As is the case many times, while researching the information for one series you turn up something on another; so it was while looking into the Barnegat Pirates. Their story became linked to a local landmark and a nautical mystery.

In 1816, there was only one lighthouse on the entire New Jersey coast, located at Sandy Hook. But as the nation grew and New York became a major port thanks to the opening of the Erie Canal, coastal traffic and the inevitable shipwrecks increased.