Barnegat Light Museum: Old place with new thrill

History is thriving at the Barnegat Light Museum, located at 501 Central Avenue, across the street from the site of the old Oceanic Hotel, which was torn down in 1919 after succumbing to erosion. The museum is the town’s former one-room schoolhouse that operated from 1904 to 1951, when the town was known as Barnegat City before becoming Barnegat Light in 1949.

The old schoolroom provided education for students from kindergarten through sixth grade, before they attended the original Barnegat High School on the mainland. Many of the museum’s members are former students of the Barnegat Light schoolhouse.

Photo by Jack Reynolds

“My favorite thing about working here is chatting with everyone about the schoolhouse and the school log and the compass,” said docent Marc Lipman. “We’re very interactive here. The museum is small, but you could spend hours going through this stuff and never really see it all,” he added.

The museum opened immediately following the closing of the old schoolroom. It was commenced by the Barnegat Light Historical Society – an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization initiated by a group of people dedicated to keeping the history of Barnegat Light and the rest of Long Beach Island alive and available to the public. The museum was the area’s only historical museum until 1976, when the Long Beach Island Historical Association opened the Long Beach Island Museum in Beach Haven.

Many of the Barnegat Light Museum’s earliest artifacts were donated by Norwegian immigrants who came to Barnegat Light in the ’20s. Silverware, dishes, coffee grinders and meat grinders are some of the pieces in the exhibit.

Immigrants came to Barnegat Light to work on the area’s commercial pound fishing boats. Pound fishing, phased out in the mid ’50s, consisted of catching fish in large nets that were placed in the ocean beyond the surf line and held together by large poles driven into the sea bottom. Fishermen would motor out to the nets in Sea Bright skiffs – small boats still used today by lifeguards – and collect the fish before shipping their catch to local fish markets. A model of a pound fishing net is just one of the museum’s special highlights.

Memorabilia featuring the U.S. Coast Guard’s famous mascot Sinbad, a mixed-breed dog adopted by a crewman from the cutter Campbell in 1938, is another one of the museum’s favorite aspects. Sinbad traveled around the world as an enlisted Coast Guard member for 11 years before retiring to the Barnegat Light station. He died in 1951 and is buried beneath the station's flagstaff.

The museum’s most prized feature is the first-order flashing lens from the Barnegat Lighthouse, built by French physicist Augustin Fresnel. The lens was removed and sent to the Tompkinsville Lighthouse Depot on Staten Island in 1927, when the lightship Barnegat was stationed off Barnegat Inlet. The lens was returned to Barnegat Light in 1954 and has been at the museum ever since.

Photo by Jack Reynolds

A friendship quilt given to the first lighthouse keeper’s daughter in the 1860s was found in the attic of a woman’s house in Olympia, Washington. It was donated to the museum in 1981.

The museum is also famous for its collection of bird decoys. The decoys represent a time when bird hunting in the area was especially popular. It is said that President Grover Cleveland traveled to the Island to partake in the popular sport.

A large, pot-belly coal stove from the old schoolroom is another notable exhibit. Not only was it used to heat the building, it was also used to keep students’ lunches warm. The school’s teacher earned an extra $10 a year if the classroom was warm when the children came in.

The museum also houses the town’s old post office boxes. To this day, no mail is delivered to any of the homes in Barnegat Light; residents collect their mail from the post office on 10th Street.

Mrs. Hanson’s autograph collection is located in the back of the museum, near the old mailboxes. Hanson never left Barnegat Light, but she accrued an impressive autograph collection, including signatures from Eleanor Roosevelt, J. Edgar Hoover, President Gerald Ford and First Lady Betty Ford, Helen Keller and President Richard M. Nixon.

“I’m very interested in history, and Hanson’s autograph collection really amazes me,” said Karen Larson, president of the Barnegat Light Historical Society and Museum.

Larson became president of the museum in 2005. She grew up in Barnegat Light. Her mother, Marion Larson, grew up in Beach Haven and married Captain John Larson. John Larson became a co-owner of Independent Dock – now known as Viking Village – which his grandparents, who were immigrants from Norway, helped build in the late 1920s. John Larson had attended the schoolhouse as a young boy and was a volunteer at the museum until he died two years ago.

The museum welcomes children of all ages. A schoolhouse treasure hunt is just one of the museum’s many fun activities specifically geared toward its young visitors. The treasure hunt starts in the middle of the room at the compass, which was used to teach students how to differentiate between north, south, east and west. The quest takes participants all over the museum and ends at the counter, where children find and can take home a sand dollar.

Photo by Jack Reynolds

“The commercial fishermen bring me all their sand dollars. I could fill this room with these shells,” Larson said with a laugh.

Kids are especially fond of the “bones corner,” where mastodon molars, prehistoric walrus and clam fossils, shark jaws and whale skulls are strewn about.

Family days at the museum take place every Wednesday in July and August. Family-oriented tours of the museum and outdoor Edith Duff Gwinn Garden take place between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Activities for children up to age 10 take place from 2 to 3:30 p.m.

The Barnegat Light Museum’s annual Historical Homes and Garden Tour will take place on Thursday, Aug. 23 from 2 to 5 p.m., featuring six Victorian homes in Barnegat Light. Tickets can be purchased at the museum. A Wine and Cheese Party will take place the same day at the museum from 3 to 6 p.m., no tickets required.

The museum is open on weekends June through mid October, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and daily in July and August, 2 to 4 p.m. The museum garden, maintained by The Garden Club of Long Beach Island, is open all year-round. Admission is free. For more information, visit www.bl-hs.org.


This article was published in The Beachcomber.