Over the past 200 years, the landscape just east of Bombay Hook Island changed dramatically, from a riverine setting in the 1700's and 1800's to a large ponded area by the early 1900's and finally to the vast tidal marsh system known today as Broadway Meadows. Old Duck Creek once meandered along the bayside area of fast land called Bombay Hook Island, where the old Bombay Hook Lighthouse and Bay View Schoolhouse stood near the intersection of Lighthouse Road and Route 9. In 1878, a massive storm breached the dunes that had protected Bombay Hook Island and inland areas, and the resulting Big Break allowed tidal water to flow inland, creating a vast shallow lake and cutting through the old bayside road that had led to Woodland Beach. Recollections recorded in Tales of Bay View Neck remembered skating from Bay View Schoolhouse to the lighthouse and described ducks so numerous over the flooded lands that they blocked out the sun. Over the following decades, more breaks formed in the bayside banks, channels deepened and widened, and a more natural tidal ebb and flow returned, producing the broad tidal marsh landscape locals call Broadway Meadows.