Chapters

The saga, in installments.

Sixteen chapters planned. Two live, more each quarter, and one live epilogue that never closes. Read them in any order that pulls you — the current pair bookends the twentieth-century arc, from the resort that gave the Jersey Shore its name to the town of fast boats that outran the Coast Guard.

The chapters

A Landsat 8 view of Sandy Hook and the Navesink Highlands, 26 August 2015 — the peninsula from tip to Highlands ridge, with the Navesink and Shrewsbury river mouths between

Chapter 0 · Prologue · Deep time on the ridge and the spit

The Land Itself

The Hook is the Highlands, rearranged.

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A period-etching silhouette of a small three-masted ship at anchor off the Highlands, ca. 1609

Chapter 3 · 1524–1609 · Europe arrives at the front door

First Sails

The golden shore and the fresh grave, in the same week.

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The 1764 Sandy Hook Lighthouse at night — an octagonal rubble-stone tower with a lit whale-oil lamp, silhouetted against a moonlit sea, colorized

Chapter 5 · 1764–1783 · Built by New York, besieged by New Jersey

The Light and the War

The oldest operating lighthouse in America, and the Loyalist stronghold at its feet.

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A three-masted ship being driven onto the New Jersey shore in a night storm, ca. 1846 — heavy surf, a hand-held lantern on the beach, silhouetted figures running

Chapter 6 · 1839–1915 · The graveyard coast, and the birth of the Life-Saving Service

Wrecks and Rescue

One hundred and fifty-eight vessels lost in a single decade.

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The Twin Lights of Navesink at night — two brownstone towers on the Highlands bluff with a beam sweeping the harbor, ca. 1900

Chapter 7 · 1828–1949 · America's optics-and-signals lab

The Twin Lights Century

The most technologically important lighthouse in America, on Highlands' hill.

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A paddlewheel steamboat approaching the Highland Beach pavilion pier at sunset, ca. 1878, colorized

Chapter 8 · 1830–1900 · Writers, painters, steamboats, and the resort the famous built

The Painted Shore

One of the most beautiful combinations of land and water in America.

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The Sandlass Beach Club at Highland Beach on a summer Saturday ca. 1948 — the Bamboo Room building with parking lot full of 1940s American sedans, families walking toward the beach, the Highlands ridge behind

Chapter 9 · 1881–1963 · The Sandlass shore

Highland Beach

The sea never beat this family. New Jersey did.

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Battery Lewis at night — a monumental 600-foot concrete casemate on the Navesink heights with a single searchlight beam over the Atlantic, 1943

Chapter 10 · 1874–1974 · A century of coastal defense

Guns on the Hook

The Army arrives, stays for a hundred years, and leaves the concrete behind.

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The Highlands working waterfront at dawn, ca. 1912 — a row of clam skiffs at Bay Avenue with the Twin Lights on the ridge behind, colorized

Chapter 11 · 1900–1920 · Incorporation, clam boats, and the working waterfront

A Town of Its Own

A working man's town at the foot of the resort hills.

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A dark harbor at night with a distant lighthouse beam sweeping over silhouetted boats

Chapter 12 · 1920–1933

Rum Row

The bootleg capital of the East — and the town that built the boats.

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The Miss Belmar V at the Bay Avenue dock at 5:30 a.m., ca. 1975 — anglers in windbreakers boarding under sodium light, coolers stacked on the pier, the boat bright white against the still-dark water

Chapter 13 · 1945–2000 · The fleet, the fare, and the town that ran on both

Party Boats and Postwar

A working town that sold its labor by the seat and its identity by the sailing.

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Bay Avenue under Sandy's storm surge just after landfall, October 29, 2012 — water above the storefront-sign line, streetlights out, transformer flashes on the ridge, a single boat drifted onto the pavement

Chapter 14 · 1944–2012 · Storms, floods, and the price of living at sea level

The Sea Takes Back

The town pays tribute on the water's schedule.

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A peak summer Saturday at Sandy Hook, ca. 2020 — the beach parking lot full, umbrellas of every color to the horizon, the Twin Lights on the ridge behind, two million visitors a year on ground that was closed for a century

Chapter 15 · 1962–present · From seized shore to shared shore

The Public Coast

The same eminent domain that ended Highland Beach created one of the most democratic coastlines in America.

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