Barnegat Lighthouse - Barnegat Light, NJ
N 39° 45.860 W 074° 06.377
18S E 576549 N 4401982
Barnegat Lighthouse, colloquially known as "Old Barney", is located in Barnegat Lighthouse State Park on the northern tip of Long Beach Island, in the borough of Barnegat Light, New Jersey, in the United States. It sits along the Barnegat Inlet.
Waymark Code: WM4BYV
Location: New Jersey, United States
Date Posted: 08/03/2008
Views: 71
"BARNEGAT, 64.4 n. (35 alt, 1,100 pop.) has well-shaded old streets with a small shopping center R. of highway, at the Jersey Central R.R. terminal. The town's name was originally, but never officially, Barendegat (Dutch, breaker's inlet). Often the place is confused with the smaller Barnegat City across the bay, where the famous Barnegat Light stands (see Tour 35A)." --- New Jersey, a Guide to Its Present and Past, 1939, page 559
Another Excerpt:
"The painter, F. Hopkins Smith, caught the charm and independence of these hardy people in his pictures and in his book, The Tides of Barnegat. Smith's father's firm built Barnegat Lighthouse (see below), and the painter himself helped construct it. Annually hundreds of amateur deep sea fisherman come here for the game tuna that swim in school far offshore. Neither they nor casual visitors can disturb the mild Scandinavian tenor of life, which includes the substitution of spiritus frumenti for coffee before the early morning trip across the dangerous bar to bring in fish. The ocean sometimes conspires with the natives to preserve the atmosphere of the town. When some Philadelphia businessmnen sought to convert it into a resport, the waves destroyed the hotel and the railroad.
Barnegat shelters a race of tailless sea-going cats that eat the surplus catch of the fishermen. The cats are descended from some Manx bob-tails shipped as ratters on a bark that went ashore near the Coast Guard Station.
Barnegat Lighthouse (closed), 9.1 m. at the end of the road, was several hundred feet from the beach when built in 1855, but the inlet has cut a channel to its base. The 168-foot tower, painted red on the upper half and white below marks the shoals where the lives of many Barnegat fishermen and of passengers on ocean vessels have been lost. Storms have so menaced the lighthouse's foundations that the Federal Government abandoned it in 1930, and replaced it with a lightship 8 miles off-shore. The State of New Jersey then took over the tower and has attempted to save it by a semicircle of steel sheet piling. The townspeople have dumped old automobiles, brush and other refuse into the channel, to check the erosion of the sandy bank." --- New Jersey, a Guide to Its Present and Past, 1939, page 672
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When the guide was written this lighthouse was closed. Today, it is open for tours and a park has been built around it. It receives many tourists each year and is a vital tourist attraction for Barnegat Light.
Background
The development of the original lighthouse began in June 1834 with the appropriation of $6,000 from Congress. The 40-foot tall lighthouse was commissioned the next year, though mariners at the time considered the building's non-flashing, fifth-class light to be inadequate. Due to the strong currents within the inlet, the lighthouse was built 900 feet away from the ocean; but within ten years after the initial construction was complete only 450 feet separated the tower from the shore.
The lighthouse's beacon remained a first-class navigational light until August 1927, when the Barnegat Lightship was anchored 8 miles (13 km or 15 km) off the coast. This prompted the automation and the replacement of the first-order lens with a gas blinker. As a result, the tower's light was reduced by over 80 percent. The gas blinker was replaced several weeks later with a 250 watt electric bulb, though the gas apparatus can still be seen at the top of the tower.
The lens was sent to the Tompkinsville Lighthouse Depot on Staten Island, New York. However, the lighthouse's beacon was not extinguished until January 1944, when it was decommissioned by the Coast Guard and given to the State of New Jersey. Four years later, in 1948, the local municipality Barnegat City renamed itself Barnegat Light. In 1954, the lens was returned to the borough of Barnegat Light and now is on exhibit in the Barnegat Light Historical Museum. The area around the lighthouse was declared a State park and dedicated in 1957. The lightship was removed in 1965, made obsolete by electronic navigation.
In 1988, the lighthouse was closed for repair. It re-opened to visitors in 1991. Although its high-intensity light no longer functions, the tower is flood-lit at night and a continuous lantern is lit from dusk to dawn. This lantern is visible out to the horizon on clear nights, but is not intended to be visible during inclement weather (though an active foghorn is still present at the opposite end of the inlet). The top of the lighthouse is accessible via its 217 steps and continues to attract thousands of visitors every summer.
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