From Twin Lights to the Church of the Presidents: A Monmouth Morning Walk Through Legacy

A Morning Walk on the Raritan Bay Shore

There is a particular quality to a morning along Monmouth County’s Raritan Bay shore — the bay light catching a lighthouse, a Georgian-brick manor through the trees, the salt-air hum of a Gold Coast that has welcomed presidents, merchants, and generations of families for two centuries. We have lived among these landmarks long enough to know them by name. This piece is a walk through a handful of the places that still carry that story, from the inland farms to the sparkling shoreline, so we can pass it on to the next generation.

Twin Lights — A Beacon of Innovation

• The twin towers overlooking Sandy Hook Bay were first lit in 1862, standing on a site that has hosted a lighthouse since 1828, guiding ships into New York Harbor and out to the Atlantic (Twin Lights Lighthouse, twinlightslighthouse.org).
• It was the first American lighthouse to test a Fresnel lens — and in 1898 the South Tower received a 25-million-candlepower arc-light lens powered by an on-site generator, making it the nation’s first electrically powered lighthouse (Twin Lights Lighthouse, twinlightslighthouse.org).
• Marconi chose the site in 1899 to demonstrate the wireless telegraph, and in 1893 Twin Lights was the location of the first official public reading of the Pledge of Allegiance, with a grand naval flotilla off the coast of Sandy Hook. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006 (Twin Lights Lighthouse, twinlightslighthouse.org).

Historic Walnford — A Mill’s Memory

• Built in 1773 by Richard Waln, a wealthy Philadelphia import-export merchant and Quaker, the Georgian-brick manor anchors a rare 18th-century milling and farming complex along Crosswicks Creek (Historic Walnford, monmouthparks.com).
• Its millstone flour mill is among the finest surviving examples in the eastern United States, in continuous operation from the 1700s into the early 1900s, and held by the Waln family for more than two hundred years (Historic Walnford, monmouthparks.com).
• Transformed into a Colonial Revival country estate in the early 1900s, Walnford was donated to the Monmouth County Park System in 1985 and now serves as an open-air living-history museum and educational center on the Crosswicks Creek Greenway (Historic Walnford, monmouthparks.com).

The Church of the Presidents — Summer Sanctuary of the Nation’s Leaders

• Consecrated in 1879 as St. James Episcopal Chapel on Ocean Avenue in Long Branch, this Carpenter-Gothic church served as the summer resort worship house for seven U.S. presidents, including James Garfield and Ulysses S. Grant, for over 75 years (Long Branch Historical Association, longbranchhistory.org).
• Preserved artifacts on view include the flag that covered President Garfield’s casket, President Grant’s gun cabinet, and guest books signed by the presidents — a tangible connection to the Gilded Age “Gold Coast” summers (Long Branch Historical Association, longbranchhistory.org).
• A modest cottage was built from the dismantled railroad that once carried President Garfield to his cottage, where he spent his final days (Long Branch Historical Association, longbranchhistory.org).

The Gold Coast Story — “Wooden Palaces” and the Summer Colony

• As the 19th century closed, the seashore from Long Branch to Deal, Allenhurst, and Spring Lake was lined with palatial “wooden palaces” — the grand summer houses of a national Gold Coast that made Monmouth Beach a destination in its own right (Long Branch Historical Association, longbranchhistory.org).
• The Long Branch History Room and the Long Branch Historical Association keep that shoreline story alive through photographs, postcards, and the archives of the beach’s glory years (Long Branch History Room, longbranchlib.org/local-history).

Monmouth County Historical Association — Curating Our Story

• Based at 70 Court Street in Freehold, the MCHA safeguards five historic buildings, an extensive archive and library, and a museum that together illuminate the county’s colonial, Revolutionary, and industrial chapters (Monmouth County Historical Association, monmouthhistory.org).
• Its museum holds artifacts that stretch from early Native American tools to Gilded Age seaside memorabilia, and its educational programs — from youth workshops to adult lecture series — invite families to work directly with primary sources and living-history interpreters (Monmouth County Historical Association, monmouthhistory.org).

Why it matters locally

Each of these sites connects the shoreline’s sparkling allure with the county’s deep agricultural and civic roots, reminding us that the comforts we enjoy — a summer picnics on the beach, a weekend stroll through a working historic farm — are gifts of a shared heritage. By preserving and celebrating these landmarks, we reinforce a sense of place that nurtures pride across generations of Monmouth families, and we keep the story of who we are legible for the neighbors who will carry it forward.

How to get involved

• Visit Twin Lights in Highlands and join a guided tour; call 732-872-1814 or book online at twinlightslighthouse.org.
• Spend an afternoon at Historic Walnford (62 Walnford Rd, Upper Freehold); the living-history site is open seasonally and reachable at 609-259-6275.
• Explore the Church of the Presidents in Long Branch through the Long Branch Historical Association’s heritage programs and preserved presidential collections at longbranchhistory.org.
• Become a member of the Monmouth County Historical Association to access its archives, museum, and educational events; sign up at monmouthhistory.org.
• Take a “Gold Coast” shoreline walk with the Long Branch Historical Association, which highlights the historic seaside mansions and their stories; details at longbranchhistory.org.

How Love of Humanity supports this work

Love of Humanity is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that produces free family-education content for Monmouth County. Our Legacy Monmouth roundups — including this one — are designed to help families understand the local heritage ecosystem at the ground floor, so that a decision to visit, volunteer, or give at one of these institutions can be a well-informed one. We do not take a commission on any gift, and we do not solicit donations on behalf of the institutions we profile; we simply tell their stories so that the next family deciding how to spend an afternoon — or leave a legacy — can do so with the full context of what those dollars and those hours can actually do. If your family would like a guided family-education session on local heritage or legacy giving, reach out and we will help you plan one.

This roundup is editorial. No fees were paid. Love of Humanity is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.