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Murray Grove

Buildings and structures in Ocean County, New JerseyLacey Township, New JerseyNew Jersey geography stubsUnitarian Universalism stubs

Murray Grove is a Unitarian Universalist retreat and conference center in the Lanoka Harbor section of Lacey Township, New Jersey United States, traditionally considered the site where Universalism in America began. In 1770, Thomas Potter, an unlettered but inspired Universalist landowner living in what was then called Good Luck, New Jersey, encountered John Murray after Murray's vessel was grounded in nearby Barnegat Bay. Learning that Murray was both a Universalist and a preacher, Potter prevailed on him to preach the gospel of universal love in the meetinghouse Potter had built for that express purpose ten years earlier. Despite serious misgivings and initial resistance, Murray gave his first Universalist sermon on the North American continent on September 30, 1770. Taking the experience as a sign that God wanted him to dedicate his life to preaching Universalism, he went on to minister to the first Universalist congregation in the United States, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and later to be centrally involved in the founding of the Universalist Church of America. Universalist pilgrims began trekking to Good Luck in the 1830s. Unable to purchase the meetinghouse, they created what they called Murray Grove and, over time, erected the Potter Memorial Chapel for worship services and Murray Grove House for accommodations. It has been a national center of Universalism for over a century and, since the merger of the Universalists with the Unitarians in 1960 as Unitarian Universalism, remains a vital and active Unitarian Universalist gathering and pilgrimage site. Murray Grove offers historical tours as well as space for groups to hold their own retreats and conferences. Regular programs are presented, especially including the Homecoming celebration the last Saturday of each September.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Murray Grove (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Murray Grove
Church Lane,

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N 39.8546 ° E -74.179 °
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Church Lane
08734
New Jersey, United States
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Lanoka Harbor, New Jersey

Lanoka Harbor is an unincorporated community located within Lacey Township, in Ocean County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Lanoka Harbor and Murray Grove were established in the mid-18th century and are representative of the typical bay town, often referred to as the "Barnegat Bay resorts." The communities fronting the bay relied on the products of forest trade and sea, including a substantial oyster industry, long before the railroad brought resort trade. Murray Grove is further renowned as the "birthplace of Universalism in America," where the first Universalist sermon in the United States was preached. The Unitarian influence remained in the community, with the establishment of the Murray Grove Universalist and Unitarian Retreat and Conference Center in the early 1800s. The community of Lanoka Harbor was named after the abundance of oak trees located along George Lane; with the original name being "Lanes Oaks", which was eventually shortened to "Lanoka". In 1924, Samuel Rogers added "Harbor" in an attempt to attract tourism to the shore community. Located within Lanoka Harbor is the Lacey Township School District; which includes Lacey Township High School, Lanoka Harbor Elementary School, Mill Pond Elementary School, and Cedar Creek Elementary School. Lanoka Harbor receives emergency services from Lanoka Harbor EMS (Squad 26), Lanoka Harbor Fire Company (Station 61), Lacey Township Underwater Rescue and Recovery (Squad 47) and the Lacey Township Police Department.

Berkeley Township School District

The Berkeley Township School District is a community public school district that is responsible for the education of children in pre-kindergarten through sixth grade from Berkeley Township, in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States.As of the 2019–20 school year, the district, comprised of four schools, had an enrollment of 2,479 students and 201.5 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 12.3:1.The district is classified by the New Jersey Department of Education as being in District Factor Group "B", the second-lowest of eight groupings. District Factor Groups organize districts statewide to allow comparison by common socioeconomic characteristics of the local districts. From lowest socioeconomic status to highest, the categories are A, B, CD, DE, FG, GH, I and J.Students in public school for seventh through twelfth grades attend the schools of the Central Regional School District, which serves students from the municipalities of Berkeley Township, Island Heights, Ocean Gate, Seaside Heights and Seaside Park. Schools in the district (with 2019–20 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics) are Central Regional Middle School with 842 students in grades 7 and 8 and Central Regional High School with 1,568 students in grades 9 - 12. The high school district's board of education is comprised of nine members, who are directly elected by the residents of the constituent municipalities to three-year terms of office on a staggered basis, with three seats up for election each year. Seats on the high school district's board of education are allocated based on the population of the constituent municipalities, with Berkeley Township allocated five of the board's nine seats.

Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station
Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station

Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Station was a single unit 636 MWe boiling water reactor power plant in the United States. The plant is located on an 800-acre (3.2 km2) site adjacent to Oyster Creek in the Forked River section of Lacey Township in Ocean County, New Jersey. At the time of its closure, the facility was owned by Exelon Corporation and, along with unit 1 at Nine Mile Point Nuclear Generating Station, was the oldest operating commercial nuclear power plant in the United States. The plant first started commercial operation on December 23, 1969, and is licensed to operate until April 9, 2029, but Oyster Creek was permanently shut down in September 2018. The plant got its cooling water from Barnegat Bay, a brackish estuary that empties into the Atlantic Ocean through the Barnegat Inlet. At the time of shutdown, Oyster Creek was one of four licensed nuclear power reactors in New Jersey. The others are the two units at the Salem Nuclear Power Plant, and the one unit at Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station. As of January 1, 2005, New Jersey ranked 9th among the 31 states with nuclear capacity for total MWe generated. In 2003, nuclear power generated over one half of the electricity in the state.In 1999, GPU agreed to sell the Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant to AmerGen Energy for $10 million. AmerGen was later purchased by Exelon in 2003. Exelon fully integrated AmerGen's former assets, including Oyster Creek, in early 2009.The reactor was shut down on September 17, 2018.In September 2019, Ocean Wind, a proposed 1,100 MWe offshore wind farm, with the approval of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, secured the capacity interconnection rights to bring the power generated by the wind farm on-shore at Oyster Creek. It can use the existing power infrastructure of the plant, after some upgrades, to connect to the regional transmission grid.In January 2021, Holtec suggested that a "new generation" nuclear plant might be built at the location.