Back in the day, newspapers were the only form of communication – except, of course, for the neighbor across the wash-line – and newspapers like the Tuckerton Beacon were vital. Unlike the flash of a 10-second TV spot or the computer posts, clicked on and then gone into oblivion, newspapers are saved and compiled into “morgues,” some into books by the publisher, others onto micro-film or digitized, and then can be mined by the curious.

And so the march of the ages in a cluster of little towns along the shore has been mined by editor Steve Dodson and…