While Sea Bright's formal history starts in 1869, there was, in the early 1840's, a small cluster of wooden shacks nestled among the tall grass-topped sand dunes of the barrier beach.This was the village of Nauvoo. Meaning literally "beautiful of pleasant place".

New Jersey's Nauvoo might well have been named by Smith, as he visited Monmouth County in 1839. In any event, moved by Mormon influence, Nauvoo was the name chosen by local fisherman for their tiny settlement on the Jersey Shore.