Founding Originally part of
Burlington County, Little Egg Harbor took its name from the portion of a bay called Egg Harbor (known today as
Little Egg Harbor) by the Dutch sailors because of the eggs found in nearby
gull nests. The first known account of the town was made by Captain
Cornelius Jacobsen May in 1614. The first European to settle the township was
Hendrick Jacobs Falkenberg, who likely arrived by 1693 when he does not appear on a census of the Swedes along the
Delaware River, where he had lived for nearly three decades. Though he was from
Holstein (now in Germany), his first wife was a
Finn and part of the
Swedish community. Falkenberg settled on an tract of land that he had acquired from the
Lenni Lenape Native Americans in 1674, and a 1697 deed re-confirmed this earlier purchase. This tract included the two islands of Monhunk and Minnicunk later known as Osborn Island and Wills Island. Falkenberg was a linguist, fluent in the Lenape language, and was considered southern New Jersey's foremost language interpreter involving land transactions between the Indians and the European settlers, particularly the English
Quakers. The
affair at Little Egg Harbor took place in Little Egg Harbor on October 1778 during the
American Revolutionary War. British forces under
Major Patrick Ferguson were attacking American ships in the
Mullica River.
Casimir Pulaski and his newly raised troops were ordered to oppose his actions. Pulaski's Legion, along with three companies of light infantry, three troops of light horse, and one artillery detachment, came too late to be of great use against Ferguson's operations. But their arrival did stop Ferguson from raiding the iron works at
Batsto, and stemmed their attacks on privateers at The Forks of the Mullica River. They then set up camp on a farm. An American deserter, Lieutenant Gustav Juliet, found Ferguson and told him of Pulaski's encampment; he mentioned that morale there was fairly low, and security almost nonexistent, so that a surprise attack would be devastating. Ferguson promptly loaded 250 of his best men onto boats and rowed them, in the dark, some to Osborne Island. He then marched them a further to the site of the infantry outpost, which comprised 50 men a short distance from the main encampment. At first light, Ferguson ordered the attack; 45 American soldiers were killed and the remanining five taken prisoner. Pulaski eventually led his mounted troops up, causing Ferguson to retreat to his boats minus a few men that had fallen into American hands. A memorial on Radio Road commemorates the attack. Little Egg Harbor Township was formed on February 13, 1740, as
Egg Harbour Township from portions of
Northampton Township (now
Mount Holly), while the area was still part of
Burlington County. It was incorporated as one of New Jersey's 104 in the Township Act of 1798 by an act of the
New Jersey Legislature on February 21, 1798. While in Burlington County, portions of the township were taken to form
Washington Township (November 19, 1802) and
Bass River Township (March 30, 1864). Little Egg Harbor Township became part of Ocean County on March 30, 1891, after which further portions of the township were ceded to create
Long Beach Township (March 23, 1899) and
Tuckerton (February 18, 1901).
Tuckerton Wireless Tower The Tuckerton Wireless Tower (), at in height, was built in 1912 by the German "Hochfrequenzmaschinen Aktiengesellschaft Für Drahtlose Telegraphie" company (The High Frequency Machine Corporation for Wireless Telegraphy, often referred to as HOMAG) when the present-day
Mystic Island was called Hickory Island. The tower was used to communicate with an identical radio telegraph station in
Eilvese, Germany starting on Jun 19, 1914, less than two weeks before the
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The station continued to communicate with Eilvese until America entered World War I on
April 6, 1917. It is rumored that it was used to send the message to order the attack by a German
U-boat on the
RMS Lusitania. After President Wilson's Declaration of Neutrality, the President's Executive Order 2042 required the US Navy to take over the station on September 9, 1914, to assure the neutrality of messages sent to and from the station. However, the station continued to be operated by German nationals employed by HOMAG and continued to communicate only with the Eilvese radio station. When America entered the war, all U.S. radio stations were seized and shut down by Executive Order 2605A on April 30, 1917. The remaining German personnel at Tuckerton immediately became war prisoners and were replaced by U.S. Navy personnel. The Navy used the Tuckerton Radio Station for transatlantic communications while the naval radio stations in
New Brunswick, New Jersey and
Sayville, New York were undergoing major transmitter and antenna upgrades. Tuckerton was used for fleet broadcasts after installations of 200 kilowatt transmitters at New Brunswick and Sayville were completed in June 1918. After the war, the Tuckerton Wireless Station was included in German war reparations paid to America. Shortly afterwards, it was sold to
RCA which operated it until 1948 as a backup to their famous Radio Central facility in
Rocky Point, New York. The three huge anchor blocks still exist today, in a backyard on North Ensign Drive and in the middle of South Ensign Drive and Staysail Drive. Many smaller anchor blocks providing foundations for smaller towers that supported the
umbrella antenna are still visible in the lagoons. Remains of the large tower can be seen in scraps at the Giffordtown Museum.
Later history While the township was formed in the 1700s, Little Egg Harbor remained predominantly rural and undeveloped well into the late 20th century. It wasn't until the late 1950s until any major development was started. During this time, the construction of manufactured waterfront bungalows on
lagoons were built and marketed as vacation properties, most notably
Mystic Islands, Holly Lake Harbor, as well as Atlantis; the latter of which a "research home" was constructed to test hundreds of components and finishing materials for possible inclusion in model homes. Most of the population were seasonal residents from either
New York,
Philadelphia, or other parts of New Jersey. Several developments were constructed in the decades following around the Mystic Islands area, mostly consisting of townhomes, duplex, and small single-family homes meant to act as either vacation homes or year-round residence. In 1979,
Pinelands Regional High School opened in the growing township, serving students from Little Egg Harbor, Tuckerton, Bass River, and Eagleswood; those students formerly went to
Southern Regional High School in
Manahawkin. By the 2000s, the township was one of the fastest-growing in Ocean County, next to
Barnegat. The formerly sleepy township saw the development of several new housing developments, shopping centers, and offices. While 75% of the growth came from new retirement communities, the former resort town dubbed "Little Treasure on the Bay" saw an influx of year-round residents and families, becoming more of a suburb. On November 3, 2004, a fighter jet on a training mission from the 113th Wing of the District of Columbia
Air National Guard, based at
Andrews Air Force Base in
Maryland,
shot seven bullets into the roof of the Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School, and many others into the parking lot. Only a few custodians were in the school, and nobody was injured. The plane had been on a training mission at the
Warren Grove Gunnery Range, a area about from the school. The school was repaired during the New Jersey Teachers' Convention, using $519,000 paid by the Air Force to the school district. On the morning of August 28, 2011,
Tropical Storm Irene made its second U.S. landfall in
Brigantine, though initial reports placed it at the
Little Egg Inlet on the border with
Galloway Township. At the time it was believed to be the first hurricane to make landfall in New Jersey since 1903, but later analysis by the
National Hurricane Center determined that the storm had weakened to
tropical storm status by the time it made its second landfall. On October 29, 2012,
Hurricane Sandy caused widespread damage and flooding to the township, damaging roughly 4,000 homes, especially in the Mystic Island section. On the one-year anniversary of the storm, New Jersey Governor
Chris Christie visited the township's Community Center to celebrate both the reopening of the storm-damaged building as well as the recovery efforts from the storm. ==Geography==