Maureen Cawley

In 1869, America’s Transcontinental Railroad was completed, and passengers could board a train in Philadelphia and reach San Francisco in less than a week. Travel to the Jersey Cape, however, was much more complicated.

Prior to the establishment of the Cape May-Millville line by the West Jersey Railroad in 1863, visitors from Philadelphia and New York reached the resort town of Cape Island (now Cape May) by steamboat. The journey, roughly 100 miles, took almost a full day, and once visitors arrived at the southern tip of the county, they rarely ventured north.

The railroad changed that. According to H. Gerald MacDonald, a local railroad expert, the track from Cape May to Cape May Court House was in operation by June of 1863. The first locomotive to serve that line was named The Congress, and since the track was not yet complete, it arrived from Philadelphia the same way the tourists did – by boat.

According to MacDonald, it is believed that in August of 1863 the first train made its way from Millville to Cape May, making stops along the way in tiny communities like Woodbine and South Seaville. By the end of that year, the Civil War had ended and Cape May County saw unprecedented growth. The railroad brought industry and newcomers to the region. Cape May County was finally connected to the outside world.

When Frederick Swope traveled to Cape May County in 1879 to purchase land from Humphrey Cresse, he could have made the train trip from Philadelphia in less than four hours. To inspect his new property in Five Mile Beach, however, Swope would need to wait until low tide and wade through the muddy wetlands of Grassy Sound.

The land that Humphrey Cresse sold to Frederick Swope was used as a remote grazing ground for the county’s cattle. The barrier island was inhabited only by hearty Scandinavian Fishermen, who had arrived by boat and settled into tiny fishing shacks along the shore. Abundant wildlife lived in its wind-battered forest. While Cape May County was now connected to hubs in Philadelphia and New York, Swope’s new real estate venture on Five Mile Beach was connected to nothing.

This did not discourage Frederick Swope. He was an entrepreneur with ties to the railroad, and by 1882, he was in business on Five Mile Beach.

He reorganized The Five Mile Beach Improvement Company into the new Anglesea Land Company and began selling lots to investors and building summer cottages for wealthy Philadelphians. Perhaps most importantly, however, he began work on a rail spur that connected Anglesea to the new station at Gravelly Run on the West Jersey line. In 1883, the station was renamed Burleigh, in honor of John J. Burleigh of Camden City, the chief operator of the West Jersey line for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Trains were quicker than wagons and steam boats, but by today’s standards, rail travel was far from luxurious. Railroad passengers grew accustomed to the deafening roar of the steam engine and the screeching of brakes. Dark clouds blew from the locomotive’s stack, and passengers expected to be covered in a film of black soot when they reached their destination.

Passengers on Swope’s new rail line endured even greater inconveniences. The railroad line to Anglesea was laid across the damp sod of Grassy Sound. At high tide, tracks would shift, derailing the train, and stranding its well-heeled passengers in the mud. Sometimes the train would sit in the wetlands for hours, while the passengers and crew waited for low tide so the track could be adjusted and the “Mud Hen” could get on its way.

While Swope worked on developing the north end of the island, Phillip and Latimer Baker had their eye on the middle of the island. They formed the Holly Beach Improvement Company in 1882 and set to work attracting investors.

Like Swope, they encountered transportation issues, but by 1885, tracks were laid from Anglesea to about Burk Avenue in Holly Beach. In 1888, West Jersey railroad acquired Swope’s line, and transportation became much more reliable.

Toward the end of the decade, Reading Railroad made its move to compete with Pennsylvania Railroad’s service to the Jersey Cape. Its first line into the county extended from Winslow Junction in Camden County to Sea Isle Junction in the south. Eventually Reading Railroad connected with Wildwood Junction near Rio Grande and continued into the Oak Avenue Station.

Phillip and Latimer Baker were quick to use the railroad as a way to promote the resort. As early as 1890, they were scheduling train excursions to the island and offering “Special Inducements” to investors who visited for the Decoration Day Celebration on May 30. A tourism flyer from that year invites visitors to enjoy “the Beginning of Wildwood’s Greatest Season” for a $1.00 round trip fare from Philadelphia. This was the beginning of Wildwood’s historic Memorial Day opening.

Besides the Decoration Day celebration, visitors came to see the opening of the Hotel Dayton, the first grand hotel to open in Wildwood. Benjamin Harrison, the Twenty-Third President of the United States, was there for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, and from then on, the resort was officially on the map.

Passengers who traveled on the West Jersey line knew they had arrived when they heard the conductor call, “Anglesea Junction – change for Grassy Sounds, Hereford, Anglesea, Wildwood and Holly Beach.”

Vintage Photographs from the Wildwood Historical Society show the pageantry of Wildwood’s early train travel. Trees line the station and the arriving train seems to stretch on for miles. Horse-drawn buggies wait to transport arriving visitors. Fine ladies stroll along the platform, hidden beneath bonnets and parasols, while upright gentlemen hold tight to their straw hats. A hodgepodge parade of brass instruments and drums makes their way through the crowd, and children laugh and look on.

By 1903, 16 trains a day pulled into the Grassy Sound Station, and every summer promised to be “Wildwood’s Greatest Season.”

(Originally publlished in Wildwood Properties)

It was a cold Friday evening in January, and the few saloons in Wildwood that remained opened for the winter were packed. It wasn’t New Years Eve, but revelers drank with the same sense of urgency. Last call on January 16, 1920 was final.

The Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited the manufacture, sale or transportation of alcohol, became the law of the land.

New Jersey did not want Prohibition. The state’s governor Edward Edward’s ran on a promise to make his state “as wet as the Atlantic Ocean.” When the time came, however, he had little choice. Though New Jersey refused to ratify the amendment, federal authorities made it clear that the law would be enforced.

Herbert Hoover called Prohibition a “noble experiment,” and the movement’s goals were noble. By abolishing alcohol consumption, temperance advocates hoped to reduce crime and poverty, and to improve the nation’s quality of life. Unfortunately, thirteen years of Prohibition had the opposite effect.

An elaborate underworld developed to quench the nation’s thirst. Alcohol was smuggled into the country on ships from Canada and overseas. America’s massive coastline insured that rumrunners could unload their cargo largely undetected, and when necessary they bribed authorities to look the other way.

Wildwood’s harbors and coastline made it a bootlegger’s dream. Freighters dropped anchor beyond the three mile limit and became offshore wholesalers of illegal spirits. Some of these boats catered only to professional bootleggers, but others sold liquor by the case to fisherman and recreational boaters. Many Americans developed a love of boating during this period, and rentals of pleasure boats increased sharply.

The United States Coast Guard was left with the formidable task of policing the coast. They had 75 patrol boats and 12,000 miles of coastline to patrol. Hundreds of rumrunners in powerful skiffs sped through waterways undetected or simply outran the cumbersome government vessels. When the Coast Guard obtained high-powered motorboats to aid in their effort, they had some limited success, but the agency was ill-equipped to meet the challenge.

In June of 1924, Domenic Cappachione of Baker Avenue was arrested by Captain Charles Wright, Jr. of the Anglesea Coast Guard. According to the Wildwood Leader, Cappachione’s boat, the “Loretta,” was intercepted by Captain Wright when he attempted to purchase liquor from “a schooner 16 miles off-shore.” Wright declared he was “determined that rumrunners should not bring the stuff in through Hereford Inlet.” Apparently, he was far more dedicated to the mission than some of his fellow sailors.

A local news article from this period reported that the Coast Guard had obtained Loening amphibian planes to become the agency’s “eyes.” Officials hoped that “all fraternizing of coast guards with rumrunners (would) be reduced to a minimum through the activities of the planes.”

Ottens Harbor and Hereford Inlet both became hubs for smuggling “hooch.” Liquor was also brought right onto the beach, where it was transferred to trucks and delivered to warehouses or “speakeasies.”

Local industries became fronts for the clandestine business of alcohol sales. Coney’s Express, a trucking company, owned by local resident, K.K. Kirby, was largely a cover for his bootlegging business. Consolidated Fisheries in North Wildwood packed liquor into its fish barrels and shipped the cargo north to Atlantic City.

Residents of rural Cape May County turned to the production of moonshine or “bathtub gin.” The granddaughter of a Wildwood club owner reported that her grandfather frequently rode out “to the country” to buy liquor from farmers. The state police found dozens of stills in the rural communities of Belleplain, Woodbine and Marintown, according to Jeffrey M. Dorwart’s book, Cape May County, New Jersey.

Wildwood police conducted raids rarely. When they did, it was usually in conjunction with federal and state authorities. In February of 1923, the Leader reported that local police and state troopers conducted a raid on four area “speakeasies.” Charges of a “disorderly house” or “possession of alcohol” were brought against the offenders. Steep fines were imposed for these offenses, but they rarely had a lasting effect.

There are reports that many of Wildwood’s drinking establishments remained open in spite of Prohibition. Moore’s benefited from its proximity to the sea, and according to their website, liquor from England and Russia was practically delivered to their door. Some establishments, like Hogan’s Beverages and the Elmira Hotel, flouted the law and advertised the sale of beer in plain sight, according to one local source.

Others preferred a more discreet approach, and a ring of “speakeasies” operated around Otten’s Harbor. The proprietors of these “juice joints” became experts at hiding their illegal activities. A secret password or membership card was all a thirsty citizen needed to gain admittance. Liquor stills were imbedded in walls and fitted with rubber hoses for dispensing whiskey or gin. If a raid occurred, the precious liquid was well-hidden behind the plaster.

In 1982, Benjamin Lauriello found two of these stills while completing renovations on a building at 501 Montgomery Avenue. The copper tanks were wrapped in burlap and embedded in the wall. Local sources reported to the Atlantic City Press that Lauriello’s building had once housed a “speakeasy” called Chester Dick’s Harbor Inn.

According to one source, the “inn” was also a brothel. Customers were “entertained” in a private room upstairs, and liquor was delivered to them an on a dumb waiter that had also been installed in the building.

The tanks from Chester Dick’s are currently on display at the Wildwood Historical Museum on Pacific Avenue. The surface of one tank is marked with holes. While no one is sure how the tank was punctured, museum curator, Robert Scully, Jr., believes the holes are possibly the result of a law enforcement effort to locate the stills during a raid.

Some citizens did remain “dry” during Prohibition, but for others the “forbidden fruit” proved too enticing. The black market was so established that breaking the law became routine. A subculture of gangsters gained power and notoriety across the country. Wildwood, though it had no Al Capone, saw a steep increase in violent criminal activity.

Gun battles erupted at sea between Coast Guard patrols and rumrunners in clear view of beachgoers. The city’s chief of police, Oakford M. Cobb, was shot and wounded by a gunman. The Wildwood Leader reported that Charles Pantalone, alias “Bobby Dillon” and Cosmos Cappachione were indicted for hijacking in September of 1930.

Criminal activity did not scare tourists away from the town. In fact, the opposite was true. Smuggled booze brought adult visitors to the town in search of entertainment, and bootleggers like K.K. Kirby became popular public figures. In fact, Kirby was elected to Wildwood’s city council in April of 1932.

In 1931, a presidential commission reported what most citizens already knew – the “noble experiment” had failed. The Great Depression brought additional pressure on the government to legalize the liquor industry and provide jobs to the thousands who were out of work. Prohibition had sparked the “Roaring Twenties,” an era of lawlessness and rebellion. Congress passed the Twenty-First Amendment on February 20, 1933, and Prohibition was repealed.

In Cape May County, 72 percent of voters approved the repeal of Prohibition. New regulatory laws were passed. Liquor licenses were issued to establishments that had operated illegally for more than a decade. Bootleggers invested their fortunes in new businesses in The Wildwoods.

The era of Prohibition seemed to disappear as quickly as it came but Wildwood’s reputation as an exciting, tourist destination was established - the island was as wet as the Atlantic.

(Originally publlished in Wildwood Properties)

The enemy ship cruised silently off the coast, but residents of Holly Beach were ready. More than once they had watched Menhaden steamers troll beyond the shoreline. The ships dipped their nets into the water, and pirated away with thousands of tiny menhaden, or pogy, fish. This time, however, the islanders had a plan.
It was 1885, the year that Holly Beach incorporated into a town. The island was still a wild place, where wild cattle and hogs roamed freely in the woods. There were fewer than 500 residents, but like the Scandinavian fisherman who populated the shores of Anglesea, Holly Beach residents depended on fishing for survival. Islanders had little tolerance for the trespassers who fished pogy from local waters. The law might not have been on their side, but it didn’t dissuade these early pioneers from taking the matter into their own hands.

When the steamer Samuel Allen set out to sea that summer morning, hoping to harvest ugly bait fish from the waters offshore from Holly Beach, they had no idea just how seriously “Holly Beachers” took their fish.

According to an article that appeared in the Cape May County Gazette on July 25, 1885, the ship “came within gunshot of shore, (and) the fisherman were received with a volley of rifle balls from Holly Beachers.” The ships inhabitants scrambled for cover, and soon took off for distant waters.

When questioned about the incident, the local assailants promised, “A cannon has been procured for the next time the steamers trespass.”

The steamers did return, and though they were never warmly welcomed, they were also never met with cannon fire. Instead, they became part of the booming and diverse fishing industry.

The waters around Five Mile Beach had always been fertile fishing ground. The Lenni Lenapi tribes fished here frequently. They feasted on striped bass while vacationing along its shores in the summer, and they used the menhaden fish as fertilizer to grow corn.

Early settlers to Cape May County learned from the Native Americans and fished these waters, too. Mainland residents established oyster beds in the island’s marshes. As early as 1632, whalers from present-day Town Bank landed their catches on the shores of Five Mile Beach, and by 1848, a Life Saving Station was established and manned in Anglesea to rescue fisherman in distress.

By the 1870’s, fishing shacks were erected along the coast in Anglesea. Their occupants - many from Sweden, Norway and Denmark – were the island’s first settlers, and the area soon became a major fishing hub. Commercial vessels from the Hereford Fish Company operated from Mace’s Boat Landing in the vicinity of Moore’s Inlet. During the week of July 25, 1894, 140,000 pounds of fish were packed and shipped from the harbor in Anglesea.

Sport fishing charters and party boats were also available from the inlet. One local captain, Joshua Shivers, advertised his expertise in Philadelphia, promising to help recreational fishermen plan a successful outing from Mace’s Landing.

Further south, Holly Beach founder, Phillip Baker, improved Holly Beach by arranging for a harbor to be carved out near Burk Ave (and what is now Park Blvd.). Tourism brochures boasted “a splendid inland waterway, three thousand feet long and a thousand feet wide” in Holly Beach Harbor. 44,560 pounds of fish were shipped from Holly Beach in October of 1895.

Early fishing methods were not very efficient by today’s standards. Two men would typically row out to sea sixteen miles from the beach in a sixteen-foot dory. After twelve to fourteen hours of fishing with hooks and line, they could expect to bring in one half to three barrels of fish. From there, the fish were iced and transported by wagon to the freight station. Fisherman organized in 1899, and formed the Hook and Line Fisherman’s Association, but this type of fishing was short-lived. The dories were soon replaced by gas-powered boats; ships grew in size and fishing methods improved. Trawl nets and “purse-seines” were eventually the preferred method of procuring fish commercially.In 1906, North Wildwood real estate developer Henry H. Ottens turned his attention to expanding the Holly Beach Harbor. Ottens brought a marine railway to the harbor, and an onsite ice house to simplify the shipping process.

By the 1920’s, Anglesea boats preferred pulling into Ottens’ harbor, at least in part, because deeper water was found there. The area quickly became the hub of Wildwood’s commercial fishing industry. Records from the first six months of 1928, indicate that 100,000 barrels of fish, each weighing 200 pounds were packed and shipped from Wildwood to New York and Philadelphia.

Early settlers to the island brought with them a keen sense of adventure and ambition. Unwilling to allow the major commercial fishing companies to make all the profits, several began to undertake the private enterprise of Pound Fishing.

These fisherman set traps, or pounds, for fish by staking huge semi-permanent nets in the sea. The fish would be forced into the nets and impounded there until the seaman harvested their catch. This method was dangerous, but it allowed entrepreneurial individuals to compete with bigger companies. Pound fishermen reaped huge benefits for their effort. The beach at Burk Avenue was a popular spot for pound fishing because the fish could be brought quickly to the freight station, which once operated from Davis Avenue near the current location of Wildwood’s City Hall.

Wildwood was well-known as a major commercial fishing center for much of its early history. Menhaden fishermen continued to sink their nets into the Atlantic near Wildwood’s shore. Menhaden fishing accounted for more than 30% of landings in Cape May County in 1957, according to New Jersey Department of Agriculture statistics. The Menhaden Plant on Rio Grande Avenue just off-shore from Wildwood provided work for nearly 200 county residents for several decades.

Fishing for menhaden continued to be controversial. No one who drove by the processing plant was indifferent to the smell, and opponents claimed the steamers polluted the water and removed valuable baitfish from the local population. Critics also claimed the steamers attracted sharks to the bathing beaches. Advocates of the menhaden plant fought the claim, but the menhaden population eventually dwindled and the plant closed in the 1980’s. Ironically, the foul-smelling fish plant was replaced by a wastewater treatment plant.

Visitors to Ottens’ Harbor today would see only a few commercial vessels. Declining fish populations, government regulation and the boom of real estate development on Wildwood’s coast have drastically changed the landscape.
Ottens’ Harbor Ice House has been replaced by luxury condominiums, and most commercial fishermen now dock in other ports in Cape May, Lower Township, or Atlantic City.

A few hardy seamen still pull in at Ottens’ Harbor, and as the weathered boats enter the harbor, past fleets of jet skis and personal watercraft, the lucky residents of Montgomery Avenue can still catch a glimpse of the island the way it used to be.

Tourism has slowly replaced commercial fishing in Wildwood, but that is not to say that all of Wildwood’s fishermen are gone. Thousands of sportsmen and women visit every year to troll the waters beyond Wildwood’s coast. Some use a “hook and line” from shore. Others charter boats, or set sail on party boats. Children dip crab pots into the bay at Grassy Sound.

Wildwood began as a fishing village, and its history is bound to the sea. Even those of us who have never dropped anchor or baited a hook are moved by its familiar images: fishing shacks along the coast, boats sailing out on the horizon, and hearty adventurers returning home to share their catch. Wildwood has always been passionate about fishing. It’s why the first visitors settled on its shores, and it’s why others keep coming back.

(Originally publlished in Wildwood Properties)