(MARI)TIME WARP! 1897: BARNEGAT’S SEASON

Welcome to Toms River Seaport Society’s (Mari)Time-Warp, taking our supporters back through the nautical history of the Barnegat Bay and Toms River watershed areas!

This week dive into life around the Barnegat Bay summer season, as covered by the Jersey City News on August 10th, 1897 and rediscovered thanks to Newspapers.com.

BARNEGAT'S SEASON.

Crowds of Visitors at the Old South Jersey Resorts.

GOOD FISHING AND SAILING

Sport Universally Fine--How to Get There and What the Trip Costs.

"I don't know when we ever had as many Newarkers down here as we have since the rains ceased," said a Forked River hotel man on Tuesday. They might have said the same thing at Barnegat, Waretown, Toms River or the "Pier," for the visit of Newarkers to all points on the bay amounted almost to an invasion last week.

The reason of it is that Newarkers know a good thing, and just now there is no better place than Barnegat Bay for anglers or gunners, camping parties or yachting people. The weather last week was perfect--neither too warm or too cool. The breezes were constant and at no time stiff enough to cause any but the most cautious sailors to resort to reefing. There was no fog during the week, and the only drawback to the complete enjoyment of the delightful weather was the swarms of mosquitoes which swooped down at night when the wind died out. Barnegatters are used to mosquitoes, however, and no house is without its netting. Campers fight the little pests with smudges, and some folks try to disgust the insects by anointing themselves with pennyroyal or pine tar lotions. They say down there that mosquitoes never deterred a Newarker from visiting the bay, and never drove one away, although New Yorkers were frequently dismayed and retired vanquished by the little pests. When a visitor was anathematizing the mosquitoes on Monday night, Captain Ed Parker said:--"Pshaw, 'skeeters don't amount to anything. Just wait till the green heads get at you." "Green heads" are little cattle flies, which come out to the boat to look for you while fishing. They are not many, but they are quite warm and extremely persistent, says the Newark "Sunday Call."

Now, having told what the disagreeable features of life at Barnegat Bay are, it will be only fair to speak of some of the attractions of the place, with a little description for those who have no well defined idea of the lay of the land and the water.

The bay is a little over thirty miles long, four miles wide in the widest part and nowhere more than twelve or fifteen feet deep. The northern extremity of the bay is at Bay Head, a mile and a half below Point Pleasant. Its eastern boundary is a narrow strip of sand dunes and salt marsh, running southward for twenty-three miles from Manasquan inlet to Barnegat inlet. This is Barnegat Beach, and at its widest part it is scarcely a mile in width, taking into consideration the marsh on the inner side. In many places the width of the strip is less than an eighth of a mile, and it seems strange that the sea does not cut through it in stormy weather. On this beach are Mantoloking, Chadwick's, Lavallette, Ortley, Berkeley and Sea Side Park. The latter is half way between Bay Head and Barnegat inlet, and the Pennsylvania Railroad runs to this point, then turns westward, crossing the shallow bay on a trestle bridge nearly 3,000 yards in length and running to Island Heights and Toms River on the river of that name. There are three life-saving stations and one or two fishing and shooting huts on the beach below the bridge. Altogether there are eleven life-saving stations on the outer shore of the bay.

Barnegat inlet is about 1,500 yards or less than a mile in width, and is navigable at high tide for vessels drawing ten feet of water. On the southern side of the inlet is a tall brick lighthouse and the quaint settlement known as Barnegat City, which contains two hotels, one of which is so large that it has never been filled up. Five miles below the lighthouse on this strip of sand known as Long Beach is the famous Harvey's Cedars, one of the most retired and most attractive spots on the Jersey coast. It is famous only for its fishing and shooting, but it is a difficult place to get at except by means of a yacht. There is a railroad on Long Beach, running out from Manahawkin, but it is a most discouraging sort of a road. This finishes the outer coast of Barnegat Bay, except that a pleasant spot has been neglected in passing.

Half a mile or more inside of the north point of the inlet are two island separated by a narrow creek. They are known as the Great Sedge, and one of them is occupied by Dr. Warner's shooting box, a comfortable big cottage which for two seasons has been open to the public. It is now a well patronized boarding place, and is convenient to the best shooting and fishing points on the bay, though inconvenient to reach from the railroad. Great Sedge is five miles across the bay from either Forked River landing or Waretown station.

​On the inner side of the bay Toms River is the first railroad town having access to the good fishing waters. It is a most picturesque and attractive town five miles up the river from the bay. The navigation is easy, and a big fleet of yachts make the head of the river their anchorage. The town has two large hotels and a number of boarding houses, and is undoubtedly the prettiest place on the road as well as the most important and thriving. Six miles further down the road is Lanoka, formerly called Cedar Creek, which has a few yachts doing business upon the bay.

Three miles further south is the town to which nearly all the Newarkers go when they want fishing. It is called Forked River, because it lies upon a stream with three branches which take a winding course through the meadows. There are three good hotels in the village proper, and one large one at the landing, a mile down the road toward the bay. The most popular hotel with the anglers is undoubtedly the old one known as the Lafayette House, which was kept for years by the late Sheriff Parker, and is now run by his son-in-law, Asa Tilton, in exactly the same manner. He believes in high feeding for horse or man. "Keep 'em well fed and they'll be careful," Asa says, and everything is put on the table so that a guest can get all he wants. An ordinary breakfast for one guest on Monday morning consisted of an omelette, a steak, two fried soft crabs, clam fritters, muffins, a broiled weakfish, fried potatoes, slices tomatoes and coffee. Of course he could not eat it all, but he remarked that he did much better than when he arrived at the place a week previous.

As a family resort, the Riverside House, kept by B.E. Eno, at the landing down the river, is extremely popular and at the same time it entertains many angling parties. It has a big farm in conjunction with the hotel, and the eggs, milk and vegetables are produced on the place. A long string of yachts occupy the front of the hotel landing.

The price per day for a Barnegat Bay yacht, going out from Forked River, is $4 [$147 in 2023 dollars]. They are nearly all roomy, half-cabin catboats, well fitted with cushions, folding table, camp stools and deck seats and carrying ice and ice water with facilities for keeping other things, which some anglers regard as indispensable, such as bottled beer and soft drinks. The captain of the boat is engaged over night and asks a few stereotyped questions about bait and beverages required. He gets up early and stocks up the boat. The hotel keeper prepares lunch for the party and the captain and it is always more than they can eat. If the party is stopping in the village, the hotel stage takes the members to the landing with their tackle and lunch, and the boat is found ready to start. The boat is sailed or poled out of the shallow water into the open bay, where there is nearly always wind enough to fill the sail. If there is not, it does not matter much, for it would be difficult to find a place in the bay where the "setting" pole will not reach bottom. The run to the fishing grounds is usually a speedy and pleasant sail, and whether at anchor or drifting the sport is just now assured. It is due to the worst kind of mismanagement if a Barnegat captain fails to find weakfish now, and he can give his patrons a chance to catch 400 school fish or four dozen big tide runners, as they may elect. At the same time he is keeping his eye open for bluefish, which have been abundant this season, and if he sees a school he will quickly get out his squids and cruise for these coveted fish. Big, tide-running weakfish, however, are the chief dependence, and they give excellent sport upon a light rod. A three pound weakfish will fight for five or ten minutes if the angler cares to play him on a six ounce rod with light tackle, which is not strong enough to yank him right out of the water. Most visitors to the bay, however, are equipped with stout rods capable of bringing the biggest fish quickly to boat, unless the tackle breaks, as it frequently does with the first rush of a heavy fish. Shedder crabs is the only bait to be considered in weakfishing unless after school fish, which at times will bite at anything white, even though it may be nothing but a piece of cotton.

There are places in the bay where the angler may catch plaice, seabass and porgies, and occasionally a few fine sheepshead are taken but the mainstay is weakfish. Striped bass are plentiful in the channels, but the fishing for them must be done by trolling from rowboats, as the yachts cannot go where the bass congregate. Blood worms are used in catching bass, and for two seasons they have been supplied by the bait catchers at Forked River. They did not know what they were or how to get them until several New Yorkers displayed them two years ago and told how they were obtained.

While Forked River has more boats and better facilities for anglers than any other place on the bay, there are two other much visited resorts further down the bay. One is Waretown and the other is the ancient village of Barnegat, with its two hotels and a few boarding houses. It is the father of all fishing places on the bay, and sends out a dozen boats per day in the busy season, catering to a lot of old-time visitors to the bay and feeling that no other place has so good a right to exist. It is a quaint and almost pathetic old village, reeking with history and full of historians, many of whom have traveled the world over as masters of deep water vessels.

Getting to Barnegat Bay from Newark is considerable of an enterprise, and one might go to Baltimore as quickly as some of the trains take one to Forked River. There is a train which leaves the foot of Liberty street, New York, at 4:30 A.M. and arrives at Forked River at 8:35, covering a distance of seventy-six miles in a little over four hours. Other trains do a little better, perhaps an hour better. The Newarker changes at Elizabethport, Red Bank and Manchester on most of the trains, although there is a train in the afternoon which does not make the latter change. Within a month the Central Railroad Company has put on a Sunday train, which leaves New York at 9:15 A.M. and can be caught by taking a train from the Broad street station in this city at 9:30. It arrives at Forked River before noon and returns from there at 6:44, arriving here before ten o'clock. Anglers say that it would be better patronized if it started two or three hours earlier and gave them a chance to spend six or seven hours on the bay. They could certainly get all the fishing they wanted in that time. The hotelkeepers along the bay do not like the Sunday train, because it takes so many of their guests away who would otherwise pay for bed and breakfast, and brings down few who stay for dinner.

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