Editing Barnegat Light, New Jersey (section)

===Brownsville===
In 1854, John Maxon Brown, a wrecker from Manasquan, bought much of the land that makes up present-day Barnegat Light. This purchase included the acquisition of Herring House, which he renamed the Ashley House for his wife's family. The family owned so much of the tiny town that people in the area colloquially called it Brownsville during this time. The powerful inlet caused a southward drift that began to threaten the 1834 lighthouse, which was also in poor condition due to substandard construction and was the subject of voluminous complaints from mariners due to its weak light. The lighthouse collapsed into the inlet in 1857, but not before a temporary wooden tower had been put into service while a superior replacement lighthouse was erected from 1857 to 1859.

The Brown family left the island in the 1870s after John Ashley Brown, John M. Brown's son, by then a ship captain, died in a storm at sea.<ref>Karch, p. 6.</ref> In 1874, the Brown's sold the Ashley House to "Uncle" Charlie Martin, the former manager and cook. The [[United States Life-Saving Service]] built Station No. 17 on East 5th street in 1872, replacing an 1840s house of refuge nearby. The new station was later expanded in the 1890s. In the late 1860s, a general store and post office was constructed near the intersection of West 4th Street and Central Avenue. The general store was originally run by Lloyd and Lucretia Butterworth and provided limited supplies—largely due to the difficulty in transporting goods to the remote Island location in then equally remote coastal New Jersey. In 1919, the general store was purchased by the Applegate family who ran it well into the 20th century.