Once you hit exit zero on the Garden State Parkway, there’s a Cape May in every direction – north, east, south and west. OK, let’s rephrase that.
Once upon a time there was a South Cape May and East Cape May but, alas, South Cape May is now about a half mile out into the Atlantic and East Cape May, while never a town unto itself, has been folded into Cape May. But there’s still a North Cape May and a West Cape May, plus lots of other Cape May places — Cape May Point, Cape May Court House, Cape May Harbor, Cape May Canal. You get the idea.
South Cape May
Let’s start with a little history. South Cape May once boasted lovely homes, a boardwalk, trolley service… and a 58-foot elephant, if you can believe that! Now the homes are gone, the trolley tracks are underwater and old Jumbo the Elephant is nothing but a memory.
The huge, tin-sided elephant — South Cape May’s most unusual resident — was built in 1884 as a promotional gimmick to help sell property between the ocean and the Cape Island Turnpike, now Sunset Boulevard. The pachyderm was named “Light of Asia” but local residents referred to it as Jumbo. Built at a cost of $97,000, it was one of three elephants along the East Coast (you can still visit Lucy the Elephant in Margate, N.J.). It never did much for property sales, but for 10 cents people could climb to the top and enjoy a breathtaking view of the ocean and Cape May. The elephant was a financial failure and eventually fell into disrepair. It was torn down around 1900. A nor’easter in 1903 was the beginning of disasters that would eventually doom the tiny town of South Cape May.
The Victorian architectural influence of Cape May extended to South Cape May, although some of the cottages along the beach were built in a Spanish style with red clay roofs. Those particular homes were buried in sand after a storm in 1942. Then, in 1950, what local residents describe as a tidal wave from Cape Island Creek ripped through South Cape May to Fifth Avenue in West Cape May, tearing off parts of houses and leaving debris on Sunset Boulevard that was waist-high.
Several homes were moved to First and Second avenues in Cape May before the encroaching ocean swallowed up the town, including streets like Mount Vernon Avenue that went from the southern end of Cape May to St. Mary’s Convent at the Point. Bayshore Road now ends at Sunset Boulevard although it originally went through South Cape May to the ocean.
The land east of Sunset Boulevard between Cape May and the Point is now owned by the Nature Conservancy, and several trails follow the paths of these old streets.
North Cape May
Although Lower Township was settled in the late 1600s by whaler yeomen from New England, North Cape May, a community within the township, was not fully developed until the 1940s, when several developers laid out streets with names that perpetuated the area’s earliest families — Eldredge, Hildreth, Hughes — and built affordable ranch-style homes after World War II for returning servicemen. The town stretches along the Delaware Bay from the Cape May – Lewes Ferry north and westerly toward the parkway. The bayside, now lined with multi-story new homes offering panoramic views of the bay, dolphins frolicking just offshore and sunsets to rival Key West, also hosts migrating shorebirds and thousands of horseshoe crabs that come ashore every spring (as they have for perhaps millions of years) to lay eggs that birds journeying from as far away as Chile need to continue their flights.
The Cape May Canal that borders a portion of North Cape May and divides the township was constructed during World War II to provide safe passage for vessels. In 1964 the Delaware River and Bay Authority started ferry service across the bay from the end of the canal to the Delaware side at Lewes. In the 1920s, the SS Atlantus, one of four concrete ships built as an experiment during World War I when steel was scarce, was towed from Norfolk, Va. to Cape May to be used as a dock for ferry service across Delaware Bay. In a high wind, the ship slipped its mooring and ran aground just off the end of Sunset Boulevard at Cape May Point where it quickly became a popular attraction. Today, not much remains of the Atlantus but the Cape May – Lewes Ferry continues to transport visitors and vehicles back and forth across the bay. Now a popular way to get back and forth between Lewes and Cape May, the ferry also hosts a variety of fun events from wine cruises to fireworks trips, shuttle service and family fun.
Harpoons on the Bay, a landmark by other names over the years along the bay and the only bayside restaurant, is a favorite spot during the summer for food, fun and of course, those spectacular sunsets.
East Cape May
In the early days of the 20th century, when Cape May seemed on the verge of decline with aging hotels and little else, a group of businessmen and developers decided to invest in the east end of town. The project promised yacht clubs, golf courses and amenities as fashionable as Newport, the popular playground of the Vanderbilts and other nouveau riche scions of industry.
Unfortunately that gamble did not pay off and most of the men went bankrupt. The promoters envisioned a modern section of the town that would restore the resort to its earlier prominence and popularity. The boardwalk and Beach Avenue were extended eastward; the million-dollar Hotel Cape May was planned, along with a deep harbor to accommodate ocean steamships.
In 1910 the dredge working on the harbor project sank in a freak accident, and the most important part of the East Cape May Project — the construction of the Hotel Cape May — was plagued with construction accidents and labor issues. It finally opened two years later than expected and at twice the anticipated cost.
Peter Shields, a wealthy businessman from Pittsburgh and the first president of the Cape May Real Estate Company, built a magnificent Georgian-revival home in the then remote eastern end of town. The following year, his 15-year-old son Earl was killed in a boating accident about the same time as his company was forced into bankruptcy. Shields resigned and returned to Pittsburgh with his family.
The next president and a major stock holder were killed instantly when their automobile was hit by a train at a nearby railroad crossing. Nelson Graves, a wealthy Philadelphia manufacturer, took over and temporarily revived East Cape May before he, too, went bankrupt.
The Hotel Cape May, later known as the Christian Admiral under the ownership of the controversial Rev. Carl McIntire, was demolished in 1996. Today the Peter Shields mansion is an inn and elegant restaurant, overlooking the beach where the Cape May Automobile Club once sponsored races with Henry Ford and Louis Chevrolet.
West Cape May
Perhaps you’ve never noticed a little street in West Cape May named Goldbeaten Alley right off Broadway. Not many people have. Nor do they realize it got its name from a gold beating company there where men pounded strips of gold into wafer-thin sheets, and women carefully cut the thin sheets into squares to edge Bible pages and other projects.
Although settled earlier than its neighbors — Cape Island and Sea Grove — West Cape May never enjoyed the same popularity with early visitors, perhaps because it did not have access to the ocean. Despite that, several magnificent homes were constructed including the Wilbraham Mansion built in 1840 by John Wilbraham, a wealthy industrialist, across from a park that now bears his name. In 1898, Dr. Albert Stevens built a Victorian Queen Anne Classic home for his bride Bessie, also on Myrtle Avenue, that included a unique floating staircase suspended from the third floor turret. Both mansions are now popular bed and breakfast inns along with several other historic homes in the borough.
West Cape May is a great place for a morning bike ride or an afternoon stroll to get an up close and personal look along the side streets where many of the homes are craftsman-style, built from kits or blueprints from Sears Roebuck or Montgomery Ward.
In 1926, with talk of ferry service across the bay to link New Jersey and Delaware at a fever pitch, the county freeholders paved the Cape Island Turnpike, a shell-covered road that connected Cape May Point with Cape May. The new road was named Sunset Boulevard. During excavation work the developers uncovered burial mounds, skeletons and artifacts on the old Reeves farm, once owned by a man who started the goldbeating industry and later served as mayor of the borough. The relics confirmed that the earliest residents of the peninsula were Lenni Lenape Indians.
The town is filled with history, homes, some great BYOB restaurants and a community park that hosts a variety of events including the world famous Lima Bean Festival every October, a tribute to the acres of lima beans once grown on farms in the area. For nearly 50 years, the West Cape May Christmas Parade has been one of the largest holiday parades in the area.
There you have it…. Cape Towns – the north, east, south and west of this end of the Cape May County peninsula!
There are several great books written by local authors detailing the history of Cape May and surrounding towns. One of the newest books is “Remembering South Cape May” by Joseph Burcher.