Oyster River (New Hampshire)
| Oyster River | |
|---|---|
Oyster River at head of tide in Durham, New Hampshire | |
| Location | |
| Country | United States |
| State | New Hampshire |
| County | Strafford |
| Towns | Barrington, Lee, Madbury, Durham |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | Creek Pond |
| • location | Barrington |
| • coordinates | 43°10′3″N 71°1′58″W / 43.16750°N 71.03278°W |
| • elevation | 205 ft (62 m) |
| Mouth | Little Bay |
• location | Durham |
• coordinates | 43°7′21″N 70°52′4″W / 43.12250°N 70.86778°W |
• elevation | 0 ft (0 m) |
| Length | 17.0 mi (27.4 km) |
| Basin features | |
| Tributaries | |
| • left | College Brook, Beards Creek, Johnson Creek, Bunker Creek |
| • right | Caldwell Brook, Chelsey Brook, Longmarsh Brook |
The Oyster River is a 17-mile-long (27 km) river in Strafford County, southeastern New Hampshire, United States. It rises in Barrington, flows southeast to Lee, then east-southeast in a serpentine course past Durham to meet the entrance of Great Bay into Little Bay. The bays are tidal inlets of the Atlantic Ocean, to which they are connected by a tidal estuary, the Piscataqua River. The freshwater portion of the river is 14.1 miles (22.7 km) long, and the tidal river extends 2.9 miles (4.7 km) from Durham to Great Bay.
The Oyster River reaches tidewater at the base of a dam in the center of Durham, just west of the river's crossing by NH Route 108. Due to siltation, the river is only fully accessible to motorized boats west of the Durham Water Plant for approximately three hours on either side of high tide. Boaters have noticed the increasing effect of siltation on navigation since 1998.