Shipwrecked: Coastal Disasters and the Making of the American Beach 146966089X, 9781469660899

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Shipwrecked

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Shipwrecked

Coastal Disasters and the Making of the American Beach Jamin Wells The University of North Carolina Press chapel hill

 © 2020 Jamin Wells All rights reserved Set in Merope Basic by Westchester Publishing Ser­vices Manufactured in the United States of Amer­i­ca The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003. Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: Wells, Jamin, author. Title: Shipwrecked : coastal disasters and the making of the American beach / Jamin Wells. Description: Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020018436 | ISBN 9781469660899 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469660905 (paperback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469660912 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Shipwrecks—­United States—­History—19th ­century. | Coasts—­United States—­History. | Beaches—­United States—­History. Classification: LCC VK1270 .W45 2020 | DDC 910.9163/4—­dc23 LC rec­ord available at https://­lccn​.­loc​.­gov​/­2020018436 Cover illustration: Granville Perkins, “The Stranded Steam-­Ship  L’ Amerique,” Harper’s Weekly, January 27, 1877. Portions of this book w ­ ere previously published by the author in a dif­fer­ent form and are used h ­ ere with permission. Chapter 1 includes material from “Mapping the Coastal Frontier: Shipwrecks and the Cultural Landscape of the Early Republic,” in Formation Pro­cesses of Maritime Archaeological Landscapes, ed. by Alicia Caporaso (New York City: Springer Publishing, 2017), 31–52. Chapter 4 includes material from “Professionalization and Cultural Perceptions of Marine Salvage, 1850–1950,” Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 17, no. 2 (April 2007): 1–22. Chapter  5 includes material from “Lure of the Shore: Authenticity, Spectacle, and the Wreck of the St. Paul,” New Jersey History 126, no. 1 (2011): 13–20.

 To my patient, loving ­family

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Contents

Acknowl­edgments xi Introduction 1 chapter one The American Coastal Frontier ​10 chapter two Taming the Beach ​38 Wreckers and Wreck Law on the Jersey Shore chapter three Transforming the Shore ​69 Tourism, Lifesavers, and the Rise of Quonnie chapter four Clearing the Coast ​105 Captain T. A. Scott, a “True American” chapter five Shipwreck and Spectacle on the Modern Beach 137 Epilogue ​163 Notes ​171

Bibliography ​203 Index ​229

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Illustrations and Maps

Illustrations Captain Cook Cast Away on Cape Cod, 1802 35 Wreck of the Ship John Minturn 39 Frontispiece from The Wreckers; Or, The Ship-­Plunderers of Barnegat ​66 Death on Economy ​93 Crowd watching lifesavers drill 101 The Old Wreck, Annie, Quonochontaug, R.I. 101 Captain T. A. Scott ​106 T. A. Scott Com­pany Ware­house ​123 Advertisement for the T. A. Scott Com­pany 129 T. A. Scott Com­pany Plant at New London, Conn. ​135 “The Steamship ‘St. Paul’ Stranded on the Long Branch Coast” 138 American Liner “St. Paul,” Broadside ​145 Captive in the Sands, the “St. Paul” Makes a Jersey Holiday ​150

Maps Barnegat-­Squan ​42 Greater New Jersey 43 Quonnie 71

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Acknowl­edgments

It all began on a dare over a de­cade ago ­after a murky dive to a shipwreck long buried in the bottom of Narragansett Bay. While the wreck of the Addie Anderson does not appear in this book, the conversations I had with Rod Mather and John Jensen that day and ever since have profoundly influenced this proj­ect as well as all t­ hose other m ­ atters in which the best mentors, friends, and colleagues engage. That my office now shares a hallway with John’s is a slice of serendipity for which I ­will forever be grateful. The University of Delaware was an exceptional place to develop this proj­ ect as a dissertation. My advisor, Arwen Mohun, gave invaluable feedback and taught me how to ask a good question and hone an argument. Susie Strasser opened my eyes to the art and craft of history—­I am reminded of her admonitions as I type t­ hese words t­ oday. David Suisman and David Shearer inspired me to think bigger and engage with the wider currents of history. Jim Delgado offered new ways to think about shipwrecks and public scholarship. And my fellow gradu­ate students—­Andy Bozanic, Holly Caldwell, Amanda Casper, Christy Croxall, Melissa Maestri, Nate Wiewora, and, especially, Lucas Clawson—­offered friendship, humor, and support as we navigated gradu­ate school during the ­Great Recession. Letting this proj­ect lie fallow for three years ultimately made it stronger; New Orleans is fertile ground. To my high school students, thank you for making our class a haven. You taught me how to teach, forced me to rethink the purpose of history, and reminded me how it can—­and should—be a meaningful act of re­sis­tance. Thank you. Since 2016, the University of West Florida has offered me an inspired home surrounded by an amazing group of historians and archaeologists studying the watery parts of the world. One could not ask for better colleagues. Marie-­Thérèse Champagne and Dan Miller have offered sage advice from the beginning. I would have stumbled long ago without the indefatigable Gabi Grosse. The wit, wisdom, and camaraderie of Amy Mitchell-­Cook, Greg Cook, William Lees, Monica Beck, John Jensen, Karen Belmore, Erin Stone, Rami Gougeon, Meredith Martin, Ben Burgen, John Bratten, Della Scott-­Ireton, Katie Hendry, and Matt Purcell have saved me xi

from more than one misstep and made Pensacola a ­great fit for me and my ­family. Archives are the soul of our craft and I ­will forever be indebted to the tireless archivists and librarians at the New London Maritime Society, Henry L. Ferguson Museum, Charlestown Historical Society, Hagley Museum and ­Library, Monmouth County Historical Association Research Library and Archives, Monmouth County Archives, Mystic Seaport Museum’s Collections Research Center, New Jersey State Archives, Peabody Essex Museum, the University of Delaware Library, the University of West Florida Libraries, the John Hay Library at Brown University, and the National Archives in Waltham, New York City, and Philadelphia. In par­tic­u­lar, Paul O’Pecko, Susan Tamulevich, Pam Lyons, Stu Reddish, Pierce Rafferty, Mary Hussey, and Claire Blechman have gone above and beyond in supporting this proj­ect. Feedback and discussion at the following pre­sen­ta­tions provided im­ mensely helpful input at pivotal junctures: Hagley Research Seminar, University of Delaware History Workshop, Seminar on Historical Change and Social Theory at Tulane University, 2019 American Historical Association Conference, and multiple conferences hosted by the North Atlantic Society for Oceanic History. I am particularly thankful to Alicia Caporaso, Michelle Craig McDonald, Walter Stern, Kristin Wintersteen, and the editors, reviewers, and readers of The Northern Mari­ner, New Jersey History, and Formation Pro­cesses of Maritime Archaeological Landscapes for comments on what would become the central chapters of this book. The insightful comments and suggestions on the full manuscript by the anonymous readers and John Jensen made this book significantly better. And I would be remiss not to acknowledge Brandon Proia, of UNC Press, who has been a plea­sure to work with throughout the publication pro­cess. Any errors that remain, of course, are mine alone. I was fortunate to have received support for research and writing from the University of Delaware’s Center for Material Culture Studies, the University of Delaware’s University Scholars Fellowship, a postdoctoral fellowship at UWF, and a UWF faculty improvement grant. An NEH Summer Seminar at the Mystic Seaport Museum’s Munson Institute in 2018 reenergized me and drove the completion of the proj­ect. Glenn Gordinier and Eric Roorda engineered an inspired month of discussion, debate, and oysters along the Mystic River. I am particularly grateful for discussions with fellow participants and speakers, including Matt Mc­Ken­zie, Lincoln Paine, Christina Bevilacqua, Mark Kelley, Anthony Medrano, Chris Pastore, Helen Rozwadowski, Matt Crow, and the Mallory House crew. A fabulous tour of the Saunders xii Acknowl­edgments

f­ amily’s stomping grounds in southern Rhode Island by Karen and Bob Madison stands out as a highlight of researching this book. Face-­to-­face conversations with Isaac Land in Lisbon and Chicago w ­ ere as inspirational as the ongoing #coastalhistory discussions online, where a motley crew of historians, literary scholars, and o­ thers spread out across the globe are working to historicize the ­human relationship with our changing shorelines. I hope this book contributes to that proj­ect. In keeping with tradition, I thank my f­ amily last though I owe them most. To my siblings, thank you for your patience. To my parents, thank you for your unwavering support. Lorelei and J. J., it is an honor to be part of your lives. Maida, born on a hurricane, long may you run. Daily you inspire me with your joy and passion for life. Kimberly, words cannot express my gratitude. So I offer you, my love, this ­humble thank you.

Acknowl­edgments xiii

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Shipwrecked

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Introduction The annals of this voracious beach! who could write them, unless it ­were a shipwrecked sailor? —­H enry David Thoreau, Cape Cod

The twenty-­first ­century has been hard on the American coast. Michael, Florence, Harvey, Maria, Irma, Sandy, and Katrina, Deepwater Horizon, sea-­ level rise, coastal erosion, king tides, red tides, dead zones, overfishing, subsidence—­the list could easily go on. The national playground, the place where most Americans live, work, and play seems to be threatened like never before. While scientists and pundits debate c­ auses, coastal communities find themselves in a profoundly changing world. Coastlines are more developed and vulnerable than ever before. Seas are rising. Storms are stronger. And beaches are disappearing. The retreat has already begun. While federal support has helped some communities rebuild what was lost or defend what they have, more and more have begun to prepare for what an increasing number of p ­ eople deem to be inevitable: inundation and abandonment of the current coastline. In 2016, the Obama administration awarded $1 billion in grants to help communities adapt to climate change, including $48 million to resettle the country’s first “climate refugees” living on a sinking coast by a rising sea. Local and state governments around the country are fashioning their own responses to rapidly changing shorelines.1 Every­one seems to agree that we are facing a very new, very complex set of challenges. And yet constant change, disaster, and adaptation are not new to the American coast; they created it. This book explores the radical transformation of the American coast’s physical, social, and cultural landscapes during the nineteenth ­century. It focuses on the oceanfront beaches and barrier islands that constitute the majority of the American coast rather than the natu­ral harbors and estuaries where ­human settlement and the historian’s gaze have long concentrated.2 Between the ratification of the Constitution and the inauguration of Theodore Roo­ se­velt, disasters large and small, periodic and singular, real and ­imagined, upended h ­ uman relationships with the American coast that had been relatively stable for millennia. In a single generation, itinerant, small-­scale, 1

seasonal habitation of frontier foragers gave way to permanent homesteading, industrial economic exploitation, and pleasure-­seeking tourists. Coastal shipwrecks, as singular events and collective traumas, accelerated ­these changes. This book examines how one type of coastal disaster, the shipwreck, helped fashion the physical, social, and cultural space we know as the modern American beach. It focuses on shipwrecks and oceanfront communities in southern New ­England and the mid-­Atlantic—­between Boston and Philadelphia—­over the course of the nineteenth ­century ­because what happened t­ here reverberated nationally and influenced subsequent changes along dif­fer­ent shores, from the ­Great Lakes and Gulf of Mexico to the West Coast and beyond. It argues that the ubiquitous coastal shipwreck unleashed a torrent of public and private energies that turned the coastal frontier into the modern beach, a thoroughly commercialized, contested, and engineered space that is at the heart of the American experience. Disaster, simply stated, made the beach. ­Today the coast is central to American life. According to the most recent figures (2019), four out of ­every five Americans live in a coastal state. Over 126 million Americans live in one of the nation’s shore-­adjacent coastal counties, a quarter of them arrived in only the past fifty years. Put in other terms, 40 ­percent of the country lives on 10 ­percent of the land that borders an ocean or a ­Great Lake (not including Alaska). Consequently, coastal communities are far more crowded than their inland counter­parts: average population density of coastal counties is 446 p ­ eople per square mile compared with the national average of 87 ­people per square mile. Social scientists predict that number ­will continue its exponential rise in the de­cades ahead and have coined the term “coastal squeeze” to describe the competition for attention, space, and resources caused by this intensifying coastal migration.3 Economic production and infrastructure are similarly concentrated along the coast. In 2018, $8.3 trillion or 46 ­percent of our nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) was generated in coast-­adjacent counties. In terms of GDP, if U.S. shore-­adjacent counties w ­ ere their own country, only the United States and China would have larger economies. A significant part of this economic activity is tied to coastal tourism, which accounted for 88 ­percent of all tourism-­related revenues and contributed $124 billion in GDP (2018).4 Almost seventy-­three million Americans—30 ­percent of the country—­visited the beach in 2017, more than went to a museum, a bar, or a nightclub. More got sand between their toes than played a board game, went to a zoo, had a picnic, or barbequed. Another fourteen million participated in motor boating. Visiting the beach and boating are, of course, just two of the myriad ways 2 Introduction

Americans engage with the coast. Economists have just begun calculating what they term the “non-­market” value of the coast, the recreational, environmental, and aesthetic values not found in the marketplace. By this they mean the societal value of a healthy blue ­whale population off Cape Cod or an unobstructed sunset view from the California coast. Their initial estimates place the minimum annual value in the tens of billions of dollars.5 Statistics, of course, cannot fully capture the centrality of the beach to American culture. The sheer scale of the preoccupation with beaches seen in books and magazines, blogs and Twitter feeds, theater and film, visual arts and ­music is suggestive of the extent to which coast and coastal are at the heart of Amer­i­ca and American. Unfortunately, the con­temporary coastal fetish obscures the fact that for much of our history the oceanfront beach was an isolated frontier that was more likely to have been avoided than visited, never mind actually inhabited year round.6 The earliest surviving written rec­ords describing the American coast come from a motley crew of sixteenth-­century Eu­ro­pean explorers who, like many of the indigenous p ­ eoples they encountered, preferred natu­ral bays, harbors, and estuaries to the oceanfront. Giovanni da Verrazzano’s first impression of the North American coast, for example, was far from exuberant: “It appeared to be rather low-­lying.” Like ­later explorers, Verrazzano looked past the sandy beaches and barrier islands that one in four Americans now visit ­every year to the “many beautiful fields and plains full of ­great forests . . . ​promontories” and “aggregable” natu­ral harbors. He was, of course, seeking gold and glory rather than surf, sun, and leisure by the sea.7 For the next 250  years, En­glish, French, Spanish, and Dutch settlers agreed, and they tended to avoid the open shorelines of North Amer­i­ca, ­because they ­were, by one account, “much too preoccupied with the l­ abors of survival and agriculture to launch an aggressive attack on the most difficult of all environments to tame.” 8 While the oceanfront between Philadelphia and Boston remained largely unoccupied and ignored ­until the early nineteenth ­century, waterfront settlements nestled in natu­ral bays and harbors and along the rivers developed into bustling entrepôts, large and small. Even so, indigenous p ­ eoples strug­g led to maintain their oceanfront lands. A few—­particularly the Wampanoags of Gay Head on Martha’s Vineyard, the Mashpee on Cape Cod, and the Shinnecock on Long Island—­remained alongshore. Many ­others left or w ­ ere forced off the beach, if not literally then figuratively as colonial narratives of indigenous disappearance took root and spread. It was primarily Euro-­Americans who filled the void.9 By the close of the nineteenth c­ entury, this stretch of the American coast had become the Introduction 3

summer encampment of presidents, a common destination for millions of urbanites, and home to rapidly growing new suburban beachfront communities. So how did we get from abhorring and avoiding the beach to loving and living on it? John Stilgoe’s observation made two and a half de­cades ago holds true ­today: “All alongshore lies one of the most visited, most noticed, most pictured, and least scrutinized places in North Amer­i­ca.” Few have tried to answer the question, but ­those who have tend to fall in one of two categories. Scholars with a cultural inclination argue that evolving medical ideas, aesthetic values, the fancies of the well-­to-do, or the calculated decisions of subjugated minorities fueled the “rediscovery” of the shore. Materialists, on the other hand, foreground the coast’s valuable resources and the large-­scale social, economic, and technological changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution. Materialists’ accounts of coastal development veer t­ oward a “since the coast had it” or an “If you build it, and they have time, they w ­ ill come” argument in which natu­ral resources, spreading railroads, rising wages, and the advent of leisure time became the prime movers in the birth of the American beach.10 As a w ­ hole, ­these histories of coasts and coastal communities accurately capture the complex of historical forces that collectively nudged, then kicked Amer­i­ca to its oceanfront. But market, transportation, and communications revolutions do not a beach trip make. This book seeks to understand how ­these large-­scale historical forces translated into on-­the-­ground change, and it tries to balance the cultural push with the materialist pull without losing the essential ­human contingency and lived experience of life alongshore. In other words, it seeks to answer two basic questions. What first brought Amer­i­ca to the coastal frontier, and how did this foreign place populated by mysterious p ­ eople become the home, the dream, the escape of tens of millions? The short answer to both is coastal shipwrecks. Shipwreck is traditionally defined as the “destruction or loss of a ship by its being sunk or broken up by the vio­lence of the sea.” It can also refer to the remains of a wrecked vessel, often called “a wreck.” 11 A shipwreck, then, is a physical object—­the stranded or sunk vessel—­and an idea—­the story, or narrative, of the wrecking event. As objects, shipwrecks posed navigational challenges for sailors, became points of interest for sightseers, and provided employment for salvagers. Over time, they w ­ ere degraded by wind and wave, and sal­vaged by wreckers in a pro­cess underwater archaeologists refer to as the “evolution of a shipwreck.” 12 In stories, shipwrecks have been at the center of tales of loss, of g­ oing bust, of bankable plots, and even re4 Introduction

demption. Shipwreck describes par­tic­u­lar ­things, states of being, pro­cesses, and even ­people (the “shipwrecker” or “wrecker,” for example, who salvage shipwrecks). What one thinks, however, when one hears “shipwreck” is a function of who one is, where one lives, what one does, and when one hears it. They are, as one historian writes, “contested terrain” whose meanings are always “contingent and contextual rather than inherent or timeless.” 13 Where the shipwrecked may only see loss, the wrecker spies gain. And yet, shipwreck always connotes a story that links ­people, place, and mishap. It is an adaptable yet generic narrative, one of Western Civilization’s master tropes.14 Shipwrecks—­both as physical objects and as intellectual constructions—­ helped create the modern American beach. Shipwrecks affected change ­because they ­were disasters—­unexpected and consequential disruptions in the material, social, and cultural world.15 Tens of thousands of vessels wrecked on the coast of the United States during the nineteenth ­century, and while they ­were common, almost daily occurrences, individual wrecks on par­tic­u­lar stretches of coastline remained unexpected. The farmer-­fishermen who lived along the Jersey shore never knew when a vessel would wreck near their h ­ ouses, but they knew all too well that somewhere on the American beach a shipwreck or two happened most days of the year. ­Whether they cost lives, made heroes, imperiled profits, or provided opportunities, shipwrecks disrupted the worlds of the shipwrecked and the communities they interacted with. Like all disasters, shipwrecks destroy and create. The Titanic disaster, for example, destroyed the largest moving object in the world and killed hundreds of p ­ eople, but it also led to the creation of new regulations that made transatlantic travel markedly safer.16 This “dialectic of disaster” fundamentally ­shaped and defined modern American social, po­liti­cal, economic, and cultural institutions. Disasters, in other words, profoundly affected Amer­i­ca’s physical and cultural landscape. Shipwrecks, like historic hurricanes, fires, earthquakes, and floods, played a prominent role in expanding the purview of the American state and redefining public and private realms. As “laboratories of social reform,” disasters enabled ­people in positions of power to make extraordinary changes “in the name of necessity” throughout American history.17 The tens of thousands of nineteenth-­century coastal shipwrecks destroyed incalculable amounts of property and claimed untold lives. In so d ­ oing, they profoundly s­ haped ideas about the beach, ushering in an array of efforts by local, state, and federal governments as well as business and philanthropic groups to prevent and mitigate loss. Artists, authors, and tourists followed in their wake, catered to by entrepreneurs who reshaped the beach to meet the evolving needs of Introduction 5

ever-­growing throngs of visitors. Together, t­ hese diverse stakeholders pioneered the customs and habits of thought and action that would come to define the American beach. Like shipwrecks, beaches are remarkably complicated. They are among the most dynamic environments on the planet and stubbornly resist efforts to quantify, chart, or define. While physical scientists might agree that the shoreline is characterized by “dynamic equilibrium,” few scientists, scholars, agencies, governments, or residents can s­ ettle on what exactly counts as “the beach.” For some, it extends hundreds of miles from the place where land meets ­water. For ­others, the beach is only a few hundred yards on ­either side of that ever-­shifting line in the proverbial (and literal) sand.18 Historians are beginning to demonstrate how specific ideas about “the beach” are tied to par­tic­u­lar times, places, and ­people. Indeed, more than one has drawn perceptive distinctions between the dynamic, natu­ral shore and the engineered, anthropogenic coast and beach.19 ­Because we are interested in the American coast’s evolving cultural significance as well as the social networks that ­shaped it during the nineteenth c­ entury, this book eschews arbitrary definitions of beach in f­ avor of a holistic cultural landscape approach. This approach is attentive to the ­human and the “natu­ral” components of specific places and their generative interrelationships. It forefronts how the physical ele­ments of a landscape (i.e., geology, geography, climate, and living ­resources) shape and in turn are ­shaped by its ­human ele­ments (i.e., structures, objects, ideas, and activities). Change is central to maritime cultural landscapes, which as a theoretical construct offer a particularly useful way to conceptualize the dynamic complex of space, place, and the patterns of habit and thought among a broad range of historical actors.20 We range far in the pages that follow, mapping a sprawling maritime cultural landscape that included farmers and fishermen, politicians and pundits, cultural producers and consumers, adventurous and armchair tourists, as well as disasters, heroes, and villains real and ­imagined. The beach we examine includes not only the sand dunes of New Jersey, but the granite halls of government, the counting h ­ ouses of merchants, and the cozy parlors of 21 homes across the country. At the beginning of the nineteenth ­century, the American beach fit contemporaries’ definition of a frontier. The coastline was a limit and a boundary, a national border, and a site of furthest settlement. Frontier conditions characterized a landscape known for its sparse, thinly scattered parochial population; its isolation from emerging nodes of American life; and its status as a liminal space where dif­fer­ent ­people and cultures converged, com6 Introduction

peted, and occasionally cooperated. Shipwrecks w ­ ere at the heart of the three interrelated ­factors—­maritime commerce, enlightened reform, and the search for national identity—­that began to turn the new nation’s attention ­toward its eastern frontier. The federal government and urban humanitarian groups took the lead, focusing on the dynamic shoreline in an effort to make it safer for maritime commerce and shipwrecked sailors. At the same time newspaper editors, artists, authors, and other cultural producers brought ever-­more tales of coastal shipwrecks into the homes and workplaces of Americans, familiarizing them with the shore and marine disaster through sensationalist narratives. Each of ­these groups endeavored to gain knowledge about the coast, to intellectually or­ga­nize and cognitively map one of the most dynamic physical environments on earth—­a necessary precursor to actually regulating and physically transforming it. State-­level efforts to regulate shipwreck rescue and salvage did the most to break down the isolation and frontier conditions that characterized the coast during the first de­cades of the nineteenth ­century. New York, New Jersey, and other states with wreck-­prone coastlines codified ancient “Wreck Laws” in the de­cades ­after the American Revolution as they modernized state ­legal codes and attempted to control their eastern frontiers. Wreck laws worked on the ground by co-­opting the authority of local elites who engineered local buy-in of the well-­regulated littoral by making ­legal salvage more profitable than illegal plundering. As “commissioners of wrecks” or “wreckmasters,” they maintained order at isolated disasters, mobilized l­ abor on a desolate frontier, and supervised the rescue and recovery of shipwrecked goods and ­people while balancing civic, business, and humanitarian duties. They operated u ­ nder the umbrella of novel state wreck laws, but their effectiveness rested on their ability to mediate competing local and outside interests alongshore. Some failed. But on the ­whole, commissioners of wrecks tamed a wild frontier, integrating the beach into the framework of state authority through their personal management of coastal disaster. Yet even as wreck laws regulated the a­ ctual beach, repre­sen­ta­tions of the coast in American culture increasingly depicted an un­regu­la­ted frontier inhabited by piratical wreckers who lured ships ashore for murder and plunder. The roots of this image lay in the coast’s notorious association with pirates, privateers, and war­time raids. But the veritable explosion in depictions of criminal wreckers in the 1830s was a direct consequence of the emerging national print culture, the expansion of coastal tourism, and a cultural milieu primed to consume vio­lence. In fact, sensational stories of locals plundering shipwrecks ­were among the first widely distributed, highly Introduction 7

vis­i­ble accounts of the American beach, and they would remain touchstones of the coastal landscape for generations of Americans. During the ­middle de­cades of the nineteenth ­century, shipwrecks propelled three developments that fundamentally transformed the American beach: state regulation, private-­sector investment, and the expansion of federal infrastructure. Efforts to prevent shipwrecks and mitigate their consequences, epitomized by the establishment of the United States Life-­Saving Ser­vice (USLSS) in 1878, drove significant and sustained federal interventions that remade the physical landscape and recast popu­lar perceptions of American beaches. Widely disseminated depictions of the successful, heroic USLSS surfmen in newspapers and periodicals helped domesticate the beach by bringing depictions of the beach into the homes and thoughts of a continental nation and by refashioning isolated seaside federal outposts into popu­lar destinations. In the de­cades ­after the Civil War, light­houses, mothballed coastal fortifications, and USLSS stations became impor­tant nodes in the nation’s growing leisure landscape. Development of a sophisticated professional marine salvage industry removed shipwrecks from the physical landscape and displaced narratives of piratical wreckers with accolades for professional engineers, leaving the beach cleared of flotsam (articles not deliberately thrown overboard) and jetsam (articles deliberately thrown overboard) and primed for modern tourists. Indeed, coastal shipwrecks facilitated the development of coastal tourism by reshaping repre­sen­ta­tions of coastal ­people and places and by undergirding the infrastructure that transformed the beach into a “pristine” American playspace devoid of the detritus of past disasters. In the late nineteenth ­century, savvy entrepreneurs and established businesspeople and industries commodified coastal shipwrecks, turning everyday disasters into mass spectacles. Thousands of spectators routinely traveled to witness the shipwrecked vessels and the industrial salvage operations that regularly saved wrecks. They went to the beach for many reasons—­labor, leisure, edification—­and they left with dif­fer­ent memories and mementos. From the factory worker looking for an inexpensive day away from the city, to the middle-­class parents seeking to show their ­children the technological marvels of the age, to the savvy local fishermen rowing daring spectators around a wreck for fifty cents, shipwreck spectacles embodied the complex, heterogeneous social milieu of the modern American beach. Ultimately, ­these spectacles became another way in which the sea, shore, and ultimately disasters ­were domesticated and commercialized. They also marked the culmination of a pro­cess of abstraction and integration that began with late 8 Introduction

eighteenth-­century efforts to preserve life and property in the coastal frontier. Just as the 1912 wreck of Titanic became the paradigmatic modern shipwreck, the coastal shipwreck became an anachronism. Two world wars militarized the coast, reducing the once-­common shipwreck to a quaint accident. Ongoing navigation improvements and the modernization of maritime transportation industry si­mul­ta­neously reduced the number of coastal shipwrecks. Instead of the shore being strewn with rusting hulks and rotting hulls, abandoned vessels massed in the backwaters of harbors and ports, ­until they too ­were removed, ­were destroyed, or just dis­appeared from view. In the end, coastal shipwrecks became salty tales of a distant maritime past and underwater sites to explore along the modern coast they helped to create.

Introduction 9

chapter one

The American Coastal Frontier Sad is the scene,—­despair frowns ’mid the wreck; Hopeless, benumb’d, worn out, they strive in vain.

—­“Lines on the Winter of 1796,” Philadelphia Repository and Weekly Register

Yellow fever chased Industry out of Aux Cayes, Hispaniola, in late November 1801. Bound for Boston, Mas­sa­chu­setts, the two-­masted schooner set out along a well-­traveled route that skirted the Cuban coast before heading north through the Florida Straits to New ­England, paralleling the eastern shore of the fledgling United States for more than 1,000 miles. Besides a handful of dispersed port cities, the American coast was a dark and desolate frontier, sparsely inhabited and isolated from the centers of American life. Captain Gideon Rae prob­ably planned to avoid as much of this treacherous shore as pos­si­ble by keeping Industry safely offshore in the Gulf Stream. The schooner’s crew figured they could, with luck, be home in time to celebrate Christmas. Their voyage did not go according to plan. Industry’s master and mate succumbed to yellow fever within a week of leaving Aux Cayes. For the short-­handed crew of five that remained, the schooner’s destination still lay over 2,000 miles away. Fortunately, the route was well known for ­these young but experienced mari­ners. Down two hands, the crew’s daily routine of “hard, steady, and generally familiar work” sailing the two-­masted craft simply became more onerous. Navigating likely fell to eighteen-­year-­old Zachary Lamson, who had already studied navigation and completed eight voyages between his home port, Beverly, Mas­sa­chu­ setts, and the West Indies. Industry languished off the Cuban coast for three weeks, accompanied by thirty or forty other vessels that ­were also hindered by strong headwinds. Once in the Gulf Stream, however, the schooner cruised north along the American coast, reaching southern New E ­ ngland from “off Havana” in just five days.1 By Sunday, December  27, Industry was standing off the recently lit Montauk Point light­house, on the eastern end of Long Island, New York, when the wind veered to the west-­northwest and “blew heavy.” The schooner hove to—­sails and rudder adjusted so it maintained its position—­for three days before the weather moderated and Industry continued ­toward Boston. 10

By Wednesday after­noon, another wind shift brought a blinding snowstorm from the east. For more than ten hours, the short-­handed crew sailed in the “heavy gale,” struggling to keep Industry from being driven ashore on Cape Cod. They failed. A l­ ittle ­after one-­thirty in the morning on the last day of 1801, Zachary Lamson, acting master of Industry, saw “breakers alongside.” A curly-­haired teenager just shy of his nineteenth birthday, Lamson was already on his ninth voyage. This was his first shipwreck and he would remember it vividly de­cades ­later. The schooner struck the sandy outer coast of Cape Cod. The shock snapped the foremast, sending it overboard. Massive breakers washed the deck. The sailors cut away the mainmast, lightening the schooner ­until it “beat over the shoal and drove up on the beach.” 2 Shortly ­after, the men jumped off Industry’s bowsprit, touching land for the first time in more than five weeks. They landed on a featureless stretch of snow-­covered sand, seeking shelter from the storm b ­ ehind a nearby dune. For three hours, they walked in circles to “keep ourselves from freezing.” As Lamson recalled: “At daylight we travelled to the south not knowing what part of the Cape we ­were on. Having walked about four miles and no prospect of relief, I concluded to return, as we w ­ ere getting feeble.” Only three made it back to Industry; the ­others had been left ­behind on the beach too weak to continue. “On our arrival at the vessel,” Lamson continued, “we found her keeling over on shore and the tide had left her, so we could get to her side, but we ­were so exhausted, we could only . . . ​tumble and crawl on our hands and knees to the cabin, as our clothes . . . ​­were frozen and our strength gone.” 3 Luck was on their side. First, the gale subsided as the shipwrecked crew slept. Second, they had wrecked on one of the few populated sections of the American oceanfront.4 Half an hour before sunset, residents from the nearby towns of Chatham and Orleans discovered the stranded schooner. They acted quickly to revive the men in the cabin. A search party located the two who had been left on the beach “in a senseless state buried in part in the snow.” A boat carried the survivors six miles to the nearest ­house where three ­women nursed them back to life. “The only incon­ve­nience,” Lamson reported, “was the loss of the skin from their ­faces and hands, and such parts of their bodies as ­were most exposed. My situation was very bad. . . . ​I could not walk for twelve days.” 5 Though ­today many imagine a shipwreck to describe a moment of impact, shipwrecks ­were events that continued long ­after the rescue of survivors. And the shipwreck of the Industry was just beginning. Despite his injuries, Lamson took responsibility for the vessel and cargo, directing the salvage of Industry from the ­saddle of a ­horse. Successful salvage The American Coastal Frontier 11

required swift action, and he spent the month of January leading efforts to save what he could—­contacting the schooner’s ­owners in Boston, hiring ­local men to remove the cargo of coffee and “all the wreck worth saving,” protecting the sal­vaged goods from conspiring locals, and organ­izing the transportation of it all to Boston. By Lamson’s account, no local officials oversaw the operation and only ­after the last sal­vaged remnants ­were loaded on a chartered schooner did a representative of Industry’s ­owners fi­nally appear on the scene. Satisfied with Lamson’s efforts, he sent the young sailor to Boston with the goods before the ­owners’ settling outstanding accounts in Chatham and Orleans. What became of the sal­vaged cargo is unclear, but on February 3 the Boston Gazette published this advertisement: “Sales at Auction: this day, at No. 61 Long Wharf, for the benefit of the underwriters. A quantity of sails, standing and ­running rigging, cables, &c. saved from the wreck of the schooner Industry, lately stranded on Cape Cod.” Zachary Lamson went home to Beverly, Mas­sa­chu­setts, tired but undaunted. He soon returned to sea.6 Shipwrecks like Industry’s ­were remarkably common in early nineteenth-­ century Amer­i­ca. While we do not know how many vessels actually wrecked, reasoned estimates suggest 4 to 5 ­percent of all vessels w ­ ere “castaway or lost at sea” at this time.7 Indeed, the only ­thing unusual about Zachary Lamson’s ordeal was that his detailed account of the wreck survived for us to read ­today. At least four other vessels wrecked on Cape Cod in January 1802, joining twenty-­five ­others that newspapers reported as wrecks along the American coast that month. T ­ here w ­ ere likely more; systematic accounting of coastal shipwrecks did not begin for another seventy years. That the sea was dangerous was well known and long established. Prudence and experience mitigated the immemorial risk of seaborne trade; individual mari­ners took responsibility for safe navigation and for mitigating any disasters that might befall them. By this logic, counting wrecks accomplished very ­little. Statistics did not have the rhetorical power for “identifying prob­lems, for making authoritative arguments, for coercing changes in be­hav­ior, and for mea­sur­ing the success of preventative activities” that they would acquire l­ ater in the c­ entury. Even marine insurance firms would not start systematically documenting risks and wrecks for de­cades.8 So instead of tabulating shipwreck statistics, con­temporary newspapers grouped t­ hese everyday disasters in the “shipping news” columns that ­were typically located near the end of each edition. The Salem Register’s “Ship News” column published three weeks ­after the Industry wrecked explained: “We are informed, that ­there ­were four vessels ashore 12 chapter one

on Cape Cod, 3 schooners and a sloop; the latter belonged to New ­Bedford. . . . ​One of the schooners is owned in this town . . . ​the names of the other two schooners we have not heard.” One of t­hose “other two” schooners was Industry, which for newspaper editors was just another wreck on the desolate, dangerous coastal frontier and an occurrence too common to warrant more than a passing reference for readers with personal or business interests in the vessel, its cargo, or its crew.9 Events surrounding early republic shipwrecks like Industry’s illustrate some of the characteristics of the American beach before it was dramatically remade by state interventions and private investment. ­These shipwrecks highlight the physical remoteness of the shore, a remoteness that set the coast and its residents apart (literally and meta­phor­ically) from the rest of the nation. But shipwrecks also helped break down that isolation through the ad hoc alliances formed between the shipwrecked and coastal locals who rescued and sal­vaged wrecks in the alongshore frontier. By the beginning of the nineteenth c­ entury, shipwrecks had also begun to focus the attention of national policymakers and urban elites on the nation’s oceanfront beaches and barrier islands. Their initial forays into the coastal frontier focused on making the “porous and fluctuant” natu­ral shoreline legible, rationally ordered, and understandable.10 ­These efforts remained tenuous when Industry wrecked in 1801 ­because the early republic littoral remained the haunt of a cadre of knowledgeable locals able to exploit the dynamic coastal environment.

The American Coastal Frontier The American beach was a frontier when Industry wrecked in 1801. Few terms are as contentious yet central to our understanding of American history as frontier. Historians trace its interpretative origins to a conference paper presented by a young professor at the annual conference of the American Historical Association in the summer of 1893. In this paper, Frederick Jackson Turner forcefully argued that the nation’s edges w ­ ere essential to its history and identity. ­After observing that the first American frontier “was the Atlantic coast,” he turned to the formative inland frontier, a western-­moving “wave” of pro­gress and innovation where Anglo-­Saxon pioneers repeatedly (re)created American values and demo­cratic institutions as they turned the “­free land” of “wilderness” into civilization. For Turner, the taming of the frontier forged American identity and its closing, reported by the Census ­Bureau in 1890, was a m ­ atter of grave concern to the American way of life. The American Coastal Frontier 13

This “frontier thesis” offered a compelling and encompassing interpretative model that subsequent generations of historians took up, critiqued, revised, and expanded. Despite their theoretical and methodological differences, ­these historians rarely looked beyond “the West” and cities (frontiers in an industrializing yet still agrarian nation) to answer broader questions about American identity and development.11 The east coast littoral, the first (and enduring) frontier, has ­until recently escaped the sustained scholarly attention given to the nation’s other margins, frontiers, and borderlands.12 While its days as a military border between Eu­ ro­pe­ans and Native Americans ­were long over when Industry wrecked, the shore remained, by one assessment, “a fluid, contested space.” 13 More significantly, stripped of its post-1890s Turnerian associations, frontier aptly describes the shore as turn-­of-­the-­century Americans would have understood the term. Noah Webster defined “frontier” in 1806 as “a limit, boundary, border on another country, furthest settlements.” 14 It was a definition that would not substantively change in popu­lar dictionaries for generations. Military leaders saw the coast as a frontier to be defended. Entrepreneurs saw the coast as a frontier to be exploited. And settlers saw the coast as a frontier to make their home. With good reason, then, did Joseph E. Worcester’s 1860 A Dictionary of the En­glish Language illustrate its definition of frontier with this explanation: “the best frontier is the sea.” 15 The Atlantic coast—­the American coast at the beginning of the nineteenth ­century—­served as both an unavoidable physical limit and a po­liti­cal border for the United States. Passamaquoddy Bay marked its northern terminus, separating the state of Mas­sa­chu­setts (present-­day Maine) from the En­glish colony of Nova Scotia (present-­day New Brunswick). To the south, the circuitous St. Mary’s River divided Georgia and Spanish Florida. Between ­these borders stretched 1,500 miles of towering cliffs, rock-­strewn inlets, and barren sandy beaches.16 The dominant oceanfront feature was the long chain of sandy barrier islands stretching from southern Georgia to Cape Cod whose harsh physical environments had warded off significant permanent settlement for millennia. The po­liti­cal border lay three miles offshore, an invisible line drawn in a fluid environment. Since 1793 the United States had claimed exclusive jurisdiction to “the utmost range of a cannon ball,” as Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson had explained, drawing on the widely ­accepted Eu­ro­pean “cannon shot” doctrine proposed by Cornelius van Bynkershock in 1702.17 While defending this border with seacoast fortifications would soon become a cornerstone of the nation’s defense policy, when Industry wrecked, just twenty-­odd deteriorating earthworks stood within 14 chapter one

sight of the harbors they defended. Even the two exceptions, Baltimore’s Fort McHenry and Philadelphia’s Fort Mifflin, stood under-­gunned and intermittently garrisoned.18 Few ­people actually lived on the turn-­of-­the-­century beach. Native Americans on Martha’s Vineyard, Long Island, and Cape Cod strug­gled to maintain their dwindling coastal lands. By 1750, just a handful of “Indian Remnants,” by one account, remained along the once relatively populated mid-­Atlantic littoral, although recent scholarship suggests native “survivance,” rather than disappearance, better characterizes indigenous communities on the eastern frontier through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.19 With the absence of indigenous communities from the dominant narrative, however, only an occasional hamlet and handful of scattered estuarine ports punctuated an other­wise desolate oceanfront. The coast’s decentralized protomaritime economy built “a fragmented world of tiny outposts whose inhabitants had one boot in the boat, and the other in the field.” 20 The nation’s largest cities in 1800—­New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston—­were situated on protected bays, deep-­water harbors, or riverfronts safely removed from the dynamic beach. Natu­ral barriers (rivers, bays, estuaries, salt marshes, and pine barrens) coupled with pre­ industrial transportation and communication networks further concentrated ­these cities as well as other coastal settlements into densely populated clusters. By 1799, for example, New York handled almost one-­third of the nation’s overseas trade and one-­fourth of its domestic commerce, or coasting trade. Yet the port’s densely populated, bustling waterfront hugged, “like a rock in a sock,” the southern tip of an island still dominated by pastures, swamps, and marshland. On the nearby coast, the 103-­foot octagonal Sandy Hook Light­house, constructed at the entrance of New York Bay in 1764, offered the only human-­constructed navigation mark for more than 100 miles north or south of the port’s primary entry point.21 New York’s natu­ral advantages—­a large, protected deepwater harbor adjacent to a navigable river that flowed hundreds of miles inland—­set it apart from the rest of the American littoral. In less geo­graph­i­cally favored places, settlers avoided the barren and unforgiving coast by founding villages and towns relatively far from the sea and closer to inland natu­ral resources and transportation routes. Sites that would in the following de­cades hold a central place on the American maritime cultural landscape remained on its periphery at the beginning of the nineteenth c­ entury. The sea, for example, “held l­ ittle attraction” for the found­ers of Long Branch, New Jersey—­the ­future site of the country’s preeminent midcentury seaside resort. The initial The American Coastal Frontier 15

settlement, located one and a half miles from the coast, remained isolated from the small collection of fishing huts on the immediate shore u ­ ntil the second quarter of the c­ entury. Indeed, while nearly two-­thirds of the American population still lived within fifty miles of tidewater, its geographic center had shifted more than forty miles (at least a day’s journey) west between the first and second federal censuses, suggesting the degree to which settlers spurned the immediate shoreline.22 According to the 1800 census, eight of the thirty-­seven oceanfront counties had fewer than six ­people per square mile, the definition of frontier ­adopted by the U.S. Census Bureau in 1874 and taken up by subsequent generations of demographers and historians, including Turner himself. Counties on the coast’s northern and southern fringes, North Carolina’s outer banks, and two counties in South Carolina met this arbitrary definition. ­Altogether, 623,842 p ­ eople, roughly 12 ­percent of the population, lived in oceanfront counties occupying just 6 ­percent of the country’s total land area, resulting in an average population density of 12.5 p ­ eople per square mile or more than twice the average for the rest of the country. The seven most densely populated oceanfront counties w ­ ere in the country’s emerging industrial core in Mas­sa­chu­setts and Rhode Island. ­These county-­level census data, however, obscure just how desolate the nation’s eastern border actually was. Long Island is illustrative. Compared with its neighbors across Long Island Sound on the mainland, Suffolk and Westchester counties w ­ ere substantially less densely populated (54.6 vs. 32.7 ­people per square mile) even though they w ­ ere three to eight times more populated than offi23 cial frontier areas. Even so, ­after traveling through the island’s relatively populous north shore, Yale University president Timothy Dwight concluded: “The inhabitants, though considerably numerous on paper, are yet in each township, to a ­great extent, scattered in a very thin dispersion.” He noted, however, the diversity of Long Island’s coastal society, which was undergirded by farmer-­fishermen but increasingly home to an array of specialists, including innkeepers, ferrymen, and settled ministers. Yet, at the end of the day, Dwight wrote this succinct description of his nation’s maritime cultural landscape in another letter written during the first de­cade of the nineteenth ­century: “The American coast, as you know, is chiefly barren, and of course thinly inhabited.” 24 ­Human settlement was so sparse along the coast that the occasional ­house, windmill, and other human-­made structures stood out against the natu­ral landscape and became indispensable aids to coastal navigation. Captain McCobb’s mill, on the west side of Maine’s Kennebec River, marked the 16 chapter one

farthest north a prudent mari­ner lacking local knowledge sailed without the assistance of a pi­lot. Captain Henderlon’s red ­house and barn offered a con­ve­nient seamark for navigating Herring Gut, a narrow channel near Bass Harbor, Maine. A cluster of “fish ­houses” identified Cape Cod’s Race Point. Three windmills, “which stand near each other upon an eminence,” differentiated Nantucket from nearby Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard. In the alongshore wilderness, mills, ­houses, and windmills acted as not only vital seamarks but outposts of civilization. They remained exceptions on the nation’s maritime frontier for de­cades. Indeed, Zachary Lamson’s aimless wandering on the featureless sand dunes of Cape Cod was a common experience for mari­ners wrecked on the American coast.25 As they had since the seventeenth ­century, frontier conditions characterized most of the oceanfront in 1800. Outside of port cities, coastal denizens lived in an isolated, parochial world secluded along the margins of a new nation, which was itself “at the very edges of Christendom, three thousand miles from the centers of Western civilization.” 26 Most oceanfront property was owned in absentia by large landowners who occasionally sold or rented tracts for nominal sums. Poor roads and fitful waterborne connections physically isolated the few oceanfront communities that did exist. Resource extraction—­farming, fishing, lumbering, and wrecking (salvage)—­underwrote ­these communities’ founding and their continued existence. Even so, a growing number of coastal settlements had moved beyond mere subsistence and w ­ ere able to support a cadre of doctors, l­awyers, craftspeople, and ­others who w ­ ere not directly employed in harvesting resources from the littoral. Like other rural farmers, farmer-­fishermen sought a modest competency, and their participation in market exchange remained l­imited by the fact that they consumed the bulk of what they caught and produced. Governmental and social constraints remained weak, dependent on the personal authority of prominent locals. Untamed wilderness—­the sea—­ defined life along the shore. Indeed, the rise and fall of tides conditioned everyday living as seasonal weather cycles dictated the longer rhythms of coastal life throughout the nineteenth ­century.27 By 1800, Chatham, Mas­sa­chu­setts, the Cape Cod town where young Zachary Lamson stayed while directing the salvage of Industry, had a population of 1,351 ­people living on homesteads more or less evenly dispersed across the Cape’s “elbow.” Chatham was founded in 1696 on land illegally purchased from the Wampanoag Monomoyicks tribe. The first generations of Chatham’s Euro-­American residents focused on farming and exploiting the area’s thick stands of oak and pine trees rather than its abundant local fishery. The The American Coastal Frontier 17

isolated settlement grew slowly, remaining one of the smallest communities on the Cape throughout the colonial period. Nevertheless, by 1750 Chatham had become an established town of about 100 families, with a meeting h ­ ouse and a public school, a general store and pair of taverns, at least four w ­ ater and windmills, a tannery, and a resident preacher and physician, though, according to the town’s early historian, no ­lawyer. When Industry wrecked in 1801, regular mail ser­vice to Chatham was just five years new and the fishery had just begun to overtake farming as the town’s principal economic activity. Yet, the town remained physically isolated—­Timothy Dwight avoided it on his tour of the Cape in 1800. Seeing the beach where Industry would l­ ater wreck, which he described as “wild, dreary, and inhospitable, where no h ­ uman being could dwell, and into which ­every h ­ uman foot was forbidden to enter” was enough for him. Chatham’s beaches, however, ­were prized by locals for the salt hay and marsh grasses that provided fodder for their ­horses and livestock. Each winter, however, the animals w ­ ere brought to more protected quarters, leaving the beach empty for shipwrecked mari­ners.28 Shipwrecks upended fledgling coastal communities by turning the American coast into a social and cultural frontier—­a liminal space where dif­fer­ ent ­peoples and cultures converged, competed, and occasionally cooperated. On the beach, shipwrecks routinely brought together three distinct groups: the urban ­owners and insurers of wrecked vessels; shipwrecked mari­ners, part of a cosmopolitan Atlantic maritime culture; and a fiercely local, isolated, and hardscrabble frontier society.29 Industry, for example, wrecked halfway between two towns. Lamson’s experience with their residents ­illustrates the full spectrum—­from familial-­like cooperation to outright conflict—­that social interactions could take along the coast. In Chatham, Lamson found “kind ­people” who “seemed to vie with each other to entertain me.” In Orleans, he confronted rapacious locals who allegedly stole from the wreck. Lamson could not look to the federal government or a developed salvage industry for help—­survival depended on individual initiative, the assistance of locals, and, maybe above all e­ lse, good luck. Marine salvage remained an ad hoc affair most often supervised by the wrecked captain, whose duty to salvage the ship was enshrined in maritime law. As acting captain, Lamson had to salvage the Industry, alone. “Some etiquette between the [Industry’s] underwriters and o­ wners” left him without explicit directions for almost a month. So he hired locals to do the a­ ctual work of removing the cargo, refloating the hull, or stripping the vessel of any valuable equipment. In fact, only ­after Lamson had finished salvaging the wreck did a letter from the schooner’s o­ wners arrive with explicit instructions on what they wanted 18 chapter one

done with their wrecked vessel and cargo. All that left for the prominent Chatham man they hired to do was pay the bills that Lamson had accrued.30 Industry wrecked during a transitional period in the history of the American beach as the coastal frontier came into the new nation’s orbit. Its shipwreck highlights the frontier real­ity of life in the sparsely populated, isolated, and parochial early republic littoral. Yet even as the Industry wrecked, broader economic, po­liti­cal, and cultural pro­cesses ­were beginning to literally and figuratively knit the coastal frontier into the fabric of American society. In the context of an economy founded on maritime commerce, shipwrecks became mechanisms through which new ideas about the nature and purpose of the state, the application of reason and logic to solve prob­lems, and the growing interest in defining the new nation’s identity began to reshape the American beach. Coastal residents largely embraced this change ­because many ­were able to leverage their local knowledge and social connections to accrue financial and cultural capital in an increasingly connected coast.

Imperiled Revenue: Shipwrecks and the State Walking the waterfront of an early republic port would have offered up a dizzying array of towering masts, exotic cargoes, and swaggering sailors. Buildings large and small made of wood and brick held counting h ­ ouses and coffee­houses, inns and bordellos, ropeworks, sail lofts, and all the other businesses ancillary to maritime commerce. Despite periodic trade disruptions, which hampered northern ports during cold winters, southern ports during pestilent summers, and all ports during downturns and embargoes, an overwhelming sense of movement and industry permeated the air.31 Nevertheless, we do not know with certainty the total quantity or value of imports and exports sailing through American ports during the early republic. Estimates made de­cades ­later and updated by subsequent generations of economic historians calculate $204 million in imports and exports passed over American quays in 1801, the year Industry wrecked, tens of millions more than the year before, or, for that ­matter, the year that followed ­because the Industry sailed at the tail end of a boom in the commodity trade on the eve of “the worst depression in business thus encountered” by the United States as Eu­ro­pean peace and bountiful overseas harvests sharply reduced demand for American shipping and exports.32 Accurate and precise accounting of maritime commerce, however challenging, was a vital goal for the federal government ­because import duties funded 80 to 90  ­percent of government operations through the 1860s. The American Coastal Frontier 19

Between 1789 and 1800, custom­houses collected $59.4 million, or almost 88 ­percent of $67.6 million in total federal revenue. In 1801, they collected $10.8 million: 85 ­percent of all government revenue. Not u ­ ntil the expense of civil war prompted Congress to pass the Revenue Acts of 1861 and 1862 would other revenue sources, particularly personal income tax, regularly match customs receipts. Consequently, domestic politics, foreign relations, state and federal finances, and the international reputation of the new republic would be intractably tied to maritime commerce and the collection of tariffs throughout the antebellum period. Indeed, not ­until the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913 would customs receipts cease to be the primary funder of federal expenditure.33 The significance of maritime commerce coupled with the dangers of the coast made shipwrecks and the shore a central concern of the young federal government. E ­ very vessel lost on the coast undermined merchants’ willingness to risk sending their vessels to American ports and threatened the ­financial solvency—­indeed viability—of the United States of Amer­i­c a. Proactive legislators and federal officials used the emerging tools of modern statecraft to begin to make the coast safer. The Customs Ser­vice, “the fiscal spine of the early United States,” began to systematically categorize and document the sprawling, illegible American littoral for national policymakers.34 It also sent aggressive federal agents into the coastal frontier to protect the national interests threatened by coastal shipwrecks. Federal light­houses and aids to navigation physically marked more of the coast ­every year, literally bringing light and order to a dark and dynamic frontier. But local autonomy remained strong. Customs enforcement and the construction and maintenance of aids to navigation w ­ ere founded on the skill, knowledge, and ­labor of coastal residents. Together ­these efforts marked the beginning of federal intervention, a key f­ actor in the transformation of the American maritime cultural landscape during the nineteenth ­century. Nowhere did the early republic federal government act more decisively and more explic­itly to make a landscape legible than along the country’s 1,500 miles of eastern coastal frontier. The Customs Ser­vice, established in the summer of 1789, initiated federal efforts to regulate the American coast. Data collection was at the core of the ser­vice’s mission. The ser­vice’s enabling legislation delineated a complicated, labor-­intensive set of procedures for vessels leaving and entering any American port that ­were designed to ensure “­legal duties, tonnage, port fees, and charges” would be collected.35 It divided the American coast into fifty-­nine customs districts spread out between northern Mas­sa­chu­setts and Georgia. Each district in20 chapter one

cluded all the towns, landing places, and shores identified in the enabling legislation. Many included several distinct ports. Boston and Charlestown, Mas­sa­chu­setts, for example, ­were considered a single district. For vessels “not wholly belonging to a citizen or citizens of the United States,” the enumerated ports of entry w ­ ere the only ports in which they could unload their cargo. The ser­vice grew to meet the demands of a thriving economy in an expanding nation. By 1800, twenty-­six more districts had been added, including thirteen on the ­Great Lakes and interior waterways, a tangible consequence of westward expansion and economic growth.36 Each district was run by an appointed collector of customs. The collector, usually a prominent local figure, was responsible for keeping track of the vessels and cargoes landing in his district as well as the collection of duties. Depending on the district’s size, collectors could oversee a bevy of officers, including a naval officer, inspectors, surveyors, weighers, and gaugers. ­These appointed officials ­were “among the first and most numerous of federal employees” and their work created a prodigious number of documents, from certificates of registry and manifests to crew lists and impost books.37 ­These documents painstakingly itemized the movement of goods and p ­ eople along the coastal frontier, making the littoral (slowly, fitfully) legible to the new national government. As Secretary of the Trea­sury Alexander Hamilton explained in his first circular letter to customs collectors: “It is of the greatest moment, that the best information should be collected for the use of the Government.” 38 Custom­houses, however, remained bastions of localism rather than harbingers of federal authority when Industry wrecked. As a historian of the early customs ser­vice concluded, customs “officers w ­ ere expected to gin up federal authority from their own distinction.” 39 Still, this impor­tant mechanism for making the littoral legible to national authorities began to integrate an isolated frontier into the emerging national fold. As the voluminous custom­house documents held in national archives repositories across the country reveal, coastal shipwrecks brought aggressive federal intervention to the coastal frontier. Wrecks containing foreign goods posed significant administrative and enforcement challenges for the Customs Ser­vice ­because they often occurred far from port city custom­houses and the local context and connections on which the power of the Customs Ser­vice then rested. In contrast to what was a mundane business transaction willingly undertaken by businessmen b ­ ehind the closed doors of an urban custom­house, on the coastal frontier the exercise of federal authority became vis­i­ble and coercive. Wrecking events damaged or destroyed dutiable cargoes, rendering meticulously drawn cargo manifests inaccurate and The American Coastal Frontier 21

incomplete while casting potential revenue along miles of shoreline. Rough waves could break apart a wooden sailing vessel in minutes, disgorging cargoes held in barrels, boxes, and bales into the hands of power­ful winds and currents. Customs inspectors dispatched to the scene had to make an accurate accounting of dutiable cargoes gathered from the beach or removed from a wreck. A ­ fter describing e­ very sal­vaged box, bale, hogshead, bundle, and article, inspectors would appraise damaged goods and calculate appropriate duties. Inspectors worked closely with local wreckers and often co-­opted the power of local leaders by forging personal and institutional connections between the “outposts” of federal authority—­local customhouses—­and the coastal frontier.40 Federal legislators, in essence, wanted to safely guide ­every vessel entering American ports through a custom­house. They had few tools at their disposal to do so. The only proactive mea­sure for preventing shipwrecks at the beginning of the nineteenth c­ entury was the construction and maintenance of aids to navigation. A week ­after establishing the Customs Ser­vice, Congress passed the “Light-­House Bill,” which effectively put the country’s light­houses and aids to navigation u ­ nder federal control. The bill enabled individual states to cede owner­ship of existing light­houses, beacons, buoys, and public piers to the federal government. In exchange, the national government assumed all expenses related to their operation and maintenance. Unsurprisingly, this Federalist bill garnered several days of heated discussion in the House of Representatives between states’ rights advocates and Federalists led by Pennsylvania congressman Thomas Fitzsimmons. The final version of the bill, a nuanced balance of sectional differences substantially influenced by Philadelphia merchants, took form in the Senate over three days of debate before becoming the ninth law passed by the first Congress. Coastal states, ­eager to decrease any financial and administrative costs, ceded e­ very light­house and existing aid to navigation to federal control by 1795. And yet light­houses, potent symbols of the new federal government, also remained bastions of localism u ­ ntil the 1840s when federal agencies, rather than local private contractors, began to supply and operate the nation’s aids to navigation.41 The specter of shipwrecks and federal investments along the shore made the coastal frontier a top concern of the country’s highest officials. Dispatches and memoranda of successive presidents and cabinet members have left a surprisingly robust paper trail concerning the minutiae of light­house procurement, design, and daily operations. George Washington “gave more than routine attention” to the administration of light­houses, g­ oing so far as to in22 chapter one

quire if part of an old mooring chain used to anchor a floating beacon in Delaware Bay could be reused. Secretary of the Trea­sury Alexander Hamilton personally directed many of the details of light­house work ­until delegating the task to the commissioner of revenue in 1792. That did not stop Thomas Jefferson from taking a personal interest in shipwrecks and light­ house administration during his presidency. In a ­matter concerning the keeper of the Cape Henry Light­house in 1806, Jefferson wrote: “I think the keepers of light ­houses should be dismissed for small degrees of remissness, ­because of the calamities which even t­ hese produce; and that the opinion of Col. Newton in this case is sufficient authority for the removal of the pre­ sent keeper.” 42 Ensuring safe coastal navigation was vital to the national interest, and Congress willingly invested in the nation’s aids to navigation system, appropriating more than $550,000 for the m ­ atter during the Washington and Adams administrations. T ­ hese appropriations, vital to the new nation’s very survival, passed easily. The 1789 Light-­House Bill was the first of seventeen acts George Washington signed into law for the maintenance of existing aids, the construction of new light­houses and beacons, and the deployment of distinctive red, white, and black buoys at major ports, including Boston, New York, Portland, and New London. His successor, John Adams, was even more supportive, approving eleven mea­sures totaling $234,052 during his four-­ year term. Indeed, u ­ ntil President Jefferson approved a bill appropriating $30,000 for the construction of the Cumberland Road in 1806, all but two federal internal improvements appropriations ­were designed to prevent shipwrecks by making the American coast more legible to mari­ners.43 By 1800, twenty-­four lighthouses—­twice as many as in 1790—­guided mari­ners along the nation’s east coast into one of its eighty-­five customs districts. Simply put, shipwrecks galvanized support for sustained federal investment along the American beach. Custom­houses, navigation aids, and other more novel federal investments in the coastal infrastructure—­particularly the establishment of a national lifesaving system, extensive harbor improvements, the enactment of safety regulations, and the erection of a network of weather signal stations, and the systematic mapping of the U.S. coastline—­would go on to profoundly alter the American maritime cultural landscape during the course of the nineteenth c­ entury, laying the groundwork for the massive engineering proj­ects that would come to characterize the modern beach.44 Despite infrastructure and safety improvements, federal presence in the turn-­of-­the-­century coast was confined to a string of outposts on a desolate frontier. Coastal inhabitants retained a remarkable degree of autonomy The American Coastal Frontier 23

through their knowledge mono­poly, local networks, and physical isolation. The decentralized administration of light­houses made light­houses (like custom­houses) federal buildings but thoroughly local institutions when Industry wrecked in 1801. Locals similarly dominated coastal navigation. The 1789 Light-­House Bill, for example, explic­itly declined to regulate pi­lots, deferring instead to existing state statutes. U ­ ntil the 1860s, when Congress began to legislate the “rules of the road,” navigation itself remained un­regu­ la­ted, subject to ancient, informal customs.45 On occasion, locals exploited their specialized knowledge of the coast to gain po­liti­cal influence. In the early 1790s, the Boston Marine Society, a mutual aid organ­ization for local mari­ners, provided technical support to federal officials charged with enhancing the port’s navigation infrastructure. The group bargained its knowledge and influence for federal support of the society’s efforts to regulate harbor pi­lots, build a local marine hospital, and deploy more navigation aids.46 Light­houses and the Customs Ser­vice reflected post-­Revolutionary efforts of po­liti­cal leaders to put the “princi­ples of the Enlightenment into practice” during the first de­cades of the American experiment.47 Both mea­sures, for example, required the application of reason, the pursuit of knowledge, and the government acting to secure life and liberty. Both efforts reflected, as one historian writes, the “deposition of mind to believe that reason and empirical evidence might make the world a better place.” 48 And both light­houses and custom­houses ­were also central to the federal government’s initial efforts to centrally govern a socially, culturally, and geo­graph­i­cally diverse republic by subverting localism and illegibility. The Customs Ser­vice began to intellectually or­ga­nize and order—­make legible—­the sprawling, dangerously dynamic early republic littoral. Light­houses literally brought light to the dark coast and stood as towering monuments to a striving, enlightened nation. Shipwrecks laden with dutiable goods brought federal agents into the coastal frontier, where they forged durable relationships between coastal elites and the young national government. Shipwrecks also spurred debate in the highest levels of government, bringing the first federal outposts—­ lighthouses—to the beach and foreshadowing the significant federal presence that would define the country’s oceanfront landscape during the second half of the nineteenth ­century.

Enlightened Reform: Saving Lives, Codifying Knowledge Shipwrecks inspired two significant nongovernmental efforts in the littoral. Like their federal counter­parts, ­these mea­sures began to subvert the local24 chapter one

ism of the early republic beach. First, private groups constructed a series of lifesaving huts to succor the shipwrecked. In ­doing so, they turned the most dangerous and isolated parts of the coastal frontier into a space for humanitarian reform. Second, the publication of the first American-­produced coast pi­lot, a specialized guide for mari­ners, marked the beginning of a sustained effort to codify and share local knowledge of the coastal frontier to a wider audience. Like federal interventions along the coast, t­ hese private efforts ­were part of a sweeping post-­Revolutionary reform effort rooted in enlightened ideals of order, humanitarianism, and the search for and dissemination of knowledge. They worked alongside a motley crew of reformers, cartographers, lexicographers, and o­ thers endeavored, as Gordon Wood writes, “to push back ignorance and barbarism and increase politeness and civilization.” 49 When Industry wrecked, t­ hese nascent efforts had done l­ ittle more than establish a beachhead on a coastal frontier still dominated by entrenched locals, but they laid the foundation for efforts that would collectively transform the American beach in subsequent de­cades. At the beginning of the ­century, a handful of crude wooden shelters built on the Mas­sa­chu­setts shore tangibly marked the coast with the fruits of post-­ Revolutionary enlightened reform. The first, built on Scituate Beach in 1787, was a rough-­hewn structure “erected from the princi­ples of benevolence, to alleviate the distresses of the unfortunate shipwrecked seamen” by the Humane Society of the Commonwealth of Mas­sa­chu­setts (MHS).50 Like other humane socie­ties, the MHS combined the relatively broad membership of public charities, the international cooperation and exchange of knowledge of learned socie­ties, and the moral responsibility to strangers advanced by groups from abolitionists to the Freemasons. It differed, however, in adapting the humane society movement’s core mission (saving the drowned) to local conditions (few drownings, many shipwrecks) by constructing shelters for shipwrecked mari­ners and rewarding rescuers. MHS “humane h ­ ouses” ­were stocked with candles, straw, fuel, and a tinderbox—­ basic survival items for mari­ners wrecked on Mas­sa­chu­setts’s frigid, desolate shoreline. A fifteen-­foot pole topped by a white ball identified each hut on the barren coast. Broadsides and newspapers announced their location and purpose to a wider audience, situating them on contemporaries’ cognitive map of the coastal frontier. By the winter of 1801–1802, the MHS had built nine of the humane h ­ ouses near the entrance to Boston Harbor, one in Plymouth, two on Nantucket, and one on the tip of Cape Cod—­locations identified with the assistance of the Boston Marine Society. The hut on Cape Cod, whose replacement Henry David Thoreau would ­later describe as a “sea-­side The American Coastal Frontier 25

box,” stood more than twenty miles from where Industry went ashore. It had been poorly constructed and “entirely demolished” by a storm the same month Zachary Lamson sal­vaged the remnants of his first command.51 Unlike the federal government, which delegated its coastal outposts to local control, the MHS played a much more active role in shaping the littoral. In the pro­cess, it forged nascent social and cultural bonds between the nation’s urban core and coastal periphery. In 1802, the MHS aggressively expanded its lifesaving network on Cape Cod by building six additional huts, including two that could have sheltered the crew of Industry. The location of ­these huts was based on a remarkable survey of the outer Cape conducted by the Reverend James Freeman, first minister of King’s Chapel in Boston and one of the founding members of the MHS. Freeman’s fifteen-­page report described the region’s physical environment in intricate detail, synthesizing the collective knowledge of coastal locals and deep-­sea mari­ners about the region’s physical and shipwreck landscapes. Detailed descriptions of the Cape’s topography, coastal erosion, sedimentation, and weather shed light on patterns of coastal navigation and shipwreck as well as shipwreck survivor psy­chol­ogy. Freeman analyzed the Cape as a discrete maritime cultural landscape, identifying and codifying dangers for the MHS to mitigate through an examination of the American coast that state and federal officials would not rigorously undertake for de­cades. His empirical study demystified a notorious ship trap, rendering the Cape’s windswept landscape as a prob­lem that reason and concerted ­human effort could render safe. Trustees ordered 2,000 copies of the report printed and “dispersed among the several Custom-­house and Insurance Offices in this Commonwealth.” 52 The sites ­were apparently well chosen. Within months, reports of wrecked sailors having “received g­ reat benefit from the humane ­house[s]” began appearing in regional newspapers.53 Siting humane h ­ ouses was one t­ hing; ensuring their long-­term viability and efficacy was quite another. To that end, Freeman made agreements with eight Cape Codders—­doctors, ­lawyers, ship captains, and reverends—to regularly inspect and report on the new huts. As the federal government did with the country’s light­houses, Freeman co-­opted the local reputation of prominent coastal residents to implement the MHS’s enlightened agenda. ­These ­were hardly imperialistic relationships: dozens of residents of Mas­sa­ chu­setts’s coastal frontier eventually joined the MHS, gaining cultural capital through the social bonds of humanitarian reform. As they did with federal incursions into their littoral, savvy locals embraced, s­ haped, and 26 chapter one

ultimately profited from outsiders’ efforts to alter and define the American beach.54 Freeman’s report was exceptional—­local knowledge of the American coast did not circulate widely at the beginning of the nineteenth c­ entury. Pi­lots, ­those with the most practical knowledge of the coastal frontier, held dear their knowledge of coastal ­waters to protect their livelihoods and ­because of the perceived impracticability of codifying knowledge of a constantly changing environment. Efforts to “make American commanders their own pi­lots” through publication of detailed navigation information faced “the avowed hostility of almost all pi­lots.” Other coastal residents with intimate knowledge of the littoral had few opportunities or incentives to disseminate their hard-­earned knowledge. Few charts and coast pi­lots for the American coast ­were readily available when Industry wrecked in 1801. According to one con­temporary: “­Here indeed few charts have been published, and ­those of no remarkable character ­either for the accuracy of their distances and bearing, or for the extent of their scale.” 55 Affordability was the other ­factor. The monumental four-­volume atlas The Atlantic Neptune, which eventually contained 251 plates of the North American coast, was first published in 1777. While the U.S. Navy would rely on The Atlantic Neptune into the Civil War, it was far too expensive for the vast majority of vessels skirting the coast to own. American publishers had been offering less expensive derivative editions almost as soon as it appeared, but t­hese too remained an exceptional rather than expected part of a captain’s navigation toolkit. The only comprehensive commercially available coast pi­lot for the American coast, John Sellers’s The En­glish Pi­lot, The Fourth Book was similarly inaccurate, expensive, and lacking the detailed local knowledge essential to safe navigation.56 Mari­ners along the American coast used three distinct types of navigation. Few coasting captains used astronomical navigation. Sextants ­were expensive and the necessary calculations remarkably time consuming. Captains used dead reckoning, balancing the forces of wind, current, and tide against their vessel’s movement to mark their pro­gress and plot their position. If beyond the sight of land, they would occasionally sail closer to the shore to “fix” their position against known coastal landmarks, typically major promontories, bays, or the occasional light­house. Alongshore navigation, or gunkholing, drew on a rich body of accumulated knowledge and the sailor’s senses. Mari­ners created an ever-­evolving ­mental chart of the coastlines they sailed based on a lifetime of experience and handed-­down knowledge. They literally felt their way along the shore as Western mari­ners had for millennia, The American Coastal Frontier 27

“following the shore line . . . ​moving crab-­wise from rock to rock, ‘from promontories to islands and from islands to promontories.” 57 Tallow-­dipped lead lines cast into the sea mea­sured depth and sampled the composition of the seafloor. Changes in the color and temperature of the ­water, even the smell of pine trees and corn, ­were ele­ments of the sophisticated matrix mari­ ners constructed to determine their position, assess their risk, and plot their course. This vernacular, practical, experiential knowledge, what James C. Scott calls metis, was an eminently adaptable and successful way to navigate a dynamic physical environment. And yet, it was the very nature of this knowledge that made it so difficult to document and disseminate.58 The publication of The American Coast Pi­lot in 1796 by Newburyport, Mas­ sa­chu­setts, bookseller Edmund March Blunt marked the first sustained American effort to codify knowledge of the American littoral. Blunt intended the Pi­lot to be “a book of reference and direction” for mari­ners and a relief “by the certain conviction that this cabin-­companion would be the means of security” for apprehensive o­ wners of vessels plying the American coast.59 The Pi­lot was sold as a mea­sure of last resort for vessels unable to secure a pi­lot with the local knowledge to safely navigate into the nation’s ports. Fear sells, and Blunt frequently conjured the specter of coastal shipwrecks. “The life even of the most skillful and experienced mari­ner,” he explained, “is more endangered as he approaches the coast . . . ​[than navigating] mid-­ocean.” The American Coast Pi­lot, he argued, made the coast safer by collecting, for the first time, in “a compendious volume the most au­then­tic descriptions of the harbours, and an accurate detail of the courses and soundings of the American coast.” 60 In this way, Blunt’s search for and dissemination of experiential knowledge was yet another enlightened effort that began to break down the isolation and localism of the coastal frontier at the beginning of the nineteenth ­century. By codifying and sharing this knowledge, he fundamentally altered the American maritime cultural landscape by bounding its dynamic physical, social, and cultural environments between the covers of a book. The American Coast Pi­lot provided the most detailed description of the early republic’s coastal frontier to date. Unlike The En­glish Pi­lot or The Atlantic Neptune, The American Coast Pi­lot was almost exclusively text and did not include any charts or sketches. But Blunt’s Pi­lot offered a far more precise description of the many places American seafarers sailed: the Atlantic coast from Passamaquoddy to Key West, George’s Bank, and the West Indies. Descriptions of harbors, bays, and well-­used passages along the Atlantic coast w ­ ere invaluable references for dead-­reckoning mari­ners navigating unfamiliar 28 chapter one

­ aters. Not surprisingly, “remarkable” is frequently used in the text to dew scribe many prominent features, places, and phenomena. Even more, the Pi­lot provides insight into the way mari­ners actually navigated. Natu­ral (bushes, rocks, trees, hills) and human-­made (light­houses, buoys, and beacons, but also ­houses, barns, steeples, and windmills) features identified impor­tant waypoints. Mari­ners mea­sured distance by the league (approximately three miles), the “biscuit throw,” and the “musket shot”—­usefully relative terms for a dynamic physical environment. Vessels ­were simply “large” or “small,” “loaded,” “half-­loaded,” or “empty.” And wind, tide, and time of day ultimately determined which anchorages w ­ ere safe, which pas61 sages ­were prudent, and which coasts to avoid. Blunt began updating the Pi­lot almost immediately a­ fter releasing the first edition, initiating a pro­cess of revision that occupied him for the next three de­cades. Revision involved forging and maintaining relationships with scores of mari­ners, customs officials, and pi­lots scattered along the coastal frontier. It also required Blunt to pay close attention to coastal shipwrecks, which for him served as indicators of unknown or at least uncharted rocks or shoals rather than imprudent decisions or perilous weather. The third edition of The American Coast Pi­lot, published in 1800, marked a vital step in making the American littoral legible to outsiders b ­ ecause it combined multiple sources of local knowledge into one printed reference for the first time. The 1796 edition had merely distilled the accumulated knowledge of New ­England mari­ners upon whom Blunt relied for information. Its first entry, “directions to sail into Boston,” reflected the focus and knowledge of the Pi­lot’s sources: ship captains primarily sailing in and out of Boston. The radically redesigned third edition tellingly began with a description of Passamaquoddy—­the northernmost point of the U.S. coast—­and proceeds south mile by mile ­until concluding with sailing directions for the “Spanish Main,” which included present-­day Florida, the Ca­rib­bean, the western Gulf of Mexico, and Central and South Amer­i­ca. As Blunt boasted, the third edition was “a perfectly accurate compendium of the American coast navigation, combining all the information on this subject, which skillful experience and modern discovery have collected.” It certainly appeared so. More than twice the size of the 1796 Pi­lot, the third edition corrected ­earlier errors, expanded descriptions of many parts of the coast, and included relevant state and local laws as well as vital information about customs duties and procedures. Even so, it remained an option of last resort for the distressed and did not make mari­ ners “their own pi­lots” as Blunt claimed it would. Local knowledge simply remained, in his words, “too intricate to describe” in print to outsiders. Blunt The American Coastal Frontier 29

would spend the rest of his life trying to capture in prose the ever-­changing coast.62

Shipwrecks, National Identity, and the Coastal Frontier Despite the publication of The American Coast Pi­lot, the lifesaving huts of the MHS, and federal incursions into the coast, the American oceanfront remained spatially and culturally largely removed from the centers of national culture when Industry wrecked in 1801. Oceanfront beaches remained the haunt of a handful of intrepid farmer-­fishermen and transient w ­ halers and loggers. While they served as exotic destinations for a vanguard of urban elites seeking the medicinal benefits of sea bathing and salt air, the beach, for most p ­ eople, was not a place to visit, seek out, or even think about. Shipwrecks, however, had already begun to break down the coast’s isolation by introducing Americans to the shore through widely disseminated narratives. Stories of coastal wrecks published in pamphlets and newspapers literally brought the coast into the homes and workplaces of Americans across the country. In the pro­cess, shipwreck narratives unwittingly began the pro­cess of culturally domesticating the country’s eastern frontier—of capturing its alien physical environment and mysterious population and situating them within the bounds of the new republic. Turn-­of-­the-­century Amer­i­ca was awash in its maritime world, and no maritime topic garnered greater interest than shipwrecks.63 Wrecks appeared in almost ­every issue of early republic newspapers. As young Zachary Lamson sal­vaged Industry in January and February 1802, news of sixty other wrecks on the American coast and dozens more on foreign shores appeared in American newspapers. Certainly winter, with its intense storms, freezing temperatures, and shorter days, was the peak season for maritime disasters. “Howling winter,” wrote one perspicacious turn-­of-­the-­century poet, “when wrecks and beacons strew the steep, / and Specters walk along the deep.” 64  Wrecks, however, did not strew the steep (scatter over the ocean’s waves) only in winter; mechanical and h ­ uman error, severe weather, strong currents, unnoticed seafloor features, and s­ imple bad luck w ­ ere never precisely timed to the seasons. Take the summer of 1801. A “tremendous hurricane” sent 120 vessels ashore near Nassau, New Providence, in July. On the American shore: a brig wrecked in North Carolina at the end of April; seven drowned in the wreck of a Brooklyn ferryboat in May; Long Island claimed at least one vessel in June; a ship wrecked near Cape Henry, ­Virginia, and a brig wrecked within sight of New York City in July; an abandoned derelict 30 chapter one

schooner was towed into Nantucket in August. The list could easily go on—­ ships, schooners, sloops, and brigs met disaster in the American littoral year round. Newspapers reported ­every one they found out about.65 Most wrecks warranted a terse statement in the “shiping news” column. To quote one published by the Salem Register about Industry: “We are informed, that ­there w ­ ere four vessels ashore on Cape Cod.” 66 On occasion, papers published more expansive narratives, which reflected a relative abundance of information, potential interest to readers, and available space in print editions. Editors gleaned information about shipwrecks from ship logs and newspapers brought by recently arrived vessels. In this way, information ferried by coasters passed relatively quickly from paper to paper across the country. By tracking one story, we can see how rapidly shipwreck narratives spread. The first published account of the wreck of the ship Cicero near Charleston, South Carolina, on December 24, 1801, appeared twelve days ­later in Norfolk, ­Virginia. Nine days ­later, on January 14, an eighty-­six-­word brief appeared in a Providence, Rhode Island, newspaper. A lengthier, more detailed account appeared in New York City on the nineteenth followed by excerpts of varied length in Boston on the twentieth, New London, Connecticut, on the twenty-­seventh, and eventually Salem, Mas­sa­chu­setts, on February 2. News transmission was not linear. Two competing stories spread about Cicero’s fate—­the first reported the ship simply “found­ered in the Gulf Stream.” The other offered a more nuanced, if sensational, story of a sinking ship, “choaked” pumps, last-­minute salvage efforts, a gin-­soaked crew setting fire to a stove tar barrel before their timely rescue by a passing sloop.67 Carefully written letters, typically penned by a shipwrecked mari­ner, passenger, or coastal observer, occasionally appeared as separate columns. No published communication about Industry’s wreck survives, but the 650-­word “Letter from Captain Vrendenburgh, of the brig Abigail, to his owner in this city,” published by the Philadelphia Gazette and Daily Advertiser on February 20, 1802, is illustrative of missives penned by shipwreck survivors. “It is with ­great regret that I am obliged to inform you of as melancholy a disaster as ever yet befell any vessel,” began Vrendenburgh. He went on to describe in increasing detail the voyage, from leaving port “with a pleasant breeze” to enduring a series of gales and misfortunes that washed five men overboard, left the cargo “chiefly damaged,” and rendered Abigail “a perfect wreck.” As was typical of such accounts, Vrendenburgh’s letter reflects his understanding of the requirements of the maritime law and insurance l­ egal systems, which determined fault and the ability and extent to which the shipwrecked mari­ners and ­owners of the cargo and vessel could collect on their The American Coastal Frontier 31

losses. So it is hardly surprising that the good captain states: “We prepared every­thing necessary [for the gale] . . . ​kept the pumps ­going . . . ​steered to the southward to gain the first port . . . ​[and remained] desirous to save and preserve all that lay in our power.” 68 He could not, at least by his carefully constructed narrative, possibly be held responsible for this melancholy disaster. Accounts by passengers and pi­lots reflected dif­fer­ent concerns, from heralding a brave captain to exonerating the crew to offering a detailed description of a wrecked vessel so it could be identified by newspaper readers. Shipwreck narratives published in newspapers often provided graphic details about the fateful voyage and wreck, pandering to the growing influence of both sentimentality and a “predilection for scenarios of suffering” that permeated post-­Revolution Amer­i­ca.69 Vrendenburgh, for example, describes how “a heavy sea broke over her [Abigail’s] stern, which washed them all overboard except the mate, who held on by the rigging”; how the survivors “expected ­every moment she would have sunk: the cabin filled with ­water”; how all hands ­were “worn out with fatigue, and scarcely able to stand or more” ­after laboring through the night; and how he, “reduced to a skeleton by fatigue and hardships . . . ​put the w ­ hole of the business in the hand of the [American] consul.” 70 More than sensationalist journalism or potential opportunities for schadenfreude, however, newspaper accounts like ­these disseminated news of the wreck to anxious relatives, merchants, insurers, and o­ thers interested in the fate of the vessels they described. They also reflected a well-­established American tradition—­shipwrecks, along with any other news relating to ships, shipping, or the sea, had been the “largest single news topic” for colonial papers. This is hardly surprising given that the interdependence of shipping and news—­ships brought the news and the news advertised the ships—­also made disruptions to shipping a prescient topic for readers and publishers alike.71 However common, descriptions of shipwrecks in newspapers represent a fraction of shipwreck narratives flooding the early republic. In fact, stirring narratives of loss and redemption set against the backdrop of harrowing storms, tempestuous seas, and lee shores w ­ ere becoming regular fodder for turn-­of-­the-­century Americans. Chapbooks, magazines, pamphlets, broadsides, and plays recounting shipwrecks routinely appeared in American cities. Stories of maritime disasters thrilled audiences throughout the Atlantic world while popu­lar shipwreck narratives crisscrossed the ocean. American booksellers advertised London editions of Scottish poet William 32 chapter one

Falconer’s The Shipwreck and took subscriptions for American editions. The Shipwreck: A Comic Opera was first performed in London in December 1796, and routinely appended to longer five-­act plays performed on stages between Boston and Charleston. By 1806, nearly 200 book-­length shipwreck narratives ­were available to an American public increasingly accustomed to reading about shipwrecks and the sea, including the first American edition of Archibald Duncan’s seminal anthology of shipwreck narratives, The Mari­ner’s Chronicle.72 While shipwrecks and the shore existed on the margins of everyday experiences in the early nineteenth ­century, they became an increasingly significant presence in ­people’s imaginations. Few actually experienced or saw a vessel wreck. But almost all had read about, heard about, or discussed one. It was almost inevitable that citizens of a maritime state turned to shipwreck narratives to define and shape their nation’s identity—­a central concern of many post-­Revolution Americans. Shipwreck narratives would become potent shapers of national identity for most of the nineteenth c­ entury ­because they dramatized and reinforced the notion of American exceptionalism, channeling national anx­i­eties over what the United States was and where it was ­going.73 For a new nation undergoing profound dislocations, printed shipwreck narratives, argues Amy Mitchell-­Cook, “transformed the chaos of shipwreck into an ordered and understandable event in which aspects of gender, status, and religion remained solid.” 74 Traditional authority, while tested, remained intact throughout Zachary Lamson’s narrative of Industry’s shipwreck. Despite the captain and first mate having “high fevers,” Lamson “proceeded to sea as ordered.” He assumed command a­ fter both men died without incident, dutifully notifying a passing vessel “of our loss,” then soundly shaping Industry’s course to the shifting dictates of the weather. While the wreck event gets just one sentence, Lamson carefully recounts every­thing he and the crew did to save the vessel and themselves in a rational, ordered story that, nevertheless, ends with him frozen and passed out in the stranded schooner. In the days that followed, Lamson’s “situation was very bad,” yet he oversaw the successful twelve-­day salvage operation and overcame the efforts of local thieves to conspire against him while thwarting the efforts of Chatham w ­ omen to wed him. Lamson’s authority was provisional; however, he returned home to eagerly ship out again as a seaman. Despite the chaos of shipwreck, the patriarchal order always held, men and w ­ omen played their “proper” roles, and race, at least at the beginning of the ­century, rarely made its way to the printed page. The essentially The American Coastal Frontier 33

conservative, reassuring nature of shipwreck narratives would remain in place ­until the end of the c­ entury.75 Shipwreck narratives also introduced and began to culturally ­domesticate—make vis­i­ble, known, and acceptable—­coastal ­people and places. Long considered terra nullius (a void to be avoided), the American oceanfront began its long march ­toward becoming the modern beach on the wave of maritime disaster. Newspaper accounts of coastal wrecks vividly described the harsh, desolate coastal environment, evoking the language of the sublime. The oceanfront beaches they describe w ­ ere places where sound vessels and competent seamen failed. A violent space dominated by wind and wave. A place represented as being beyond ­human control. And yet ­these accounts also worked to transform the coastal frontier into a landscape inscribed with identifiable places. Though many of t­ hese places w ­ ere named long before, Barnegat, Sandy Hook, Egg Harbor, and dozens of other coastal communities and features repeatedly mentioned in turn-­of-­the-­century published shipwreck narratives began to fill the nation’s ­mental map of its eastern frontier. The wreck traps and safe havens described in shipwreck stories became known kinds of places—­semantically captured locales—on the margins of the new republic. This naming and description in the popu­lar press helped turned an alien frontier into the American beach.76 Early republic shipwreck narratives focused on the coast’s physical landscape. They remained mute, however, on the p ­ eople living t­ here. Newspaper accounts rarely mentioned “the inhabitants” of the American littoral, attesting to the lack of ­people living permanently on the coast. When they did discuss coastal residents, newspapers did so in generic terms and in relation to the help they offered the shipwrecked. “With some assistance from the inhabitants,” explained the captain of the wrecked Volusia in February 1802, “we got on shore all safe.” 77 The stories of seaside heroism would not regularly appear in newspapers ­until the establishment of the federal life-­ saving ser­vice in the ­middle of the ­century. Less benevolent tales, though, occasionally did surface. ­After the wreck of the ship Ulysses, immortalized by Michele Felice Cornè’s 1802 painting Capt. Cook Cast a Way on Cape Cod, several newspapers reprinted the wrecked captain’s “letter to his owner” in which he reported: “Many of the inhabitants are bailing coffee and sand in their hats.” In other words, locals plundered the wreck’s cargo. Zachary Lamson similarly reported the robbery of “bags of coffee” and “apparatus of the vessel.” Yet, Cornè’s painting portrayed Ulysses as it wrecked on an empty beach rather than its plundered afterlife.78 In the de­cades that followed, the reverse would more often be the case, as written and visual accounts of 34 chapter one

Michele Felice Cornè, Captain Cook Cast Away on Cape Cod, 1802 (gouache on paper, 13½ × 15⅜ inches [34.29 × 39.053 cm]). Gift of Augustus Peabody Loring Jr., 1946, courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum (M5923). Photo by Mark Sexton.

coastal shipwrecks would increasingly depict rapacious locals looting wrecks, while in real­ity, locals (with few notable exceptions) did no such ­thing. Works of fiction provided a more nuanced but still sensational introduction to the inhabitants of the coastal frontier. The Shipwreck: A Comic Opera is representative. A bawdy tale of shipwreck and plunder, the two-­act comedy included nefarious wreckers, incompetent officials, helpless shipwreck survivors, and the lone virtuous local—­the stock characters that would populate coastal shipwreck narratives for the rest of the ­century.79 Like the myths and mythmaking of another frontier—­the so-­called West—­myths about coastal inhabitants and places ­shaped the lived experience and historical development of the American beach. When Industry wrecked on Cape The American Coastal Frontier 35

Cod, American variants of t­ hese myths ­were still being created. Their basic forms, however, w ­ ere well known. Not ­until the 1830s would the piratical coastal wrecker become an American archetype, shaping public perceptions and state actions along the coast more than the ­actual words and actions of coastal denizens. In the pro­cess, sensational myths and stories irrevocably altered the coast’s cultural and physical development. the turn-­o f-­t he-­c entury American coast was an isolated, parochial, pre­industrial space on the margins of the fledgling Republic. Yet the stage had been set for the w ­ holesale integration of the shore with American life and thought. Indeed, the region’s physical, social, and cultural landscapes ­were already being mapped and disseminated when Industry wrecked in 1801. The story of the schooner’s voyage, wrecking, and salvage captures the American coastal frontier at the beginning of its dramatic transformation as enlightened reform, nation-­building, and sensationalist, widely distributed narratives introduced a diverse range of p ­ eople and institutions to the nation’s growing number of coastal shipwrecks. More than illuminating the maritime cultural landscape, however, coastal shipwrecks like Industry materially ­shaped the American coast. The vitality of maritime commerce and a cultural milieu that encouraged the enactment of Enlightenment ideals and the articulation of national identity turned twice-­told tales of coastal shipwrecks into prime movers in the breakdown of the coastal frontier. At the highest levels of government, shipwrecks focused sustained attention on the coast ­because they imperiled the duties that financed government operations. In response, the federal government sent customs officials into the coastal frontier and appropriated aids to navigation, the opening salvo in an aggressive and sustained policy of federal intervention in the littoral that continues to this day. Private initiatives mirrored ­these public efforts. By 1800, prominent, “enlightened” citizens in a handful of cities had begun to or­ga­ nize for the benefit of mari­ners wrecked on the nation’s coastal frontier. At the same time, newspaper editors, artists, authors, and other cultural producers brought ever-­more tales of coastal shipwrecks into the homes and workplaces of Americans, introducing them to the wild coast and disaster through sensationalist narratives. Each of ­these groups mapped a part of the littoral, illuminating the American maritime cultural landscape as they subtly, inexorably ­shaped it from being a frontier ­toward a heavi­ly engineered, commercialized, and contested space. Still, the turn-­of-­the-­century American coast remained a frontier, linked by few rough roads, inhabited by few full-­time residents, and rarely visited 36 chapter one

by outsiders. The federal government remained small and relatively toothless. Nascent state-­level efforts to regulate the coast w ­ ere just coming online when Zachary Lamson wrecked on Cape Cod aboard the schooner Industry. Americans w ­ ere certainly becoming more familiar with their beach, but it remained isolated and distinct from the centers of national life—­a distant frontier inhabited by rough frontier dwellers on the fringes of law and society.

The American Coastal Frontier 37

chapter two

Taming the Beach

Wreckers and Wreck Law on the Jersey Shore The vampyres not only refused succor to the living sufferers, but robbed the dead of every­thing valuable found upon their persons, and carried off all the valuables thrown upon the shore. —­Newark Daily Advertiser, February 25, 1846

The p ­ eople on shore appeared to be very anxious to get the ­people from the wreck, and grieved very much to hear the cries on board; ­there was no dancing on the shore, but they shuffled their feet to prevent them suffering from the cold. —­Lewis Morris, fisherman, March 14, 1846

On February 15, 1846, the ship John Minturn ran aground near Squan Village on the coast of New Jersey. News of the disaster spread quickly. A special overland coach carried the first reports of the wreck to editors at the New York Sun hours a­ fter the Minturn went ashore. The Sun, along with New York’s other major newspapers, published sensational claims that New Jerseyans had “refused succor to the living sufferers . . . ​robbed the dead . . . ​ carried off all the valuables thrown upon the shore” and egregiously charged next of kin for the release of bodies.1 The newspapers identified Squan Village as the epicenter of the piratical, lawless New Jerseyans, who by some accounts danced with joy as the Minturn broke apart in the heavy surf. Newspapers as far away as Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Lexington, Kentucky, and New Orleans, Louisiana, reprinted stories of “­these detestable vampyres.” 2 Currier & Ives, self-­proclaimed “publishers of cheap and popu­lar prints,” released a hand-­colored lithograph that offered a sensationalist depiction of the awful scene of lashing snow, harrowing seas, and bodies being cast into the sea.3 That such unconscionable acts of inhumanity could take place in midcentury Amer­i­ca was appalling to many. For business and civic leaders in New Jersey and the port of New York, allegations of illegal wrecking imperiled ­future profits and called into question their ability to govern. Such reports required a decisive response. The American Shipwreck Society, a six-­year-­ 38

Nathanial Currier, Wreck of the Ship John Minturn (lithograph, ca. 1846). Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

old branch of an international humanitarian organ­ization devoted to assisting shipwreck victims, convened hearings at its office in New York City Hall nine days a­ fter the wreck. By the 1840s, shipwrecks had become serious business in Amer­i­ca’s largest seaport. The mayor along with two of the city’s most influential justices presided. The next day, New Jersey state senator Alexander Wurts (who represented a noncoastal county) introduced resolutions demanding that Governor Charles C. Stratton investigate the heinous charges published in “the public journals” against the state’s citizens. Spurred by popu­lar sentiment, the resolutions passed the Senate and House and arrived on the governor’s desk in eight days. Stratton appointed three commissioners who toured ten wreck sites along the Monmouth County coast before spending five days deposing thirty-­seven witnesses.4 The commissioners had already spent half the day interviewing the accused “land pirates” when Joseph Borden appeared before them on March 12. He entered the room with the confidence gained by twenty years as a bayman on the New Jersey coast. To the two county prosecutors and federal marshal sent by the governor to find murderers and plunderers, Borden told a stirring narrative of heroism, endurance, and perseverance. He Taming the Beach 39

had personally rescued six ­people from Minturn ­after it suddenly broke apart, sending dozens of passengers and crew into the frigid waves. Borden and his neighbors had rescued every­one they could that stormy night, searching the ­water for the ­people whose screams had brought them r­ unning from their hastily constructed shelter on the beach. None, according to Borden, “could have got ashore, without the assistance they received.” Borden was equally confident that no person “could have got on board and have robbed the dead bodies” as had been widely alleged.5 In a case study of government efficacy, the commissioners delivered their final report to the governor on March  20, barely a month ­after Minturn wrecked. They concluded that all of the charges leveled against the coastal residents of New Jersey w ­ ere “according to the best of our judgment upon the evidence, each and ­every one of them utterly untrue; that ­there are no inhuman and guilty actors therein to be punished, and that the state ­ought to be relieved from the odium of such barbarity.” Beyond merely acquitting New Jerseyans, the commission lauded their actions: “In our opinion, the rec­ ords of the surf can show few more persevering, enduring and courageous efforts to save the perishing passengers and seamen than w ­ ere shown by Monmouth [County] surfmen on this occasion.” An exhaustive description of Joseph Borden’s heroics would, they hoped, dispel any lingering associations between pirates, shipwreck, and the Jersey shore.6 The midcentury coast, as the commissioners described in vivid detail, was a well-­regulated part of the nation even if it remained a mysterious, violent frontier in the imaginations of most Americans. The Report of the Commissioners to Investigate the Charges Concerning the Wrecks on the Monmouth Coast, published ­later that year, marked the culmination of a long, sustained effort by the state of New Jersey to effectively regulate and legislate its sliver of the American beach. The state had been aggressively—­and successfully—­ regulating shipwrecks and the New Jersey coast for almost fifty years; no won­der state leaders ­were ready to “be relieved from the odium of such barbarity.” The legislature ordered the commissioners’ report and “proofs” to be immediately published for “distribution along the coast.” One thousand copies of the 166-­page report—­including the commissioners’ final report, transcripts of e­ very deposition, three “exhibits,” and the memorandum books of the two coroners who examined the thirty-­two dead pulled from the ocean near Squan Village—­were soon published.7 The area around Squan Village, a roughly twenty-­four-­mile stretch of coast bounded by the Manasquan River and Barnegat Inlet, exemplifies both the transformation of the coast through regulation that occurred during this 40 chapter two

period and the pivotal role shipwrecks played in that pro­cess. At the beginning of the nineteenth ­century, Barnegat-­Squan was an isolated, desolate frontier. By the time Minturn wrecked in 1846, Squan Village had become a thriving community on the Manasquan River and, like its oceanfront environs, intimately connected with the social, po­liti­cal, and cultural centers of American life. The regulation and policing of coastal shipwrecks that began at the turn of the nineteenth ­century forged novel connections between this region; the state capital, Trenton; the centers of American culture and commerce, Philadelphia and New York City; and, ultimately, federal offices in Washington, D.C. In fact, state-­level efforts to regulate shipwrecks affected the coast de­cades before industrialization and the massive expansion of the federal government—­really before that cluster of physical, social, and cultural changes we now term modernity—­fundamentally altered how ­people interacted with and understood the American beach. Ironically, even as the region became firmly part of the American state and fully integrated with the nation’s developing transportation and communications networks, the coast and its inhabitants became cultural “­others” to most Americans. They ­were dangerous, rapacious, crude—­“uncivilized” in the parlance of the day—­inhabitants of a violent frontier. The roots of this image, as we w ­ ill see, lay less in the real actions of coastal residents than in the shore’s storied history of pirates, privateers, and war.

The Barnegat-­Squan Frontier Though situated approximately fifty miles south of New York City, Barnegat-­ Squan was a frontier at the beginning of the nineteenth ­century. The region was bounded on the north by the Manasquan River, a twenty-­three-­mile waterway whose final four miles broadened into a remarkably productive scythe-­shaped estuary. Striped bass, bluefish, blackfish, and weakfish plied the river’s brackish ­waters. Oysters, crabs, and clams abounded year-­round, while duck, plover, quail, and woodcock darkened the skies over the Mana­ squan ­every autumn. The Unamis branch of the Lenni Lenape had summered along the estuary for generations, as had their pre­de­ces­sors. Indeed, Manasquan is the En­glish pronunciation of the Lenape’s name for their summer retreat—­Manatahsquawhan, which some translate as “stream of the island of squaws.” 8 At the beginning of the nineteenth c­ entury, a scattered collection of farm­houses located at least a mile from the breakers stood on both sides of the river. The southern community would soon acquire the name Squan. The northern hamlet, which already included a Quaker meeting Taming the Beach 41

M an

as q

Barnegat-­Squan ua n

r ve Ri

Squan Village Forman’s Farm

ATLANTIC OCEAN

BA

RN

EGA

T BAY

Squan Beach

Barnegat Inlet

­ ouse, a grist mill, and a general store, would anoint itself Squan Village h in the 1820s. In 1800, ­these communities ­were still grouped together as Manasquan or Squan, and they stood as the most significant settlement along almost sixty miles of coastline. A single sandy road connected this aspiring village to a wide beach backed by towering sand dunes that r­ ose and fell in step with the seasons. Steady, unimpeded erosion of the low mainland bluff by wind and waves provided an inexhaustible supply of sand for wide beaches that twenty-­first-­century New Jerseyans would not recognize on their highly engineered, narrow, duneless coastline.9 The Manasquan River straddled the border between the mainland beaches of northern New Jersey and the barrier island beaches that defined the state’s southern shore. Numerous brooks, streams, rivers, and inlets cut the bluff-­ backed beach that stretched twenty-­five miles north to the Sandy Hook Light­ house, which then stood at the end of a long sandy spit or peninsula or island, depending on the area’s configuration a­ fter the most recent storm. The immediate coast was more or less barren except for the deteriorating 42 chapter two

New York City LON

Perth Amboy

LA G IS

Sandy Hook Lighthouse

Trenton Squan Philadelphia

ATLANTIC OCEAN

Cape May

Greater New Jersey

ND

remnants of a handful of defunct whaling stations and saltworks. Two miles south of the Manasquan, the immediate coast turned into a half-­mile sliver of shifting sand dunes and coastal meadows overgrown with bayberry, sumac, catbrier, poison ivy, sedges, and scrub pines. This barrier beach—­alternatively known as Squan or Squam Beach—­separated the relatively placid ­waters of Barnegat Bay from the tempestuous North Atlantic and tracked almost due south for six miles ­until Cranberry Inlet. Nine-­Mile Island, or Island Beach, the first in a chain of barrier beach islands, ended at Barnegat Inlet, approximately twenty-­four miles south of the Manasquan River. The barrier island beaches noticeably changed farther south, a consequence of a morphology and depositional history markedly dif­fer­ent from the northern mainland beaches, which had larger grains of sand of a dif­fer­ent mineral composition on wider barrier islands. This chain of barrier islands separated by inlets altered with e­ very storm—­with ­e very tide—­and was a difficult place to eke out a living. As a nineteenth-­century historian summarized: “Only a straggling h ­ ouse was found h ­ ere and t­ here” from the Manasquan River to the town of Cape May on the bank of Delaware Bay. In very real terms, then, ­were Squan and Squan Village the farthest settlements on the Jersey shore.10 Uncertainty characterized the early history of Barnegat-­Squan. Eu­ro­pean contact and conflict with Lenni Lenape ­were particularly swift and tragic. By 1758, just 400 Lenape w ­ ere allegedly left in the state, thousands having e­ ither perished by disease or moved west. Virtually none remained in 1800, or that was the story told by colonists ­eager to justify naked land grabs, which they undertook with remarkable vigor.11 Eu­ro­pe­ans claimed, bought, and sold tens of thousands of acres of the New Jersey coast before any of them got around to actually living on it. Property transactions reflect their preference for the more protected and productive mainland coastal and riverine properties over oceanfront tracts. During the seventeenth and much of the eigh­ teenth centuries, mainland properties sold for ten times the price per acre as oceanfront lots. Most of Barnegat-­Squan was first “purchased” by the Manasquan Beach Com­pany, a conglomerate led by Quaker Richard Hartshorne, in 1680 or 1685. He sold land to William Lawrence ten years l­ ater, and the “Lawrence Beaches” passed to William’s son, Joseph, who established himself as a “yeoman . . . ​of Manasquan” by the late 1730s.12 Through deaths, marriages, and commercial transactions, a cadre of major landowners largely of En­glish descent and Quaker belief joined Joseph in buying, selling, and inheriting Barnegat-­Squan.13 The first permanent settlers to Barnegat-­Squan, however, w ­ ere transient shore-­based ­whalemen drawn more by the region’s natu­ral benefits—­a pro44 chapter two

tected natu­ral harbor, waterpower, natu­ral resources (mostly fish, fowl, and lumber), and quality farmland—­than the proto-­industrial ­labor of killing and trying out w ­ hales. Some de­cided to stay and exploit the wildly productive space where estuary, ocean, and mainland met. T ­ hese shore-­based ­whalers left the beaches unsettled for generations. Pioneering families gradually became self-­sufficient as they farmed the land and fished the Manasquan, the Atlantic, and Barnegat Bay. Entrepreneurial settlers began to export small quantities of salted fish as well as oysters and shellfish to New York City and Philadelphia, forging connections l­ ater settlers and visitors would follow to the beach. A community formed and prospered around the banks of the Manasquan. More families arrived. By 1730, an impressive two-­story Friends Meeting House had been built two miles north of the river and west of the Atlantic, a short walk from the recently constructed grist mill on the stream that fed Rock, l­ ater Wreck, Pond.14 Word spread about the region’s many benefits, as this auction advertisement published in the New York Gazette from 1755 demonstrates: “A Plantation at Minisquan, containing 250 Acres, whereof 14 Acres is good Meadow, and more may be made so, with a large Orchard on Squan river, near a Grist Mill, and lies con­ve­nient for Fishing, Fowling, Claming and Oystering: Any Person inclining to purchase, may apply to Henry Dumont, at Piscataway Landing, and agree on reasonable terms.” 15 The tempo of life increased in the 1760s. Construction of a bridge over the Manasquan River in 1763 five miles from its mouth closed the distance between the shore and the growing mainland movement of ­people, goods, and information. A new wave of settlers, more entrepreneurial and better heeled, came to exploit Manasquan’s still-­abundant resources. Export of agricultural products, fish, and shellfish grew while export began of salt hay and c­ attle fed on marsh meadow sedges and grasses. Inhabitants felled pitch pine for charcoal, oak for cordwood, and white cedar for the area’s nascent boatbuilding industry, which churned out small sloops and schooners for fishing, wrecking, and transporting the region’s natu­ral wealth to urban markets. Homes began to reflect the community’s prosperity as one-­room, 1½-­story vernacular saltbox cottages ­were expanded. New settlers, such as retired sea captain John Morris, built capacious Georgian homesteads that reflected “an awareness of con­temporary highstyle design.” Like their pre­ de­ces­sors, this second wave of settlers wisely avoided the dynamic, exposed beaches and sited their h ­ ouses at least a mile inland.16 During the American Revolution Barnegat-­Squan sat on the divide between the Loyalist strongholds in northern Jersey and the revolutionaries to the south and west. Barnegat Inlet, Cranberry Inlet, and the Manasquan Taming the Beach 45

River became bases for patriot privateers and smugglers. With ready access to salt disrupted by the British, saltworks w ­ ere built up and down the American coast to supply this vital resource, including at least three in Barnegat-­ Squan. Privateers, smugglers, and seaside saltworks became prime targets for the British navy, and the region suffered numerous raids and damage, which, as we discuss in this chapter’s final section, significantly impacted the region’s development.17 Postwar economic crisis—­deflation, high taxes, and foreclosure—­compounded with the severe dislocations of the war prompted a vast movement of ­people around and out of New Jersey. Barnegat-­Squan did not escape t­ hese historical forces. Properties changed hands, communities lost and absorbed new members, but the wealthy stayed wealthy, the poor poor, and the economy continued its uneven transition to capitalism.18 Frontier conditions still characterized life in turn-­of-­the-­century Barnegat-­ Squan. While a few poor sandy roads linked the region to the outside world, it remained remarkably isolated, dependent on irregular waterborne connections for trade and communication into the 1820s. The postal system, which one historian argues “penetrated so deeply into the hinterland . . . ​[and] played such a con­spic­u­ous role in shaping the pattern of everyday life,” essentially bypassed the region: Squan Village did not get its first post office ­until 1854; Squan, even ­later.19 Inhabitants still engaged in the classic frontier economic activity: resource extraction. And the region still remained deeply parochial, a loose cluster of entrenched, interrelated families physically and culturally removed from the urban centers of American life. Even their religion—­most ­were still Quakers—­acted to isolate rather than integrate the region by creating a “sectarian culture” that stood in opposition to other “worldly” belief systems and p ­ eople.20 Government authority remained weak at the beginning of the c­ entury, confined to a locally elected sheriff and overseer of the poor. Above all ­else, the daily strug­g le with untamed wilderness—­the coastal environment—­rather than social institutions conditioned their everyday lives. Challenging to live in, the Barnegat-­Squan frontier proved downright dangerous for vessels. Shipwrecks literally put Squan on the map. The earliest published account of Squan dates to 1731 when the American Weekly Mercury gave word that the “Briganteen Swan . . . ​was run ashore by distress of Weather, near a Place called Squan.” 21 For Barnegat, the earliest recorded wreck dates to November  1714 when a Boston newspaper reported several sloops had run aground ­there.22 Between 1705 and 1769, 23 of 102 published accounts of wrecks along the New Jersey coast occurred in the Barnegat-­Squan region. This figure is an absolute minimum and does not include the many wrecks that did not make it into the historical rec­ord. The frequency of undocu46 chapter two

mented coastal wrecks is suggested by the following statements, which regularly appeared in colonial newspapers: “We hear ­there are several vessels ashore between the Capes of Delaware and Sandy Hook”; “Abundance of small craft w ­ ere drove ashore, and many of them lost”; “We hear several vessels ashore on Barnegat”; and so on.23 ­Whether more vessels w ­ ere wrecking or more wrecks w ­ ere reported, the frequency of published accounts of coastal wrecks in American newspapers increased during the final three de­cades of the ­century. The type of vessels wrecking also began to change as schooners and ships displaced smaller sloops and brigs as the most common types of shipwrecked vessels. By the beginning of the nineteenth ­century, newspaper accounts of vessels ashore or wrecked in Barnegat-­Squan ­were, if anything, expected. Environmental and cultural f­ actors turned the Jersey shore, particularly Barnegat-­Squan, into one of the hemi­sphere’s most notorious ship traps. Scientists ­today categorize the mid-­Atlantic coast as “storm-­dominated” ­because meteorological events drive the processes—­waves and tides—­ shaping the region’s sandy beaches and barrier islands.24 Storms also helped create the region’s shipwreck landscape. Nor’easters, common throughout the year, literally pushed wind-­powered vessels onto the Jersey coast. Tropical storms often led to many wrecks, like the September 8, 1769 storm that drove untold numbers of vessels onto the shore. Many ­were unable to sail into ­these strong winds and ended up “cast away” on the beach. Strandings accounted for 91 ­percent of reported New Jersey wrecks between 1705 and 1769. Being stranded on the Jersey coast was dangerous. An offshore sandbar, whose distance varied with the seasons (summer it moved closer to shore, winter farther offshore), held vessels at a “deathful distance.” Unlike Zachary Lamson, who was able to literally jump from Industry to the Cape Cod shore, mari­ners who wrecked off New Jersey faced “two hundred yards or more of tumbling, wintry, yeasty surf,” which more often than not drowned the shipwrecked making for shore and tore apart the stoutest vessels.25 Barnegat-­Squan’s coast had a particularly nasty reputation. “It has always been allowed by every­one,” summarized a midcentury resident, “that the surf is much worse ­here [south of Manasquan Inlet] than it is a few miles further north, t­owards Sandy Hook; the bar at this place is much further out . . . ​and vessels coming ashore ­here would strike further off ­here than they would ­there.” 26 Many perished, unable to make it to shore before wind and wave broke apart their grounded vessels. The region’s position between the nation’s two busiest commercial ports and in the ­middle of the early republic’s “chief highway for travel and transport”—­the Atlantic Ocean—­resulted in significant shipping traffic passing Taming the Beach 47

by the region. The most common ports of departure of vessels wrecked on the Jersey coast—­the West Indies, Pennsylvania (primarily Philadelphia), and New York City, respectively—­were also their most common destinations and reflected the major shipping nodes of the eighteenth-­century Atlantic World. Barnegat-­Squan was the most common wreck location among wrecks on the Jersey shore between 1705 and 1769. A s­ imple navigation error near Barnegat Inlet, an impor­tant “change of course” point for vessels sailing along the East Coast, led to many wrecks. Further, Barnegat and Manasquan Inlets ­were two of only a handful of navigable inlets (and places of refuge) on the entire Jersey shore; many smaller vessels seeking refuge from Atlantic storms misjudged their approaches and became another casualty reported in shipping news columns. The other frequent wreck locations w ­ ere on the coast’s northern and southern end, at the relatively narrow, hazardous entry­ ways to Philadelphia and New York.27 At the beginning of the nineteenth ­century Barnegat-­Squan had yet to be significantly impacted by government intervention and enlightened reform. While the customs collector occasionally sent representatives to police shipwrecks, the federal government lacked a sustained presence in the area. The custom­house at Perth Amboy stood thirty miles from the mouth of the Manasquan River. Customs agents had to traverse a tortuous overland route or sail fifty miles to reach this coastal frontier. The Continental Congress’s interest in the region as a supplier of salt during the Revolution was not sustained by national leaders ­under the Articles of Confederation or the Constitution. Indeed, it took a series of increasingly deadly shipwrecks in the 1840s for Barnegat-­Squan to regain their attention. No privately funded lifesaving huts had been built. Local knowledge had escaped Edmund Blunt’s rudimentary codification efforts. The American Coast Pi­lot (1800) describes how to avoid the Jersey shore rather than how to navigate it.28 Shipwrecks, enlightened reform, and government intervention, however, gradually came together at the state level to dramatically affect Barnegat-­Squan during the first de­cades of the nineteenth ­century, turning this coastal frontier into a constituent part of the region’s social, po­liti­cal, and ­legal landscapes.

Regulating the Coastal Frontier On February 5, 1827, a much younger Joseph Borden knocked on his neighbor’s door with news of shipwreck. John S. Forman, the local commissioner of wrecks, answered and, ­after hearing the particulars, rushed to the beach. What he found must have been a spectacular if all too familiar scene. Freez48 chapter two

ing wind and waves assaulted a schooner helplessly stranded just offshore. Aboard the vessel, men strug­g led to tie down anything the ele­ments could break loose. Forman found Solon’s master, Schenus Prince, and informed him of his ­legal right to abandon his vessel to the local commissioner of wrecks. Forman explained that he was a bonded state official and assured Prince that he would supervise the salvage of Solon and its cargo for the benefit of its rightful ­owners. Prince refused and set about saving his command. Forman went home. ­After three days, “the vessel,” in Forman’s words, “was wreck.” Only then did Prince formally abandon Solon to the commissioner, shortly ­after watching another schooner wreck within a stone’s throw of his battered vessel.29 Forman went right to work, rigidly adhering to a script enshrined in state law. First, he took an inventory of Solon’s cargo, noting “one hundred and seventy six hogsheads of Molasses” in his cloth-­bound notebook. Then he employed a group of local men to salvage the molasses and strip the schooner of anything of value. Schooners from New York arrived within days to ferry the sal­vaged cargo to its final destination. Forman prob­ably supervised the auction of articles sal­vaged from the vessel, but no rec­ords of such exist. Nor do rec­ords remain of the final accounting Forman inevitably did, deducting the cost of salvage—­labor, equipment, and transportation—­from the auction proceeds and remitting the remainder (or invoices) to the ­owners of the schooner and molasses cargo. In fact, all that remains of Forman’s work on Solon is a two-­page entry in an account book, which wreck law required him to keep as a dutifully appointed commissioner of wrecks.30 Commissioners of wrecks like John Forman worked up and down the American beach during the nineteenth c­ entury, enacting a sophisticated regulatory regime that helped tame the coastal frontier. The shipwreck legislation implemented and enforced by t­ hese commissioners represented the primary means by which government regulated most of the oceanfront during the first half of the c­ entury. ­Until 1799, New Jersey had turned to British wreck law to guide its adjudication of coastal shipwrecks. A ­ fter 1776, En­glish statutes and common law remained in effect in New Jersey, which, like most states, elected to retain them u ­ ntil altered by dutifully elected assemblies. Most revolutionary leaders saw codification—­relying on statutes rather common law—as a necessary and crucial step for the enlightened state they aspired to govern, and many states began codification efforts in the 1780s. New Jersey did not undertake this enlightened reform ­until 1792, when the legislature authorized Governor William Paterson to “collect and reduce into proper Form . . . ​all the Statutes of E ­ ngland or Great-­Britain, which, before the Revolution, w ­ ere practiced, and which, by the Constitution, Taming the Beach 49

extend to this State; as also all the Publick Acts which have been passed by the Legislature of this State, both before and since the Revolution.” 31 Enlightened reform of state power, rather than any par­tic­u­lar shipwreck, inspired the state’s first wreck law. The 1799 “Act concerning Wrecks” was part of that daunting initiative.32 The Wreck Act, as it was more frequently called, revised and condensed the byzantine British wreck law, setting the terms of debate over ­future legislation rather than significantly altering action on the beach. As he would throughout the revision pro­cess, William Paterson hewed closely to British common and statuary law, and the act’s first section effectively summarized the current state of the British wreck law: “That no vio­lence, wrong or injury, ­shall be offered to the persons or goods on board of any vessel, which ­shall be stranded or wrecked on the coast or territory of this state; but the said persons s­ hall be harbored and relieved, and the said goods secured and preserved for the ­owners, if they appear in due time, or on failure thereof, for the state.” The next six sections of the act echoed William Blackstone’s discussion of wreck law in his landmark Commentaries on the Laws of E ­ ngland (1765–1769). Drawing on l­egal thinking dating back 700  years, Paterson wrote: “No goods or vessel, which s­ hall be cast by the sea on the coast or land of this state, s­ hall be adjudged to be a wreck,” h ­ ere meaning wreccum marius, or “wreck of the sea,” abandoned property that anyone could take. So in a ­legal sense, wrecks no longer existed on the Jersey shore. Neither flotsam nor jetsam could be legally taken from the Jersey beach. Instead, following Edmund I’s 1275 Statute of Westminster, the act stipulated that stranded vessels and their cargoes ­were to be saved by local sheriffs for their rightful ­owners to claim, and if left unclaimed ­after a year and a day, sold at “public vendue,” or auction, for the sake of the state minus costs. Paterson’s statute also incorporated British requirement for o­ wners of saved goods to pay a reasonable reward (known as salvage33) to their finders, a provision first codified by Edward III in 1353. Fi­nally, drawing on statutes enacted during the reign of Queen Anne (1702–1711), Paterson required local sheriffs “on the sea, to give all pos­si­ble and immediate assistance and relief to any vessel stranded, or in danger of being stranded, or in distress, and to the p ­ eople on board the same.” Humanitarian rescue and commercial interests found a careful balance in Paterson’s codification.34 Departing from British pre­ce­dent, the Wreck Act reduced penalties for illegal wrecking (i.e., salvage) activities. In the new republic, reformers expressed doubts about the traditional bodily punishments that had been a staple of colonial life, seeing the new institution of the penitentiary as a more 50 chapter two

humane form of punishment.35 Paterson adapted punishments for illegal wrecking accordingly. He categorized the litany of offenses outlined by Blackstone into three basic categories: “molesting a vessel in distress” or being sal­ vaged, “taking goods out of a vessel in distress,” and “putting up false lights”—­the bugbear of wrecking my­thol­ogy where piratical coastal residents lit bright lights to trick vessels into ­running ashore. As he did with most laws, Paterson eliminated death penalties, replacing them with imprisonment, hard ­labor, and hefty fines. He also reduced penalties for lesser crimes: for “taking goods out of a vessel in distress, &c.,” for example, ­owners ­were entitled to “double damages” rather than “treble value” as was standard in Britain.36 Deficiencies in Paterson’s revision of British wreck law in the Wreck Act soon became apparent as it was applied to the Jersey shore. During the ensuing twenty years the legislature repeatedly modified the state’s wreck law, ultimately creating a novel and effective means of regulating the coastal frontier. In 1805, residents of Monmouth County (which included the Barnegat-­ Squan area u ­ ntil 1850) petitioned the New Jersey Legislative Council to fix the law ­because it “does not answer the salutary purposes intended thereby.” 37 The petition does not survive, but it helped push the legislature to enact a new and, at more than three times as long, more robust wreck act in 1806. Unlike the 1799 Wreck Act, which relied on locally elected sheriffs, the 1806 act created a new coterie of county-­level appointed officials responsible for bringing law and order through the regulation of public space (the foreshore), public safety, and the market economy (acquisition and exchange of goods).38 Commissioners, bonded to the state for $20,000, w ­ ere responsible for summoning “as many men as s­ hall be thought necessary” to assist a distressed vessel, making a “true and perfect inventory” of the cargo before salvage operations commenced, and taking charge of any unclaimed wrecks or stranded property. The 1806 Wreck Act also clarified and revised a number of rules, expectations, and consequences in the first law. Significantly, the 1806 revision codified the payment of “reasonable compensation” to commissioners of wrecks and the men they gathered to rescue and salvage shipwrecked vessels. It enabled a committee of freeholders to s­ ettle disagreements over compensation. The act also itemized several new crimes and corresponding penalties, including a five-­dollar fine for “any constable or other person . . . ​refusing or neglecting to give the assistance required for the saving of any vessel or her cargo.” Fi­nally, stealing goods stranded along the coast would now be prosecuted “as in other cases of theft.” As county-­level appointees, commissioners undermined the localism characteristic of the coastal frontier, and their work built new bureaucratic and Taming the Beach 51

interpersonal connections between the coastal frontier and the state. Commissioners’ official duties also forged links between coastal communities and regional cultural centers through the requirement that they advertise stranded property “in one or more of the public newspapers in this state, and in one or more public newspapers when the value of goods exceeds the sum of five hundred dollars, in the cities of New York and Philadelphia.” 39 New Jersey legislators continued to wrestle with the state’s wreck law for the next fourteen years, clarifying the duties and oversight of commissioners of wrecks to ensure they acted as representatives of centralized state authority rather than upholders of vested local interest. This ongoing pro­cess reflected their strug­g le to adequately define and proj­ect the state’s authority over a physically isolated and dynamic environment. Wreck law stabilized with the passage of the comprehensive “Act concerning Wrecks” in 1820, which combined numerous revisions u ­ nder one statute. At more than four times the length of the original Wreck Act, the 1820 legislation carefully delineated the appointment, duties and compensation of commissioners, the rights of the shipwrecked, the penalties for stealing and embezzling sal­vaged goods, and the pro­cess for settling unclaimed goods. By this law, unclaimed salvage proceeds, which in 1820 amounted to slightly more than $4,000, w ­ ere to be invested “for the support of f­ree schools,” adding another stream of funding to the recently created state School Fund and another linkage ­between coastal shipwreck and enlightened reform.40 The 1820 legislation marked the closure of New Jersey wreck law, and, besides minor amendments in 1836, 1846, and 1856, the 1820 Wreck Act remained in effect into the twentieth ­century ­because it effectively balanced the interests of local citizens, state authority, and the shipwrecked mari­ners, passengers, and o­ wners of wrecked vessels and cargo. By controlling shipwreck and salvage, New Jersey wreck law effectively asserted state control over the state’s coastal spaces.41 Legislative prescriptions are only as effective as their implementation and enforcement. New Jersey’s shipwreck legislation worked on the ground by co-­opting the authority of local elites, a practice also common with federal appointments during the early republic.42 In the Barnegat-­Squan frontier a branch of the influential Forman ­family filled that role. The ­family wielded significant po­liti­cal and social power across the state. The Revolution had secured the f­ amily’s position among New Jersey’s power brokers and lured the clan’s patriarch, General David Forman, to Barnegat-­Squan. Known as “Devil David” for his merciless suppression of local Loyalists, General Forman invested heavi­ly in the Union Saltworks located just south of the Manasquan River. In a serious conflict of interest, he stationed a com­pany of soldiers at 52 chapter two

the incomplete site and had them work as laborers while ordering militia away from a competing saltworks. Censured by General George Washington and the New Jersey Council of Safety, Forman removed the troops from the Union Saltworks only to have the British destroy the site three times between April 1778 and April 1880. Po­liti­cal differences led Forman to resign his command, but he would continue to play influential roles in the Continental Army.43 Two years before the Treaty of Paris formally ended the Revolutionary War, Forman purchased approximately 100 acres of foreclosed “lands, salt meadows, Beatches, and Ceadar Swamps . . . ​at Manasquan & on Manasquan beatch” that had passed down through Joseph Lawrence’s ­family.44 David Forman acquired three smaller lots before selling all four to his cousin’s son, Samuel Forman, for 315 pounds in 1789.45 Unlike David, Samuel settled on his land, located just south of the mouth of the Manasquan River. Like many New Jerseyans who pulled up stakes during this period, he was prob­ably “motivated principally by the push of declining prospects, [which] added to the attraction of new lands,” particularly the still-­isolated yet resource-­rich Barnegat-­Squan frontier.46 Samuel Forman prospered in his new home and became a leader in the developing community. His first forays into local politics ended as most did: he lost elections for Monmouth county coroner in 1792 and sheriff in 1793, 1794, and 1796. He persevered and soon prospered, however, being listed as a freeholder in 1795 and d ­ oing minor l­egal work, including settling estates during the late 1790s. By the 1810s Forman had earned the honorific esquire. While his surname brought appointed positions, like customs inspector u ­ nder the short-­ lived 1809 embargo, Samuel Forman’s own efforts earned him the re­spect of his community. In 1799, they fi­nally elected him sheriff with 56 ­percent of the vote. In this position, he became responsible for not only law and order on land but also shipwreck rescue and salvage efforts on the beach ­under the recently promulgated “Act concerning Wrecks.” 47 Evidence is scarce, but Forman apparently did good work. Significantly, he was the only elected officer to run unopposed in Monmouth County in 1800 and 1801. The few scraps of paper that document his work supervising coastal shipwrecks suggest how Forman leveraged local resources to successfully salvage wrecks in his jurisdiction. A terse receipt dated October  9, 1800, for “ten shillings for one day [of ] work at the vessel” paid by Forman to William Liminey is the earliest surviving rec­ord of Forman’s shipwreck work.48 In all probability this was not the first wreck he had participated in; ­there ­were at least thirteen wrecks in Barnegat-­Squan between the time Forman arrived in 1789 and this receipt. Coastal shipwrecks ­were community Taming the Beach 53

events in which local leaders (and aspiring leaders like Samuel Forman) would have participated. By 1802, he had the salvage operation down pat. In addition to saving “fourteen sails some rigging and blocks one boat spare and twenty crates in bad order” from a stranded brig, Forman hired a local vessel to ferry 17 bales, 11 boxes, 1 barrel, 21 crates, and “16 peaces of Casamor” to their final destination.49 State and federal leaders would repeatedly turn to him to regulate shipwrecks in the Barnegat-­Squan frontier ­because he was from a “respectable” f­ amily, he had the personal authority and local re­spect to do it, and he got the job done. The Monmouth County Court of Common Pleas appointed him commissioner of wrecks in 1806, shortly ­after the customs collector at Perth Amboy authorized him to “take charge of the vessel and cargo” anytime a vessel wrecked, “regardless of the formalities of the law,” to ensure proper duties ­were paid.50 Regulating shipwrecks became a f­ amily business for the Barnegat-­Squan Formans. Whereas Samuel Forman managed at least eleven wrecks between 1800 and his death in 1816, his son, John S. Forman, would oversee approximately seventy between 1819 and 1857. John had been born and raised in the Barnegat-­Squan frontier. By one account, he devoted “a good portion of the year to farming, fishing, and sailing, [while] the winter months ­were devoted to study, [and acquiring] a good En­glish education.” 51 While undoubtedly benefiting from his f­ amily name, John strived to earn local, country, state, and federal positions. At the age of twenty-­one he enlisted in an artillery battery during the final months of the War of 1812 and began a term as a township assessor. John’s local leadership solidified in 1819. First, he was elected surveyor of highways, an influential position for a developing frontier. Second, following in the footsteps of his ­father, he joined the Second Battalion of the Third Regiment of the Monmouth County Militia. For five years, John Forman served as paymaster and l­ ater lieutenant, overseeing and training many of the men he ­later employed on Squan Beach to rescue and salvage shipwrecked p ­ eople and materials. Indeed, it would be easy to confuse Forman’s battalion rec­ords with his shipwreck rec­ords; many of the same surnames—­Osborn, Davison, Allen, Wainwright, Tilton, Vannot, and Tuax— repeatedly appear in both. Fi­nally, he married Sarah Gifford, a young ­woman from a well-­to-do inland ­family, on December 29, 1819. Three ­daughters ­were born over the next four years.52 By his mid-­twenties, John had accrued the social and cultural capital necessary to exert authority on the coastal frontier. During this time, he began terms in elected and appointed positions in local, state, and federal governments, several of which he held for de­cades. In 1818, the Perth Amboy cus54 chapter two

toms collector named the twenty-­five-­year-­old deputy inspector at Squan, a post he held (as inspector ­after 1823), minus a short hiatus during the early 1840s, through his sixty-­eighth birthday.53 Two years l­ ater, as the capstone Wreck Act became law, he became a “deputy wreckmaster” u ­ nder his ­father’s successor, Captain David Newberry. John had signed the petition recommending the 1816 appointment of Newberry, “an honest, carefull, prudent and capable man to have the appointment of Rackmaster.” 54 The few surviving rec­ords suggest Forman performed his duty as expected. In 1824, the insurance agent for the wrecked ship Amity made him “lawful agent for the wreck of the ship Amity and all property that may be saved from her.” 55 Forman’s adroit h ­ andling of the schooner Hannah Anne’s salvage two years l­ ater led the president of the New York–­based Union Insurance Com­pany to write: “I understand you w ­ ill be candidate for the appointment of WreckMaster for the district vacated by Mr. Newberry and I assure you I should be much gratified at your succeeding in obtaining it. The character of the state of new Jersey, no less than the commercial interests of this city demand that that impor­tant Office should be filled by a man of your habits and character.” 56 Two weeks ­later, the Monmouth County Court of Common Pleas appointed Forman commissioner of wrecks, a logical progression for the established thirty-­two-­year-­old. Forman, his cousin, Cornelius Forman, and local businessman Abraham Osborn Jr. put up the hefty $10,000 bond, twice the minimum proscribed by the 1820 Wreck Act. John would hold the post for the next twenty-­six of thirty-­one years, a rare feat considering few commissioners held the post for more than two one-­to five-­year terms.57 Forman’s skilled h ­ andling of salvage operations gave the entire community a stake in ­legal salvage. Unlike plundering, which enriched few, Forman made l­ egal salvage benefit many. He spread the salvage windfall across the community, hiring dozens of men and employing community leaders as much as pos­si­ble, ensuring their cooperation rather than illicit competition. ­L egal salvage paid well, and men w ­ ere required by wreck law to assist when called upon by a commissioner of wrecks. Refusal resulted in a five-­dollar fine “to be recovered, with costs, by any commissioner.” 58 The August 1830 salvage of the schooner Harriet Francis was typical. Forman hired thirty-­three men to salvage the stranded schooner. They earned two dollars a day, and most worked less than three days except Peter Wainwright, owner of a local store, who worked six. Wainwright also supplied $12.50 worth of “Liquor” to the wreckers, a common expense on con­temporary salvage bills. Sixteen men spent at least one night guarding the wreck and sal­vaged goods. For the first two days, seven men guarded the vessel and cargo that washed ashore. Taming the Beach 55

­ fter that, just four, a decrease attributed to the consolidation of sal­vaged A materials that had been strewn along the coast and susceptible to opportunistic stealing. Forman likely hired so many guards less out of fear of any plundering than a desire to offer his neighbors an opportunity to earn more money in ­legal salvage. For the eleven-­day effort, Forman earned forty-­four dollars at his standard rate of four dollars per day. The supplies, ser­vices, and ­labor of ­legal salvage ­were mostly paid for by the auction of sal­vaged goods, be they parts of the cargo, the vessel, or, in some cases, the vessel itself.59 The entire community also benefited from the public auction of shipwrecked goods, which further solidified local support for a well-­regulated beach. Auctions, advertised in regional newspapers as required by wreck law, paid salvage expenses and compensated insurers or ­owners of the wreck. “I think,” wrote the agent of the wrecked brig Daniel, “Captain Smith and you had better have such of the materials as are not worth sending to New York sold on the Beach and the chains, anchors, sails, and part of the rigging. Boat &c. taken to New York and sold as is [which] appears to be the request of the underwriters. . . . ​Should ­there not be sufficient sold on the Beach to pay the Salvage and other charges Captain Smith’s draft on me . . . ​­will be honored.” 60 Daniel’s auction rec­ords do not survive, but the auction of the schooner Harriet Francis’s “sails, riggon, cables, anchors,” cargo of granite building stones, and hull brought in $401.45 the following summer. A ­ fter expenses, the schooner’s ­owners w ­ ere left with just $67.70. They should have considered themselves lucky; ­owners of some wrecked vessels received a bill rather than a remittance.61 Beachside auctions drew large crowds of locals e­ ager to procure deeply discounted goods. Many used part of the wages they earned to buy every­ thing from ship’s fittings, brooms, and broken stoves to bags of beans, peas, and coffee.62 Thirteen years before the Minturn wreck, Joseph Borden earned $16.33 working the wreck of the barque A. J. Donelson—­$9 from 3½ days of ­labor and 1 night of guard duty, $3.33 for renting “1/3 boats of 2½ days,” and $4 for “1 day [of ] carting.” At the auction on April 2, 1835, he spent $1.26 on a “barrel tool chest,” “1 barrel & kegs,” and a “shovel.” Forman, who had overseen the barque’s extensive two-­week salvage operation, which involved some ninety men, both ran the auction and purchased a few items, including “1/2 barrel tar,” “boxes & keg,” two shovels, and a “lot [of ] spars” worth $8.47. He had prob­ably earned around thirty dollars, based on his typical four-­dollar daily rate.63 Locals often purchased entire wrecks in order to strip them of valuable fittings, “wreck” them in the parlance of the day, for l­ ater resale. Blacksmiths regularly traveled to the beach when they “heard t­ here 56 chapter two

was some wrecks ashore” b ­ ecause they “expected to get some iron on the beach; iron is frequently bought on the beach from persons who purchase vessels and wreck them,” as one blacksmith explained in the mid-1840s.64 ­These seaside auctions foreshadowed the commercialized mass spectacles that would come to characterize the Jersey shore in the ­later de­cades of the nineteenth ­century. As his long c­ areer suggests, Forman earned the approbation of just about every­one. He engineered local buy-in of the well-­regulated littoral, but his success and longevity as commissioner of wrecks rested on his ability to balance local interests with ­those of shipwrecked crews, underwriters, ­owners, state authorities, and the press. Significantly, no formal complaints against John Forman survive despite the fact that many communities criticized their commissioners of wrecks. In 1850, dozens of inhabitants of the “wreck district” just north of the Manasquan River petitioned the Court of Common Pleas to divide their district in half, complaining the fourteen-­mile district was “too large, and from the formation of the coast and rivers and the location of the inhabitants, too incon­ve­nient to form one Wreck District.” They also protested that “a commissioner on one side of the river [dividing the district] employed the laborers t­ here, and not employing the laborers on the other side dissatisfies the latter at a time when the good feelings and effort of all should be engaged.” 65 Forman carefully spread the wealth of ­legal salvage around his twenty-­four-­mile-­long wreck district, eschewing favoritism for fairness while strengthening community. Forman also cultivated close working relationships with New York and Philadelphia underwriters. His adroit h ­ andling of wreck ­after wreck in his district built their trust in him. Between the end of January and the end of March 1832, five vessels wrecked along the coastline ­under his jurisdiction. Forman oversaw the salvage of e­ very one of them, hiring boats, scows, carts, and more than 180 men, not an insignificant number on the still-­isolated New Jersey oceanfront. He supervised the transshipment of materials and managed the public auctions of sal­vaged goods, keeping meticulous, if somewhat unor­ga­nized, rec­ords of all this activity in small cloth-­bound books and scraps of paper.66 He settled the last salvage bills and auction accounts as his second term neared its end. The presidents of nine of New York City’s largest marine insurance companies could not have been happier with his work, and they signed a glowing letter supporting Forman’s reappointment a few months ­later, stating they had “formed a very favorable opinion of his integrity and competency, [and] most respectfully solicit his reappointment.” 67 The letter worked—­the court reappointed him to another five-­year term. Taming the Beach 57

Forman became a source of stability on the still isolated, relatively desolate coast. While most wreck districts had a frequent turnover in their commissioner of wrecks, Forman held his post for twenty-­six years, becoming a man upon whom risk-­averse insurers came to rely.68 During the 1830s, he developed a strong working relationship with James Bergen, the New York wreck agent for dozens of American marine insurance companies. In 1838, Bergen issued Forman a letter of introduction that assured shipwrecked captains: “He has transacted a g­ reat deal of business in relation to wrecked property for underwriters very satisfactorily and his capacity to advise in all cases is undoubted. You may therefore accept his ser­vices with the fullest confidence that all his acts ­will give satisfaction.” 69 When Forman’s reappointments came up in 1837 and 1842, Bergen wrote long, laudatory letters to the court of common pleas. Bergen summarized his thoughts on the commissioner on the eve of Forman’s first reappointment: “He has always been foremost to prevent plunder and anxious to secure the guilty. His complete knowledge of the sea shore inhabitants of his district gives him a g­ reat advantage in selecting the best and most honest men for employment and this I know he does without regard to their politics or religion. I never knew him even by accident to employ a man who turned out dishonest. He has that kind of experience which can only be acquired by years of preserving industry and although his district is rather large, he has managed to give complete satisfaction by his promptness and entire good conduct and by g­ oing strictly ­according to the letter of the law.” 70 If Forman did not allow politics to influence his decision-­making, his superiors certainly did. In December  1841, Forman suffered the fate of a staunch Demo­crat holding an appointed federal position in a Whig administration. On December 3rd, he received a terse one-­sentence letter from the collector of the Perth Amboy customs district: “Your Ser­vices as Inspector of the revenue for the District of Perth Amboy w ­ ill not be required in the ­future.” 71 Forman’s fifth reappointment came up months ­later in the midst of a po­liti­cal upheaval in state and national politics. The preceding fifteen years had witnessed an increasingly acrimonious and partisan po­liti­cal landscape as Jacksonian Democracy rewrote the American po­liti­cal playbook.72 In 1842, state politics trumped local knowledge and expert advice. Despite his popularity as an appointed commissioner of wrecks, no appeal swayed the court to reappoint Forman. Not the creation of a second commissioner position, a consequence of Forman’s district being split into two. Nor another glowing letter of support by Bergen that concluded: “Years have but tended to make certainty more certain—if pos­si­ble—­that no man can do the duty 58 chapter two

better than he.” 73 Not even a petition signed by 157 “citizens of Monmouth County” boasting that Forman “has been severely tried and never found wanting” moved the court to reappoint Forman.74 The consequences of filling the commissioner of wrecks office with a po­liti­cal appointment rather than a skilled, knowledgeable, and trusted citizen w ­ ere hardly surprising. An editorial, commenting on the alleged mishandling of the John Minturn rescue, lamented: “Unfortunately, the former efficient wreckmaster, John S. Forman, was removed from office on account of his politics, and a man with ­little skill, and less energy, has his place.” 75 Forman’s failure to secure reappointment in 1842 was a setback he had not experienced since losing elections for county coroner in 1822 and state assemblyman in 1824. He other­wise played the po­liti­cal game very well. A ­ fter proving his leadership and ability as commissioner of wrecks in the 1820s, Forman secured increasingly prominent and influential positions at local, county, and state levels: in 1829, he was appointed justice of the peace; in 1840, a judge for the Monmouth County Court of Common Pleas. Despite the setbacks in 1842, Forman’s star continued to rise in the 1840s. He was appointed a notary public, a master of the chancery court, and a member of vari­ous county and state committees. He served on the committee that created Ocean County in 1850. He joined the committee seeking to erect a monument commemorating the ­Battle of Monmouth. Forman’s ­father, Samuel, blew the fife at the ­battle. The year ­after the Minturn debacle the court of common pleas reappointed Forman commissioner of wrecks; he held the post for another de­cade. By almost ­every account, Forman filled ­these public posts “with ability and fidelity.” All the while he continued to do minor l­ egal work for his neighbors. As one account, published ­after Forman’s death, concluded: “He prob­ably settled as many estates and handled as much trust money as any other man. . . . ​His integrity and honesty w ­ ere never questioned. He was the noblest of God’s creation, ‘an honest man.’ ” 76 That ­assessment, however, was not held by all. Forman ably navigated local and state politics, forging lasting relationships that helped tame the coastal frontier by being a source of stability and predictability on a dynamic beach. But he could not compete with sensational newspapers’ increasing appetite for exciting, scandalous shipwreck narratives. Forman had a complicated relationship with newspapers. Wreck law required him to advertise unclaimed sal­vaged material and auctions in local and metropolitan newspapers. He also turned to the papers to help him locate ­owners and underwriters of vessels wrecked in his district. In the pro­ cess, Forman became the de facto local news source on shipwrecks in Taming the Beach 59

Barnegat-­Squan. The following, published by the New York Spectator, is representative: “A letter from Mr. Forman, wreckmaster, dated Island Beach, 25th inst. States that the brig Frontier, [Captain] Lincoln, from Eastport for this port, with a cargo of lumber, was wrecked on Saturday night at that place. The deck load was thrown overboard—­the cargo ­under deck was expected to be saved. The tide flowed through the vessel. The wreckmaster wishes instruction from the interested as to the disposal of such of the cargo as may be saved.” 77 The regular correspondence between commissioners of wrecks and regional newspapers, exemplified by this notice, significantly decreased the isolation of the coast and the mysteries of coastal shipwrecks that had characterized the early nineteenth-­century coastal frontier. Frequent communication did not, however, translate into trust of character. Forman began ­running into conflict with increasingly sensationalist newspapers that disregarded the well-­regulated real­ity of the Barnegat-­Squan region at the very moment the coast became effectively regulated. By the 1840s, a sensational, ­imagined frontier had emerged just as the frontier-­in-­ fact alongshore entered the history books. The same papers that published his informational letters and praised his fidelity occasionally turned Forman into a nefarious wrecker and his district into the haunt of lawless gangs of thieves, extortionists, and murderers. ­These lurid accounts of Jersey wreckers climaxed with the 1846 Minturn wreck. “Land Pirates,” began the Philadelphia Public Ledger’s account of the disaster, “unprincipled wretches who infest that portion of the Jersey shore . . . ​detestable vampyres” who stripped bodies of valuables and gave bills to grieving relatives.78 One of ­those “vampyres” was John Forman himself who, in his capacity as acting coroner, asked ­people claiming the bodies of victims to pay $12.27 for expenses related to “recovering and guarding the body and the funeral expenses, and the coroner’s fees.” This warranted, reasonable, perfectly l­ egal request was interpreted by several newspapers as extortion, and was a key impetus for convening the commission that investigated the Minturn wreck.79 How did this fixture of the coast, a man well known to the newspapers, who helped tame the coastal frontier, became a common criminal whose actions set off a state investigation?

Rise of the Wrecker Pirate Ironically, the fictional Barnegat-­Squan wrecker—­a violent, piratical criminal who lured ships to their destruction for plunder and pillage—­emerged in American popu­lar culture at the very time the a­ ctual Barnegat-­Squan re60 chapter two

gion had been effectively regulated. The roots of this image lay in the region’s long association with pirates, privateers, and war­time raids. Beginning in the 1830s, popu­lar repre­sen­ta­tions of Barnegat-­Squan increasingly fixated on the criminal wrecker, a consequence of the emerging national print culture, the first stirrings of coastal tourism, and a milieu astutely attuned to stories of vio­lence. By the time Minturn wrecked in 1846, contemporaries would have agreed with one ­later scholar’s conclusion that “wreckers seem almost as necessary as saltwater taffy to give the shore its peculiar flavor.” 80 The writers and artists who created the violent, lawless Barnegat-­Squan stole from the region’s rich history. They also drew upon the rich body of wrecker myths and legends that had been circulating around the Atlantic World for centuries.81 Local stories of buried pirate trea­sure had been told along the coast since the 1670s. None other than Captain Kidd was alleged to have buried a chest of trea­sure ­under Jersey sand. ­These stories ­were anything but farfetched—­pirates and privateers routinely seized vessels off the Jersey shore for much of the eigh­teenth ­century, peaking during the “Golden Age” of piracy of the 1720s.82 A “Pirate Sloop” manned by “36 or 37 Men, two of whereof ­were Artists, and 15 or 16 of them Negroes and Molattoes,” terrorized vessels off New Jersey in the summer of 1717.83 Five years l­ ater, a New ­England paper published a report from Philadelphia that “Pyrate Brigantine and Sloop have been seen cruising on and off both of our Capes for above Three Weeks. . . . ​What Vessels they have took we do not yet understand, none of the Prisoners being set on Shore. Our Trade is entirely s­ topped by them, no Vessel daring to go out. . . . ​They ­were both seen on Thursday last cruising about their old Station, not fearing disturbance from the Men of War, who, by dear Experience we know, love Trading better than fighting.” 84 The pirates kept coming. A black sloop, “supposed to be a Spanish privateer,” was seen off Cape May in 1740. More Spanish privateers joined French privateers off Jersey throughout the de­cade. As late as June 1748, the New York Gazette identified fourteen privateers cruising the coast between Sandy Hook and South Carolina. Piracy and privateering declined in the wake of Eu­ro­ pean peace and increased British enforcement of trade regulations in its American colonies during the 1760s.85 Wrecks and pirates had been intertwined since the first published account of a shipwreck on the Jersey coast in 1705, which detailed the wreck of a heavi­ly armed “Private Ship of War” whose commander the paper noted had been “­earlier imprisoned as one of Capt. Kidd’s men, but released without bail.” 86 The first surviving published account of illegal wrecking appeared sixty-­one years l­ ater when a survivor of a ship stranded thirty miles south of Taming the Beach 61

Barnegat stole a “wagon load of goods.” As would be typical of pillaged wrecks during the following ­century, survivors rather than locals plundered wrecks. But in the context of rising tensions caused by the Stamp Act (which had yet to be repealed) and growing fears of vio­lence and anarchy, Governor William Franklin responded to this threat to law and order on the beaches swiftly. Within days of the event he ordered “all Justice of the peace, Sherrifs, and all other civil and military Officers . . . ​[to] assist and protect all persons ­under the misfortune of shipwreck in saving and securing the goods and merchandizes . . . ​to apprehend and commit to the gaal . . . ​persons who ­shall be found plundering . . . ​and to search any places which ­shall be proved to be suspicious.” 87 His swift response and the paucity of published accounts suggest the infrequency of illegal wrecking along the coast during the eigh­ teenth ­century. The American Revolution scarred New Jersey. Squan Inlet, which separated Loyalist strongholds to the north from revolutionaries to the south and west, became a battleground routinely associated with murder, plunder, and intentional shipwreck. In April 1778, a contingent of 135 British troops landed on the south side of the inlet and “burnt all the salt-­works, broke the ­kettles, &c. stripped the beds, &c. of some ­people ­there, who, I fear, wished to serve them.” 88 In September 1779, British warships drove two armed vessels ashore at almost the same spot. Seven months ­later a British frigate drove the privateer brig Rattlesnake ashore at Squan Beach. Three of the crew drowned swimming through the breakers and the British, in close pursuit, “plundered and set her [the Rattlesnake] on fire.” 89 In early April 1780, a midnight raid against “a rebel post at Squan . . . ​was much mortified in finding the Post had been withdrawn” but the British still managed to take six or seven prisoners.90 Seven months l­ater, the Pennsylvania Eve­ning Post celebrated the apprehension of smugglers trading between Squan and “the ­enemy” in New York.91 In April  1782, readers up and down the seaboard read about “a captain Hurdy, who was taken by the refugees . . . ​[and] brought on shore, near Squan, by a party of the murderers, and hung . . . ​ in retaliation for a refugee who . . . ​our ­people had shot.” The incident actually took place twenty miles north of Squan, but the press situated it near a site renowned for its violent associations, Squan.92 The specter of vio­lence did not cling to Barnegat-­Squan ­after the Revolution. Between the early 1790s, when Samuel Forman moved his ­family t­ here, and President James Madison’s declaration of war against G ­ reat Britain in June 1812, more than sixty vessels wrecked in Barnegat-­Squan. ­There ­were no published reports of murder, looting, or land piracy. In fact, what dis62 chapter two

tinguishes con­temporary accounts of t­hese wrecks is just how mundane shipwrecks had once again become. Blurbs in “Shipping News” columns in regional papers reported the location of wrecks “at Squan Beach” or “Barnegat,” described vessels, and offered information about the status of any salvage efforts. A representative example: “In the late hard gales of wind came on shore at Squan beach the ship Union, of New York, Captain William Whitlock, from Liverpool, bound to New York.—­The crew and cargo, we hear are saved; the ship it is thought ­will be lost.” 93 Advertisements for public auctions of sal­vaged goods and materials, and sometimes even the hull itself occasionally appeared as well.94 So while Barnegat-­Squan remained a dangerous stretch of American coast for shipping, it was no longer known as the home of lawless gangs as it had been during the Revolution. In fact, the region was a place on the early republic coastal frontier where ships often wrecked and where salvage—at least partial salvage—­remained a ­viable possibility. The War of 1812 recast Barnegat-­Squan as the site of villainous depreciations; pirates; armed, belligerent locals; and intentional wrecking (luring a ship ashore so it could be plundered). A ­ fter the war began, British vessels of war returned to forcing American vessels ashore. Some, like the schooner Loroan, escaped through Barnegat or Squan Inlets. O ­ thers, like the sloop Cornelia, missed the inlet and “took fire immediately a­ fter she struck upon the Beach and burnt to the w ­ aters edge.” 95 The British once again acted with impunity along the American coast. As John S. Forman ­later reminisced: “It was a favorite custom of the En­glish cruisers to send a barge ashore, at some point on the coast, kill and dress a number of ­cattle, and take the beef back to the ship with them.” 96 Such a raid near the Forman farm in April 1813 also involved the burning of five American vessels in Barnegat Bay. Like intentional wrecking, this raid became national news, reestablishing the region as a dangerous place in the country’s imagination.97 Two months l­ater, the Trenton, New Jersey, True American reported “a British ship of war chased two American vessels into Squan River but w ­ ere saved by the militia assembling in such numbers as to deter the pirates from approaching to burn them.” The Formans w ­ ere among the 180 militiamen who gathered, as John Forman recounted, “­under arms and on the lookout.” As this national news story made clear, Squan locals ­were armed and dangerous and intimately tied to intentional shipwreck.98 Peace vanquished the “pirates” from the greater New York littoral and Barnegat-­Squan again shed its piratical reputation. Less than two months ­after the Senate ratified the Treaty of Ghent, an armed schooner ferrying Taming the Beach 63

more than 150 sailors from New York to Baltimore wrecked on Squan Beach. Newspapers around the country reported the travails of the crew and the “unexpected and extraordinary preservation” by locals of “all but forty-­nine” of the schooner’s compliment. Despite the enormous loss of life, Samuel Forman, the agent in charge of the materials recovered from the schooner, did not face the accusations his son would in the aftermath of Minturn.99 The number of shipwrecks on the Jersey shore increased dramatically as trade through the ports of New York and Philadelphia expanded in the 1810s and 1820s. Only one published report of illegal wrecking appeared through the early 1830s. In March 1818, several papers published an account of the wreck of the schooner Mary Ann, noting: “Her cargo consisted of mahogany and coffee. The mahogany was saved, but we understand the coffee was pillaged.” 100 This exception attests to just how well regulated the coast had become; purloined sacks of coffee warranted sustained attention rather than idle indifference. Regulation rather than rampant criminality and theft characterized Barnegat-­Squan ­under Samuel Forman. Regulation grew stronger with the improved 1820 Wreck Act and the diligent work of commissioners of wrecks like John Forman. Real­ity was a far cry from the sensationalist accounts of murder and mayhem that would come to dominate descriptions of Barnegat-­Squan wreckers. ­After 1830, an increasing number of published reports of Jersey “land pirates” began to appear. The image was based on one relatively minor larceny that came to be known as the Squire Platt affair. In 1834, a group led by William Platt, a local justice of the peace and former commissioner of wrecks, stole an anchor and several bags of coffee, barrels of mackerel, and boxes of soap from wrecks ashore near Barnegat Inlet. The decisive response by insurers, which included New York City detectives, the “Marshall of New Jersey,” federal customs agents, and the revenue cutter Alert, illustrates how well regulated and connected the Barnegat-­Squan region had become to state and federal power. The episode sharply contradicts the mob vio­lence and pervasive “danger of anarchy” that preoccupied urban elites in the mid-1830s.101 Compared with urban Amer­i­ca, the coast was remarkably well regulated and comparatively benign. The task force hunted down Squire Platt in the Jersey Pinelands in the winter and dozens more w ­ ere taken into custody in a massive multistate operation. The U.S. district attorney for New Jersey filed forty indictments that led to ten convictions. Memories of t­ hese pirates linger to this day—­Barnegat Township has celebrated “Pirate’s Day” the first week of ­every September since 1990.102 64 chapter two

­These Jersey “Land Pirates,” or “Banditti” as newspapers named them, captured Americans’ imagination. Piracy was a fash­ion­able topic in the early 1830s as the saga of what would be the last significant act of piracy in the Atlantic Ocean played out. In August  1832, the crew on the Africa-­bound Spanish slave ship Panda boarded the brig Mexican in mid ocean and stole $24,000 in specie before slashing the sails, imprisoning the crew, and setting the brig on fire. The crew escaped, repaired Mexican, and sailed it back to Salem, Mas­sa­chu­setts. A British man-­of-­war captured the pirate crew off Africa and delivered sixteen of them to Salem a few months before the Squire Platt affair story broke. A late nineteenth-­century historian accurately deduced how the Mexican piracy and trial ­shaped repre­sen­ta­tions and popu­lar perceptions of the Platt affair: “The crime was most extraordinary and the trial most impor­tant and in­ter­est­ing. Thus, the popu­lar mind was excited to the highest pitch, and when a few of the inhabitants of old Monmouth county robbed some vessels upon our coast, during the same period of the excitement occasioned by the above trial and executions, it can not be doubted that the above mentioned fact stimulated the clamorous cry of ‘Land Pirates.’ ” 103 The centrality of Barnegat-­Squan to the country’s emerging national news market, as much as any broader predisposition for stories of piracy, turned a shoreline larceny into a sensation. As the increasingly efficient postal system ferried metropolitan papers to provincial editors, stories of the Platt affair published in the New York Spectator, New York Gazette, New York Courier, New York Transcript, and Newark Daily Advertiser spread across the country.104 ­These stories exaggerated the extent of the theft and the number of New Jerseyans involved. “So numerous has the gang been,” alleged the Salem Gazette, “that although the authorities (and a few ­others not implicated in the neighborhood) knew of the piratical proceedings, they ­were absolutely afraid to give information, or to molest them, for fear of being murdered or burnt in their dwellings.” 105 In fact, justice came swiftly and court proceedings made clear that relatively few coastal inhabitants participated in the crime and many assisted the investigation. The sensational stories, however, ­were also among the first widely distributed, highly vis­i­ble, extended accounts of the Barnegat-­Squan region—­indeed of the American beach. As such, they would remain cultural touchstones for generations.106 Fictional portrayals rehashed the most salacious accusations of murder, robbery, and intentional wrecking. New York’s Bowery Theatre put on The Barnegat Pirates, an anonymous melodrama “founded on a wreck and a robbery off Barnegat,” as the t­ rials relating to the Platt affair concluded.107 Taming the Beach 65

Frontispiece from Charles Averill’s 1846 novel The Wreckers; Or, The Ship-­Plunderers of Barnegat (Boston, 1846) depicts Rodolf Raven, “pirate fiend, scourge of the coast.” Courtesy of the John Hay Library, Brown University.

A similar rush to profit from ever-­more-­sensational (and even less founded) accounts of piratical Barnegat-­Squan wrecks occurred a­ fter the Minturn wreck ten years l­ ater. Currier & Ives quickly produced a lithograph of the disaster for an audience keen for visual images of horrific disasters. Charles Averill’s melodramatic novel The Wreckers; Or, The Ship-Plunderers of Barnegat (1846) drew heavi­ly from the Squire Platt affair and defined the terms for fictionalized accounts of the region for the ensuing ­century. The first chapter includes a “mysterious girl,” a handsome naval officer, a shipwreck, several murders, and an introduction to Rodolf Raven, keeper of the government light­house, “pirate fiend, scourge of the coast,” and leader of the gang of “accursed wreckers.” The rest of the book continues an overdramatized, sensationalist, overwrought, and misleading account of shipwreck and salvage in midcentury Barnegat-­Squan that bore almost no reflection of real­ity. Fiction writers have rehashed and reworked Averill’s ship plunderers for e­ very subsequent generation to the pre­sent.108 The first stirrings of coastal tourism also contributed to the proliferation of stories about piratical wreckers, seaside robbery, and murder. By the 1830s farmers and fishermen up and down the Jersey shore, including John Forman, w ­ ere renting rooms to summer visitors and enterprising hunters from New York, Newark, and Philadelphia. As the resources—­particularly forests and fisheries—­that undergirded the shore economy became increasingly scarce, coastal residents turned to the developing tourism industry for ready cash.109 As they would de­cades ­later, residents prob­ably occupied their visitors with embellished yarns of shipwrecks and salvage on nearby beaches. John Forman, for his part, would be renowned for his tales of coastal derring-­do.110 Like published fiction, ­these stories of an isolated, dangerous shore became the dominant popu­lar narrative of the Barnegat-­Squan region. Ironically, ­these stories emerged only ­after the shore had become a well-­ regulated, thoroughly integrated space visited by vacationing families and recreational hunters. the foundations of the highly regulated modern American beach ­were forged by state-­level efforts to regulate shipwreck and salvage in the early de­cades of the nineteenth ­century. Shipwrecks brought the state to the shore. Initially inspired by enlightened statecraft, wreck law became the primary means by which the state of New Jersey regulated its beaches ­until ­after the Civil War.111 From the beginning, alongshore regulations prescribed enlightened be­hav­ior of coastal residents while protecting the property interests of distant property o­ wners. Legislators turned to local elites to enact the law Taming the Beach 67

on the beach. Dozens of men served as commissioners of wrecks along the New Jersey shore during the nineteenth c­ entury. They maintained order at isolated disasters, mobilized l­ abor on a desolate frontier, and supervised the rescue and recovery of shipwrecked goods and ­people while balancing civic, business, and humanitarian duties. Operating u ­ nder the umbrella of novel state wreck laws, commissioners’ effectiveness rested as much on their ability to mediate competing local and outside interests along the shore. Some failed. But on the ­whole, commissioners of wrecks like John Forman tamed a wild frontier, integrating it into the framework of state and federal authority through their personal management of coastal shipwrecks. The state’s efforts to address shipwrecks and subdue lawless wreckers (real and i­ magined) constituted a thoroughly modern program to simplify and standardize the complex, illegible littoral. Wreck law divided the coast into coherent administrative districts, required a strict accounting of life and ­labor on the beach, and normalized catastrophe. With the drama of shipwrecks rendered in the tidy columns of ledgers, shipwrecks became abstractions for the state to tabulate, adjudicate, and, if none came forward, profit from. In a similar vein, alongshore auctions commodified coastal shipwrecks, turning windswept dunes into sites of commercial exchange, foreshadowing the seaside spectacle of consumption endemic to the modern beach. The dictates of wreck law also fostered durable connections between oceanfront communities and the urban centers of cultural and po­liti­cal power that laid the groundwork for the midcentury American rush to the beach. Beginning in the 1830s, however, popu­lar repre­sen­ta­tions of shipwrecks and salvage began to tell stories of shipwreck and salvage that w ­ ere increasingly removed from the a­ ctual coastal experience. Sensationalist newspapers turned upstanding wreckmasters into disreputable pirates and a rare incident—­illegal wrecking—­into a defining coastal habit. This wrecker my­ thol­ogy drew on centuries of associations with pirates, plunder, and intentional shipwreck, but it ignored the real­ity of the well-­regulated, integrated coast. In the sensationalist 1830s, the story stuck. Not u ­ ntil ­after the Civil War would this ste­reo­type be seriously challenged (it has yet to be eradicated) in popu­lar culture. By the time John Forman died in December 1874, wreckers increasingly referred to professional marine salvors in the popu­lar press even though nostalgic stories of Barnegat “Land Pirates” lingered on the pages of fiction and around beachside campfires frequented by the growing number of tourists and travelers heading to the nation’s burgeoning seaside resorts.112 68 chapter two

chapter three

Transforming the Shore

Tourism, Lifesavers, and the Rise of Quonnie The old wrecks now lying on Rhode Island shores are picturesque when viewed ­under sunny skies, but they have an awful meaning to the mari­ner. —­Newspaper clipping in William Saunders’s scrapbook, ca. 1893

In the m ­ iddle of March 1877 William Franklin Saunders and his new bride, Alzada Anna (née Langworthy)—or Zada as her friends and ­family called her—­splurged on a whirlwind trip visiting relatives and sightseeing, enjoying a second honeymoon during the late winter respite endured by New ­England’s farmer-­fishermen. The ­couple stayed with ­family, taking trains, stages, and ferries in a counterclockwise loop around Rhode Island. Their five days in Newport ­were highlighted by excursions to the resort town’s iconic Cliff Walk and picturesque beaches. By chance, they caught the fireworks celebrating the inauguration of President Rutherford B. Hayes in a city that voted overwhelmingly Republican. The c­ ouple’s four days in Providence included an edifying visit to the state prison and an after­noon jaunt to ­Boston alongside thousands of New E ­ ngland Christian conventioneers to hear an inspired sermon by famed evangelist Dwight  L. Moody and sweet renditions of hymns by the equally renowned gospel singer Ira David Sankey. On Friday, March  16, 1877, the newlyweds departed Providence on an express train for Westerly, Rhode Island, a bustling port on the Connecticut border famous for its granite. A ­ fter a six-­mile wagon r­ ide over rutted roads, the ­couple returned to their isolated seaside farm on the south shore of Rhode Island where, by William’s account, they “found the folks at home.” 1 As the weary travelers slept, the wind shifted 180 degrees north, the temperature dropped, and “heavy snow” began to fall. Roughly a mile south of the farm­house, the schooner John Rose ran ashore. It had departed Philadelphia two days ­earlier with 550 tons of coal consigned for the industrial boilers and home stoves of the “Spindle City,” a moniker heralding Fall River, Mas­sa­chu­setts textile manufacturers. The crew had spent their first night sailing by fickle winds through light rain ­under a moonless sky down the Delaware Bay on a track familiar to the 360-­ton schooner.2 Captain Barrett 69

knew the vessel and route well, as he had been splitting command of John Rose with another man—­a Captain Allen—­since the schooner slid down a Bridgetown, New Jersey, shipyard’s ways in September 1873.3 During the schooner’s five-­year c­ areer, it had ferried coal, ice, grindstones, and other cargo between Philadelphia and New E ­ ngland ports as far north as Pittston, Maine, on the Kennebec River. John Rose’s longest voyage had sent it from Philadelphia, its homeport, to Havana, Cuba, and back two years before it wrecked on the rock-­strewn Rhode Island coast.4 The schooner’s last voyage would be Barrett’s first on John Rose that year. As the schooner entered the Atlantic Ocean from Delaware Bay, it bore up along the New Jersey coast and crossed the main entrance to the port of New York before skirting along the south shore of Long Island. Deteriorating weather likely pushed Barrett t­ oward more protected inshore w ­ aters. A ­ fter passing Montauk Light­house, on Long Island’s eastern end, John Rose headed north to avoid an exposed passage around the south side of Block Island. The schooner—­­whether by miscalculation or malfunction or some combination of the two—­kept ­going u ­ ntil it hit land. Captain Barrett ensured the crew “effected a safe landing” through the offshore wind and snow. Then he sought help on the bleak winter beach.5 As dawn broke, word of the wreck spread through the close-­knit community of Quonochontaug. Local telegraph operators sent word to the schooner’s owner in Philadelphia as Brooklyn typesetters turned rumors the schooner was “bilged” and would “prove a total loss” into statements of fact for East Coast newspaper readers. Professional wreckers w ­ ere more sanguine. A salvage outfit in Newport waited for the weather to moderate before steaming to the scene to salvage the schooner.6 On the beach, local residents likely cared for the survivors, as the nearest government lifesaving fa­cil­i­ty stood almost fifteen miles away. In the morning, William Saunders trekked through the “stormy” weather over the “somewhat rough and rugged” landscape of fallow fields dotted by massive boulders to the sandy beach on which the wreck of John Rose lay.7 This was the first wreck in the area in years, and it was a sight to see for the residents of Quonochontaug, Rhode Island. Located six miles east of Watch Hill, “the former, quite celebrated resort,” and fifteen miles west of “that terror of the navigators,” Point Judith, Quonochontaug embodied the two processes—­tourism and federal intervention—­that transformed how Americans thought about and interacted with their oceanfront during the nineteenth ­century.8 With roots in the country’s colonial past, tourism and state interventions alongshore impacted dif­fer­ent parts of the coast at dif­ 70 chapter three

CONNEC TICUT

R HO DE IS L A N D

Westerly Point Judith

Saunders’s Farm Quonnie Life-Saving Station Watch Hill

BLOCK ISLAND SOUND

Block Island

Montauk Point

ATLANTIC OCEAN

Quonnie

fer­ent times and in dif­fer­ent ways, helping to create the patterns of thought, action, and development that endured into the twentieth ­century. T ­ hese forces of change came comparatively late to Quonochontaug, or Quonnie as the locals still call it. The Quonochontaug Post Office was not established ­until 1849, although it quickly threw the township into the national limelight as a perennial contender for Amer­i­ca’s most “easily pronounced” place names.9 Popu­lar accounts claim the first summer tourists arrived in Quonnie on the eve of the Civil War when summer boarders sought this rural respite in ­favor of the nearby elite summer resort of Watch Hill. Visitors came Transforming the Shore 71

in droves ­after the war. Not ­until 1892, however, was a federal lifesaving station built to provide relief to shipwrecked sailors like t­ hose of John Rose who ­were cast upon its isolated barrier beaches. While only four vessels wrecked on Quonochontaug Beach between 1880 and 1890, the station would go on to provide vital assistance to neighboring stations, which typically responded to multiple wrecks ­every year. Commerce and community grew alongside federal investment. By the eve of World War I, Quonnie was home to three thriving summer resorts—­Weekapaug, Pleasant View, and its namesake, Quonochontaug.10 William and Zada Saunders ­were at the heart of Quonnie’s transformation from rural farmland to tourist playground. William served as the first keeper of the lifesaving station, and the ­couple ­later turned Zada’s inheritance into “one of the finest shore resorts on the New ­England Coast,” at least according to the c­ ouple’s advertising.11 Tourism and federal intervention did not come first—or last—to Quonochontaug. It was neither a harbinger of change nor an oft-­cited exemplar, but like ­every oceanfront community, Quonnie was decisively impacted by the two intertwined forces that recast the country’s eastern frontier in the nineteenth c­ entury. Examining this representative coastal community suggests the scope and forces, if not the pace and timing, of the transformation of the American beach. Coastal shipwrecks w ­ ere the connective thread and catalyst for the expansion of coastal tourism and federal interventions up and down the coast. Federal efforts to control risk by preventing shipwrecks and mitigating their financial and humanitarian costs remade the physical landscape and recast popu­lar perceptions of the American shore. Federal infrastructure became a defining feature on the beach for the increasing number of visitors who traveled to the shore for health and plea­sure. Shipwrecks also contributed to the development of coastal tourism. Many of the first oceanfront boarding­ houses and resorts ­were operated by wreckmasters, salvage masters, and light­house keepers who strove to make the shore safer. William Saunders’s transition from federal lifesaver to tourist booster was hardly unique. Fi­nally, published accounts of shipwreck, salvage, and, increasingly, beach tourism in the country’s rapidly expanding print culture introduced Americans of all stripes to the nation’s oceanfront, contributing to the array of pushes and pulls luring Americans to the shore. By the 1870s, federal intervention and coastal tourism had combined to turn the shore into the workplace of new groups of modern professionals and a play space for urban plea­sure seekers. Shipwrecks, wreck law, and federal interventions, in other words, created the conditions and linkages that fos72 chapter three

tered coastal tourism and ushered in a new economic, social, and cultural regime that fundamentally altered the American littoral. In this way, shipwrecks ­shaped the development of the American beach by luring outsiders—­ the federal government, tourists, and cultural producers—to the eastern fringe of a westward-­moving nation.

The Birth of American Beach Tourism The origins of Amer­i­ca’s love affair with its beaches lay in its colonial past. In the second third of the 1700s, aristocratic expatriates and colonial elites began emulating the recent turn to the shore of their Eu­ro­pean counter­parts. From the fall of Rome to the 1750s, Eu­ro­pean elites had largely avoided the oceanfront. Biblical verses characterized the sea as the home of monsters and storms, a mysterious void outside man’s domain, and a store­house for the ruins and detritus of the G ­ reat Flood. The seashore and its inhabitants, if not ignored, lay along the tenuous border between good land and evil sea. Both ­were best avoided for more uplifting, civilized destinations. Even Robinson Crusoe, reflecting early eighteenth-­century fears of the sea and shore, avoided the coast except to salvage the remnants of his ship and spy on the island’s cannibals throughout his twenty-­eight-­year ordeal. Nonetheless, a raft of cultural and social changes dating from the early seventeenth ­century had collectively eroded the coast’s hostile image by the 1750s. The work of French Baroque poets and Dutch artists coupled with the rise of natu­ral theology encouraged elites to marvel and study the “richness of the sea.” Increased travel to Holland and the emulation of ancient Roman visits to the shores of Campania as parts of the ­Grand Tour turned the shore into a proper destination, a place to be traversed, experienced, studied, and enjoyed. Similarly, Eu­ro­pean exploration of the Amer­i­cas and the vast Pacific spread published descriptions of exotic coastal landscapes and ­peoples that further undermined a millennium of hostility ­toward sea and shore.12 As the image of the beach softened, three forces pushed Eu­ro­pean aristocrats to the beach. The first elites traveling to the shore w ­ ere invalids who came on the order of physicians who prescribed salt air, cold sea baths, vigorous exercise, and, occasionally, drinking seawater as cures for melancholy—or “spleen”—­and sundry other ailments of an emerging urban ruling class. By the time Dr. Richard Russell published his im­mensely influential A Dissertation on the Use of Seawater in the Diseases of the Glands, Particularly, the Scurvy, Jaundice, King’s Evil, Leprosy and the Glandular Consumption (1750), convalescing aristocrats had been drinking and bathing in Transforming the Shore 73

seawater for over a c­ entury. Still, Russell’s scholarly tome ignited a medical enthusiasm for saltwater prescriptions that launched innumerable trips to the seaside and led to the establishment of bathing facilities around ­England and northern Eu­rope, sites that would eventually become popu­lar tourist destinations. With its emphasis on the shore as a refuge, its stress on individual experience and self-­awareness, and its long duration, seaside medical therapy not only brought the first groups of elites to Eu­ro­pean shores, it also laid the groundwork for tourism practices in the United States.13 New aesthetic and scientific discourses buttressed therapeutic injunctions to go to the shore. The terror and fear inspired by the ocean began to take a new shape in the aesthetic treatises of Immanuel Kant, Joseph Addison, Edmund Burke, and o­ thers articulating the idea of the sublime. In 1712, Addison found plea­sure in the horror of contemplating the vast ocean: “I cannot see the heaving of this prodigious bulk of ­waters even in the calm, without a very pleasing astonishment; but when it is worked up in a tempest, so that the Horizon on ­every side is nothing but foaming billows and floating mountains, it is impossible to describe the agreeable horror that rises from such a prospect.” 14 ­Others began to visit the beach in search of idealized views of “beautiful” or picturesque coastal scenes. A trip to the shore became an opportunity to participate in the intellectual ferment of the day, be it experiencing the awe and terror of the sublime; the joy of an ordered, beautiful vista; or the discrete charm of identifying a picturesque marine view. Scientific inquiry complemented emotional inquiry. The growing fascination with geology and the rational investigation of the earth brought untold numbers of amateur scholars and scientists, men and ­women alike, to the shore. ­After a millennium of studied avoidance by the well-­to-do, the beach had become a veritable terra incognita, or unknown land. Visitors swarmed the shores of the British Islands and Eu­ro­pean continent searching for specimens, both known and unknown, to collect, document, and transport home for studied display. Alongshore, educated explorers scaled cliffs and crisscrossed tidal flats to contemplate new conceptions of geologic time, reimagine the role of the sea as creator rather than destroyer, and revel in the physical exertion of scientific inquiry. Hardly idle recreation, trips to the beach became opportunities to learn about the past or engage in con­ temporary philosophical debates.15 In the American colonies, only a handful of Eu­ro­pean expatriates and ­colonial elites had the time and money to travel to the beach for health, plea­sure, or didactic leisure. Conservative estimates suggest that less than 1 ­percent of British colonists visited one of the twenty-­two mineral springs 74 chapter three

in the thirteen colonies in any given year.16 Even fewer actually went to the shore. The colonial American cities where most of the elites lived and worked ­were small, intimate communities where dif­fer­ent social and economic classes lived and worked in close physical proximity to one another. In this space, American elites took ­every opportunity to demonstrate their genteel status in every­thing from the details of their dress and gait to the design of their homes and leisure activities. The isolated, sparsely populated colonial beach did not afford many occasions to display one’s status, so few ventured ­there for play. Urban entertainment, however, did, and it centered on four distinct spaces. In genteel mansions, polite society ate elaborate dinners, played cards, and walked the manicured gardens. In specially built assembly rooms and taverns, refined elites took in theater and concerts and participated in elaborate balls, dinners, and assemblies. In fenced urban parks and urban plea­sure gardens, men and especially w ­ omen engaged in genteel promenading. Fi­nally, countryside carriage rides whisked elites to upscale road ­houses, exclusive taverns, rich fishing spots, and, on very rare occasions, the beach.17 Beach tourism in the United States, like Eu­rope, traces its roots to inland mineral springs culture. Since the early seventeenth c­ entury, therapeutic injunctions, both preventative and curative, inspired the “impotent and diseased” well-­to-do to take extended stays at mineral springs scattered along the seaboard and in the Pennsylvania and ­Virginia backcountry.18 By the 1740s, what had begun as a medical treatment became, according to one historian, “a fash­ion­able indulgence.” 19 Improved transportation—­more and better roads and stage lines as well as regularly scheduled, or packet, sailings—­coupled with improved economic circumstances and the desire to demonstrate gentility and emulate their En­glish peers brought thousands to colonial springs in the wake of the Seven Years War. The gentry, increasingly secure in their wealth, began traveling farther and wider than ever before. Even tradesmen began to possess the funds and time for brief trips to nearby springs for therapeutic treatments and, more importantly, social diversion. Intrepid entrepreneurs established specialized accommodations to serve them all.20 The beach, however, remained a rare choice for North American colonists to visit before the Revolution. Transportation difficulties ­limited the development of seaside destinations to a handful of locales. The first “fash­ion­able” colonial seaside watering hole was a prominent, flourishing New E ­ ngland seaport and Atlantic World commercial hub. Newport, Rhode Island, situated nineteen miles east of Quonochontaug, had drawn genteel visitors from Transforming the Shore 75

across the British colonies since the 1720s. The arrival of Anglican bishop George Berkeley in 1729 only confirmed the pretensions of wealthy planters from Antigua, Ireland, Germany, and Scotland who summered at the genteel resort. By the 1740s, Newport’s “reputation as a place of refinement and science” further solidified with the erection of the third light­house in British North Amer­i­ca on Beavertail Point in 1749.21 As an elite resort, Newport flourished. By one account, it became “the leisure capital of mid-­eighteenth-­century Amer­i­ca and the summer resort of wealthy inhabitants of the southern colonies and the West Indies.” 22 Visitors lauded Newport’s “salubrious” climate as they, in the words of the governor of Grenada Robert Melville, “enjoy[ed] the refined and polished Society of Eu­rope.” From early May through October, the local newspaper, Newport Mercury, noted the arrival of prominent men and ­women—­minor government officials, naval officers, merchant princes, wealthy planters, and their wives—in Amer­i­ca’s first society column. Proprietors advertised a full suite of lodgings from “A Genteel House and Furniture, with a Garden, &c.,” to “several decent rooms and beds unoccupied,” for “gentlemen.” Taverns and tutors, coffee­houses and concerts, even the famed Redwood Library and Athenaeum, the second oldest library in what is ­today the United States, reaped profits from the summer colony where pursuing plea­sure far outweighed pursuing health. Dancing and lavish dinners, h ­ orse races and boat excursions, by all accounts, drew far more visitors than palliative sea bathing and sightseeing along First or Second Beach.23 While health, gentility, and relatively easy transportation brought the ­colonial gentry to Newport, hunting lured aristocratic sportsmen to more desolate oceanfront destinations. By the 1770s, if not ­earlier, Philadelphia’s amateur fishermen and game-­bird hunters took arduous journeys over rough roads through the Pine Barrens to Tuckerton, New Jersey. From ­there, they sailed across Barnegat Bay to the thin barrier island known as Tucker’s Island. On Short Beach, they stayed in Ruben Tucker’s boarding­house, described as a “one-­story ­house with hipped roof and front piazza, standing 500′ from the shore” and “elevated on a heap of sand and shells.” While their lodgings overlooked the Atlantic Ocean, their fishing and fowling took place in the marshes and protected ­waters of Barnegat Bay. “Firsts” are always difficult to ascertain, but many nineteenth-­century historians considered Tucker’s hunting lodge to be New Jersey’s first seaside resort. It would be another ­century before sportsmen regularly hunted Quonnie’s fertile salt ponds and marshes.24 76 chapter three

Recreational hunters and Newport elites ­were, of course, exceptions. Relatively few colonists had the time or means to travel to the shore. Transportation to the coastal frontier remained slow, difficult, and expensive. L­ imited accommodations left few destinations for ­those who ­were willing and able to visit the sea. Residents of Philadelphia, the largest city in what would become the United States, preferred the con­ve­nience of Bristol Springs and other inland spas to the arduous trips to the Jersey shore. Roughhewn roads and the lack of ferry ser­vice and accommodations prevented colonial Bostonians from trekking to Nahant as the city’s elite would regularly do just a few de­cades l­ ater. Only the beaches near the port of New York, a short ferry and ­horse ­ride from the city, saw anything resembling “beach tourism” before the Revolution. On a trip to the city in September 1769, Philadelphia bluebloods Henry and Elizabeth Drinker “crossed the East River to Long Island . . . ​went to Greenwood, and down to the beach or seashore.” Henry swam in the waves while his wife and friends watched. ­After dinner, the group returned to the shore before “crossing ye East River, by moonlight.” Two days l­ ater the Drinkers traveled to Rockaway. ­After lodging “at ye w ­ idow Foster’s,” they “rid down to the Beach, where we all opposed H.D.’s ­going into the surf, it being very high, and H.D. apprehending it dangerous from the undersuck of the waves which break on the Beach . . . ​returned ­towards our Inn.” Seven years l­ater, this Quaker c­ ouple returned to the shore for a week of worship and sea cure. Henry bathed in the saltwater off Shrewsbury, New Jersey, ­every day. His wife reported: “I drank nearly a pint of it [saltwater], which operated largely and speedily.” Elizabeth preferred imbibing the ocean to bathing in it, and she spent her days socializing with fellow Quakers and contemplating the looming conflict between the American colonies and ­Great Britain.25 Trips to the beach inevitably declined as British control of the sea turned the American coast into a frontline of the Revolution. British naval raids on coastal communities, fortifications, and resources took place throughout the conflict. Salt-­making facilities, supply caches, pasturing livestock, military fortifications, and privateer hideouts remained prime targets for British commanders. Colonists built a breastwork protecting a long nine-­pound cannon at Quonochontaug to defend against British raids.26 The seaside destinations of colonial Amer­i­ca also drew British interest, though not for their recreational and health-­care facilities. Redcoats occupied strategic Newport in December 1776, leading to an exodus of half the port’s population. Three years l­ater, a French naval expedition led by Jean-­B aptiste Transforming the Shore 77

Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, liberated Newport and made it the base of French forces. During this period, Newport, by one nineteenth-­ century account, “was gayer, more liberal, and more cosmopolitan than in ­either New York or Boston,” as the port’s ballrooms and dining rooms feted Rochambeau, George Washington, and other scions of Revolutionary Amer­ i­ca.27 Less is known about other seaside destinations except that none ­escaped the war unscathed. Shrewsbury, New Jersey, where Henry and Elizabeth Drinker had visited on the eve of the Revolution, for example, witnessed at least nine raids during the war. Long Island endured many raids, ­battles, and war­time depreciations throughout the conflict.28 The well-­to-do slowly returned to the beach following peace in 1783. Newport remained depopulated and in disrepair; it would not return to its ­earlier prominence for a generation. An account penned in 1788 noted the seaport had “changed. The reign of solitude is only interrupted by groups of idle men standing, with folded arms, at the corners of streets; ­houses falling to ruin.” 29 Despite the economic and po­liti­cal uncertainty of life u ­ nder the Articles of Confederation, new seaside destinations emerged in the expanding recreational hinterlands of fledgling American cities, drawing ever-­ distant seaside communities into the expanding market economy. Outside Boston, Friend Wood and Nehemiah Breed opened their homes, sheltered from the sea by Nahant’s hills, to the peninsula’s first boarders in 1787. As an observer ­later reminisced, Nahant “was from remote time the resort of fishermen, invalids & in the proper season, of parties and plea­sure seekers from the neighborhood.” 30 By the late 1780s, New Yorkers could visit a pair of boarding­houses and at least one inn in Long Branch, New Jersey, and one on the nearby Shrewsbury River. A hundred and twenty miles south, Philadelphians could find lodging at two boarding­houses at Cape Island, l­ ater renamed Cape May. Their only challenge was getting ­there by ­either a multiday sail or a slow, punishing overland trek in springless “Jersey wagons,” light, plain, low-­cost carriers of passengers and goods.31 A variety of social, cultural, and technological ­factors inhibited the rapid development of commercialized coastal tourism. First, economic growth did not create a sizable ­middle class with the leisure time and disposable income to spend on jaunts to the coast during the early years of in­de­pen­dence. Second, traveling for plea­sure by American and Eu­ro­pean elites continued to privilege urban settings and social engagements; travelers relied on personal rather than market relationships to replicate their everyday social arrangements. Rather than experiment with new forms of commercial leisure, entrepreneurs essentially re-­created the colonial leisure industry. Fi­nally, the 78 chapter three

prevalence of Republican ideology, which emphasized an egalitarian, moral citizenry, and conservative religious injunctions put a black mark on commercial leisure and excessive displays of undemo­cratic gentility. In the de­ cades ­after In­de­pen­dence, commercial leisure was anathema to the emerging American creed of didactic leisure, religious observance, and republican work ethic. Traveling for plea­sure, simply put, appeared un-­American to many during the early republic.32 More pragmatically, transportation remained incon­ve­nient and expensive at best, dangerous and uncertain at worst. Regular stagecoach ser­vice to coastal destinations was rare before the 1820s, leaving intrepid travelers to ­either hire a wagon or ­ride a ­horse to their destination and negotiate ferries, food, and lodging on their own. In the summer of 1794, traveler Henry Wansey’s return from the Long Island shore to New York was delayed two hours ­because “we could get no passage”—­the ferry was booked. He estimated 3,000 to 4,000 ­people used the Brooklyn ferry the day he crossed. Reminders of the dangers of travel dotted the coastal landscape. Describing his sail past Sandy Hook, New Jersey, that summer, Wansey wrote: “On the beach, we saw the monument erected to the memory of some En­glish seamen, that ­were all frozen to death, near the place, in the year 1782, by a sudden snow storm.” 33 Nevertheless, entrepreneurs slowly expanded and extended routes to established seaside destinations during this period. Within a de­cade of Wansey’s trip, excursionists could take a stage from the Brooklyn ferry landing to boarding and bathing ­houses operated by Timothy Titus near New Utrecht, Whitehead Cornwell at Rockaway, and Jeremiah Vanderbilt at Far Rockaway. Each proprietor catered to dif­fer­ent clientele, prefiguring the market segmentation that would be one of the defining characteristics of the beach tourism industry. Titus offered easy stage connections from the Brooklyn ferry. Cornwell provided lodgings to private parties and single gentlemen. Vanderbilt offered a dedicated stagecoach to oceanfront boarding­houses for patrons seeking the “­great advantages to health” of sea bathing.34 The establishment of new seaside resort facilities and the improvement of transportation also occurred in Boston’s seaside retreat, Nahant, and along the New Jersey shore for New Yorkers and Philadelphians during the de­cade before the embargo of 1807–1809 and the War of 1812 frustrated Amer­i­ca’s nascent coastal tourism sector. Indeed, it was during this de­cade when American dictionaries began to include the term tourist, signaling the beginning of a new “American” phase of traveling for plea­sure that differentiated it from more aristocratic antecedents.35 Transforming the Shore 79

Trips to the shore grew more frequent in the 1820s as economic prosperity, significant transportation improvements, the construction of specialized lodgings, and new cultural prescriptions fostered the birth of the American beach tourist industry.36 Not incidentally, this was the same period in which wreck laws had turned the eastern frontier into a well-­regulated part of the American state. Beach tourism grew out of the networks and linkages forged by shipwreck and salvage. Unlike ­earlier elite travelers who sought out urban destinations, growing legions of middle-­class tourists traveled to the country’s eastern frontier to escape increasingly fetid, rancorous, and populated cities. “Sea-­bathing,” exclaimed an 1820 newspaper article about a new seaside destination in Rockaway, Long Island, “is of very g­ reat ser­vice, ­after a long residence in cities—it strengthens and refreshes the system, and renders us more capable of sustaining the fatigue and confinement incident to business.” 37 In addition to treating the ailments of an expanding urban industrial populace, the beach, simply put, became a cheap and increasingly easy trip out of the city. “Almost by accident,” writes John Stilgoe, “they discovered the seacoast away from the g­ reat port cities,” be it for an after­noon as an excursionist, a ­couple of days as a mechanic’s respite, or an entire summer season as a well-­to-­do’s vacation.38 Rather than accident, however, this discovery was a consequence of improved transportation and communication infrastructure, the expansion of the market economy, and an evolving cultural landscape that turned the beach into a desirable destination for Americans of ­every stripe. Steam transportation radically expanded the recreational hinterland of American port cities and enabled the rapid development of the oceanfront tourism industry in the 1820s and 1830s. Pioneered by John Finch in 1787 and proved commercially v­ iable by Robert Fulton in 1807, steam-­powered vessels had become regular features of major ports and inland waterways by the 1820s. Travel became faster, cheaper, and increasingly detached from the physical constraints of wind, tides, and currents. The steamboat Ea­gle began ferrying excursionists from Boston’s wharfs to Nahant’s leisure facilities in 1819.39 Six-­cent fares on steam ferries connecting Manhattan to Brooklyn left ­every few minutes by 1820, half the price a young Cornelius Vanderbilt charged for each leg of the trip in his wind-­powered ferry at the beginning of the ­century. The Supreme Court’s outlawing of transportation monopolies with its 1824 ruling in Gibbons v. Ogden not only solidified federal control of interstate commerce but also enabled the “unleashing of steamboats” on American waterways, and the radical expansion of port city hinterlands.40 By the 1830s, Philadelphians w ­ ere accustomed to opportunities to take steam80 chapter three

ers like “the new swift and splendid steamboat ohio” from a downtown wharf to Cape May h ­ otels on the Jersey shore. Other steamboats regularly ran between New York City and seaside resorts along the Long Island and New Jersey coasts.41 The establishment of regular steamship ser­vice between New York, Newport, and Fall River, Mas­sa­chu­setts, in 1847 spurred the rebirth of Newport as a coastal resort destination. By one conservative estimate, approximately 100,000 tourists visited t­hese coasts before the construction of coastal railroads ­after the Civil War made access even cheaper and easier.42 Steamboats ­were just one spoke in a wheel of improvements to transportation that happened in the de­cades a­ fter the War of 1812. This “transportation revolution,” as historians have termed this period of faster, more reliable, diversified, and less expensive transportation, included the dredging of rivers and harbors, the digging of canals, and the construction of new roads and turnpikes. Transportation improvements included more than just physical infrastructure. The establishment and expansion of stagecoach lines on land and packet ser­vice (regularly scheduled sailings) at sea, for example, similarly helped spur economic activity and expand the recreational hinterland of rapidly growing and prospering port cities. By the late 1820s, “short excursions and longer vacations became both more feasible and pleasanter” for New Yorkers as steamboats began catering to urban populations ­eager to escape the city.43 As the New-­York Spectator proclaimed in 1834: “Macadamized ave­nues, rail-­roads, and steamboats tender their inviting hospitalities” to New Yorkers e­ ager to visit the beach during the “summer season.” 44 On the supply side, oceanfront communities began turning to tourism in the 1820s and 1830s as the natu­ral resources underpinning their economy faltered and as their once-­lucrative shipping trade was lost to larger entrepôts. Tourism provided vital cash to communities increasingly tied to the market economy, and it helped forge a new cash-­based landscape along the American beach.45 Old farms began to be sold off as resorts and summer cottages. Advertisements for faltering coastal farms proliferated. An 1830 listing offered “For Sale—­A farm of 100 acres on Rockaway Beach, fronting the ocean,” and explained how “the Mansion h ­ ouse is large, and con­ve­niently 46 arranged for a h ­ otel.”  Shrewd wreckmasters and light­house keepers began letting out rooms to pioneering tourists probing the edges of the nation’s recreational hinterlands. State initiatives to prevent and mitigate coastal shipwrecks had created a cadre of beachside public officials—­lighthouse keepers, customs agents, and commissioners of wrecks—in a growing network of Transforming the Shore 81

public facilities along the eastern seaboard. Each coastal outpost intimately, if intermittently, connected to the urban centers of po­liti­cal and economic power de­cades before railroads and telegraphs literally stitched them together. It did not take long for ­these public officials to leverage their location, reputation, and connections for profit. Six miles west of Quonochontaug, Rhode Island, Captain Johnathan Nash, first keeper of the Watch Hill light­ house, found his boarding side-­business so profitable that he resigned his post in 1833 to open a proper h ­ otel. Farther south, John  S. Forman, the commissioner of wrecks in New Jersey, began renting rooms to boarders around 1830. Many of the earliest visitors he came to know through his communication with newspapers, insurance offices, and shipping companies concerning the shipwrecks he policed. Word of his hospitality spread. By the 1850s “the Forman House” had, by one account, “gained in popularity ­under his management, and in which business he made many very warm friends.” 47 Tourism did not, however, alter antebellum repre­sen­ta­tions of the beach—­the littoral increasingly took on a dual nature, at once a fash­ion­able retreat for urban travelers and, to land-­bound readers, a shipwreck-­strewn frontier inhabited by disreputable, potentially dangerous residents. In other words, the shore became a fash­ion­able destination while coastal inhabitants remained suspicious characters.48 That contradictory imagery would not be resolved ­until the proliferation of heroic U.S. Life-­Saving Ser­vice (USLSS) narratives and the emergence of mass coastal tourism in the de­cades a­ fter the Civil War. U ­ ntil then, the seashore outside resorts remained—to most—­ the haunt of a breed apart. In October 1849, Henry David Thoreau, then still an obscure writer, left his Boston home for a trip to the beach. Unlike most midcentury coastal tourists, however, he explic­itly avoided the nation’s burgeoning seaside resorts to tramp about Cape Cod. “They commonly celebrate ­those beaches only which have a ­hotel on them, not t­ hose which have a humane h ­ ouse alone. But I wished,” he wrote,” to see that seashore where man’s works are wrecks.” He spent a week crisscrossing the sandy peninsula ­until he reached Province­ town at the tip of the Cape. Along the way, he encountered a Dickensian cast of coastal inhabitants: stoic wreckers (professional beachcombers), an ancient oysterman and his f­ amily, a light­house keeper, and several shipwreck survivors. Spurning the Cape’s towns, Thoreau sought the “peculiar or superior” features of the shore and was richly rewarded with a “place of won­ ders,” a foreign land, which, as he explained, “the stranger and the inhabitant view . . . ​with very dif­fer­ent eyes.” 49 ­These musings on his seaside walkabouts, published posthumously as Cape Cod in 1865, offered a vision of the 82 chapter three

midcentury American beach that focused on the isolated and exceptional rather than the common and commercialized experience of most coastal tourists. Though he sought the wastelands of the American oceanfront, Thoreau encountered the real­ity of the midcentury beach—­a productive workspace where, as historian Matthew Mc­Ken­zie argues, “Thoreau realized t­ here was much more to the Cape than he had initially ­imagined.” In fact, the profitability of the Cape’s fishing industry would help delay the growth of a seaside tourist industry for de­cades.50 Ideas about coastal p ­ eople and places mattered. Accessibility, ready cash, and local boosters did not by themselves create demand for the American beach, but the dialectic between technology and a culture that celebrated the sea and shore did. Cultural producers, from newspapers and periodicals to poets and printmakers, championed the exploits of clipper ships, whaling voyages, ocean explorations, heroic lifesavers, and professional marine salvors. Artists and authors turned to the sea and shore for inspiration like never before as the United States enjoyed what some historians have nostalgically termed a “golden maritime age” during the 1840s and 1850s.51 It was midcentury Amer­i­ca that gave us enduring works of maritime lit­er­a­ture—­Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast and Melville’s Moby Dick, for example—as well as dozens of long-­forgotten dime novels and popu­lar ditties. And it was midcentury Americans who redoubled their interest in marine paintings, fueled by the development of an American marine “style” epitomized by Fitz Henry Lane as well as a wave of British expat paint­ers including James Buttersworth, James Hamilton, and Edward Moran.52 “Images of seascape,” concludes Roger B. Stein in his compelling survey of maritime culture in the American experience, “proliferated in a variety of [antebellum] media as rich and varied expressions of the popu­lar imagination, not only in oil paintings on canvas, in watercolors or lithographs, but in sculpture in marble and wood in full figure and bas-­relief, in scrimshaw carving on w ­ halebone, on wall frescoes by Rufus Porter and o­ thers, on po­liti­cal banners, in fabrics from rugs to quilts to kerchiefs . . . ​on sheet m ­ usic, sailing card advertisements, as transfer patterns on porcelain and trophies for yachting races—­the list is almost endless. . . . ​The point is not merely the variety of media, but the fact that ­these works explore the full range of the expressive and symbolic seascape as it had been developed in pre–­Civil War Amer­i­ca.” 53 One of the clearest manifestations of the reach and appeal of maritime themes in midcentury American life was the “aquar­ium craze” of the 1840s and 1850s. Middle-­and upper-­class ­house­holds as far inland as Chicago ordered barrels of ocean flora, fauna, and seawater from a remarkably robust Transforming the Shore 83

antebellum aquar­ium industry. Published guides such as Henry D. Butler’s ­Family Aquar­ium; Or, Aqua Vivarium (1858) taught readers (particularly ­women) how to cata­log and contain the shore and literally bring the beach into the f­ amily parlor. Collecting and studying coastal flora and fauna turned the seaside trip into an educational outing: a culturally appropriate and hence desired activity for the antebellum ­middle class demonstrating the legitimacy of its growing economic and social clout.54 Mid-­nineteenth-­century Americans, embedded in a culture that celebrated the sea and shore, flocked to a growing number of ever-­more-­elaborate and accessible seaside resorts to experience the place they had been seeing, reading, and talking so much about. The tourist boom experienced by Newport, Rhode Island, for example, reached “an unpre­ce­dented magnitude” as urban day trippers, southern gentry, artists, authors, and middle-­class aquar­ium crazies descended on the island town.55 Paint­ers and writers reframed Cape Cod from the barren wasteland Thoreau sought to the productive workspace he found on his three excursions around the sandy cape. The 1850 edition of the first national travel guide, New and Complete United States Guide Book for Travellers, listed sixteen seaside resorts between Portland, Maine, and Cape May, New Jersey, for the traveling public to visit, be they working-­class excursionists visiting Nantasket Beach for an after­noon or Boston Brahmins spending a week at the exclusive Nahant.56 No resort embodied the triumphs and contradictions of midcentury coastal tourism better than Atlantic City, New Jersey. In a ­matter of months, entrepreneurs transformed an empty stretch of wide, dune-­covered beach that had just one boarding­house in the 1830s and 1840s into the country’s first mass seaside tourism destination. Savvy promoters and the first direct railroad connection linking an American city to a spec-­built seaside resort lured tens of thousands of white lower-­middle-­and working-­class Philadelphians looking for an inexpensive excursion out of the city. Like most American resorts at this time, Atlantic City’s “demo­cratic” appeal was founded on racial exclusion. On the remade beach, white visitors found refined comfort as they emulated the seaside jaunts the American gentry had been enjoying for de­ cades. Less aspirational working-­class visitors could also find appealing ­establishments to spend their leisure time and hard-­earned money. Transportation and communication technologies, economic prosperity, and a rising tide of cultural pushes and pulls had turned vast tracts of the American coastal frontier into a consumer’s playground, be it one increasingly segmented by class, based on racial exclusion, and built on a physical landscape utterly transformed by the imperatives of profit.57 84 chapter three

By the late 1840s, shipwrecks ­were even beginning to lure adventurous voyeurs to the beach.58 Cape Cod, for example, opens with Thoreau taking a detour to a shipwreck off Cohasset on the South Shore of Mas­sa­chu­setts, which he had read about on a Boston broadside. With this decision, at least, Thoreau was hardly unique. Two years ­earlier, Ansel B. Adams, an inland schoolteacher in New Jersey, explained his visit to the wreck of John Minturn: “I went down to the wreck from curiosity, having never seen one before.” 59 Disaster tourists like this teacher and Thoreau, however, w ­ ere rare before the Civil War; most ­were still content experiencing coastal wrecks through the prolific quantity of fiction and nonfiction shipwreck narratives circulating through antebellum Amer­i­ca. Midcentury Americans would have been hard-­pressed to not read about or see shipwrecks in their daily lives as journalistic, fictional, and visual shipwreck narratives flooded the nation’s cultural outlets. As they had during the early republic, shipwrecks, large and small, remained fodder for newspapers published throughout the country. Yet t­hese narratives joined an increasingly crowded field as stories of urban fire, railroad wrecks, and steamboat explosions thrilled the nation. By midcentury, disaster narratives, concludes one historian, ­were “becoming a prominent feature of everyday American life.” 60 Deadly wrecks, including the Mexico and Bristol in 1836 and the New Era and Powhattan in 1854, garnered truly national media coverage that cut across bound­aries of space, class, and race. Frederick Douglass’ Paper, based in upstate New York, informed its readers of the “perfect wreck” of the New Era in its November 11, 1854 edition. Noting the ship was carry­ ing nearly 400 German immigrants, the article grimly concluded: “It is more than probable that all the ­others would perish before morning” as, indeed, would happen.61 Shipwreck narratives resonated with generations of readers with personal—or at least familiar—­knowledge of ocean crossings. Short blurbs about the mundane wrecks of small traders similarly crisscrossed the expanding nation on a daily basis, linking coastal places with everyday disaster. An increasing number of ­these shipwrecks ­were located in reference to the developing tourist landscape. A report of the wreck of “the new French barque Felix,” originally published by the New York Mercantile Advertiser in 1835, described the wreck’s location as “about twelve miles to the eastward of Rockaway House,” a popu­lar ­hotel that had opened the previous year. The article was widely reprinted in port-­city newspapers.62 The shipwreck metaphor—­a staple of antebellum politics—­also had wide appeal in a nation experiencing a seismic upheaval in everyday life.63 Urban Americans could see dioramas depicting recent wrecks or watch shipwreck Transforming the Shore 85

melodramas performed on stage. Churchgoers could listen to sermons about shipwrecks, or read about them in the press.64 A veritable boom in shipwreck poetry flooded newspapers and bookstores. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1840–1841 The Wreck of the Hesperus was memorized by generations of schoolchildren and remained a cultural touchstone into the twentieth ­century. Fi­nally, a “deluge of prints, copies, and forgeries” of shipwreck-­themed images spread across antebellum Amer­i­ca, enabling thousands to “see” the shore and bring it, quite literally, into their homes.65 ­These narratives also drove the expansion of federal interventions along the American beach.

The Federal Beach The expansion of federal activity on the coast—­primarily designed to prevent and lessen the financial and humanitarian costs of shipwrecks—­ profoundly affected the cultural landscape of the American beach. By the last quarter of the nineteenth ­century, the federal government had become the dominant presence alongshore. An intricate web of light­houses, navigation buoys, weather signals, and foghorns guided mari­ners along the coast. When in doubt, ­these mari­ners referred to published charts and sailing guides—­known as coast pilots—­that ­were produced and distributed by the Trea­sury Department. Just offshore, Revenue Marine Cutters patrolled with an explicit lifesaving mission, assisting scores of vessels e­ very year. On shore, customs agents stood on alert, ready to deploy to coastal wrecks carry­ing dutiable goods. A federal lifeboat station stood e­ very three miles along the beach in wreck-­prone regions. Each station was manned by federal agents, like William Saunders, who cumulatively patrolled hundreds of miles of the shore e­ very night for nine months of the year. Telegraph lines connected t­ hese federal outposts to one another and to Washington, D.C., facilitating “quick, integrated telegraphic exchanges about weather threats and fostering a coordinated response to shipwreck.” 66 ­Those telegraph lines also sent thrilling stories of wreck and rescue racing across the nation, reshaping popu­lar repre­sen­ta­tions of the beach in the pro­cess. “­Every illustrated newspaper in the country,” boasted a supporter of the federal lifesaving system to the House of Representatives in 1878, “pictured the splendid work of t­hese crews and could not say too much in their honor.” 67 By then, the federal government had become the defining presence alongshore. The fiction of the wild, ungoverned shore could no longer hold ­water as the federal government became the defining presence alongshore. The beach had been domesticated, or rationalized and made legible 86 chapter three

for the benefit of shipping and the shipwrecked to the delight of armchair spectators across the country. The federal government’s initial incursions into the coastal frontier grew exponentially over the course of the nineteenth c­ entury as federal policy built the maritime infrastructure that supported American ships, shipping, and, ultimately, Amer­i­ca’s economic growth.68 By 1840, the United States had a ­viable maritime navigation system that included 234 light­houses, 30 light vessels, and more than 900 fog signals, buoys, and beacons on the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf, and interior waterways.69 The Customs Ser­vice had likewise grown eightfold between 1801 and 1841 while expanding its areas of operation in step with the nation’s territorial growth. As they had during the early republic, shipwrecks indirectly underwrote much of this expansion.70 Federal intervention in the littoral blossomed as legislators co-­opted private initiatives to prevent and mitigate coastal shipwrecks. In the 1830s, federal agents for the Coast Survey began systematically charting the American littoral, supplementing (and eventually replacing) private efforts to produce essential navigation knowledge.71 The grueling task of triangulating e­ very foot of the dynamic coastline to the Survey’s precise standards proceeded at a snail’s pace. One of its first published charts, “New-­York Bay and Harbor and Environs” (1845), represented a de­cade of laborious hydrographic and topographic surveys. Its subject had not been an incidental choice. As the superintendent of the Coast Survey l­ ater explained: “The most dangerous parts of the coast, and t­ hose offering special facilities for navigation and commerce, have been the first to claim the attention of the survey.” 72 Two vessels wrecked on Fire Island, Long Island, as surveyors laid out a baseline for the 1845 chart, and the team encountered the remains of eight other wrecks on the beach that season. In addition to being the nation’s busiest port, New York City was also at the heart of one of the world’s g­ reat ship traps—­the ­100-­mile coastlines of Long Island and New Jersey formed a sandy cone, which claimed dozens of vessels each year and left hundreds more temporarily stranded.73 Furthermore, the port was the final destination for three quarters of the 4,242,000 overseas immigrants who entered the country in the 1840s and 1850s. When the crowded packet ships that ferried immigrants across the Atlantic wrecked on American beaches, their staggering death tolls horrified the nation and spurred federal action.74 The most significant new federal incursion on the American oceanfront was the creation of a national lifesaving system.75 While this effort drew from existing local efforts to systematize saving and succoring the shipwrecked, most notably the “humane h ­ ouses” on the Mas­sa­chu­setts coast, the federal Transforming the Shore 87

system reflected the intertwined expansion of capitalism and humanitarian sentiment in midcentury Amer­i­ca.76 The beach, in short, had entered the national dialogue and was becoming subject to centralized control. Yet, federal lifesaving efforts would rely on local knowledge and l­abor from the beginning—­alongshore, federal power would always be subject to the opportunities and constraint of local context. Nongovernmental organ­izations, like the Boston Marine Society, the New York Board of Underwriters, and the Mas­sa­chu­setts Humane Society, provided the local expertise, experience, knowledge, and, in cases, the impetus for federal interventions. As a result, coastal residents became national agents of enlightened humanitarian reform, and the federal activity reflected nuanced negotiation rather than bureaucratic dictate. Praised in the national press, federal lifesavers challenged long-­standing depictions of coastal residents as piratical wreckers and became cultural icons of humanitarian benevolence. The federal lifesaving program, begun in 1848, matured with the establishment of the U.S. Life-­ Saving Ser­vice (USLSS) in 1878. It focused national attention on the beach, made the coast safer for the shipwrecked, and altered perceptions of coastal residents and shipwrecks. Federal lifesavers, in other words, ­were the shock troops of the modern beach. Unlike the governments of E ­ ngland, Rus­sia, France, and other prominent industrializing states, the American government was slow to enter the lifesaving business. Its first efforts dated to an 1837 law authorizing “public vessels”—­principally revenue cutters tasked with enforcing customs ­regulations—to patrol inshore ­waters during the dangerous winter months with the explicit mission to aid “distressed mari­ners.” 77 The following year, similar concerns over life and property threatened by the prolific rise in deadly, spectacular steam boiler explosions led Congress to pass the first interstate commerce regulation, which mandated regular inspections.78 Efforts to establish a national lifesaving ser­vice lay dormant for another de­cade during which American shipping (and shipwrecks) grew tremendously.79 In 1845, the new Polk administration, responding to growing concerns about American light­houses, sent a fact-­finding mission to examine the light­ house systems of ­Great Britain, France, and Belgium. While Congress did not adopt the mission’s recommendation to restructure the administration of U.S. light­houses, it did appropriate $5,000 in 1847 to outfit “exposed places where vessels are liable to be driven on shore, with boats and other suitable means of assistance.” 80 The money remained unspent for months ­because no one knew how many vessels wrecked on the American coast or, for that ­matter, where they wrecked. 88 chapter three

Federal lifesaving found its advocate in New Jersey’s newly elected congressman, William A. Newell. Within months of taking office, Newell, who as a traveling doctor had witnessed a deadly shipwreck first-­hand, made the establishment of a federal lifesaving system his top priority. In a lengthy speech delivered on August 3, 1848, he argued that Congress had a humanitarian and an economic duty to “protect the lives of such of its citizens as are engaged in t­ hese perilous pursuits from which immediately derive the revenue of the country.” Newell’s argument worked. Six days ­after his speech, Congress unanimously passed the light­house bill, which included an amendment providing $10,000 for “surfboats, [signaling] rockets, and car­ron­ades [line-­throwing mortars], and other necessary apparatus for the better preservation of life and property from shipwreck on the Coast of New Jersey between Sandy Hook and ­Little Egg Harbor.” 81 Like the Coast Survey’s production and dissemination of knowledge, federal lifesaving efforts effectively co-­opted and expanded existing private initiatives.82 The first ­thing Secretary of the Trea­sury Robert J. Walker did upon learning about what his secretary termed an “appropriation of a very unusual kind” was to write to the New York Board of Underwriters asking if “they would undertake the arrangements necessary to give effect to the law.” 83 The board agreed and formed the New York Life Saving and Benevolent Association to administer the $10,000 expenditure. Secretary Walker also drew on the expertise of the Mas­sa­chu­setts Humane Society, which had operated a privately funded network of lifeboat stations and ­houses of refuge for more than fifty years. Captain Douglass Ottinger, the federal agent charged with superintending the construction and outfitting of eight lifeboat stations with the 1848 appropriation, relied on, as he explained, “the most intelligent surfmen along the coast” to choose the design of lifeboats and location of the stations.84 In other words, the feds turned to the local shipwreck experts to get the job of saving the shipwrecked done effectively and efficiently. Federal investment paid off. Lifesaving equipment saved lives from shipwrecks almost as soon as it was put on the beach. On January 11, 1850, the British bark Ayrshire, carry­ing 200 Scotch and Irish immigrants, ran aground abreast one of the recently constructed lifeboat stations on Squan Beach in a fierce storm. News of the wreck spread quickly, and dozens of locals, including John S. Forman, descended on the wreck and participated in one of the first rescue operations originating from a federal lifesaving station. The ad hoc volunteer crew deployed the newest shipwreck-­saving technology—­ a line-­throwing mortar and the enclosed life-­car (a watertight metallic Transforming the Shore 89

boat)—­with stunning success. Every­one aboard the wreck—­save one who acted against the directions of the surfmen—­survived. Similar successes followed. Extant rec­ords indicate that almost 400 other ­people ­were saved that winter with federal lifesaving equipment. Life-­cars alone would ferry at least 1,400 ­people to safety from shipwrecks on the New Jersey coast over the next three years. But as federal officials ­later concluded: “Much other life and property ­were saved, of which the rec­ord cannot be found.” 85 The dangerous coast was becoming safer, at least for the shipwrecked on the Jersey shore, ­because of federal intervention and investment. Congress responded to this rec­ord of success by allocating another $70,000 over the next six years for an additional forty-­eight lifeboat stations and the placement of eighty-­two lifeboats along the coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Gulf of Mexico, and ­Great Lakes. In the increasingly acrimonious 1850s, as sectionalism and slavery drove the nation ­toward civil war, the first four appropriations for ­these stations actually passed with no debate or opposition.86 Shipwrecks bridged the increasing sectional divide as few issues of the day could. Like the Coast Survey, federal lifesaving efforts began where they would have the greatest impact on both saving lives and protecting property (and safeguarding federal revenue)—­around the nation’s busiest, most wreck-­prone port.87 By the mid-1850s, all but four of the country’s fifty-­six lifeboat stations stood along the 200 miles of shoreline bounded by Cape May, New Jersey, and Montauk, Long Island, that lined the entrance to the port of New York. Each twenty-­eight-­by-­sixteen-­foot building was stocked with a boat, a life-­car, signal rockets, and hundreds of fathoms of line, as well as a stove and fuel and other equipment deemed essential to saving the shipwrecked. While the federal government provided the building and equipment, it was local volunteers, earning ten dollars per wreck, who actually deployed the equipment to save lives.88 Interest and appropriations for the federal lifeboat system evaporated during the 1850s and 1860s, as discord, war, and po­liti­cal reconstruction trumped humanitarian rescue. With the Union itself liable to wreck, coastal shipwrecks became less impor­tant. Federal lifeboat stations fell into disrepair. As shipping—­and shipwrecks—­accelerated in the 1860s, calls for reviving the federal lifesaving system led to action. The timing was right. The onset of Radical Reconstruction in 1866 ushered in a period of sustained federal intervention across the American landscape. In the South, ­those efforts secured, for a few fleeting years, the lives and rights of the formerly enslaved. Alongshore, t­ hose efforts focused on saving the shipwrecked. In 1871, what remained of the federal lifesaving infrastructure came u ­ nder the 90 chapter three

auspices of Sumner Increase Kimball, the recently appointed chief of the Trea­sury Department’s Revenue Marine Division who would become one of the late nineteenth c­ entury’s more effective federal bureaucrats, leading the expansion of federal lifesaving efforts from a thin line of unmanned equipment depots into the United States Life-­Saving Ser­vice (USLSS), a truly national network established in 1878, which at its peak consisted of 279 manned lifesaving stations. Kimball knew that accurately locating new stations would be vital to the ser­vice’s success, but the federal government lacked even the most rudimentary knowledge about the nation’s endemic shipwreck prob­lem. Kimball lobbied and in 1874 Congress enacted legislation requiring masters of vessels in any consequential accident to report it to the nearest collector of customs. With this information, the secretary of the trea­sury could fi­nally produce annual shipwreck reports.89 Tabulating national shipwreck statistics had been a goal for de­cades. Almost thirty years ­earlier, the Senate, likely in response to the 1846 Eu­ro­pean light­house report described ­earlier, had asked the secretary of the trea­sury for a tally of “wrecks belonging to the United States” during the preceding year. The Trea­sury Department, having no figures to draw on, sent a circular letter to ­every customs district asking the district to supply the requested data. Custom­house collectors turned to the local underwriters for the data. Some met with more success—­and responses—­than ­others. Nine months l­ater, Secretary Walker reported to the Senate that “many of them [local collectors] have entirely failed to respond; and that the answers of the ­others, from vari­ous ­causes, are so partial and incomplete as to preclude the department from making any accurate or satisfactory recapitulation of their contents.” 90 Congressman Newell, sponsor of the 1848 lifesaving appropriation, relied on shipwreck statistics compiled by seven of his constituents and the president of the New York Pi­ lots Association to sway the House of Representatives. ­These statistics bolstered his argument, producing a “profound effect” on Capitol Hill that secured congressional support for a federal lifesaving system.91 Even so, federal collection of shipwreck statistics remained an informal enterprise ­until Kimball realized the Trea­sury Department could not determine where “stations would best subserve [sic] the interests of commerce and humanity.” Once again, the department endeavored to count shipwrecks. “With much trou­ble” by their account, trea­sury clerks tabulated statistics of wrecks occurring during the preceding ten years “from underwriters, wreck-­ commissioners, superintendents of lifesaving stations, officers of the customs, light-­house keepers, and all other valuable sources.” Seventy-­five Transforming the Shore 91

t­ ables covering forty-­nine pages of the 1874 Trea­sury Department’s annual report dissected the 7,249 shipwrecks that occurred in American w ­ aters between 1863 and the end of the 1874 fiscal year. Most of the data likely came from the underwriters—­customs collectors ­were not required to collect shipwreck statistics ­until 1874, light­houses ­were still relatively few and far between, and state-­level shipwreck statistics never appear to have been systematically tabulated.92 While the federal government would collect shipwreck statistics henceforth, the 1874 figures provided the baseline data informing the expansion of federal lifesaving capabilities during the rest of the de­cade. Shipwreck statistics, reported in annual reports and published by newspapers across the country, also demonstrated to the nation the need for action alongshore. ­L ater, t­ hese statistics would be used to demonstrate how federal interventions w ­ ere making the coast safer for the shipwrecked. This use of statistics was part of a broader effort by post–­Civil War reformers who deployed the rhe­toric of statistics to call attention to the h ­ uman costs of industrialization and support state interventions in private enterprise.93 ­After presenting twenty-­three t­ ables reporting “all disasters occurring within the range of the operations of the ser­vice,” the USLSS’s first annual report (1876) proudly declared: “The foregoing statistics of five years’ operations must force upon the mind the striking consideration of the signal triumph gained by the ser­vice over the once invincible terrors of our sea-­board.” 94 Written by a former journalist hired by Kimball for his skilled pen, t­hese reports buttressed compelling statistics with stirring narratives of shipwreck rescues that thrilled the nation and pleased congressional appropriations committees.95 Local private knowledge underwrote federal action, but it took national outrage over deadly shipwrecks in 1854 and the winters of 1870–1871 and 1877–1878 to compel Congress to fund and expand the lifesaving system. The perils of ocean travel resonated with millions of Americans who had crossed, planned to cross, or knew relatives and friends who had crossed an ocean for plea­sure or immigration, and they demanded it be made safer. By December 1877, a Thomas Nast drawing in Harper’s Weekly criticizing federal lifesaving efforts could help galvanize congressional action. Titled Death on Economy, it depicts Nast’s iconic ­Uncle Sam surveying the scene of the wreck of the U.S.S Huron, an iron-­hulled gunboat that had run ashore off Nags Head, North Carolina, a month e­ arlier. The ironic caption reads: “I suppose I must spend a ­little on life-­saving ser­vice, life-­boat stations, life-­boats, surf-­boats, ­etc.; but it is too bad to be obliged to waste so much money.” 96 As a cost-­ saving mea­sure, the nearby lifesaving station, like most of the 151 stations 92 chapter three

Thomas Nast, Death on Economy (woodcut). Harper’s Weekly, December 29, 1877.

across the country at that time, had not yet opened for the season. Ninety-­ eight officers and men lost their lives on a beach where just a month l­ater federal lifesavers would have been positioned to provide their storied assistance. The Huron was one of a series of deadly wrecks that winter, and Nast’s editorial cartoon was part of a widespread criticism leveled against the federal government’s decision to not further expand its lifesaving system.97 In response to the broad indignation epitomized (and fed) by Nast’s cartoon, Congress authorized the construction of thirty new life-­boat stations the following spring, extended their months of operation, increased the compensation of surfmen, and established the U.S. Life-­Saving Ser­vice as an in­de­pen­dent agency in the Trea­sury Department, a move that essentially served as a congressional stamp of approval for the expansion and professionalization of the federal lifesaving program that began seven years ­earlier. The legislation was a remarkable bipartisan achievement during the tumultuous 1878 post-­Reconstruction po­liti­cal season and is indicative of the rhetorical power and national significance of coastal shipwrecks in American culture. More broadly, the expansion and professionalism of the USLSS was part of a broader investment in American maritime infrastructure Transforming the Shore 93

echoed in concurrent developments in the U.S. Marine Hospital Ser­vice and the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries.98 The USLSS earned its salt in the 1880s. Led by now–­superintendent Sumner Kimball, the ser­vice aggressively expanded its operations. By the end of the de­cade, Kimball oversaw a national system that had grown to 238 stations or­ga­nized in twelve districts. One hundred and two stations punctuated the beaches of Mas­sa­chu­setts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, including the Watch Hill light­house near Quonochontaug, which had been constructed in 1879. During the “active season” from September  1 through April 30, six to seven surfmen manned each station, supervised by an appointed keeper who resided in the station year-­round. ­These lifesavers ­were usually local watermen or farmer-­fishermen with the experience and grit to patrol ice-­swept beaches and launch cedar surfboats through winter nor’easters to save the shipwrecked. Their winter employment brought steady pay of fifty dollars per month during the other­wise hardscrabble winter season. Most of their time was spent conducting an endless cycle of drills proscribed by Kimball, being checked by impromptu inspections, and reporting every­thing in a vast archive of logbooks, official documents, and correspondence. E ­ very night, “storm warriors” or “soldiers of the surf,” as they ­were popularly called, patrolled the beach, searching for a vessel to warn off the coast or the shipwrecked to rescue. When they found a wreck, the entire crew used equipment vetted and approved by the Board of Life-­Saving Appliances to save life and property. Well trained, well paid, well led, and well equipped, USLSS crews established an unparalleled rec­ord of saving lives and property. Looking back on two de­cades of federal lifesaving operations, the USLSS’s 1891 Annual Report proudly tabulated the $71 million in property saved from the 5,943 disasters involving 49,920 p ­ eople.99 Its rec­ord of success, a consequence of significant federal investment paired with local knowledge and skill, fundamentally changed popu­lar repre­sen­ta­tions of the coast. More than any other ­factor, the expansion of federal lifesaving capabilities in the 1870s—­particularly the establishment of the USLSS—­challenged the popu­lar idea of the coast as a mysterious, violent frontier that had dominated the ­imagined shore since the 1830s. The USLSS domesticated the shore by bringing order to the unknown and written and visual narratives of the beach into American parlors. As popu­lar periodicals, including Scribner’s, Leslie’s, and Harper’s Monthly, began to regularly publish lengthy, laudatory illustrated features about USLSS surfmen, readers became habituated to an orderly, well-­regulated coast patrolled by the humanitarian and heroic. Be94 chapter three

ginning in the 1860s, articles about federal lifesaving efforts initiated readers to the new, distinctly modern coastal landscape by describing its p ­ eople (citizen surfmen), buildings (lifesaving stations), technologies (lifesaving lifelines, car­ron­ades, and rockets), and daily life (a rigorous training schedule) in precise detail. They also traced the origins of the USLSS and how it had displaced the allegedly incompetent or worse, predatory coastal residents who had once responded to (or ignored) coastal shipwrecks. Most of the articles included a lengthy description of particularly memorable rescues, both tragic and gallant. ­Every article testified to the heroism of the surfmen, the remarkable efficacy of federal lifesaving technologies, and the ser­vice’s rigorous training program. The surfmen, of course, w ­ ere almost always “locals” (the same coastal locals eyed suspiciously since the 1830s) ­because, as the USLSS administrators understood, only locals had the skills and knowledge to navigate the dynamic littoral. Shipwrecks, at least according to the vibrant discourse about the USLSS, had become prob­lems that upstanding coastal citizens and modern bureaucracy rendered safe.100 As a scholar of the ser­vice’s cultural impact concludes: “The USLSS represented the conquering of the coastal frontier, the application of systemized units to patrol marginal territory and reduce the threat of shipwreck; and the consolidation of governmental control geared ­toward benevolent and commercial action.” 101 For a country struggling to regenerate and renew, the USLSS served as a power­ful symbol of nationalism, reform, and civic duty. Published narratives about the USLSS “spurred communalism and benevolence in an era that celebrated the enthusiastic per­for­mance of lifesaving amid the chaos of disaster.” 102 USLSS surfmen ­were subjected to the same mythologizing as their western contemporaries who w ­ ere “taming” the nation’s terrestrial “fron103 tier.”  Like the west, the coast became a stage where modern technology, masculine citizenship, and good government regularly performed before a national audience. Widely circulated journalistic, visual, and fictional depictions of the USLSS, as one scholar suggests, “restored faith in the government’s ability to protect its citizens. Through their individual and group actions, surfmen modeled be­hav­ior that had broad appeal to Americans.” 104 The quantity and tone of popu­lar repre­sen­ta­tions of the USLSS speak to its broad appeal even if the evidence for its broader cultural work is ambiguous. Even so, surfmen, like the exemplar of the late nineteenth-­century cultural hero—­firemen—­strug­g led against a deeply symbolic disaster in a very public display of humanitarian benevolence. And like firemen, USLSS surfmen ­were championed by late nineteenth-­century Americans.105 “The professional skill of ­these men,” concluded one con­temporary account, “their Transforming the Shore 95

unfaltering energy and endurance, their steady bravery in the hour of supreme ordeal, and at all times their sober fidelity to duty, however hard or irksome, are beyond all tribute. None can better know it than the officers in charge of the ser­vice, whose main reliance must be, ­after all, upon the manly virtue of t­ hese crews. What, indeed, can ever stand in lieu of men!” 106 Of course, the wild coastal frontier remained grist for the literary mill and the seaside yarns of old salts. But in the wake of the ULSS narratives, the beach-­as-­frontier was fi­nally relegated to the fictional past rather than the pos­si­ble pre­sent. The New Jersey Coast and Pines, an 1889 guidebook, is illustrative. In the chapter titled “The Pirates of Barnegat,” Gustav Kobbé recounts local legends of murder, plunder, and nefarious local wreckers told around late-­night winter fires in old inns along the coast.107 Literary stories like ­these echoed the tales spun up and down the coast to tourists and excursionists, be they John Forman’s stories told to vacationers at his Point Pleasant compound or the tales spun by William Saunders to e­ ager reporters visiting the lifesaving station he served as keeper.

Quonnie The transformations wrought by coastal tourism and federal intervention came slowly, yet inevitably, to Quonochontaug, Rhode Island. In 1877, just months a­ fter the hulk of the John Rose was condemned and abandoned, a new road linked a handful of small summer cottages by the beach to the post road connecting Boston to New York City. With this road, Quonnie entered the fringes of the nation’s expanding postwar recreational hinterland. A nascent summer boarding business took root in this hardscrabble farmer-­fisher community nestled in the spaces between barrier beaches, salt-­water ponds, and glacial moraines.108 William Saunders’s life changed dramatically, though not ­because of this road. His marriage into the prosperous Langworthy ­family, timed just months a­ fter the death of the patriarch who had initially opposed William and Zada’s ­union, transformed this twenty-­ eight-­year-­old farmhand into a yeoman farmer. While his status on the farm changed, his daily rhythm still revolved around the seasons: cutting ice in winter and “banking” seaweed in spring to fertilize the fields he harvested in late summer. Weeks of unrelenting physical l­abor punctuated by Saturday worship at the Seventh-­Day Adventist church and frequent ­family gatherings. Like many coastal inhabitants, Saunders always had “one boot in the boat, the other in the field.” 109 He supplemented farming with cutting salt marsh hay for fodder and timber for firewood, setting fishing nets 96 chapter three

off the beach and in the salt pond, and shooting fowl. The assorted fish he loaded on a sloop that docked in the nearby port of Westerly, Rhode Island. The firewood, fodder, milk, and produce w ­ ere sold in Westerly or at the seaside resort of Watch Hill. While he helped supply Watch Hill h ­ otels, no evidence has surfaced indicating the Saunders ­family took boarders as a growing number of his neighbors in Quonnie did. Steady, manual ­labor defined his daily routine, but the ­couple also found time for play, joining other middling late nineteenth-­century Americans on jaunts to nearby seaside resorts.110 William and Zada’s trips to Rhode Island’s coastal resorts, including Newport, Watch Hill, Block Island, and Rocky Point, suggest how even a modestly successful farmer-­fisherman in a physically isolated community participated in the nation’s growing beach culture in the de­cades a­ fter the Civil War. The basic contours of the coastal tourism industry they navigated mirrored that established in antebellum Amer­i­ca, although its scale, scope, and accessibility ­were significantly greater by the 1870s. Like before, the tourism trinity—­more leisure time, improved transportation, and cultural prescription—­drove the development of the coastal tourism industry, but at a new pace and intensity consummate with an industrializing, continental nation. Established resorts expanded to meet the growing demand for commercialized leisure. Resorts increasingly focused on specific segments of American society, be they vacationing elites, religious revivalists, or working-­class excursionists. Railroads marching down the coasts in the 1870s and 1880s brought new oceanfront communities into the recreational hinterland of burgeoning American cities teeming with ­people ­eager and increasingly able to visit the sand and surf they so often read about and saw in national print culture. Small oceanfront farming-­fisher communities remade themselves into seaside resorts in anticipation of railroad connections they hoped would revive their stagnating extraction-­based economies. And yet, not all travel or construction was for pleasure-­seeking. Health concerns continued to drive convalescing adults, and ­children, to the beach, as it had driven Eu­ro­pean elites centuries e­ arlier.111 Freed p ­ eople purchased vast stretches of the coastal lands in the south, finding a modicum of in­de­pen­ dence and insulation from “the archetypal ‘Jim Crow.’ ” By the turn of the ­century, African American entrepreneurs had begun developing some of ­these lands into successful seaside resorts.112 The beach would never be the same as Americans flocked to the shore like never before. Established resorts expanded and new ones developed to cater to tourists of all persuasions, from the Methodists’ resorts of Ocean Grove and Oak Bluffs and the gambling dens of Asbury Park and Narragansett Pier Transforming the Shore 97

to the resort towns in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. By 1877, a resort guide could report: “­There is scarcely a village or hamlet in the New ­England or M ­ iddle States, twenty miles distant from a city, that is not more or less visited in summer, and to the extent a ‘summer resort.’ ” 113 The railroad never came to Quonnie, but the work of the U.S. Coast Survey mapping Quonnie in the summer of 1873 warranted a series of articles in the Boston Daily Globe introducing this “pleasant sea-­side retreat” to urban readers.114 By the 1880s, the Noyes Beach area of Quonnie had become a popu­lar destination for the well-­to-do from Connecticut, New York, and northern New Jersey who built and rented seaside cottages in a community where “­people go for comfort rather than show.” 115 A few notable writers and New York “gentlemen” brought their families to enjoy the fresh air and picturesque views and to fish seabass and blackfish, hunt ducks, catch lobsters, and swim. This active, familial atmosphere stood in marked distinction to the established Watch Hill, where visitors sat, “often times with their backs to the ocean,” thoroughly engaged in the social spectacle.116 By the end of the de­ cade, renting a furnished cottage in Quonnie for the summer season cost $150, one-­third the cost of comparable lodgings in Watch Hill.117 In the winter of 1887–1888, William Saunders began visiting the lifesaving station in the shadow of the Watch Hill light­house, a six-­mile ­ride from his home. Between his growing duties in the local mason lodge and cutting and carting ice, Saunders got eighty-­five ­people living between Niantic, Connecticut, and Quonnie to sign a petition for him to join the Watch Hill USLSS crew. On February 16, 1888, Saunders and his hired man, Osmus, delivered it to the station, where it gathered dust for months. No position was available for the forty-­year-­old on the crew. Saunders was not brought on the crew the following wreck season, which began on September 1, 1888. But he continued visiting the station as he farmed, fished, and eked out a living on the coastal margin. His ticket came up on October 24, 1889, when he joined the crew as a permanent replacement for the number 5 surfman who had unexpectedly left the station. Saunders undertook his first patrol at 8 p.m. that eve­ning, heading east from the station into “brisk” winds that steadily increased over the eve­ning. The following day, he participated in his first drills, launching the surfboat three times, working the signal flags, learning the USLSS method “for restoring the apparently drowned.” Offshore, sixty-­ seven vessels safely sailed ­under the watchful eye of the station’s day watch.118 Saunders was not a natu­ral government surfman. Unlike his crewmates, most of whom ­were half his age, Saunders failed to punch the clock proving he completed his patrol on two separate occasions before the season ended 98 chapter three

on the last day of April 1890. He also lost gear on a patrol b ­ ecause, not feeling well, “he s­ topped to attend to evacuation” and, when finished, c­ ouldn’t find the equipment in the dark.119 Unsurprisingly, Saunders was not brought on the initial six-­man crew the following season, though he substituted on several occasions for sick or traveling lifesavers. On November 30, he began his five-­month term as the lowest-­ranking number 7 surfman, an additional hand added to crews during the winter wrecking season. Saunders served without any noteworthy gaffes for the 1890–1891 season, while assisting two stranded schooners, both of which ­were successfully sal­vaged by New London–­based professional marine salvor Thomas A. Scott. On August 31, 1891, the station’s new keeper, Walter Davis, brought Saunders on as surfman number 3, a significant promotion from his previous number 7 slot. The crew spent most of the fall setting telephone poles that linked the station to the nation’s expanding communications networks and responded to one wreck in early December. The new year brought illness. On January 1, 1892, three of the crew w ­ ere sick with “grippe.” One of the substitutes got sick the following day, and on January 3, Saunders wrote in his diary: “Found myself sick when I woke up this morning.” He went home, unable to write more than a few shorthand markings in his diary for days.120 As Saunders recovered, an opportunity opened. Construction of the new lifesaving station being built at Quonochontaug was wrapping up, and the station’s anticipated keeper, Saunders’s crewmate at the Watch Hill LifeSaving Station, had been accidentally shot by his cousin while the pair w ­ ere gunning quail.121 On the after­noon of January 16, 1892, two weeks a­ fter leaving the Watch Hill lifesaving station to recover, Saunders received the appointment as keeper, or leader, of the new Quonochontaug station. As he had been de­cades ­earlier with his marriage, Saunders was again propelled into an elevated position. How he secured the coveted position, despite his comparatively brief and somewhat checkered ser­vice with the USLSS, speaks more to his local connections than to his ser­vice rec­ord. Nevertheless, he jumped into the position, likely swayed by the prospect of a steady $900 annual salary, to say nothing about the re­spect and status that came along with the federal position. As his health improved, he held meetings, reviewed applicants for surfman positions, and got his affairs in order. Saunders moved into the isolated station on February 1, 1892, where he resided for the next eight years, minus for the occasional night or two away visiting f­amily or traveling for business.122 Much of ­those eight years he spent completing paperwork. While keepers had “nearly complete autonomy,” earning keepers like Saunders the Transforming the Shore 99

honorific title “captain,” they ­were required to maintain detailed daily logs, complete numerous reports, and maintain frequent communications with the USLSS bureaucracy.123 In addition to his official duties, Saunders also continued to oversee his fishing interests and participate in the community, regularly visiting fishing shanties, helping his neighbors pull nets, and notating fish catches in his personal diary. In addition to keeping a daily log and personal diary, Saunders also maintained a clipping book in an old bank ledger where he pasted newspaper articles about USLSS heroics and maritime disasters from around the county. This personal keepsake archived his ­career and connected his daily ­labor to ongoing national dialogue about the USLSS and maritime Amer­i­ca. He meticulously cut and pasted articles about his friends and colleagues, fellow lifesaving station keepers, and Captain Thomas A. Scott, the professional marine salvor whom Saunders had worked alongside for years.124 Like USLSS stations around the country, the Quonnie lifesaving station became a mecca for local tourists. Two months a­ fter arriving, Saunders was regularly entertaining “callers” at the station, a fact notated in his personal diary but left out of the station log. Zada and “the c­ hildren” stayed at the station for Saunders’s first Fourth of July, where the ­family “entertained . . . ​ all day.” 125 The crew’s drills ­were often attended by crowds of visiting tourists. During the wreck season, newspapers brought vivid descriptions of the crew and station to their subscribers. A pair of journalists spent an eventful winter night with the crew researching an article titled “Story of a Journey through Trackless Wastes.—­Hospitality of the Hardy Life Savers.—­Home Life on the Charlestown Shore.” 126 Postcards as well as published and personal photo­graphs depicting the area often prominently featured the station, its crew, lifesaving equipment, and well-­dressed crowds of spectators watching the coastal heroes they had been reading so much about. Indeed, the station was built across a narrow breachway from the fledgling resort of Quonochontaug, which included, by the 1890s, several h ­ ouses, cottages, and ­hotels for summer visitors seeking a rustic seaside vacation.127 By the time the Quonnie lifesaving station opened, shipwrecks had become a con­spic­u­ous ele­ment in the emerging modern coastal landscape. Primed by published accounts of wrecks in newspapers, periodicals, and tour guides, tourists expected to see wrecks, or at least places where vessels had wrecked. ­After the Civil War, t­ hese shipwrecks became tourist destinations in themselves. Guidebooks directed visitors to famous wrecks, real and ­imagined. A favorite excursion for visitors to Gloucester, Mas­sa­chu­setts, according to the 1877 Appleton’s Illustrated Hand-­Book of American Summer Re100 chapter three

Crowd watching lifesavers drill. This photo­graph is one of dozens in the King F­ amily Scrapbook depicting the ­family’s summer vacations in Quonnie. Courtesy of the Charlestown Historical Society.

The Old Wreck, Annie, Quonochontaug, R.I. (postcard, ca. 1900). 2006.44.5, courtesy of Mystic Seaport Museum.

sorts, “is to the reef of Norman’s Woe, where occurred The Wreck of the Hesperus.” The handbook’s entry for Long Branch, New Jersey, which it describes as “the most popu­lar summer resort in the vicinity of New York, and one of the most frequented in the country,” includes an image of several figures walking down the beach. A shipwreck sits just offshore. Into the first de­cade of the twentieth c­ entury, Quonnie’s beach was, according to the local newspaper, “littered with wrecks.” 128 Rhe­toric aside, ­there actually ­were a lot of wrecks on American beaches, and tourists frequently found them on the Gilded Age beach. Few published accounts of the American shore failed to mention the “bones” of old wrecks that littered the strand.129 A local color story about the Quonnie lifesaving station published in the mid-1890s noted: “Along the beach the visitors found evidence of hard ­battles with wind and sea. West of the station are the remains of the once well-­known schooner Fred Carl, and to the east, at widely separated points, are portions of the big four-­master John Paull, barges Crocus, J. J. Naulty, American Ea­gle, Albert M., and the F. A. Dingee, and schooner Harry White.” 130 Images on the omnipresent commercial postcards complemented t­ hese narrative descriptions. A popu­lar Quonnie postcard topic was “The Old Wreck, Annie,” possibly the remnants of Alice M. Ridgeway, a wreck Saunders worked as part of the Watch Hill USLSS crew in December 1891.131 Images of the Quonnie’s famous wreckage are representative of a defining ele­ment of the coast’s visual landscape before marine salvors turned the American shore into the modern, pristine beach, a place devoid of, as Thoreau wrote, “men’s works.” T ­ hese postcards also exemplify the commodification of shipwrecks by savvy entrepreneurs at coastal resorts. Seeing a shipwreck, or its remnants, became a part of a resort’s appeal. “Asbury Park needs a shipwreck,” read the lead of an 1884 editorial in the popu­ lar New Jersey seaside resort’s newspaper. It continued: “We need a first-­class shipwreck. Why? To make Asbury Park a famous winter resort. She should strike head-on, and we could accommodate her all winter. A pontoon or suspension bridge could be built from the pier so the ship could be used as a casino. Atlantic City would then yield to Asbury as a peerless winter resort. We need a shipwreck.” 132 Shipwrecks would become mass spectacles in the final de­cades of the nineteenth ­century. Some even did what the Asbury Park editorialist hoped they would: lure tens of thousands of spending visitors to the shore during the off-­season. Such spectacles, however, never came to Quonnie. Saunders retired in 1900 due to per­sis­tent illness, attributed to the first rescue he led from the 102 chapter three

Quonnie station in February 1893. It had been a daring, multiday rescue in the thick of winter of the crew of a wrecked coal schooner. Two of Saunders’s crew ­later died from prolonged exposure from the effort. Saunders’s health would never be the same. Nevertheless, he oversaw thirteen rescue efforts during his eight-­year tenure and was celebrated as a “model keeper” upon retirement.133 Saunders returned to his farm a few miles from the station where he and his wife began to develop a new summer resort they called “Pleasant View.” 134 Saunders’s role in developing Quonnie’s tourism economy echoed that of commissioner of wrecks John S. Forman’s development of Squan, New Jersey, a generation ­earlier. Rebranded “Point Pleasant” in the 1850s, Forman donated land for the area’s first lifesaving station and spearheaded the extension of the railroad to his village. Trenton developers purchased the Forman property ­after the commissioner’s death in 1874, turning it into a seaside resort community, one of dozens linked by railroads spreading along the Jersey shore.135 In a very literal sense, then, shipwrecks founded both of ­these resorts.136 between the 1830s and 1880s, federal interventions and coastal tourism radically transformed the American beach. As the trickle of tourists became a flood, as federal lifesavers patrolled more of the coast e­ very year, as heroic stories of wreck and rescue joined tales of seaside leisure and recreation in the expanding national print culture, the oceanfront, particularly between Philadelphia and Boston, ceased to be an insignificant, unfamiliar, inaccessible space on the American landscape. Tourists and federal lifesavers along with the complex of interconnected institutions, networks, and practices that supported and sustained them turned the last vestiges of the coastal frontier into an ever-­more-­commercialized, ever-­more-­engineered, and ever-­more-­regulated space. Dunes ­were leveled, bulkheads built, and the shore hardened for the lifesaving stations and seaside ­hotels built on dynamic beaches. Telegraph wires, railroads, and piers connected isolated coastal locales to urban masses able and willing to visit the shore and witness the social spectacle of high-­society resorts, the thrill of USLSS drills, or the sublime scenes of shipwreck and salvage. Day by day, more of the beach could be bought or sold. Once-­worthless oceanfront property became part of the designs of speculators. Picturesque views ­were sold on mass-­produced postcards. Even eating on, sleeping near, and accessing the coast became commodities to be bought and sold. The beach experience became inextricably embedded in commercial exchange Transforming the Shore 103

and timed to the dictates of an expanding industrial nation rather than the rhythms of the coastal environment. Federal lifesavers’ precisely clocked patrols of vast swaths of the American littoral literally embodied the bureaucratic order and dominating federal presence alongshore. Through fits and spurts, at dif­fer­ent times in dif­fer­ent places, the modern beach came into focus along the American shoreline.

104 chapter three

chapter four

Clearing the Coast

Captain T. A. Scott, a “True American” When a rusty freighter from Calico Piles up on the beach in a lonely place, Or a shiny liner with lights aglow Hits a berg and is crippled above Cape Race When a barge deck-­deep in New ­England coal Breaks loose in the teeth of a Northeast gale As the frost-­bitten crew sees the storm bashed shoal The A.P. generally carries this tale hope for the lives of the crew is high Merritt-­Chapman wreckers are standing by. —­“ The Shot Toker,” ca. 1900

Six hundred mourners braved the raw midwinter New E ­ ngland day to pay their re­spects to Thomas Albertson Scott. They walked through his home, consoling his wife and c­ hildren and marveling at the casket that held the 300-­plus-­pound subject of their grief. Captain Tom, as he was known, had been as large in life as he was in death. A skilled engineer, daring wrecker, successful businessman, and charitable man, Scott was one of t­ hose rare individuals whom the rest of the world admires. He had arrived in New London, Connecticut, in 1872 a stranger with ­little more than his diving equipment. As they walked out his front door thirty-­five years l­ ater, none of the mourners could ignore what Scott had created: the bustling docks and ware­houses of the T. A. Scott Com­pany sat less than a hundred yards from where they stood. Few would have disagreed with one local paper’s remark that it was hard to imagine how New Londoners ­were g­ oing to live without Captain Tom.1 Eulogies for Scott ­were not confined to New London. Flags on Scott Com­ pany tugs working up and down the East Coast flew at half-­mast. Newspapers from Mas­sa­chu­setts to ­Virginia, including the New York Times, printed laudatory obituaries for the well-­known wrecker. And several popu­lar periodicals published lengthy articles about the “­humble hero” penned by the captain’s longtime acquaintance and turn-­of-­the-­century Re­nais­sance man, 105

Captain T. A. Scott (engraving, ca. 1900). G. Williams & Bro., New York, courtesy of the Henry L. Ferguson Museum.

F. Hopkinson Smith.2 ­These tributes to Scott ­were hardly surprising. Captain Tom was a skilled operator in a very public, very successful, and very new industry. His c­ areer exemplified the development of the industrial corporate wrecking complex that became essential to successful maritime regions during the second half of the nineteenth c­ entury. Professional wreckers did for shipwrecked property what the United States Life-­Saving Ser­vice (USLSS) did for shipwrecked p ­ eople. Both rescued what would have been other­wise lost and both made the coast significantly safer. By Scott’s death in 1907, the ad hoc wrecking of his youth had given way to corporate wrecking firms, turning wreckers into honorable businesspeople and marine salvage into mundane ser­vice work. Professional wreckers like Scott w ­ ere some of the most significant actors in the domestication of the American beach.3 Similar to federal intervention and coastal tourism, professional wrecking helped tame the shore and bring 106 chapter four

it into the lives of ordinary ­people. Wreckers cleared the shore by removing shipwrecks from the physical landscape and relegating the piratical wreckers to the pages of fiction and coastal folklore. In this way, professional wreckers performed cultural work similar to that of the USLSS, replacing mysterious, dangerous locals with accountable com­pany men. By Scott’s death, corporate wrecking had become remarkably proficient at salvaging shipwrecks, professional wreckers had emerged as cultural heroes, shipwrecks had become big business for a mature marine salvage ser­vice industry, and the beach had been cleared, leaving a “pristine” shoreline primed for modern tourists.4

The Wrecking Business Wrecking—­saving shipwrecked vessels and cargo for the benefit of their lawful ­owners—­had been a well-­established industry along parts of the American beach for a generation when Thomas Albertson Scott was born on the eastern shore of Mary­land in 1830. Near the country’s burgeoning ports—­ particularly New York, Philadelphia, and Boston—­and at choke points along major shipping routes—­Key West, Nantucket, and the Delaware and ­Virginia Capes—­a thriving, or­ga­nized, and highly regulated wrecking business prevailed. The work of John Forman in New Jersey was representative of the thousands of commissioners of wrecks who effectively regulated the expanding American coast during this time. Despite their efforts, however, occasional reports of land piracy—­the illegal plundering of shipwrecked vessels along more isolated stretches of the coast, including southern New Jersey and the Carolinas—­still thrilled the nation from time to time. But they w ­ ere sensationalist tales for a sensational age and increasingly removed from the realities of coastal life. During the first half of the nineteenth c­ entury, the majority of wreckers ­were opportunistic farmer-­fishermen eking out a living in an alongshore frontier. Wrecking earned them cash wages for a few hours or days of ­labor. Some years they might work on a dozen wrecks. Other years no wrecks occurred on their stretch of the coast. Wrecking was simply what able-­bodied men did in the American littoral when the opportunity presented itself. News of a wreck traveled fast—­“as the vultures gather around a dead carcass, so the inhabitants of that desolate coast gathered from far and near” by one dramatic account.5 To save lives they rowed fishing skiffs through the surf or cast squid lines (a light line attached to a weighted hook used for surfcasting) to wrecks so survivors could be literally pulled ashore. To save property, Clearing the Coast 107

they threw barrels, tierces (casks), and bundles into what­ever vessels w ­ ere at hand, or they tossed ­every part of the cargo that could float and “bear wetting” into the sea to be gathered from the shore ­later. Wrecking was an ad hoc collaborative effort that involved the entire local community. Commissioners of wrecks ensured law and order while every­ one ­else performed the hard l­abor of moving cargo, stripping hardware, hauling lines, and navigating the dynamic coastal environment. Together the wreckers used the tools of coastal life—­surfboats, sloops, cordage, blocks, and carts—to recover shipwrecked property. They refloated a not insignificant number of stranded vessels using crude effective salvage techniques and readily available technologies—­roughhewn patches, buoyant empty barrels, and the ship’s pumps. They ­were opportunistic salvors, skilled boat handlers, watermen who had been bred to the sea and possessed the skills, tools, and knowledge to successfully salvage—­“ wreck,” as they put it—­the growing number of coastal shipwrecks.6 Wrecking for ­these ad hoc, opportunistic salvors typically involved hired men combing the beach, collecting and guarding flotsam and jetsam cast ashore from a vessel stranded just offshore. Waves often gutted t­ hese wrecks in a ­matter of hours. In such instances, wrecking involved gathering bales, barrels, bags, boxes, and kegs from the tideline and shipping them to ­either an auction site or a nearby port. Wreckers would row out to any remnants of the wreck to strip valuable rigging and other ship’s fittings for auction on the beach. Occasionally wrecks survived long enough for the wreckers to board the vessel and discharge the cargo into hired lighters (unpowered, typically flat-­bottomed vessels used to transfer goods). Depending on the state of the vessel and weather conditions, wreckers e­ ither used anchors to pull the lightened vessel off the sand or stripped it of every­thing of value before the next storm destroyed the wreck. When the schooner Cape Henry “sprung a leak” off the Jersey coast in early June 1831, the crew tossed “over[board] about one half of the cargo to lighten her,” but they ­were unable to stem the flow of ­water. “The men,” ­later reported the captain, “refused to do duty any longer [and] . . . ​fearing she would sink . . . ​consequently bore away for the beach.” Cape Henry drove on the Jersey shore full of ­water and, in just three hours, went “to pieces.” Its remaining cargo, swept by waves and tides, covered miles of Barnegat-­ Squan. Over the course of four days, John S. Forman oversaw a crew of two or three men who collected 12 (3 broken, 6 half, 3 ­whole) barrels of wheat flour; 10 barrels of pork; a barrel of “Markeral”; a barrel of herring; 19 (2 broken) kegs of lard; 8 (1 broken) kegs of butter; 77 boxes of soap; 113 hats; 84 pairs 108 chapter four

of shoes; and miscellaneous amounts of cheese, pork, and beef. ­These remnants of Cape Henry’s general merchandise cargo along with the schooner’s “wreck Tackle, &c, Long Boat & oars,” and two compasses netted $450.95 at the beachside auction that attracted sixty dif­fer­ent purchasers. The auction proceeds paid the $76.50 salvage bill, which included ­labor, guarding, “carting,” hiring a vessel, auction expenses, and “1 gallon of apple wiskey.” No evidence remains as to w ­ hether or not Cape Henry’s ­owners or underwriters claimed the remainder.7 Locals, however, did not always control wrecking operations. When conditions permitted and the value of the wrecked vessel and cargo warranted, shipowners and insurers hired their own salvage crews from port towns rather than risk trusting unknown men on a distant, isolated beach. When the agent for the British schooner Success learned the vessel was ashore on the New Jersey coast in January 1810, he immediately dispatched a crew of riggers (lifting and hauling specialists) from the port of New York to assist local wreckers. The vessel proved to be a total loss, minus $369.37 worth of material removed from the wreck (most of that likely being sal­vaged sails, masts, rigging, anchors, and the auctioned hull, which could be profitably stripped of iron fittings and burned for charcoal), but wreckers saved the entire cargo of sugar worth $9,568 and safely delivered it to New York ­free of damage. The salvage prob­ably took two weeks, costing almost $1,300, including hiring a pi­lot boat to search for the missing schooner, wages for the riggers and local laborers, and purchasing a “plank to get out cargo,” as well as transportation and administrative expenses. Almost half the bill, $587, went to hiring the five lighters that shipped the sal­vaged cargo to New York. Success’s agent even oversaw what the wreckers ate, sending $44.10 provisions from New York to the wreck site.8 T. A. Scott did not become a wrecker ­until his early thirties. Born in 1830, he grew up in a farmer-­fisher ­family that had lived on Assateague Island, Mary­ land, for generations. He learned how to read the winds and waves and navigate small vessels on this isolated barrier island. He prob­ably witnessed relatives wrecking stranded vessels near the ­family’s homestead, located 150 miles south of Barnegat-­Squan. He may have helped launch their surfboats or collect flotsam and jetsam that washed ashore. Scott took to the sea at an early age. He commanded a small sloop by fifteen and sailed schooners up and down the East Coast during the late 1840s and 1850s. From the decks of the John Willetts, Thomas Page, and Thomas Nelson, he witnessed the evolution of wrecking and wreckers as new technologies, more shipwrecks, and the growing coordination of marine insurance interests altered the coastal Clearing the Coast 109

landscape. He sailed past the first federal lifeboat stations on the Long Island and New Jersey shorelines in the 1840s and saw how the ad hoc, pre­ industrial wreckers of his youth could no longer meet the demands of salvaging industrialized shipping around the nation’s largest port. T ­ here simply ­were too many wrecks of ever-­larger, ever-­more-­valuable vessels worth far too much to simply strip and abandon; they had to be returned to the stream of commerce. Scott saw—­and occasionally worked with—­a new ­cohort of skilled wreckers salvaging the wrecks lining the approaches to the port of New York, and he could prob­ably identify their specially outfitted wrecking schooners including Ringgold, Henry W. Johnson, Henry B. Fiddeman, Excelesor, John T. Rotche, and Isadora, among ­others.9 Through hard-­ earned experience he acquired the specialized skills and local littoral knowledge that enabled him to succeed as a professional wrecker. Sometime between 1858 and 1863, Scott, captain and part owner of the 89-­foot, 163-­ton schooner William Hone, “turned diver . . . ​at a dare of his fellow workmen” and became a wrecker.10 As one version of the story went: “He was ordered to lay alongside a sunken schooner and take aboard her cargo of iron as divers sent it up. Scott grew impatient with the pace of the job. Challenged to do the work faster, he put on a diving suit, stayed down longer in rough ­water than the professionals, and retrieved more iron than any of them.” 11 The diving suit was part of a suite of new technologies that had begun to redefine the wrecking industry during the ­middle de­cades of the nineteenth ­century. Perfected by German-­born British engineer Augustus Siebe in the late 1830s, “submarine armor” (diver enclosed in a watertight suit and brass helmet supplied with air pumped from the surface) enabled wreckers to work underwater for prolonged periods of time. While submarine armor was safer and less cumbersome than diving bells, diving remained dangerous, arduous work that was as dependent on brute strength as on technological know-­ how. In addition to diving equipment, the introduction of portable steam engines powered the pumps, derricks, winches, and tugboats that liberated wrecking from the constraints of h ­ uman, animal, and wind power. With ­these new tools, wreckers could access and refloat shipwrecks like never before. Wrecking changed from primarily recovering valuables from abandoned wrecks to refloating entire vessels. Divers, steam engines, and pumps, however, ­were few and far between before the 1860s, and wreckers did the best they could with the equipment and experience on hand.12 New equipment required significant technical expertise and a new level of financial investment. Wrecking began to require specialized skills, tools, and knowledge that w ­ ere divorced from everyday life and l­ abor on the coast. 110 chapter four

“Engineers” operated steam engines, pumps, and derricks; farmer-­fishermen launched surfboats. Submarine divers saved wrecked vessels; farmer-­ fishermen collected flotsam and jetsam. The new tools of wrecking w ­ ere also expensive and beyond the modest means of the farmer-­fishermen wreckers who had long dominated salvage along the American beach. The geographic and temporal variability of shipwrecks had ­limited capital investment for early wreckers who saw wrecking as supplemental income rather than a full-­time profession. In 1835, John Forman and two other leaders in Barnegat-­ Squan wrote up detailed “articles of agreement” for building and operating a modest “sea boat for the purpose of working at wrecks.” 13 Fifteen years ­later New York harbored three wrecking companies with fleets of specialized wrecking vessels and equipment worth tens of thousands of dollars.14 Simply put, the ad hoc opportunistic wrecking that characterized Scott’s youth was anachronistic by the time he “turned diver” on the eve of the Civil War. Marine insurance underwrote the modernization of the wrecking industry on the East Coast. The first American-­owned insurance companies incorporated in the 1790s, but it took a generation before they displaced shippers’ long-­standing reliance on insurance by private subscriptions or through Lloyd’s of London. The early American firms, however, formed the nucleus of a thriving industry as marine insurance expanded in step with the dramatic increases in shipping and commerce during the early de­cades of the nineteenth ­century. By 1820, firms in the country’s fastest-­growing port formed the New York Board of Marine Underwriters on the model of E ­ ngland’s iconic Lloyd’s of London. The board pooled resources and shared information across member companies in an effort to mitigate losses and boost profits. Correspondents stationed in the world’s major ports forwarded vital intelligence while “tough lighters ­were kept in readiness to hasten to any ship which might run aground in the sandy ­angle” formed by Long Island and New Jersey.15 Effective salvage ser­vice became one of the board’s primary concerns ­because successful salvage reduced loss. In addition to maintaining lighters, the board routinely hired pi­lot boats to search for wrecks and aid disabled vessels in the “pocket,” the name local wreckers gave to the Long Island–­New Jersey area, a­ fter power­ful storms swept the region.16 In January 1820, for example, the underwriters dispatched the pi­lot boat Clinton with four riggers to the stranded Rubicon. ­After a particularly devastating storm nine years ­later, the New York Mercantile Advertiser reported: “No information has been received from sea since the storm. Our news boat, and the pi­lot boat Trimmer, despatched by the underwriters, went down the bay the eve­ning before” Clearing the Coast 111

looking for wrecks. No rec­ord exists of ­either vessel finding any wrecks, but the brief suggests the growing value of information about shipwrecks to underwriters and commercial news outlets.17 The board also came to rely on a cadre of skilled wreckers to salvage the vessels and cargoes they insured. As the underwriters’ agents, t­ hese specialists directed salvage efforts, guarded shipwrecked property, and worked with local wreckmasters and wreckers in the isolated littoral. Captain John Brown was one of t­ hese agents. He represented New York and Boston insurance companies for more than thirty years at shipwrecks throughout the Long Island–­New Jersey pocket. In April 1826, he visited Barnegat-­Squan’s John Forman to collect the proceeds due to the Union Insurance Com­pany from the auction of the sal­vaged remains of the wrecked sloop Hannah Ann. Nine months ­later the two men ­were directing the salvage of the schooner Orbit on Squan Beach.18 Brown occasionally sal­vaged wrecks with fellow underwriter agent Henry  F. Schenck. The pair recovered several hundred packages and crates of dry goods, glass, and earthenware cargo from the wreck of the ship Aurora off Sandy Hook in 1827. Nine years ­later, in a deal brokered by Forman, Schenck purchased the wreck of Solid and sal­vaged the brig’s valuable cargo of marble with John Brown. Brown and Schenck sailed from wreck to wreck, taking over the increasingly challenging task of salvaging larger vessels with more cargo from the ad hoc wreckers who had dominated marine salvage for generations.19 Wrecker-­agents like Brown, Schenck, and Morgan ensured the uninterrupted flow of information between wreck and insurance office. “Yours and Mr. Jordham’s joint letters are rec’d,” began a letter from the Aster Mutual Insurance Com­pany addressed to Captain Brown at a wreck on Squan Beach. “We have sold the found Corn to M. Helan Petty,” they explained, “­unless it has previously been shipped to Philadelphia. . . . ​You ­will please sell all the damaged corn for as the most you can get for it cash.” 20 Agents ferried letters between local wreckmasters overseeing wrecks and urban insurance agents who issued directives on what to do with sal­vaged goods, whom to employ, and how to proceed with complicated salvage efforts or beachside auctions. They also ferried the bills and receipts that paid wreckers and lessened the financial loss of o­ wners and insurers. The close ties this frequent dialogue engendered between coastal wreckers, cosmopolitan wrecker-­agents, and urban insurance representatives threads through their correspondence. “If Mr. Sherman could shute me a [illegible] of Geese or half dozn duck and send them to me I should like it very much, and I would pay well for them, please see about it and oblige your friend,” wrote 112 chapter four

an insurance representative at the end of a letter to John Forman detailing salvage plans.21 Fi­nally, wrecker-­agents relayed updates to city newspapers, which spread news of shipwreck and salvage up and down the nation. A blurb published by the New York Mercantile Advertiser about the salvage of the ship Aurora is illustrative: “Mr. H. Schenck, of Sandy Hook, said that Capt. Brown, agent of the underwriters, remained on board, and expected to save the remainder of the dry goods, glass, and crates, should the wind continue westward. The slate and coal would be lost.” 22 Gradually, innumerable interactions like t­ hese up and down the coast established and strengthened the economic, po­liti­cal, social, and cultural linkages between urban centers and the beach. Wrecker-­agents embodied the gradual centralization of marine salvage by New York’s underwriters that began in 1820. As they ranged between wrecks on Long Island and New Jersey, ­these men forged connections between distant coastal communities while acquiring the skills and knowledge to salvage stranded vessels. They often failed to return vessels to ser­vice or salvage all the cargo from a wreck, but they ­were more successful than their ad hoc pre­ de­ces­sors in recouping losses for the underwriters. The expansion and consolidation of the marine insurance industry in the 1820s and 1830s expanded the range of New York’s most skilled wreckers.23 While Brown and Schenck worked in the Long Island–­New Jersey pocket, Captain James Morgan, the “wrecking agent general” for the Board of Underwriters of New York and Boston in the late 1830s, sailed over 300 miles to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, where he “artfully saved” $12,000 of cargo from a packet ship that “went wholly to pieces” in the winter of 1839.24 Wrecking was becoming a specialized trade rather than ancillary employment for coastal residents. L­ ittle surprise then that the secretary of the trea­sury turned to the New York Board of Underwriters in 1848 to implement the initial appropriations for federal lifesaving stations—­the board was the only centralized entity with extensive local knowledge of the American coast and its wreck traps. Just as they inspired legislation to better regulate the coast at the beginning of the c­ entury, the growing number of shipwrecks near the port of New York in the 1830s and 1840s contributed to the transformation of the region’s wrecking industry. By one widely circulated account, 338 vessels wrecked on the Long Island and New Jersey coast between 1839 and 1848. Of that number 122 occurred between 1846 and 1848, leading one con­temporary to conclude that wrecks “greatly increased of late over ­those of former years.” 25 Systematic accounting and tabulation of wrecks did not begin u ­ ntil the 1870s, but singular reports by the Department of the Trea­sury and antebellum Clearing the Coast 113

newspapers suggest that at least forty vessels met with disaster in the pocket ­every year during the m ­ iddle de­cades of the nineteenth ­century.26 The underwriters responded to t­ hese frequent disasters by employing more wrecker-­agents and investing in increasingly specialized wrecking equipment. Local wreckmasters increasingly became guardians of shipwrecks rather than active salvors. Directions mailed to Barnegat-­Squan’s John Forman in late 1836 w ­ ere clear: “Should anything happen previous to Capt. Schank taking charge, [that] would inable [sic] you to save more of the cargo at a reasonable expense, you w ­ ill of course do so, but I repeat, be careful of your expenses our Bill is very large already.” 27 By midcentury, the Board of Underwriters had a substantial wrecking department with experienced wrecker-­agents able to salvage vessels from Montauk, Long Island, to the Delaware River, and occasionally beyond. But even this system proved insufficient any time multiple wrecks lined the pocket, an increasingly common occurrence by midcentury. As an insurance representative updated John Forman on efforts to salvage the brig A. H. Wan in March 1850: “Mr. Sterlert of Key Port leaves h ­ ere in the Schr [schooner] Amanda O Philier to day with Cables, Anchors, Blocks, Falls &c to render such aid as the situation of the Vessel and Cargo may require. We have so many Wrecks on hand at the pre­sent time that nearly all the wrecking vessels with the Cables, Anchors, steam pumps, &c. are all in use elsewhere so are the principal wrecking men besides. The offices intended [to] have given Mr. Sterlert a letter to you and we are requested to say that you and him must act and consult together ­until Capt. John Brown can be spared to aid you which no doubt he w ­ ill be able to 28 do in about three days time.”  Not only ­were t­ here more wrecks, but the economics of salvage began to change as a new type of vessel, steamers, began to wreck in the pocket. Steam-­powered vessels represented a significantly greater capital investment than wooden sailing vessels. For the first time (with the exception of naval craft), vessels w ­ ere beginning to be worth more than the cargo they freighted. Salvaging wrecked vessels became as remunerative and hence as impor­tant as salvaging a wreck’s cargo. Steamers w ­ ere simply too valuable to be abandoned or stripped for metal and lumber. The underwriters responded to this new real­ity by continuing to rely on old hands like Captain Brown while upgrading their wrecking capabilities. By the mid-1850s underwriters would routinely engage steam tugs to tow “wrecking schooners” loaded with engineers, wreckers, and “wrecking apparatus” to imperiled vessels. They began to call on a cadre of new wrecker-­divers, including T. A. Scott, to salvage sunken vessels and cargoes. The underwriters also took a more proactive 114 chapter four

stance. In the winter of 1859–1860, the board chartered the side-­wheel steamer W. G. Putnam to assist “vessels in distress, tow in disabled craft, and also attend to a general towage business.” 29 The growing expense and sophistication of salvage operations pushed the Board of Underwriters to once again transform the wrecking industry around the port of New York. On the eve of the Civil War, the board spun off its internal wrecking department into a highly capitalized—if unprofitable—­corporation called the Coast Wrecking Com­pany. Creating an in­de­pen­dent wrecking firm was one of a series of maneuvers by the increasingly proactive Board of Underwriters to reduce loss and mitigate risk by professionalizing the American merchant marine. In 1857, New York marine insurance companies founded the American Lloyd’s Register of American and Foreign Shipping, an in­de­pen­dent shipping register modeled on ­England’s Lloyd’s Register. As the preface to the first volume explained, the register classified vessels frequenting American ports as “an aid to the Shipper and the Underwriter;—to the Shipper, in his se­lection of a vessel qualified for the transportation of cargo; to the Underwriter, in taking or rejecting risks.” 30 Three years ­later, with war looming and profits imperiled, representatives of the marine underwriters, shipbuilders, and shipmasters met to discuss protecting the American merchant fleet and improving safety at sea. The group established the American Shipmasters’ Association (ASA) to certify qualified masters and mates by scrutinizing “the moral character and professional capacity of seamen.” Over 1,400 seamen applied for certificates in the ASA’s first year; some 4,300 by the end of 1865. A ­ fter the Civil War, the ASA began rating vessels and published a competing register that displaced American Lloyd’s as the official, underwriter-­endorsed American shipping register in the early 1880s.31 The formation of the Coast Wrecking Com­pany in 1860 by the Board of Underwriters created the region’s first v­ iable wrecking firm. Incorporated by the state of New York, the Coast Wrecking Com­pany represented, as the board understood it, a “reor­ga­ni­za­tion of the[ir] Wrecking Department” rather than an entirely new enterprise. Indeed, the firm acquired the board’s extensive wrecking apparatus for the nominal sum of $8,000. Ten insurance companies purchased a controlling stake in Coast Wrecking Com­pany stock and negotiated a binding Tariff of Rates with the Board of Underwriters (i.e., themselves). The tariff spelled out a schedule of fees for five types of salvage operations and daily rates for vari­ous wrecking apparatuses. Steam pumps cost thirty to thirty-­five dollars per day not including a ten-­dollar cleaning fee. Use of anchors and chains cost one cent per pound, schooners Clearing the Coast 115

thirty dollars per day, surfboats five dollars per day. This tariff reflected insurance companies’ efforts to fix salvage costs and avoid unpredictable and costly ­legal ­battles over salvage awards. In exchange, the insurance companies agreed to “make good the deficiency” (of up to $10,000) at the end of the year on a set profit of 10 ­percent on capital invested.32 Creating an in­de­pen­dent wrecking com­pany ensured the marine insurance firms access to skilled, reliable, and cost-­effective wreckers without the financial and administrative burden of r­ unning their own wrecking outfits. In fact, the Coast Wrecking Com­pany was never designed to make a profit. On this front, it succeeded; non-­underwriting-­affiliated investors l­ ater lamented that the firm enjoyed “plenty of glory but no dividends.” Instead of profits, the firm brought a mea­sure of stability to an uncertain yet essential service—­salvage. It also reduced losses of underwriters by recovering vessels and cargoes, enhancing insurers’ profits and limiting carry­ing costs of manning and maintaining a fleet of specialized wrecking equipment. Formation of the Coast Wrecking Com­pany paralleled the increasingly corporate segmentation of marine industries during this time and was heralded as a boon for wary insurance companies on the eve of the Civil War. Consolidation worked. Insurance interest dominated the Coast Wrecking Com­pany Board for de­cades. In 1878, a New York Times article stated the obvious: a “large majority” of the firm’s thirty stockholders w ­ ere “officers and stockholders of the Marine Underwriters and vari­ous marine insurance companies” of New York.33 Relatively ­little is known about salvage, particularly naval salvage during the Civil War. The conflict’s best-­known salvage—­the raising of the U.S.S. Merrimack and its reconstruction as the C.S.S. ­Virginia—­occurred with much haste and secrecy and left ­little in the documentary rec­ord. Even less is known about the mundane salvage work that accompanied the North’s massive blockade and Southern smuggling operations. The U.S. Navy used the government steam derrick Derigo to salvage vessels off Fortress Monroe, ­Virginia, in June 1862. The following year, general instructions to commanding officers blockading vessels off Wilmington, North Carolina, included the following directive: “Each blockader should, if pos­si­ble, have on board one spare anchor and two spare anchor stocks, and a large, strong hawser, capable of towing or hauling off stranded vessels,” in this case, typically captured blockade runners.34 Crews of stranded naval vessels tended to salvage themselves, though they occasionally had to rely on knowledgeable locals for help.35 The Coast Wrecking Com­pany, for its part, continued to salvage wrecks in the Long Island–­New Jersey pocket. In January 1864, the federal 116 chapter four

government hired the firm to salvage the government ironclad Comanche, which sank three months ­earlier as part of the cargo of the ship Aquila in San Francisco Bay. Both had resisted the efforts of West Coast wreckers who had been unable to raise and save e­ ither vessel. Within months, the Coast Wrecking Com­pany’s crew of eigh­teen divers and wreckers successfully sal­vaged both vessels, dramatic proof of the firm’s capabilities.36 Competition among upstart wrecking companies characterized the postwar salvage business in the pocket. “War among the Wreckers,” read a December 1866 headline for an article describing a confrontation between crews of the Coast Wrecking Com­pany and the Union Coast Wrecking Com­pany that had involved a drawn pistol, pillaged brandy, an ignored injunction, and the intervention of a federal revenue steamer. A third firm, the New York Submarine Com­pany, eventually sal­vaged the disputed wreck and its cargo.37 While few wrecks garnered such open hostility, competition for wrecks was fierce. The underwriter-­backed Coast Wrecking Com­pany differentiated itself by acquiring specialized wrecking equipment and developing a sophisticated information network. This infrastructure made its salvage work more efficient and more successful. Information helped Coast Wrecking Com­pany wreckers beat competitors to shipwrecks and avoid ­future “wars.” ­Under the leadership of Israel J. Merritt, a veteran wrecker one year older than T. A. Scott, the Coast Wrecking Com­pany aggressively modernized its second­hand wrecking apparatus to meet the demands of salvaging industrial shipping. In 1865, the firm upgraded its salvage fleet by launching a specially designed wrecking steamer, the 300-­ton Relief.38 Two years ­later Merritt filed a patent that altered the design of “camels,” or pontoons, oblong, airtight wooden boxes used to refloat submerged vessels. Divers attached camels to sunken wrecks with heavy chains. When filled with air, ­these camels exerted a tremendous lifting power, which wreckers used to refloat vessels. Merritt’s design “revolutionized the wrecking business” by one account and became “the most impor­tant tool in the raising of sunken vessels” b ­ ecause it allowed wreckers to apply mechanical force to the camel’s chains in conjunction with the buoyancy of the camels.39 Better tools like camels and specialized vessels helped veteran wreckers accomplish salvage efforts once deemed impossible. The Coast Wrecking Com­pany also developed a sophisticated international network consisting of agents stationed along the coastline from Key West to Halifax, an office on Wall Street, and wrecking stations containing salvage vessels and equipment on Staten Island and the Detroit River. The Atlantic Monthly explained the system in 1869: Clearing the Coast 117

A strict surveillance is always kept by the companies’ agents on the coast. ­These agents are all sorts of persons and characters, their medium of communication with the central offices is the telegraph, and with the vessels cruising at sea the signal-­flag. They are the small farmers, fishers, wreckers, light-­house keepers, and ­others living on the coast. A standing reward induces any one of them, observing a vessel wrecked or in danger of being wrecked on the coast in their vicinity, to ­ride to the nearest telegraph-­office and announce the danger in which the vessel is placed to the president of the com­pany . . . ​[and] “dropped” at all the boat stations of the com­pany. Thus the captains of the several boats of a com­pany know of a wreck as soon as the president, and, steaming up, wait for ­orders, or act on their own judgment with promptness.40 The system worked. By the late 1860s, the Coast Wrecking Com­pany had successfully sal­vaged vessels off ­Virginia, California, Florida, St. Thomas, and Louisiana while dominating salvage from Long Island, New York, to Cape May, New Jersey. The firm had become the nation’s preeminent wrecking com­pany.41 Salvage law evolved with the modernization of wrecking. Wreckers had traditionally worked on contract or for salvage, a monetary award determined by local arbitrators, underwriters or, in contentious cases, admiralty courts (federal courts have jurisdiction over all admiralty cases in the United States). The men working wrecks with commissioners of wrecks like Barnegat-­Squan’s John Forman earned negotiated wages rather than court-­ awarded salvage. This approach stood in stark contrast to that of Key West, which had an elaborate license system and a special court established to ­handle the region’s expansive and contentious wrecking industry. Outside of Key West, private arbitration trumped public litigation. Considering how many vessels wrecked in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Mas­sa­chu­setts, and New York in the final de­cades of the nineteenth ­century, remarkably few salvage disputes made it into the courtroom.42 By the late 1860s, however, the value of property saved coupled with the cost of wrecking challenged traditional methods of determining adequate compensation for salvage. Federal and state shipwreck legislation promulgated in the 1820s did not anticipate the corporate salvage of the 1860s.43 Neither did the wrecking system established in Key West in the 1820s, which had been designed to oversee the decentralized, ad hoc salvage of wooden 118 chapter four

vessels on the contested Florida frontier. The U.S. Supreme Court de­cided two cases in 1869 that secured the l­egal standing and viability of wrecking companies and codified rules for determining salvage awards in the emergent era of industrial shipping. The first stemmed from the Coast Wrecking Com­pany’s 1864 salvage of the ironclad Camanche and its transport, the ship Aquila. Justice Nathan Clifford’s decision confirmed the right of corporate ­owners of salvage vessels to claim salvage awards, which protected and encouraged the nation’s fledgling wrecking companies. The Blackwell decision, also written by Justice Clifford, confirmed the need for handsome salvage awards to encourage the recovery of large steam-­powered vessels. “Steam vessels,” Clifford wrote, “are always considered as entitled to a liberal reward, not only ­because the ser­vice is usually rendered by a costly instrumentality, but also ­because the ser­vice is in general rendered with greater promptitude and is of a more effectual character.” Modern marine salvage, the Court concluded, was both more effective and costlier than its pre­industrial pre­de­ ces­sors. As such, successful operations should be better compensated with larger salvage awards. Clifford also clarified how courts would ­handle salvage situations involving multiple salvors with competing claims.44 ­These ­decisions acknowledged the fact that modern salvage required expensive, specialized salvage vessels and equipment. They effectively normalized wrecking to the rapidly modernizing industrial world by ensuring regular, fair payment for salvage, supporting a capital-­intensive industry prone to ­severe fluctuations in available work, and turning marine salvage into an ingrained component of the nation’s maritime landscape.45

Captain T. A. Scott, Wrecker T. A. Scott could not have chosen a more fortuitous time to test his undersea mettle as a diver. “Diving,” concluded one observer in 1869, “has become one of the most practical, impor­tant and useful branches of the nautical profession.” 46 Divers made good money—­$200 a month was not uncommon at a time when the average common laborer earned around $30 a month—­and ­there ­were also only thirty experienced divers in the entire country.47 Scott took any job that came along and actively promoted himself, bombastically wagering $500 in 1868 that he could “remain u ­ nder ­water from sunrise to sunset.” 48 It is unclear ­whether anyone took the bet, but the Neptune Submarine Com­pany hired Scott several months ­later to supervise salvage of the Scotland, one of the largest steamers in the world that had been stranded in Clearing the Coast 119

one of the main shipping channels into the port of New York for two years. Contemporaries described it as “the iron monster, which for years lay midway in the channel, a terror to our seamen.” 49 Scott slayed this monster, earning lasting fame among the general public and seagoing sect. For 170 working days he managed six divers, overseeing “even the minutest particulars of the work.” Scott spent 281 hours surveying the wreck, which sat in twenty-­two feet of w ­ ater, setting explosives and recovering over 548 tons of debris from the seafloor (more than half of all the debris collected). He also broke a rec­ord by remaining underwater for almost eight consecutive hours. By July 1870, according to one report, “only her bottom remains in the sand two feet below its surface.” No less an authority than Scientific American praised Scott as a “master of anything to be done on the ­water or ­under its surface,” and his work on Scotland became legendary among the region’s wreckers. Within a few short years, Scott had progressed from an unknown schooner captain to a nationally recognized “expert diver.” 50 The salvage of Scotland was the first in a long pro­cession of Scott’s coastal exploits. In December 1869, several months before the Scotland proj­ect officially concluded, Scott, captain of the steam wrecking boat Truxton, witnessed a collision between the New York harbor ferryboat Manhasset and a tugboat. According to the New York Herald, Scott “sprang into a small boat, and made his way through the cabin win­dows of the Manhasset” before he “placed his body in the hole made by the tug and, calling for blankets and clothing succeeded in keeping out the rush [of w ­ ater] sufficiently u ­ ntil the boat was got into the slip.” The article concluded: “This is the first rec­ord of a leak of this size being s­ topped by a man’s body at the risk of his own life.” Scott would spend weeks recovering in the hospital and, quite tellingly of his character and sense of duty, quit working with the Neptune Wrecking Com­ pany rather than sign an affidavit that would have brought salvage profits to the com­pany for his Good Samaritan act.51 He spent the next two years variously employed as a diver, or “submarine engineer” in the language of the day. Obituaries l­ ater summarized this transitional period as a time when Scott “branched out into submarine construction work,” building the city’s Pier No. 1 on the Hudson River, and making “all the preliminary examinations of the river bottom” and superintending “the work of laying the foundations” for the Brooklyn Bridge. He also helped salvage two sunken docks at the Dry Dock Com­pany in New York.52 Scott fared well. The 1870 federal census listed him as heading a ­house­hold of eight, including four c­ hildren between the ages of four and eleven, a domestic servant, and a twenty-­nine-­year-­old ­woman (possibly the ­widow of a fel120 chapter four

low diver who died working Scotland) in addition to his wife, Harriet. The following year, he answered an advertisement for “a submarine engineer, experienced in ­handling heavy stone u ­ nder w ­ ater.” As the proj­ect engineer, F. Hopkinson Smith, l­ater recalled, Scott “walked into my office a stranger, and thirty minutes ­later walked out again as foreman of construction.” 53 Scott moved with his wife and five ­children (another had been born in 1870) to New London, Connecticut, in the spring of 1872 to build the Race Rock Light­house. The light was to mark the dangerous eastern entrance to Long Island Sound, where strong currents (hence “race”), confusing cross seas, and dangerous shoals had been frustrating vessels navigating the 110-­mile protected waterway in and out of the port of New York for centuries. “Many a vessel,” concluded one con­temporary account, “has shivered her timbers upon this deadly rock, and many a bronzed face has looked troubled and anxious when the hoarse roar of the Race . . . ​was heard.” 54 The federal government had been attempting to mark this ship trap for de­cades. In 1852, the Light­house Board complained: “Buoys cannot be kept on it, and spindles have hitherto only remained u ­ ntil the breaking up of the ice in the spring.” 55 It took another twenty years of appropriations and surveys before Scott dropped the first loads of riprap (loose stone) in May 1872. He would toil almost seven years at the site, building the artificial granite island and gothic revival light­house. The island and light­house stand to this day. Scott’s effort got off to an inauspicious start. Six weeks into the proj­ect, the boiler in his new steam lighter Wallace exploded, killing eight and wounding five. Scott reportedly escaped “by leaping overboard.” 56 Then, the original construction plan proved untenable, and Scott with engineer F. Hopkinson Smith devised a new plan, which Congress begrudgingly funded in the summer of 1872. It was wet, dangerous, tiring work. Vessels wrecked on and around the worksite. Storms trapped crews on the site for days and set back work for months. Work suspended in the late fall through the spring ­because the site was too exposed to winter nor’easters and ice floes out of the Connecticut River. It took six years to lay the granite foundation, pier, and wharf, and another nine months to complete the two-­story keeper ­house and tower that held the light 68½ feet over the w ­ ater.57 Scott was rightly proud of the results. Years ­later, he still carried a watch charm described as “beautifully polished, bound with gold, and the word ‘Race Rock’ carved thereon.” It had been cut from a piece of granite used to build the light­house’s foundation.58 When the “bright scarlet and pure white” lights of the Race Rock Light­ house began flashing on January 1, 1879, Scott at almost fifty years of age Clearing the Coast 121

was, according to F. Hopkinson Smith, “still strong, muscular, and with an experience in submarine work second to that of no man on our coast.” 59 He stayed in New London and began to work full time on his own account. It was prob­ably not a difficult decision b ­ ecause he had developed strong ties to the community. A famous diver and a local philanthropist, Scott was a well-­ known figure on New London’s waterfront who purportedly distributed sal­ vaged coal ­free to neighbors anytime he brought in a “fresh wreck.” 60 Further, his f­ amily had come of age in New London. By the time “the Rock,” as it was known, was lit, he and his wife of twenty-­four years had eight c­ hildren together. T ­ hose not still in school worked with their ­father—­they ­were anchored to New London. Fi­nally, Scott had never worked exclusively on the light­house. He had been salvaging vessels and cargo (particularly coal) from nearby wrecks in Long Island Sound since at least May 1874 when he worked a coal schooner sunk off Saybrook, Connecticut. With the Rock finished, Scott “the diver” gave all his attention to his new enterprise: the New London Wrecking Com­pany.61 Scott was a skilled wrecker in the right place at the right time. Traffic through Long Island Sound grew exponentially in the de­cades a­ fter the Civil War as the nation’s major urban-­industrial corridor flourished. In 1893, the Point Judith Light­house keeper counted 60,000 vessels sailing by his post near the eastern terminus of Long Island Sound. Of course, t­ here ­were many more, as this number does not include vessels passing in the night or during periods of poor visibility. A growing number of this coasting traffic met with disaster. A recent study of shipwrecks around nearby Block Island demonstrated a substantial growth in shipwrecks that began in the 1860s and peaked in the 1890s.62 Conservative rec­ords of the U.S. Life-­Saving Ser­vice (USLSS) tallied more than 570 strandings in Long Island Sound between 1867 and 1898. This figure underreports the number of vessels requiring salvage ser­ vices, but it suggests the opportunities available to Scott by the Sound’s eastern terminus. While he would never own the specialized wrecking tugs and massive derricks required to salvage the largest vessels steaming through the Sound, Scott dominated salvage on the eastern half of Long Island Sound ­because he got to vessels faster than New York wrecking companies, b ­ ecause of his reputation for success, and b ­ ecause of his ability to work collaboratively with competing wrecking firms. Indeed, Scott would quickly rename the New London Wrecking Com­pany the T. A. Scott Wrecking Com­pany, capitalizing on his name recognition among seamen, shipping ­owners, underwriters, and, eventually, the general public to secure salvage jobs.63 122 chapter four

Photo­graph shows Ware­house No. 5 in T. A. Scott’s salvage yard around 1910. It is covered in nameboards removed from vessels the firm sal­vaged. Many of them now adorn the Mystic Seaport Museum. Courtesy of the New London Maritime Society.

The Scott Wrecking Com­pany prospered. His contemporaries estimated Scott sal­vaged twenty-­five to thirty-­five wrecks each year.64 An exhaustive search of archival material, newspapers, and court dockets tallies 249 salvage operations between 1879 and 1902, from the firm’s incorporation to Scott’s effective resignation. Undoubtedly ­there w ­ ere more, and contemporaries’ estimates are prob­ably close to the com­pany’s ­actual workload. Nevertheless, Scott’s confirmed operations offer remarkable insight into the salvage operations of a late nineteenth-­century regional wrecking outfit. First, the vast majority of Scott’s salvage work took place within fifty miles of his New London docks. Strategically positioned, Scott often beat his New York–­based competitors to wrecks near the dangerous eastern entrance to Long Island Sound. Competition for lucrative salvage jobs remained intense, and Scott rarely worked west of New Haven, Connecticut. Several small competitive salvage firms in Rhode Island effectively ­limited Scott’s expansion to just east of the Quonochontaug lifesaving station on the Rhode Island coast. The few Clearing the Coast 123

exceptions involved underwriters hiring Scott as an expert diver to assess wrecks of valuable steamers. In April 1883, Scott traveled to Portland, Maine, to inspect the wreck of the steamer Brooklyn. Nine months ­later, the New York Board of Underwriters hired him to survey the wreck of City of Columbus and “see if it is practicable to raise her” from the w ­ aters off Martha’s Vineyard. Charging divers who preceded him at the wreck with “misrepre­ sen­ta­tion and neglect,” Scott gave the board a detailed report on the condition of the steamer before concluding “it would be unadvisable to attempt to raise the wreck.” The board listened and abandoned City of Columbus. Competitors ­didn’t, and they spent months trying to salvage the steamer, whose bones still lie on the seafloor off Martha’s Vineyard.65 Professional wrecking remained seasonal work, a typical maritime occupation characterized by periods of intense action punctuated by spells of inactivity timed to environmental rather than ­human rhythms. Almost two of ­every three wrecks the Scott Com­pany worked before 1902 took place between November and April, mirroring the “wreck season” guiding the staffing of USLSS stations. Scott averaged nearly half as many salvage jobs during the summer than winter, and he often waited for months with no salvage work. ­After one par­tic­u­lar dry spell, a local paper celebrated—­“ Work for Wrecker Scott”—in a congratulatory headline.66 During slower periods, Scott sal­vaged wrecks he purchased from wary o­ wners and insurers, stripping them of valuable material or, in the case of the brig Maria Louisa, refloating and rebuilding the entire vessel, which he ­later sold for a handsome profit.67 Scott also sal­vaged wrecks he had previously located while working ­others. In 1884, Scott found seven sunken vessels during his search for the barge President, and, as his local newspaper knowingly reported, Scott “took down their bearings for ­future reference and may possibly fill up a slack spell in bringing up some of them to the surface.” 68 While ­every salvage job was unique, par­tic­u­lar to the time, place, and vessel in question, Scott’s “typical” job involved saving a stranded schooner. Data are incomplete, but at least one of e­ very three Scott salvage operations involved a fore-­and-­aft-­rigged vessel that ran aground. Schooners w ­ ere the work­horses of the North American coastal trade during the late nineteenth ­century, and salvaging them was the mundane ser­vice work that kept coastal trade flowing. They came in many sizes, from traditional two-­masted craft to three-­, four-­, and five-­masted behemoths that carried thousands of tons of cargo on local, regional, and international routes. While schooners carried diverse cargoes, from general merchandise and lumber to paving stones and lime, most of the ones Scott sal­vaged carried the coal fueling New 124 chapter four

­ ngland factories and heating its homes.69 They ­were particularly adapted E to navigating the fickle winds and strong currents of Long Island Sound. In fact, Scott only sal­vaged sixteen of the less maneuverable sailing vessels (ships, brigs, and barques) that likely avoided the Sound’s challenging passage compared with the 155 schooners he sal­vaged over twenty-­three years. All told, sail-­powered vessels accounted for three out of ­every four vessels Scott sal­vaged. Salvaging stranded vessels had changed dramatically from the days of farmer-­fishermen wreckers. Most significantly, Scott arrived at the scene of wrecks by sea rather than by land. Occasionally he was able to pass a heavy line, or hawser, to the stranded vessel and haul it into deep w ­ ater. When he discovered the schooner Allie H. Belden ashore in November 1885, Scott braved “a high wind blowing and a tremendous sea breaking over her. ­After three attempts he succeeded, with much difficulty, in ­running 240 fathoms of line to her. She was then hauled off ” by Scott’s tugboat.70 More often, however, Scott had to lighten the vessel by removing cargo. Failing to haul off the ship Marabout on his first pass, Scott removed 1,500 cans of the ship’s oil, “put a big gang of men at work on the ship, and, a­ fter considerable puffing and blowing by the l­ittle tug, and the hard work of the men, the stranded ship was floated into deep w ­ ater.” 71 Saving stranded vessels occasionally took longer, requiring divers to patch holes, laboriously remove the vessel’s cargo, and coordinate use of anchors, tugboats, steam pumps, and winches timed to the rise of the tide and the push of the wind to float the wreck. Scott would have to wait days, weeks, or even months for favorable weather conditions to salvage particularly difficult wrecks. Many vessels sank, or found­ered, in the shallow w ­ aters of Long Island Sound, and the Scott Com­pany successfully raised dozens of them. T ­ hese salvage operations required not only specialized equipment and knowledge but also a significant outlay in men, material, time, and money that was virtually impossible to justify for commercial vessels before 1860. The salvage of John Beattie from eigh­teen feet of w ­ ater in November 1881 is representative of the pro­cess and pitfalls of raising sunken vessels. ­After a group employed by the Beattie’s ­owners failed to raise the schooner, they telegraphed Scott, asking him “to take up t­ here his big pumps, and canvas to cover the hatches” and raise the vessel and remaining cargo of scrap iron. Scott dispatched the wrecking tug Alert and schooner Report with steam pumps and a crew of sixteen wreckers. The o­ wners assumed Scott’s success. Success, however, was never assured; poor weather and equipment malfunctions ­were expected for wintertime salvage operations, and the Beattie sank in a location Clearing the Coast 125

described as “about as rough a place as ­there is on Long Island Sound.” Crews worked the vessel for almost two months ­until they towed it into New Haven, Connecticut, in January 1882. Steam pumps and canvas patches w ­ ere not enough for the job. Scott combined the buoyancy of salvage vessels—­ connected to the wreck with massive chains—­with the rise and fall of the tide to step Beattie into progressively shallower depths ­until steam pumps could empty the patched hull of ­water.72 Scott’s salvage acumen extended beyond stranded or sunken schooners. He recovered more than two dozen steamers, twenty-­four barges, eight yachts, five tugs, and more than a dozen ships, sloops, brigs, and barques between 1879 and 1902. On larger jobs, he had to hire additional tugs, derricks, and men from competitors—­even working side-­by-­side with other “master wreckers” when necessary—to successfully salvage some of the largest, most valuable vessels that sailed Long Island Sound. ­After the 420-­foot Puritan ran aground near Race Rock Light­house in November  1895, the steamer’s captain had several crewmen row twelve miles into New London to ask Scott for assistance. Scott sent a pair of tugs and lighters to take off all the passengers, baggage, and freight. First to arrive, Scott had charge of the scene by the time the big New York wrecking com­pany tugs arrived. He hired ­those tugs, W. C. Chapman and J. D. Jones, the most power­ful wrecking tugs on the East Coast, to haul the $1.4 million vessel off the rocks and tow it to his wharf in New London. By then, this competitive cooperation was standard practice for regional wrecking firms. Seventeen years before the Puritan salvage, Scott and the Coast Wrecking Com­pany’s Israel Merritt worked together salvaging almost a million dollars in cargo from the wrecked British steamer John Bramall.73 Scott and other professional wreckers employed the tools of industrial Amer­i­ca—­steam, steel, and engineering—to rescue the pinnacles of con­ temporary technology, steamships. They tamed the shore, turning its most dangerous and iconic ele­ment, shipwrecks, into mundane ser­vice calls. But wreckers (like USLSS surfmen) continued to rely on practical, experiential, local knowledge and apprenticeship training rather than science and the institutionalized learning that was increasingly characteristic of turn-­of-­the-­ century Amer­i­ca. Marine salvage, in other words, remained a “shop culture” that valued pragmatic knowledge and innovation.74 Only years of experience could make a modern wrecker—­the equipment was too specialized, the environment too dynamic, and each wreck too unique. Wreckers like Scott remained master craftsmen who relied on their hard-­earned knowledge, skills, and experience rather than specialized engineers reared in the nation’s 126 chapter four

growing number of engineering schools. It was not insignificant that professional marine salvors continued to refer to themselves as “wreckers,” a term once reserved for nefarious, though skillful, plunderers. Like the earliest wreckers, modern wreckers ­were bound by the dictates of weather and tide, which ­were dependent on local coastal morphology and resisted the abstractions of modern science and engineering. So while they used some of the most sophisticated technologies of their time, modern wreckers like Scott shared much with their pre­industrial brethren. Above all ­else, Scott shared the dangers of marine salvage with his farmer-­ fishermen wrecking pre­de­ces­sors. Falling objects routinely maimed and occasionally killed wreckers. In 1832 underwriter agent Henry F. Schenck was killed while hoisting a lifting shear on the wreck of the brig Mexico. Fourteen years l­ ater his former partner, John Brown, broke his leg while landing goods from the wrecked steamship Franklin. Falling overboard and drowning, of course, remained a constant threat on the unsteady, slippery wrecks. Danger lurked closer to home as well. In 1886, the chief engineer of the Coast Wrecking Com­pany slipped on an icy dock and drowned.75 Modern wreckers also had to contend with a new array of dangers. Power­ful steam engines, larger vessels, larger derricks, greater forces, and heavier loads thinned the margin of error. Divers drowned. Punctured suits, tangled and severed hoses, decompression sickness, and mechanical failure all took their toll.76 Scott, for his part, would claim that he only lost one man while wrecking—­ his eldest son, William, who drowned ­after being knocked overboard by a lifting boom while they sal­vaged the steamer Narragansett in 1880.77 Scott differed from his farmer-­fishermen pre­de­ces­sors in his remarkable rec­ord of success. Early nineteenth-­century ­owners of shipwrecked vessels and cargos ­were more than happy to just save the cargo and ship’s fittings. Refloating wrecks was difficult and failure was as common as success. Contemporaries of Scott, however, expected him to save every­thing—­cargo and vessel—­just as they expected the USLSS to save the lives of e­ very shipwrecked person. Indeed, it was more common for a vessel to be sal­vaged than not, and Scott rarely disappointed. “Captain Scott Saves Schooner” was a frequent headline in the New London Day during the 1880s and 1890s.78 He contracted to raise vessels other wreckers w ­ ere unable to salvage. But no one escapes failure, and even Scott did not succeed in ­every salvage effort. ­After losing $3,000 in attempts to float the Charles L. Mitchell in 1883, for example, Scott abandoned the schooner to his competition, the New York–­based Merritt Wrecking Com­pany, successor to the Coast Wrecking Com­pany. Merritt triumphed where Scott had failed.79 Still, Scott succeeded far more than he Clearing the Coast 127

stumbled, and admirers would remember “his ­great strength and manual skill to his keen wits and inventive genius.” 80 The Day stated the obvious in 1894: “When Capt. Scott and his men take hold of a job, it is seldom they do not succeed in the undertaking.” 81 Success, however, only got the Scott Com­pany so far ­because it lacked the equipment to compete with the region’s largest wrecking com­pany, the Merritt Wrecking Com­pany. Or­ga­nized in 1880 a­ fter the dissolution of the Coast Wrecking Com­pany, Merritt, ­under the tested leadership of its eponym, Israel J. Merritt, acquired its pre­de­ces­sor’s equipment and personnel. Within a few years contemporaries considered Merritt’s, as it was called, “the most extensive and most successful wrecking com­pany in the world . . . ​ ­doing practically all the heavy wrecking on the Atlantic Coast.” 82 The Scott Com­pany remained v­ iable by expanding its ancillary maritime ser­vice work. In the slower summer months, Scott took any paying job that came along. During the 1880s he towed spars and timber rafts through Long Island Sound, dove on oyster beds for fishers concerned about destructive starfish, raised old telegraph cables in Block Island Sound, and built breakwaters, piers, pools, and docks up and down the Sound.83 During the 1890s, the Scott Com­pany took on progressively larger maritime construction jobs, including digging the Shinnecock Canal in Long Island and dredging harbors, as well as transportation and heavy lifting work for the Sound’s new Endicott fortifications (part of a major national coastal defense building program between 1890–1910).84 Competitors took notice. In 1894, the Chapman Wrecking Com­pany, Merritt’s only significant New York–­based competitor, offered to buy out the wrecking part of Scott’s business, letting the captain “pay par­tic­u­lar attention to dredging, building, ­etc.” Chapman wanted to “get rid of dangerous competition and . . . ​have a big advantage over their competition in getting the work at this end of the Sound.” 85 Scott refused the offer. The following year the Scott Com­pany advertised a wide array of marine ser­vices, of which salvage was only a small part. An advertisement reprinted in the New London City Directory in 1893 and 1894 listed the firm’s capabilities: “Towing to all points between New York and Boston . . . ​General Lighterage . . . ​­Water for Shipping . . . ​Raising Sunken Vessels or Cargoes, Preparing Foundations for Abutments, Examination and Repairs of Marine Railways, Ships’ Bottoms, Dams, Etc., Building Wharves and Sea Wall, Derricks for ­Handling Heavy Weights, Steam Pumps at Short Notice.” 86 The com­pany took a more graphic approach in 1895, showing the tools of their trade: a diver, a tugboat, a pile driver, and a dredge. Scott “the wrecker,” in other words, advertised as a bona fide coastal general 128 chapter four

Advertisement for “Captain T. A. Scott, Diver, Wrecker and Contractor of All Kinds of Submarine Work.” It appeared in New London City Directory in 1895 and 1896. Courtesy of the New London Maritime Society.

contractor, supervising a sizable work force while coordinating large-­scale, complex proj­ects, be they wrecking, building, dredging, or transporting.87 Scott embodied the direct connection between shipwrecks and the massive engineering of the American beaches that accelerated in the final de­cades of the nineteenth ­century. As he cleaned the beach of the shipwrecks and debris that had long characterized the shore, Scott also dredged coastal ­waters and built the seawalls, bulkheads, piers, and other structures that enabled the intensive use and abuse of the littoral that would become endemic to the modern beach.

Marine Salvage and the Lore of the Shore The development of professional capital-­intensive wrecking companies in the final de­cades of the nineteenth ­century challenged the sensational view of wreckers-­as-­pirates that had been pervasive in American culture. As the development of federal lifesaving capabilities tamed shipwrecks and, by extension, the coast in the American imaginary, professional wreckers displaced the shore’s best-­known villains. The wrecker-­pirate had been a stock character in Anglo-­American lit­er­a­ture, visual and performing arts, and sensationalist newspapers since the 1830s. ­These wrecker-­pirates w ­ ere “black whiskered fellows, who carried murder in their very looks,” rough figures admirably depicted in the engraving gracing the cover of Charles  E. Averill’s popu­lar 1848 dime novel The Wreckers; Or, The Ship-­Plunderers of Barnegat (see chapter  2).88 This image shifted with the professionalization of wrecking. By the 1870s, accounts in periodicals, plays, and novels portrayed anyone living along the coast before the advent of wrecking companies as a potential wrecker “in disguise as honest fishermen, like wolves in lambs’ clothing.” 89 A sardonic 1895 article in Leslie’s Monthly recalled “the good old palmy days of wrecking” as a time when evil wreckers caused deadly shipwrecks for personal enrichment.90 The well-­publicized exploits of savvy wreckers like T. A. Scott and professional wrecking companies turned marine salvage into a respectable profession and wreckers into heroes, an offshoot of the late nineteenth-­century “maritime revival” that reflected a nostalgic, critical, and ultimately conservative appropriation of Amer­i­ca’s relationship with the sea.91 Beginning in the late 1850s a growing number of authors and artists began pushing a counternarrative that characterized wreckers as “honorable and brave . . . ​know[ing] nothing of false lights or murder.” 92 This change coincided with the midcentury domestication of the coast by federal inter130 chapter four

vention, coastal tourism, and the emergence of wrecking as a specialized, capital-­intensive industry. Shipping news columns in regional newspapers began to regularly report the activities of local “wreckers,” a term previously reserved for salvors in Key West and the Bahamas. For the first time, poems, plays, short stories, and periodicals began portraying wreckers as skilled engineers and sophisticated businessmen. An 1874 article published in St. Nicholas; an Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks explained the sea change to its young readers. A ­ fter describing the evil wreckers of lore who “inhabited the remotest caves on the roughest part of the coast,” writer William H. Rideling concluded: “Happily, all the wreckers of this kind have passed away; only their name remains, and that is changed in meaning.” 93 Vivid descriptions of submarine divers and the new wrecking companies repeatedly demonstrated to national audiences how shipwrecks and, indeed, the entire littoral ­were being domesticated by brave men and novel technologies, and, in the pro­cess, becoming a workplace for modern professionals. A watershed 1869 article in Harper’s Weekly lamented the inefficiency and lack of organ­ization of the nation’s “policemen of the sea,” yet praised the country’s nascent salvage industry for “rapidly producing a ­great change in our wrecking system” by displacing the “hard characters” of yore with prompt, efficient com­pany men.94 By the 1890s, the exploits of wreckers and submarine divers regularly appeared in national periodicals and regional newspapers. “Life u ­ nder ­Water,” an 1894 article published in Scribner’s Magazine, introduced readers to New York salvage divers, whom the article’s author, Gustav Kobbé, described as “a kind of manfish unclassified by naturalists.” While Kobbé acknowledged divers w ­ ere “weird” to most readers, their sophisticated technologies, expert skill, and repeated successes marked them as thoroughly modern professionals. In another article published three months ­later, Kobbé explained the art, science, and storied tradition of New York’s famed wrecking companies.95 Through t­ hese stories, shipwrecks became prob­lems that could be fixed rather than terrifying disasters. Periodicals like The Engineering Magazine and Scientific American published vivid descriptions of the techniques wreckers used to salvage stranded and sunken vessels. “The number of difficulties to be overcome and sudden emergencies to be met would surprise one not conversant with the subject,” began an 1894 article in The Engineering Magazine that offered detailed accounts of how wreckers salvage dif­fer­ent types of shipwrecks.96 Nine years l­ater, the magazine would declare: “The achievements of this branch of engineering science [salvage work] during the past year have exceeded in importance and interest ­those of any previous period Clearing the Coast 131

in history,” before offering meticulous technical descriptions of the “pre­sent era of notable salvage operations.” 97 As wrecking became an “engineering science,” the shore transformed from the haunt of mysterious, potentially dangerous wreckers to a workplace for skilled, competent, and, at times, heroic bootstrap engineers and divers. T. A. Scott was one of the best-­known wreckers in late nineteenth-­century Amer­i­ca. Championed by national media outlets as well as local and regional newspapers, Scott’s fame spread with ­every successful salvage. Much of his celebrity, however, can be attributed to Scott’s former employer, F. Hopkinson Smith. In addition to designing the Race Rock Light­house, supervising the construction of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, and numerous other major coastal building proj­ects (with Scott serving as the general contractor for many), Smith was also a prolific painter and author. He introduced the reading public to Captain Scott with the short story “Capt. Joe,” published by ­Century Magazine in 1889. “The original of ‘Capt. Joe,’ Smith would l­ ater explain, ‘is Capt. Thomas A. Scott, the wrecker. . . . ​­Every word in my story is literally true . . . ​as well as e­ very other detail illustrative of the generosity and nobility of the Captain’s character.” 98 Smith built upon the short story in his third novel, Caleb West: Master Diver. A ­ fter appearing serially in the Atlantic Monthly, Houghton, Mifflin and Com­pany published the book in 1898. Released to mixed reviews, the novel sold well.99 Its connection to Scott was not lost on readers. As the Colorado Springfield Gazette told its mountain-­bound readership: “The original Captain Joe is, we believe, a famous wrecker and submarine engineer of New London, Conn.” 100 Scott for his part apparently never read the book, reportedly saying: “It might have been a good book if Mr. Smith had stuck to the facts. Instead he made up a story to run in with the facts. Maybe that makes the book in­ter­est­ing to other p ­ eople, but it spoils it for me.” 101 Caleb West proved remarkably enduring and introduced generations to the heroic, humane, and thoroughly professional wrecker-­engineer hero. “That this story was bound to be dramatized,” wrote the New York Times theater writer, “no experienced playgoer could have doubted for a moment.” 102 National theater impresario Jacob Litt produced the melodrama based on the book, which opened in New London on September 3, 1900. The hometown crowd approved, giving the troupe several curtain calls. It earned similar praise in Providence, New York City, Chicago, and Minneapolis. Caleb West was adapted again in 1912 when the Reliance Film Com­pany released the two-­ reel short Caleb West. It appeared across the country, bringing Scott’s story as far as Juneau, Alaska’s Lyric Theatre. Eight years l­ ater, Paramount Pictures 132 chapter four

released the fifty-­minute Deep ­Waters, based on Caleb West and directed by noted French filmmaker Maurice Tourneur.103 Scott fascinated turn-­of-­the-­century Americans ­because he personified the fading values of the old order while materially succeeding in the new industrial age. Scott and the legions of wreckers and divers inundating late nineteenth-­century American culture ­were liminal figures who inhabited both the insular, pre­industrial coast and an increasingly integrated, industrial one. They embodied the per­sis­tence of pragmatism and experiential knowledge alongside a strident modernist faith in both the ­human mastery of the natu­ral world and technological pro­gress. Scott in par­tic­u­lar expressed disappearing Victorian ideals of character, autonomy, and control while si­ mul­ta­neously attaining power, money, and success. He was a self-­made man who competed with large corporations. He embraced the industrial age as an engineer who mastered enormous boilers, pumps, submarine armor, derricks, and tugs. And he mitigated the everyday disasters that underwrote the nation’s burgeoning economy. The American Unitarian Association, with good reason, published a short biography of Scott ­under its “True American Types” series a year ­after his death.104 Indeed, Scott joined the pantheon of turn-­of-­the-­century American heroes who helped assuage cultural anx­i­eties wrought by industrialization. Like soldiers, USLSS surfmen, boxers, and other “warrior-­heroes,” Scott personified the emerging physical ideal of masculinity as he visibly embodied the strenuous life. His employer, F. Hopkinson Smith, described him at age fifty as “powerfully built, short, and as broad as he was long. The very fit of his clothes indicated his enormous strength.” 105 Like firemen, Scott saved property and lives in view of an admiring public, subduing a dangerous and volatile classical ele­ment through modern science and technology. And like the mythologization of the western outlaw Jesse James, Scott was an individual for a nation that still championed individuals over faceless corporations and cheered Horatio Alger’s self-­made heroes. Newspapers, for example, always reported that “Capt. Scott”—­not the Scott Wrecking Com­pany—­was at work on a wreck. And they marveled at his ability to best his big-­city corporate competitors. “Scott saves valuable property on the Long Island Coast that the Merritt Wrecking had given up,” boasted Scott’s hometown paper in late 1894.106 It was ­little surprise, then, that Scott would be eulogized as “an ideal American citizen” by the editors of Every­body’s Magazine, a popu­lar periodical with a circulation of half a million when the article appeared.107 Scott and other wrecker-­heroes added another narrative to discussions about the American beach that emphasized order, professionalism, and Clearing the Coast 133

technology. “Among all the perilous professions,” began a 1907 article in the popu­lar Pearson’s Magazine, “­there is none more hazardous, none more in­ter­ est­ing than that of the ship-­wrecker. . . . ​As a m ­ atter of fact, the work of the ship-­wreckers has constantly to do with the most perilous engineering prob­lems.” 108 With professionalization, the “black whiskered” piratical wrecker was fi­nally banished to the pages of popu­lar fiction and fireside yarns of old salts. As state and federal interventions literally tamed the coastal frontier, the wrecker-­hero and the USLSS lifesaver culturally domesticated the littoral and disaster capitalism for late nineteenth-­century Americans. Yet, vessels continued to wreck, a seemingly unavoidable cost for an expanding economy founded on maritime transportation. When wreckers became professionals, they collectively ­limited the effects of the daily shocks and catastrophes that paralleled the development of industrial Amer­i­ca. Wreckers, once conceptualized as terrors of the shore, became heroes as their efforts displaced mysterious coastal locals and helped turn the shore into a safe place—­a place where everyday disasters ultimately left no one dead, no property destroyed, and no tangible remains on the landscape. The irony of the wrecker-­hero motif, unlike the USLSS surfman-­citizen, was that it was anachronistic the very moment it gained cultural currency. Wrecking had become so capital-­intensive that only impersonal corporations could amass the material, personnel, and knowledge required to salvage industrialized shipping. Scott was no exception. The Scott Com­pany incorporated in 1903 to keep pace with its larger rivals. By 1911, the firm, ­under the leadership of T. A. Scott Jr., operated eight derricks, seven tugs, and self-­ powered lighters from wrecking stations in New London and Boston, Mas­ sa­chu­setts. A publicity lithograph published in 1910 accurately depicts the equipment-­dependent real­ity of industrialized wrecking.109 Still, Captain Tom remained the public face of his sprawling corporation. The lithograph, published three years a­ fter Scott’s death, prominently displayed a picture of the robust founder. Similarly, the only graphic for the Scott Corporation’s advertisement in the New London City Directory for more than a de­cade ­after his death in 1907 was a photo­graph of T. A. Scott.110 Scott and his com­pany became increasingly anomalous as corporate wreckers became faceless, nameless workers who performed ser­vices “essential for the welfare of a maritime nation,” as one commentator wrote in 1900.111 Over the ensuing de­cades, in­de­pen­dent “celebrity” wreckers like Scott faded from the public’s attention, becoming old hands revered in the wrecking industry but forgotten outside of it. As early as 1902, Scott was fondly recalled as an “old timer.” By 1930, he was all but forgotten; even his 134 chapter four

T. A. Scott Com­pany Plant at New London, Conn. illustrates the extensive operations of the T. A. Scott Com­pany around 1910. Note the ware­house, whose photo­graph appeared ­earlier in the chapter, next to the wireless radio tower in the m ­ iddle of the lithograph. Courtesy of Mystic Seaport Museum.

role building the Race Rock Light­house was ignored or forgotten.112 Popu­lar articles and books about marine salvage focused on the techniques, technology, and vessels saved rather than the individuals d ­ oing the work.113 The novelty of professional wreckers had worn off. Like the once wreck-­strewn beach, wreckers had been cleared from the coast, domesticated and incorporated into the modern world that rendered them—­but not their impressive technologies—­invisible to the American public. Coastal shipwrecks had been tamed. Wrecking had become marine salvage: engineering prob­lems for skilled technicians and monopolistic corporations operating along the modern beach. Yet, in isolated spots far from major ports and modern wrecking outfits, ad hoc wreckers still gave what­ever aid they could to distressed vessels using the traditional coastal tools of small boats, heavy lines, and manual l­ abor. Reports of illegal wrecking still thrilled the nation from time to time. “Singular as it may seem in a community where ­until now it has been supposed that piracy existed only in the flash volumes of the circulating libraries,” lamented the New Haven Eve­ning Register in 1884, “yesterday and the day before several well-­known and hitherto respected residents about the mouth Clearing the Coast 135

of the harbor made attempts to steal material from the disabled craft.” 114 While such thefts from wrecks occasionally happened on the beach, perceptions had changed: illegal wrecking had become grist for the literary mill rather than an accurate repre­sen­ta­tion of coastal life. Changing perceptions of the wrecking industry paralleled both the development of professional wrecking companies and the broader assimilation of the maritime world into the industrial state. Professionalization and consolidation of New York’s salvage business w ­ ere part of a w ­ holesale reor­ga­ni­ za­tion of the maritime world that occurred in the m ­ iddle of the nineteenth ­century, a sea change driven by the increased scale of shipping and the application of scientific methods to seamanship and the sea that w ­ ere designed to make both activities “safer and more practical.” ­These changes, epitomized by the works of Sir Francis Beaufort and Matthew Fontaine Maury, as well as the reasoned, regulated improvement of navigation, shipbuilding, marine hospitals, and lifesaving, “made the expansion of commercial and military sea power, and the adaption of technological change to the seas, safer and more practical.” The shore, once viewed as a mysterious and dangerous frontier, was now perceived as “a normal place to work, dif­fer­ent only in detail, it would appear, from the world of the factory and office.” 115 Appearances, however, masked a subtler real­ity. Work along the beach never reached the regularity of a factory floor. Wind, weather, and tide rather than the clock still dictated the rhythm of each day. The coast became a place where the emerging tenets of modernity ­were repeatedly called into question as steamships, the most sophisticated technologies of the age, wrecked with alarming frequency. Curious spectators increasingly able and willing to travel to the beach began flocking to coastal shipwrecks, replacing wrecker-­ pirates up and down the strand where they turned coastal shipwrecks into mass spectacles and objects of commercial leisure.

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chapter five

Shipwreck and Spectacle on the Modern Beach Lea: I see where the St. Paul’s ­going ashore at Long Branch cost the American Line one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Perrins: I ­don’t doubt it! I was ­there myself for two weeks last summer. —­“Same ­Thing All the Year Round,” Puck, April 1, 1896

On a stormy night in January 1896, one of the newest and largest transatlantic passenger liners ran aground on its final approach to the port of New York. The bump was so slight that few aboard St. Paul realized they had hit the New Jersey shore. As one passenger ­later admitted, “I turned over and went back to sleep.” 1 Though St. Paul was not in any immediate danger, its o­ wners acted quickly to ­free the stranded liner. Salvage vessels dispatched from New York, Delaware, and ­Virginia raced to the scene. As passengers and their luggage ­were rescued from the wreck, crowds of spectators swarmed the shore to witness the spectacular scene.2 For ten days the massive steamship loomed just a few hundred yards from Long Branch, New Jersey’s famous Iron Pier. During that time, scores of professional marine salvors manned the fleet of tugboats, derricks, and barges that labored to save the fourth largest passenger liner in the world. Tens of thousands of urbanites traveling by train from New York City and Philadelphia, as well as an untold number of New Jerseyans, ventured to Long Branch to experience the drama of shipwreck and salvage. The spectacle along the beach and just offshore became a sensationalized and entertaining public display that lured a captive audience. Railroads offered special direct trains and local businessmen opened boarded-up h ­ otels and restaurants to serve the winter crowds that flocked to St. Paul. Interest in the shipwreck extended far beyond the confines of Long Branch. Newspapers across the country published daily updates of the shipwreck, the salvage effort, and the ever-­ growing throngs of spectators. Illustrated articles appeared in major national periodicals including Harper’s Weekly, Leslie’s Weekly, and Scientific American. And an eclectic mix of boosters, commentators, and humorists seized upon the example of the wreck to bolster an argument for “necessary” maritime improvements, to critique American society, or as fodder for an easy joke. 137

Front page of the Sunday edition of January 26, 1896, edition of The Journal (New York, New York).

As a singular event, judging from the scale of the salvage effort, the extent of the media attention, and the size of the crowds, the St. Paul accident was extraordinary. As one of the 1,400 wrecks on the American coast that year, the St. Paul event was also perfectly ordinary. Shipwrecks had been largely tamed by the time the liner went ashore at Long Branch. Professional salvors and federal lifesavers had turned shipwrecks into relatively safe, almost routine affairs. By the United States Life-­Saving Ser­vice’s (USLSS) accounting, 1896 saw the greatest number of shipwrecks in its jurisdiction yet the lowest percentage of lives and property lost in its nineteen-­year history—­ 138 chapter five

just one out of ­every 260 p ­ eople involved in a wreck died, and 11 ­percent of wrecked property was lost. The next best rec­ord was that of the previous year.3 Shipwrecks remained a necessary, if unfortunate, consequence of commerce in a burgeoning cap­i­tal­ist society dependent on waterborne transportation. Shipwrecks ­were risks carefully mitigated to maximize profits and limit loss, but they offered opportunities as well. In an increasingly legible, connected, and regulated littoral, savvy entrepreneurs and established businesspeople commodified coastal shipwrecks, turning frequent catastrophes into mass spectacles. Shipwreck spectacles ­were another way in which the sea, shore, and disaster w ­ ere domesticated and commercialized. They also marked the culmination of a pro­cess of the beach’s transformation that began with late eighteenth-­century efforts to preserve life and property in the coastal frontier. Despite their par­tic­u­lar circumstances and characteristics, late nineteenth-­century coastal shipwrecks forged new links between coastal locals and outsiders, the beach, mass culture, and the evolving technologies of industrial Amer­i­ca. As mass spectacles, wrecks like St. Paul embodied the complex social milieu of the modern American coast at the turn of the twentieth ­century.

The Shipwreck and Salvage of St. Paul St. Paul was less than a year old when it ran aground off Long Branch in 1896. Six days before the accident, it had departed Southampton, ­England, with 260 passengers including a Rus­sian prince, a former U.S. congressman, and more than 120 immigrants heading to cities across the United States. The beginning of the voyage offered smooth sailing, but a succession of storms marred its final three days. On the last morning, a rival British liner, Campania, fell in with St. Paul, and the two raced ­toward New York. As one passenger ­later described, “A gale was blowing and the ships w ­ ere plowing through heavy seas.” Shortly ­after six in the eve­ning the liners steamed into fog. Onward they raced through the night, the fog thickening as they neared the American shore.4 In many ways, approaching the entrance to the port of New York from the Atlantic Ocean remained as dangerous at the end of the ­century as it had been at the beginning. In the sixteen years before St. Paul wrecked, salvage experts counted almost 200 vessels that “went ashore on the Jersey coast” between Sandy Hook and Barnegat Light.5 Historical rec­ords tally almost 1,000 wrecks along New Jersey’s entire coastline during that same period, the peak years Shipwreck and Spectacle on the Modern Beach 139

for reported wrecks. At least one vessel wrecked near Long Branch each year between 1889 and 1896. The steamship Irrawaddy went ashore in fog not far from the Branch’s Iron Pier forty-­six days before St. Paul wrecked. Even as wrecking tugs strug­g led to rescue St.  Paul, the ship Foyle wrecked just two miles to the north. Hours ­after St. Paul fi­nally docked in New York City, the British steamship Lamington met disaster less than fifty-­five miles east of Long Branch. Two days ­later, the schooner Asenath A. Shaw went ashore sixty-­five miles south of the seaside resort.6 The Long Island–­New Jersey pocket was hardly exceptional. Shipwrecks remained daily occurrences in the American littoral when St. Paul wrecked. A conservative tally by the USLSS in 1896 estimated nearly 9,000 ships had wrecked since 1871 along portions of the American coast u ­ nder its ever-­ expanding purview. That figure reflected the operations of the USLSS, which did not expand beyond the East Coast ­until the 1870s, rather than the total number of wrecks off the American coastline. In 1896, for example, the USLSS reported 680 disasters occurring in “the Scope of the Ser­vice,” while the Trea­sury Department tabulated a total of 1,392 “disasters to vessels which occurred on and near the coasts and on the rivers of the United States” in 1896.7 ­These figures (averaging roughly two to three wrecks each day) should be read as low estimates b ­ ecause they represent only reported incidents—­even a casual survey of con­temporary newspapers affirms the extraordinary number of shipwrecked, stranded, or lost vessels off the American beach that did not make the “official” wreck lists. By the end of the nineteenth ­century, the perils of the approach to the port of New York had been long enshrined in popu­lar folklore and codified in government publications. The 1894 United States Coast Pi­lot, the federal government publication that succeeded American Coast Pi­lot in 1888, issued this stern warning: “In thick or foggy weather, when the ship’s reckoning indicates that she is near the Jersey coast, ­great care should be taken to make frequent and accurate soundings with an armed lead. . . . ​[If a mari­ner] has reason to believe he is too near the coast, [he] should put the ship’s head offshore and stand off.” 8 Popu­lar wisdom held that the northern New Jersey coast was a “graveyard” with a “bad reputation,” what mari­ners and underwater archaeologists call ship traps.9 Dangers remained, but the New Jersey beach (as well as much of the American beach) was ringed in a dense web of institutions that guided navigators, identified vessels, reported disasters, and rescued life and property. Five light­houses and two light-­vessels offered vis­i­ble markers for mari­ners on the other­wise featureless terrain between Montauk, Long Island, and 140 chapter five

Cape May, New Jersey. A handful of fog signals rang with ­little effect the night St. Paul approached New York. USLSS stations, sited ­every three to five miles, maintained patrols along the coast from the beginning of August through the end of May to identify and assist vessels in distress. Strategically located wind signal stations, operated by the United States Weather Bureau, displayed flags indicating weather predictions “for the benefit of mari­ners.” And four seacoast telegraph stations, operated by the Western Union Telegraph Com­pany, reported passing vessels to the New York Maritime Exchange, the clearing­house for commercial news about the nation’s busiest port. Fi­nally, a loose network of fishermen and other coastal residents earned extra income reporting maritime casualties to New York wrecking companies whose professional crews manning specialized salvage vessels remained on constant alert.10 Well aware of the h ­ azards in the approach to the port of New York, Captain John Clark Jamison reportedly slowed St. Paul as it neared the pocket. Jamison was a respected mari­ner with over twenty years of “honorable” ser­ vice on transatlantic passengers. But the combination of dense fog, windy conditions, strong currents, and crude navigation techniques compounded by the liner’s deep-­sea racing foiled Jamison’s other­wise cautious approach. St. Paul ran ashore off “the Branch” a l­ ittle before two in the morning on Saturday, January 25, initiating a well-­oiled rescue and response effort by the region’s shipwreck and salvage network.11 USLSS surfman Charles Sexton discovered the stranded liner shortly a­ fter it ran aground on his midnight to 4 a.m. watch. ­After signaling St. Paul, he hurried back to the Long Branch lifesaving station and roused the seven-­man crew. They carted the “wrecking apparatus” to the liner and sent the first shot (attached to a rescue line) across the vessel, a testament to the crew’s rigorous training.12 Being in no immediate danger, Captain Jamison signaled the lifesaving crews that all would remain on board St. Paul ­until the morning. Asher Wardell, keeper of the Long Branch USLSS Station, sent word to New York. As he ­later explained: “I am compelled to send all my news to the Maritime Exchange, that is the first t­ hing I have to do ­after I come ashore from a wreck. I send it by telegraph or by telephone. That is my ­orders.” 13 The New York Maritime Exchange, or­ga­nized in 1873, was what a con­temporary described as “the marine sensorium of the Western Hemi­sphere.” The exchange served as a communications hub, forwarding news to the liner’s ­owners, insurers, and other interested parties, including the Merritt and Chapman wrecking companies as well as federal customs agents.14 The Merritt organ­ization also received news of St. Paul from its local agent, Long Branch fisherman Shipwreck and Spectacle on the Modern Beach 141

Nelson Lockwood, within a half hour of the liner ­going ashore. The USLSS crews spent the early morning hours ferrying passengers’ dispatches ashore and to the nearby telegraph office. From multiple sources, then, news of the stranding reached New York City and beyond.15 A ­little ­after dawn, a veritable fleet of specialized salvage vessels reached St. Paul from New York a­ fter a daring three-­hour run south through thick fog.16 As word spread, other wrecking steamers from Delaware and V ­ irginia headed north t­ oward Long Branch. Within twenty-­four hours, a significant part of the country’s marine salvage apparatus had arrived on the scene. Newspaper reporters caught the morning train down the Jersey shore. As wreckers hastened to ­free the liner, after­noon dailies from Boston, Mas­sa­ chu­setts, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, published front-­page stories about the accident based on, as one local writer quipped, “hearsay and supposition.” Yet all the papers had a relatively sanguine opinion of St. Paul’s fate.17 The wreckers knew better. By the time St. Paul grounded off Long Branch, New York’s wrecking industry had evolved into a consolidated, professional, and remarkably proficient corporate enterprise. Unparalleled opportunities, profits, and experience drove New York’s wrecking companies, making them among the best in the world. Hours ­after St. Paul ran ashore, the New York Sun proclaimed “the removal of stranded ships on a beach like Jersey’s has been reduced to an absolute science.” 18 Still, the potential for failure remained. The USLSS reported 20 deaths related to shipwrecks in 1896, 770 since it began counting casualties in 1871.19 Of 134 vessels that wrecked off the northern New Jersey coast between 1880 and 1896, just 72 ­were fully recovered.20 Wreckers prob­ably stripped the remaining vessels and abandoned the hulks to a sublime landscape of twisted metal and rotting wood that littered many American beaches into the twentieth ­century. ­Little won­ der then that Israel Merritt gave a “dismal smile” to a reporter who asked what the chances ­were for salvaging the liner.21 Curious spectators began to descend on Long Branch less than six hours ­after St. Paul ran aground. A local resident described the scene at first light: “She looked like a mountain, and the green lights gave her a ghostly, gruesome look.” 22 Men, w ­ omen, and c­ hildren traveled by train, carriage, and foot to the Branch. By noon, thousands ­were standing on the beach along the bulkhead closest to the liner. T ­ here w ­ ere so many p ­ eople that one reporter described the beach as “made black by the moving concourse.” 23 Offshore, St. Paul rocked in the heavy seas as more than a dozen salvage vessels endeavored to rescue it. By the New York Tribune’s account: “At 3 o­ ’clock it bore a decidedly retrousse appearance, and wagged backward and forward ­under 142 chapter five

the impetus of the arriving and departing swells[,] which flirted with it and threw foam over it as the wind blew it and caught the spray up in ­giant handfuls and cast it high up in the air and washed the black sides of the helpless monster till they glistened in the half-­sunshine of the after­noon.” While the scene offshore may have been dramatic, the scene on the beach soon “drifted into a sort of plea­sure party.” 24 The sound of the crowd’s mirth competed with the crash of the breakers. The USLSS members finished transferring the last of the passengers and mail by 5 p.m., returning to their station ­after more than twenty-­four hours of continuous ­labor. By sunset most of the spectators had departed, the seas had calmed, and the wreckers had prepared for a major rescue effort to refloat the liner during the next high tide. A few hundred spectators lingered along the bulkhead opposite the ­Grand View ­Hotel “gazing at the helpless vessel” lighted stem to stern with thousands of incandescent bulbs. An observer described the radiant display as “one of the most beautiful sights that has ever been seen ­here.” 25 Artist M. J. Burns captured the picturesque scene for Harper’s Weekly readers, allowing them to take part in the spectacle even if they could not physically be pre­sent.26 On the second morning, Sunday newspapers across the country published accounts of the shipwreck, the salvage effort, and the swelling crowds gleaned from the Associated Press wire reports. This coverage took place during a watershed moment in the history of the American press. One scholar has gone as far as arguing that 1897 was the “year that defined American journalism.” Newspapers had become a “big business,” more impor­tant than ever before in most Americans’ daily lives. Circulation skyrocketed as national and international news increasingly displaced local stories. Papers ­were longer and larger, filled with more images, features, and editorials. The Sunday papers that trumpeted St. Paul’s predicament had only recently become commonplace, and newspaper accounts of the St. Paul shipwreck reflected the sensationalist, one-­upmanship, and media-­created pseudo-­events that would characterize yellow journalism in the years to come.27 Headlines in the St. Louis Republic, the San Francisco Call, Omaha’s Sunday World-­Herald, and Chicago’s Sunday Inter Ocean emphasized St. Paul’s race with the Campania, which had also allegedly run aground before backing off ­under its own engine power.28 Boise’s Idaho Statesman, Lexington, Kentucky’s Morning Herald, and dozens of other papers ran headlines declaring the St. Paul “stuck,” “stranded,” and “ashore.” Even London’s Sunday Times published a brief.29 The Knoxville Journal offered what might have been the day’s most perceptive headline—­“Some Excitement over the Stranded American Liner Shipwreck and Spectacle on the Modern Beach 143

St. Paul.” Curious readers took note. Keeper William F. Saunders in the Quonochontaug Life-­Saving Station pasted an article about the wreck in his scrapbook.30 While shipwrecks ­were, in one sense, “old news” for turn-­of-­the-­century Americans, several ­factors distinguished the St. Paul accident. The liner was a well-­known vessel at the center of national discussions about Amer­i­ca’s place in a rapidly changing world. Along with its s­ ister ship St. Louis, St. Paul was the first competitive American-­built transatlantic passenger vessel to be launched in de­cades. The vessels’ size, speed, seaworthiness, and luxury demonstrated the competency of the oft-­maligned American shipbuilding industry, symbolized the efforts of American business and government to develop the country’s international stature, and represented hope for a return to American maritime preeminence.31 Discussion of ­either vessel was infused with blind patriotism—­indeed, the steamers sailed for the American Line. ­After inspecting both vessels, one commentator declared: “Amer­ i­ca may [now] safely challenge the world.” 32 And challenge it did. On its third voyage, St. Paul beat a British-­built rival to the dock in a dramatic twenty-­ hour race. When St. Paul wrecked, like when it raced, p ­ eople on both sides 33 of the Atlantic took notice. The St. Paul shipwreck became a spectacle in print and in person. On the day it stranded off Long Branch, more than 10,000 p ­ eople traveled to the seaside resort to see the imperiled vessel. The scene, reported the New York Times, “resembled a country fair.” 34 Farmers came from more than twenty miles away. Fashionably dressed visitors arrived on trains from New York City and Philadelphia to stroll or bicycle Ocean Ave­nue, the resort town’s main thoroughfare. Thousands more sat on the cold, dark sand and frequented the many booths selling food and drink. Entrepreneurs offered unobstructed views of the wreck from ­hotel verandas for five or ten cents. The Branch took on the chaotic character of carnival as spectators paraded, gawked, bought, and bartered at the summer resort in the ­middle of winter. And “the omnipresent amateur photographer,” observed one reporter, “was in all his glory, and hundreds of snap shots ­were taken of the crowd, the vessel, and the flotilla of tugs and lighters at sea.” The Philadelphia Public Ledger aptly labeled the scene “an impressive spectacle.” 35 Spectacles ­were nothing new to Long Branch. Since the late eigh­teenth ­century, trips to the New Jersey resort town had inevitably included high-­ stakes gambling, thrilling ­horse races, teeming beaches, and eclectic crowds. Prominent politicians and patent medicine millionaires mixed with gamblers, confidence men, and wealthy elites during the busy summer season. 144 chapter five

American Liner “St. Paul,” Broadside on the Long Branch Shore, Where She Grounded offered readers of the New York Herald (January 26, 1896) a view of the social spectacle alongshore.

Unlike other popu­lar late nineteenth-­century resorts, Long Branch continued to accommodate visitors of ­every social class. It served as the nation’s unofficial summer capital during the 1870s and 1880s, offering four consecutive U.S. administrations reprieve from Washington, D.C.’s heat and welcoming weekend trains filled with thousands of working-­class day-­trippers from nearby cities and factory towns. By the 1890s, however, the resort was past its prime, having lost its biggest attraction—­the Monmouth Park Racetrack—to Republican antigambling legislation. Despite its strug­g les, diverse crowds continued to visit the Branch. As late as 1897 a popu­lar magazine could quip: “Society at the Branch is like its drinks—­very much mixed.” 36 The scene offshore and along the beach changed ­little for a week. A fleet of vessels encircled the stranded liner. Wreckers unloaded cargo, repositioned anchors, and pulled St.  Paul with tugboats, yet they moved it less than seventy feet. Unseasonably calm weather hindered the salvage effort. As the wreckers explained: “We always need a sea to help get a ship off ” ­b ecause if “we get a ­l ittle roll on the ship [from wind and waves] ­t here is no trou­ble.” 37 But for a week no wind or waves helped rock St. Paul off the beach. Despite the lack of pro­gress with the salvage, large crowds continued to flock to Ocean Ave­nue. For ­those unable to make the journey, reporters waxed eloquently (if sensationally) about the picturesque sea and sky that framed the spectacle, describing St. Paul as an “impressive sight,” Shipwreck and Spectacle on the Modern Beach 145

“helpless monster,” “magnificent steamship,” “stately vessel,” and “monster ship.” 38 Meanwhile, the accident and salvage efforts served as a lightning rod for contemporaries, gathering attention and inspiring an eclectic group of promoters to use the event to showcase a cause or bolster an argument. Vernon Brown, president of the New York Maritime Exchange, invoked the shipwreck to support the organ­ization’s lobby for federal improvements to the port of New York. Hours a­ fter the liner ran aground, Brown sent a letter calling for a government vessel to be stationed at the port to aid distressed vessels and prevent accidents. Six days ­later, Brown used a similar argument in Washington, D.C., while promoting a bill that would have provided a new aid to navigation near the entrance to New York Bay. William Strong, the reform mayor of New York City, referenced St. Paul in his successful bid to erect a new, larger dry dock in Brooklyn. And W. H. Beehler, a lieutenant at the U.S. Naval Hydrographic Office, used the wreck to illustrate his theory that atmospheric conditions influence the Gulf Stream.39 St. Paul also served as fodder for humorists, dramatists, and punsters. “The St. Paul Lies Beside the Sea,” a doggerel published by several papers, mocked the despair of the wreckers who “dropped a ­bitter tear” over their inability to ­free the stranded liner. The St. Paul Lies beside the Sea The St. Paul lay beside the sea And loomed up tall and black; She lay just where she struck the beach That penetrating whack. And that was odd, ­because the place Was ’way out of her track. Her screws screwed round and she was moved Scarcely enough to show; The tugs all tugged with all their might, But tugging was too slow; No helpful storm blew from the East; ­There was no storm to blow. The captain and the wrecking man ­Were walking close at hand; They wept like anything to see Such quantities of sand. 146 chapter five

“If this ­were only cleared away,” They said, “It would be ­grand.” “If seven maids with seven mops, Swept it for half a year. “Do you suppose,” the captain said, “That they could get it clear?” “I doubt it,” said the wrecking man, And dropped a b ­ itter tear.40 The night before the wreckers freed the liner, Philadelphia’s Eleventh Street Opera House premiered a skit: “The St. Paul in the Sand: or, Stuck on Jersey.” The skit served as the finale of the popu­lar Dumont’s Minstrels show, one of the few regular minstrel shows that remained in the northeast by the late 1890s. It contributed to what the Philadelphia Inquirer described as the theater’s ongoing “burlesquing of current public ­matters in such a manner as to afford a rich entertainment of wit.” 41 Two months ­after wreckers freed St. Paul, Puck, a popu­lar weekly humor magazine, could still reference the accident and Long Branch’s notorious under­ground gambling industry, in the joke that opens this chapter.42 Puck’s cynicism was not misplaced. Long Branch entrepreneurs had acted quickly ­after St. Paul ran aground to turn disaster into profit. Local hackmen (­drivers of hacks or carriages for hire) ­were among the first to realize the windfall generated by the seaside spectacle. On the morning of the wreck, nobody knew why so many ­people w ­ ere getting off the train. By the after­ noon, the first ­thing anybody heard as they left the train station was, according to one reporter, “the stentorian call of the hackman: ‘­Here you are! Fifteen minutes to the wreck!’ ” Not incidentally, fares had doubled or tripled.43 Business ­owners opened ­hotels and restaurants that had been closed since fall. Stands selling lemonade, cigars, popcorn, and liquor appeared “like magic.” Boys sold photo­graphs of the stranded liner and professional crooks worked the crowds. Even local fishermen profited by charging particularly enthusiastic spectators fifty cents to be rowed around St. Paul.44 Men, ­women, and c­ hildren piled into overcrowded vessels and went around the steamer “like some moving endless chain.” 45 Just three days a­ fter the stranding, the New York Tribune could report, “From h ­ otel men to peanut venders [sic] the Jerseymen are gathering a golden harvest.” 46 By the time St. Paul left Long Branch, commentators estimated the stranding had lured tens of thousands of visitors who injected $15,000 into the summer resort’s dormant winter economy in less than two weeks.47 Shipwreck and Spectacle on the Modern Beach 147

Not ­every Long Brancher profited from St. Paul. Within two days of the wreck, ­owners of waterfront property near the liner ­were complaining of the damage done by spectators. One resident went as far as having some of the visitors arrested for trespassing on his property. ­Others suffered more serious losses. St. Paul went ashore within fifty yards of a collection of codfish nets and poles. The fishermen, who owned the fishing gear and leased the spot, “warned the wreckers not to trespass, and,” as one observer wryly noted, “­these o­ rders w ­ ere so strictly obeyed that the nets are almost 48 entirely demolished.”  Even for locals (who arguably profited most from the St.  Paul), the narrative of the wreck resisted closure as dif­fer­ent groups fashioned dif­fer­ent narratives based on who they w ­ ere, what they did, and how they ­were affected. It was not an unequivocal unalloyed boom for the declining seaside resort. The crowds occasionally overwhelmed Long Branch even as they contributed to its coffers. The most spectators arrived on Sunday, February 2, eight days ­after the shipwreck. Long Branch had prepared for several thousand, but at least 25,000 eventually arrived on their one day off from work. Five thousand Philadelphians, including a large contingent of laborers from the shipyard that built St. Paul, filled almost 100 cars on the eight trains that ran to the Branch that day. Four special trains ran from New York City, bringing thousands more.49 Working-­class laborers mixed with middle-­class families on Long Branch’s winter boardwalk as blue-­collar sociability met white-­collar restraint. The spectacle of St. Paul suited both groups: relatively low admission price (the price of a train ticket) and lack of language barriers drew the working class as the opportunity for didactic leisure suited middle-­class sensibilities.50 Visitors comfortable with the commercialized leisure found in corner saloons and old Coney Island haunts bought and bartered during an unexpected midwinter Sunday picnic. Newspapers disagree about ­whether saloonkeepers flaunted local blue codes and sold alcohol to thirsty crowds. But hucksters quickly set up a roulette wheel and shell games, and balladeers rhapsodized about the steamer’s predicament. ­Every ­hotel and restaurant opened for business; many had prepared special menus. For twenty-­five cents, visitors could buy clam chowder, ham sandwiches, or soup from one of the innumerable small stands that lined Ocean Ave­nue. By one in the after­ noon they had all run out of food. Local grocers, butchers, bakers, and delicatessens opened, selling cakes, pies, and crackers. Prices skyrocketed ­until their stock also ran dry. By the late after­noon, the spectators w ­ ere ­eager to 51 get back on the trains ­after a long day at the shore. 148 chapter five

The Shipwreck Spectacle By the 1890s, the cultural power of shipwrecks rested on spectacle—­the large crowds, sensational repre­sen­ta­tions, ritual displays, and daily per­for­mances on the beach and offshore. Modern technology, including trains, cameras, and the national media, helped to transform unfortunate accidents into impressive and entertaining displays. But shipwreck spectacles like St. Paul ­were a product of the time, an expression of what historian Jackson Lears dubs the “new commercial culture of spectacle” that engulfed turn-­of-­the-­ century Amer­i­ca.52 Shipwrecks, like popu­lar entertainment, public amusements, and world’s fairs and expositions, drew cultural authority from con­temporary assumptions about the undeniable veracity of visual evidence. “To see an event,” writes Amy Louis Wood about this period, “was to understand its truth.” 53 But spectators did more than simply look at shipwrecks; they witnessed them. Many witnessed shipwrecks in person, and even more witnessed them through published narratives and images. As witnesses, spectators conferred significance on shipwrecks, and they helped dictate the meaning of the wreck on the beach and in the media. Witnesses played a decidedly public role, one that united individuals to a larger group of fellow spectators. The wide circulation of narratives and images of shipwrecks significantly expanded their audience, creating an ­imagined community of shipwreck spectators that dwarfed what is described in previous chapters. Words and images reached farther and spread faster than ever before. By the late nineteenth ­century, newspapers, popu­lar periodicals, and the emergent film industry regularly detailed the danger, suffering, and spectacle of shipwrecks to national audiences. T ­ hese highly standardized images almost always showed a crowd of spectators, marking the shipwreck as a sight worth seeing. Repre­sen­ta­tions of coastal shipwrecks re-­created the spectacle in print, enabling a national audience to see and even participate in the spectacles. The curious invariably crowded any accessible shoreline with a view of a wreck, turning shipwrecks into spectacles as much as reporters and newspaper editors did. As the New York Herald declared in 1896, “The ­people of New Jersey and visitors from the city let no chance slip them of seeing a steamer in distress.” 54 Published shipwreck narratives had, by the late nineteenth ­century, become highly standardized. The Associated Press’s news mono­poly ensured that most of the country would read a terse narrative that reproduced the St. Paul spectacle on a national scale by emphasizing the crowds of spectators Shipwreck and Spectacle on the Modern Beach 149

Captive in the Sands, the “St. Paul” Makes a Jersey Holiday appeared in the January 27, 1896, edition of the New York Herald.

and sensationalizing the stakes of the wreck and salvage effort.55 Published images of St. Paul ­were as standardized as the published narratives. Local and national newspapers and periodicals eventually published dozens of images of St. Paul. Most of t­ hese depictions, echoing the iconographic ship portrait motif, offered a broadside view of the wreck surrounded by a tempestuous sea. The foreground typically featured a crowded shore of spectators.56 One notable departure from the “standard” shipwreck image was the self-­consciously titled Odd View of the St.  Paul published in the New York Herald.57 In it, a fash­ion­able group of men and w ­ omen chat on a busy street. Two smokestacks and a mast rise above the roofs, and the liner’s dark hull is barely discernible in the distance. In Odd View, the crowd and 150 chapter five

Long Branch—­the spectacle—­remained the subject though St. Paul itself was largely absent. At the same time, the type of wreck represented began to change. The coastal wreck, long the exemplar of the shipwreck, was slowly being displaced by the wreck-­at-­sea that would dominate popu­lar conceptions of wrecks in the twentieth ­century. More than a de­cade before Titanic went down, Morgan Robertson’s novel Futility (1898) described the wreck of an unsinkable ship far from land. Stephen Crane probed the trauma of surviving a wreck at sea in “The Open Boat” (1899).58 Even Winslow Homer, an artist celebrated for his depictions of coastal wreck and rescue, turned to derelict vessels on the open sea beginning in the 1880s, most notably in his last oil painting, The Gulf Stream (1899).59 The coastal shipwreck was well on its way to becoming anachronistic even as it reached the height of national resonance. Its significance and popularity ­were, in part, a consequence of the physical and cultural integration of the beach with the American experience that this book has traced. Shipwrecks also appealed to a national audience ­because they spoke to some of the central concerns of the age. First, gazing upon or reading about wrecks fed into fin de siècle Amer­i­ca’s fascination with the maritime world. At the end of the nineteenth c­ entury, attention to the sea, shore, and shipwrecks matured as broader trends reshaped how p ­ eople thought about and interacted with the sea and shore. The closing of the frontier, rising waves of immigration, the decline of the merchant marine, the growth of coastal tourism, rapid technological developments, and overseas imperial aspirations and expeditions changed Amer­i­ca’s relationship with the sea and fueled a “maritime revival” that similarly reshaped popu­lar repre­sen­ta­tions and understandings of the American maritime experience.60 Uncertainty reigned as Amer­i­ca’s maritime industries faced stiff international competition. Paradoxically, physical changes to turn-­of-­the-­century ports solidified a new spatial regime that separated urban citizens from the working sea at the same time the nation began to look abroad. Fi­nally, more Americans had direct experience with the maritime world than ever before. One in three ­people living in the New York metropolitan region in 1900, for example, had crossed the Atlantic Ocean as an immigrant; even more had parents or grandparents with firsthand experience of the won­ders of the deep on an oceanic voyage.61 The contours of Amer­i­ca’s new relationship with the sea w ­ ere reflected in American culture. Stephen Crane, Jack London, and many other sailor-­ writers including Morgan Robertson, Lincoln Colcord, and Thornton Hains reinvigorated American sea fiction during this period. Their adventure Shipwreck and Spectacle on the Modern Beach 151

lit­er­a­ture began to appear in the 1890s, elegizing the “lost glory” of the age of sail even as it tepidly embraced steam navigation. Around the same time, a distinct American style of marine painting matured in the work of Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, and Albert Pinkham Ryder. One scholar celebrates this period as the “­great age” of American marine painting. For another, it marked the “end of an era.” E ­ ither way, the period’s art and lit­er­ a­ture manifested the nation’s changing relationship with the sea. Popu­lar culture was similarly affected as a veritable maritime craze swept the country. The solo-­sailing exploits of Joshua Slocum shared headlines with polar explorers, distant naval engagements, and local yacht club regattas. Discussions of Amer­i­ca’s Cup races and transatlantic passenger liners ­were infused with nationalist rhe­toric. Closer to home, popu­lar periodicals urged “ingenious boys” to build boats. And by the late 1890s, scores of films offered urban theatergoers dramatic images of sailing ships, ocean liners, harbors, storms, and, of course, shipwrecks.62 Shipwrecks drew the attention of turn-­of-­the-­century Americans ­because they ­were manifestations of the technological sublime, or what David Nye describes as that “essentially religious feeling” aroused by Americans’ confrontation with impressive human-­made objects and natu­ral landscapes.63 Coastal shipwrecks offered compelling vistas of ships—­the technological won­ders of industrial Amer­i­ca—­and the sea—an increasingly rare encounter with untrammeled wilderness.64 The New York Herald captured the essence of this dual sublimity off Long Branch: “­There was a strength and symmetry in e­ very line [of St. Paul]. ­There ­were majesty and power in ­every curve of the black hull and towering masts. . . . ​The sunlight glinted over her snow white railings and her shining brasswork. Her huge bulk, keeled over to port, gave her the look of a monster which, suddenly trapped, bends ­every power to be ­free again. Over and above her was a mantle of blue, pierced with shafts of sunlight. The sea, grey and somber, with a ­ripple of brightness h ­ ere and t­ here, surged about her.” 65 Visitors ­were truly awed by the display. One Philadelphian declared: “That is a ­great sight, but it makes me sad to look at it. Why, I see that ship lying t­ here in my dreams.” A reporter concluded: “It was this feeling that made the crowd on the beach a rather quiet one. It stood ­there and gazed ­until curiosity had been satisfied.” 66 Like other manifestations of the technological sublime, shipwrecks offered “repeated experiences of awe and won­der, often tinged with an ele­ ment of terror, which ­people have had when confronted with par­tic­u­lar natu­ral sites, architectural forms, and technological achievements.” 67 But unlike the technological sublimes Nye examines, shipwrecks suggested the 152 chapter five

vulnerability of technology and the impossibility of perpetual “pro­gress.” As the New York Times editorialized in the wake of the St. Paul salvage, “In spite of the perfection of her equipment, and of the utmost vigilance of her captain and his aids, she got from out of her course, ran ashore, and was saved from utter wreck only by her own stanchness of construction and by the favoring calm of the weather.” 68 Nothing was to blame. Technology did not fail. The captain, according to this account, did not err. Yet disaster still occurred. What could be done? If nothing could be improved then h ­ uman mastery of the sea was simply hubris and the notion of ­human pro­gress was fundamentally flawed. A perverse, heretical notion in Progressive Amer­i­ca. Bearing witness to coastal shipwrecks resonated with the widespread, if ambivalent, dissatisfaction shared by many late nineteenth-­century Americans who, as historian T. J. Jackson Lears argues, felt “that life had become not only overcivilized but also curiously unreal.” 69 Theirs was a complex antimodern impulse where enthusiasm for material pro­gress coexisted with revulsion for rationalization, bureaucracy, and hubris. So the lure of shipwrecks and salvage was not ­simple. One observer was half right when he argued that spectators traveled to Long Branch “for the sole purpose of seeing the ship in the sand and with the hope of witnessing her removal.” 70 Primed by visual media, lit­er­a­ture, and incessant news coverage, spectators repeatedly found shipwrecks compelling events ­because they combined the fear of seeing the pinnacle of modern technology destroyed with the hope of watching it be saved. More insidiously, shipwreck spectacles conformed to the “pattern of evasive banality” that characterized turn-­of-­the-­century American culture, denying social conflict as they affirmed harmony and pro­gress.71 Though composed of local residents, rural farmers, and urban laborers and sophisticates, the crowds that gazed on St. Paul ­were portrayed as a homogenous group of “average citizens” in newspaper articles. As one local paper wrote: “­There appeared to be a peculiar fascination for the average citizen in watching the big boat and the attendant tugs.” 72 That such disparate groups could come together as a body in 1896—­a year “aflame with popu­lar movements of the discontented. . . . ​The streets outside thronged with suffragists, Prohibitionists, Socialists, and Populists”—­demonstrates the broad resonance of shipwrecks.73 ­These “average citizens” traveled to shipwrecks like St. Paul as part of a broader modern search for authenticity. Well-­to-do fin de siècle Americans bound in “a weightless culture of material comfort and spiritual blandness” sought intense physical, emotional, and spiritual experiences. Theodore Shipwreck and Spectacle on the Modern Beach 153

Roo­se­velt’s ranching in the Dakotas and the birth of American football in the country’s elite universities are the best-­known examples of attempts to combat this pervasive sense of fantasy, to, as Lears writes, “capture an elusive ‘real life’ in a culture evaporating into unreality” that manifested itself in all parts of American life. Popu­lar lit­er­a­ture embraced “life as strug­g le” narratives, including sea-­fights, shipwrecks, and Wild West adventures. Scholars became interested in folk stories for the first time. And a “cult of the real” dominated con­temporary theater, cinema, and tourism, particularly disaster tourism.74 Shipwrecks, like floods, earthquakes, and tornadoes, promised (if never actually delivered) undeniably au­then­tic, or real, experiences that ­were distinct from the elaborately staged spectacles epitomized by New York City’s weeklong 1892 Columbian Cele­bration, Chicago’s 1893 World’s Fair, and the new amusement parks opening around the country.75 Further still, traveling to coastal shipwrecks brought authenticity-­seeking spectators from the city—­“an emblem of modern unreality”—to an undeniably au­then­tic tourist site—­a disaster.76 In a rapidly expanding cap­i­tal­ist society lacking prudent safety regulations, such disasters w ­ ere seemingly everywhere. News of the 1889 Johns­ town Flood reached untold thousands of armchair tourists and lured many to see the scene of destruction. A pair of hurricanes in 1893 destroyed large swaths of Louisiana and Georgia, leaving thousands dead. The ­Great Hinckley Fire in 1894 burned hundreds of thousands of acres of Minnesota, killing more than four hundred. Disasters of similarly biblical proportions followed the wreck of St. Paul, culminating in the devastation of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and the San Francisco earthquake in 1906. Historian Kevin Rozario argues that American culture became a “culture of calamity” during the late nineteenth ­century. Disasters, destruction, chaos—­the building blocks of modern, corporate American society—­became a thrill, a fascination for a country whose prosperity was founded on the creative destruction of cap­i­tal­ist development. As Rozario concludes, “A society founded on creative destruction had to develop a cultural appreciation for annihilation.” 77 Shipwrecks annihilated, they created, and they w ­ ere im­ mensely popu­lar in Gilded Age Amer­i­ca. Spectators who traveled to or read about shipwrecks and salvage ­were disaster tourists. Many flocked to the scene on trains, in carriages, and by foot to gaze upon a sublime scene of destruction (and sometimes death). Once ­there, tourists took photo­graphs or purchased souvenirs—­tangible artifacts—­that represented something au­then­tic and real. Armchair disaster tourists read graphic illustrated accounts. To visit and read about ship154 chapter five

wrecks and salvage was ultimately about mitigating modern anx­i­eties. As journalist Cleveland Moffett wrote in 1901, “Oh, bored folk, idle folk, go to the wreckers, say I, if you want a new sensation, watch the big pontoons, watch the divers, and (if you can) set the crew to telling stories.” 78 Many heeded his advice: the sustained popularity of shipwrecks and salvage during this period suggests that the spectacle fulfilled, if only partially (and ­temporarily), its promise of authenticity. On the beach, disaster tourists encountered a cadre of locals, expert fishermen, and “old salts,” “au­then­tic” characters whom reporters often quoted for opinions of local conditions and the salvage effort. Local residents invariably cast a wary eye on the liner, doubtful the wreckers could remove it off their beach. “One of the old sailors in the neighborhood who had seen many wrecks told me that the St. Paul was in a serious predicament,” summarized one journalist. Local knowledge still stood on par with that of salvage experts and government officials. Accompanying the article was an image of an “old sailor” clad in a sou’wester (collapsible rain hat) and oilskins, a sharp contrast to the “sightseers” in their tailored suits and fash­ion­able hats.79 Coastal residents like this “old sailor” ­were stock characters of the late nineteenth-­ century American beach. Since the 1880s, old salts, who as John Stilgoe argues embodied “traditional American values, landscapes, and occupations” in a time of rapid, jarring change, w ­ ere portrayed as “extraordinary p ­ eople” in newspapers, periodicals, and popu­lar lit­er­a­ture.80 Representing a mythical Amer­i­ca, ­these coastal locals w ­ ere foreigners to the inland farmers and urbanites who traveled to see shipwrecks and salvage. Their presence, in person and in print, bolstered the authenticity of the St. Paul shipwreck even as it helped turn it into a spectacle. Encountering old salts became part of the lure, another sight to see. Many disaster tourists tried to participate in the spectacle. Individuals not part of the salvage effort ­were forbidden to board St. Paul, although a few enterprising reporters rowed out to the wreck and conducted interviews from a fisherman’s dingy. While physically excluded, reporters, spectators, and newspaper readers had unpre­ce­dented access to this salvage effort—­St. Paul was the first shipwreck to be connected to the shore by a telephone line. “Anybody,” explained the New York Sun, “who is willing to give up the price [of the call], a special one, may indulge in the luxury of ringing up the big ship.” It is unclear exactly how many p ­ eople rang the ship, but ­every after­noon reporters dialed “125, Long Branch” and w ­ ere connected to Frederick Reilly, a telephone operator stationed on St. Paul. Reilly, in his thick French accent, relayed official statements or passed the phone to Captain Shipwreck and Spectacle on the Modern Beach 155

Jamison or one of the wreckers. Newspapers offered unpre­ce­dented “inside” accounts of the salvage plans and chronicled ­every activity aboard and around the stranded liner, from the “spirits” of wreckmaster Israel Merritt to the business concerns of American Line president C. A. Griscom. Reporters captured the anx­i­eties of the salvage effort like never before by highlighting the uncertainty—­the authenticity—of the drama off Long Branch.81 Armed with a ­little “insider” knowledge, many in the crowds became active participants on the strand. And why not? They arrived with a clear (if inaccurate) set of ideas gleaned from the ubiquitous presence of the sea, shore, and shipwrecks in American culture. So it is unsurprising that many visitors eagerly shared their earnest advice to anyone within earshot. Hours ­after the initial wreck, crowds “heartily berated” the lifesaving crews for not having it afloat.82 ­L ater that week, the Philadelphia Eve­ning Bulletin relayed how, “as is to be expected, e­ very individual has a suggestion or a plan sure to bring satisfactory results if tried. It is positively amusing to hear farmers, merchants and w ­ omen discuss the prob­lem of how to float a ship. They threw out nautical terms with a recklessness and ignorance that brings the blush to the face of the old salts.” 83 Efforts to participate in the St. Paul spectacle extended far beyond the environs of Long Branch. While the liner was aground, thousands of earnest, if naïve, “how to” plans for saving St. Paul arrived at the offices of the American Line, the wrecking companies, and newspapers across the country. The American Line offices in New York City received letters from as far away as San Francisco by so-­called cranks, “­people that never saw the ocean and ­wouldn’t know a ground swell from a babbling brook.” 84 An ignorance of the sea was reflected in many of their schemes, yet newspapers including the New York Tribune, the Philadelphia Eve­ning Bulletin, and the Baltimore Sun published some of the proposals received in their offices.85 As the Bulletin’s commentary suggests, many ­people’s efforts to participate in the St. Paul spectacle bordered on the absurd. On the same day it published a plan concocted by a prominent city engineer, the Eve­ning Bulletin offered “a picture, not greatly exaggerated, of daily occurrences at the office of the International Navigation Com­pany” [owner of St. Paul]. The reporter described the “queer-­looking specimens, long-­haired, wild-­eyed, anxious” cranks and their preposterous schemes, which included mobilizing the entire population of the state of New York, using a ­giant balloon, dynamiting the sandbar, and deploying “enormous quantities of oil” to f­ ree St. Paul. In the pro­cess, the Bulletin parodied a host of con­temporary topics including the length of presidential messages, the size of Patent Office reports, and 156 chapter five

the verbosity of congressmen, as well as other objects of perennial scorn: medical students, Rus­sian nihilists, and the Irish.86 The article, in short, mocked spectators’ earnest pursuit of an au­then­tic experience. Where the Bulletin found satire, o­ thers found profit. Entrepreneurs and businessmen commodified the experience of coastal shipwrecks by capitalizing on spectators’ search for authenticity. They sold food, transportation, mementos, and views of the wreck to captive audiences willing (and able) to spend money on an “au­then­tic” encounter. As the New York Times eventually concluded, “While the St. Paul was ashore the residents of Long Branch and the railroads profited greatly.” 87 Shipwrecks resonated with many turn-­ of-­the-­century Americans ­because they spoke to ideas and issues that mattered to them. But shipwrecks could only become spectacles when entrepreneurs and businesspeople enabled crowds to mass near shipwrecks. In this way, the physical or sensory experiences of shipwreck spectacles—­the sounds of the hackman selling rides, the smell of popcorn and chowder stands, the passing glance of the pickpocket searching for a wallet—­were embedded in networks of cap­i­tal­ist exchange. Even when ­people could see the liner was determined by precise timetables set by railroad executives. No ­matter how ­people may have experienced St. Paul, upstart entrepreneurs and established corporations decisively ­shaped the narratives and images of this national spectacle. Railroad companies ran more than a dozen special trains from Philadelphia and New York during the eleven days that St. Paul was ashore. The Pennsylvania Railroad charged $1.50 for a round-­ trip fare from Philadelphia, seventy-­five cents for ­children ­under twelve.88 The Associated Press was in the business of supplying the news—­a salable commodity—­and the content, length, and structure of wire reports reflected its under­lying profit motive. Photog­raphers, artists, and salesmen also constructed images of St. Paul that ­were designed to profit from the wreck. Photog­raphers, however, went to the greatest lengths to craft the most marketable images. The New York Herald lampooned the “camera fiends” who ­were “climbing upon the tops of spiles and fencing, placing their instruments on verandas or dipping the feet of tripods in the sea” to get “the shot.” 89 Their photo­graphs ­were sensational, romantic images that reinforced the spectacle. Long Branch photographer Christian Fredericksen stated, “I d ­ idn’t intend to take any pictures at all, ­because I supposed they would pull her off next day . . . ​[but then] I thought I would go down and take pictures just for fun for my customers in the summer.” 90 Fredericksen was one of many entrepreneurs who sold images of the stranded St. Paul.91 A stereograph distributed by one firm offered an impressive three-­dimensional perspective Shipwreck and Spectacle on the Modern Beach 157

of the massive liner. The F. M. Publishing Com­pany, publishers of Long Branch’s local newspaper, advertised in local newspapers: “Pictures of the St. Paul: We ­will send by mail, post paid, for ten cents in stamps one handsome half tone photo­graph of the Steamer St. Paul. Size 9×12, suitable for framing.” 92 All told, salaried and freelance artists produced dozens of drawings and engravings for newspapers and periodicals that highlighted the size of St. Paul, the precariousness of its position, and the heroism of its passengers, wreckers, and first responders. For crowds who only knew shipwrecks as a sight to see, shipwrecks would only be a spectacle to consume. Yet, even if spectators’ experiences w ­ ere bounded by the dictates of industrial capitalism, shipwreck spectacles offered “ordinary citizens” opportunities for “au­then­tic” experiences of the sea, shore, and disaster. Like other turn-­of-­the-­century spectacles, shipwrecks could alleviate many of the anx­i­eties of modern life.93 But in their effort to escape the everyday, spectators remained consumers. In their effort to encounter something real, something au­then­tic, most spectators watched from a safe distance. But that did not ­really trou­ble t­ hose who traveled to or read about St. Paul. Thousands ­were able to escape the city or their home for a few hours. Many more whiled away an after­noon reading illustrated accounts. It was the search for authenticity, not its attainment, that mattered.

“An Aching Void” At 9:20 a.m. on Tuesday, February 4, four wrecking tugs, aided by a strong northeast wind, pulled St. Paul back into deep w ­ ater. A relatively small crowd of lifesaving men, baymen, and local residents braved the cold, inclement weather to watch the tugs cast off their lines. The few witnesses to the anticlimactic end of the St. Paul spectacle w ­ ere too cold or wet to cheer. For ten days, the spectacle had ticked to industrial time, but not the salvage. Wreckers had worked day and night whenever the conditions w ­ ere favorable. Marine salvage, like the beach itself, remained unpredictable; it never synchronized with the clock. Most spectators, on the other hand, arrived on precisely timed trains. The largest crowds came on Sundays—­their one day off from the strictly regulated l­ abor rhythms of industrial Amer­i­ca. No spectators packed the beach as St. Paul fi­nally swung off the bar b ­ ecause the masses ­were at work and Tuesday’s trains had yet to arrive. An hour a­ fter the liner left, the last of the wrecking vessels departed, and the shore, “so long dotted with spectators, was deserted.” 94 158 chapter five

The liner departed Long Branch, steaming northeast through sleet and snow squalls. A ­ fter passing Sandy Hook Light­house, St. Paul bore west and worked through a bustling New York Harbor to its berth off Fulton Street. According to the New York Tribune, only as it began to dock did nearby vessels give “the pride of the American Line a proud welcome.” 95 Reporters eagerly waited for an exclusive story at St. Paul’s berth. News of the successful salvage spread rapidly, and the spectacle continued, if only for another few days. Half an hour ­after word of the liner’s release reached Philadelphia, “every­body seemed to know it. P ­ eople who had never been on a steamship in their lives could be heard congratulating each other as though they owned the St. Paul.” 96 Articles appeared in after­noon dailies across the country. Over the next two days, papers in Chicago, Minneapolis, New Haven, Santa Fe, and San Francisco as well as New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and London carried headlines of the wreckers’ success.97 In Long Branch, diarist William Maps noted the “­great rejoicing on the arrival [of St. Paul] in New York” but he neglected to describe the mood closer to home.98 The summer resort had lost its winter draw. As one reporter put it, the spectacle had “brought a mint of money to Long Branch and leaves ­behind her an aching void.” 99 A Philadelphia editorial used similar language, concluding: “­There is an aching void in the heart of e­ very Long Brancher to-­ night for their pet attraction, the St. Paul, instead of being on the beach, as a feast for thousands of pairs of eyes, is safely moored at her dock.” 100 The crowds did not return that season. Businessmen boarded up their ­hotels and restaurants for the second time that winter. Hackmen no longer offered rides to see “the wreck,” and fishermen went back to fishing. In Philadelphia, Dumont’s “The St. Paul in the Sand: or, Stuck on Jersey” ran through the end of February ­until it was replaced by a more con­temporary skit.101 Traces of St. Paul rapidly vanished from the landscape. Still, the attenuated spectacle continued in newspapers as the investigation, repairs, and salvage case ran their course. The marine underwriters began an inquiry the day a­ fter St. Paul docked in New York. A federal investigation by the Steamboat Inspection Ser­vice commenced the following week. The underwriters’ final report was never published, but St.  Paul was apparently declared safe for ser­vice. A ­ fter minor repairs in Newport News, ­Virginia, it was back crossing the Atlantic by the end of the month.102 The federal inquiry exonerated Captain Jamison, finding that he “was not unskillful in the navigation of his ship or negligent of his duty.” 103 The flurry of editorials about this decision effectively concluded the spectacle, even if the ­legal consequences of the wreck had yet to be determined. The St. Paul’s Shipwreck and Spectacle on the Modern Beach 159

salvage case appeared in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York in May 1897. By the time the final decision was handed down by the Cir­cuit Court of Appeals in April 1898, interest in the St. Paul’s accident had virtually dis­appeared. A small blurb hidden deep in a few newspapers was all the coverage the decision warranted—­despite being the second-­ largest salvage award on rec­ord.104 Few could be negative for long about this symbol of American industry and maritime prosperity. St. Paul’s successful salvage made the liner and the salvors an “icon of American greatness,” similar to the nation’s iconic natu­ral places and g­ reat public works.105 Editorialists lauded e­ very American person, business, or institution connected to the rescue. Commentators praised the perseverance of St. Paul’s ­owners, the assistance of the federal Weather Bureau, and the skill of American seamanship and shipbuilding.106 The New York Tribune marveled at the wreckers who “went on coolly and calmly to apply methods which had been thoroughly tested by experience, and the result is a marked triumph for skill and sagacity.” 107 Five days a­ fter St. Paul left Long Branch, the Tribune published “The Trade of the Wrecker,” an article describing “an industry about which comparatively l­ittle is known by the general public.” Interest in the wrecking industry, piqued by St. Paul’s successful salvage, merited an exposition on the “­great skill and ingenuity displayed by [the] expert hands” of the wreckers.108 With successful salvage, American skill, technology, and temperament remained triumphant. A closer inspection, however, reveals an ambiguous antimodernism lurking in this sea of praise. Commentators latched onto the Steamboat Inspection Ser­vice’s investigative report ­because, as one commentator concluded, it led to “mingled feelings of satisfaction and uneasiness”—­satisfaction that one of the nation’s most respected mari­ners, Captain Jamison, had been “vindicated”; unease ­because if nothing could be blamed, how could it be fixed? What could be done to prevent a repetition of such a disaster “by any other ship on any other voyage?” 109 Even in the Scientific American, a bastion of modernist thought, traces of ambiguity and doubt remained: “The seagoing steamship embodies some of the greatest triumphs of modern engineering and science. Yet in spite of this the unavoidable weaknesses and imperfections of the ser­vice go to prove how well founded was man’s dread of the sea. . . . ​The fact that the captain of the St. Paul, which went ashore on the beach at Long Branch, was exonerated from all blame shows that man has not yet achieved his mastery over the sea with its concomitants of fogs, gales and ocean currents.” 110 Shipwrecks ­were profoundly unsettling b ­ ecause they embodied the limits or shortcomings of the modern proj­ect. Put another 160 chapter five

way, shipwrecks embodied the tension between the utopian rhe­toric of modernization and the real­ity of modern life where security and safety could never prevent all the danger, disorder, and disaster. If modernity could be characterized as the quest to make the world safer and more orderly, shipwrecks ­were almost-­daily reminders of the “catastrophic logic of modernity”—­that the modern proj­ect, in an effort to make the world more secure and understandable, was underwritten by unremitting destruction and disaster.111 To witness a shipwreck was to encounter this fundamental paradox. Still, it was a passing (if not subconscious) concern. Most commentators treated St. Paul how they treated any other shipwreck. As one concluded: “The incident ­will not cause a panic, nor anything like it. It ­will not deter a single traveler . . . ​nor shake the faith of the public in the seamanship of Yankee skippers and the staunchness of Yankee ships.” St. Paul, they argued, should stimulate efforts to find ways of preventing similar disasters in the ­future to “make any repetition of the St. Paul’s mishap, humanly speaking, impossible.” 112 Nothing to linger over, St. Paul would inspire American ingenuity to once and for all conquer the sea. The millennialist vision of Amer­ i­ca’s f­ uture remained strong. While the sea has yet to be subdued, the St. Paul shipwreck quickly faded from popu­lar memory. Hours ­after it docked in New York, editors of the Philadelphia Eve­ning Bulletin brushed aside concerns as “nonsense and superstition!” that the liner would be marked as a “Jonah,” an unlucky vessel. They continued: “Besides, ­these ­things are easily forgotten.” 113 The Bulletin’s prognostication proved correct. St. Paul soon returned to racing the British liner Campania. By the end of 1896, the New York Tribune considered a race between the two “the habit of the ocean greyhounds . . . ​whenever they sight each other.” 114 Editorial pages that had denounced Captain Jamison’s racing as irresponsible in January and February praised it months l­ater for proving Amer­i­ca’s maritime prowess. Risks brought rewards. Regarding one particularly quick trip four months a­ fter the wreck that included an eerily reminiscent high-­speed run into a New York Bay blanketed in fog, the New York Times praised St. Paul for a “­great per­for­mance” against its technically superior British-­built rival.115 Which W ­ ill Be the Winner?, a dramatic two-­page illustration published the following week in Leslie’s Weekly, depicted the two liners racing in a tempestuous Atlantic.116 Neither description referenced the accident off Long Branch. The speed at which the St. Paul stranding was forgotten suggests the frequency of coastal shipwrecks and seaside spectacles. As daily occurrences Shipwreck and Spectacle on the Modern Beach 161

along the late nineteenth-­century American coast, shipwrecks ­were a constituent ele­ment of the turn-­of-­the-­century beach. Businesses and entrepreneurs commodified the experience of shipwrecks and salvage by tapping into the popularity of technology and the maritime world while exploiting an “au­then­tic” experience. Spectators on the beach, like readers in their homes, found a momentary escape from a tumultuous pre­sent. But only on the modern beach could coastal shipwrecks become commercialized spectacles. Shipwrecks and the disaster tourism that accompanied them ultimately reinforced narratives of technological pro­gress and American exceptionalism even as they symbolized the spectacular, if ephemeral, possibilities of everyday life. Coastal shipwrecks became a less significant part of everyday life in the de­cades ­after St. Paul wrecked. Shipwrecks had helped create the modern beach. But on that transformed landscape, they became less common, less significant, and less vis­i­ble as regulation, integration, industrialization, and spectacle took root. Like a leading actor fallen from grace, shipwrecks had unraveled, their remnants packaged as tourist trinkets and coastal kitsch, their stories confined to an increasingly distant past. Yet shipwrecks and their seaside spectacles cast a long shadow. The beach continued to be a space that met a variety of needs for dif­fer­ent segments of American society. For some, the beach remained a space for “au­then­tic” encounters with f­ amily, friends, and nature. For o­ thers, it remained a space for witnessing the ingenuity of American engineering and derring-do that relentlessly endeavored to solve alongshore disasters. How technology and humanity intertwined, thrived, and inevitably faltered alongshore was an established tradition whose patterns endured through the twentieth ­century. So too did American faith in mitigating loss, salvaging disaster, and clearing the scene for a better f­ uture.

162 chapter five

 Epilogue Pay par­tic­u­lar attention to what is no longer current, to what is unusual, and to what is dismissed as absurd. —­A lain Corbin, historian

Disaster has always been at the heart of the American beach, shaping how ­people have thought about, interacted with, and transformed the shifting edge of a continental nation. At the beginning of the nineteenth c­ entury, the American oceanfront was an isolated, pre­industrial space on the margins of a fledgling nation. Linked by few roads, inhabited by few p ­ eople, and rarely visited by outsiders, the beach was a frontier by e­ very mea­sure of the term. In the wake of In­de­pen­dence, shipwrecks became one of the few reasons why outsiders would trek into the coastal frontier. Federal agents came to secure the duties that financed government operations. Humanitarian organ­izations came to succor the shipwrecked, and entrepreneurs came to acquire and commodify local knowledge essential for safe coastal navigation. The humane ­houses dotting the Mas­sa­chu­setts coast, like the coast pi­lots in port city bookstores and captains’ cabins, w ­ ere tangible products of the broader changes caused by maritime commerce and enlightened reform in the early republic. As newspaper editors, artists, and authors brought ever-­more tales of maritime disasters into the homes and workplaces of Americans, shipwrecks introduced a growing population to the wild beach and its frequent disasters through sensationalist narratives. For a young maritime nation undergoing profound dislocations, shipwreck stories and meta­phors become potent shapers of national identity ­because they dramatized and reinforced the notion of American exceptionalism, channeling national anx­i­eties over what the United States was and where it was ­going. As some of the first widely disseminated written and visual depictions of the American beach, shipwreck narratives also brought the beach into the emerging national imaginary, introducing coastal ­people and places to a westward-­leaning nation. As the economy intensified during the early de­cades of the nineteenth ­century, the number of shipwrecks paralleled the growth of maritime commerce sailing through the nation’s burgeoning ports. As shipwrecks imperiled more ­people and property, they captured the attention of public 163

authorities and private interests. State-­level efforts to police shipwreck rescue and salvage through the creation and enforcement of wreck laws effectively regulated the oceanfront between Philadelphia and Boston by the 1820s. In New Jersey, local elites u ­ nder the banner of wreck law maintained order at isolated disasters, mobilized ­labor on a desolate frontier, and supervised the rescue and recovery of shipwrecked goods and ­people while balancing civic, business, and humanitarian interests. Indeed, wreck laws w ­ ere the primary means by which states regulated their coasts ­until a­ fter the Civil War. State-­level efforts to regulate shipwrecks laid the foundation for industrialization and the massive expansion of the federal government, which ushered in the modern American beach in the de­cades a­ fter the Civil War. Wreck laws articulated and strengthened authority alongshore. They mandated frequent and sustained communication between seaside elites and the urban centers of cultural and po­liti­cal power. And they normalized disaster, turning wrecks into valuable commodities, salvage into a meticulously regulated ­labor, and the beach into a site for oceanfront auctions. While artists and authors began to spin increasingly sensationalist stories of alongshore land pirates and murder, the ­actual beach became one of the most heavi­ly regulated and policed spaces on the American landscape. The regulation of shipwreck and salvage laid the groundwork for the development of coastal tourism. In community a­ fter community, ­those charged with preventing shipwrecks or mitigating their consequences became pioneering tourism entrepreneurs. As spare rooms let out to wealthy invalids turned into specially built seaside resorts, the beach transformed from a space associated with shipwreck and ­labor to one associated with leisure and plea­sure. Seaside communities ­were rebranded and remade, carefully planned and platted on maps before they w ­ ere physically transformed into destinations for Americans of ­every stripe. Squan, New Jersey, for example, became “Point Pleasant Beach” in the 1850s shortly before inland investors purchased John Forman’s farm, leveled its dunes, and divided its fields into dozens of lots, which ­were then sold to the highest bidders.1 As the new community took shape, a dif­fer­ent beach emerged. The beach itself became privatized, an amusement boardwalk constructed over flattened dunes the wreckers and lifesavers of the nineteenth c­ entury would have been challenged to recognize. The pattern was repeated on beach ­after beach up and down the coast. The nascent tourism industry reshaped the beach’s natu­ral landscape by attempting to control, commodify, and profit from one of the most dynamic spaces on earth.2 Physical changes to the beach, while initially designed to secure and protect shipwrecked property and ­people, encour164 Epilogue

aged the growth of tourism and the spread of stories about coastal ­people and places. The shore entered the lives of more and more Americans. Even ­those living thousands of miles away could experience the beach, as the oceanfront became a defining ele­ment of the American experience. ­These dynamics unleashed a rush to the shore that both created and foreshadowed the contested, engineered, commercialized modern beach we see t­ oday. Vessels continued to wreck along this rapidly changing beach with alarming frequency in the second half of the nineteenth c­ entury, spurring not only federal investment but also a professional marine salvage industry. Both efforts worked together to, by the late 1870s, turn shipwrecks into increasingly mundane events whereby the shipwrecked survived and the shipwreck itself was successfully sal­vaged. Year ­after year, the drama of disaster averted fostered a new cultural narrative about the littoral as a safe space where one could witness American engineering and technology and take comfort in the professional competency of the American state. Federal lifesavers and corporate wreckers, then, embodied the integration of the beach with the American state and industrial capitalism that would go on to fuel the exponential development of the twentieth-­century coastline. By the end of the ­century, the nature of shipwrecks had begun to change along the American coast. While the number of annual wrecks would fluctuate during the remainder of the twentieth ­century, with pronounced spikes during the world wars, the general trend saw ever-­larger vessels wreck less and less.3 At the same time, more vessels wrecked in American ­waters than ever before. In its last full year of operation in 1914, the United States Life-­ Saving Ser­vice (USLSS) (which joined with the Revenue Marine the following year to form the U.S. Coast Guard) rendered assistance to 1,743 vessels. Of that number, 1,191 (68 ­percent) ­were “undocumented vessels—­launches, sailboats, barges, scows, ­house­boats, rowboats, ­etc.” of less than five tons; the vast majority (70 ­percent) w ­ ere gasoline motorboats. Indeed, the rapid growth of recreational power boating in the first de­cade of the twentieth ­century severely taxed the resources of the USLSS. In 1904, motorboat accidents accounted for just 11 ­percent of all casualties; by 1910 they accounted for more than half. The “typical” twentieth-­century shipwreck, in other words, did not involve a schooner shuffling cargo along the coast or a blue ­water merchant vessel, but a small recreational powerboat.4 Changes to the nature of coastal shipwrecks rippled across the maritime landscape. Federal lifesaving patrols along vast tracts of the American beach became an increasingly inefficient use of l­ imited resources. In 1917, the recently created U.S. Coast Guard closed nine lifesaving stations in the opening Epilogue 165

salvo of a century-­long movement to close and consolidate its stations. The marine salvage industry also consolidated. The Merritt Wrecking Com­ pany, itself the product of a succession of mergers dating back to the panic of 1873, combined with its largest competitor, the Chapman Derrick and Wrecking Com­pany, in 1897. This merger effectively consolidated the region’s wrecking operations. The firm aggressively negotiated salvage contracts and “used ­every means to draw ­under their control” to successfully expand their control of the East Coast wrecking industry.5 The T. A. Scott Com­pany remained one of the few wrecking companies capable of competing with New York City’s Merritt-­Chapman Derrick and Wrecking Com­pany ­because it continuously upgraded its equipment, diversified its nonwrecking operations, and worked with rather than against its chief competitors.6 Incorporation in 1903 brought the necessary funding for the Scott Com­pany to survive, but it too eventually merged with the Merritt-­Chapman organ­ ization in 1921 at the urging of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roo­se­velt.7 The merger made good sense to Roo­se­velt, who saw “the long-­term value of an industry that could be called into ser­vice to support the Navy and realizing that it was not in the Navy’s current interest to acquire large stores of expensive and seldom-­used salvage equipment.” 8 Both firms realized that better-­built ships, improvements to navigation, and a decrease in the number of vessels plying American w ­ aters would mean fewer shipwrecks in the years to come. Consolidation would give them a near mono­ poly on American salvage and a diversified business model that included salvage, lightering, and construction. Diversification, they reasoned, would help them weather the fluctuations of unpredictable salvage awards, maritime commerce, and coastal work in the utterly dynamic littoral environment. The federal government agreed, forgoing antitrust actions and selling $900,000 of the Navy’s wrecking equipment to the new firm.9 The corporations formed to salvage shipwrecks evolved with the times and continued to reshape the American beach well into the twentieth c­ entury. Not only did they remove wrecks from the beach with ever-­more efficiency, their expansion into marine construction made pos­si­ble massive coastal engineering proj­ects. ­Under the leadership of Scott’s son, T. A. Scott Jr., the Merritt-­Chapman & Scott Corporation (MCSC) took on progressively larger construction proj­ects, including sections of the New Jersey Turnpike, Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and Baltimore Harbor Tunnel tubes. A focus on construction coupled with a steep decline in shipwrecks a­ fter World War II relegated marine salvage to the com­pany’s periphery: by 1949 construction accounted for 93 ­percent of MCSC’s revenue. The firm began to diversify during the 166 Epilogue

1950s, acquiring subsidiaries in the chemical, metallurgical, shipbuilding, plastics, and paint industries, including the well-­known firms Devoe and Reynolds and New York Shipbuilding. In the end, however, MCSC fell prey to modern wreckers. Pioneering corporate raider Louis E. Wolfson both engineered the com­pany’s rapid diversification in the 1950s and oversaw its equally quick liquidation during the mid-1960s. As the MCSC imploded, the firm’s marine salvage operations once again accounted for the majority of its revenue. It was also the first division to be sold off. MCSC filed its last annual report in 1971, a year ­after Wolfson spent nine months in federal prison for financial legerdemain, convicted of violating the Securities and Exchange Commission Act on multiple counts.10 On the engineered beach, shipwrecks became mass spectacles for tourists, day-­trippers, and the reading public to consume. Thousands traveled to wrecks like St. Paul’s in 1896 to witness the triumph and tragedy of shipwreck and salvage. Alongshore, ­those searching for au­then­tic experiences found reaffirmations of the ability of American ingenuity and technology to solve coastal disasters with their faith. Savvy entrepreneurs and established businesspeople commodified the experience of coastal shipwrecks, leveraging their unique knowledge, access, and location to reap generous, if unsustainable, profits. During t­ hese fleeting moments, the beach became a meeting ground of American society, complete with the social, cultural, and property conflicts that would l­ ater shape the beach along rigid lines of race and class.11 The less frequent and less vis­i­ble shipwrecks became, the less significance they had for twentieth-­century Americans, as visitors came to expect carefully engineered, pristine beaches rather than wreck-­strewn, wild shorelines.12 The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 redefined popu­lar conceptions of shipwrecks as distant events that occur not in the littoral but far from the shore in the deep sea. It was the right wreck at the right time, a compelling parable for a contentious age. T ­ oday, the Titanic remains the most readily available example of a shipwreck in our modern world, and it profoundly shapes how we think about maritime disasters in the twenty-­first ­century.13 Titanic is the first ­thing that comes to the minds of most p ­ eople when they hear “shipwreck.” It has become the paradigm of the modern wreck—­a distant, deadly disaster that occurs far from land and rescue. The two world wars had the additional effect of militarizing the shore. Seaside resorts closed. Coastal fortifications replaced lifesaving stations. Patrols for foreign invaders replaced patrols for shipwrecks. And the smoke plumes of torpedoed cargo vessels dominated the horizon as the foremost Epilogue 167

image of coastal disaster.14 The shipwrecked schooner, once a mainstay of the American beach, became a quaint memory of a bygone age. As Americans rushed back to the beach a­ fter World War II, the number of shipwrecks continued to plummet. In 1952, just 181 vessels of more than 100 tons wrecked in American w ­ aters.15 Over the course of 100 years, shipwrecks w ­ ere diligently eradicated from the coastal landscape they had helped to create. Popu­lar interest in shipwrecks reemerged in the 1970s and 1980s as new technologies—­particularly scuba and deepwater search-­and-­recovery capabilities—­enabled access to submerged shipwrecks. By the mid-1980s, reports of fantastic underwater discoveries bombarded Americans ­every year—­the discovery of Titanic and Central Amer­i­ca ­were only two of a dozen major finds during this period.16 The very public debates that ensued between trea­sure hunters and underwater archaeologists culminated with the passage of the 1988 Abandoned Shipwreck Act (ASA), a federal law designed to protect historic shipwrecks from looting and destruction. Once again, wreck law sought to bring law and order to the littoral. Like state efforts to regulate shipwreck rescue and salvage 200 years e­ arlier, the early years of the ASA ­were fraught with controversy as a new regulatory regime confronted entrenched locals in the dynamic littoral. And once again, shipwrecks became part of national conversations about national identity and cultural heritage.17 The wreck of Exxon Valdez in 1989, which released eleven million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska, added yet another dimension to discussions about shipwrecks—­the coastal environment. As historic shipwrecks spurred the ASA, Exxon Valdez spurred the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which strengthened regulations on oil tank ­owners and operators. Once again, shipwrecks ­shaped national policy.18 ­Today, shipwrecks are firmly part of the American experience. Hundreds of new shipwreck-­themed books are published ­every year. Recreational scuba divers travel the world to dive the newest, oldest, largest, or most in­ter­est­ ing wrecks. T ­ here are shipwreck-­themed tele­vi­sion shows. The hundred-­year anniversary of the Titanic disaster caused a transatlantic sensation as the wreck and salvage of the Costa Concordia in 2012 captured the world’s attention. Unlike shipwrecks in nineteenth-­century Amer­i­ca, however, con­ temporary shipwrecks are depicted as rare events and unique places to discover and explore along a coastline increasingly defined and s­ haped by the consequences of climate change. The American beach has entered a new era, where disaster of a dif­fer­ent kind threatens the coast. In November 2018, the U.S. Global Change Research Program released the second volume of its Fourth National Climate 168 Epilogue

Assessment (NCA4). Billed as “a comprehensive and authoritative report on climate change and its impact in the United States,” NCA4 opens with a frank assessment of the real­ity of climate change, its principal d ­ rivers, and its looming consequences. “Earth’s climate is changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of h ­ uman activities,” begins the introduction of the twenty-­eight-­chapter volume addressing seventeen national topics and ten regions. The American coastline is one of ­those topics, and NCA4 is unambiguous in identifying both the coast’s economic, social, and cultural importance and the profound climate-­change-­ associated risks facing it now and in the de­cades to come. Seas that have risen, on average, nine inches since 1900 ­will continue to rise and overwash more coastal regions with chronic high-­tide flooding and storm surges, threatening the $1 trillion invested in coastal real estate as well as the infrastructure that supports it. Disaster haunts the ­future of the American coast even as it mars its pre­sent. The 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season was the most expensive in history, causing an estimated $250 billion in damages and over 250 deaths in U.S. states and territories. The h ­ uman and economic toll from the 2018 and 2019 season included dozens of lives and tens of billions of dollars. Less than a year a­ fter NCA4 appeared, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a special report that laid bare the dire consequences facing the world’s coastal regions. As science and lived experience make clear, the twenty-­first-­century American coast ­will continue to be ­defined and transformed by disaster.19 As a new kind of coastal disaster looms, the consequences of nineteenth-­ century shipwrecks suggest the magnitude of changes that may be in the offing. They also offer a model for effective, coordinated response by local, state, federal, and private stakeholders to mitigate inevitable coastal disasters. In this way, the shipwrecks that helped create the modern beach may also guide its next inevitable transformation.

Epilogue 169

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Notes

Abbreviations Used in Notes Archival Sources FFP

Forman ­Family Papers, 1718–1899, Coll. 18, Monmouth County Historical Association & Library, Freehold, New Jersey MCA Elections Collection, 1770–2013, Monmouth County Archives, Manalapan, New Jersey MCSC Rec­ords of the Merritt-­Chapman & Scott Corporation, Coll. 2, Collections Research Center (CRC), Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Connecticut WHSL Watch Hill, R.I. Lifesaving Station Logs, RG 26, Rec­ords of the United States Coast Guard, Waltham, Mas­sa­chu­setts WSP William F. Saunders Papers, Coll. 333, Collections Research Center (CRC), Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Connecticut Newspapers BDA BDE BDG BG BGDA CA EB NDN NHER NYG NYH NYS NYT NYTr PI PL SG TSG WSJ

Boston Daily Advertiser Brooklyn Daily Ea­gle Boston Daily Globe Boston Globe Baltimore Gazette and Daily Advertiser Commercial Advertiser (New York, N.Y.) Eve­ning Bulletin (Philadelphia, Pa.) Newport Daily News New Haven Eve­ning Register New York Gazette and General Advertiser New York Herald New York Spectator New York Times New York Tribune Philadelphia Inquirer Public Ledger (Philadelphia, Pa.) Salem Gazette Trenton State Gazette Wall Street Journal

171

Introduction 1. Justin Gillis, “Global Warming’s Mark: Coastal Inundation,” NYT, September 4, 2016; Coral Davenport and Campbell Robertson, “Resettling the First American ‘Climate Refugees,” NYT, May 3, 2016; Pilkey, Pilkey-­Jarvis, and Pilkey, Retreat from a Rising Sea; Rush, Rising. 2. T ­ here is a robust, growing lit­er­a­ture on American estuaries and ports. Notable recent publications include Booker, Down by the Bay; Keiner, Oyster Question; Lipman, Saltwater Frontier; Pastore, Between Land and Sea; Schlichting, New York Recentered. 3. NOAA, Office for Coastal Management, “Fast Facts: Economics and Demographics”; Doody, “Coastal Squeeze”; Land, “Urban Amphibious,” 42–44. 4. NOAA, Office for Coastal Management, “Fast Facts: Economics and Demographics” and “Fast Facts: Tourism and Recreation.” 5. GfK Mediamark, “Adult Participation in Selected Leisure Activities”; Lipton et al., “Evolution of Non-­Market Valuation.” 6. Gillis, ­Human Shore, 1–98; Worthington, “Introducing the New Coastal History,” 6. 7. Verrazzano, “Captain John de Verazzano,” 41–42. 8. Kaufman and Pilkey, Beaches Are Moving, 160–61. 9. Recent scholarship has demonstrated how indigenous ­people “survived” Euro-­ American colonialism, particularly in the northeast. See DeLucia, Memory Lands; Mandell, Tribe, Race, History; Gillis, ­Human Shore, 100; Pastore, Between Land and Sea, 4. 10. Stilgoe, Alongshore, x. Books foregrounding cultural explanations include Corbin, Lure of the Sea; Lenček and Bosker, Beach. Older histories of coastal communities, like Wilson, Story of the Jersey Shore, tend to foreground materialist explanations as do many more recent works, including Chiang, Shaping the Shore; Booker, Down by the Bay. For more balanced accounts, see Garner, Shifting Shore; Gillis, ­Human Shore; Kahrl, Land Was Ours; Stanonis, Faith in Bikinis; and Pastore, Between Land and Sea. 11. “Shipwreck,” Oxford En­glish Dictionary Online. 12. Keith, Site Formation Pro­cesses; Gibbs, “Cultural Site Formation Pro­cesses.” The classic statement remains Muckelroy, Maritime Archaeology. 13. Biel, Down with the Old Canoe, 97, 226. 14. Literary scholars have developed a sophisticated lit­er­a­ture about shipwreck narratives that parallels historical and archaeological scholarship. On literary scholarship, see Duffy, Shipwreck and Empire; Huntress, Narratives of Shipwrecks and Disasters; Blumenberg, Shipwreck with Spectator; Miskolcze, ­Women and ­Children First; Blackmore, Manifest Perdition; Lane, “Nineteenth-­Century American Shipwreck Narratives”; Mitchell-­Cook, Sea of Misadventure. Mentz, Shipwreck Modernity uses shipwreck as a “master topos for cultural change,” a new heuristic for conceptualizing modernity (xxx). T ­ here is a vast and ever-­growing body of historical works on shipwrecks. The vast majority are popu­lar, narrative treatments of par­tic­u­lar wrecks or of dif­fer­ent wrecks in a par­tic­u­lar local. See, for example, Stick, Graveyard of the Atlantic; Buchholz, New Jersey Shipwrecks. More sophisticated historical analyses use shipwrecks as a lens to study broader inquiries into social, cultural, po­liti­cal, and economic history, including Biel, Down with the Old Canoe; Paskoff, Troubled ­Waters; Glover and Smith, 172 Notes to Introduction

Shipwreck that Saved Jamestown; Miles, Wreck of the Medusa; Duncan and Gibbs, Please God Send Me a Wreck; Jensen, Stories from the Wreckage. 15. This broad definition of disaster encompasses the many meanings disaster can have to dif­fer­ent groups of ­people. It includes accident and catastrophe ­under the umbrella of disaster ­because parsing them bears l­ittle analytical fruit: one person’s accident is another’s disaster, someone’s catastrophe is another’s accident, and so on. ­There is a robust and growing lit­er­a­ture on “disaster history.” See, for example, Dahlberg, “Cracks in the Past”; Rozario, Culture of Calamity. 16. Biel, Down with the Old Canoe. 17. Rozario, Culture of Calamity, 24. 18. Leading coastal scientists explain: “As singular as beaches are, their life depends on the sea in front of them and the landscape for miles b ­ ehind them, sometimes for thousands of miles ­behind them.” Kaufman and Pilkey, Beaches Are Moving, 30; see also Ache et al., “ ‘Coast’ Is Complicated.” 19. Gillis, Shores around Us, 13–19. See also note 10. 20. For an introduction to maritime cultural landscapes (MCL), see Westerdahl, “Maritime Cultural Landscape”; Ford, Archaeology of Maritime Landscapes; Caporaso, Formation Pro­cess. My thinking on MCLs has been most influenced by Jensen, Mather, and Gray, “Viewing the F­ uture through the Lens of Maritime Cultural Landscapes”; Mather and Jensen, Investigations; Mather, Jensen, and Caporaso, Maritime Heritage Resources. Excellent studies of specific MCLs include Whisnant and Whisnant, Gateway to the Atlantic World; Duncan and Gibbs, Please God Send Me a Wreck. 21. While scholars have parsed t­hese terms, to aid readability and avoid undue repetition I use beach, coast, shore, and littoral interchangeably throughout the text to describe ­those landed places, cultures, and communities that are influenced more by the proximity of the sea than by other environmental f­ actors and characterized by a dynamic “symbiosis between land and sea.” Pearson, “Littoral Society”; Finamore, “Introduction,” 9.

Chapter One 1. Vickers and Walsh, Young Men and the Sea, 66; Lamson, Autobiography, 152–70. See also Gilje, Liberty on the Waterfront, 69–72. 2. Lamson, Autobiography, 166–67. 3. Lamson, 167–69. 4. Cape Cod had been settled for a ­century and a half, yet its thin soils and difficult landscape had stymied development, leaving the peninsula a “wasteland” ­until the 1820s. Mc­Ken­zie, Clearing the Coastline, 1–87; Cumbler, Cape Cod, 35–51. 5. Lamson, Autobiography, 169–75. 6. Lamson, 169–75; “Ship News,” SG, September 28, 1802. 7. Mitchell-­Cook, Sea of Misadventure, 30. 8. Mohun, “On the Frontier,” 339; Levy, Freaks of Fortune, 28–37. 9. “Ship News,” Salem Register, January 18, 1802. 10. Gillis, Shores around Us, 15. Notes to Chapter One 173

11. Turner, “Significance of the Frontier.” For a concise introduction to the expansive frontier historiography, see Hilton and van Minnen, “Frontiers and Bound­aries”; Nobles, “Breaking into the Backcountry”; Adelman and Aron, “From Borderlands to Borders.” Exceptions to the western focus include Kroll, Amer­i­ca’s Ocean Wilderness; Lipman, Saltwater Frontier; Rozwadowski, Vast Expanses. 12. ­There appears to be an increasing “turn” to the American littoral in recent scholarship: Lipman, Saltwater Frontier; Mc­Ken­zie, Clearing the Coast; Pastore, Between Land and Sea; Kahrl, Land Was Ours; Stanonis, Faith in Bikinis; Booker, Down by the Bay; Sutter and Pressly, Coastal Nature, Coastal Culture; Schlichting, New York Recentered. The same “coastal turn” extends beyond American historiography. See, for example, Worthington, New Coastal History; Gillis, ­Human Shore. 13. Lipman, Saltwater Frontier, 204; Bahar, Storm of the Sea. 14. Noah Webster, A Compendious Dictionary of the En­glish Language (Hartford and New Haven, 1806) quoted in Mood, “Notes on the History,” 79. 15. Joseph E. Worcester, A Dictionary of the En­glish Language (Boston: Hickling, Swan and Brewer: 1860) quoted in Mood, “Notes on the History,” 80. On the nineteenth-­ century “western maritime frontier,” see Jensen, Stories from the Wreckage. On “frontier” and oceans, particularly in the twentieth ­century, see Kroll, Amer­i­ca’s Ocean Wilderness; and Rozwadowski, Vast Expanses, 161–87. 16. ­There is no agreed-­upon standard for mea­sur­ing coasts. A conservative accounting, using small-­scale charts, calculates the general coastline from Maine to Georgia at 1,489 statute miles. A more detailed calculation, using large-­scale maps, puts the total at 28,342 statute miles. Neither are secure figures in the littoral’s dynamic physical nature. U.S. Department of Commerce, “Coastline of the United States”; ­Monmonier, Coast Lines. 17. Thomas Jefferson, “To Certain Foreign Ministers in the United States,” November 8, 1793, in Catanzanti, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 27:329. On the establishment of the “cannon shot” doctrine, see Pastore, Between Land and Sea, 170. 18. Lewis, Seacoast Fortifications, 22–36; Kaufmann and Kaufmann, Fortress Amer­i­ca, 142–46. 19. DeLucia, Memory Lands, xvii; Bahar, Storm of the Sea; Mancini, “Beyond Preservation”; Mandell, Tribe, Race, History; Baron, Hood, and Izard, “They ­Were ­Here All Along.” 20. Gillis, ­Human Shore, 78; Meinig, Shaping of Amer­i­ca, 208–12. 21. Stiles, First Tycoon, 14; Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 333–43; Albion, Rise of New York Port, 1–37; Stilgoe, Common Landscape, 88–99. 22. Federal Writers’ Proj­ect, Entertaining a Nation, 7–25; U.S. Census Bureau, “Mean Center of Population.” 23. Analy­sis of 1800 population based on Mood, Manson, Schroeder, Van Riper, and Rubbles, IPUMS; Mood, “Concept of the Frontier.” 24. Dwight, Travels in New-­England, 3:274, 70. The ­great exception on the desolate American coastline was the coast of Georgia and South Carolina, which was populated with sizable tidewater rice plantations. Wood, Empire of Liberty, 501–12, 527–28; Steward, “What Nature Suffers to Groe,” 87–150. 174 Notes to Chapter One

25. Furlong, American Coast Pi­lot (1800), 25, 54, 57, 64. On wandering shipwreck survivors, see “Marine News,” American Citizen and General Advertiser, February 27, 1802; “Ship News,” CA, February 3, 1802; “Further Particulars of the Late Dreadful Shipwreck,” United States Oracle and Portsmouth Advertiser, March 13, 1802. 26. Wood, “American Enlightenment,” 274. 27. Vickers, Young Men and the Sea, 96–130; Mc­Ken­zie, Clearing the Coastline; Mather and Jensen, Investigations into Block Island. More generally, see Henretta, “Families and Farms”; Nobles, “Capitalism in the Countryside”; Kulikoff, “Transition to Capitalism.” 28. Dwight, Travels, 3:91; Smith, History of Chatham; “Proposals,” PI, July 10, 1797; Mc­Ken­zie, Clearing the Coastline, 7–53; Cumbler, Cape Cod, 35–51; 1800 U.S. Census, Chatham, Barnstable County, Mas­sa­chu­setts, FamilySearch. 29. This articulation of frontier draws from Aron, “Lessons in Conquest,” 128. 30. Lamson, Autobiography, 171–74; Smith, History of Chatham (1917), 237–38. 31. Albion, Rise of New York Port; Gilje, Liberty on the Waterfront; Rockman, Scraping By. 32. Smith, Fluctuations in American Business, 17; Louis P. Cain, “Value of Waterborne Imports and Exports of Merchandise, by Flag of Carrier: 1790–1994,” T ­ able Df606–11 in Car­ter et al., Historical Statistics; North, Economic Growth, 36–38. 33. John Joseph Wallis, “Federal Government Revenue, by Source: 1789–1939,” ­Table Ea588–93 in Car­ter et al., Historical Statistics; Rao, National Duties. 34. Rao, “Creation of the American State,” 1. 35. U.S. Congress, Statutes at Large, 1:55–64. 36. U.S. Congress, 1:29–48, 627–703. 37. Labaree et al., Amer­i­ca and the Sea, 168. 38. Alexander Hamilton quoted in Rao, “Creation of the American State,” 101. 39. Rao, National Duties, 6. On the Customs Ser­vice more broadly during this period, see Prince and Keller, U.S. Customs Ser­vice, 37–67; Rao, National Duties, 53–201. 40. Rao, National Duties, 75–99. The sheer quantity of paperwork produced by the Customs Ser­vice was staggering. The National Archives currently maintains almost 22,000 cubic feet of documents as well as 106,256 additional items related to the Customs District. National Archives, “Guide to Federal Rec­ords” (August 2016), https://­ www​.­archives​.­gov​/­research​/­guide​-­fed​-­records​/­index​-­numeric​/­001​-­to​-­100​.­html. 41. U.S. Congress, Statutes at Large, 1:54; “Proceedings of Congress,” New-­York Packet, July 18, 1789; Gales, Debates and Proceedings of the Congress, 1:51–56, 668–70; U.S. Senate Historical Office, Light­house Act of 1789; Weiss, Light­house Ser­vice, 4–6; Stilgoe, Common Landscape, 107–11. The local-­federal relationship paralleled that of federal Marine Hospitals during this period. Jensen, “Before the Surgeon General.” 42. Washington and Jefferson quoted in Putnam, Light­houses and Lightships, 33–38. 43. Nelson, “Presidential Influence,” 53–55. 44. Larson, Internal Improvement, 45–46; Nelson, “Presidential Influence”; Furlong, American Coast Pi­lot (1800), 34; Risk, “Ship to Shore,” 24–47; Roland, Bolster, and Keyssar, Way of the Ship, 172–78. 45. Putnam, Light­houses and Lightships, 39–40; Sarah Palmer, “Safety Regulations for Shipping,” in Hattendorf, Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History, 3:453–57. 46. Mc­Ken­zie, “Navigating Federalism,” 9–14. Notes to Chapter One 175

47. Wood, Empire of Liberty, 4. Historians have begun to reappraise the Enlightenment in Amer­i­ca. The emerging scholarship has focused more on the multiplicity of enlightened ideas and practices—­its “complex and contradictory processes”—­rather than a singular notion of the Enlightenment as a cluster of ideas, namely, liberalism, pro­gress, and rationality, democracy, and secularism. Winterer, American Enlightenments, 7; Dixon, “Henry  F. May.” The classic text remains May, Enlightenment in Amer­i­ca. 48. Winterer, American Enlightenments, 255. 49. Wood, Empire and Liberty, 4, 37, 469–507, quote on p. 470. 50. De Wolfe Howe, Humane Society, 70. 51. Thoreau, Cape Cod, 71, 69; Humane Society of Mas­sa­chu­setts (MHS), Advertisement; “Mess’rs Printers,” Boston Gazette, November 26, 1787; Moniz, “Saving the Lives of Strangers”; Wood, Empire of Liberty, 470–95; Heale, “Humanitarianism in the Early Republic”; De Wolfe Howe, Humane Society, 57–71; MHS, History of the Humane Society, 1–10, 16; Mc­Ken­zie, “Navigating Federalism,” 9. 52. Freeman, Description of the Eastern Coast; MHS, History of the Humane Society, 17; De Wolfe Howe, Humane Society, 57. 53. “Distressing Account,” Providence Gazette, January 14, 1804; “Humane Society,” Mercury and New ­England Palladium, January 11, 1803. 54. Porter, Discourse; MHS, History of Humane Society, 7–8, 17–18. 55. Furlong, American Coast Pi­lot (1800), vi. On pi­lots, see Fin­ger, “ ‘Flag of Defyance.’ ” 56. Blake, Sea Chart, 104–9; Garver, Surveying the Shore, 43; Furlong, American Coast Pi­lot (1800), v–­vi; Sellers, En­glish Pi­lot. Other, more place-­specific pi­lots w ­ ere available. See, for example, Southack, New ­England Coasting Pi­lot. Robinson, review of The En­glish Pi­lot, 307. See also Krieger, Cobb, and Turner, Mapping Boston, 94–96; Meinig, Atlantic Amer­i­ca, 431. 57. Braudel, Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World, 1:103; Gillis, ­Human Shore, 40–55. 58. Scott, Seeing like a State, 309–42. 59. Furlong, American Coast Pi­lot (1800), vi. 60. Furlong, v–vi. See also Blunt, American Coast Pi­lot (1822), v–vi. 61. Furlong, American Coast Pi­lot (1800), 20, 83, 42, 30. 62. Furlong, vi–­vii; Burstyn, At the Sign of the Quadrant. 63. Stein, Seascape and the American Imagination, 26; Mitchell-­Cook, Sea of Misadventure; Wharton, In the Trough, 25; Miskolcze, ­Women and C ­ hildren First; Blum, View from the Masthead, 9–11; Philbrick, James Fenimore Cooper, 23. 64. Thomas Campbell, “Ode to Winter,” New Hampshire Gazette, February 9, 1802; “News,” Gazette of the United States, August 17, 1801. 65. “Advertisement,” NYG, July 25, 1801; “New York,” Bee, June 3, 1801; “Boston,” NYG, August 15, 1801; “Marine & Naval,” Courier, June 10, 1801; “News,” Federal Gazette & Baltimore Daily Advertiser, June 18, 1801; “Shipping News,” Alexandria Advertiser and Commercial Intelligencer, July 3, 1801; “The Wreck,” Windsor Federal Gazette, August 25, 1801. 66. “Ship News,” Salem Register, January 18, 1802. 176 Notes to Chapter One

67. “Shipping News,” NYG, January 19, 1802; “Norfolk, Jan. 5,” Bee, January 27, 1802. “Providence,” United States Chronicle, January 14, 1802; “Centinel Shipping Intelligence,” Columbian Centinel, January 20, 1802; “Ship News,” SG, February 2, 1802. 68. “Loss of the Abigail,” Philadelphia Gazette and Daily Advertiser, February 20, 1802. This article was reprinted in multiple papers published in Philadelphia and New York. “Loss of the Abigail,” New York Eve­ning Post, February 25, 1802; “Loss of the Abigail,” Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, February 22, 1802; “Gazette Marine List,” Gazette of the United States, January 27, 1802; Mitchell-­Cook, Sea of Misadventure, 30–50. 69. Halttunen, Murder Most Foul, 68. 70. “Loss of the Abigail,” Philadelphia Gazette and Daily Advertiser, February 20, 1802. 71. Copeland, Colonial American Newspapers, 24; Mitchell-­Cook, Sea of Misfortune, esp. 156–59; Miskolcze, ­Women and C ­ hildren First, 12. 72. Advertisement, Diary or Loundon’s Register, November 14, 1797; advertisement, Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser, March 1, 1798; advertisement, Mas­sa­chu­setts Mercury, May 31, 1799; advertisement, City Gazette and Daily Advertiser, April 13, 1801; Wharton, In the Trough, 20–25; Mitchell-­Cook, Sea of Misadventure; Huntress, Narratives of Shipwrecks and Disasters, x–xi. 73. Smith-­Rosenberg, This Violent Empire; Wood, Empire of Liberty, 39–42, 104, 732–33; Wood, “American Enlightenment,” 274. 74. Mitchell-­Cook, Sea of Misadventure, 4. 75. Lamson, Autobiography, 165–75; Mitchell-­Cook, Sea of Misadventure. 76. Gillis, ­Human Shore, 106; Brückner, Geographic Revolution; Mitchell-­Cook, Sea of Misadventure, 25–26. 77. “Shipwreck,” In­de­pen­dent Chronicle, March 8, 1802. 78. Lamson, Autobiography, 172; “Further Particulars of the Late Dreadful Shipwreck,” United States Oracle and Portsmouth Advertiser, March 13, 1802. 79. Samuel James Arnold, “The Shipwreck, a Comic Opera,” in Cawthorn, Cawthorn’s Minor British Theatre.

Chapter Two 1. Newark Daily Advertiser, February 25, 1846. 2. Currier, Wreck of the John Minturn. 3. “The Jersey Pirates,” Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, March 11, 1846; “Disastrous Gale,” True American, February  25, 1846; “Wreck of the John Minturn,” Daily Picayune, March 1, 1846. 4. Journal of the Proceedings of the Second Senate of the State of New Jersey, 434; “Shipwrecks on the Coast,” Newark Daily Advertiser, February 27, 1846. On the American Shipwreck Society, a branch of the International Shipwreck Society, similar to the Mas­sa­chu­setts Humane Society discussed in chapter 1, see Fitch, “Inventor of the ‘Ayrshire’ Life-­Car,” 98–99. 5. Report of the Commissioners, 53. 6. Report of the Commissioners, 21, 17. The Shipwreck Society’s report, issued on March 2, drew a harsher conclusion about the actions of coastal residents, especially ­those residing in and around Squan. The state commission roundly undermined this Notes to Chapter Two 177

report three weeks ­after it appeared. “Report of the Committee,” Newark Daily Advertiser, March 3, 1846. 7. Proceedings of the Second Senate of New Jersey, 604, 643; Report of the Commissioners. 8. Karen H. Delancey, “Time Traveling Exhibit,” Asbury Park Press, July 28, 2001. 9. Coastal Research Center, “New Jersey Coastal Composition”; Nelson, New Jersey Coast in Three Centuries, 2:97; Diamond Jubilee, Manasquan, New Jersey; Salter, History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties, 288; Nordstrom et al., Living with the Jersey Shore. On names, see Hopkins, Jr., Topographical Map of the State of New Jersey. 10. Rose, Woolman, and Price, Historical and Biographical Atlas, 47; Salter, History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties, 288; Hills, Morgan, and Dennis, Map of Monmouth County; Coastal Research Center, “New Jersey Coastal Composition.” 11. Newman, On Rec­ords. 12. “Calendar of ­Wills, 1730–1750,” in Documents Relating to Colonial N.J., 30:291. 13. “Calendar of ­Wills, 1730–1750,” 30:291; Diamond Jubilee, Manasquan, New Jersey; McGorty et  al., New Jersey Historic Sites Inventory, 1:7–12, 3:1–3, 20:1–2, 25:1; Wilson, Jersey Shore, 1:153–66. 14. Raser, Early History of the Manasquan Friends Meeting; Hunton and McCabe, Monmouth County Historic Sites Inventory, vol. 53. 15. N.Y. Gazette Revived or the weekly Post Boy, March 10, 1755, in Documents Relating to Colonial N.J., 19:466. 16. McGorty et al., N.J. Historic Sites Inventory, 1:4–11, 25–28; 25:2–3; Brown, “Early Settlers,” 40–42; Rose, Woolman, and Price, Historical and Biographical Atlas, 21–22, 62–64; Morse, American Geography, 287. 17. Adelberg, “Evenly Balanced Country”; Braddock-­Rogers, “Saltworks of New Jersey,” 586–92; Munn, ­Battles and Skirmishes of the American Revolution; Wilson, Jersey Shore, 1:134–47. 18. Ryan, “Landholding, Opportunity, and Mobility in Revolutionary New Jersey”; Nelson, New Jersey Coast, 2:215; Wilson, Jersey Shore, 1:166–76. 19. John, Spreading the News, 4. Manasquan National Bank, History of Manasquan, 13–15; Rose, Woolman, and Price, Historical and Biographical Atlas, 82. 20. Yoder, “Cultural Impact of Quakerism,” 3–9. 21. “Philadelphia, March 2,” American Weekly Mercury, March 2, 1731 in Documents Relating to Colonial N.J., 11:239. 22. “New York, November 29,” Boston New-­Letter, from November 29 to December 6, 1714 in Documents Relating to Colonial N.J., 11:39. 23. “New-­York,” New York Mercury, January 26, 1761 in Documents Relating to Colonial N.J., 20:521; “New-­York,” N.Y. Gazette Revived in the Weekly Post Boy, October 16, 1749 in Documents Relating to Colonial N.J., 12:579; “New York,” Pennsylvania Gazette, December 1, 1763 in Documents Relating to Colonial N.J., 24:820. Conclusion based on analy­sis of all newspaper clippings in Documents Relating to Colonial N.J., specifically vols. 11–12, 14, 20, 24–27. 24. Hapke et al., National Assessment of Shoreline Change, 19–21; Nordstrom et al., Living with the New Jersey Shore, 12–29. 25. Rose, Woolman, and Price, Historical and Biographical Atlas, 56. 26. Report of the Commissioners, 64. 178 Notes to Chapter Two

27. Furlong, American Coast Pi­lot (1800), 71–72. 28. Furlong, 71–73. 29. Inventory of the Schooner Solon, February  5, 1827, fol. 2, box 1, FFP; “Marine News,” Eastern Argus, February 13, 1827; “The Relief Schooner,” NYS, February 16, 1827. 30. Inventory of the Schooner Solon, February 5, 1827, fol. 2, box 1, FFP. 31. Acts of the Seventeenth General Assembly of the State of N.J., 794–95. 32. Wood, Empire of Liberty, 405, 403–4. 33. The ­legal definition of salvage refers to “a payment or compensation to which ­those persons are entitled who have by their voluntary efforts saved a ship or its cargo from impending peril or rescued it from a­ ctual loss” rather than the effort itself. ­“Salvage,” Oxford En­glish Dictionary Online; Pearce, Cornish Wrecking, 41–60. 34. Acts of the Twenty-­Third General Assembly of N.J., 519–20. O’Conner, “­L egal Reform in the Early Republic,” 99–102. On influence of Blackstone during the early republic, see Boorstin, Mysterious Science of the Law; Bailey, “Blackstone in Amer­i­ca,” http://­www​.­earlyamerica​.­com​/­review​/­spring97​/ ­blackstone​.­html; Blackstone, Commentaries, 290–95. On evolution of British wreck law, see Pearce, Cornish Wrecking, 41–60; Johnson, “Medieval Law and Materiality.” 35. Wood, Empire of Liberty, 491–95. 36. Act Concerning Wrecks (1799), 519–20. 37. Journal of the Proceedings of the Legislative Council of N.J., 437, 443. 38. Drawing and enforcing property lines along coasts is notoriously difficult. The foreshore, the land between high and low tide, has been governed by the Public Trust Doctrine first codified by Roman emperor Justinian. It allows the public the right to use the seashore. The doctrine came to the United States via En­glish Common Law. One of the first ­legal cases to recognize the Public Trust Doctrine in the United States took place in New Jersey. Arnold v. Mundy (1821). Yet it, like most discussion of the doctrine for the next 150 years, focused on rivers and lakes rather than oceanfront beaches. Not ­until the 1970s was the Public Trust Doctrine routinely applied to public beach access. Kahrl, “Fear of an Open Beach”; Kehoe, “Next Wave of Public Beach Access”; Freudenberg, Public Access in New Jersey, 9–22. 39. Bloomfield, Laws of the State of N.J., 152–60. 40. Murray, History of Education, 29; Votes and Proceedings, 32. 41. Laws of the State of N.J., 716–23; Revision of the Statutes of N.J., 1255–60; Compiled Statutes of N.J., 4:5874–80. “New Jersey Wrecking Act,” NYS, April 14, 1836. 42. Wood, Empire of Liberty, 108–10; Rao, “Creation of the American State,” 75–85. 43. Adelberg, American Revolution in Monmouth County, 105–9; Forman and Fairchild, Three Revolutionary Soldiers, 1–22. 44. Indenture between John Forman and Samuel Forman, April 18, 1788, oversized fol., FFP; Nelson, Jersey Coast, 2:205–6; “Calendar of ­Wills, 1730–1750,” Documents Relating to Colonial N.J., 30:291–92. 45. Indenture between John Forman and Samuel Forman, April 18, 1788, oversized fol., FFP; Indenture between David Forman and John Forman, March 13, 1786, fol. 1, box 2, FFP; Indenture between Benjamin Curtis and John Forman, April 11, 1788, oversized fol., FFP; Indenture between Garret Longstreet and John Forman, November 3, 1786, oversized fol., FFP. Notes to Chapter Two 179

46. Ryan, “Landholding, Opportunity, and Mobility,” 589. 47. Fols. 2 and 3, box 2, FFP; Mary Diernan, email message to author, June 24, 2011; “Samuel P. Forman Elections,” A New Nation Votes. 48. Receipt, October 9, 1800, fol. 1, box 1, FFP. 49. Receipt of Samuel Corlis, January 20, 1802, fol. 1, box 1, FFP; Receipt of James Edwards, January 20, 1802, fol. 1, box 1, FFP; “Ship News,” CA, January 5, 1802. 50. Commission, February 26, 1806, fol. 1, box 1, FFP Papers; Samuel P. Forman, A New Nation Votes. 51. Rose, Woolman, and Price, Historical and Biographical Atlas, 86. 52. Rose, Woolman, and Price, 82, 86–87; “John Forman,” Ancestry​.c­ om, New Jersey, Marriage Rec­ords; fols. 4–7, 9, box 2, FFP; Guernsey, New York and Vicinity during the War, 2:567–68. 53. Rose, Woolman, and Price, Historical and Biographical Atlas, 87; fol. 5, box 2, FFP; Commission, December 3, 1823, fol. 1, box 1, FFP. 54. “Petition on Behalf of David Newberry,” April 4, 1818, Commissioners of Wrecks fol., MCA. 55. Agreement between Captain S. W. Mathewson and John S. Forman, September 18, 1824, and John S. Forman Power of Attorney for Capt. S.W. Mathewson, September 11, 1824, fol. 1, box 1, FFP. 56. Richard Lawrence to John S. Forman, March 25, 1826, fol. 2, box 1, FFP. 57. M. Hurd to John S. Forman, March 24, 1820, fol. 2, box 1, FFP; Bond, April 26, 1826, Commissioners of Wrecks fol., MCA. 58. Laws of the State of New Jersey (1821), 721. 59. John S. Forman to Herbert Pearce, August 28, 1830, and “Bills/Expenses on the Schooner Harriet-­Frances,” August 1830, fol. 3, box 1, FFP; “Loss of the Schooner Harriet-­Francis of Hallowell,” City Gazette, August 28, 1830. 60. John S. Forman to Herbert Pearce, August 28, 1830, fol. 3, box 1, FFP. 61. “Bills/Expenses on the/Schooner Harriet-­Frances,” August 1830, fol. 3, box 1, FFP; “Loss of the Schooner Harriet-­Francis of Hallowell,” City Gazette, August 28, 1830; Armor Patton to John Forman, January 29, 1839, fol. 6, box 1, FFP. 62. Vendue List, April 25, 1828, and Vendue List, August 22, 1829, fol. 2, box 1, FFP. 63. “Account for Barque A.J. Donaldson,” April 25, 1835, fol. 5, box 1, FFP. 64. Report of Commissioners, 93. 65. “Petition for Division of Wreck District no. 2 into 2 districts,” 1850, Commissioners of Wrecks fol., MCA. 66. Fol. 4, box 1, FFP. 67. “To the Honorable the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas Count of Monmouth State of New Jersey,” April 4, 1832, fol. 4, box 1, FFP. A similar letter had been written in 1827 to secure Forman’s first five-­year appointment: “Copy of a Letter from New York to the Judge of Monmouth Court,” April 5, 1827, fol. 2, box. 1, FFP. 68. Based on review of commissions in Commissioners of Wrecks fol., MCA. 69. James Bergen to John S. Forman, February 27, 1838, fol. 5, box 1, FFP. 70. James Bergen to J. J. Bowne, April 28, 1837, fol. 6, box 1, FFP. 71. Charles M. Smith to John S. Forman, December 3, 1841, fol. 7, box 1 FFP; Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 575–88. 180 Notes to Chapter Two

72. Richard P. McCormick, “Party Formation in New Jersey in the Jackson Era,” in Lurie, New Jersey Anthology, 148–56; Michael Birkner, “New Jersey in the Jacksonian Era, 1820–1850,” in Lurie and Veit, New Jersey, 115–44; Herrmann, “Constitution of 1844.” More broadly, see Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 328–524. 73. Unsigned letter to J. J. Bowne, April 22, 1842, fol. 7, box 1, FFP. 74. “The Petition on Behalf of John S. Forman, for the Appointment of Wreckmaster, April 18, 1842,” fol. 7, box 1, FFP. 75. “Particulars of the Wreck of the Ship John Minturn,” Baltimore Sun, February 20, 1856. 76. Rose, Woolman, and Price, Historical and Biographical Atlas, 87; John S. Forman Elections, New Nation Votes; Salter, History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties, 167, 318–20. 77. “Arrived,” NYS, January 1, 1828. 78. “The Ship John Minturn,” PL, February 23, 1846. 79. Report of the Commissioners, 66–67. 80. Coad, “Barnegat Pirates,” 200. 81. Pearce, Cornish Wrecking. 82. On piracy, see Rediker, Villains of All Nations; Cordingly, ­Under the Black Flag. 83. “New-­York, June 17,” Boston News-­Letter, from June 17 to June 24, 1717, No. 688, in Documents Relating to Colonial N.J., 11:43–44. 84. “Philadelphia, July 26,” New E ­ ngland Courant, from July 30 to August 6, 1722, No. 53, in Documents Relating to Colonial N.J., 11:62–63. 85. Salter, History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties, 68; Wilson, Jersey Shore, 1:148–50; “Philadelphia, June 2,” New York Gazette, June 6, 1748. 86. “New-­York, December 24,” Boston News-­Letter, December 31 to January 7, 1705, No. 90 in Documents Relating to Colonial N.J., 11:14–15. 87. Pennsylvania Journal, March  13, 1766  in Documents Relating to Colonial  N.J., 25:49–51; Skemp, William Franklin, 61–76. For example, of shipwreck survivors plundering their own wreck, see “The New Jersey Pirates Acquitted,” State Gazette, December 5, 1835. 88. “Trenton, April 15,” Pennsylvania Ledger, April 22, 1778; Adelberg, “Evenly Balanced Country.” 89. “Extract of a Letter from a Member of Congress in Philadelphia,” New-­Jersey ­Gazette, April 19, 1780; “To Be Sold by Public Vendue,” Pennsylvania Packet, September 25, 1799. 90. “New York, May 1,” New York Gazette, May 1, 1780. 91. “Philadelphia, November 25,” Pennsylvania Eve­ning Post, November 25, 1780. 92. Hurdy, or Huddy as it was occasionally spelled, was actually hanged near the Highlands, twenty miles north of Squan. But in the press, the atrocity was geo­graph­ i­cally situated “near Squan,” reinforcing its negative popu­lar connotation. “Chatham, April 7,” Pennsylvania Packet, April 23, 1782; Adelberg, “Evenly Balanced Country”; Wilson, Jersey Shore, 1:207–39. 93. “Intelligence Continued,” Jersey Chronicle, May 2, 1795. 94. “Sales at Auction,” Diary, April 21, 1792. Auctions ­were also held “on the beach” and, less frequently, in Philadelphia. See “Sales at Auction,” New York Daily Gazette, April 25, 1791; “By F. Montmollin,” Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, March 19, 1811. Notes to Chapter Two 181

95. Statesman, May 14, 1813. “Eve­ning Post Marine List,” New York Eve­ning Post, July 27, 1811. For additional examples, see Baltimore Patriot, March 26, 1813; Statesman, May 14, 1813. 96. Satler, History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties, 167. 97. “Extract of a Letter,” Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, April 7, 1813; “On Thursday last,” CA, April 3, 1813; “On Thursday last,” BDA, April 7, 1813; “On Thursday Last,” Republican Farmer, April 7, 1813; “Port of Baltimore,” Baltimore Patriot, April 9, 1813; “On Thursday Last,” Alexandria Daily Gazette, Commercial & Po­liti­cal, April 12, 1813; “British Captures,” Connecticut Mirror, April 12, 1813; Wilson, Jersey Shore, 1:336–37. 98. True American, July 26, 1813; “Newburyport, May 27,” Statesman, June 1, 1813; Satler, History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties, 170. 99. “Unexpected and Extraordinary Preservation,” Columbian, April 8, 1815; “Particulars of the Shipwreck of the Private Armed Schooner Surprize, of Baltimore,” Niles Weekly Register, April 15, 1815, 117; “Power from John R. Myrick,” April 20, 1815, fol. 1, box 1, FFP. 100. “The Schooner Mary Ann,” CA, March 9, 1818. 101. Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 430–39. 102. “Large Gang of Land Pirates Broken Up,” Farmers Gazette, January 16, 1835; “The Land Pirates Again,” NYS, January 12, 1835; “Hunt ­after a New-­Jersey Justice,” Eastern Argus, January 23, 1835; “Trial of the Barnegat Pirates,” NYS, October 12, 1835; “Trial of the Barnegat Pirates,” NYS, October 15, 1835; “Sentences of the Land Pirates,” NYS, December, 10 1835; “A Land Pirate,” Niles Weekly Register, April 22, 1837, 128. 103. Brown, “Early Settlers,” 48–49. On piracy, see Trial of the Twelve Spanish Pirates; Battis, “Brig ‘Mexican.’ ” 104. “Capture of Land Pirates,” Columbian Register, January 3, 1835; “The Banditti Discovered,” Vermont Phoenix, January 9, 1835; “A Banditti Discovered,” Times, January 5, 1835; “The New York Transcript,” New-­Bedford Mercury, January 23, 1835; “A Banditti Discovered,” National Banner and Nashville Whig, January 16, 1835; Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 222–29; Huntzicher, Popu­lar Press. 105. “Land Pirates in New Jersey,” SG, January 2, 1835. 106. “The Land Pirates of Barnegat,” Boston Courier, August 17, 1843; “The Jersey Pirates,” Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, March 11, 1846. The Platt affair has remained in the national psyche ever since. See, for example, “Editor’s Saddle-­Bags,” Northern Monthly; Brown, “Early Settlers,” 47–61; Coad, “Barnegat Pirates in Fact and Fiction,” 182–203. 107. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage, 76–77. 108. Averill, Wreckers, 6–13; Coad, “Barnegat Pirates,” 182–203; Davis, “Life-­Saving Stations,” 306. 109. The timing varied. On Cape Cod, the turn to tourism did not come ­until the end of the nineteenth ­century. Mc­Ken­zie, Clearing the Coastline, 111–73. 110. “The Land Pirates of Barnegat,” Boston Courier, August 17, 1843; “Our Point Pleasant Correspondence,” TSG, August 11, 1870; “Pirates of Barnegat Bay,” NYT, October 5, 1890; Salter, History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties, 167–70; Lane, “Shipwreck Narratives and National Identity,” 121–70. 111. State-­level legislation to regulate the fisheries failed to override “local custom” and centralize authority as wreck law did. Regulation of the contentious oyster fish182 Notes to Chapter Two

ery, for example, was hamstrung by a series of early nineteenth-­century New Jersey Supreme Court decisions that upheld traditional “tenancy in common rights” for fishers in tidal and coastal resources. The regulation of shipwrecks also differed from less invasive oversight of fisheries in the state’s major rivers, which l­ imited activity (when one could fish) and specified technologies (mesh size and net length) but did not compel action or centralize authority on the coastal populace. Not ­until increased railroad competition over nearshore property in the 1860s would New Jersey begin to aggressively regulate its shoreline through nonshipwreck legislation. Yet even ­these efforts focused on riverine and other protected bodies of ­water rather than oceanfront beach. On fisheries, see McCay, “Pirates of Piscary”; McCay, Oyster Wars and the Public Trust; Wilson, Jersey Shore, 1:153–57; Laws of N.J. Regulating Fisheries; Hood, Index of Colonial and State Laws, 66–72, 354–58, 372. On 1860s legislation, see Platt, “Railroad Rights and Tideland Policy”; Platt, “With Rivers and Harbors Unsurpassed.” 112. On the broader reconfiguration of the pirate in the nineteenth-­century Anglo-­ American world, see Rozwadowski, Vast Expanses, 145–47.

Chapter Three 1. Saunders diary, March 1–16, 1877, fol. 3, WSP; “Weather in Newport,” NDN, March 17, 1877; “The Vote in This City,” NDN, November 8, 1876; “Christians in Conclave,” BG, March 15, 1877; Langworthy, Langworthy ­Family, 100–101; “Weather in Newport,” NDN, March 17, 1877; Hartshorne and King, American Lloyd’s, 118. 2. Weather in Newport,” NDN, March 17, 1877; Weather Rec­ord,” PI, March 15, 1877; “Telegraphic Brevities,” BDE, March 18, 1877. 3. “Port of Boston,” BG, September 17, 1873; “Domestic Ports,” BG, May 9, 1874; “Late Marine Intelligence,” PI, December 8, 1876; “American Ports,” New York Daily Herald, March 14, 1877; “Cleared Yesterday,” PI, March 15, 1877; Hartshorne and King, American Lloyd’s, 118. 4. “Late Marine Intelligence,” PI, May 9, 1874; “Domestic Ports,” BG, May 9, 1974. 5. “Maritime Miscellany,” PI, March 19, 1877. 6. “Telegraphic Brevities,” BDE, March  18, 1877; “Maritime Miscellany,” PI, March 19, 1877. 7. William F. Saunders diary, March 17, 1877, fol. 3, WSP; “American Ports,” New York Daily Herald, November  29, 1875; “Quonochontaug: A Pleasant Sea-­Side Retreat,” BDG, August 26, 1873. 8. “Quonochontaug: A Pleasant Sea-­Side Retreat,” BDG, August 26, 1873. 9. “What’s in a Name?,” Leavenworth Times, March 25, 1870; “Rhode Island Has 105 Post Offices,” Indianapolis News, January 24, 1873. 10. Nebiker, Historic and Architectural Resources, 6, 8, 19; “Rhode Island,” Indianapolis News, January 24, 1873; “Quonochontaug: A Pleasant Sea-­Side Retreat,” BDG, August 26, 1873; U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, Annual Report of USLSS (1891), 449. 11. Westerly and Pawtucket Directory (1919), 306. Deed 20585, November 27, 1876, Book 24, pg. 350, Deed Books, Westerly Town Clerk. 12. Corbin, Lure of the Shore, 1–56; Lenček and Bosker, Beach, 38–69. 13. Corbin, Lure of the Sea, 57–85; Lenček and Bosker, Beach, 56–81. Notes to Chapter Three 183

14. Addison, “Saturday”; Lenček and Bosker, Beach, 55. 15. Corbin, Lure of the Sea, 97–161; Lenček and Bosker, Beach, 54–56, 66–68, 88–89; Zuelow, History of Modern Tourism, 30–59. 16. Weiss, “Tourism in Amer­i­ca,” 295. 17. Bushman, Refinement of Amer­i­ca, 160–69, 403–6; Rossano, “For Health and Plea­ sure,” 13–21; Brown, Inventing New E ­ ngland, 17–23. 18. Brown, Proceedings of the Acts of the General Assembly of Mary­land, 279–82; Bridenbaugh, “Baths and Watering Places.” 19. Bridenbaugh, “Baths and Watering Places,” 164. 20. Bridenbaugh, 151–81; Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness, 274–80, 434–42. ­Colonial seaside leisure destinations outside the focus of this study include several sites on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. See Whisnant and Whisnant, Gateway to the Atlantic World, 191–93. 21. Pastore, Between Land and Sea, 174. 22. Sterngass, First Resorts, 40–41. 23. Bridenbaugh, “Colonial Newport,” 1–29; Sterngass, First Resorts, 55–61. 24. Allaback, Resorts & Recreation, ch. 1; Eshelman and Russell, Waterfowl Hunting Camps, 7–8. 25. Biddle, Extracts from the Diary of Elizabeth Drinker, 25–26, 41–42; Bridenbaugh, “Baths and Watering Places,” 177–78. 26. Nebiker, Historic and Architectural Resources of Westerly, 6; Field, Revolutionary Defenses in Rhode Island, 123–24. 27. “Newport Society in the Last ­Century,” 497–500; Sterngass, First Resorts, 41–42; Pastore, Between Land and Sea, 187–89. 28. Munn, ­Battles and Skirmishes; Grasso, American Revolution on Long Island. 29. Brissot de Warville quoted in Sterngass, First Resorts, 41–42; Pastore, Between Land and Sea, 191–93. 30. Bentley, Diary of William Bentley, 3:426; “Nahant,” Daily National Intelligencer, May 25, 1819. 31. Waldron, Maritime New Jersey, 7; Allaback, Resorts & Recreation, ch. 5; Vineyard, “Stage Waggons and Coaches.” 32. Brown, Inventing New ­England, 17–23; Rossano, “For Health and Plea­sure,” 23–37; Allaback, Resorts & Recreation, ch. 5; Aron, Working at Play, 1–44. 33. Wansey, Excursion, 210–11, 250. 34. Rossano, “For Health and Plea­sure,” 27; Dulles, History of Recreation, 152; Wansey, Excursion, 211. 35. “Nahant,” Daily National Intelligencer, May 25, 1819; Waldron, Maritime New Jersey, 7; Sebold and Leach, New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail, 155; Brown, Inventing New ­England, 16. 36. On nineteenth-­century American coastal tourism, see Brown, Inventing New ­England; Aron, Working at Play; Sterngass, First Resorts; Chiang, Shaping the Shoreline; Lenček and Bosker, Beach; Knight, Tropic of Hopes; Cocks, Tropical Whites. 37. “Rockaway,” New-­York Columbian, September 1, 1820; Brown, Inventing New ­England, 23–40. 38. Stilgoe, Alongshore, 301. 184 Notes to Chapter Three

39. “Steam-­boat EAGLE,” BDA, June 29, 1819; Roland, Bolster, and Keyssar, Way of the Ship, 107–11, 130–38. 40. Stiles, First Tycoon, 66, 24. 41. “Sea Bathing,” National Gazette, July 16, 1835; Allaback, Resorts & Recreation, ch. 1; Hunton and McCabe, Monmouth County Historic Sites Inventory, 1:10. 42. Weiss, “Tourism in Amer­i­ca,” 301; Pastore, Between Land and Sea, 230–32. 43. Albion, Rise of New York Port, 162; Sterngass, First Resorts, 19. 44. “The Season,” NYS, July 7, 1834. 45. Salter, History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties, 429; Brown, Inventing New ­England, 162–67. This pro­cess occurred at dif­fer­ent times along the coast. Cape Codders, for example, did not turn to coastal tourism as an economic salve u ­ ntil a­ fter the Civil War. Mc­Ken­zie, Clearing the Coastline, 154–79; Cumbler, Cape Cod, 80–210. 46. For example, the following advertisement published in the September 4, 1830 edition of New York’s Morning Herald: “For Sale—­A farm of 100 acres on Rockaway Beach, fronting the ocean. The Mansion ­house is large, and con­ve­niently arranged for a ­hotel, and the situation is delightful, being on a bank, a short distance from the ocean. Rockaway is a place of very general resort, and at pre­sent filled with fash­ion­ able society.” 47. Rose, Woolman, and Price, Historical and Biographical Atlas, 87; Lipman, “Wild New ­England Shore,” 74; “Point Pleasant: A New Seaside Enterprise,” TSG, January 1, 1878. 48. For a clear, succinct example of the distinction between benevolent travelers and the dangerous, mysterious shore of the coastal resident, see Mitford, “Sea-­Side Sketch,” 165. On the elite status of tourism into the 1860s, see Weiss, “Tourism in Amer­i­ca,” 301; Sears, Sacred Places. 49. Thoreau, Cape Cod, 58, 239, 147. 50. Mc­Ken­zie, Clearing the Coastline, 84, 154–79; Brown, Inventing New ­England, 201–18; Cumbler, Cape Cod, 80–210. 51. Hutchins, American Maritime Industries; Labaree et al., Amer­i­ca and the Sea. For a critique, see Roland, Bolster, and Keyssar, Way of the Ship. 52. Berger, Antebellum at Sea; Bender, Sea-­Brothers, 4–7; Rozwadowski, Vast Expanses, 122–29; Stein, Seascape and the American Imagination; Wilmerding, American Marine Painting. 53. Stein, Seascape and the American Imagination, 69–70. 54. Stilgoe, Alongshore, 302–8; Rozwadowski, Fathoming the Ocean, 102–9; Butler, ­Family Aquar­ium. 55. Sterngass, First Resorts, 47–48. 56. Williams, Appleton’s Northern and Eastern Traveller’s Guide; Cocks, ­Doing the Town, 27; Brown, Inventing New E ­ ngland, 170–71; Mc­Ken­zie, Clearing the Coastline, 54–88. 57. Waldron, Maritime New Jersey, 20–25; Funnell, By the Beautiful Sea; Kaufman and Pilkey, Beaches Are Moving, 160, 170. 58. Disasters lured visitors to other regions of the United States as well. The Willey ­Family disaster in 1826, for example, significantly boosted tourism in the White Mountains. Brown, Inventing New E ­ ngland, 44–45. 59. Report of the Commissioners, 38. Notes to Chapter Three 185

60. Rozario, Culture of Calamity, 111. 61. “Tribune Notices,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, November 17, 1854. 62. Southern Patriot, February 14, 1835. Not an uncommon experience, as readers on both sides of the Atlantic learned: “New York, January 11,” Caledonian Mercury, February 11, 1837. 63. The shipwreck meta­phor for this period extends to historical interpretations. Jill Lepore recently titled the chapter on the 1850s “Of Ships and Shipwrecks” in Lepore, ­These Truths, 232–71. 64. For example, “The Arctic Calamity,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, October 27, 1854. 65. Foster, Shipwreck!, 11–45. Originally published in the Daily Telegraph, Robert Emmett Hook’s “My Life Is like the Scattered Wreck” also appeared in The Floridian, June 9, 1838. ­There are hundreds of similar examples. See, for example, Miller, “Iconology of Wrecked or Stranded Boats”; Rozwadowski, Vast Expanses, 144–48. 66. Lane, “Nineteenth-­Century American Shipwreck Narratives,” 149. 67. U.S. Congress, House, Congressional Rec­ord—­House, June 4, 1878: 4085–93, quoted in Lane, “Nineteenth-­Century American Shipwreck Narratives,” 139. 68. Roland, Bolster, and Keyssar, Way of the Ship, 172. 69. On importance of shipwrecks to dictating the placement of light­houses, see Risk, “Ship to Shore,” 24–47. Of course, the expansion of the light­house system was not without con­temporary criticism. See U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, Annual Report of USLSS (1876), 38–39. The quoted figures are approximate and, according to the source, “may be regarded as generally as somewhat less than the ­actual numbers.” U.S. Department of Commerce, United States Light­house Ser­vice, 15; Strobridge, Chronology of Aids to Navigation; Dolin, Brilliant Beacons. 70. Prince and Keller, U.S. Customs Ser­vice, 69–94. Federal intervention along the coast paralleled the growth of federal activity in the deep sea. See Rozwakowski, Fathoming the Ocean; Labaree et  al., Amer­i­ca and the Sea, 235–475; Roland, Bolster, and Keyssar, Way of the Ship, 172–78. 71. Although the Coast Survey was created in 1807, bad timing—­Jefferson’s embargo, the War of 1812—­combined with bureaucratic inertia, bud­get concerns, and po­liti­cal squabbling, delayed the agency’s work for a quarter c­ entury. On early methods and development of Coast Survey, see Shalowitz, Sea and Shore Bound­aries, 3–47, 79–352; Monmonier, Coast Lines. 72. Report of the Superintendent, 4. Incidentally, only two wrecks would appear on the published chart. Theberge, Coast Survey; U.S. Coast Survey, “New York Bay and Harbor and Environs.” 73. As the first annual report of the USLSS described the region: “Of this dangerous section of the Atlantic seaboard [Long Island to Cape Fear], the Long Island and New Jersey coasts pre­sent the most ghastly rec­ord of disaster. Lying on ­either side of the gate to the g­ reat metropolis of the nation, they annually levy a terrible tribute upon its passing commerce. The broken skele­tons of wrecked vessels with which the beaches are strewn, and with which the changing sands are ever busying themselves, h ­ ere burying and ­there exhuming, and the unmarked mounds with which the grave-­yards of the scattered settlements abound, sorrowfully testify to the vastness of the sacri186 Notes to Chapter Three

fice of life and property which ­these inexorable shores have claimed.” U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, Annual Report of the USLSS (1876), 835–36. 74. Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 735–37. 75. The scholarship and popu­lar lit­er­a­ture on the USLSS is vast. Excellent entry into this ever-­expanding lit­er­a­ture is provided by Bennett, Surfboats, Rockets, and Car­ron­ ades, 19–33; Shanks, York, and Shanks, U.S. Life-­Saving Ser­vice, 7–17; Means, “Heavy Sea ­Running”; McKinnon, “Archaeology of Florida’s USLSS”; Lane, “Nineteenth-­ Century American Shipwreck Narratives”; U.S. Life-­Saving Ser­vice Heritage Association, https://­uslife​-­savingservice​.­org. 76. On the rise of humanitarianism, see Haskell, “Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility, Part 1”; Haskell, “Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility, Part 2”; Ashworth, “Relationship between Capitalism and Humanitarianism.” 77. Federal vessels helped scores of vessels ­every year, preventing shipwrecks and mitigating losses, but the act had l­ittle practical effect along the coast and even less on the nation’s endemic shipwreck prob­lem, which included thousands of wrecks ­every year. Noble and Arbogast, Coast Guard along the North Atlantic Coast; Bennett, Surfboats, Rockets, and Car­ron­ades, 10; Bennett, Life-­Saving along the Coast. 78. Maust, “Congress Could Do Nothing,” 101–2; Brockman, Exploding Steamboats. 79. The 1840s witnessed a dramatic increase in both the amount of American shipping and the number of commercial vessels flying the American flag. During this time, not less than 60 ­percent of foreign trade and nearly all coastwise trade w ­ ere carried by American vessels. Increased shipping led to more shipwrecks, which w ­ ere mostly American vessels. Shipwrecks w ­ ere killing too many of the sailors who w ­ ere vital to American maritime interest and destroying too much property. Furthermore, the surge in overseas immigration led to shipwrecks with disturbingly high death tolls. Bennett, Surfboats, Rockets and Car­ron­ades, 11–16. The initiation of federal efforts to save lives from shipwrecks paralleled the development of the professional salvage industry. 80. March 4, 1847 Light­house Appropriation Act quoted in Bennett, Surfboats, Rockets and Car­ron­ades, 10–11. 81. “Speech of Mr. W. A. Newell of New Jersey in the House of Representatives, August 3, 1848” in Bennett, Appropriation of a Very Unusual Kind, 1–11; Bennett, Life-­ Saving along the Coast; Bennett, Surfboats, Rockets, and Car­ron­ades, 11–16; Dolin, Brilliant Beacons, 115–19. 82. Successive superintendents of the Coast Survey formed close working relationships with the Blunt f­ amily, publishers of the definitive sailing guide to the American coast, The American Coast Pi­lot, and creators of some of the best charts of American ­waters. Several Blunts eventually worked at the Coast Survey, whose de facto headquarters was the Blunt ­family bookshop in New York City. Information gleaned from ongoing hydrographic surveys appeared in successive editions of the Coast Pi­lot, and the Coast Survey effectively provided the content for this private publication. ­After the Civil War, the Coast Survey took the lead in disseminating, as well as producing, knowledge about the American coast, acquiring the rights to The American Coast Pi­lot Notes to Chapter Three 187

in 1867, which, renamed the United States Coast Pi­lot, continues to be a prized publication for mari­ners to this day. Theberge, “United States Coast Pi­lot.” 83. Letter to Secretary of the Trea­sury dated August 22, 1848 and Letter to Jeremiah  P. Tappan dated October  2, 1848  in Bennett, Appropriation of a Very Unusual Kind, 12, 14; Bennett, Life-­Saving along the Coast. 84. Bennett, Surfboats, Rockets and Car­ron­ades, 19–33. 85. U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, Annual Report of the USLSS for 1876, 43–44; Bennett, “Bouncy but Dry Ride,” 32–37. The original life-­car is on display at the National Museum of American History exhibit “On the W ­ ater,” National Museum of American History, n.d., accessed August 29, 2019, http://­americanhistory​.­si​.­edu​/­onthewater​/­. 86. Then, a nonappropriation bill, which authorized the secretary of the trea­sury to establish additional stations on the Long Island and New Jersey coast, move, repair, and furnish existing stations, appoint paid keepers for each station as well as two superintendents, garnered “considerable opposition” in the House of Representatives in December 1854. The opposition came from two fronts. The first questioned the constitutionality of the bill, a prescient topic at the time coming on the heels of President Pierce’s promise to veto internal improvement bills. The second opposition stemmed from fears that the bill conferred “extraordinary powers” on an executive officer and had the potential to vastly expand the federal patronage system. U.S. Congress, “Preservation of Life and Property,” Congressional Globe (1854), 33–36; U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, Annual Report of the USLSS (1876), 43–47; Larson, Internal Improvement. 87. “Speech of Mr. W. A. Newell of New Jersey in the House of Representatives, August 3, 1848,” in Bennett, Appropriation of a Very Unusual Kind, 1–11; Bennett, Surfboats, Rockets, and Car­ron­ades, 35–74; U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, Annual Report of the USLSS (1876), 42–45. 88. The 1876 regulations stipulated that each station include “one metal surf-­boat, with air-­chambers and cork fenders, seven oars and two India-­rubber bailing-­buckets; one metal life-­car, with cork or India-­rubber floats and fenders, and rings and chains for each end; one manila hawser [a thick rope], 4½-­inch, 108 fathoms; one hauling-­ line, 2½-­inch, 310 fathoms; two rocket-­lines, nine-­tenths ounce per yard, 300 yards each; one coiling-­frame for rocket-­line and box; one crotch and range for throwing rockets; one sand-­anchor, strap, and bull’s-­eye; one tackle, with twenty-­fathoms fall, 2½-­inch manila; one heaver and strap; one mortar of iron, and ten shots fitted with spiral wire; one copper powder-­canister, and four pounds of powder for same; twelve blue-­lights, and box containing fifty quick-­matches; five rockets, and rocket-­box of tin; eight pieces of match-­rope, and twelve pieces of port-­fire; two lanterns and oil-­can, and oil for same; one lamp-­feeder and wick; one stove and pipe; one cord of wood; ten shovels; one firing-­wire.” U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, Annual Report of the USLSS (1876), 42; McKinnon, “Archaeology of Florida’s USLSS,” 55. 89. U.S. Congress, “An Act to Provide for the Establishment of Life-­Saving Stations and Houses of Refuge,” Statutes at Large, 18:125–28; Noble, “Legacy.” 90. U.S. Senate, “Thursday, March 30, 1848,” Journal of the Senate, 246; U.S. Senate, “Report of the Secretary of the Trea­sury,” 30th Cong., 2nd Sess. (1848), S. Exe. Doc. 3, 1. 188 Notes to Chapter Three

91. “Speech of Mr. W. A. Newell of New Jersey in the House of Representatives, August 3, 1848,” in Bennett, Appropriation of a Very Unusual Kind, 2–3; Hagar, “United States Life-­Saving Ser­vice,” 168. 92. U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, Annual Report of the Secretary of the Trea­sury (1874), 53, 59–61; 73–154. Underwriters, of course, kept detailed shipwreck rec­ords, but I have not been able to access any marine insurance archives. “Disaster Books” of the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Com­pany—­the most significant archive—do exist but are currently inaccessible to researchers. 93. Mohun, “On the Frontier.” 94. U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, Annual Report of the USLSS (1876), 61–66. 95. McKinnon, “Archaeology of Florida’s USLSS,” 52. 96. Nast, Death on Economy. 97. U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, Annual Report of the USLSS (1878), 29. 98. U.S. House of Representatives, “The Life-­Saving Ser­vice,” 45th Cong., 2nd Sess. (1878), H. Rpt. 426; U.S. Congress, “An Act to Or­ga­nize the Life-­Saving-­Service,” Statutes at Large, 20:163–65; Labaree et al., Amer­i­ca and the Sea, 403–35. 99. U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, Annual Report of the USLSS (1891), 11–18; McKinnon, “Archaeology of Florida’s USLSS,” 55–58. 100. See, for example, Hagar, “United States Life-­Saving Ser­vice”; “United States Life-­Saving Ser­vice”; Bibb, “Life-­Saving Ser­vice on the ­Great Lakes”; Carpenter, “­Uncle Sam’s Life Savers. See also Lane, “Nineteenth-­Century American Shipwreck Narratives,” 121–70. 101. Lane, “Nineteenth-­Century American Shipwreck Narratives,” 197. 102. Lane, 2. 103. Lane, 197–98, argues: “Slotkin suggests that late nineteenth-­century Americans searched for national mythologies, such as Custer’s Last Stand, in order to glorify the ‘taming’ of the frontier through American fortitude, technology, and rugged individualism. [Winslow Homer’s] The Life Line may symbolize the taming of a frontier; in this case, rather than fixating on the subjugation of Native American populations, the my­thol­ogy emphasizes control over natu­ral ele­ments such as storms and waves. Technology, coupled with William D. O’Connor’s ‘storm warriors’ (the surfmen), push the nation’s bound­aries beyond the surf line to negate many threats to life and property.” See Slotkin, Fatal Environment. 104. Lane, “Nineteenth-­Century American Shipwreck Narratives,” 12. For a representative example of a fictional USLSS narrative, see Drysdale, Beach Patrol. 105. Foster, Shipwreck!, 41; Cooper, “Fireman.” 106. “United States Life-­Saving Ser­vice,” 337. 107. Kobbé, New Jersey Coast and Pines. Other examples include Crane, “Tale of the Black Dog”; Van Saint, Barnegat Pirates; Sooy, Episodes of a Quaint Countryside; Coad, “Barnegat Pirates,” 197–202. 108. “Local Affairs,” NDN, March 22, 1877; Nebiker, Historic and Architectural Resources of Westerly, 6, 8, 19. 109. Gillis, ­Human Shore, 78. 110. Saunders Diary, entries for 1876–1892, fol. 3, WSP; untitled obituary in Sabbath Recorder, October 17, 1927, 511–12. Notes to Chapter Three 189

111. Crnic and Connolly, “ ‘They C ­ an’t Help Getting Well H ­ ere’ ”; Sterngass, First Resorts, 146–262; Gabriel, Evolution of Long Island, 178–82; Kass, “Long Island Rail Road”; Lipman, “Wild New ­England Shore,” 74–84. 112. Kharl, Land Was Ours, 7; Stanonis, Faith in Bikinis; Stewart, “What Nature Suffers to Groe,” 193–242; Jefferson, “African American Leisure Space.” 113. Appleton’s Illustrated Handbook, iii. 114. “Quonochontaug: A Pleasant Sea-­Side Retreat,” BDG, August 26, 1873; “Watch Hill,” BDG, September 12, 1873. 115. “Chapman House,” Hartford Courant, July 1, 1884; “Personal,” Courier-­News, July 30, 1884; “Expert Lady Fishers,” Sun, August 2, 1885; “Where to Spend the Summer,” BDE, May 23, 1888. 116. “Expert Lady Fishers,” Sun, August 2, 1885; “Shooting in Rhode Island,” Sun, December 30, 1889. 117. “Summer Resorts,” Hartford Courant, June 4, 1889. 118. Saunders diary, January 1888–­October 1889, fol. 3, WSP; entries for October 24–25, 1889, and January 2, 1887–­December 31, 1889, boxes 1218–19, WHSL. 119. Entries for November 29, 1889, January 6, 1890, January 18, 1890, April 30, 1890, boxes 1218–19, WHSL. 120. Entries for August 30, 1891–­January 10, 1892, box 1219, WHSL; Saunders diary, January 3, 1892, fol. 3, WSP. 121. “A Tragic Death,” n.d., undated newspaper clipping, fol. 9, WSP. 122. Saunders diary, January 1–­February 3, 1892, fol. 3, WSP; McKinnon, “Archaeology of Florida’s USLSS,” 54. 123. McKinnon, “Archaeology of Florida’s USLSS,” 53–54. 124. Saunders diary, March–­May 1892, fol. 3, WSP; Scrapbook, fol. 9, WSP. 125. Saunders diary, February 26, April 23–24, May 8, July 4, 1892, fol. 3, WSP; entry for July 1–5, 1892, box 1219, WHSL. 126. “Quonochontaug,” undated newspaper clipping, fol. 9, WSP. 127. King F­ amily Scrapbook, Charlestown Historical Society; Doyle, Quonnie. 128. Appleton’s Illustrated Handbook, 96, 153. The road closest to Norman’s Woe would eventually be named Hesperus Ave­nue. “Quonochontaug,” undated newspaper clipping, fol. 9, WSP. 129. “Along the North Shore of Long Island.” 130. “Quonochontaug,” undated newspaper clipping, fol. 9, WSP. 131. “Archival Photos: Quonochontaug & Areas West,” Charlestown Historical Society; Entries for December 11–15, 1891, box 1219, WHSL. 132. Quoted in Burton, Morro ­Castle, 136. 133. “Capt. Saunders Retires,” undated newspaper clipping, fol. 9, WSP. 134. Saunders Realty Co. advertisements, Westerly City Directory (1913–1919). 135. “Sea Side Resort,” TSG, March 13, 1876; TSG, May 31, 1877; “Letter from the Seaside,” TSG, August 10, 1877; “Who Gets the Resort House?,” TSG, August, 24, 1878; “City and Country,” TSG, August 22, 1878; “The Point Pleasant Enterprise,” TSG, August 26, 1878; “Point Pleasant,” TSG, July 25, 1879; “Point Pleasant City,” TSG, June 14, 1881”; “Articles of Agreement,” April 13, 1858, fol. 7, box 2, FFP; Petition, August 21, 1868, oversized fol., FFP. 190 Notes to Chapter Three

136. On this pro­cess in Australia, see Duncan and Gibbs, Please God Send Me a Wreck, 39–42.

Chapter Four 1. Smith, “Captain Thomas A. Scott,” 167. 2. Smith, 163–64; “­Humble Hero”; Death of Capt. Scott,” Springfield Daily Republican, February 18, 1907; “Capt. Thomas A. Scott Dead,” Providence Journal, February 18, 1907; “Capt. Thomas A. Scott Dead,” NYT, February 18, 1907; NDN, February 18, 1907. 3. Obscure, lacking the romance (and source material) of clipper ships and ­whalers, and not fitting the declensionist canonical account of late nineteenth-­century maritime Amer­i­ca, wrecking and wreckers have escaped the scrutiny of the rigorous historical inquiry they deserve. ­There are many popu­lar histories and insider accounts of marine salvage. The most comprehensive remains Gores, Marine Salvage. Of the more focused monographs on salvage, see Bartholomew, Mud, Muscle and Miracles by the U.S. Navy’s former supervisor of salvage; Doner, Salvager; Powers, Taking the Sea; and Shepard, Lore of the Wreckers. The best scholarly account addresses British wreckers: Pearce, Cornish Wrecking. 4. Urbain, At the Beach, 134–36. 5. “Wrecking—­Perils along the Southern Coast,” NYT, November 15, 1866. 6. “Policemen of the Sea,” 441–43; Stiles, First Tycoon, 21, 45. 7. Vendue List, June 8, 1831; “To the Underwriters and O ­ wners of the Schooner Cape Henry,” n.d.; “Copy of the Protest in Schooner Cape Henry,” June 9, 1831, fol. 3, box 1, FFP. 8. Heyliger v. The New York Fireman Insurance Com­pany, 11 Johns. 85, N.Y. Lexis 31 (1814). 9. Newspapers did use the term wrecker to describe local vessels engaged in salvage work u ­ ntil the early 1850s. Before then, wreckers identified salvage outfits in Florida and the Bahamas, while relief schooners described vessels such as the ­Little William, which went on one-­to two-­week cruises to aid wrecked and distressed vessels between Boston and Philadelphia. “Port of Philadelphia—­February 12,” National Gazette and Literary Register, February 13, 1827. On wrecking vessels, see “Maritime Intelligence,” Weekly Herald, January 10, 1852; “Maritime Intelligence,” Weekly Herald, January 12, 1856; “Marine Journal,” NYTr, January 18, 1856; “Marine Journal,” NYTr, January 28, 1856; “Marine Journal,” NYTr, January  30, 1856; “Maritime Intelligence,” NYH, March 10, 1857. 10. “­Great Wrecking Master Called to His Final Port,” Day, February 18, 1907; Smith, “Captain Thomas A. Scott,” 155; Board of American Lloyd’s, American Lloyds’, 447; Baker, “Captain Thomas Albertson Scott.” 11. “MC&S: 1860–1960: A C ­ entury of Pioneering,” NYT, March 20, 1960, sec. 10, 5–6. 12. “The Chauncey Jerome, Jr.,” State Gazette, January 21, 1854; Dickman, “Captain James A. Whipple”; Lundeberg, “Marine Salvage and Sea Mine Technology”; Gores, Marine Salvage, 89. 13. “Articles of Agreement of Surf Boat,” April 13, 1835, fol. 5, box 1, FFP. 14. “Policemen of the Sea.” Notes to Chapter Four 191

15. Albion, Rise of New York Port, 272; Levy, Freaks of Fortune, 30–49; Ruwell, Eighteenth-­Century Capitalism; Kingston, “Marine Insurance in Britain and Amer­i­ca”; Mitchell-­Cook, Sea of Misadventures, 38–39. 16. “Port of Philadelphia—­February  12,” National Gazette and Literary Register, ­February 13, 1827; “Life-­Saving as a Business,” 736. 17. “From our correspondents of the New York Mercantile Advertiser,” BGDA, ­February 24, 1829; “New-­York, Jan. 22,” BDA, January 25, 1820. 18. Richard Lawrence to John S. Forman, March 25, 1826, fol. 2, box 1, FFP; “Inventory of the Cargo on Board the Schooner Orbit,” January 9, 1827, fol. 2, box 1, FFP; Samuel G. Wasing to Forman, November 2, 1836, fol. 6, box 1, FFP. 19. “Shipping News,” BGDA, November 29, 1827; Inventory, December 28, 1833, fol. 5, box 1, FFP; Samuel G. Waising to John S. Forman, November 2, 1836, fol. 6, box 1, FFP. 20. Letter to John M. Brown, October 8, 1851, fol. 8, box 1, FFP. 21. Samuel G. Waising to John S. Forman, November 26, 1836, fol. 6, box 1, FFP. 22. “Shipping List: New-­York,” BGDA, November 29, 1827. 23. “Shipping News,” BGDA, November 29, 1827; Inventory, December 28, 1833, fol. 5, box 1, FFP; Letter to John S. Forman, January 13, 1836, fol. 6, box 1, FFP. 24. “Untitled,” NYS, September 26, 1839. 25. “Speech of Mr. W. A. Newell of New Jersey in the House of Representatives, August 3, 1848,” in Bennett, Appropriation of a Very Unusual Kind, 2–3. 26. U.S. Senate, “Report of the Secretary of the Trea­sury,” 30th Cong., 2nd Sess. (1848), S. Exec. Doc. No. 3, 52–75; “Two Years’ Wrecks,” NYT, December 2, 1869. 27. Samuel G. Waring to John Forman, November 26, 1836, fol. 6, box 1, FFP. 28. Jones Johnson to John Forman, March 25, 1850, fol. 8, box 1, FFP. 29. “Memoranda,” Boston Courier, November 10, 1859. 30. Board of American Lloyd’s, American Lloyds’; Albion, Rise of New York Port, 272–73. 31. “The American Shipmasters’ Association,” NYT, October 9, 1861; American Bureau of Shipping, History of the American Bureau of Shipping, 1–10. 32. Board Minutes for the Board of New York Underwriters, 380–82, 404–5, 440–45, fol. 1, MCSC. 33. “Trou­ble among the Wreckers,” NYT, May 29, 1878; “Capt. Israel J. Merritt,” 312. 34. U.S. Naval War Rec­ords Office, North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, 357; “News from Fortress Monroe,” NYT, June 19, 1862; Adler, “Raising Ships,” 61–80. 35. “An Old Fisherman Did It,” Sunday World-­Herald, April 12, 1896. 36. “Sunken Monitor ‘Camanche,’ ” 320; “Libel Suit against the ‘Aquila,’ ” Daily Eve­ ning Bulletin, July 11, 1864. 37. “War among the Wreckers,” NYTr, December 3, 1866; “Marine Disasters,” NYTr, December 8, 1866. 38. “Merritt-­Chapman & Scott,” NYT, March 20, 1960, sec. 10, 3; “Capt. Israel J. Merritt,” 311; “Capt. I. J. Merritt Dead,” NYT, December 15, 1911; “The Cargo of the Ella Warley,” Daily Picayune, March 3, 1863; “From New York,” PI, May 26, 1865; “The Coast Wrecking Com­pany,” NYTr, May 27, 1865; “The Coast Wrecking Com­pany,” NYTr, May 27, 1865. 192 Notes to Chapter Four

39. “Capt. Israel J. Merritt,” 311; Merritt, Improvement in Dry-­Docks; Dawson, “Short History of the Camel.” 40. “Life-­Saving as a Business Duty,” Atlantic Monthly, December 1869, 734–35. 41. “Marine Disasters,” Daily Age, July 19, 1865; “Marine Disasters,” NYH, April 15, 1866; “By Telegraph,” Columbian Register, November 16, 1867; “The Common Council,” Daily Picayune, July 1, 1869; “Life-­Saving as a Business Duty,” Atlantic Monthly, December 1869, 734–35. 42. Assessment is based on an exhaustive search of federal court dockets in Mas­sa­ chu­setts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York for the years 1850–1900. District Court Dockets, RG 21, Rec­ords of the District Courts of the United States, National Archives and Rec­ords Administration (NARA), New York, N.Y., and NARA, Mass. On the Key West system, see Dodd, “Wrecking Business on the Florida Reef.” 43. The federal government began explic­itly regulating be­hav­ior at coastal shipwrecks in 1825 as part of a comprehensive reform of the U.S. criminal code. The federal wreck law passed that year, however, was a stopgap mea­sure that deferred to existing state laws where they existed. The law likely stemmed from the recent acquisition of Florida. The region’s notorious wreckers w ­ ere on Daniel Webster’s, the Judicial Committee’s, and the House’s minds as they debated and passed the “Act more effectually to provide for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States, and for other purposes” in March—­the House had passed “An act concerning wrecks on the coast of Florida” late in the previous term, and they took it up again in December 1825. Benton, Abridgement of Debates, 8:188, 338, 366, 610; Register of Debates in Congress, 1:115. 44. Blackwell, 77 U.S. 1, U.S. Lexis 1037 (1869); The Camanche, 75 U.S. 448, U.S. Lexis 1123 (1869). 45. Horwitz, Transformation of American Law; Raymond, “Salvage Award Committee,” 12; Clift and Gay, “Shifting Nature of Salvage Law.” On Key West wrecking, see Dodd, “Wrecking Business.” 46. “Two Years’ Wrecks,” NYT, December 2, 1869. 47. “Diving and Diving Apparatus,” 97; “Two Years’ Wrecks,” NYT, December 2, 1869; Robert A. Margo, “Daily Wages for Common ­L abor, by Region: 1851–1880,” ­Table Ba4271–79 in Car­ter et al., Historical Statistics. 48. “Thomas A. Scott, Sub-­marine Diver,” BDE, May 25, 1868. 49. “The Wreck of the Scotland,” NYT, August 20, 1870. 50. “Raising of the Steamship ‘Scotland’ ”; “Perils of the Deep,” Inter Ocean, August 23, 1874. 51. “Novel Example of Heroism,” NYH, December 11, 1869; Smith, “Capt. Joe,” 225–29. 52. “­Great Wrecking Master Called to His Final Port,” Day, February 18, 1907; “Capt. Thomas A. Scott Dead,” NYT, February 18, 1907; “The Sunken Dry Docks,” NYH, July 25, 1871. 53. Smith, “Captain Thomas A. Scott,” August 1908, 158; Smith, “Capt. Joe”; 1870 U.S. Census, Ward 4, Jersey City, Hudson, New Jersey, FamilySearch. 54. “Race Rock,” NYH, December 19, 1877. 55. U.S. Senate, “Report of the Secretary of Trea­sury,” 32nd Cong., 2nd Sess. (1853), S. Exec. Doc. 22, 77. Notes to Chapter Four 193

56. “Serious Accidents,” NYTr, June 25, 1872. For the best account of the building of the Race Rock light­house, see Smith, “Building of the Race Rock Light­house,” 33–43. 57. Smith, “Captain Thomas A. Scott,” 158–60; “Shipping News,” BDA, April 17, 1876; “Shipping News” NYH, December 8, 1876; Race Rock,” NYH, December 19, 1877. 58. “State News,” NHER, February 12, 1885. 59. “Notice to Mari­ners,” NYH, January  4, 1879; Smith, “Captain Thomas  A. Scott,” 165. 60. Smith, “Capt. Joe,” 227. 61. “Maritime Miscellany,” NYH, May 5, 1874; “Shipping News,” BDA, May 15, 1876; “Maritime Miscellany,” NYH, December 31, 1878; “Maritime Miscellany,” NYH, January 4, 1879. 62. Mather and Jensen, Investigations, 372–82. 63. “Maritime Miscellany,” NYH, January 4, 1879; the New London Wrecking Com­ pany only appears in conjunction with Scott’s salvage of the passenger steamer Narragansett in 1881. See “The Narragansett Horror,” NYH, June 14, 1880; “The Narragansett Disaster,” NYH, June 15, 1880; U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, Annual Report of the USLSS (1876–1899). 64. “Untitled obituary,” NDN, February 18, 1907; “Capt. Thomas A. Scott, Diver,” NYT, February 18, 1907. 65. “The Champion Diver,” NHER, April 20, 1883; “The City of Columbus Disaster,” NYT, February 3, 1884; “The Gay Head Horror,” New Haven Register, February 25, 1884; Dresser, Disaster off Martha’s Vineyard. 66. “Work for Wrecker Scott,” NHER, August 18, 1886. 67. “Maritime Miscellany,” NYH, February 11, 1884. 68. “Found Seven Wrecks,” The Day, July 15, 1884. 69. Parker, ­Great Coal Schooners. 70. “Saved by Captain Scott,” NHER, November 12, 1885. 71. “The Marabout in Port,” NHER, July 7, 1886. 72. “Finding of the Clerk as to Salvage due Libellants,” September 13, 1882, Scott v. 48 tons Scrap Iron, Admiralty case file, box 73, U.S.D.C. CT; Rec­ords of the District Courts of the United States, RG 21, National Archives and Rec­ords Administration, Waltham, Mass. 73. “Hard and Fast,” Providence Daily Journal, November 12, 1895; “Puritan Floated,” Providence Daily Journal, November 13, 1895; “Steamer John Bramall,” North American, October 21, 1878. 74. Calvert, Mechanical Engineer in Amer­ic­ a; Scott, Seeing Like a State, 309–41. 75. “Untitled,” BGDA, January 19, 1837; “Maritime M ­ atters,” Daily Picayune, August 1, 1854; “Engineer Dennison Drowned,” NYT, February 12, 1886. 76. “What Caused the Diver’s Death,” NYT, January 5, 1889; “Diver Olsen’s Narrow Escape,” NYT, June 19, 1894; “Diver Dies in Armor,” NYT, December 24, 1915. 77. “­Great Wrecking Master Called to His Final Port,” Day, February 18, 1907; “Capt. Scott’s Fish Line,” NHER, July 15, 1884. 78. Bohlen, New London Day Index, 1881–1890, 101–16; Bohlen, New London Day Index, 1891–1896, 169–70. 194 Notes to Chapter Four

79. “Fair Haven,” NHER, April 12, 1883; “Local Brevities,” Alexandria Gazette, May 16, 1884. 80. Smith, “Captain Thomas A. Scott,” 167. 81. Day, November 14, 1894. 82. “Capt. Israel J. Merritt,” 312; “Merritt’s Wrecking Organ­ization,” 223; “Wrecking the Wreckers,” NYH, May 29, 1878; “Trou­ble among the Wreckers,” NYT, May 29, 1878; “Reor­ga­niz­ing a Com­pany,” New York Herald-­Tribune, December 8, 1880. 83. “Frozen in Mid-­Sound,” NHER, January 5, 1882; Day, November 12, 1883; “The Foe of the Oyster,” NHER, June 30, 1884; Day, November 8, 1887. 84. Day, November 15, 1890; “To Fortify Gardiners Island,” BDE, May 13, 1898; “Guns for Plum Island,” BDE, May 16, 1898. 85. “­Will Capt. Scott Sell,” Day, August 27, 1894. 86. New London, Niantic and Waterford Directory (1892), 305. 87. New London, Niantic and Waterford Directory (1895), 317. 88. Benjamin Strobel, Charleston Courier, May  2, 1837, quoted in Hammond, “Wreckers and Wrecking,” 244. 89. Rideing, “Coast-­Wreckers,” 481. For a broader discussion of wreckers in popu­ lar culture, see “Wrecking on the Florida Keys”; Pearce, Cornish Wrecking, 189–216; and Coad, “Barnegat Pirates in Fact and Fiction.” For more recent examples, see the 1942 Cecil  B. DeMille film Reap the Wild Wind; and, more recently, Caputo, Voyage. 90. Preston, “In the Palmy Days of Wrecking,” 5–10. 91. Grasso, “Maritime Revival,” 2; Rozwadowski, Vast Expanses, 148–51. 92. Coad, “Barnegat Pirates,” 196. 93. Rideing, “Coast-­Wreckers,” 481. 94. “Policemen of the Sea,” 433–48. 95. Kobbé, “Life u ­ nder W ­ ater”; Kobbé, “Saving a Wrecked Vessel.” 96. Kobbé, “Saving a Wrecked Vessel,” 509. 97. Fawcett, “Recent Notable Salvage Operations,” 584. See also Perry, “ ‘Wrecking’ of Ships”; “Submarine Wrecking-­B oat ‘Argonaut’ ”; Marvin, “Wrecking Work of the Boston Towboat Com­pany”; Howland, “Wrecking.” 98. “ ‘Capt. Joe’ and ‘Capt. Billy.’ ” For the stories, see George Parsons Lathrop, “Captain Billy” in Lathrop, Two Sides of a Story, 71–100; Smith, “Capt. Joe,” 225–29. 99. “Recent Novels”; “Group of Recent Novels”; “The Book World,” Macon Telegraph, February 12, 1899. 100. “Marginalia,” Colorado Springfield Gazette, June 13, 1897. 101. “­Great Wrecking Master Called to His Final Port,” Day, February 18, 1907. 102. “First Per­for­mance of Michael Morton’s ‘Caleb West,’ ” NYT, September 18, 1900. 103. “Dramatic and Musical,” NYT, September 18, 1900; “New London Sees ‘Caleb West,’ ” NYT, September 4, 1900; “Hard Facts,” Star Tribune, December 2, 1900; “Dramatic By-­Paths,” Inter Ocean, November 4, 1900; “At the Dewey Sunday and Monday Nights,” Park Rec­ord, January 25, 1913; “Does Not Love Ocean,” Baltimore Sun, January 2, 1921; “Another Winner!”; “ ‘Round Up.’ ” 104. Smith, Captain Thomas A. Scott. Notes to Chapter Four 195

105. Smith, “Capt. Joe,” 225. 106. “Scott Saves Valuable Property,” Day, December 29, 1894. 107. “Editor’s Note,” 155; Stiles, First Tycoon, 546–47; Mott, History of American Magazines, 5:81. 108. Perry, “Wrecking of Ships,” 69. 109. “Partial List of Wrecking Equipment of T. A. Scott Com­pany, Inc.,” 1911, Rec­ ords of the T. A. Scott Com­pany, Mystic Seaport Museum. 110. New London, Niantic and Waterford Directory (1907–1920). 111. “Modern Wreckers,” NYT, July 21, 1901. 112. Moffett, “Diver’s Desperate Strug­g le,” 15; Glassman, “In Davy Jones’ Locker.” On another heroic wrecker, see Powers, Taking the Sea. 113. “Raising a Sunken Steamship”; “The Vociferous Tugboat,” NYT, May 4, 1891; Kobbé, “Saving a Wrecked Vessel”; Fawcett, “Recent Notable Salvage Operations”; Perry, “Wrecking of Ships.” 114. “Pirates in the Harbor,” NHER, April 2, 1884; “Cape Cod’s Big Windfall,” NYT, October 2, 1919. 115. Knovitz, “Changing Concepts of the Sea,” 9–12; Rozwadowski, Vast Expanses, 144–51.

Chapter Five 1. “Passengers Call It a Race,” NYT, January 26, 1896. 2. “Passengers Call It a Race”; “Capt. Jamison Makes Report,” NYTr, February 4, 1896; Transcript of Rec­ord, 52–54, 72–73, 87, Case Number 909 Israel J. Merritt et al. v. The Steamship “St. Paul,” Case Files, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Cir­cuit, RG 276; Rec­ords of the United States Courts of Appeals, National Archives and Rec­ords Administration, New York, N.Y. (hereafter cited as Transcript of Rec­ord). 3. The USLSS excluded 1878 “on account of the g­ reat mortality at the disaster to the steamer Metropolis, and as that year, therefore, does not afford fair data for comparison.” U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, USLSS Annual Report (1897), 18. 4. “Passengers Call It a Race,” NYT, January 26, 1896; Ancestry​.c­ om, “Customs List of Passengers.” For an overview of the St. Paul shipwreck and salvage, see Flayhart, American Line, 225–46; and Flayhart, Perils of the Atlantic, 164–84. 5. Transcript of Rec­ord, 85–86, 120. 6. “Wrecks and Rescues of the Past,” NYT, January 27, 1896; “On Shrewbury Rocks,” NYTr, January 27, 1896. 7. U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, Annual Report for the USLSS (1896), 14, 19; U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, Statistical Abstract, 404. 8. U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, United States Coast Pi­lot: Part V, 29. 9. “Big St. Paul Runs Aground,” NYH, January 26, 1896; “St. Paul Hard Aground,” Sun, January 26, 1896; Rattray, Perils of the Port of New York. 10. U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, United States Coast Pi­lot: Part IV, 10–22; U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, United States Coast Pi­lot: Part V, 10–21; MacMillen, Black Horse of the Sea; Risk, “Ship to Shore,” 48–76. 196 Notes to Chapter Five

11. Flayhart, American Line, 145, 233; “Capt. John Clark Jamison,” NYT, January 26, 1896; “The St. Paul Report,” NYTr, February 20, 1896. 12. U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, USLSS Annual Report (1897), 136. 13. Transcript of Rec­ord, 216. 14. Wheatley, “New York Maritime Exchange.” 15. Transcript of Rec­ord, 195–204. 16. Transcript of Rec­ord, 59. 17. Monmouth Demo­crat, January 30, 1896; “Off Long Branch,” Boston Daily Journal, January 25, 1896; “The St. Paul Ashore,” Kansas City Star, January 25, 1896; “Liner St. Paul in Trou­ble,” Santa Fe New Mexican, January 25, 1896; “Rammed the U.S.,” Minneapolis Journal, January  25, 1896. On general tone of reports, see also “St.  Paul, Speeding in a Fog, Goes Aground,” NYT, January 26, 1896; The St. Paul, 82 F. 104, S.D. N.Y. Lexis 68 (1897). 18. “St. Paul Hard Aground,” Sun, January 26, 1896. 19. U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, USLSS Annual Report (1897), 14, 19. 20. Transcript of Rec­ord, 120. 21. “St. Paul, Speeding in a Fog, Goes Aground,” NYT, January 26, 1896. 22. “Crowds Watch the Big Ship,” NYTr, January 26, 1896. 23. “St. Paul, Speeding in a Fog, Goes Aground,” NYT, January 26, 1896. 24. “The St. Paul Aground,” NYTr, January 26, 1896. 25. “St. Paul, Speeding in a Fog, Goes Aground,” NYT, January 26, 1896; “Big St. Paul Runs Aground,” NYH, January 26, 1896. 26. “The Stranding of the American Liner,” Harper’s Weekly, February 8, 1896, 125. 27. Campbell, Year that Defined American Journalism; Mott, American Journalism, 571–92. 28. “The St.  Paul Is Ashore off Long Branch: Raced with the Campania U ­ ntil within a Few Miles of Land,” St. Louis Republic, January 26, 1896; “Grounding of the St. Paul,” San Francisco Call, January 26, 1896; “Race on the Ocean,” Sunday World-­ Herald, January  26, 1896; “Many Lives in Peril,” Sunday Inter Ocean, January  26, 1896. 29. “Stuck on a Sand Bar,” Idaho Daily Statesman, January  26, 1896; “Steamer Stranded,” Morning Herald, January 26, 1896; “An Atlantic Liner Ashore,” Sunday Times, January 25, 1896. 30. “Did Campania Touch,” n.d., fol. 9, WSP. 31. Hutchins, American Maritime Industries, 533–36; Roland, Bolster, and Keyssar, Way of the Ship, 209–24; Flayhart, American Line, 137–224. 32. Williams, “Art in Ship-­Building”; Flayhart, American Line, 171–226. 33. The rival—­the British-­built Campania—­was the same liner St. Paul would race through the fog before wrecking off Long Branch. “A Race between Ocean Liners,” NYTr, December 14, 1895; “An Atlantic Liner Ashore,” Sunday Times, January 26, 1896; “The Steamer St. Paul,” Standard, January 28, 1896. 34. “St. Paul Is Still Fast,” NYT, January 27, 1896. 35. “Throngs of Sightseers,” PL, February 3, 1896. For a fuller description of carnival and seaside resorts, see Shields, “ ‘System of Plea­sure.’ ” Lighters are barges used Notes to Chapter Five 197

for the conveyance of cargo from ship to shore, or vice versa. They often have cranes or derricks on them. 36. Smith, “Life’s Personally Conducted Tours”; Federal Writers’ Proj­ect, Entertaining a Nation, 43–98; Barrett, Good Old Summer Days, 244–48; Nelson, New Jersey Coast, 2:50–53; Sterngass, First Resorts, 192, 241. 37. Transcript of Rec­ord, 81, 100. 38. “Fast Locked in the Sand,” NYTr, February 29, 1896; “St. Paul Moved a Short Distance,” EB, January 29, 1896; “Big St. Paul Runs Aground,” NYH, January 26, 1896; “The St. Paul Still Fast,” NYT, January 29, 1896. 39. “A Sea-­Going Revenue Vessel Needed,” NYTr, January 26, 1896; “A New Lightship off Fire Island,” NYT, February 2, 1896; “­Favors a Big Dry Dock,” NYT, February 14, 1896; “Danger Lurks for Platt and Morton,” PI, February 16, 1896; “­Great Dock to Be Built,” NYT, March 12, 1896; “Dangers of the Gulf Stream,” NYT, January 30, 1896; “Winds Affect Currents,” NYT, February 23, 1896. 40. “The St. Paul Lies beside the Sea,” PI, February 4, 1896; editorial, NYTr, January 31, 1896. 41. “What Was Done at the Theatres,” PI, February 4, 1896; “Eleventh Street Opera House,” PI, February 9, 1896; Dumont, Witmark Amateur Minstrel Guide, 5–7. 42. “Same ­Thing All the Year Round”; on gambling, see Hardy, “Seaside Life in Amer­i­ca.” 43. “Crowds Watch the Big Ship,” NYTr, January 26, 1896; “St. Paul Still Fast in the Sand,” NYH, January 27, 1896. 44. “Crowds at Long Branch,” NYT, February 3, 1896; “A ­Great Throng Gazed at St. Paul,” PI, January 3, 1896; “Viewed by Thousands,” NYTr, February 3, 1896. 45. “St. Paul Still Fast in the Sand,” NYH, January 27, 1896. 46. “Fast Locked in the Sand,” NYTr, January 29, 1896. 47. “St. Paul Gets Off,” NYH, February 5, 1896. 48. “The Liner Still Helpless,” NYTr, January 28, 1896; “Long Branch,” NYT, January 31, 1896. 49. “Crowds at Long Branch,” NYT, February 3, 1896. 50. On leisure during this time, see Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We ­Will; Peiss, Cheap Amusements. 51. “Crowds at Long Branch,” NYT, February 3, 1896; “A ­Great Throng Gazed at St. Paul,” PI, January 3, 1896; “Viewed by Thousands,” NYTr, February 3, 1896; “The St. Paul Floated,” Red Bank Register, February 5, 1896. 52. Lears, Rebirth of a Nation, 250. 53. Wood, Lynching and Spectacle, 4–5. 54. “St. Paul Still in the Sand,” NYH, January 27, 1896; Corbin, Lure of the Sea, 234–40. Representative “shipwreck” lit­er­a­ture includes Crane, Open Boat; Nicholls, “Co-­ operation between Seamen and Surfmen”; Milburn, “Two Shipwrecks”; J. Hooker Hamersley, “Youth’s Department: Shipwreck,” New York Observer and Chronicle, December 30, 1897. For representative art, see Foster, Shipwreck! 55. Blondheim, News on the Wires. 56. Images ­were published in all the major New York and Philadelphia newspapers. The Chicago Inter Ocean published an image on January 26, 1896. Images also appeared 198 Notes to Chapter Five

in Harper’s Weekly, Leslie’s Weekly, and Scientific American. On ship portraits motif, see Wilmerding, American Marine Painting, 82–83, 146–50; Stein, Seascape and the American Imagination, 62–66. 57. “Odd View of the St. Paul,” NYH, January 27, 1896. 58. For a sweeping discussion of the shipwreck meta­phor, see Blumenberg, Shipwreck with Spectator; Miller, “Iconology of Wrecked or Stranded Boats.” For a more focused examination, see Lane, “Nineteenth-­Century American Shipwreck Narratives.” Examples of the meta­phor in the late nineteenth ­century abound. For the religious usage, see “Making Shipwreck of Faith.” In ­children’s lit­er­a­ture, see “Sugary Shipwreck.” Further examples include “Practices and Procedures.” On heuristic power of the shipwreck narrative, see Mentz, Shipwreck Modernity. 59. Homer’s final watercolor, The Wrecked Schooner (1903), depicts a dismasted schooner wrecked on a rocky shore. Wood, Weathering the Storm, 21. For more about shipwrecks in Homer’s art practice, see Lane, “American Shipwreck Narratives,” 217; Foster, Shipwreck! 60. Grasso, “Maritime Revival.” 61. On Amer­i­ca’s changing relationship to the sea, see Labaree et al., Amer­i­ca and the Sea, 363–475; Roland, Bolster, and Keyssar, Way of the Ship, 181–263. More broadly, see Rozwadowski, Vast Expanses, 130–213; Knovitz, “Changing Concepts of the Sea”; Knovitz, “Crises of Atlantic Port Cities”; “Total and Foreign-­born Population New York Metropolitan Region.” 62. Bender, Sea-­Brothers, 148; Wilmerding, American Marine Painting, 154; Stein, Seascape and the American Imagination, 123; Wood, Weathering the Storm. On popu­lar culture, see Robinson, Coldest Crucible; Slocum, Sailing Alone around the World; Farnham, “Cheap Skiff ”; Stewart, “Boats that Boys Can Build”; Stewart, “Boats that Boys Can Build: Part II”; Riley, “How to Build a Bicycle Boat.” Examples of relevant films from 1899 include Wreck of the Norseman (USA, 1899); Wreck of the ‘Mohican’ (USA, 1899); Wreck of the S.S. ‘Paris’ (USA, 1899); and The Breeches Buoy (USA, 1899). See Internet Movie Database. 63. Nye, American Technological Sublime, xiii. 64. Rozwadowski, Vast Expanses, 262–87; Kroll, Amer­i­ca’s Ocean Wilderness. 65. “St. Paul Still in the Sand,” NYH, January 27, 1896. 66. “An Impressive Spectacle,” PL, February 3, 1896. 67. Nye, American Technological Sublime, xvi. 68. “The St. Paul Report,” NYT, February 21, 1896. 69. Lears, No Place of Grace, 5; Grasso, “Maritime Revival.” 70. “St. Paul Moved a Short Distance,” EB, January 29, 1896. 71. Lears, No Place of Grace, 7–26. 72. Times-­Record, February 1, 1896. 73. Lears, Rebirth of a Nation, 186. 74. Godbey, “Disaster Tourism”; Lears, No Place of Grace, 32, 103–6. 75. Godbey, “Disaster Tourism”; Carletta, “Triumph of American Spectacle”; Rabinovitz, “Urban Wonderlands.” 76. Lears, No Place of Grace, 32; MacCannell, Tourist. Also, the second set of essays in Baranowski and Furlough, Being Elsewhere, 137–238. Notes to Chapter Five 199

77. Rozario, Culture of Calamity, 106, 101–32. 78. Moffett, “­Careers of Danger and Daring,” 206. 79. “Big St. Paul Runs Aground,” NYH, January 25, 1896. 80. Stilgoe focuses on New ­England, but the spectacle of St. Paul suggests that a similar phenomenon occurred in the mid-­Atlantic. Stilgoe, Alongshore, 312. See also Olly, “Imagining the Old Coast,” 44–111. 81. “Stranded St. Paul Moves,” Sun, January 27, 1896. 82. “The St. Paul Aground,” NYTr, January 26, 1896. 83. “Waiting for the Tide,” EB, January 28, 1896. 84. “Chat about Prominent Men,” NYTr, February 5, 1896. American Line officials and Israel J. Merritt, the leader of the salvage effort, allegedly “talked over” some of the letters they received. Transcript of Rec­ord, 132. 85. “A Suggestion for Relief,” NYTr, January 29, 1896; “The St. Paul Held Fast in the Sand,” EB, January 30, 1896; “To Float the St. Paul,” Sun, February 3, 1896. 86. “Cranks’ Plans to Move the St. Paul,” EB, January 30, 1896. 87. “St. Paul Safely Floated,” NYT, February 5, 1896. 88. Advertisement, EB, January 31, 1896. 89. “St. Paul Still Fast in the Sand,” NYH, January 27, 1896. 90. Transcript of Rec­ord, 147. 91. In addition to Fredericksen, at least one other professional photographer, C. H. Cottrell, took photo­graphs of St. Paul. The renowned Pach B ­ rothers firm likely took photo­graphs as well. Transcript of Rec­ord, 140–47; “The Stranding of the American Liner ‘St. Paul’ ”; Freehold Transcript, February 7 and 14, 1896; Red Bank Register, February 5 and 26, 1896; “Throngs of Sightseers,” PL, February 3, 1896. 92. I am indebted to Long Branch historian Sharon ­Hazard for sharing this stereoscope from her personal collection. Sharon ­Hazard and the Gang from the West End, History Block-­by-­Block, www​.­sharonhazardauthor​.­com. 93. Wood, Lynching Spectacle, 13. 94. “St. Paul Gets Off,” NYH, February 5, 1896. 95. “In Her Ele­ment Again,” NYTr, February 5, 1896; “The St. Paul Is Floated off the Bar,” EB, February 4, 1896; Transcript of Rec­ord, 66–67. 96. “The News in the City,” EB, February 4, 1896; “The St. Paul Is Floated off the Bar,” EB, February 4, 1896. 97. “St. Paul Is Afloat,” Inter Ocean, February 5, 1896; “The St. Paul Is Afloat,” Minneapolis Journal, February 4, 1896; “The St. Paul Floated,” New Haven Register, February 4, 1896; “Steamer St. Paul Safe,” Santa Fe New Mexican, February 4, 1896; “St. Paul Once More Sails the Ocean,” PI, February 5, 1896; “St. Paul Safely Floated,” NYT, February  4, 1896; “Released from Long Branch,” San Francisco Call, February  5, 1896; “Floating of the St. Paul,” Standard, February 5, 1896. 98. William Russel Maps Diary, February 5, 1896; William R. Maps Papers, Monmouth County Historical Association. 99. “St. Paul Gets Off,” NYH, February 5, 1896. The “aching void” comment was also expressed in “The Scene on the Shore,” PI, February 5, 1896. 100. “The Scene on the Shore,” PI, February 5, 1896. 101. “Eleventh Street Opera House,” PI, February 18, 1896. 200 Notes to Chapter Five

102. “St. Paul W ­ ill Sail Wednesday,” NYT, February 20, 1896. 103. “Capt. Jamison Exonerated,” NYT, February 20, 1896. 104. “St. Paul Safely Floated,” NYT, February 5, 1896; “The Stranding of the St. Paul,” NYT, February 9, 1896; “The St. Paul Report,” NYTr, February 11, 1896; “St. Paul in Newport News,” NYTr, February 12, 1896. The New York Times’ coverage of the salvage is representative. “Steamship St. Paul Libelled,” NYT, June 12, 1896; “Salvage for the St. Paul,” NYT, July 25, 1897; “Large Salvage on St. Paul,” NYT, April 24, 1898. 105. Nye, American Technological Sublime, 32. 106. “In Her Ele­ment Again” and “The St. Paul Saved,” NYTr, February 5, 1896. 107. Editorial, NYTr, February 5, 1896. 108. “The Trade of the Wrecker,” NYTr, February 9, 2009. 109. “The St. Paul Report,” NYTr, February 20, 1896. 110. “Modern Steamships and Navigation.” 111. Rozario, Culture of Calamity, 9. 112. “The St. Paul Report,” NYTr, February 20, 1896. 113. “Off at Last,” EB, February 4, 1896. 114. “A Campania–­St. Paul Race,” NYTr, December 5, 1896. 115. “The St. Paul,” NYT, June 28, 1896. 116. Which ­Will Be the Winner?

Epilogue 1. “The Point Pleasant Land Com­pany,” TSG, April 22, 1878. 2. See, for example, Gillis, ­Human Shore, 128–86; Lenček and Bosker, Beach, 139–245; Devienne, “Shifting Sands”; Chiang, Shaping the Shoreline. 3. “225 Ships Lost in 1950,” NYT, December 9, 1951; “181 Vessels Lost at Sea Last Year,” NYT, November 3, 1953. While the number of wrecks declined, especially ­after the late 1960s, the value of wrecks fluctuated as larger, more valuable wrecks caused substantial financial loss. “Down in the Sea: Rising Number of Ship Accidents Spurs Safety Moves and Insurance Rate Boosts,” WSJ, March 21, 1967; “Maritime Losses in ’74 Set High, Lloyd’s Says,” WSJ, February 13, 1976. 4. U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, Annual Report of the USLSS (1914), 16–18. 5. “Merritt-­Chapman Indicted as Trust,” NYT, January 28, 1915; “Trou­ble among the Wreckers,” NYT, May 29, 1878. 6. Boxes 1–25, Rec­ords of the T. A. Scott Com­pany, Mystic Seaport Museum. 7. By 1915, the firm had been indicted ­under the Sherman Anti-­Trust Act “for having conspired to monopolize the wrecking and lighterage business of New York Harbor and the Atlantic States.” Named in the indictment as having been party to the alleged conspiracy, but not indicted, ­were leaders of the region’s major wrecking and lightering businesses, including T. A. Scott and Israel Merritt, both of whom ­were by then deceased. “Merritt-­Chapman Indicted as Trust,” NYT, January 28, 1915; “Trou­ ble among the Wreckers,” NYT, May 29, 1878. 8. Bartholomew, Mud, Muscle and Miracles, 19–20. 9. “Merritt-­Chapman & Scott,” NYT, March 20, 1960, sec. 10, 7; “$1,500,000: Merritt-­ Chapman & Scott Corporation,” NYT, December 20, 1922. Notes to Epilogue 201

10. Merritt-­Chapman & Scott,” NYT, March 20, 1960, sec. 10, 7; “Management: Hauling Down the Horse Flag?”; “Merritt-­Chapman Liquidation Voted by Stockholders,” WSJ, May 11, 1967; “Salvage Concern Buys Another,” WSJ, November 2, 1967; “Merritt-­Chapman Plans to Sell Marine Salvage Unit to Murphy Pacific,” WSJ, May 22, 1967; “Merritt-­Chapman Division Is Sold to Murphy Pacific,” WSJ, July 19, 1967; Bartholomew, Mud, Muscles and Miracles, 300; “Merritt-­Chapman & Scott Com­pany 1971 Annual Report,” Historical Annual Reports Collection, Angelo Bruno Business Library; “Financier Wolfson Scheduled to Leave Eglin Prison ­Today,” Sarasota Herald-­Tribune, January 26, 1970; “Wolfson and Associates Found Guilty,” Gettysburg Times, August 9, 1968. 11. Gillis, ­Human Shore, 158–98; Kharl, This Land Was Ours; Kharl, ­Free the Beaches; Stanonis, Faith in Bikinis; Devienne, “Life, Death, and Rebirth”; Rush, Rising. 12. U.S. Department of the Trea­sury, Annual Report of the United States Coast Guard, 36–37; Urbain, At the Beach. 13. Biel, Down with the Old Canoe; Heyer, Titanic Legacy, 1–7. 14. Gillis, ­Human Shore, 180–83. 15. “Ships lost as a result of the ­hazards of the sea numbered 181 of 219,429 gross tons in 1952, the lowest in point of tonnage in peacetime year since 1928 and the second lowest in the number of vessels. The previous low was in 1946, when 179 vessels ­were casualties. The high was recorded in 1939, when 474 ships of 1,347,768 tons w ­ ere lost. Part of the loss, however, was charged to war acting.” “181 Vessels Lost at Sea Last Year,” NYT, November 4, 1953. 16. Kinder, Ship of Gold, 280–81. 17. Workman, “Preservation, Owner­ship, Access.” 18. Haycox, “ ‘Fetched Up.’ ” 19. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation; NOAA, “State of the Climate: Hurricanes and Tropical Storms for Annual 2018”; IPCC, Special Report.

202 Notes to Epilogue

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Manuscript Collections Charlestown, Rhode Island Charlestown Historical Society Archival Photos: Quonochontaug & Areas West King ­Family Scrapbook Freehold, New Jersey Monmouth County Historical Association & Library Forman F­ amily Papers, 1718–1899, Coll. 18 William R. Maps Papers, 1818–1896, Coll. 212 Manalapan, New Jersey Monmouth County Archives Elections Collection, 1770–2013 Mystic, Connecticut Collections Research Center, Mystic Seaport Museum Rec­ords of the Merritt-­Chapman & Scott Corporation, Coll. 2 Rec­ords of the T. A. Scott Com­pany, Inc., Coll. 1 William F. Saunders Papers, Coll. 333 New York, New York National Archives and Rec­ords Administration Rec­ord Group 21, Rec­ords of the District Courts of the United States Rec­ord Group 26, Rec­ords of the United States Coast Guard Rec­ord Group 36, Rec­ords of the United States Customs Ser­vice Rec­ord Group 276, Rec­ords of the United States Courts of Appeals Trenton, New Jersey New Jersey State Archives General Board of Proprietors of the Eastern Division of New Jersey Deeds and ­Wills Monmouth County Clerk’s Office: Deeds Monmouth County Surrogate’s Office: ­Will Books Tuscaloosa, Alabama Angelo Bruno Business Library, University of Alabama Historical Annual Reports, M82 Waltham, Mas­sa­chu­setts National Archives and Rec­ords Administration Rec­ord Group 21, Rec­ords of the District Courts of the United States Rec­ord Group 26, Rec­ords of the United States Coast Guard Rec­ord Group 276, Rec­ords of the United States Courts of Appeals

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The Gettysburg Times Hartford Courant Idaho Daily Statesman (Boise, Idaho) In­de­pen­dent Chronicle (Boston, Mass.) The Indianapolis News (Indianapolis, Ind.) Inter Ocean (Chicago, Ill.) Jersey Chronicle (Mount Pleasant, N.J.) Kansas City Star Leavenworth Times The Macon Telegraph (Macon, Ga.) The Mercury and New ­England Palladium (Boston, Mass.) Milwaukee Daily Sentinel Minneapolis Journal Monmouth Demo­crat (Freehold, N.J.) Morning Herald (Lexington, Ky.) National Banner and Nashville Whig The National Gazette (Philadelphia, Pa.) National Gazette and Literary Register (Philadelphia, Pa.) Newark Daily Advertiser New-­Bedford Mercury The New Hampshire Gazette (Portsmouth) New Haven Eve­ning Register New Haven Register New-­Jersey Gazette (Burlington) Newport Daily News (Newport, R.I.) The New-­York Columbian New York Eve­ning Post The New York Gazette and General Advertiser New York Herald New York Herald-­Tribune New York Observer and Chronicle New-­York Packet (New York, N.Y.) New York Spectator New York Times New York Tribune Niles Weekly Register The North American (Philadelphia, Pa.) The Park Rec­ord (Park City, Utah) The Pennsylvania Eve­ning Post (Philadelphia, Pa.) Pennsylvania Ledger (Philadelphia) Pennsylvania Packet (Philadelphia) The Philadelphia Gazette and Daily Advertiser The Philadelphia Inquirer Philadelphia Repository and Weekly Register Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia, Pa.) Bibliography 205

Providence Daily Journal Providence Gazette The Providence Journal Public Ledger (Philadelphia, Pa.) Red Bank Register (Red Bank, N.J.) Republican Farmer (Bridgeport, Conn.) The Sabbath Recorder (New York, N.Y.) Salem Gazette The Salem Register The San Francisco Call Santa Fe New Mexican Sarasota Herald-­Tribune Southern Patriot (Charleston, S.C.) Springfield Daily Republican (Conn.) The Standard (London) Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minn.) State Gazette (Trenton, N.J.) Statesman (New York, N.Y.) St. Louis Republic The Sun (New York, N.Y.) Sunday Inter Ocean (Chicago, Ill.) The Sunday Times (London) Sunday World-­Herald (Omaha, Neb.) Times (Hartford, Conn.) The Times-­Record (Ocean Grove, N.J.) Trenton State Gazette The True American (Lexington, Ky.) True American (Trenton, N.J.) United States Chronicle (Providence, R.I.) United States Oracle and Portsmouth Advertiser (Portsmouth, N.H.) Vermont Phoenix (Brattleboro, Vt.) Wall Street Journal Weekly Herald (New York, N.Y.) Windsor Federal Gazette (Windsor, Vt.)

Court Decisions Arnold v. Mundy, 6 N.J.L. 1, 95 (1821). Blackwell, 77 U.S. 1, U.S. Lexis 1037 (1869). The Camanche, 75 U.S. 448, U.S. Lexis 1123 (1869). Heyliger v. The New York Fireman Insurance Com­pany, 11 Johns. 85, N.Y. Lexis 31 (1814). The St. Paul, 82 F. 104, S.D. N.Y. Lexis 68 (1897).

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Index

Page numbers in italic type indicate illustrations. Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1988 (ASA), 168 Abigail (brig) wreck, 31 “Act concerning Wrecks” (N.J.), 53 Adams, John, 23 Addison, Joseph, 74 African Americans, 97 A. H. Wan (brig) salvage, 114 A. J. Donelson (barque), wreck and salvage, 56 Alert (revenue cutter), 64 Allie H. Belden (schooner), stranding, 125 Amer­i­ca: culture of, 152–54; elites of, 75; exceptionalism of, 161, 163; Gilded Age, 154; icons of, 160; my­thol­ogy of, 189n103; national identity of, 168; values of, 155 American: frontier, 16, 18; closing of, 151; definitions of, 14, 16; eastern, 5, 7, 14, 17 (see also coastal frontier); expansion of, 21, 87; interpretive origins of, 13–14; Jackson “thesis” of 13–14; taming of, 189n103; western, 90 American Coast Pi­lot, The (Blunt), 28–30, 187–88n82; successor of, 140 American Historical Association, 13 American Line, 144, 156, 159 American Lloyd’s Register of American and Foreign Shipping, 115 American Revolution, 52–53, 62, 63, 77–78 American Shipmasters’ Association, 115 American Shipwreck Society, 38–39, 177n4, 177n6 American Unitarian Society, “True American Types” series, 133

Amity wreck insurance, 55 amusement parks, 153 “aquar­ium craze,” 83–84 Aquila (transport ship), 119 Arnold v. Mundy (1821), 179n38 art. See painting Asbury Park (N.J.), 97 Associated Press, 143, 149, 157 Atlantic Monthly, 117–18, 132 Atlantic Neptune, The (atlas), 27 Atlantic Ocean: coast of (see coastal frontier); crossings of, 151; Hurricane Season (2017), 169; last significant piracy act (1832), 65; littoral, 15; passenger lines, 114, 141, 152; shipwrecks, 137. See also Titanic disaster auctions, 56, 57, 63, 67, 68 Aurora salvage, 112, 113 authenticity, 153–54, 157, 158 Averill, Charles E., The Wreckers, 130 Ayrshire (bark), wreck and lifesaving equipment, 89–90 Bahamas, 191n9 Baltimore, 15; Harbor Tunnel, 166 Baltimore Sun, 156 “Banditti.” See land pirates Barnegat Bay, 63, 76 Barnegat Light, 139 Barnegat Pirates, The (melodrama), 65 Barnegat-­Squan region (N.J.), 40–48, 52–55, 60–67, 89, 103, 108, 109, 114, 118; barren coast of, 42, 44; early history of, 44–46; frequency of shipwrecks, 41, 46–48, 63; maps, 42, 43; 229

Barnegat-­Squan region (cont.) regulation of, 54, 61, 64; U.S. troopship wreck at, 64; wreckers’ reputation, 60, 64, 65, 66, 67. See also Squan Beach Barrett, Captain, 69–70 Bass Harbor (Maine), 17 beach, 1–6, 38–68, 130–72, 184n20; alternate terms for, 173n21; ambiguous definition of, 5; American cultural importance of, 3; American Revolution and, 77–78; barrier islands, 14; birth of tourism to, 73–81; boarding­houses, 72, 78, 79, 82, 96, 97; boardwalk, 164; centralized control of, 88; clearing of, 107, 130–36; commercialization of, 103–4, 164, 185n46; convalescence at, 73–74, 67–68, 164; cultural integration of, 151; cultural landscape of, 80, 86, 97; early portrayals of, 13, 15, 162, 163; early sparse population of, 31, 155; entrepreneurs, 87; environmental threats to, 1, 168–69; foreshore, 51, 179n38; health benefits, 72, 73–74, 97; historical isolation of, 3; increased travel to, 79–82; littoral zone, 24–25; meanings of, 5, 6; modern foundations of, 2, 4, 67–68, 164; modern social function of, 161–62; normalization of, 136; physical transformation of, 8, 13, 103, 161–66, 167; popularity of, 2–4, 68 (see also tourism); popu­lar repre­sen­ta­tions of, 86; privatization of, 8, 164; public use of, 179n38; regulation of, 164; resorts, 69, 71–73, 75–78, 81, 82, 84, 97, 98; salvage events, 56, 57, 68, 85, 100–102, 137–38, 150, 152–59, 161, 163, 164, 167, 169; ship navigation aids, 140–41; shore patrols, 86, 94, 95, 96, 98, 103, 165, 167; specific meaning of, 5; stock characters, 155–56; transformation of, 8, 72–73, 78–82, 96, 97, 102–7, 130–36, 139, 169; transitional period, 230 Index

19; transportation advances, 81–82; visitors to (see tourism); weather uncertainty. 136. See also coastal frontier; Jersey shore Beattie salvage, 125–26 Beaufort, Sir Francis, 136 Beavertail Point light­house (Newport), 76 Beehler, W. H., 146 Bergen, James, 58–59 Berkeley, George, 76 Beverly (Mass.), 10, 12 blacksmiths, 56–57 Blackstone, William, 50; Commentaries on the Laws of ­England, 50, 51 Blackwell decision, 119 Block Island (R.I.), 17, 70, 97, 122 Blunt, Edmund March, 28–30; The American Coast Pi­lot, 28–30, 187–88n82 Blunt ­family, 187n82 Board of Life-­Saving Appliances, 94 Board of Underwriters of New York and Boston, 113, 114, 115 boardwalk, 164 boating, recreational, 165 Borden, Joseph, 39–40, 48–49, 56 borderlands, 14, 17 Boston, 2, 3, 12, 15, 21, 23, 69; maritime activity, 30; oceanfront, 164; seaside retreats, 79, 80 Boston Daily Globe, 98 Boston Gazette, 12 Boston Marine Society, 24, 25, 88 Bowery Theatre (N.Y.), 65 Breed, Nehemiah, 78 Bristol shipwreck, 85 Bristol Springs, 77 British-­American conflict. See American Revolution; War of 1812 British law, 49–50, 179n38 Brooklyn (steamer) wreck, 124 Brooklyn Bridge, 120 Brooklyn ferry, 79, 80 Brown, Captain John, 112, 113, 114, 127 Brown, Vernon, 146 buoys, 23, 86, 87, 121

buried trea­sure, 61 Burke, Edmund, 74 Burns, M. J., 143 Butler, Henry D., ­Family Aquar­ium; Or, Aqua Vivarium, 84 Buttersworth, James, 83 Bynkershock, Cornelius van, 14 Caleb West (book and film), 132–33 Campania (British liner), 139, 143 “cannon shot” doctrine 14–15, 174n17 Cape Cod, 1, 3, 33, 82–83, 84; beach tourism, 182n109, 185n45; life-­saving network, 25–26; maritime cultural landscape, 36, Native Americans, 35; shipwrecks, 11–19, 34–36, 35 Cape Cod (Thoreau), 1, 82–83, 85 Cape Hatteras (N.C.), 113 Cape Henry (schooner), salvage, 108–9 Cape Henry (Va.), 23, 32 Cape May (N.J.), 78, 81, 84, 90, 141 capitalism. See disaster capitalism Captain McCobb’s mill (Maine), 16–17 Capt. Cook Cast a Way on Cape Cod (Corné), 34, 35 cargo salvage. See salvage Ca­rib­bean, 29 Central Amer­i­ca, 29 Central Amer­i­ca shipwreck, 168 ­Century Magazine, 132 Chapman Derrick and Wrecking Com­pany, 166 Chapman Wrecking Com­pany, 128, 141 Charleston (S.C.), 15, 21, 31 Chatham (Mass.), 11, 12, 17–18, 19, 33 Chesapeake Bay Bridge, 166 Chicago World’s Fair (1893), 153 Cicero shipwreck, 31 cities, 15, 17. See also specific names City of Columbus (steamer), wreck, 123, 124 Civil War, 20, 116–17, 119 Clifford, Nathan, 119 Cliff Walk (Newport, R.I.), 69 climate change, 1, 168–69

Clinton (pi­lot boat), 111 coast: alternate terms for, 173n21; barrier islands, 14; early navigation aids, 67. See also beach; coastal frontier coastal frontier, 5–7, 10–37, 41, 168, 174n24, 189n93; alternate terms for, 173n21; as American frontier, 14, 16; autonomy of residents of, 23–24; borders, northern and southern, 14; clearance of, 105–6; climate change effects, 1, 168–69; customs districts, 20; dangers of, 20; defense of, 14–15; desolation of, 16, 30, 174n24; development ­factors, 4, 36–37, 139; documentation of, 20; domestication of, 94–96, 139; earliest inhabitants of, 3, 15; early isolation of, 10, 13, 35–37, 162, 163; early sparse settlement of, 2, 16–17; economic growth of, 19; federal infrastructure, 8, 72, 86–104; federal mapping of, 23; federal regulation/reforms, 20–30, 49, 72, 80, 86–104, 130–31, 163; fortifications, 8; illegal wrecking, 62; industrial development of, 165; inland settlements, 15–17; integration into American life, 19; lifeboat stations, 90; localism of, 14, 26–30, 50–51; mea­sure­ment of, 174n16; most dangerous sites, 186–87n73; national identity and, 19; natu­ral disasters, 1, 2, 169; navigation aids, 67; “non-­ market” value of, 3; northernmost point of, 30; physical remoteness of, 13; pirate-­wrecker image of, 130; popularization of, 33–34; port cities, 15; private safety and improvement mea­sures, 24–30; property line delineation, 179n38; property sales, 185n46; specific meaning of, 5; travel dangers, 79; twenty-­first ­century disasters, 1; 20; war­time closures of, 167–68; wrecking com­pany, 117–18; wreck laws, 164. See also beach; tourism; specific place names Index 231

Coastal Survey, U.S., 98, 187–88n82 Coast Guard, U.S., 165–66 coastline. See beach; coastal frontier; littoral Coast Survey, 87–89, 90 Coast Wrecking Com­pany, 11, 115–19, 126, 127; Tariff of Rates, 115–16 Cohasset (Mass.), 85 Colcord, Lincoln, 151–52 Colorado Springfield-­Gazette, 132 Columbus Cele­bration (1892), 153 Comanche (ironclad) salvage, 117, 119 Commentaries on the Laws of ­England (Blackstone), 50, 51 commercial culture, 149. See also maritime commerce commissioners of wrecks, 40, 42, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 57, 60, 64, 68, 108 Commission of Fish and Fisheries. U.S., 94 common law, 49, 179n38 Connecticut, 31, 69; 94; 98 105; map, 71. See also New London Continental Army. See American Revolution Corbin, Alain, 163 Corné, Michele Felice, 34; Capt. Cook Cast a Way on Cape Cod, 34, 35 Cornwell, Whitehead, 79 Costa Concordia wreck and salvage, 168 counting ­houses, 19, 20 Crane, Stephen, 151–52; “The Open Boat,” 151 Crusoe, Robinson (fictional), 73 “cult of the real,” 153 cultural heritage, 168 cultural landscape, 5, 6, 15, 16, 18, 20, 23, 26, 28, 36, 80, 86. See also lit­er­a­ture; painting Cumberland Road, 23 Currier, Nathaniel, Wreck of the Ship John Minturn, 39 Currier & Ives, 38, 67 Customs Ser­vice, 19–24, 87, 115–16, 163, 175n40; agents, 20, 54, 84, 86; 232 Index

federal/local status of, 22, 24; founding (1789) of, 20–21; organ­ ization of districts, 21; receipts, 19–20 Dana, Richard Henry, Two Years Before the Mast, 83 Daniel (brig) salvage auction, 56 Davis, Walter, 98 dead reckoning, 27 Death on Economy (Nast cartoon), 92, 93, 93 Deep ­Waters (film), 133 Delaware Bay, 22 Delaware River, 114 Devoe and Reynolds, 167 “dialectic of disaster,” 5 Dictionary of the En­glish Language, A (Worcester), 14 disaster capitalism, 134 disaster narratives, 35–36, 85, 86, 149, 153, 163, 168, 192n14 disasters, 1–2, 109, 163, 187n79; floods, 153, 154; hurricanes, 1, 32, 154, 169; modern beach formation from, 2; multifaceted effects of, 2, 5; multiple connotations of, 193n15. See also shipwrecks disaster tourism, 85, 100–102, 137–38, 150, 152–59, 161, 163, 164, 167, 169, 185n58 divers, 120, 129, 130, 133, 168 diving suit, 110 Donatien de Vimeur, Jean-­Baptiste, comte de Rochambeau, 77–78 Drinker, Henry and Elizabeth, 77, 78 Dry Dock Com­pany, 120 Dumont’s Minstrels Show, 117 Duncan, Archibald, The Mari­ner’s Chronicle, 33 duties. See Custom Ser­vice Dwight, Timothy, 18 Ea­gle (steamboat), 80 Eakins, Thomas, 152 eastern frontier. See coastal frontier

East Harbor (Maine), 17 Edward III, king of ­England, 50 Engineering Magazine, 131–32 En­glish law. See British law En­glish Pi­lot, The (Seller), 27 Enlightenment, 25, 176n47 Eu­rope, 3, 73–74; light­house systems, 88, 91 Every­body’s Magazine, 133 Excelsior (wrecking schooner), 110 Exxon Valdez oil tanker wreck (1989), 168 Falconer, William, The Shipwreck, 32–33 Fall River (Mass.), 69 ­Family Aquar­ium; Or, Aqua Vivarium (Butler), 84 farmer-­fisherman, 5, 111, 127 Far Rockaway (N.Y.), 79 federal government, 1, 21–22, 24, 34, 70–74, 87–96, 103–4, 113; beach infrastructure, 8, 72, 86–104; coastal safety, 20, 70, 72–73, 86–96; expansion of, 164; Light­house Board, 121 (see also light­houses); navigation safety, 22; revenue sources, 20 (see also Customs Ser­vice); salvage com­pany mergers and, 166; wreck law, 193n43. See also United States Life-­Saving Ser­vice Federalists, 22 Felix (barque) wreck, 85 fiction. See lit­er­a­ture films, 132–33, 149, 152 Finch, John, 80 Fire Island (N.Y.), 87 fishermen, 5, 67, 111, 127, 148, 155 Fitzsimmons, Thomas, 22 floods, 153 Florida, 14, 29, 98, 119, 191n9, 193n43 flotsam and jetsam, 50, 108, 109, 111; definitions of, 8 foghorns, 86 foreshore, 51, 179n38 Forman, Cornelius, 55, 56

Forman, David (“Devil David”), 52–53 Forman, John S., 48–49, 54–60, 63, 82, 89, 96, 107, 112, 164; Commissioner of Wrecks ­career, 57–60, 64, 68, 108–9, 114, 118; death (1874) of, 68; New Jersey po­liti­cal positions, 59; press relationship, 59–60, 64; shore resort development, 67, 103, 164; wreck policy, 108, 112 Forman, Samuel, 50, 53, 54, 62, 64 Forman, Sarah Gibbons, 54 Fort McHenry (Baltimore), 15 Fort Mifflin (Philadelphia), 15 Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), 168–69 Foyle shipwreck, 140 Franklin, William, 62 Fred Carl shipwreck, 102 Frederick Douglass’ Paper, 85 Freeman, James, 26–27 Frontier (brig), wreck, 60 frontier: Webster definition of, 14. See also American frontier; coastal frontier Fulton, Robert, 80 Futility (Robertson), 151 Galveston (Tex.) Hurricane of 1900, 154 Gay Head (Mass.), 3 Georgia, 14, 98, 174n24 Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), 80 Gifford, Sarah (Mrs. John Forman), 54 Gilded Age, 154 Global Change Research Program, U.S., 168–69 Gloucester (Mass.), tourism, 100, 102 government. See federal government; United States Life-­Saving Ser­vice ­Great Hinckley Fire of 1894 (Minn.), 153 ­Great Lakes: coastal communities, 2; customs districts, 21; lifeboat stations, 90 Griscom, C. A., 156 guidebooks, 102 Gulf of Mexico, 2, 29, 90 Index 233

Gulf Stream, 10, 146 Gulf Stream, The (Homer), 151 Hains, Thornton, 151–52 Hamilton, Alexander, 21, 23 Hamilton, James, 83 Hannah Ann (sloop), shipwreck, 112 Hannah Anne (schooner), salvage, 55–56 harbors, 23, 128 Harper’s Monthly, 94 Harper’s Weekly, 92, 137, 143 Harriet Frances (schooner) salvage, 55, 56 Hayes, Rutherford B., 69 health resorts, 72, 73–74, 97 Henderlon, Captain, 17, 18 Henry B. Fiddeman (wrecking schooner), 110 Herring Gut channel (Maine), 17 Homer, Winslow, 152; The Gulf Stream, 151; The Life Line, 189n103; The Wrecked Schooner, 199n59 Hudson River, 15, 120 humane huts, 25–26, 163 hunters (recreational), 76–77 Huron, U.S.S, wreck of, 92–93 hurricanes, 1, 32, 153, 169 immigrants, 85, 87, 89, 139, 151, 187n79 import duties. See Customs Ser­vice indigenous ­peoples, 3, 15 industrialization, 4, 16, 119, 133, 164 Industry (schooner), wreck and salvage, 10–14, 17–20, 24, 26, 27, 30, 32, 33, 35–36 insurance underwriters, 57–58, 111–15, 123 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 169 interior waterways, customs districts, 21 Irawaddy (steamship), 140 Isadora (wrecking schooner), 110 Jamison, John Clark, 141, 15573–56, 159, 160 J. D. Jones (wrecking tug), 126 234 Index

Jefferson, Thomas, 14, 23, 174n17 Jersey shore, 5, 35–103; disasters, 38, 186–87n73 (see also shipwreck subheads); earliest visitors, 67, 77, 78; federal safety system, 94, 140–41; first seaside resort, 76; guidebook, 96; land pirates, 39, 60, 61, 64–68, 66, 107, 164; local legends, 96; mass spectacles, 57, 102, 149; Methodist resorts, 97; popu­lar resorts, 84; professional wrecker, 107; Public Trust Document, 179n38; regulation of, 41, 64, 65; resort development, 15–16, 67, 76, 84, 97, 103, 164; shipwreck commissioners, 68, 107; shipwreck districts, 57; shipwreck laws, 7, 49–52, 59, 66–67, 68, 108–9; shipwreck myths and legends, 61–62, 96; shipwreck numbers, 38, 64, 67, 87, 113, 139–40, 186–87n73; shipwreck protection system, 89, 90; shipwreck salvage, 64, 67, 109; shipwreck scandal, 38, 39; shipwreck spectacles, 102, 149; state regulations, 67–68; travel to, 77, 79, 81. See also specific place names jetsam, 50, 108, 109, 111; definition of, 8 John Beattie (sunken vessel), salvage, 125–26 John Bramall (steamer), salvage, 126 John Minturn wreck, 38–39, 39, 56, 61, 65, 67; critics of salvage operation, 59, 64; lurid accounts of, 60, 64; as tourist spectacle, 85 John Paul (four master), wreck, 102 John Rose (schooner), wreck, 69–70, 72, 96 Johnstown (Pa.) flood (1889), 153 John T. Rotche (wrecking schooner), 110 Kant, Immanuel, 74 Kennebec River, 16–17 Key West wrecking system, 118–19 Kidd, Captain, 61 Kimball, Sumner Increase, 91, 92, 94 King’s Chapel (Boston), 26

Knoxville Journal, 143–44 Kobbé, Gustav, 96, 131 Lamington (steamship), wreck, 140 Lamson, Zachary, 3, 10, 11–12, 17, 18–19, 26, 33 land pirates (“Banditti”): definition of, 107; federal indictments of, 64; fictional portrayals of, 65; Jersey shore, 39, 60, 61, 64–68, 66, 107, 164 Lane, Fitz Henry, 83 Langworthy ­family, 69, 96 law, 22, 49–50, 179n38; Light-­House Bill, 22, 23, 24; Wreck Acts, 50, 51–52, 54–55. See also shipwreck laws Lawrence, Joseph, 53 ­legal salvage, plunder vs., 55 Leslie’s Monthly, 130 Leslie’s Weekly, 94, 137, 161 lifeboat stations, 89, 90, 91, 93, 98, 110 Life-­Saving Ser­vice, U.S. (USLSS), founding of, 92, 138 lifesaving system, 30, 34, 72, 87–94, 113; closure of stations, 165–66; technology, 89–91 Light-­House Bill of 1789, 22, 23, 24 light­houses, 8, 28, 87; decentralized system, 24; erection of third, 76; Eu­ro­pean systems, 88, 91; federal administration of, 20, 22–23, 24, 86, 89, 94; keepers of, 72; Long Island Sound entrance, 121; symbolic and practical nature of, 24 lit­er­a­ture: sea stories, 83, 151–55; shipwreck narratives, 35–36, 86, 149, 153, 168, 192n14; wrecker-­pirate character, 130 Litt, Jacob, 132 ­Little Egg Harbor (N.J.), 89 ­Little William (relief schooner), 191n9 littoral, 7, 24–25, 28, 29, 87, 174n12; alternate terms for, 173n21; mid-­ Atlantic, 15. See also beach; coastal frontier Lloyd’s of London, 111, 115

Lloyd’s Register, 115 Lockwood, Nelson, 142 London, Jack, 151 Long Branch (N.J.): attractions of, 144–45; founding of, 15–16; guidebook, 102; Iron Pier, 137; lifesaving station, 141; as prominent seaside resort, 15, 145; shipwreck numbers, 137, 138, 140, 141–43, 145, 150–51, 160; shipwreck tourists, 144–45, 148, 150, 153, 155–56; St. Paul stranding spectacle, 155, 157, 158–59, 161, 167 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, The Wreck of the Hesperus, 86 Long Island, 3, 10, 15, 78; beaches, 77; coastal diversity, 16; disasters, 186–87n73; early population, 16; navigation safety mea­sures, 141–42; Shinnecock Canal digging, 128; ship disasters, 32, 67, 87, 113, 122; travel prob­lems, 79 Long Island Sound, 113, 121, 122–26, 128 Loroan (schooner), 63 Madison, James, 62 Maine, 14, 16–17 Manasquan River, 40, 52, 53, 57 Manhasset (ferryboat), 120 Maps, William, 159 Marabout (stranded ship), 125 marine arts. See cultural landscape; lit­er­a­ture; painting Marine Hospital Ser­vice, U.S., 94 marine insurance. See insurance underwriters Mari­ner’s Chronicle, The (Duncan), 33 maritime commerce, 7, 19–22, 87, 120, 163–64, 187n79; routes, 107 maritime craze, 152 maritime disasters. See disasters; shipwrecks maritime industries, 151 maritime infrastructure, 87, 93–94 maritime themes, 83–84, 151 Index 235

Martha’s Vineyard, 3, 15, 17, 124 Mary Ann (schooner), wreck, 64 Mashpee (Cape Cod), 3 Mas­sa­chu­setts, 3–4, 14, 16; federal beach-­safety system, 94; seaside retreats, 17, 33, 77–81, shipwrecks, 17, 33, 87–88; as single customs district, 21–26. See also Boston; Cape Cod; Martha’s Vineyard Mas­sa­chu­setts Humane Society, 25–26, 27, 30, 88, 89, 163 Maury, Matthew Fontaine, 136 Mc­Ken­zie, Matthew, 83 melodrama, 86 Melville, Herman, Moby Dick, 83 Melville, Robert, 76 merchant marine, 115, 151 Merrimack, U.S.S., salvage, 116 Merritt, Israel, 126, 142, 156 Merritt-­Chapman & Scott Corporation (MCSC), 166–67 Merritt-­Chapman Derrick and Wrecking Com­pany, 141–42, 166 Methodist resorts, 97 Mexican (brig), pirate attack on, 65 Mexico (brig), wreck, 85, 127 mid-­Atlantic littoral, 15 middle-­class tourists, 8, 80, 84, 148 Minnesota, 154 Minturn wreck. See John Minturn wreck mob vio­lence, 64 modernity: ambivalence about, 160–61; components of, 41 Moffett, Cleveland, 155 Monmouth County (N.J.), 54, 55, 59, 65; coastal wreck sites, 39 Monmouth Park Racetrack, 145 Montauk (N.Y.), 90, 114, 141 Montauk Point light­house, 10 Moody, Dwight L., 69 Moran, Edward, 83 Morgan, Captain James, 112, 113 Morris, Lewis (fisherman), 38 motorboat accidents, 165 movies. See films 236 Index

Nahant (Mass.), 77, 78, 79, 80, 84 Nantasket Beach, 84 Nantucket, 17, 33 Narragansett (steamer), salvage, 127 Narragansett Pier (R.I.), 97 Nash, Johnathan, 82 Nassau (Bahamas), 32 Nast, Thomas, Death on Economy (cartoon), 92, 93, 93 national identity, 7, 19, 163, 168 Native Americans, 3, 15 natu­ral disasters, 25–26, 153, 154, 163 navigation aids, 9, 20, 22, 23, 24, 27–28, 29, 86, 87, 163 Navy, U.S., 166 Neptune Submarine Com­pany, 119–20 New and Complete United States Guide Book for Travellers, 84 Newark Daily Advertiser, 38, 65 Newberry, David, 55 Newell, William A., 88, 91 New ­England, 2, 29. See also specific place names New Era shipwreck, 85 New Haven (Conn.), 126 New Haven Eve­ning Register, 135 New Jersey, 52–53, 62; inland recreational spots, 77; map of, 43; public trust doctrine, 179n38; Wreck Acts, 50, 51–52, 54–55, 64. See also Jersey shore; specific place names New Jersey Coast and Pines (guidebook), 96 New Jersey Council of Safety, 53 New Jersey Turnpike, 166 New London (Conn.), 23, 121, 122, 123, 126, 132, 134 New London City Directory, 134 New London Wrecking Com­pany, 122 Newport (R.I.), 69, 75–78, 81, 84, 97; as first fash­ion­able American resort, 75–76 newspapers, 12–13, 34, 50–60, 86, 133; as “big business” (1890s), 143; shipwreck sensationalism, 38, 61, 65,

68, 85, 130, 143, 154–55, 159. See also specific publications New York Bay, 15, 146 “New York Bay and Harbor and Environs” (federal chart), 87 New York Board of Marine Underwriters, 88, 89, 111–12, 113, 123, 124 New York City, 23, 43, 65, 77, 81, 87, 157; as Amer­i­ca’s commercial center, 41; Barnegat-­Squan frontier and, 41; Columbus Cele­bration (1892), 153; federal beach-­safety system, 94; Jersey shore tourists from, 67, 79; as major port, 87 (see also port of New York); map, 43; marine insurance companies, 57–58, 115; natu­ral advantages of, 15, 159; salvage professionalism, 136; seaside retreats, 77, 80, 85, 185n46; shipwrecks, 31, 32, 38, 67; wrecking companies, 142; “Wreck Laws,” 7; wreck underwriters, 57, 58. See also Long Island New York harbor, 15, 159; ferry-­tug collision, 120 New York Herald, 120, 145, 149, 150, 157; Odd View of the St. Paul, 150–51, 150 New York Journal, 138 New York Life Saving and Benevolent Association, 89 New York Maritime Exchange, 141, 146 New York Mercantile Advertiser, 113 New York Pi­lots Association, 91 New York Shipbuilding, 167 New York Sun, 38, 155 New York Times, 105, 132, 153, 157 New York Tribune, 142–43, 147, 156, 159; “The Trade of the Wrecker,” 160 North Carolina, 16, 113, 184n20 Nova Scotia, 14 Noyes Beach (R.I.), 98 Nye, David, 152–53 Oak Bluffs (N.J.), 97 Obama, Barack, 1

Ocean County (N.J.), 59 oceanfront. See beach; coastal frontier Ocean Grove (N.J.), 97 O’Connor, William, 189n103 Oil Pollution Act of 1990, 168 oil spill, 169 “old salts,” 155–56 “Open Boat, The” (Crane), 151 Orbit (schooner) salvage, 112 Orleans (Mass.), 11, 12 Osborn, Abraham, Jr., 55 Ottinger, Douglass, 89 Pacific Ocean, 2, 90 packet ships, 75, 81, 87, 113 painting, 83, 151, 152, 189n103, 199n59 Panda (Spanish slave ship), 65 Paramount Pictures, 132–33 Passamaquoddy Bay, 14, 28 Paterson, William, 49, 50, 51 Pennsylvania Eve­ning Post, 62 Pennsylvania Railroad, 157 Perth Amboy customs collector, 54–55 Philadelphia, 2, 3, 22, 43, 78, 159; as commercial center, 41; Fort Mifflin defense, 15; Jersey shore tourists from, 67, 79, 84, 148, 157; oceanfront, 164; port trade, 64; sportsmen, 76, 77; steamboat travel, 80–81; wreck underwriters, 57 Philadelphia Eve­ning Bulletin, 156–57, 161 Philadelphia Gazette, 31 Philadelphia Public-­L edger, 60 photography, 157 pi­lot boats, 29, 32, 86, 109, 111, 140, 163 pirates, 63–66, 68; Barnegat-­Squan shipwrecks and, 64, 65, 66; buried trea­sure and, 61; “golden age” (1720s) of, 61; last significant act (1832) of, 65. See also land pirates piratical wreckers, 7, 38, 39, 67, 107; professional displacement of, 8, 130–31, 134 Platt, William, 64, 65 Pleasant View (R.I.), 72 Index 237

plunder, 63, 64, 68; ­legal salvage vs., 55 Point Judith (R.I.), 70 Point Pleasant (N.J.), 96, 103, 164 popu­lar culture, 60–61, 152, 168 Porter, Rufus, 83 Portland (Maine), 23, 124 port of New York, 87, 114, 121, 129; federal improvements campaign, 146; illegal wrecking reports, 38–39; lifeboat stations, 90; marine underwriters, 111; perils of approach to, 139–40; safety mea­sures, 141; ship stranding in, 120; shipwreck statistics, 113; trade increase, 64; wrecking corporation, 115; wrecking schooners, 110 ports, 15, 111, 151, 163; customs districts, 21; federal buoy system, 23; value of export-­imports, 19; waterfront scene, 19–20; wrecking business, 107 postcard shipwreck depictions, 101, 102, 103 Post Road (N.Y.-­Boston), 96 Powhattan shipwreck, 85 President (barge), 124 press. See newspapers; specific publications Prince, Schenus, 49 Prince William Sound, Valdez oil spill, 168 print culture: adulation of Scott, 133–34; coastal safety features, 94–95; depiction of beaches, 8; emergence of national, 7, 61; shipwreck and salvage accounts, 72. See also newspapers; specific publications privateers, 61 private-­sector investment, 8 professional salvage and wreckers. See salvage; wreckers pro­gress, belief in, 153 property line delineation, 179n38 Providence (R.I.), 69 Public Trust Doctrine, 179n38 238 Index

Puck (magazine), 147; “Same ­Thing All Year Around,” 137 Puritan (steamer), successful salvage, 126 Quonnie. See Quonochontaug Quonochontaug (R.I.), 23, 70–71, 72, 75, 76, 77, 82, 94, 96–104; Scott com­pany hire, 123–24; shipwreck tourist attraction, 101, 102 Quonochontaug Life-­Saving Station, 71, 99, 100, 123, 144 Race Rock Light­house, 121, 126, 132, 135 racial exclusion, 84 Rae, Gideon, 10 railroads, 4, 97, 98, 157, 158 Rattlesnake (privateer brig), 62 recreational powerboats, 165 reform, 7, 24–30 Reilly, Frederick, 155–56 relief schooners, 191n9 rescue. See shipwrecks resorts, 69, 71–72, 75–78, 81, 84, 97, 98, 164 Revenue Acts of 1861 and 1862, 20 Revenue Marine, 165. See also Coast Guard, U.S. Revenue Marine Cutters, 86 Revolutionary War. See American Revolution Rhode Island, 16, 121; federal beach-­ safety system, 94; map of coast, 71; resorts, 69, 71–72, 75–76, 97, 98. See also Newport; Quonochontaug riggers, 109 Ringgold (wrecking schooner), 110 Robertson, Morgan, 151–52; Futility, 151 Rockaway Beach (N.Y.), 77, 79, 80, 185n46 Rockaway House (­hotel), 85 Rocky Point (R.I.), 97 Roo­se­velt, Franklin Delano, 166 Roo­se­velt, Theodore, 1, 153–54 Rubicon (stranded ship), 111

Russell, Dr. Richard, Dissertation on the Use of Seawater in the Diseases of the Glands, 73–74 Ryder, Albert Pinkham, 152 sailor-­writers, 151–52 Salem (Mass.), 31, 75 Salem Gazette, 65 Salem Register, 33; “Ship News,” 12–13 salvage, 4–5, 6, 7, 13, 49, 50, 54–58, 80, 116, 191n9; apparatus, 142; beachside auctions of, 56–57, 63, 67, 68; compensation for, 118–19, 120; competition for, 123; custom duties, 54; insurance underwriters, 57–58, 111–15, 123; plunder vs., 55; popu­lar repre­sen­ta­tions of, 68, 135; professionalization of, 8, 107, 137–38, 165, 166; regulation of, 164, 168; as “shop culture,” 126–27; spectators (see disaster tourism); stealing of, 50; Supreme Court ruling, 119; technology and, 161; unpredictability of, 158; value of, 164; of vessel vs. cargo, 114. See also wreckers; wrecking industry salvage masters, 72 Sandy Hook (N.J.), 79, 89, 112, 139 Sandy Hook Light­house, 15, 43 San Francisco fire (1906), 154 Sankey, Ira David, 69 Saunders, William Franklin, 60, 69, 72, 96, 102–3, 144; USLSS lifesaving post, 98–100 Saunders, Zada (Alzada Anna, née Langworthy), 69, 72, 96, 103 Schenck, Henry F., 112–14, 127 Scientific American (periodical), 120, 131–32, 137, 160 Scotland (steamer), stranding of, 120, 121 Scott, Harriet (wife), 121, 122 Scott, Thomas A. (Captain Tom), 99, 100, 106, 119–36; celebrity of, 120, 122, 124, 127, 130, 131–33, 134–35; death and eulogies for, 105–6, 107;

diving feats, 110, 119, 120; light­house building, 121; Neptune Submarine hire of, 119–20; personal life, 105, 107, 109, 120–21, 122, 127; physical appearance, 122, 133; professional wrecker training, 110; salvage acumen, 122, 124–28; underwater rec­ord, 120; wrecking ­career, 106, 109. See also T.A. Scott Wrecking Com­pany Scott, Thomas A., Jr. (son), 134–35, 166 Scott, William (son), 127 Scribner’s Magazine, 94, 131 scuba-­diving, 168 sea-­level rise, 1, 169 seascapes. See painting seashore. See beach seaside auctions, 56, 57, 63, 67, 68 seaside communities. See beach; resorts; specific place names sea stories. See lit­er­a­ture; specific authors Seller, John, The En­glish Pi­lot: The Fourth Book, 27 sensationalism, 7–8, 65, 67, 68. See also disaster tourism Sherman Anti-­Trust Act of 1890, 201n7 Shinnecock (indigenous ­people), 3 Shinnecock Canal, 128 shipping. See maritime commerce Shipwreck, The (Falconer), 32–33 Shipwreck, The: A Comic Opera, 35 shipwreck laws, 7, 49–52, 59, 66–67, 68, 108–9 shipwreck meta­phor, 85–86, 199n58 shipwrecks, 2, 7, 8, 14, 17, 18, 64, 100–102; as anachronism, 9; Barnegat Squan frequency of, 63; casualty increase (1840s), 187n79; changed conception of, 165, 167; commercialization of, 156–58; commissioners of, 59–60, 82; as common coastal occurrences, 29, 161; as community events, 53–54; contextual meanings of, 5, 153; diminishment of, 9, 165, 167, 168; in early republic, 10–13, 20, 23; Index 239

shipwrecks (cont.) evolving definition of, 4; federal programs (see United States Life-­ Saving Ser­vice); flotsam and jetsam, 8; illegal wrecking, 38–39; legacy of, 161; looting of, 35, 38; lurid accounts of, 60–62; major sites, 186–87n73; mid-­ocean, 151, 167 (see also Titanic disaster); modern unease about, 160–61; multiple connotations of, 5; New Jersey regulation of (see ­under Jersey shore); pirates and, 61–62; popularization of, 7, 31–38, 61, 65, 68, 85, 86, 130, 168, 192n14; property recovery, 108 (see also salvage); seasonal, 123; significance of, 19, 151, 169; as spectacles, 8–9, 100, 101, 102, 136, 137–62; statistics (1800s), 12, 90, 187n79; statistics (1914), 165; statistics (USLSS reports), 92, 138, 140; sunken vessels, 125–26; survivors, 25–26, 31, 39, 87–90, 107, 163; thefts from, 136; underwater discoveries, 168. See also wreckers; specific vessels shore: alternate terms for, 173n21. See also beach; coastal frontier; Jersey shore shore patrols, 86, 94, 95, 96, 98, 103, 104, 141, 165, 167 Short Beach (N.J.), 76 “Shot Toker, The,” 105 Shrewsbury (N.J.), 77, 78 Shrewsbury River, 78 Siebe, Augustus, 110 Sixteenth Amendment, 20 Slocum, Joshua, 152 Smith, F. Hopkinson, 106, 121, 122; Caleb West: Master Diver, 132–33 Solid wreck, 112 social class, 8, 80, 84, 145, 148 “soldiers of the surf,” 94 Solon (schooner), salvage, 49 South Carolina, 16, 98, 174n24 Spanish privateers, 61 240 Index

Squan beach (N.J.), 54, 62, 63, 64, 89, 112, 117; map, 42 Squan Inlet (N.J.), 62, 63 Squan Village (N.J.), 38–40 Squire Platt affair (1834), 64, 65 stagecoach travel, 79, 81 Stamp Act of 1765, 62 states’ rights advocates, 22 Statue of Liberty, 132 Statute of Westminster (1275), 50 statutes. See laws steamships, 80–81, 114, 136–38, 152; Inspection Ser­vice, 159, 160. See also St. Paul; Titanic disaster Stilgoe, John, 4, 80, 155 St. Louis (ocean liner), 144 St. Mary’s River, 14 “storm warriors,” 94, 189n103 St. Paul (steamship): as American icon, 160; anticlimactic end to, 158, 161; commercialization of, 157–58; distinguishing features of, 144, 155; grounding and salvage, 137–62, 137, 145, 150; images of, 157; investigation of, 159; legacy of, 161–62; as spectacle, 144–48, 155, 167 “St. Paul in the Sand, The: or, Stuck on Jersey” (skit), 147, 159 “St. Paul Lies beside the Sea, The” (doggerel), 146–47 Success (schooner), 109 Suffolk County (N.Y.), 16 sunken vessels, 125–26. See also salvage Supreme Court, U.S., 119 surfmen, 94, 95–96, 134 tariffs. See Customs Ser­vice T. A. Scott Wrecking Com­pany, 105, 122, 123; advertisement of ser­vices, 128, 129, 130; antitrust indictment, 201n7; competitors, 128; development of, 134–35; large jobs, 128; merger with Merritt-­Chapman, 166; reputation of, 127; ware­house #5, 123, 135

technological pro­gress, 51, 133, 149, 152, 161 telegraph, 86, 141 telephone, 155–56 tele­vi­sion, 168 theater, 86 Thoreau, Henry David, 25–26, 82–85, 102; Cape Cod, 1, 82–83, 85 Titanic disaster, 8, 9, 68, 151, 167; centennial, 168 Titus, Timothy, 79 tourism: au­then­tic site, 153; beach, 2, 68, 71–88, 96, 97, 107, 151, 182n109; beach shipwreck salvage, 85, 100–102, 137–38, 150, 153, 154–55, 161, 163, 164, 167, 169; coastal, 67, 167, 185n45, 185n46; day-­tripper, 145, 148; elite status of, 185n48; emergence of, 61, 71–72; ­factors in development of, 78, 97; first national guide, 84; first national guide, Long Branch attractions, 144–45, 147–48; first summer resorts, 71–72; middle-­class, 8, 80, 84, 148; revenue from, 2; shipwreck salvage (see disaster tourism); working-­class, 84, 145–48 Tourneur, Maurice, 133 towing business, 115 trade. See maritime commerce transatlantic crossings. See Atlantic Ocean transportation improvements, 80–82. See also railroads; steamships travel guide, first national (1850), 84 Trea­sury Department, U.S., 21, 23, 86, 89–90, 93, 113; Revenue Marine Division, 91 Treaty of Ghent (1814), 63 Treaty of Paris (1782), 53 Trenton (N.J.), 41, 43 Truxton (wrecking boat), 120 Tucker, Ruben, 76 Tucker’s Island (N.J.), 76 Tuckerton (N.J.), 76

Turner, Frederick Jackson, 16; “frontier thesis,” 13–14 Two Years Before the Mast (Dana), 83 Ulysses shipwreck, 34 ­Uncle Sam (symbol), 92, 93 underwriters, 111–12, 114–15, 123 Union Saltworks, 52–53, 53 Union shipwreck, 63 United States Coast Pi­lot (publication), 140 United States Life-­Saving Ser­vice (USLSS), 8, 83, 88, 91, 92, 93–104, 123, 127, 141; bureaucracy of, 99–100; cultural meaning of, 95; culture of, 134; last year (1914) of operation, 165; Long Island Sound rec­ords, 122; popu­lar images of, 95–96; shipwreck assistance, 106, 144, 165; shipwreck numbers, 92, 138, 140; wrecker-­ heroes, 133–34; wreck season, 124, 132 Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 80 Vanderbilt, Jeremiah, 79 Verrazzano, Giovanni da, 3 Victorian ideals, 133 Volusia, shipwreck, 34 Vrendenburgh, Captain, 32 Wainwright, Peter, 55 Walker, Robert J., 89, 91 Wallace (steam liner), explosion, 121 Wampanoag Monomoyicks (Native Americans), 3, 17 Wansey, Henry, 79 Wardell, Asher, 141 War of 1812, 63, 79 “warrior-­heroes,” 133 Washington, George, 22–23, 53, 78 Watch Hill (R.I.), 71–72, 97, 98–99 Watch Hill light­house, 82, 94 W. C. Chapman (wrecking tug), 125 Weather Bureau, U.S., 141 weather disasters, 1, 32, 153, 169 weather signal system, 23, 86 Webster, Daniel, 193n43 Index 241

Webster, Noah, 14 Westchester County (N.Y.), 16, 97 Westerly (R.I.), 69, 97 Western Union Telegraph Com­pany, 141 West Indies, 10 westward expansion. See frontier; Pacific Ocean W. G. Putnam (steamer), 115 Whitlock, William, 63 William Hone (schooner), 110 windmills, 17 wind signal stations, 141 Wolfson, Louis E., 167 Wood, Friend, 78 Worcester, Joseph E., A Dictionary of the En­glish Language, 14 working-­class beach tourists, 84, 145–48 World War I and II, coastal effects of, 167–68 Worts, Alexander, 39 Wreck Act of 1789 (N.J.), 50, 51 Wreck Act of 1790 (N.J.), 51 Wreck Act of 1799 (N.J.), 50, 51 Wreck Act of 1806 (N.J.), 50, 51–52 Wreck Act of 1820 (N.J.), 55, 64 Wreck Act of 1855 (N.J.), 54–55 wrecker-­agents, 112–13, 114 wrecker my­thol­ogy, 68, 130–34 wrecker pirate. See piratical wrecker wreckers, 7, 22, 63, 191n3, 191n9; changed image of, 130, 133–36; competition among, 117; cultural appeal of, 133; as divers, 120, 129,

242 Index

130, 133, 168; early history of, 107; as engineers, 132; evolution of, 109–10, 126, 134; farmer-­fisherman pre­de­ces­ sor, 127; illegal, 38–39, 64; image rehabilitation, 130–32; new technologies, 110; press tribute to, 160; professionalization of, 105, 106–7, 110, 130, 134, 170; seasonal work, 124; specialized skills of, 110–11, 113. See also salvage; wrecking industry Wreckers, The (Averill), 66, 67, 130 wrecking equipment, 110, 114 wrecking industry, 106–19, 126, 134; mergers of, 166–67; modernization of, 110–11; Supreme Court ruling, 119. See also T. A. Scott Wrecking Com­pany wrecking schooners, 110 wrecking tugs, 126 wreck law, 6, 7, 49, 50, 68, 72–73, 79, 80, 164, 193n43 wreckmaster, 59, 72, 114; sensationalist repre­sen­ta­tions of, 68 Wreck of the Hesperus (guidebook), 102 Wreck of the Hesperus, The (Longfellow), 86 Wreck of the Ship John Minturn (Currier), 39 wrecks. See shipwrecks; specific ship names Yale University, 16 yellow journalism, 143