Dr. Jonathan Pitney, who would one day be called the Father of Atlantic City, was acutely aware of the danger to mariners which existed along the beaches he regarded as otherwise beneficent. In 1820 this former scountry physician arrived in the Absecon area. He encouraged his patients and friends to take vacations in the area. By 1830 he had witnessed enough ship wrecks to realize a lighthouse was needed to assist the mariner. He began to petition for the beacon, and for the next 20 years his letters to the government fell on deaf ears. However, there were many areas of our growing nation crying out for lighthouses. Between 1820 and 1850 the number of aids to navigation in this country increased from 55 lighthouses and a handful of buoys to 325 lighthouses and lightships and numerous buoys, minor beacons and other aids. In fairness to the government, it wasn't as if the New Jersey coast was being ignored.
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