resort where people could rent houses.
Development progressed quickly after this and soon a shop was established and individuals could start buying sites. Houses were built and today there are about 420 plots, with houses on about 165 of them.
Archeological Finds
Oyster Bay has a rich history. Archeological finds of stone tools (hand axes and cleavers) dating back from 1 million to 200 000 years. This therefore represents the Early Stone age. Middens around Oyster Bay carry traces of Middle Stone Age blade and flake tools and fragmentary human remains. These human remains show that Middle Stone Age man was modern in his anatomic build.
Other remains also indicate that marine resources played an important role in the lives of humans since those eras. There are traces of shellfish, seal, penguin, fish and flying birds and also visible fish traps, consisting of artificial tidal pools used to catch fish stranded by the ebbing tide.
Oyster Bay Shipwrecks
Oyster Bay became home to the earliest known shipwreck, namely the Dutch Noord (ster), which hit a reef at Klippepunt in the west of Oyster Bay on 16 January 1690. None of the crew was reported drowned, but only four made the walk back to Cape Town.
There are also other wrecks in Oyster Bay area: Niagara 1870, British Duke 1888, and the Suffolk 1900.