Barrier beaches of the Atlantic coast

by Frederick J. H. Merrill

In 1844 the point was about two hundred and fifty yards north of its present limit. Since that date it has receded slowly toward the south, and toward the west has extended a quarter of a mile. We have no evidence concerning the date of formation of the old “Hook” which existed before 1685. It is now well marked by immense forest trees, which exceed in height and size of trunk any of their species known to the writer in the neighborhood of New York.

The rapid growth of Sandy Hook is due to a current which flows northward from the vicinity of Manasquan, carrying with it a great quantity of sand removed from the water-front of Asbury Park, Long Branch, Seabright, and that vicinity, which is dropped along the border of the “Hook” and its extremity. The investigations of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey have shown that the ebb and flow of the tides from and to New York Bay produce this current by drawing a stream of water through False Hook Channel, which lies between Sandy Hook and a submerged bar called False Hook half a mile to the east. The stream flows northward more than seven hours out of twelve, and from this fact property-owners in the neighborhood of Long Branch may appreciate what becomes of their real estate when it disappears during the storms. If there were any means of identifying the soil, it might all be found on the rapidly growing point of Sandy Hook.

About 1778 a channel was opened across the narrow isthmus which united Sandy Hook with the base of the Navesink Highlands, and a new passage being thus afforded for the tidal currents of the Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers, the old Shrewsbury Inlet, which formed the common mouth of those two estuaries, was gradually closed by the northward extension of the sand-spit which formed the southern limit, and in 1810 became impassable. The barrier thus formed existed until 1830 or 1831, when it was broken through and a second inlet was created. By a change in the tidal currents, due to the formation of this new inlet, the isthmus which formerly connected Sandy Hook with the Highlands of Navesink was again brought into existence and remained until 1835. An artificial channel was then cut through it, and this being gradually deepened and widened by the ebb and flow of the tides, has ever since remained open. The second Shrewsbury inlet closed in 1840 near Island Beach, having moved northward nearly three miles during its existence of nine or ten years. In 1837 or 1838 the third and last inlet opened near the present Bellevue Hotel, and afforded a better channel for navigation than the second inlet, which it followed in its northward course and survived by about eight years. From 1848 until September, 1889, no inlet has been opened; but this fact is due rather to the efforts of the railroad company to maintain its road-bed than to a diminution of the tendency of the waves and tidal currents to open a passage.

The facts and dates concerning the Shrewsbury Inlets have been obtained chiefly by inquiry from old fishermen and sailors who have spent their lives on or near the waters of the Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers. Coming from a number of independent sources, they agree very closely, and those here given may be accepted as worthy of credence. The tendency of the inlets to work northward, periodically closing and reopening farther south, has been observed in all those between Point Pleasant and Sandy Hook, especially in those of Manasquan and Shark Rivers. Between Point Pleasant and Cape May, however, all the inlets are moving southward.

From Monmouth to the head of Barnegat Bay there is no beach similar to that of Sandy Hook. Instead of a sand-reef separated from the mainland by a navigable channel, there is only the sloping strand adjoining, as at Long Branch, the foot of an upland bluff, or as at Spring Lake, Seagirt, and Point Pleasant, with its crest on a level with the surface of the upland. Between Bay Head and Cape May, however, there are twelve beaches, mostly well developed and preserved, and named respectively Squan, Island, Long, Island or Little, Brigantine, Absecon, Peck’s, Ludlam’s, Seven-Mile, Five-Mile or Holly, Two-Mile, and Poverty. The majority of these, however, do not show the high degree of development exhibited by Seven-Mile and Five-Mile Beaches. Some appear to be only in the earlier stages of growth, while others have passed their prime and are now yielding to the attacks of wind and wave.

These agents have been hitherto considered only with reference to their constructive effect on the beaches, and it now remains to consider their destructive action.

When the wind blows from the west it carries back to the sea much of the sand which the east wind had piled up in dunes, and, but for the fact that the latter wind prevails, the sand-hills would not long exist. By a surplus of constructive action, however, the beaches are all moving to the west. Year after year sand is removed from their eastern margin by the winter storms, and carried north or south according to the direction of the prevailing current. The winds from the ocean drive the dunes westward, and, with the possible exception of Sandy Hook, all the beaches are now underlaid by an old salt meadow, originally formed in sheltered waters on their west side. In this turf, when exposed during an unusually low tide, the footprints of cattle are seen in many places, made, it is claimed, when the salt meadow was a pasture and lay on the shoreward side of the beach. This westward recession has, in many cases, amounted to more than a mile within two centuries.

On many of the beaches south of Point Pleasant the westward progress of the dunes has been made over and through the native forest. As a result of this, gnarled cedars, dying and dead, are found among the dunes; and in many cases stumps may be seen in the sand within reach of the tide.

Near the northern end of Seven-Mile Beach, at the time of the writer’s visit in 1885, an immense dune forty feet in height and half a mile in length had been for many years encroaching steadily upon the dense forest. The tree-tops here projected above the summit of the ridge like the heads of drowning men above the waves; while on the outer flank of the overwhelming mass of sand the gnarled, skeleton trunks of those which had perished in it stood bare and grim, showing with dreary grayness the fate of the earlier victims of which the ragged and wave-worn stumps alone remained. A more desolate scene the writer has never witnessed.

At Long Branch the wear of the coast has been very great. According to the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, a strip of land varying from three hundred to five hundred feet in width was removed between Deal Beach and Monmouth during the twenty-seven years preceding 1868. In the vicinity of Seabright the amount of wear was a little less than two hundred feet during that period. Of late years the rate of recession has been diminished in the neighborhood of Long Branch by the means of artificial protection employed, but near Seabright the shore line is said to have receded at least two hundred feet during the past quarter of a century. At Cape May the wear of the shore has been continuous except where the land is protected by jetties or a stone sea-wall, the rate of encroachment varying from ten to thirty feet a year.