MATAWAN, N.J. — On a sweltering July afternoon in 1916, Lester Stillwell, 11, jumped into the secluded Matawan Creek here, not seeing the large mass moving toward him in the water.

“Watch me float, fellas!” Lester gloated to his friends, according to published accounts of the day.

Suddenly, a huge fish rose, snatched Lester’s arm and flung him up and down, then dragged him deeper into the creek.

That attack in this small town was the third of four killings by what was believed to be the same great white shark as it traveled — hungry and confused — north along the New Jersey coastline that summer, said Al Savolaine, a Matawan historian and author of “Stanley Fisher: Shark Attack Hero of a Bygone Age.” The Matawan attack was unusual because it occurred in an inland creek — no more than 40 feet wide and 20 feet deep — about a mile and a half from the closest bay.