-
2 days ago | 
thesandpaper.net | Anita Josephson |Thomas P. Farner
By the time Ship Bottom became a town in 1925, the U.S. Life-saving Service had become part of the U.S. Coast Guard. As the town celebrates its centennial we should remember the bad with the good. The revelation that the U.S. Coast Guard on Long Beach Island had organized to conspire with the rum runners shook the nation in much the same way that the news of the 1919 World Series having been fixed rocked the sporting world. On July 21, 1926, the Asbury Park Press ran a small story.
-
1 week ago | 
thesandpaper.net | Anita Josephson |Thomas P. Farner
It was two wrecks in January 1903 that linked together in the press and public mind the name Ship Bottom with the midpoint of Long Beach Island. During a gale on the night of Jan. 20, 1903, the barkentine Abiel Abbott grounded on the bar off what is today Ship Bottom. Within hours, keeper Isaac Truex and his crew from Life-saving Station No. 20 were on the beach with their equipment, trying to effect a rescue.
-
2 weeks ago | 
thesandpaper.net | Anita Josephson |Thomas P. Farner
This is another installment in a look back at Ship Bottom as it celebrates its centennial. In early January 1903, newspapers across the nation published stories about the heroic lifesavers from station number 20 at Ship Bottom and their daring rescue of the crew of the stranded Spanish ship Remedios Pascual. Several years before, the Camden Courier had painted a picture of winter on Long Beach Island. “Long Beach, January 12. – To reach this dreary strip of broad beach … is a day’s journey.
-
3 weeks ago | 
thesandpaper.net | Anita Josephson |Thomas P. Farner
To mark the centennial of Ship Bottom’s becoming an independent municipality, I am looking back at the stories that helped create the town’s identity. In January 1903, several events took place on Long Beach Island that helped to inspire a series of stories and a book that would create much of what is known as “the lure of Long Beach.”Winter on the Island was a time of quiet. The hotels in Beach Haven and Barnegat Light were closed, and even avid outdoorsmen stayed home.
-
1 month ago | 
thesandpaper.net | Anita Josephson |Thomas P. Farner
When the town you grew up in celebrates its centennial, it’s always fun to look back on its founding. The story of how Ship Bottom got its name is well known; how it became a town is not. Long Beach Island historian John Bailey Lloyd in his book Six Miles at Sea explained, “Until 1900 parts of the island and its southern extension of Tucker’s Beach had no separate political identity. Each section of the island fell within the jurisdiction of the closest township across the bay on the mainland.
-
1 month ago | 
thesandpaper.net | Anita Josephson |Thomas P. Farner
The events that took place during the spring of 1775 helped shape the future of America. This question arises: Were they the result of the action of the famous icons of history or forgotten common citizens? On May 10, colonial representatives met at the Pennsylvania statehouse (today Independence Hall, in Philadelphia) to open the Second Continental Congress. New Jersey’s five delegates arrived there to await an answer to the petition sent to London the previous October.
-
1 month ago | 
thesandpaper.net | Anita Josephson |Thomas P. Farner
If you’re a reader of this column, you probably are a student of history. You know the 250th anniversary of American independence is approaching. If asked to name five people associated with the colonial cause, you could do it in the blink of an eye. It might take a little longer if the challenge was raised to 10, but most likely you could accomplish it. Now, think of that list and decide how many on it were from New Jersey.
-
1 month ago | 
thesandpaper.net | Anita Josephson |Thomas P. Farner
This is the sixth in a series. This is the last in a series of articles attempting to present what happened at Lexington and Concord in April 1775 in the order that the public was informed. The Colonial version was disseminated in the weeks after the events by a system known as the Committees of Correspondence. This unofficial underground social group was able to get the story out almost a month before any official British version reached the press.
-
2 months ago | 
thesandpaper.net | Anita Josephson |Thomas P. Farner
This is the fifth in a series. Over the past several weeks I have presented the Colonial perspective on the events 250 years ago at Lexington and Concord. The reason for the one-sided version is that in 1775, that is the way the 13 colonies and Great Britain were informed of the events. At that time the social media of the day was an organization known as the Committee of Correspondence, and as the smoke settled on April 19, only one version of the day’s fighting spread outward from Boston.
-
2 months ago | 
thesandpaper.net | Anita Josephson |Thomas P. Farner
This is the 4th in a series. There are times when getting a story first outweighs the getting of it correct. In April 1775, this rang true as the Colonial version of the events at Lexington and Concord were distributed widely while the British account was omitted. The first accounts of Lexington told of the Redcoats firing on the Minutemen without provocation. Following the encounter, they marched toward Concord, where they believed military stores were hidden.
