Jersey Shore Magazine

j e r s e y s h o r e • s p r i n g 2 0 1 5 31 immigrants coming to America in the 1890s. The Pledge of Allegiance event was held around a new addition to the Twin Lights—the awe-inspiring, 135- foot Liberty Pole. During the 1890s and early 1900s, the Liberty Pole was the first "piece of America" seen by millions of immigrants as their ships steamed toward Ellis Island. Electric Light Comes To The Twin Lights The north tower light was discon- tinued in 1898; at the same time, the south tower was electrified—the first lighthouse in the United States to do so—with an ultra-bright, bi-valve lens. (In 1886, an arch light in the torch of the Statue of Liberty marked the first use of electricity as an aid to navigation in the U.S.) As there was no available electrical service to the Twin Lights, an adjacent gener- ator building was constructed with an electric-arc lamp that produced twenty-five million candlepower with a visible range of twenty-two nautical continued on page 32 miles and the ability to light up the skies above as far as seventy miles. Today, the powerhouse serves as one of the exhibit areas with graph- ics depicting the generation system, along with a model of the Hornsby- Akroyd engine, the first order Fresnel lens, and a Francis Life Car, like the one that was first successfully used to rescue 201 people in January 1850. Marconi's Wireless Heralds In A New Age In 1899, the Twin Lights would be the site of another first. James Gordon Bennett, publisher of the New York Herald, hired Guglielmo Marconi to attempt an unprece- dented ship-to-shore report on the America's Cup yacht races being held off Sandy Hook. Bennett knew that sporting enthusiasts would buy a lot of papers during the Americas Cup. He wanted to scoop his competitors and generate additional excitement because these would be the first wire- less reports published in a newspaper. Marconi arrived in September 1899, set up his antennas and receiv- The view southeast toward Sea Bright. Paul Scharff T W I N L I G H T S F I R S T S : Fir st F r e s n e l l e n s l i g h t h o u s e i n t h e N ew Wo r l d Fir st l i g h t h o u s e i n t h e U. S . t o u s e ke ro s e n e ( i n s t e a d o f l a r d ) Fir st e l e c t r i fi e d l i g h t h o u s e b e a c o n Fir st w i r e l e s s r e p o r t i n a n ew s p a p e r Fir st p u b l i c r e a d i n g o f t h e P l e d g e o f A l l e g i a n c e

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