NORTH WILDWOOD – North Wildwood City Clerk and Historian Scott Jett said the former Borough of Anglesea, as North Wildwood was called until 1906, started to see a lot of development in the early 20th century, and along with it came the need for schools.
Giving an Anglesea Day presentation to a group of students from North Wildwood’s Margaret Mace School, Jett explained that there was a time when there was no Margaret Mace – or any other school – on the island.
The first permanent structure on the island was the Hereford Inlet Lighthouse, and the only people were the lighthouse keeper, his family, and a few fishermen.
That started to change when Frederick Snopes purchased Anglesea in 1879 and hired William Tompkins as his agent. Streets were laid out and Tompkins built his own house behind the Germantown Hotel, what is the Anglesea Pub today, but was known for many years as Bishop’s High Steps.
The living room of Tompkins’ house, which remained until the 1960s, became the first school. Parents had to pay tuition, and by the time there was a City Council, it appropriated $50 for the school.
More people began coming to Anglesea and homes and hotels were being built, so, in 1886, the council appropriated $1,943 to build a school at Chestnut and Central avenues. The contract with the builder allowed him to build the school from Aug. 24 to Oct. 15.
In 1906, development once again necessitated a school for the southern end of North Wildwood, and a small school opened at 17th Avenue. By the next year, it had been decided that a “central” school would better serve the community and the three-story Central Avenue School was constructed on Central Avenue between 9th and 10th avenues.
It opened with 40 students and in three weeks had an enrollment of 56. The old school at Chestnut and Central was converted into apartments.
“The population kept growing and by 1920, the school on Central Avenue couldn’t fit all the kids,” Jett said.
In 1923, the council authorized the purchase of an entire block where Margaret Mace School now sits and further authorized $115,000 to buy the land and build and equip the school.
“Later, council authorized $100,000 to build an auditorium and gym,” Jett said.
This new North Wildwood school was only expected to handle the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. Older students would attend the high school in Wildwood.
As the Great Depression struck, and the population decreased, the Central Avenue School was closed in 1930. In 1940, there were no students at the school and the building was leased to the U.S. Navy prior to the U.S. entering World War II.
Jett said the Class of 1942 at the North Wildwood school, a ninth-grade class, voted to donate money it collected for a class trip to instead buy war bonds to support the war effort.
After the war, Jett said, the Navy moved out and the Central Avenue School sat vacant until 1956, when it was converted into a recreation center. It was torn down in 1976, when the current North Wildwood Recreation Center was built at the same location.
As part of the Anglesea Day presentation, Jett spoke about the 100th anniversary of the Margaret Mace School being celebrated this year. A plaque was unveiled at the school later in the day, saying that construction of the “North Wildwood Junior High School” began in 1923.
While it had been planned for grades six through eight, by 1940, all children in North Wildwood in pre-first through eighth grade were being taught there.
A ninth grade was in the building from 1933 to 1970. In 1929, there was a celebration of Dr. Margaret Mace’s 25th year in medicine held at the North Wildwood Public School. It was at this celebration it was announced that the school was being renamed Margaret Mace School.
Margaret Mace lived in North Wildwood until her death in 1951. She had delivered 6,000 babies over her decades-long career.
Additions to the school were constructed in 1957, 1966, 1987, and 1999. In 1937, the district tried to add a 10th grade, but the state commissioner of education declined to give permission.
Jett said that Dec. 19, 1924, construction was completed on what was called the North Wildwood High School building – a three-story, “fireproof” structure.
“Have any of you noticed the ‘NWHS’ on the sides of the seats in the auditorium?” Jett asked the students.
Jett also told the students that, at the time, brick buildings with steel beams were being touted as fireproof, although some of these structures did burn down. One of the new features included in the school was an oil heating system with a 10,000-gallon fuel tank.
The Catholic community began to consider building its own school, and in 1948, St. Ann’s High School opened at 1500 Central Ave., built for an estimated cost of $451,000.
The cornerstone of the school is dated July 12, 1948, and was expected to accommodate 200 students. Wildwood Catholic High School, now Wildwood Catholic Academy, is still the only Catholic high school in Cape May County.
Jett unveiled two historical markers June 9 – the first outside the North Wildwood Recreation Center noting the history of the Central Avenue School, and later in the day, another marker was unveiled at Margaret Mach School.
Two more historical markers were to be unveiled in North Wildwood June 15. At 10 a.m., a marker describing the 1906 Ottens Canal Tract Bridges over branches of Oyster Creek was to be unveiled at the West 17th Avenue street end, and at 10:30 a.m., a second marker was to be unveiled at the current City Hall at 901 Atlantic Ave. Construction on City Hall began in fall 1922 and it officially opened Jan. 1, 1924.
Contact the author, Christopher South, at csouth@cmcherald.com or 609-886-8600, ext. 128.
