Remembering the characters of Little Beach
Little Beach memories have become legends.
A day of fishing might be followed by cooking some of the catch.
Fishing parties liked to dock for lunch, sandwiches folded in waxed paper, beer in a metal cooler.
Surf fisherman Earl Simpson motored out in a character double ender, supposedly once a lifeboat for one of the Tsar’s yachts.
Atlantic City Freeholders met at the Atlantic County-owned cabin called Cherio for a day of cards, fishing and female company.
Visiting young ladies posed on the dock with a dog on a leash, dressed for the evening; others appeared in their wool bathing costumes.
Hunting shanties and small homes were owned by characters such as Leon Headley (once a Coast Guard captain), his relative who owned a houseboat and Fred Statler.
Helen and Alby Alberson also owned a houseboat, which was pulled way up on land and had an attached outhouse.
Every dwelling was a bit different. Roofs were made of Atlantic white cedar shingles of tin; water was collected by gutters leading to cedar cisterns. Work was mainly done by owners, using washed up wood used for both dwellings and porches. Screened porches were a necessity for year-round living to keep mosquitoes at bay.
A group of shark fishermen kept an old Army ambulance at their home to drive to the beach.
Ed Muir was usually the only person to live on Little Beach all year. With his dog, he would keep an eye on all the other
houses.
Phil Levy was lucky enough to have a generator, a Model A Ford with wooden slats and an indoor toilet.
Lou Berry, a retired University of Pittsburgh professor, planned to write a book about Little Beach history and his experiences on the island. In September 2007, he told the Press of Atlantic City that selling lots on Little Beach “was one of the original swampland swindles. Out of 5,000 to 6,000 lots, there weren’t more than 40 or 50 that were in any way buildable.”
#120 Gun Club
Owned by Phil Hart Jr., the 120 Rod and Gun Club was the scene of much camaraderie between the 1930s and mid-1970s, when the island was declared off limits.
It was named after the Little Beach Life Saving/Coast Guard Station #120, which was decommissioned in June 1946.
Third in from the dock along what was once the Coast Guard Station Road, the cabin had cedar shakes, a tin roof and a two-hole outhouse.
Duck Dusters was one sign on the front, a nickname used by friends. “120 Rod and Gun Club” was the other.
Bill Hart remembers “using the crank up phone at the Coast Guard Station after the power went out.”
At first the Hart family went to Little Beach by boat from Rand’s Dock in Tuckerton on Seven Bridges Road or Allen’s in New Gretna; later from Milton Heinnzer’s dock at Leeds Point on Oyster Creek.
During their last years on Little Beach, the Hart family used the Newer Coast Guard Station (now owned by Rutgers), courtesy of Joe Fulcher, as their mainland base.
Imagine routine trips from Leeds Point/Oyster Creek out to Little Beach, many of which were anything but ordinary.
They might be the helm of a World War II surplus boat, powered by a 22.5 Evinrude, canvas topped cooler and manila rope on the floor of the cockpit.
Or young Bill Hart’s excitement shooting his first black duck of the season from a marsh green wooden sneakbox camouflaged with reeds and salt hay.
Fox hunting in the dunes was also a sport for the people who lived on Little Beach.
Joe Fulcher had somehow gotten a used WW II Jeep out to the island from the new mainland Coast Guard Station. Joe always wore a checkered jacket and told tall tales such as stringing a gill net across Great Bay or making moonshine in a bathtub (a disgruntled Mrs. Hart could not bathe all weekend).
Bill recounted that fox hunting was just for sport.
“My uncle Bud Hingher did a lot of fox hunting near Princeton, so he would bring his dogs to Little Beach with friends. He also fox hunted on Brigantine and other islands in the area.”
During his teenage years Bill and a friend would venture by boat to the mainland, going to the movies in Tuckerton.
One summer he worked for Joe Fulcher netting bait. Joe was one of the first people to start seeding clams after the war in the area.
Federal government takeover
By the early 1970s, an aerial view from Ray Leuddek’s plane shows an island reverting to its natural state.
An abandoned Coast Guard Station remained, located more inland than before due to sand accumulation to the north.
Some of the buildings had missing roofs; the road was almost non-existent, just a path through the grasses; and the main dock was broken in places.
Recognized as an important island for migratory birds and native foliage among a blossoming and booming Jersey Shore, the Audubon Society bought parts of Little Beach Island.
Then it was taken over by the federal government.
Distressed owners, who had spent decades loving their time there, were
very distressed.
In 1974, a Special Use permit, #LB57406, was issued to Bill Hart of Bedminster by the Brigantine National Wildlife Refuge of the Department of the Interior. It allowed homeowners to have “access … on Little Beach Island to building and land sites occupied by permittees, including those periods when the refuge may be closed.”
Limited to the “normal route between your building and the boat landing dock …overnight camping on Bureau land is prohibited. Hunting and carrying of loaded firearms on Refuge land is prohibited, and motor vehicle may be operated only on marked travel route between permitter’s building and boat landing.”
The above permit was legal until “the time the Federal Acquisition” was to take place, approximately Dec. 31, 1974.
Gaylord L. Inman was the Refuge Manager and issuing officer.
Bill Hart Jr. received $1,600 for the 120 Rod and Gun Club.
Good times had come to a swift end. At some point in the late 1970s, fires consumed what buildings had not vanished or been torn down.
Little Beach today
Signs inform curious boaters venturing close that no one is allowed onshore.
All these years later, Little Beach is a model for a true barrier island with no bridge. It is of ecological importance, with migratory birds, sea life and native vegetation.
Rutgers University professor and naturalist Joanna Burger wrote of her experiences on Little Beach in “A Naturalist Along the Jersey Shore.”
Witness to changing seasons, she observed diamondback terrapins, toads, garter snakes and birds.
William Hart Jr., William Hart III and their family played a significant part in the history of Little Beach Island.
Lifelong friendships and close family members are brought to the forefront, remembering the joys of a tiny community, and preserving a way of life never to be duplicated again.