The Beach is Vulnerable

As the Great War continued in Europe, the vulnerability of the East Coast was a point of discussion. German U-boats tormented American ships. The passenger ship Lusitania left New York and was torpedoed off of Ireland. In addition to US passengers, it was secretly carrying munitions. Over 1,300 passengers and 128 Americans died. President Wilson, facing reelection in 1916 showed little desire to get the US involved in the war.

German U boats terrorized the US coasts, but the press downplayed the threats to US shipping

The Guard Camp at Sea Girt was noted as an ideal landing place for the enemy. Far from the Battery at Sandy Hook, the place was nearly abandoned for nine months of the year, and there were many supplies and it made an ideal landing spot. The access to train lines to both Philadelphia and New York would increase the access if the enemy established a beachhead.

A bunco artist took advantage of the fear, and passed bad checks at lumber yards in the area, after noting he was on a secret mission to reinforce the camp at Sea Girt.

Naval Illustration of the sinking of the Lusitania. It roused Americans, but many wanted to stay out of Europe’s war.

The Federal Government, allocating resources for the buildup of regular units, did not allocate enough money to the NJ National Guard to host exercises at Sea Girt in 1915. There was an officer instruction session with simulated war games and a Non-Commissioned Officer camp held early that the summer, but for the first time since 1899, the camp would be quiet in July and August. Without the military galas, and governor’s balls, the hotels suffered.

In 1915 Horace Rounds bought the Tremont from the Sea Girt Company. It was an insider transaction. Rounds was an officer of the Sea Girt Company.

The Tremont needed a major investment if it were going to stay as a hotel. It was 40 years old. The Beach House Hotel had also lost its shine. The Constantineau’s operated the hotel, along with a French Restaurant in Tom’s River, but they were a far cry from the celebrity hotel operators that managed the hotel in the past.

The beach had also become a nuisance. It was disappearing. The Manasquan River, whose outlet was closer to Stockton Lake had silted over often. The southern part of Sea Girt was a bog, and water often ran through the camp and the vacant lots. When it did, the beach, missing its source of sand eroded. Storms amplified the problems, and then jetties contributed to erosion. The residents built a sea wall of wood to protect their lawns and the remaining dunes. The Beach House built 3 spur jetties of wood. That stole the sand in front of the Tremont. Sea Girt was losing its beach. A 1918 storm as shown below almost removed the entire beach. What was supposed to be a continuation of Ocean Ave, but never built was now in the sea.

Marriott Morris photo from the Monmouth County Historical Society.

Beach erosion had been studied and good scientific solutions had already been suggested. Gerald O. Case a British engineer had written the definitive book on saving beaches in the 1890s. Unfortunately, New Jersey would not get the message for another few generations. Towns insisted on jetties and sea walls, which only accelerated erosion. His words sound like current thinking:

Coast Sand Dunes, Sand Spits and Sand Wastes

The greater part of the coast line of the world is fringed with sands In many places the wind blows the sand inland and causes the formation on the coast margin of belts of sand dunes Such dunes unless fixed by vegetation travel inland causing in time the formation of sand wastes and in many cases erosion of the coast .The object of this book is more particularly to draw attention to the advantages of collecting the inblown sand in the formation of a large coast protection dune which when built up by the wind under the guidance of man to a proper height and inclination serves several useful purposes In the first place such a littoral dune prevents inland sand drift and the formation of sand wastes secondly it acts as an embankment or line of defence against erosion of the coast and thirdly it enables and makes it commercially worth while to reclaim and convert into beautiful pine woods any existing inland areas of sand wastes or useless belts of sand dunes only partially covered by vegetation.

Case came to New Jersey to discuss his more natural, dune based approach to preserving beaches. Officials and land owners mostly ignored his recommendations. They wanted to control and engineer their way around their problems. The dunes in Spring Lake had been knocked flat and the sand repurposed to fill in marshes around Wreck Pond. 120 jetties would eventually line the Monmouth Coast, with each community stealing sand from the next.