Jersey Shore Magazine

j e r s e y s h o r e • F A L L / H O L I D A Y 2 0 2 1 13 The New Jersey Senate passed a resolution on April 15, 1886 com- mending the "heroic promptness" of the Barnegat Life-Saving Station's crew in their rescue attempt and honoring fallen Life-Saving Service members Furman, Soper, and Soper: "…that the legislature hereby extends its sympathy to the bereaved families of the men who so gallantly perished while striving to save their fellow men…and thanks to the surviving members of said Life-Saving crew for their noble attempt to save life, and to all members of the Life-Saving Service who so sacrifice the comforts of home and life itself in the humane endeavor to save the lives of others." The original, framed resolution is on display at the New Jersey Maritime Museum in Beach Haven. The Loss of the Amanda Winants, September 1874 "The most fearful gale in this city since 1854" — Charleston News and Courier, September 29, 1874 A fast-moving, deadly hurricane struck the waters off the Carolinas on September 28, 1874 and left towns and cities, including Charleston, with major damage. The storm also caused the steamer Amanda Winants to sink somewhere between Georgetown, South Carolina and Cape Hatteras. Sixteen men lost their lives on the ill- fated steamer (built in Keyport, New Jersey in 1863) including eighteen- year-old Irvie Newbury, who was from New Jersey and is buried at Cedar Grove Cemetery in Waretown. The loss of the Winants took place before the U.S. Life-Saving Service was established (and more accurate records were kept), so details sur- rounding its demise are not known. Newbury's tombstone reads, SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF IRVIE. SON OF T.C. & M.J. NEWBURY. BORN NOV. 4, 1856. AND LOST AT SEA WITH ALL ON BOARD THE STEAMER A.A. WINANTS. NEAR CAPE HATTERAS. SEPT. 28, 1874. LOVED AND LAMENTED. HIS SUN HAS GONE DOWN WHILE IT WAS YET DAY. Captain Chambers and His Son One double-sided tombstone just steps away from Irvie Newbury's grave at Cedar Grove Cemetery in Waretown memorializes both a father and a son who never returned home from the sea. One side con- tains an inscription in memory of Captain William H. Chambers, who was lost at sea on August 17, 1879 at sixty-seven years old. ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF CAPT. WILLIAM H. CHAMBERS SON OF RALPH H. & ANN CHAMBERS. BORN JAN. 17, 1812. LOST AT SEA AUGUST 17, 1879. IN THE 67TH YEAR OF HIS AGE. The other side's inscription is to the memory of his son, Clark H. Chambers, who was born on November 22, 1839 and buried at sea on September 6, 1856 at just seventeen years old, twenty-three years before his father's death. ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF CLARK H. CHAMBERS SON OF CAPT. WILLIAM H. & MARY CHAMBERS BORN NOV. 22, 1839. DIED AND WAS BURIED AT SEA. SEPT. 6, 1856. IN THE 17TH YEAR OF HIS AGE. Extensive attempts to uncover the details surrounding the tragedies at sea of captain and son have thus far proven fruitless. However, the details of their demise, forever preserved on both sides of the stone, elevate their story into Jersey Shore legend. —Jill Ocone Tombstone of Irvie Newbury at Cedar Grove Cemetery in Waretown. Gravestone of Capt. William H. Chambers at Cedar Grove Cemetery in Waretown. Jill Ocone Jill Ocone

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