The ½-ton nickel bell from the U.S. Lightship Barnegat is now retired to Barnegat Light, the town where its ship stood offshore as a floating lighthouse from 1927 to 1942 and then after World War II, from 1945 to 1967.
The first lightship assigned to the Barnegat station was LV 79/ WAL 506. This vessel was commissioned in 1904 and spent twenty years marking Five Fathom Bank, located roughly fifteen miles from Cape May Lighthouse, before being used as a relief lightship for two years and then being deployed to Barnegat station in 1927.
LV 79 was equipped with a submarine bell in 1910 before arriving at Barnegat station. These bells were either placed in a position low in the ship so the sound could be transmitted through the water, or were even suspended beneath the ship and then struck with a prescribed frequency. To receive the sound, ships typically used a microphone suspended in a tank of water. One of these tanks was mounted to each side of the bow inside the ship. When the captain aligned his vessel so that the sound received at each microphone was of equal intensity, he knew his ship was pointing towards the lightship. A radiobeacon was added to Lightship LV 79 in 1930. When the radio beacon was synchronized with the submarine bell, ships could use the difference in the time of arrival of the two signals to determine their distance from the lightship.
LV 79 was withdrawn from Barnegat station in 1942 to serve as an examination vessel at Edgemoor, Delaware during World War II. The lightship would intercept all vessels entering the Delaware River and a boarding party would determine the ship’s identity, cargo, homeport and last port of call. If cleared, the vessels were allowed to proceed.
Following the war, LV 79 returned to Barnegat station, where it served until its decommissioning on March 3, 1967. Later that year, the lightship was donated to the Chesapeake Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Maryland. Unable to afford maintenance expenses, the museum was forced to sell the lightship to Heritage Ship Guild in 1970 to be used as part of a floating display at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia. The lightship was there through the 1980s. When the Heritage Ship Guild disbanded, ownership of the of the lightship was transferred to Rod Sadler, owner of Pyne Poynt Marina, and a new group called Camden Museum and Learning Center. Sadler wanted to refurbish the ship and move it to the Camden waterfront, but the vessel is sitting in mud at the marina in Camden, New Jersey, and is in dire need of maintenance and repair work.
After Sadler died in 2019, several items at the marina were offered for sale. One of these items was the half-ton, nickel bell mounted to the deck of Lightship Barnegat. The asking price was originally $10,000, but the Barnegat Historical Society managed to acquire the bell for around $9,000. A crane had to be brought in to lift the bell from the deck so it could be transported to Barnegat Light in early 2020. After it is restored, the bell was placed on display near the town pavilion in Barnegat Light. As the chances of Barnegat Lightship being restored are very slim, it is good that a piece of the lightship will be preserved.
We ring it every time we walk by to remember Our Grandpa Harry who brought the family to BL and we never left make sure you ring it loud as you can hear it around town.