12307b. (photo) America’s First Life-Saving Station Built at Sandy Hook, N.J. in 1848
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12307b. (photo) America’s First Life-Saving Station Built at Sandy Hook, N.J. in 1848
12307b. (photo) America’s First Life-Saving Station Built at Sandy Hook, N.J. in 1848. Clear, close original 8” x 10” Coast Guard press photo by J.J. Hinton, Pay Clerk (3) U.S.C.G., shows great detail of the rare station. In 1848, Monmouth County Congressman William A. Newell reported to Congress that 158 sailing vessels had been lost off the New Jersey coast between 1839 and 1848. Newell asked Congress to appropriate $10,000 to build eight “lifeboat stations” equipped with “surfboats, lifeboats, and other means for the preservation of life and property shipwrecked on the coast of New Jersey between Sandy Hook and Little Egg Harbor.” Congress agreed, and the stations were completed in 1849, spaced ten miles apart from Spermaceti Cove on Sandy Hook south to Long Beach Island. Each station housed rescue equipment that included a surfboat mounted on a wagon, a small line-throwing mortar, and a small enclosed metal lifeboat called a “lifecar.” The Life-Saving Service would expand into one of the most respected Government departments and in 1915 would merge with the Revenue Cutter Service to become the U.S. Coast Guard. In the short time that the service existed, they would be credited with saving over 200,000 lives. Rare photo is b/w and includes date and photographer’s blind stamp. Print dated February 15, 1931. Clear, close view, clean, crisp, great detail. (VG+). $54.