As wonderful and busy as the Atlantic Highlands First Aid Squad is today, it has a history of always answering the call and being there for every accident, major pr minor. A story from 1938 should remind all of us how badly volunteers are needed, and how much more sophisticated and efficient is today’s squad over decades ago. The Squad of 2021 still needs volunteers, not only as EMTS, but also as drivers, and volunteers to help in a variety of ways.

Back in 1938, the Atlantic Highlands First Aid Squad was as busy as it is today, and just as today volunteers were called on to join and be part of the group who are always there to help someone in need.

Busy for the 1938 squad was handling seven alarms in four days and administering first aid and transport service to more than ten persons. The climax of that busy week was a Sunday afternoon when a car owned and driven by Martin Schneider, of Brooklyn, leaped the curb on Memorial Parkway after a tire blow out. It first collided with a parked car owned by John J. Salter, also of Brooklyn, and lots of injuries resulted. Besides Schneider, Rubin Goldberg and Shelby Levy, of Brooklyn, and George Kaufman, of New York City, all required first aid treatment for numerous cuts and bruises and later were transported to Monmouth Memorial hospital in the ambulances of Atlantic Highlands and Highlands. According to Chief of Police Sterling Sweeney, who investigated the accident, the Schneider car was demolished and the car owned by Salter was badly damaged by the impact. That car accident was after Friday night’s accident when Ada Miller of Verona, and Charles Dean of Caldwell were driving toward the borough on West Valley Drive and their car was in a collision and all had to be taken to the office of Dr. Frederick Bullwinkle by a gentleman named John Borden. The ambulance was then called to transport them to Monmouth Memorial hospital.

Earlier that same night William Brittingham, jr., of Wesley avenue, was struck by a car driven by O. Richard Lichtenstein, of Mount avenue, and had to be taken to the hospital for treatment of a fracture.

On Monday, Timothy Red of Avenue D, was taken to Hazard hospital, after it had been found he was suffering from a broken collar bone caused by a fall several days earlier. More seriously, a fatal accident occurred early Tuesday morning on Route 35 just north of the Keyport intersection with Route 36, when a car driven by Harold Speakman, thirty years old, of Middle Road, was hit by a truck driven by Robert Hasselman, of Springfield. Speakman was killed instantly. The truck driver was held by state police on a technical manslaughter charge. Just as they continue to do today, the local squad went far beyond his border land to help and serve other squads also in need.

Anyone who has been around the Bayshore any length of time certainly knows the name and the legends about Jim Egidio.

Jim Egidio the high school athlete; Jim Egidio who played semi pro ball in three sports after high school, baseball, basketball and football. Jim Egidio, whose name in high school sports was right up there with Keyes and Conover. Jim Egidio the soldier, Jim Egidio, the police officer, Jim Egidio, the Police Chief.

There was that one year the Atlantic Highlands club football team won the championship. After that, Jim joined the army and played with the military team, and most sportswriters carried an entire litany after his name every time they mentioned him in their columns..which was often.

In later years, whenever they referred to him and his coaching, the litany ran like this…private, police officer, baseball players, umpire, fireman, first aid official and sportsman…

There were other stories in the 1940s, too, of the great combination of Bishop, Carhart and Egidio umpiring basketball games at Fort Hancock and Fort Monmouth. Then there’s the story when the army team played the New York Giants, and Jim was one of the officials. Fooling, he gave his name as Jimmy Smith. And that’s the way it went down in the books.

And another story when the Army’s Camp Shanks beat Fort Hancock’s team and Jim was plate umpire for the game.

Coaching his alma mater’s team the Atlantic Highlands football players won the 1948-49 championship, Jim continued officiating at football and baseball games, something he had been doing since 1938. He was still clocking for the NJ football organization in 1976, though two heart attacks kept him from more active field work with football.

Of the three sports, Jim feels he had his greatest successes in basketball coaching and years later still belonged to basketball organizations.

Nothing ever really stopped Jim Egidio’s love for athletics and sports.

When he became Atlantic Highlands Police Chief in 1965, he had already been fire chief in the 1950s when he was a police captain, and president of the First Aid Squad in 1961 in which he had been a charter member, his smile was always so apparent they called him Smiling Jim, and his chief’s office at headquarters was decorated with trophies, plaques, mementos and memberships, all living testimony to his abilities in athletics.

Jim and his wife Vivien (she was a star basketball player when she was Vivien Therkelsen at Atlantic Highlands High) had two daughters, Elaine Hueneke and Roseann and when their grandson Christian was six years old, rumor had it he was taking after his grandpa. The photo on him on the chief’s desk in those years had him decked out in baseball regalia.

Jim was a members of the Police Department for 47 years, until his retirement as chief in 1977. He had succeeded Chief Sterling Sweeney.

Jim Egidio died 39 years ago this Sept. 7. He was 74 years old and a lifelong resident of the borough. He was buried from St. Agnes Church, where he had been a member and communicant all his life, and was a member of its Holy Name Society. He was also a member of the Columbus Council 2858 of the Knights of Columbus and the Eugene Allen Post 141 of the American Legion. He had been a first aid instructor, had continued to take courses in drug enforcement even as a chief, an army veteran and military police officer during World War II, and was a Red Cross instructor for more than a quarter of a century.

Jim Egidio. Truly a legend in his own time!

I wrote this story for https://jerseyshorescene.com/ a web site all about the “Jersey Shore Scene” by Tracey Hall

It’s worth the trip! About eight miles south of the Causeway entrance to Long Beach Island, not far from the bay near the end of Dock St. in Beach Haven, there is a charming, history-packed, fascinating storytelling museum that is the pride of Long Beach Island, Ocean County, and certainly the state of New Jersey.

The Museum of New Jersey Maritime History is the work of historian/diver and author Deborah C. Whitcraft and her husband, former commercial fisherman now charming and knowledgeable executive director (translation janitor and all-around maintenance guy) Jim Vogel. It is an official 501(3) c non-profit historical museum with a board of directors as dedicated as the founders require of those who all volunteer for what is the founding couple’s magnificent gift to those who love maritime history and want to see, touch, and feel it up close and personal.

The museum building itself is an architect’s dream, with its many windows, multi-levels, and two or more floors of museum with an apartment on the top level. Whitcraft and Vogel, apparently, never want to let the building and its tens of thousands of artifacts out of their sight!.

Whitcraft is the true brainstorm behind the museum. A diver on sunken boats, ships, and anything else fascinating several feet under the ocean, she and Vogel’s collection got so large with all the artifacts she found she had no choice but to open a place to store and display them. A busy lady, Whitcraft, besides being a certified diver, is a former mayor of Beach Haven, one of the several small communities that comprise the 18 miles of Long Beach Island. Fastidious to the core, and proud of her town and the people there and throughout the island, she and Vogel wanted to bring something special as well as educational and fun.

The mission of the Museum is multi-faceted. Both a museum and a research facility, its purpose is exclusively educational and it accomplishes that purpose by providing this facility for public display of historic maritime artifacts, photographs, books, documents, artifacts from sunken ships and donations from families who had owned them for very personal reasons.

They also offer special programs for children, to entice another generation into the charm of the past and the importance of remembering it. Their Marine Science Camp for both teens and elementary school-age children is taught by marine biologists and environmentalists, and their website, www.NJMM.org is a treasure on its own, complete with shipwreck databases and maps. photos and their newsletters, together with how anyone can become a member or benefactor of the Museum.

With neither the founders, Whitcraft is president of the Board of Trustees, nor any of the board members or the executive director, taking any salary at all, all money raised through donations, grants, or memorialization’s on engraved brick paving the sidewalks surrounding the museum, are the sole sources of income to keep this unique building and museum thriving. Whitcraft pointed out many of the towns on Long Beach Island have followed Beach Haven’s lead and present the museum with annual grants, and a small gift shop which includes several maritime books, including Whitcraft’s own, also contribute to the upkeep costs, especially since the author takes no gain from her own books.

Clearly, however, the most popular and most comprehensive room of the many specialty rooms in the museum is the one dedicated to the Morro Castle, the luxurious liner that ferried wealthy and hard-working Americans from New York to Cuba for a week’s reprieve from the 1930s Depression. The Morro Castle went ablaze during the early morning hours of Sept. 8, 1934, and eventually floated into public view of the Asbury Park beach, drawing thousands to that city and starting it on the road to fame and fortune through the plethora of food vendors, photographers, newspaper reporters and plain thrill-seekers who wanted to see the smoldering remains and hear the intrigue that surrounded the ship.

In the next several issues, Jersey Shore Scene will bring you closer to the stories of the Morro Castle, from the shock of the captain of the ship who died seven hours before the blaze, to the families who jumped terrorized into the ocean, their feet burning from the flaming floors of the wooden decks to the heroic Bogan family who was first and foremost in rescue efforts and kept the death toll as low as it was. Even the death toll, officially recognized as 137, is in doubt because of the unknown number of Cubans who were regularly smuggled aboard for safe passage to America.

The Museum is open from 1- a.m. to 4 p.m. daily until the end of this month, and weekends, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at the same hours beginning in September.

This is the second in a series of stories that I wrote for https://jerseyshorescene.com/

Today marks the 87th anniversary of the burning of the cruise liner Morro Castle, its last hours of night-searing inferno watched by thousands gathered along the beaches of Asbury Park and other beaches along the New Jersey waterfront.

The fire claimed the lives of at least 134 persons, put at least two men in prison, and imposed heavy fines on a third.

It gave life to Asbury Park as vendors photographers and spectators rushed to watch the four-year-old cruise liner go up in flames offshore while crew and passengers jumped from the blazing ship and tried to swim to the safety of boats that gathered to help.

The inferno was detected at 2:45 a.m. Sept. 8, as the Morro Castle was off the Jersey coast and passengers had a quiet last night aboard the ship……the captain had been found dead seven hours earlier in his bed thus canceling the traditional last night of elaborate dinner and dancing.

The ship’s acting Captain brought the ship closer to shore, but ten minutes later the ship lost all electrical power, and 11 minutes after that, the Morro Castle’s main engines were shut down and the ship was anchored about two and a half miles east of Sea Girt.

The crew of the burning ship only sent one SOS signal, one never received by the Coast Guard. At the time, SOS messages sent via radio and in this case on auxiliary battery power are only received by commercial marine radio stations and then delivered to the Coast Guard.

Many of the surviving passengers testified in court hearings looking into the incident the following year that crew members did not help, they abandoned ship ahead of passengers, only 8 of the available dozen lifeboats were ever launched, and of the 85 people who managed to escape via lifeboat, most were crew members.

The SS Andrea Luckenbach was the first ship to help in rescue efforts and the first report from land that brought other ships and fishing boats to help came from Surfman Stephen Wilson at the Station Shark River lookout. Stations Quan Beach lookout Surfman Charles Austin was the second landsman to report the fire and in New York, the crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Tampa had to be called in so the boat could head to the scene from its Pier 18 dock in Staten Island.

Throughout the morning hours, the SS Monarch of Bermuda, the SS City of Savannah, the Coast Guard Cutters Tampa and Cahoone arrived as did other boats. But it was the local fishing boat the Paramount that was the primary and real hero of the Morro Castle fire.

The Bogan family, whose descendants are still the watermen and respected families of the shore today, with Capt. John Bogan, Jr. at the helm, and plenty of other Bogans aboard, including John Bogan, Sr. rescued 67 survivors, running their boat among floating bodies to find the living, throw them a line and pull them onto the boat.

Governor Harry Moore’s army plane crew assisted the Bogans in this effort. With visibility poor amid the waves, Moore’s pilot would dip the plane’s wings when he spotted a survivor, guiding the Bogans to another rescue. The boat also pulled in 72 life preservers with their 67 rescues. In his official report to the Coast Guard, Capt. Bogan said “We did not hit one person and did not miss one that we saw alive.”

Station Coast Guard Sandy Hook searched for bodies and survivors until they were ordered to return to the station about noon on Sept 9. 1934.

Over the next three days, bodies continued to wash up on Jersey beaches from Bay Head to Long Branch. And the trials, FBI investigations and lawsuits and settlements continued for years after.

The mystery of how the fire started, what was the cause of the Captain’s death earlier, and so much more still remains unknown and the topic of speculation and mystery.

The New Jersey Maritime Museum on Dock St., Beach Haven, has thousands of photographs, records, memorabilia and equipment from the Morro Castle, together with testimony and artifacts donated to the museum by family members of those who both lived after or perished in the fire in what is probably the most comprehensive display and information on the worst maritime disaster of the 1930s. The Museum is open daily through the end of August, and on weekends beginning in September.

For more information, visit their website at www.NJMM.org

Admission is free, and donations are accepted.

Want to read more stories like this? Scroll down to the related links or go to the “Keeping History Alive” link here: https://www.venividiscripto.com/blog/categories/keeping-history-alive

Photos from publisher Tracey Hall’s family collection

If you’ve lived in Highlands or summered in Highlands or visited Conners Hotel in Highlands, of ever had a child attend MAST at Sandy Hook, then you must have heard of the Dempsy family! Or at least one of many parts of it!

This is a story I wrote a few years ago about an event that happened in 2000. The story epitomizes what, at least to the Dempseys, is the true meaning of Family. If you run into any of them today, be sure to thank them for the lessons we have all learned from them and their ancestors.

They did it only the way the Dempsey family could do it . With class, religion, fun, laughter, and sheer love for each other.

It was almost 20 years ago when five generations of the Dempsey family…so many of them living in Highlands,… decided to have a family reunion. They sent out the word, spent six months in the planning, and in the end, there were 200 of them! They cam from 16 states and spanned eight generations.

There was a story about the whole event in the Two River Times at the time it happened, and former Shrewsbury Mayor Don Burden even kept the story until this very day. It was a testimony to the importance of family, to the need we all have to share good times and bad with those we love, and proof that the Irish certainly know how to have a good time when they get together.

Let’s see. In July of 2000, when this grand event took place, Vince Dempsey was the oldest of the clan at age 89, and Thomas Olausen of Montana was the youngest at two and a half months of age.

They traced their history of how they are related going back to John Henry and Mae Dempsey, an East Orange couple who spent their summers at Neimarks bungalows in Highlands, bungalows since replaced by condos.

The Dempseys had 13 children, five of whom made Highlands their permanent homes. They had all passed by the time of this reunion, but their names were revered and remembered as they still are……..Viola Horan Foss, Joseph, the former Highlands Mayor, Earl, one of the founders of the NJROTC program at MAST, Charles, aka Buddy, and Rowland. And the generations of those family continue to live in Monmouth County.

But back to the event . As the Dempseys would do, the reunion started …it actually went on for three days….as the Dempseys would have it, with an Evening Mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church to remember all those who were deceased or who could make the reunion. Family members called out the names of their deceased relatives in a ceremony long remembered by all who filled the church..

There was also great joy at the mass since so many Dempseys have been marred in that church, received their sacraments there, and some still attend. The marriages of all the Dempseys involved in the reunion presented an interesting statistic…..added together, the number of years of wedded bliss came to more than 550 years! And during the reunion, 15 couples renewed their wedding vows! Vince and Marian were the longest married at the event, with 62 years together, and Bernice and Bill Reyen added another 51 years to the total.

There was a family picnic at Sandy Hook which was also celebrated in grand Dempsey style.

The planners had arranged for an army tent from Fort Hancock, most likely Earl’s doing….but when they got there, there was still a huge white tent on the site from an event earlier in the week. The tent company arrived to take down their huge white tent, but when they saw it would interfere with the party, they decided to leave it up and let the Dempseys use it . Of course, in true Dempsey style, they repaid the tent owners….they immediately invited them to the festivities and to make it official, swore t hem all in as Honorary Dempseys for the Day!

Another day, there was a day at Monmouth Park where the third race was the Dempsey Derby and Gerard of Kentucky, Vince of Highlands and Helen Sloan of Florida, representing the first generation of the clan, presented the trophy to the winning trainer and jockey. The picnic that day was in the Monmouth Park picnic grounds, so there were pony rides and clowns to help celebrate as well. Also included in the triduum were visits to the lighthouse, chapel and museum at Fort Hancock, pony rides and clowns, as well as Connors Hotel on Shore Drive, another hot spot for the Dempseys every year.

It was a grand event , talked about for months. And if you happen t o run into a Dempsey one of these days… if they are over 19…. ask them about it. It’s a sure thing they were at the reunion, and a sure thing they ‘ll have some great memories to share about it .

They simply don’t make families like that anymore!

HIGHLANDS – He was the third assistant lighthouse keeper at the Twin Lights from 1906 to 1910, but Robert Blume brought a bit of history and pride to this community he called home long before his term at the lighthouse.

He is the only resident of the borough who has ever received the Medal of Honor, and his story is one of harrowing actions, extreme bravery, and remarkable seamanship, all in the name of protecting the United States.

Blume, a native of Pittsburgh, was a Sailor with seven years in the US Navy when he signed on at the Lighthouse in 1906. He had been discharged under favorable conditions two years before, as a Chief Master of Arms, had a wife and one son. His first daughter would be born at the Lighthouse the following year, and a month later baptized at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church.

But it was his service during the Spanish American War that gained Blume his rightful place in American history.

Blume was a seaman in 1898, 30 years old, serving aboard the USS Nashville, a gunboat commissioned the year before in Norfolk, Va. His ship and the USS Marblehead, the most powerful warship in the little flotilla of five ships, were sent to form a blockade along the southern coast of Cuba, at the seaport town of Cienfuegos, critically important to the Spanish because of its telegraphic capabilities. It was three months after the sinking of the USS Maine which had launched the United States into the Spanish American War and a time when the Twin Light’s other and more famous personage, Guglielmo Marconi, was still working on his own telegraph system which he installed at the lighthouse the following year.

The Spanish had their own telegraph system in the late 1890s, and through a trio of underwater cables in the Caribbean Sea connected to a cable house on shore near Cienfuegos, were able to keep communications open between Havana, Cuba’s capital, Santiago, another port city in Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti and Spain.

The captain of the USS Marblehead knew the most successful, as well as the most dangerous means of disrupting these communications came from severing the underwater cables and rendering them useless. Blume was one of the 52 Sailors, 26 from each of the two ships, who volunteered to take on the dangerous missions, traveling in small boats between his ship and the cable house, while the American ships and Spanish troops on land were exchanging gunfire over their heads. Blume was one of nine seamen on his ship, together with four coxswains, a coal passer, blacksmith, oiler, carpenter’s mate, sailmaker’s mate, landsman, and seven Marines to volunteer for the missions.

The men were taken by steam cutter closer to the shore to be launched in their rowboats, under fire, and proceed closer inshore to locate the underwater cables, grapple them onto the boats, and cut and toss them further out to sea, all while gunfire was still being exchanged between their ships and Spanish soldiers on land. Gunfire from the ship had successfully blown up the cable shack but rendering the cables useless meant repairs could not be made, as they could easily and quickly be accomplished at the cable shack. During the crossfire, the small boats were frequently hit, and the Sailors and Marines quickly used their own bullets to plug the holes below the waterline.

The team was successful in cutting two of the two-inch-thick cables, using hacksaws, and working within 100 feet of the shoreline, battling both difficulty in reaching the cable because of huge coral outgrowths, rough seas and high waves. Rendering communications between Cuba and the outside world useless, the men returned to the cutters that would take them back to their ships, still under heavy gunfire.

In the end, the entire activity had taken place in three hours, one Marine was killed, one Sailor died later of his wounds and several others had been seriously wounded. The Nashville and the Marblehead pulled out to sea, and the Spanish American War ended with the signing of a ceasefire three months later.

There were 100 Medal of Honor recipients during the Spanish American War, including the 52 issued that day to the 52 men of the Nashville and the Marblehead. But their Awards, all almost identical, simply give the place, date and ship on which each hero served, along with the simple description of the heroism which earned them the award.

Blume’s Medal of Honor citation says simply:

“On board the USS Nashville during the cutting of the cable leading from Cienfuegos, Cuba, 11 May, 1898. Facing the heavy fire of the enemy, he set an example of extraordinary bravery and coolness throughout this action.”

Make plans to see the current exhibition at the Twin Lights Museum, they have great items in their Museum and as a little known fact, the Twin Lights is where the Pledge of Allegiance was first publicly recited.

Other Recipients from New Jersey

Thorne

Fallon

Audubon

Benfold

Brittin

Sampler

Barker

Brant

Hay

Watters

Historian Mary Rasa, who has studied and researched the Patterson family extensively, gave a lecture on Women Lighthouse keepers several months ago in a program sponsored by the Monmouth County Library. Visit MonmouthCountyLib.org for more information on lighthousekeepers and Mary Rasa.

There have been no fewer than 18 different lighthouse keepers at Sandy Hook Lighthouse during the 19th and 20th centuries, in addition to the first keepers who served in the 1700s. But there has only been one official and paid woman keeper, and that was Sarah Johnson, half of the brother sister team that manned the lights protecting New York Harbor from 1867 to 1885. But Sarah stayed on after retiring from that difficult job and was still active on Sandy Hook until 1898.

Charles W. Patterson took over the main light keeping position from Uriah Smalley in 1861 and his sister Sarah was hired as assistant hired as assistant six years later. Two years after that, Samuel P. Jewell also became a second assistant, working alongside Sarah.

There was no doubt assistant light keepers were essential, since maintaining the beacon required a lot of work, time and care. It was important to keep a bright light regardless of the weather; the light was fueled with kerosene oil to keep the Fresnel lens bright, and the oil had to be carried up the stairs to the light….all 108 steps from base to the top.

Sarah was born Feb. 29, 1832 married James Johnson in 1856 and had two children, both of whom died in infancy and she was widowed not long after, later taking on the position as lighthouse keeper. Records show she was paid $360 annually for her post.

During his years as keeper, Sarah’s brother Charles lived at the light with his wife, W Anker Patterson and their four children, sons Trevonian, Franklin and Edwin, and a daughter Mary. His first keepers during his 24 year tenure were Frank and Austin Patterson. Charles resigned in 1885 due to Bright’s disease, so Sarah left her position as well, but remained on the Hook teaching the children of the soldiers at the relatively new Proving Ground. Mr. Jewell was promoted to become the lighthouse keeper, remaining for a total of 40 years, the longest of any of those keepers in the Sandy Hook service..

Sarah remained at Sandy Hook after leaving the lighthouse until all civilians were ordered off the base because of the Spanish-American War. She then she retired to her hometown of Howell, where she died in 1909. Charles’ daughter Mary grew up and served 30 years with the US Life-Saving Service, Station Number 1, located at Sandy Hook, continuing a long time family service to the sea.

Sarah lived through some interesting times on the peninsula. She saw the Sandy Hook Proving Ground be officially established in 1874, was on the Hook in 1894 when the lights were first electrified, thanks to help from the Gedley Channel buoys which were electrically powered.

She was still there in 1903 when the power was switched back to kerosene gas because the buoys were converted to gas , It was the same year a mortar exploded at the proving ground and 15 tons of metal poured down all over Sandy Hook.

Electricity was not returned to the lighthouse until 1925 and in 1941, the Sandy Hook Lighthouse came under the jurisdiction of the US Coast Guard..

Sarah Johnson died in 1909 and is buried at the cemetery of the Adrena Baptist Church, where she had been a lifelong member.

A plaque honoring Lighthouse keeper Johnson is situated at Sandy Hook near the lighthouse.

There are so many stories to write about the Twin Lights, and so many eras in which it has been an integral part of both local and national history. But former Atlantic Highlands Mayor Rich Stryker, probably the absolute best unrecognized keeper of local history stories and paraphernalia and artifacts, recently recanted the interesting facts about the role the Twin Lights have played in war and peace since even before the Revolution.

Not exactly the Twin Lights, but in the close vicinity of the property before the first structure was built, the British colonial government build a signal beacon on the Highlands hill. That was in 1746 and the Brits were at war with France, the colonies were involved, and the British needed to have some kind of signal to alert themselves if the enemy…the French… approached the land.

They designed a unique system which was to be activated if six or more ships dared to approach. The theory put into practice was a system of poles on which huge balls were hoisted, some say to a height of 108 feet. The balls were to be used in daylight hours, and huge kegs of oil, also hoisted up that 108 feet, were to be lighted at night should the system have to be activated.

Signals were raised and lowered according to a specific code the military set up, then that code would be read by telescope at Staten Island, and from there, sent using the same system, to Manhattan to complete the alarm signal.

The system was eliminated with the peace treaty that ended the war in 1748.

But, some 30 years later, when the colonies were in protest to the motherland, a similar signal system was installed and activated, this time to keep Congress in touch with General Washington so they could learn in Philadelphia of the movement of British ships in and out of New York Harbor, which was then under British control.

The colonies won that war, but it wasn’t much later, when as a young nation in 1812 we once again took on Great Britain; once again the same system from three quarters of a century before was activated. There are reports it was used very successfully several times before that war ended.

The next time this ball and oil keg system was used was during peacetime.

It was 1829 and the Merchants Exchange Company of New York got approval from the Treasury Department to build a signal telegraph on land near the lighthouse.. It was there three years later that Samuel F.B Morse, inventor of the telegraph, began designing his system and within another five years he had it perfected and transmission lines were installed. The New York and Sandy Hook Telegraph followed in 1854, and a year later, because of a merger, became the New York and Highlands Telegraph Company.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was finally a means of getting news from Europe brought to the New World in considerably shorter time. Without any trans-Atlantic cables, the only way people on this side of the ocean got news from Europe was when ships relayed news they had to smaller boats that made the trip out to more distant waters from Sandy Hook to bring in the news ahead of the ship.

Incoming captains would drop sealed bottles filled with news reports overboard, the smaller r boats picked them up, attached news capsules to the legs of carrier pigeons who then flew to Sandy Hook where the news then went by wire to the rest of the nation. The system brought great acclaim to the little Highlands business, which eventually blossomed into a major business with offices in New York, Keyport, Jersey City, and of course Highlands and Sandy Hook, The start of the Sandy Hook Telegraph Company.

By 1870, there were trans-Atlantic cables that carried the news, and the Highlands business ebbed with means of faster news transmissions. It wasn’t till 20 years later that the New York Herald once again brought notice to Highlands and the Twin Lights.

The Herald’s James Gordon Bennett invited Marconi to set up a station just below the Twin Lights, thus enabling the Herald to scoop every other paper around with its report of the famed America’s Cup race of 1899, just off the Jersey coast.

Working with the Ponce steamship as the sending station, and his receiving station in Highlands, Marconi announced to the rest of America that the defending American ship, the Columbia, owned by J Pierpont Morgan, had successfully defended her honor by besting the Shamrock, owned by Sir Thomas Lipton of tea fame, in three of the face races. Also on board was the only female crew member, Hope Goddard Iselin.

MANALAPAN – Tiffany lamp designer Clara Wolcott Driscoll, manager of the Women’s Glass Cutting Department of Tiffany Studios during the 19th and early 20th centuries, comes to life in a virtual one-woman theatrical performance by actress Leanna Renee Hieber on Wednesday, Sept. 29 on a Zoom presentation from the Monmouth County Library.

By the Light of Tiffay, a virtual meeting with Clara Driscoll, will be the topic of Hieber’s hour long presentation adapted from the Tiffany artist’s letters, historical record and insights. The ‘virtual’ meeting with the artist highlights the vitality, innovation and importance her work between the late 1800s and 1909.

Heiber, a graduate of Miami University with a degree in theater and a focus on the 19th century, has performed in regional theaters around the nation in both Shakespearean and classical theaters. A licensed New York City tour guide, she has been featured in film and tv shows included Mysteries at the Museum and Boardwalk Empire, and has adapted 19th century literature for the professional stage.

In selecting Driscoll for this presentation, Hieber will bring to life the woman who designed more than 30 Tiffany lamps produced by Tiffany Studios including many well-known floral designs including Wisteria, Dragonfly and Peony.

The session will be conducted on Zoom free of charge. Registration, which is necessary and must be completed by noon Tuesday, Sept 28, is available at www.MonmouthCounty Lib.org, on the Upcoming Events list. Information will be sent by 4 p.m. Tuesday, Sept 28, on how to access the performance.