How Wreck Pond Was Named

In 1879 milk was sold in glass bottles for the first time. An artificial ice rink was created in Manhattan at Madison Square Garden. The first gasoline-powered automobile engine was patented, but the age of steam is still going strong. F.W. Woolworth opened his first five-cent store. The twin resorts Sea Girt and Spring Lake Beach are named “The Paradise of Watering Places” by the Philadelphia Times. In speaking about the Maltby-run hotels, (Beach House, Monmouth and Carelton) “The character of the people who frequent this Paradise is different from that of the patrons of Long Branch. Though everything here is of the best, and there is nothing of the cheap and common sort about the place, there is not the demonstrative style which prevails at Long Branch. These people seem to love quiet, and desire to make the resort a safe and pleasant family home. Many merchants leave their families here during the week and come themselves to spend Sunday. There is a moderate amount of dancing, with an occasional ball or hop. A band of music in each house prevents monotony.”

Sloops and barks still dominate the seas, and the ocean is still the major highway for commercial transportation.

Bark anchored off Sea Girt, as the Morris family enjoys the beach

Henry Yard was an engineer, real estate speculator, and stock trader. His prominent family of Trenton was involved in the founding of Ocean Beach (Belmar) and he was a major landowner at the shore. In 1879 he decided to salvage the wreck that gave Wreck Pond its name. Earlier maps from the late 1700s called the inlet and pond “Rack Pond”, an English reference to a large flat area. When the Manassa ran aground and settled about 50 yards offshore of the inlet in the late 1840s it sat for decades. The ship’s remains, still visible at low tide solidified the modern name, “Wreck Pond”.

Many boats hit sand bars or wandered close to shore. Beachcombing was a good source of wood and other flotsam. The Manassa was target of salvage attempts for over 30 years. The cargo of Italian marble was valuable, but the 6 -10 ton blocks made them too heavy for swimmers or small boats to lift and too close to the shore for large ships to recover.

Yard attached a steam engine to a windlass, a cylindrical crank normally used for raising anchors. A rowboat would bring a swimmer to the wreck, who would attach a chain to the marble slabs. He ran a railroad track underwater, held to the ocean floor with ships anchors and he pulled the blocks up to a submerged platform of shears and spars. The windlass, capable of lifting 50 tons then dragged the blocks of marble off the edge of the spars into railway buckets and then along the rail back to shore.

Henry Yard took the remains of the Wreck away in mule carts, but the name remains.