By Lauren Wanko
NJ Today
Over the past 40 years, the Keyport Historical Society collected more than 4,000 artifacts. But it took one, historic storm to wipe away years of work.
“It’s like the history of Keyport was washed away with the sea,” said Keyport Historical Society President Dana Weiner.
This is what’s left of The Steamboat Dock Museum. It was once home to antiques dating back to the 1700s. Weiner still sees artifacts buried in the rubble.
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“And we still don’t even now what we had and what we lost. We do know what we had so we can compare it to what we found and what people have recovered,” Weiner said.
Before the building was bulldozed, the historical society salvaged what they could. And residents are finding artifacts on their properties — three or four towns away from the Keyport Museum.
“Somebody brought a trunk that they found floating in the bay. It was an old trunk and when we got it to our storage space and opened it up, it had Civil War uniforms and other clothing items,” Weiner said.
As new antiques are discovered or returned, they’re brought to one of the storage units.
“This is part of a propeller made into a clock,” said Keyport Historical Society Historian Jack Jeandron.
Clocks, teapots, hats, lanterns, a porthole and a pharmacy log which dates back to 1883 all line the shelves. Other items were salvaged before the storm hit.
“We saved a lot of stuff before the storm. We had a policy of red-lining important items and taking them out before each storm,” Weiner said.
Curator Angel Jeandron and others are forced to re-catalog everything.
“It seems that the history just kind of floated away and some of it is floating back in and we’re trying to get a place,” Angel Jeandron said.
The Keyport Historical Society doesn’t have new home lined up just yet. That’s because they used to lease the building from the borough for $1 a year. The historical society says there are no plans to rebuild it.
But members plan to rebuild their collection.
“What we’re hoping that this tragedy will bring is that people, first of all, will come together and want to save Keyport’s history by not only giving us things they recovered from after the storm, but items that they’ve had in their family that was Keyport history, that they didn’t really want to part with,” Weiner said.
New items that will help keep history here alive.