In 1885 at the dedication of the section of the Manahawkin Baptist Church’s cemetery set aside for unidentified victims of shipwrecks, William A. Crane, the former town coroner, gave an interview where he told of a two-week period in 1864 when seven ships wrecked near Surf City during a series of violent storms.

There was no bridge to LBI in 1864, and the nearest telegraph was located in the Ocean County seat, in Toms River.