IT’S HIS MOMENT: Old Barney is one of 11 historic navigational beacons on the tour. See those, plus four lifesaving stations and a museum in two days. (Photo by Jack Reynolds)
Stair masters wanted! The 2026 Lighthouse Challenge of New Jersey will take place this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 17 and 18. The annual event brings thousands of visitors to Barnegat Lighthouse State Park in Barnegat Light, to the nearby Barnegat Light Museum (containing an antique prismatic Fresnel lens, with its “ancient-wonder-of-the-world quality,” as Historical Society Vice President and Museum Curator Reilly Platten Sharp put it) and to the re-created Tucker’s Island Light at the Seaport in Tuckerton, plus nine additional lighthouses and four lifesaving stations.
The challenge route covers the Atlantic coast from Sandy Hook to Cape May, and the Delaware Bay/River Coast from Cape May to Paulsboro. While learning about the state’s historic navigational treasures, collect a sticker at each to add to a commemorative guidebook full of Revolutionary War stories surrounding the Challenge sites – all for a registration fee of $10.
This year’s tour is titled “Lighting the Way Through History” in honor of the country’s semiquincentennial, with special attention paid to Sandy Hook, the only New Jersey lighthouse standing during the Revolution.
The website lighthousechallengenj.com has the complete guide to the sites, as well as a Google Maps link: Sandy Hook Light, Navesink Twin Lights, Sea Girt Light, Spermaceti Cove Lifesaving Station, Squan Beach Station, Barnegat Light, Barnegat Light Museum, Absecon Light, Tucker’s Island Light, U.S. Lifesaving Station 30, Tathum Lifesaving Station, Cape May Light, East Point Light, Delaware Bay Lights, Finns Point Light and Tinicum Rear Range Light.
The challenge’s parent body, the New Jersey Lighthouse Society, celebrates the monuments’ towering history and age-old aesthetics. The New Jersey chapter of the U.S. Lighthouse Society, based in Navesink, is one of the largest regional lighthouse societies in the United States, covering the New Jersey, Delaware Bay and New York Harbor regions.
“The beloved Barnegat Lighthouse is shining again, as it was illuminated on January 1, 2009 – exactly 150 years to the day after it was originally lit in 1859,” according to the society. The Friends of Barnegat Lighthouse State Park, the nonprofit group dedicated to preserving and promoting the park, raised funds to purchase a new Coast Guard-approved lens. The new light creates a single beam, visible up to 22 nautical miles. In 1927, the original lens was removed and replaced by a lightship anchored off the coast of Barnegat Light. In 1957, the lens was returned to the town of Barnegat Light and is still on display at the Barnegat Historical Society Museum.
The museum building was the one-room schoolhouse in Barnegat Light from 1903 to 1951 and is now on the National Register of Historical Places. The museum features artifacts, replicas and photographs depicting the history of Barnegat Light and Long Beach Island.
One of the major features in the museum is the First Order Flashing Lens from the Barnegat Light Lighthouse, built by the French physicist Augustin Fresnel. It was capable of throwing its light 20 miles or more to the horizon. The lens was removed in 1927 when the Barnegat Lightship took up station off Barnegat Inlet.
“The Lighthouse Challenge of N.J. welcomes sightseers and history lovers of all ages to attempt to visit as many as 16 historical sites from one corner of the state to another over one weekend,” according to Sharp, historian, author and photographer. “Some climb to the top of the 11 participating lighthouses, including Barnegat Lighthouse, while some just check in with staff to get their stickers for the commemorative guidebook. Anyone completing the challenge receives an award and entry into a raffle for one of three grand prizes.
“For the Barnegat Light Museum, it’s an extraordinary weekend that sees over 1,000 people pass through our schoolhouse doors,” he continued. “Some just get their sticker and run, but many stay to see the towering first-order lens from the lighthouse, tour the museum’s many maritime and local historical artifacts, or hear gripping stories of shipwrecks and the days of the railroad and submarine warfare in local waters. Kids can enjoy a scavenger hunt using the original school compass rose and earn a prize at the end.
“I always have a wonderful time on challenge weekends seeing so many happy (if tired) faces, and hearing how far some people come to do it. There’s something special about lighthouses that touches people’s hearts. Barnegat Lighthouse and its giant Fresnel lens have a kind of ancient-wonder-of-the-world quality about them.
“When challenge participants visit this weekend, my hope is they come away with an appreciation for how lucky we are on Long Beach Island, and in New Jersey, to have such rich history with stories reaching back to the days of Jamestown and Plymouth Rock. In small towns like Barnegat Light, that history isn’t just names and dates – they’re family. So for me and many of our museum docents, explaining the artifacts and telling our local stories are like telling the fun and the dramatic family stories we all have. And many of those stories revolve around the 167-year old lighthouse. So it’s a joy to see so many people trek up and down the state in good and bad weather simply because they appreciate our lighthouse.”
On the mainland south on Route 9, the Tuckerton Seaport has a replica of the lighthouse that toppled into the sea in 1927 from Tucker’s Island, which once existed off the south end of Long Beach Island. The working re-created maritime village located along Tuckerton Creek is a one-of-a-kind attraction that brings maritime traditions of the past and present to life. Discover the interaction between culture and nature on the Barnegat Bay; experience the rich traditions of the Jersey Shore and its baymen – decoy carvers, boat builders, basket makers and more. A 3/4-mile boardwalk along Tuckerton “Crik” and a quarter-mile nature trail offer bird and plant identification tours and both land and water displays of garveys, sneakboxes, cruising yachts and party boats. Located at 120 West Main St., the Seaport offers hours’ worth of sightseeing, learning and relaxing – even a café. See tuckertonseaport.org.
