The Lifesaving Service at Sandy Hook Station 1854-1915
Bennett RF. 1976. The Lifesaving Service at Sandy Hook Station 1854-1915
This is a historical account of the role of the U.S. Life-Saving Service at Sandy Hook. Sandy Hook, the lee shore to Atlantic gales and the southern gate post to 19th Century shipping entering New York Harbor, was a likely place to start a federal rescue establishment. Thus, on August 14, 1848, Congress authorized the expenditure of $10,000 for the purpose of providing "surfboats, rockets and carronades, and other necessary apparatus for the better protection of life and property from shipwrecks" on the New Jersey coast "between Sandy Hook and Little Egg Harbor." None of the first group of stations was located near the Hook, but one was sited several miles south at a point called "the horseshoe" or "Spermacetti Cove." Realizing that the embryonic system of stations needed to be expanded, on March 3, 1849, authorization was given by Congress to extend coverage the full length of the Jersey coast and on Long Island as well. A series of serious shipwrecks in 1854 pointed to the need for additional stations on both coasts to be interspaced between the existing ones. Congress again acted on August 3, 1854 to provide the necessary funding.