Wreck of the New Era, Deal Beach
Near Asbury Park, New Jersey
On November thirteenth, eighteen fifty-four, the sailing ship New Era ran aground off this stretch of New Jersey coast in a violent storm. She was carrying nearly four hundred German immigrants bound for a new life in America. Almost three hundred of them drowned within sight of shore, close enough that people on the beach could hear their cries.
The lifesaving equipment of the era was rudimentary and the seas overwhelming. A local man named Abner Allen, Allenhurst's earliest settler and keeper of the local lifeboat house, was among the first to attempt a rescue. The anchor displayed here was recovered from the wreck.
The New Era disaster, along with similar tragedies in this era, drove Congress to expand and professionalize the United States Life-Saving Service, the forerunner of today's Coast Guard.
