On the Way to Cape May

How times change. I still remember a quote from Vic DiSylvester, the then-county tourism director back in the late ‘80s, who said “It used to be all you had to do was throw on a fresh coat of paint and turn on the lights and they would come,” referring to the annual influx of summer visitors. Times certainly have changed, with a struggling economy and vastly different patterns in travel than those Vic was used to.
Here in Cape May at the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts & Humanities, we’ve had to change, too. I admit it: One of the attractions of MAC, for me, was the concept of working somewhere that was perhaps a little removed from the frantic pace of the rest of the world, and maybe a little exempt from constant change.
Ha! Maybe our cloak of history gives an outward appearance of a pond without ripples, but we’re as subject to the pressures to constantly change and evolve as any business or organization in a town that serves the tourism industry. Maybe even more so, because – as we look forward – we must also keep an eye on the history that’s behind us.
For many years, history purists at MAC were adamant that we would never augment our tours of the Physick Estate with talk of ghosts and hauntings. Interest in the supernatural has evolved over the past few decades until you can’t turn on TV most nights without catching a series whose leading character communes with the spirit world.
Naturally, this interest doesn’t stay home when those loyal viewers go on vacation, hence the interest in Cape May’s otherworldly residents. And as much as we at MAC are dedicated to our mission of preserving and celebrating our history, we also have an obligation to visitors and residents to change with the times and to present new stories of the past. After all, if we go on vacation, we don’t want someone telling us what we should hear, see and do… we want to escape from our everyday world of strict boundaries.
When you stop and think about it, there are plenty of reasons why Cape May should be home to spirits. The town, and the Physick Estate itself, have such a rich history as a retreat. This was the home away from home for those from the cities who sought the physically and spiritually uplifting and healing natural elements of the seashore. And if you had your choice for an afterlife, would you rather spend it in the stinky stuffy city or here at the shore? No contest!
The believers, here in Cape May as in other cities and towns around the country that seek to satisfy their visitors’ interest in spirits, tend to outweigh the disbelievers. As in everything else our mission dictates, we have proceeded with great deliberation, seeking to work only with those individuals with a reputation for credibility, even in this subjective area.
A Historic Haunts tour will not be filled with knocking, moaning, or bone-chilling wails, but it will present the findings and ask “Why not?”
So what we have, with ghost tours and paranormal investigations at the Physick Estate and elsewhere around Cape May, is not a deviation from or corruption of its history, but rather a new chapter. Visitors to the Estate get the best of both worlds, so to speak. They get to learn what life was like more than 150 years ago and they get to see that for some, 1879 was just yesterday.
Who said history is dull?
— Barraclough is director of marketing and communications at MAC