Sandy Hook - Gateway to New York Harbor

At the request of New York City merchants who were suffering massive losses due to shipwrecks, the New York Provincial Congress held a lottery in 1761 to fund construction of a lighthouse on the New Jersey shoreline, and another lottery in 1762 to complete the fund raising phase. The Lighthouse at Sandy Hook, New Jersey, entered service in June of 1764, and is the oldest working lighthouse in the United States.

In March 1776 the British fleet was expected to appear off New York City, and the New York Congress resolved to destroy the light so as not to aid the invasion. The lens and lamps were removed in secret, and a British landing party was dispatched to relight the tower using improvised lamps and reflectors. In June the Americans again tried to douse the light, using a pair of cannon mounted on small boats. Some damage was done to the tower before the colonists were driven off by an armed vessel.

In 1828 a pair of powerful light stations were built a little farther down the coast, atop the Navesink Highlands. Situated 200 feet above sea level, the Twin Lights of Navesink guided distant seafarers towards New York Harbor, and kept them away from treacherous coastal waters. The presence of a pair of towers helped navigators to distinguish between them and the lighthouse at Sandy Hook.

During the 1800s New Jersey saw many shipwrecks on or near its shores, and the state played a key role in founding the U.S. Life-Saving Service, an agency that grew out of private and local humanitarian efforts to save the lives of shipwrecked mariners and passengers. In 1848 a Monmouth County Congressman reported that 158 sailing vessels had been lost off the New Jersey coast between 1839 and 1848! Congress agreed to build eight lifeboat stations equipped with surfboats, lifeboats, and other means for the preservation of life and property shipwrecked on the coast of New Jersey between Sandy Hook and Little Egg Harbor. The stations were completed in 1849, spaced ten miles apart from Spermaceti Cove on Sandy Hook south to Long Beach Island.

The station at Spermaceti Cove was in service from 1849 through 1946; in fact three different stations were built at that site over the course of the years. The original structure is on display at the Navesink Historic site, and the third structure now serves as the Visitors Center at Sandy Hook.

Sandy Hook is now part of the National Park Service’s Gateway National Recreation Area, and the The Twin Lights of Navesink are a New Jersey State Historic Site.

The Generator Building at Navesink, which housed an electrical dynamo used before commercial power-grids became available. Petroleum products were burned to create light before the introduction of electrical incandescent lamps, and before that whale oil was used.

The Fresnel Lens used in the tower is now on display in the Generator Building. It was originally built for the Light at Sandy Hook, but it was found that there wasn’t sufficient room at the top, so it was used at the South Tower at Navesink instead. For 51 years the South Tower Light was the first mainland object detected by mariners approaching New York Harbor. It was bright enough to be visible all the way to the horizon; a distance of 22 miles!

The Navesink Lightstation. The North Tower is at the far end, the South Tower is just out of sight in to the left, and Sandy Hook is to your right (eastward). In 1828 only two lighthouse towers were created – this structure was built in 1862.

View from the north tower, facing north. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is in the distant background, before it is the U.S. Coast Guard Station, situated at the northern tip of Sandy Hook.

Sandy Hook Visitor Center. In the past this was the Life-Saving Station at Spermaceti Cove. This was actually the third such building at this site; the first one is on display at the Navesink historical site.

The Lighthouse at Sandy Hook.