For the citizens of the village of Tuckerton, keeping its seaport operating was a matter of economic life or death, and the key to that was making sure the inlet at the southern end of Long Beach was kept open. In 1838, the Army Corps of Engineers began building breakwaters in an attempt to stop the erosion of Tucker’s Island, which was thought to be causing the inlet to slowly close. The job was an enormous one given the technology of the day and a run of bad weather, Major John L.