Most shipwreck stories end with the final count of those lost or rescued, but the story of the stranding of the U.S. Army Transport Sumner in December 1916 was only the beginning of its influence on Long Beach Island, its residents and the future. On April 4, 1917, the U.S. Army decided to abandon all attempts to salvage equipment from the ship as winter storms had broken it in two, and it was settling into the bottom only 300 yards from the beach at Barnegat Light.
On April 8, as Toms River’s New Jersey Courier carried headlines about the United States’ declaration of war on…
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