By Eileen Moon
In the course of a lifetime, we witness again and again how the present swiftly becomes the past; how the triumphs and disasters of our lives slip silently into history.
But not everything disappears. Not everything is left on the cutting room floor of human experience. Some things evolve and grow; some seeds planted in decades past still flower, still grow, still carry the pleasures and the prayers of the distant past into the future.
The Clearwater Festival, taking place this weekend at Sunset Park in Asbury Park, is among them.
Founded in 1975 by folksinger and environmental advocate Bob Killian, the organization now known as New Jersey Friends of Clearwater will commemorate its 50th year celebrating the gifts of the Earth and its oceans through music, fun and friendship this weekend. Its founder returns to New Jersey from his home in Florida to take the stage at Clearwater a half-century after he was inspired to carry the message he first heard from the famous folk singer Pete Seeger.
A Linden native, Killian spent time in his early 20s rambling around with his guitar in an antique panel truck, busking on the streets of Victoria, British Columbia.
After traveling to Albany to spend time with his 5-year-old son, Eric, a friend told Killian that Pete Seeger was coming to town with his sloop the Clearwater, a vessel that Seeger had imbued with the mission of heightening public awareness about the need to clean up the Hudson River, using the power of music to bring people to the water and point out the beauty so in need of protection from the pollution then strangling the historic waterway.
Seeger and friends organized a pumpkin festival, loading the sloop with pumpkins they would sell at different stops along the Hudson – a simple idea designed to bring people to the water, to recognize the environmental beauty Seeger passionately believed belonged to everyone – and that needed everyone to protect it.
Killian and his son spent the afternoon in a “fireman’s line” of volunteers, passing pumpkins hand-to-hand and on to the boat for delivery along the river. Invited onto the boat, they were treated to a casual concert of songs and sea chanteys by Seeger and his friends as the ship rocked gently in the waters of the Hudson.
“I was not a professional musician at the time,” Killian said, but he mustered the courage to ask Seeger if he could sing a tune, playing “Roll, Columbia” on the deck of the Clearwater. Not given to effusive praise, Seeger told Killian he’d liked the song.
And when a volunteer crew member dropped out of the planned sail, Killian was invited to sign on for the rest of the voyage. “I had never been on a sailboat in my life,” he said.
Life-Changing Sail
That would change – drastically. Killian would go on to earn his living captaining boats and hosting environmental cruises here and in Florida for many years to come.
It was the start of a musical friendship that would endure for the rest of Seeger’s life, with Killian writing songs and-performing his own material while joining Seeger on several of his musical projects over the years.
Following the pumpkin sail, Seeger and his wife, Toshi, invited Killian to stay with them at their log cabin home in Beacon, New York, to help organize a fresh idea Seeger had – presenting a shad festival at ports along the Hudson River, starting with a kickoff near the Apollo theater in New York and a parade to the water. Docking at various posts along the Hudson, the Clearwater would sell shad at minimal cost with the intention of demonstrating that the river was worth saving, that its riches were important to ever yone and needed everyone’s protection.
Killian had never done anything remotely related to organizing an environmental festival, but Seeger insisted he could do it and do it he did.
As Killian moved on, strengthening his songwriting and performing skills as a traveling musician playing folk concerts and coffeehouses, the lessons he’d learned from the Seegers stayed with him.
After a concert at the Unitarian Church in Monmouth County in the early 1970s, Killian was asked by the minister, Harold Dean, why no one had thought to establish an environmental festival like New York’s Clearwater Festival in New Jersey. “God knows the Raritan needs our help,” Dean told him, giving Killian a stare that communicated much more than words.
Killian had no choice but to give it some thought.
Working with Pete and Toshi had helped him develop the skills such a project would need. He had the experience. He had the desire. And as a kid from North Jersey, he knew how badly the Raritan needed help.
Soon, Killian began to build a chain of like-minded acquaintances whose skills could make this seed of an idea take root successfully.
On a visit to marine biologist Robert Tucker, who was then working with the National Marine Fisheries agency at Sandy Hook, Killian was invited to tour the Fort Hancock section of the peninsula, which was then closed to the public. When he saw the expanse of open green at the edge of the water near the Fort Hancock chapel, he knew he had found the ideal location for the first New Jersey Clearwater festival.
“That’s how the whole thing started,” Killian recalled recently. “The people from the Unitarian Church were my first support people.”
He was working as an artist-in-residence at Monmouth Museum, so Killian also enlisted the help of Brookdale’s WBJB radio and the college’s Student Activities Center with logistics involved in launching the festival.
Festival’s Educational Mission
The first festival took place in September 1975 as a modest event with homemade oatmeal cookies and apple cider.
“I was the only singer,” Killian said. But when the day was over, several people told him, “I want to do this again.”
And again, they did – growing the festival into an event that attracted thousands of people annually to the edge of the water. As the musical roster grew to include performances by both grassroots groups and famous musicians, Clearwater attracted other groups working to repair and celebrate the environmental gifts of Mother Nature. The event also became a celebration of American crafts and of the bonds that sharing the gift of song can build.
It was, Killian said, the first festival in New Jersey to include sign language interpreters and other special accommodations for attendees who were disabled.
The annual festival, then hosted by Monmouth County Friends of Clearwater (later called New Jersey Friends of Clearwater), also brought Pete Seeger to the shores of Fort Hancock and the Clearwater sloop into the waters of Sandy Hook Bay to support efforts to repair and save it.
Clearwater also brought its message to children, sponsoring programs to introduce kids to the wonders of the ocean and marine life, setting up environmental learning stations in school classrooms for hands-on education.
Clearwater volunteers also acquired a boat, the Adam Hyler, a replica of a Tuckerton clamming garvey, which provides free excursions on the Navesink River to introduce children and adults to that environment. The boat is named in remembrance of Revolutionary War patriot Adam Hyler, who operated out of the Spy House in Port Monmouth, captaining raids on British warships docked in Sandy Hook Bay.
The educational aspect of Clearwater’s mission is one in which Killian takes enduring pride. “I know there are tens of thousands of children who have benefited from the Monmouth County Friends of Clearwater. That’s a program I’m very proud of. It’s still going today.”
New Leadership
With his move to Florida some 20 years ago, Killian, married for many years to his wife Dorothea (Fifi), also a performer, left the Clearwater organization in the capable hands of his fellow volunteers and the organization’s dedicated supporters.
“The festival idea was an organizing tool to bring progressive organizations that were working for the benefit of the community together in one place,” Killian said. “It was an opportunity for like-minded people who wanted to make the world a better place to share ideas on how we can progress as the human race; how we can clean the environment; how we can make the world a better place.”
After 50 years, the organization remains all volunteer.
After a change in regulations at Sandy Hook that prohibited sales at the national park, Clearwater moved its annual festival to Sunset Park in Asbury Park.
While much has changed in its 50 years of existence, Clear water and its volunteers continue to honor the mission Killian was inspired to pursue through his association with Pete Seeger.
Now under the leadership of President Chrissie Goedkoop and a team of dedicated volunteers, the nonprofit organization remains committed to environmental education through activism, festivals, music, sailing programs, school presentations and online education.
The free, 50th annual festival will take place from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 30, in Asbury’s Sunset Park. The open-air music festival will feature craft sales, food vendors, environmental education, children’s activities and throughout the day, the fellowship of song.
Headlining the roster of some of the region’s most popular musicians will be Clearwater’s founder, Bob Killian.
“Pete believed that you should attract people with great music and singing, and while they’re there, educate them about the need to protect the environment,” Killian said.
Now 81, Killian looks back on his involvement with Clearwater as one of the most meaningful achievements of his life.
“I didn’t get involved with Clearwater because I had any radical political ideas,” Killian said. “I was just a person who believed that my purpose on the earth was to leave it better than I found it.”
The article originally appeared in the August 28 – September 3, 2025 print edition of The Two River Times.
