To mark the special occasion of this winter sailing sport returning to the Toms River in 2025, the Barnegat Bay Maritime Museum is happy to release a limited run of shirts showing a DN-class iceboat zipping around between Pine Beach, Island Heights and Toms River on January 25th.
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Our online Ship’s Store can be reached by clicking here.

If demand proves greater than this initial limited run, we will restock and reopen ordering as soon as possible.
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If you find your chosen shirt is sold out, please email us at [email protected] with your size and quantity so we may gauge interest in a reorder. Thanks.

Fifty years is a special achievement worthy of review and celebration, and with the Barnegat Bay Maritime Museum (originally Toms River Seaport Society) now fast approaching that milestone in 2026, we begin here with the first installment of a new series.

Today we open the archive on ourselves and the many volunteers and friends who answered the call, in that energetic national bicentennial year of 1976, to begin collecting and preserving for future generations the rich maritime heritage of our Toms River and Barnegat Bay.

RELEASE June 23, 1977
349-2506

The Toms River Seaport Museum will be open to the public for the first time at their Open House on June 26th, from 3 to 6 P.M. at their new headquarters at 117 E. Water Street, Toms River.

Nautical artifacts will be exhibited and in water and on land boats will be on exhibit.

Ships models of the Enterprise and the Ranger, two American Cup Yachts owned by Harold S. Vanderbilt, built by John F. Miller of Toms River about 40 years ago, have been loaned to the Museum by his grandsons, Glenn F. Miller of Buffalo, N.Y. and Philip H. Miller of Staunton, Va. These are scale models, 1/32 to an inch and stand about seven feet tall.

The Enterprise won the American Cup race in 1930 against Shamrock the 5th, the last race sailed by Sir Thomas Lipton of England.

The Ranger defeated the Endeavor II, owned by Thomas Sopwith, an Airplane manufacturer of England, in 1937 in four straight races.

Mr. William W. Halliday has donated his father's model of a steamer that Captain J.D. Halliday sailed out of San Francisco to the Orient. He also presented two models of clipper ships and Captain Halliday's Chinese sea chests, a marine sextant and ships logs. These were presented in memory of Captain J.D. Halliday and Mrs. Ellen Halliday.

Mr. Burton Dezendorf of Beachwood has given to the Society the James Rogers Marine Hydrometer which was used for years to measure the salt water in New Jersey and New York waters.

William Brady of Bayonne, N.J. donated a model of Kay Cory, a whaling brig, which was built in 1856 and sailed out of Westport, Mass.

Diane Beckett, of Suburban Drive, Toms River, will be in charge of the Museum.

A 17 foot Atlantic City sneakbox, presented by Henry Althouse of Ocean Gate, will remain an on land outdoor exhibit.

The "Storm Along," a 20 foot sneakbox built in 1921 by Mort Johnson of Bay Head, the first boat given to the Society by David Holland, will be in the water at the dock as well as the F. Slade Dale 25 foot Launch given by John Van Horn, Jr. and restored by Butch Miller. Charles Hankin, of the Hankin Boat Works in Lavallette, did some repair work on the Storm Along.

The "Shell Drake," the 12 foot sneakbox built in 1925 and sailed by F. Slade Dale from the Battery in New York to Miami that year, will also be on exhibit. This boat was also donated by John Van Horn, Jr. of Point Pleasant.

The Society has also been offered the "Anna," the last Pound Boat to sail out of Chadwick Fisheries at Chadwick Beach.

Edward Beckett, Acquisitions Chairman of the Society, will be glad to accept any other boats representative of Barnegat Bay, especially a Perrine Sneakbox or a Beaton Sneakbox.

The Toms River Seaport Society was founded in 1976 as a result of the study made by the Toms River Seaport Study Commission created by the Dover Township Committee.