Closed Sea

"Kent Mountford, estuarine ecologist and environmental historian, has had a fascination with Barnegat Bay since his college days; an affair of the heart, which blossomed into a book belonging in the library of anyone who has ever dipped a foot into this salt water. Closed Sea is a kind of historical, social, ecological and certainly in-depth Baedeker of the vast bay and the shores it touches." — The Beachcomber

"Ecologist and environmental historian Kent Mountford, chronicles the history of this important body of water from the days of the Leni-Lenape and the earliest European explorers." — New Jersey Monthly

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By LARRY SAVADOVE (From The SandPaper.)

Kent Mountford grabs you with his first sentence: “It was, perhaps, a morning in August, the year AD 1011.”

What’s that? This is a book about Barnegat Bay. Sure, the Leni Lenape Indians were here before us, but who was here in 1011?

Thorfinn Karlsefni, that’s who.

You get a picture: “The shoals off Barnegat were calm at slack tide, brushed only by the catspaws of an indefinite morning breeze. Eastward, resting on the sea, was the long dragon-ship of Thorfinn Karlsefni. Her ornate sail panting slowly in the calm heat, she lay waiting for a south wind to bear her up the coast.”

Well, maybe. His long ship was, perhaps, 60 feet stem to stern. He had sailed it clear across the North Atlantic, found Hudson Bay, wintered there and “with the coming of April, worked southward” as far as Chesapeake Bay. You can see him, looking over the rail at the sedge islands, the racing currents, the saw-toothed pines.

Mountford says there is no record that Karlsefni actually chanced the tricky inlet and entered Barnegat Bay, but he adds, “It was against the Viking code to ignore any sizable break in a coastline.”

So those folks in Barnegat Light’s Viking Village have a claim to a history that goes back well before the 1920s when the rest of them arrived.

Or was a Roman the first European to set eyes — and, perhaps, feet — on these shores? Coins from the days of Emperor Trajan were found on the sands of what is now Long Beach Island.
“Was there a ship,” Mountford asks, “some forgotten galley with her purse of coin, driven from the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar) across an unknown western ocean?”

And we’re off, careening through history both known and conjectured, with the author, who is a scientist, a historian, an ecologist and a storyteller.

The book is titled Closed Sea and subtitled From the Manasquan to the Mullica, a History of Barnegat Bay. It tells of Giovanni da Verrazano, whose account of finding New Jersey — he called it New France — might have been a hoax; of Est’evan Gomez, known as the “Portuguese Viking,” who had sailed with Magellan and left him halfway through the voyage and then came back on his own to explore; and of Hendrik (Henry) Hudson and his mate Robert Juet, who left us the first written observation on the bay:

“We came to a great Lake of water, as wee could judge it to bee ... the mouth of that Lake hath many shoalds and the sea breaketh on them as it is cast out of the mouth of it ... At five of the clocke we anchored, being little winds, and rode in eight fathoms of water, the night was faire ... This is a very good Land to fall in with and a pleasant Land to see.”

Mountford continues with Dutch Captain Cornelius Mey, who called the inlet “barendegat,” which meant “breaking inlet,” for its turbulence, and eventually had a whole chunk of the state named for him. Barendegat somehow came to be Burning Hole and “is said to be a very good place for fishing” by a couple of guys who came by in 1684.

All this in the first 22 pages. Closed Sea is a carefully put together account of the bay, its history, ecology, industries and people. The book started as a college term paper in the late 1950s. Mountford went on to study the dynamics of bay and estuary systems, becoming a recognized authority, particularly for his work on Chesapeake Bay.

But it was here he found his love and life’s work, and he returns to the place, and the piece, acknowledging “the bay I remember back a half a century ago is gone.” But, he adds, “the reawakening of public interest in community history and in restoration of the Barnegat Bay ecosystem now permits this book to see light today.”

It is in the history of the waters, as well as the people, that the work offers its strengths. He tells of inlets that come and go, such as the “New Inlet” that separated Long Beach Island from Tucker’s Island, which later slipped into the sea; or another “New Inlet” that cut through what is now Island Beach State Park and became Cranberry Inlet — and is also gone.

He tells the stories of the privateers who sailed out of the bay in the name of the colonies’ struggle against England, some to become pirates after the Revolution, whereupon “Island Beach became known as one of the most dreaded spots on the Atlantic Seaboard.”

The account of the original inhabitants, the Leni Lenape — the name actually means “original man” — reveals that they originally found their way here from Ohio, and many of them returned there after these shores started filling up.

The newcomers were Swedish and Dutch and English and German. They were an independent lot for the most part, and Mountford doesn’t seem surprised that many of them, as law and order became established, became bandits, rebels and freebooters.

Others engaged in making profits from the resources of the woods and marshes, using the impervious white cedar for boats, harvesting eelgrass and salt hay, mining the bogs for soft iron, making glass out of the everywhere sand, as well as clamming and fishing and hunting.
In short, a thriving community, more or less at one with nature and relatively unchanged over almost 200 years. A simple life, perhaps a good life, not a terribly difficult life, but, as Mountford observes, “amusement was hard to come by; there was little to do in south Jersey other than drink and ...”

And here he quotes from entries made in the records by a clerk at Martha’s Furnace, an iron works on the Wading River:

“Wm. Mick’s widow arrived here in pursuit of J. Mick who she says has knocked her up.
“James McGilligan made a violent attempt on the chastity of Miss Durky Trusty, ye African.
“James McEntire brought his daughter home from the Half Moon for fear her morals would be corrupted.”

And, “McEntire himself was sick after his election day frolic.”

According to the clerk, drink was a persistent problem in the pines, observing in one note “William Rose and his father both drunk and lying on the crossway. The old woman at home drunk.”

But there were amusements, though doubtlessly then, as now, most of them involved drink. One big celebration was known as Salt Water Day, or Big Sea Day, or Beach Day, or Farmer’s Wash Day, or Sheep Washing Day.

Farmers would come from miles around in mid-August, usually for more than a day, just to party. They’d bring wagons, like campers, with food and cots and, of course, drink — mostly home-brewed. In those days, too, livestock was grazed on the shore, so every area seemed to have its own designation for the day.

Mountford’s account of life at the shore includes the early days of whaling from the beach, where the famous cry, “Blows! She blows! Thar she blows!” was reduced to a no-nonsense “Whales off!”

There’s no whaling anymore, but other bounty from the waters continue, though you probably won’t hear modern clammers singing, “Dear boys, ain’t you glad you never fished/ Never dugged for them clams?”

And there was the sea’s other bounty, as reflected in this prayer: “God bless Mam, Pap, and all us poor miserable sinners, and send a ship ashore afore mornin’.”

The so-called mooncussers were said to lure ships onto the shoals for easy pickings, a reputation that was not only untrue but slandered the men who risked their lives to save those the storms would claim. The example of the wrecks and “those pitiable people” inspired local resident William Newell to devise lifesaving procedures which led to the lifesaving service, which led to the Coast Guard.

Eventually came what Mountford calls “Opening the Shore,” the time when the beauty and serenity of the place were discovered, when roads and rails pointed people this way and the bay began a process that brought it into such a perilous state that its recent inclusion in the National Estuary Program is probably the last chance to save it.

The author’s account ends with the successful story of Old Barney’s struggle to survive the times and tides, and the hapless lighthouse on Tucker’s Island to not. Perhaps it is too easy to find a metaphor in this pair of symbols, but as the shore begins to groan under the weight of those who love it, maybe we should make it one.

Closed Sea is the latest offering from Down The Shore Publishing, which is doing a remarkable job not only of finding and bringing to light tales and chronicles of the Jersey Shore, but also of encouraging and promoting new works, fictional, documentary and children’s. You won’t find John Grisham or Belva Plain on its book list. But for beach reading you can look up from and see the setting right there, it’s rapidly becoming the house of record.

(Reprinted from The SandPaper, with permission. Copyright ©2002 Jersey Shore Newsmagazines.)

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Closed Sea Has Many Regional Tales to Tell

By EDWARD BROWN (From The Beachcomber, with permission.)

Kent Mountford, estuarine ecologist and environmental historian, has had a fascination with Barnegat Bay since his college days; an affair of the heart, which blossomed into a book belonging in the library of anyone who has ever dipped a foot into this salt water. “Closed Sea, From the Manasquan to the Mullica, A History of Barnegat Bay,” is a kind of historical, social, ecological and certainly in-depth Baedeker of the vast bay stretching up from the north end of Long Beach Island and the shores it touches.

The book has many tales to tell and, suitably enough, begins at the very beginning with something of a shocker regarding the earliest explorations here, with more surprises to come. Closed Sea is a species of historical travelogue, a voluminous compendium of what’s known of this vast land-edge sea running along the central coast of the Garden State, and the shoreline it washes. A careful reader of Dr. Mountford’s book could very nearly get a bachelor’s degree in Barnegat Bay Studies if such a thing were possible.

Closed Sea is structured chronologically, with both twice-told tales and original research fleshing out 207 pages. Mountford admits straightaway to his lifelong fascination with Barnegat Bay and all its wonders, beginning back in the ’50s when he spent lazy hours aboard his uncle’s catboat, Osprey, out of Manasquan. This attraction deepened for the author as the years passed, and he wrote a research paper titled “The Closed Sea” for the freshman English requirement at Rutgers College.

“The professor, intolerant of its indifferent spelling and dangling clauses, rated my work poorly,” Mountford recalls. “It had nevertheless been such a labor of love that independent of my college curriculum, I began writing what has become this book.”

Closed Sea, incidentally, comes from a Latin tag, mare clausam, which describes an estuary as “a partially enclosed body of water having riverine inputs and tidal exchange with the adjacent ocean.”
Interestingly, Closed Sea was completed, or nearly so, in l960. A companion volume was to follow, one focusing on the marine and seashore life here, but the world of study and work became too much with the author to press forward with it.

His first chapter (of 12 to follow) strongly suggests that the first Europeans to set eyes on these saltwater environs were not wayfaring English or Dutchmen, but dauntless Norsemen, adventurers who sailed down from the Hudson in the year 1101 all the way to Chesapeake Bay, giving Barnegat Bay the once-over on the voyage. So it is written in a primary source saga from The Hauk Book and everyone knows the Vikings never told tales!

Who followed on the heels of these Scandinavians? Believe it or not, the Romans and Portuguese are mentioned as early visitors, while, surprisingly enough, Verrazano’s claim as an early discoverer gets a skeptical reaction from Dr. Mountford.

Mountford is particularly thorough in his treatment of the Lenape Nation, describing how they lived, what herbal medicines these Native Americans used, their good sense in summering at the shore as the first vacationers, and, sadly enough, their eventual decline and fall, courtesy of the white man. He’s also good on the robust characters, some rogues and some good souls, who eked out a living and made interesting lives on these shores during the early years.

Another surprise: Mountford actually gives a bit of grudging respect to “Bloody John Bacon,” long considered one of the principal scoundrels of these parts during the Revolutionary War and author of the infamous Long Beach Island Massacre in 1783.

On the other hand, look at the way Mountford describes the grisly end of another Loyalist, a lowlife named Jacob Fagan. Killed while raiding a Patriot’s house, Fagan’s body was “hung in a tree about a mile from Colt’s Neck, wrapped in chains and tarcloth and left to rot before the winds. Buzzing with insects, it fell bone by bone to the earth. Finally someone spiked the skull to the tree with a pipe in its mouth, a silent reminder to those who would follow in his footsteps.” Anecdotes such, varying from the humorous to the scholarly, make for lively and engaging reading throughout Closed Sea.

Mountford ties in the problematical question of the Barnegat Pirates with the coast-wise alarms and excursions of the Revolution. He’s frankly ambiguous as to the “did they/didn’t they” matter of whether “pirates” ran lights along the barrier island beaches to lure ships onto the bar. Actually, this old canard was effectively exploded not long ago by some extensive academic research.

It would have been interesting to get scholar Mountford’s reading of the old legend that a near relative of Archbishop Cranmer, the Anglican churchman burned at the stake as a heretic by “Bloody Mary,” fled her repressive regime for the New World, settling quite early on in these environs. If true, present Ocean County Cranmers and Cramers may well be descendants of the martyr.

His chapter headings indicate the eclectic mix of fact, fancy, and foolishness celebrated in Closed Sea: “They Led the Way,” “Of Burning Hole,” “Cranberry and the Captains,” “Land of the Lenape,” “A Thorn for the Crown,” “The Iron Masters,” “From the Land,” “From the Sea,” “Rails and Resorts,” “Ships and Sailing,” and “Wrecks, Lights, and Pirates.”

Like all substantial works, Closed Sea has a full bibliography and an excellent index. There are graphics here, both photographs and pen and ink drawings, and a map as a frontispiece. An attentive reader might note from this that Mountford’s notion of Barnegat Bay is an expansive one, extending from “Squan all the way down through Manahawkin Bay to Tucker’s Island.” He has no apology. “What I have chosen to call ‘Barnegat Bay’ is at best an arbitrary thing. I have allowed her influence to extend generously behind the sea islands, with a convenient bit of overlap at each end, describing something more than the boundaries of Ocean County.”

As well, Mountford’s pen roams westerly to the Pine Barrens, giving accounts of Tories and Patriots skirmishing there during the War for Independence, the early Jersey Shore railroad days, digging marl inland, and producing bog iron and war materiel at the Batsto Ironworks for General Washington.

(Reprinted from The Beachcomber, in its entirety. Copyright ©2002 Jersey Shore Newsmagazines. Reprinted with permission.)

Edward Brown is a longtime Beachcomber writer and has reviewed books for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Smithsonian Magazine, Central Record Publications and Soldier of Fortune, among others.

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"It is a masterful guide, before its time in many ways."
— Asbury Park Press

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From the Inside Flap
Pirates and whalers, Revolutionary patriots and loyalists, fishermen, iron masters and vacationers all are part of the colorful history of New Jersey’s Barnegat Bay region. Filled with historical anecdote and keen observations of sea and shore, Closed Sea is a compelling portrait of this unique environment and its history.

You will learn of the Lenni Lenape, follow the earliest explorers as they first set eyes on the pristine bay, the Dutch and British settlers who came after them and the intrigues and battles of the “Colonial Rebellion.” You will meet the whalers who migrated from New England to New Jersey’s coastal waters, and the many others who harvested the sea’s bounty. You will go with the men of the U.S. Life Saving Service into the icy, treacherous surf of a winter storm. Tales of shipwrecks and of pirate treasure buried on barrier beaches alternate with tales of the Pine Barrens, a place you will visit when it was a thriving center of 18th century industry. And, finally, you will join early summer vacationers for rollicking times in the first guest houses of the Jersey Shore.

With a naturalist’s eye and a sailor¹s experience, Kent Mountford describes the Shore’s past, its shifting inlets, disappearing islands, dangerous tides and shoals. Moving inland, he documents the Pinelands environment and the industries it has supported over the centuries. As the coast and the forest have shaped the lives of their inhabitants, so people have influenced the land and the waters.

Closed Sea tells the remarkable history of a fascinating place, a place of great beauty, danger and opportunity, a place that has cast its spell on generations of people those who came to make a living and those who came to play. Both have brought enormous changes to a sensitive ecosystem a coastal environment that today is under more pressure than ever.

Begun in 1956, Closed Sea was well ahead of its time. In was environmental history before that discipline had a name or a following. Published now for the first time, the book has tremendous relevance for today’s residents and visitors to the Jersey Shore.

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From the Back Cover
Extending roughly from the Manasquan to the Mullica rivers is a region of bay, creeks, barrier island, and coastal forest. Girdled on the east by treacherous inlets and shifting shoals, hemmed in on the west by the vast and mysterious Pine Barrens, steeped in myth and history, this place has been claimed by many: pirates and whalers, iron masters and fishermen, patriots and vacationers. This is Barnegat Bay.

Closed Sea is the saga of New Jersey’s Barnegat Bay region. It is a legendary coast that has drawn many admirers lured by its beauty and promise, undaunted by the inherent dangers of living at the edge of an unforgiving sea, yet unable to shake the attraction that its glorious shores hold.

CONTENTS
They Led the Way
Of Burning Hole
Harbors: Something Old, Something New
Cranberry and the Captains
The Land of the Lenape
The Fate of Scheyechbi
A Thorn for the Crown
The Iron Masters
From the Land
From the Sea
Rails and Resorts
Ships and Sailing
Wrecks, Lights, and Pirates
acknowledgments
bibliography
index

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Excerpt: from Chapter One: “They Led the Way’’

It was, perhaps, a morning in August, the year, AD 1011. The shoals off Barnegat were calm at slack tide, brushed only by the catspaws of an indefinite morning breeze. Eastward, resting on the sea, was the long dragon-ship of Thorfinn Karlsefni. Her ornate sail panting slowly in the calm heat, she lay waiting for a south wind to bear her up the coast.

Hauk Book, from the many volumes of Norse sagas, tells us that Karlsefni, having spent the previous winter in the sheltered Hudson River which on discovering he called Straumfiord set out with the coming of April and worked southward with two or three of his ships. Here his party entered Chesapeake Bay, naming part of it H’op and remaining a time in that land.

Towards August, Thorfinn coasted northward, born close inshore by the prevailing southerlies.
It was against the true Viking code to ignore any sizeable break in a coastline, so it is probable that Karlsefni entered our coast at least in the Delaware. It would also be convenient to hypothesize his landing at either Egg Harbor or Barnegat, but since this would be merely hypothesis, let it suffice that he was probably the first white European to see New Jersey.


from Chapter Eleven: “Rails and Resorts”

So it went, product of many motives: religious, medical, economic, and the beaches changed. Where solemn, round dunes once shouldered alone against the sea, a hundred thousand lights run a gamut of honky-tonk from one end to the other. Alas, for the social critic, there remain only a few islands of the primeval and all too many of the old ways are lost.

We shall omit the morbid tale of the sprawl which followed World War II. A fungus of housing developments has virtually encrusted the sea-beaches. They serve, no doubt, the wishes of a mass population flux to the shore, bringing accommodations there within reach of those who would otherwise be unable to afford them. Yet, on the Island Beach peninsula, hundreds of tiny cubes march in ordered monotony across miles of broiling naked gravel. There was so little of the beautiful coastline to begin with, why could it not have been utilized with intelligence and imagination? Even the silent marshes are being pumped over with shaky footings of sand and mud for development....

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