of the area known locally as Brownsville or Barnegat Beach with the dream of a new seaside resort for the coal-choked masses of Philadelphia that could compete with the booming business of Atlantic City. Starting in 1882 they constructed The Oceanic and San Souci hotels, grand cottages, and a few wide boulevards. Along with other local hoteliers, they brought a new branch of the railroad from Whiting, New Jersey to the island of Long Beach. By the late 1880s, Archer and his partners had come up with a master plan for Barnegat City, known today as Barnegat Light, and began marketing building lots back in the cities. Archer himself bought land for his family. Alas, he would not live to see the dream through. Dying in 1904, the parcels he owned passed to his three children. By 1926, lots including East 23rd Street passed to an Archer for the last time, one Franklin Archer Develin, named after his great-grandfather. A few years later, Develin sold to the Mutual Benefit Building & Loan Association of Tuckerton for $1.00. There were a few brief owners of the tiny cottages at 6 & 8 East 23rd Street, but by World War II my family owned both. Later, 6 East 23rd was sold by my grandfather. For all the history I’d found in the courthouse basement, I still didn’t have an answer for when our cottage was built and by whom. Many months later, I told the short version of the story to another long-time resident of 23rd Street, Frank Byrne, and that is when serendipity smiled upon us. “I remember a man back in
Moorestown who had a paint shop,” Frank mused. “Behind the counter, on the wall, he had this picture of two identical little cottages. They sure looked like yours.” You must be kidding me, I thought. It’s a small world sometimes, but this is ridiculous! “But I can’t remember his name,” he lamented. I rattled off a few before he lit up when I mentioned Franklin Archer Develin. On a whim, I ran back into the cottage, grabbed my laptop, and looked in the online white pages. Sure enough, Richard A. Develin, Jr. was listed in Moorestown. I called and left a message. When the phone rang one morning about two weeks later the answers I’d been searching for were finally found. Arch Develin, age ninety-five, told me his father, Archie, built the two cottages a few years before the crash of 1929. They used a carpenter in town, though he couldn’t remember his name. Arch told stories of some fine years spent in the cottages as a young boy. Nearly a century ago, a young boy and his parents built and loved these little cottages and these beaches. Since then, generations of children have grown to discover this same love, returning year after year, eventually with children of their own who would quickly fall under this cottage’s spell and the magical attraction of our little town. Benjamin Archer’s dream did come true in a fashion. And for those lucky enough to know the seaside treasure we call Barnegat Light, it is still a place where dreams are born. — Photography and text by Reilly Platten Sharp