Category: Exploring the Island of Manhattan

U.S. Life Saving Station 30 801 East 4th Street Ocean City, NJ 08226

U.S. Life Saving Station 30 Museum

801 East 4th Street

Ocean City, NJ 08226

(609) 398-5553

https://uslifesavingstation30.com/

https://www.facebook.com/U.S.LifeSavingStation30/

https://www.ocmuseum.org/about-us/museum-history

Open: Sunday 10:00am-4:00pm/Monday-Friday Closed/Saturday 10:00am-4:00pm

My review on TripAdvisor:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g46696-d14961805-r1033640492-U_S_Life_Saving_Station_30-Ocean_City_Cape_May_County_New_Jersey.html?m=19905

The front of the museum

The front sign of the building

Short History of the Museum:

(from the museum website)

Also known as the U.S. Coast Guard Station No. 126, this is the only life-saving station (now museum) of its design in NJ (1 of 6 in the country) still in existence. The designer and architect was James Lake Parkinson in a Carpenter Gothic style. This building is one of 42 stations built in New Jersey. It was also the workplace of the brave surfmen who were the beachfront First Responders of the day.

The anchor outside the building

The historical plaque outside the building

The History of the Building and Museum:

(from the State of NJ Historic website)

The U.S. Life Saving Station in Ocean City is significant as an example of a significant type of life saving station and for its association with the activities of the U.S. Life Saving Service. The building was constructed in 1885 in what was referred to as the “1882 type.” There were 25 life-saving stations constructed in this style. In 1905 the building’s footprint was expanded to nearly twice its original size. The expansion was done in a style unique to New Jersey Life Saving Stations.

In 1915 the U.S. Life Saving Service and the Revenue Cutter Service were combined to form the U.S. Coast Guard. The Coast Guard continued to utilize the building until it was decommissioned during the 1940s and sold. It was used as a private residence until the City purchased it in May 2010.

The first room inside was the formal dining room where guests who visited or who had been rescued had dined. It was a rather formal affair.

I visited the museum on a weekend day to learn of the rescue procedures and the job these men did on a day to day basis. The first thing I learned was how shifting tides can change an island.

This building which now sits about four blocks inland was once at the shoreline a hundred years ago. Talk about change and Mother Nature’s role in this.

The first room I visited was the formal dining room in the newer extension of the building. This would be where the officers and men would entertain guests and visitors to the building. It could be a casual or formal affair.

The first floor formal dining room

The entertainment for the evening was either board games or a music box

Some of the items salvaged from the sea

The Life Guard officer formal outfit was worn for formal affairs

The officers would be dressed formally to receive guests

The next room over was the Rescue room and door where the boats and other equipment would be held when the alarm sounded.

The docent discussed how the doors were opened and the boats needed to be pulled out on a stormy night. Everything you needed had to be close by, in good shape and ready to go.

The rescue boats and pulleys that would be used in the sea

The ropes and pulleys used to assist in the rescue

The lanterns were used as communication between shore watch and the tower

The equipment used to repair the items used for rescue

The rescue boat and the items used for a water rescue

The additional boats used in rescue

Some boats were used for fishing and collecting shell fish

The Sneak Box was used for duck hunting to camouflage yourself

The sneak box

We then toured the second floor sleeping room for the crew. This offered a great view of the sea when the building was at shore line. These men were given good accommodations for the time.

While not very private, it was comfortable and served its purpose for a job where you might not get a good nights sleep.

The sleeping quarters

The main sleeping room was for a crew of six

The loft lead to the tower where the look out for the evening would sleep (it is not open to tours right now).

The loft area from the window

We then headed back downstairs where we toured the station manager’s room and office.

The station manager’s room off from the kitchen

The station manager’s office where all the monthly paperwork was done and business was conducted.

The kitchen

The Station Manager’s office was right next to the kitchen stove so that the room was kept warm during the winter months and on cool nights.

The kitchen stove

All the meals for the crew and visitors were cooked either by the men or their wives might be allowed to visit and assist in duties in the building.

The kitchen

All the storage of the foodstuffs has to be accounted for because getting them was rough with no cars for transportation and no bridges to cross to the mainland.

The gift shop

The museum and grounds

The museum offers a glimpse of the everyday life of these brave men who were on call 24/7 and performed such dangerous work. Ocean City has done a wonderful job preserving this legacy.

The museum has docents on hand for more formal tours and are very detailed on their knowledge of the building and its contents. It is a very interesting look at Ocean City’s past.

Tuckerton Seaport Museum 120 West Main Street Tuckerton, NJ 08087

Tuckerton Seaport Museum

120 West Main Street

Tuckerton, NJ 08087

(609) 296-8868

Home

Open: Sunday-Wednesday 10:00am-4:00pm/Thursday-Friday Closed/Saturday 10:00am-4:00 pm

Admission: Based on tours arranged during the season. Please check the website.

My TripAdvisor:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g46876-d271270-r1033440153-Tuckerton_Seaport-Tuckerton_New_Jersey.html?m=19905

The Tuckerton Museum and the Seaport at 120 West Main Street in Tuckerton, NJ

The entrance to the complex from Route 9

The entrance to the Tuckerton Seaport complex on a sunny Saturday morning

The complex was once a bustling fishing and shipping area that has now been preserved as a cultural site with tours, a series of restaurants and a museum.

The Mission of the Museum:

(from the Tuckerton Seaport Museum website)

Our mission at the Tuckerton Seaport is to preserve, present and interpret the rich maritime history, artistry, heritage and environment of the Jersey shore and the unique contributions of its baymen.

The dock area by the coffee shop

The artwork by the parking lot and coffee shop

I walked over to the main building which served as both the gift shop and museum. It was funny that the gift shop took both the first two front rooms of the museum. I had to look behind shirts to see the displays.

The docks and touring boats by the museum

The Seaport Tuckerton Museum at 120 West Main Street

The History of the Complex:

(from the Tuckerton Museum website)

Originally launched as the Barnegat Bay Decoy and Baymen’s Museum, the Tuckerton Seaport has evolved over the past twenty-two years into a community museum and community center occupying 40 acres located along historic Tuckerton Creek in Tuckerton, New Jersey. Tuckerton Seaport benefits from a prime location at the center of the Jersey shore, easily accessible via Exit 58 on the Garden State Parkway. Tuckerton Seaport works as a coastal cultural center to bring folklife traditions of the past and present to life through programs on land and water.

The museum was just opening up as I arrived and the staff was busy getting everything ready so I just walked around the museum. It is an interesting museum on New Jersey’s nautical past and the growth of the shipping and trading that went on in the turn of the last century. The museum also showed the bustling fishing industry that still exists today.

The Giant Chicken greets you at the door

The Giant Chicken was a road stop symbol of the White Way Farm Market and a tourist attraction

I thought it was rather cute and could see why people stopped

The view from the front porch of the museum was spectacular on this sunny day

The exhibit at the museum ‘Museum in the Making’, which is a through look at Tuckerton, its past and its contributions to the growth of New Jersey

The first room also served as a bustling gift shop with the main attraction this carving of the ‘Jersey Devil’

A display of Duck Decoys

A collection of woodcarvings of fisherman

The popular businesses that once lined Route 9 up and down the shore area

Displaying life down the shore in that era with quilting and sewing

The display of wood carvings and artwork on the first floor

The artworks made of driftwood by local artists

The driftwood art display on the first floor

The rooms both on the first and second floor were displayed by themes of Lenape Indian life at the shore, the Dutch and English traders, growth of shore farming, shipping and trade and fishing industries and the development of tourism in the area with steamships and the railroads.

The first room in the museum is a detailed look at the life of the Lenape and the froth of the fishing industry

The early life at the Jersey shore

The Native American display

The first part of the early development of Tuckerton started as the fishing and hunting grounds of the Native Americans until the settlement of the Dutch

The history of the Lenape

The arrival of the Europeans started the bustling shipping and trade industries that supplied the home country

With the growth of industry and farming many people started businesses to supply the population

Some started popular businesses that lasted over a century

E. Walter Parsons Jr. had a very successful fishing business that was in the family until 1984

With the rich soil in the area, local farmers worked the land providing fruits and vegetables for the growing population

Early farming equipment on display

The second floor galleries depicted the developing life at the shore with creating of modern life saving for the shipping and fishing industries and with coming of railroads, the bustling tourism industry with the change of leisure travel after the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution.

The second floor rail transportation display

The second floor display on shipwrecks off the Jersey coast

The development of modern Life Saving procedures

With storms at sea and affecting life in the area, as it still does today, there was a growth and development of modern Live-saving procedures and rescue methods.

The Life Saving exhibit

The use of the Lyle Gun in rescues

The series of pulleys and wenches are still used today in different forms. They had to create a safe way to rescue people not just from storms but accidents as well.

The Life Saving and Rescue display

Rescue display

The railroad made its way to the Jersey shore bringing tourists from both New York and Philadelphia and bustling North Jersey. This opened the area up to tourism as leisure travel grew at the end of the nineteenth century.

One example of a visiting tourist was the Cinderella Cramer display with long distance travel to the shore.

The first female passenger of the Tuckerton Railroad

Getting the rail ticket

Tourism developing at the Jersey shore

The Cinderella Cramer display representing that eras travels to the shore with Victorian standards and use of steamer trunks

Packing the steamer trunks for the long journey

Artifacts from the shore

Life at the shore still had its perils as it does today with storms affecting development and shifting shore lines

The lighthouse light display

The museum once served as a beacon for shipping and the top level served as a lookout. Today you can walk upstairs and enjoy the views.

Traveling up the tower stairs

On this beautiful sunny and clear morning that I visited, the views were spectacular.

The view of the port area of the complex

The view of the inlet and Lake Pohatcong across from Route 9

My video of the views from the top of the lookout

The Tuckerton Seaport Museum tour was a very thorough look at the community and its development over the last three hundred years. The exhibits showed the progress the community has made and where it is headed in the future as the shore communities keep changing.

With the economy, the rise of AI, climate change and overall population growth toward the shore, it will be interesting to see the changes of the future.

Leaving the museum complex at the end of the trip

Tuckerton has an interesting past as a shipping and fishing destination and now you can tour the buildings and see what life was like back then and there it is moving in to the future today.

Union Cemetery 316 Darlington Avenue Ramsey, NJ 07446

Union Cemetery

316 Darlington Avenue

Ramsey, NJ 07446

(291) 327-3879

https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/1680177/union-cemetery

https://www.countyoffice.org/ramsey-union-cemetery-ramsey-nj-4cf/

Open: Sunday-Saturday Dusk to Dawn

My review on TripAdvisor:

The Union Cemetery of The First Presbyterian Church of Ramsey, NJ

History of the Cemetery:

(from the church website)

Union Cemetery is a religious cemetery located at 316 Darlington Ave. in Ramsey, NJ. The cemetery is owned and managed by the First Presbyterian Church in Ramsey. As a religious cemetery, the cemetery is restricted under New Jersey state law and is not open to the general public. Only members of a Christian church and their immediate relatives may be interred at the cemetery.

The historic cemetery from the road. To the left is the oldest part of the cemetery

Entering the cemetery from Darlington Avenue

The newer part of the cemetery is to the right of the driveway

I was visiting the Union Cemetery in search of veterans of the Revolutionary War and found an interesting cemetery with a deep history in Bergen County. Many first families of Bergen County are buried here and veterans not just from the Revolutionary War but the Civil War all the way up to today are buried in this active town cemetery.

The older part of the cemetery is to the left of the driveway. These tombstones are from the early 1800’s.

The older part of the cemetery dates back to before the Revolutionary War

Many of the early family plots are located here with well known names like Hopper, Christie, Ackerman and the town’s namesake, the Ramsey family, whose family plot is in the oldest section of the cemetery.

The grave of Hannah Jane Ramsey in the Ramsey family plot

Part of the Ramsey family plot

The Ramsey family plot

The Union Cemetery to find the graves of Revolutionary War veterans and found some but not all of them. The tombstones are so worn after over two hundred years that they either had disappeared or were so worn you could not read them.

The oldest section of the cemetery where many veterans both from the Revolutionary and Civil War are buried. It was hard to read many of the tombstones. Some the veterans were buried in their family plots, others with their spouses separately. The burials were concentrated in the oldest part of the cemetery. Most of the veterans have been honored with American flags.

The first tombstones I found were from Ackerman family members

https://www.njgsbc.org/files/familyfiles/g0/p10.htm

The grave of veteran John Ackerman

The grave of veteran James Ackerman

I could not make out the name of this Ackerman member but I figured it was one of the brothers wife

The grave of veteran John P. Post

The Post family history:

(from the Saddle River Historical Society website)

The Post family was of Dutch descent. The first Post was a soldier, who came here to protect the new settlements along the Hudson. They soon turned to milling; the name Post is attached to several mills in Bergen and Rockland Counties. Joseph Post, born in 1775, built a mill on the west branch of the Saddle River about 1800. He also opened a tavern and store on what is now West Saddle River Road, just north of Parker Place, across from the entrance to the mill.

The graves of members of the community at that time including the grave of John P. Post

The grave of veteran William Vanderbeck

The grave of a member of the Van Brock family, who was married to James Ramsey

I was not too sure who this was but by the veteran’s flower I am assuming the grave of veteran John Van Blarcom

The grave of Hannah (I believe Ackerman)

The Christie family plot

The Hopper family plot

The Hopper Family history:

(from the Saddle River Historical Society website)

The Hopper family is one of the oldest of European descent in Bergen County. Andries Hopper came from the Netherlands to New Amsterdam in the 1640’s. His widow and her son Hendrick were in the Polifly area (Hackensack) by the late 1600s. There was land to be had in the unsettled areas of what became Bergen County. Hendrick’s two oldest sons, Andries and Jan settled in the HoHoKus area (part of Paramus) around 1712. The Hopper name appears on many old homes and mills on early maps of the area. It was two of Andries’ children, Abram and Jan, who settled sometime around 1730 along the Saddle River in what is now Upper Saddle River.

The Endicott-Reardon Family Museum 3036 South Shore Road (Route 9) Seaville, NJ 08230

The Endicott-Reardon Family Museum

3036 South Shore Road (Route 9)

Seaville, NJ 08230

(609) 624-0600

https://www.facebook.com/EndicottReardonMuseum/

https://visitnj.org/endicott-reardon-family-museum

Open: Sunday Closed/Monday 10:00am-2:00pm/Tuesday Closed/Wednesday 10:00am-2:00pm/Thursday Closed/Friday 10:00am-2:00pm/Saturday Closed. Seasonal-Seasonal Please see the website.

Admission: Free

My review on TripAdvisor”

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g46811-d20911361-Reviews-Endicott_Reardon_Family_Museum-Seaville_Upper_Township_Cape_May_County_New_Jersey.html

The front the museum

The sign welcoming you the the Endicott-Reardon Family museum

The original Endicott-Reardon Homestead that sits in the front of the museum

The entrance to the museum dedicated to the lives of both the Endicott and Reardon families.

The family artifacts and heirlooms at the museum as you enter the museum

The Endicott family display at the entrance

The museum is a real surprise as entire set of displays is dedicated to the lives of the local Reardon and Endicott families and their family items. A fascinating look of the lives of these early New Jersey families for over a hundred years. This is the collection of Harriett Reardon Bailey and her family. All these wonderful items were saved over the last 100 years and now it was time to share them with the world.

The various family items are organized by sections categorized by lifestyle and collection.

I was given a personal tour that I had arranged with the current curator who had known and worked with the owner of this extensive collection. It had been her dream to open a museum to share her collection with the public.

This beautiful, well lit and displayed collection of family heirlooms and personal items gives a glimpse of the lives of an upper middle class family in Southern New Jersey. It is organized and displayed as a household would be at that time. The first section of the museum was dedicated to items from the kitchen and preparations.

The family Living room furnishings and decorations

The family piano that once graced their Living Room

A decorative toy car used in the Living Room

The kitchen area and artifacts of the cooking and washing done in the house

The table set for a formal dinner

The next part of the exhibit was the formal Dining Room and on display were many of the China patterns that the family owned.

All the china collections the family owned plus other decorative pieces

The family collection of China and glass pieces

The family had various collections of China

Mainly of the bedroom items have been preserved too from linens to comforters to every day clothing. There are also a selection of family member’s clothing, jewelry and personal items.

The Bedroom vignette with clothing and accessories

Another view of the bedroom

Harriett Reardon Bailey had been a school teacher like her mother and there were displays of items that reflected her time in the classroom including a classroom setting.

Time on the classroom and family employment

The classroom set up

Activities and programs at the school

More local school items

There were also displays on her father’s time in the army and her uncle’s time working on the railroad with carefully preserved outfits, programs and railroad artifacts from the job.

The Railroad display

School and family items

Work on the railroad

The display on the family contribution to the armed forces

What I thought was interesting was that the founder of the museum, Harriett Reardon Bailey, had been an only child with relatives that had never been married so that she was the only child and a bit spoiled.

The Toy Room

In a separate room off the side held her extensive collection of dolls and games. She had kept all her childhood items in such beautiful shape and with great care. What impressed me was there was a picture of her as a little girl with all her dolls and stuffed animals her room and since she kept everything, they were able to recreate the display.

The picture of the owner of the museum as a little girl in her bedroom

The exact replicated display of toys in the same spots in the display

The collection of tea sets

The collection of toys and playthings are extensive and they are all in wonderful working shape

There was a large collection of dolls plus all their clothes and accessories that were kept together in her collection. Even into adulthood, all of her childhood items were kept in pristine condition.

The collectible dolls and clothing

The extensive collection of childhood dolls

The collection of China and baby dolls

The collection of baby dolls

The collection of cloth and rag dolls

The handmade dollhouse and rag dolls

The fancier imported and collectible dolls

What I thought was interesting during the tour was that the curator had said that the founder of this museum was dedicated in keeping all these items for so long and packing the house with family memorabilia. I think she knew what she was doing.

She was not just preserving memories, she was preserving a past that was fading away and the memories of a different time. As her family died, she kept their memories alive by preserving their past as well. The curator had said that she had always wanted to create a museum with all her family’s items and share them with the public. Now we get to glimpse into her family’s history and everyday life.

The museum shares with the public the day to day happenings and life of the Endicott-Reardon branches of the family and life as a middle class Victorian family. I think she preserved the best items with such care as to share them with future generations of what life was like at that time. When people knew each other and times were slower and quality mattered. I think she loved her beautiful things and wanted to share them with all of us.

The inside of the Endicott-Readon Family Museum

Video on the Museum

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