Weeks Marine has just finished replenishing 437,685 cubic yards via 210 loads on our beaches from Baltimore Blvd. south into Manasquan. Dredging equipment harvested the sand from a series of ten offshore sand deposits located between two and five miles east of the Shark River to the Manasquan inlet. The sandhills are between 10 and 20 feet above the sea floor. The sand in this area extends below the seabed up to another 50 feet. The sand, placed on barges is mixed with water and then pumped to the beach.
Earth movers capturing sand pumped onto the beach in Feb ‘24
This is just the latest in our attempts to manage Mother Nature. The shoreline was near the edge of the continental shelf about 20,000 years ago, about 80 miles to the east. When the ancestors of the Lenni Lenape arrived here around 10,000 years ago, the glaciers were melting, and the coast was still 40 miles out to sea. Hunters killed neolithic animals including mastodon. Trawlers sometimes bring up fossilized bones of these animals in their nets.
Sand barge off Trenton Beach
Property records from the first maps of Monmouth County demonstrate up to 2,000 feet of shoreline retreat since about 1650, particularly on the bluffs from Long Branch to Asbury Park.
The early rooming houses and hotels in Long Branch fell into the sea as the soft cliffs eroded and fed the sand north to Sandy Hook.
Hundreds of millions of tax dollars have been spent on beach projects over the years. The previous deposit of sand in Sea Girt was in 2013, after Superstorm Sandy. Before that, there was a more substantial beach restoration in 1997, which encompassed the entire Monmouth Shore from Sea Bright to Manasquan. It was at this time that Sea Girt reinforced a second set of dunes east of the boardwalk, and successfully planted them with the help of a Dune Grass Committee, the Holly Club, the Surfrider Foundation, and other volunteers over the years.
Before this bathers in the early 90s often set up just under the Sea Girt boardwalk for shade, and they had a short walk to the water at high tide.
After several bad storms in the late 1950s, in 1962 the Borough bought sand from Belmar at 30 cents per yard. Both the area around the Wreck Pond Inlet and the southern part of town have been vulnerable for over one hundred years.
The beach moves naturally, with sand coming from rivers and eroding headlands. The crushing of stones over thousands of years, leaves silicon dioxide, natural glass. The finer the sand, the older it is. Our fine New Jersey sand is on average 125,000 years old. Its normal drift is south to north, but noreasters can drive sand southward. Most sand that is lost in storms finds its way back to the beach unless it is blocked by a jetty. Dunes and fences help knock down 40% of windblown sand and keep it from moving inland, where it contaminates the soil, killing vegetation, and encouraging additional erosion.
Steel Magnate Thomas Morrison’s Sea Girt house in 1916 with Morris’ Avocado and Phebe Wright’s house. Note the erosion. Morrison’s daughter is in the foreground. Marriot Morris Panoramas courtesy of the Monmouth County Historical Society
Jettys and groins can interrupt the flow of sand along the beach. In 1915 in response to beach erosion, the Guard Camp installed a bulkhead and two jetties to protect their beach. This eroded the sand at the Beach House Hotel. They struggled financially as their beach washed away and they installed an additional wooden spur jetty at the foot of Trenton Avenue in 1916. The cheaply made wooden jetty did not help the 40-year-old hotel with its 60-year-old lobby built from Commodore Stockton’s old home. The Beach House closed in 1918. It was rebuilt as the Stockton in the Pines by Mrs. Stubbs and opened in August 1921, lasting until the 1960s.
Storms in 1918 took out the beach in front of Crescent Park. The residents who lived on the ocean in Sea Girt were livid. The borough, newly formed showed no urgency to take responsibility to protect the beachfront.
The longest resident in town Elliston Morris owned two homes, which passed to his daughter Bess and son Marriott. Marriott Morris and J. Bunford Samuel organized their neighbors and had studies done to determine how they could protect their beach. Some of the neighbors were less enthusiastic. Phoebe Wright had just passed away and Margaret Oglesby claimed she did not have the money for the private building of jetties.
Thomas Morrison had the money. He was Andrew Carnegie’s cousin and executive with US Steel. He owned a massive mansion in Pittsburgh and an estate in Pinehurst NC. But he simply sold his Sea Girt house and purchased Lowlands in North Spring Lake. It was a beachfront stucco mansion of Henry W. Rogers a coal millionaire. Mrs. Morrison had them move again before she had him build Halbregt, a massive estate home at the corner of Pitney and Lorraine Avenues which still stands.
Morris’ notes on the erosion looking south from New York Ave in 1918
Francis L. Pryun, an engineer from New York purchased the Morrison home, next door to Bess Morris. Sea Girt was lucky to have Pryun. He graduated from Cornell in 1894 and worked on the foundation for the Williamsburg Bridge, the aqueduct tunnels bringing water to New York City from the Catskill Mountains, and on several subway tunnels.
He wrote to Marriott Morris in June of 1919.
“The beach has eroded considerably these past two years and I am of the opinion that it would be unsafe for both your property and my own to pass another winter unprotected. There has been a bad washout at the junction between your property and mine, and another bad storm could damage us both to an unknown extent. It is my intention to erect a jetty at the north end of my property, unless I can secure your cooperation, in which event I would consider the proposition of joining hands and erecting a jetty to the north of your property which will, I think, protect your property as well as mine, and could be done for moderate expense.”
I have spoken to Mr. Samuel in regard to his concrete bulkhead, and am very favorably impressed with the cheapness of the construction and permanent qualities. I am informed by him that he will be continuing his construction this summer, and probably by using the same contractor, we would considerably reduce the expense.”
The view looking north from Trenton Blvd in 1918. The beach is almost gone.
The current rock jetties between Brooklyn and New York Avenue, and south of Philadelphia date from this time. Samuels bulkhead was eventually continued from in front of his house on Brooklyn Blvd. It is located where Ocean Avenue’s blacktop meets the beach between Beacon and New York Blvd. Francis Pruyn was instrumental in the construction of the Manasquan inlet. The granite rock was Manhattan bedrock blasted out for Subway tunnel construction.
Morrison’s is one of the few massive estates still standing. He died at 84 in the house at Lorraine and Pitney in 1946.
We all benefit from the public money used to keep sand on our beaches. Thank the public works and beach utility when you see them moving the sand about to preserve it. The beach belongs to everyone, and we are lucky to have it.
Rock Jetty near the home of J. Bunford Samuel at Brooklyn Blvd