USA > New Jersey > Atlantic County > Atlantic City > Atlantic City and County, New Jersey, biographically illustrated : a short biography : illustrated by protraits, of prominent residents of Atlantic County and the famous summer and winter resort, celebrated throughout America - Atlantic City. > Part 7
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This is the true story of one aged habitue of the Boardwalk who may be seen every day, strong, erect and keen-eyed among the throng The Story of an old man of pedestrians :
"Fourteen years ago, I had arrived at the age of sixty years. All of my life, from the close of my college days, I had worked steadily and with success to the end that my wife and children should escape the bitterness of that poverty of which I had been a witness in my father's home. At sixty I was a worn-out man, but I was worth nearly half a million dollars. ] believed it to be safely invested, but a little group of men, none of whom ] had ever met, sat together in a room in Wall street, New York, and willed otherwise. Through those modern weapons of the legalized robber, com- bination and reorganization, my fortune was nearly swept away. It was weeks before I realized the full extent of my loss. My first impulse was to return to the business world and try to rebuild my property, but in the short five years of my absence nearly all of the men I had known and trusted had been replaced by other and younger workers. I was a physical and a mental wreck. Out of the remnants of our means, my wife and sons paid the cost of a year in Europe. We wandered from land to land, but the ghost of my misfortune threw its gaunt shadow across my pathway wherever
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we went. Once more we were in America. An old friend who had been content with smaller prizes in life than those most of us reach for, invited us to visit his little farm out in Jersey.
Return to Simplicity
In Business by the Sea
At first I was almost disgusted at the primitive style of life I found under my friend's roof. Most of the modern indispensables with which we were in daily contact in the city, were conspicuous by their absence. But there was an abundance of good substantial food. I began to sleep- to sleep as I hadn't slept since I was a little boy, tired out after a holiday afternoon. The light of content began to drive the old tenant, worry, from the eyes of my dear wife. In the stillness of the evenings as we sat and smoked happily upon the porch, I gathered in some of my old comrade's philosophy, and began to feel ashamed when I thought of the two occasions in years gone by when I had prepared to destroy myself. Well, in the end, we bought a little place of a few acres near our host, and within an hour's ride of either the city or the shore. One of our daughters and her husband came to live with us. Four years ago my two sons rented a cot- tage here at Atlantic City and brought us down to share it. We have now built our home here. My sons have developed a good business "upon the avenue." My son-in-law, God bless him! runs the farm, and runs it well. I spend my time about equally between the little farm and this magnificent sanitarium, the Boardwalk. I look back upon the years that have gone as one remembers some dreadful nightmare. Here we have found, my wife and 1, the happiest part of our lives. You must come to dinner with me and meet her. We have just an hour to spare, let's walk to the Inlet and back."
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Atlantic City.
Chapter EU.
Nowhere outside of a minstrel show is there a place which offers more temptation to good honest laughter than the Boardwalk. It's worth
Along the while to make the little journey hither just for the health-giving of eavesdropping,) float in upon the understanding and tickle the fancy.
Boardwalk benefits of wholesome mirth. Something quaint or funny is always happening. There are so many odd-looking people mixed up with the great crowds, such bizarre bathing costumes, such pranks, such fun; and if one has a keen ear, so many humorous suggests (quite without the need
One recent morn- ing an elderly lady, evi- dently upon her first visit, and much impressed by the healthful advantages of Atlantic City, found op- portunity to confide in one of the big, handsome men of the life-saving service, a robust native of the sands. "How 1 do wish " said she, "my boy John was here now; he ain't ever seen the ocean, and it would do him
a world of good, don't you think so ? "
A Icaltby Spot " Yes marm," agreed the guard ; " there isn't a better place to get well and have a big appetite in, anywhere in the world."
"Well, I guess that's so ; you look like it ; guess you was never sick in your life nor weak either; I guess you didn't come here for your health?" continued the visitor.
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" Madame," said the guard, solemnly, " you may not believe it, but when I arrived here I was perhaps as weak as any human being you ever saw; I had no use of my limbs; I couldn't walk nor feed myself; I did not realize where I was."
"Goodness gracious !" she exclaimed with astonishment ; " how did you ever live through it ? "
" I had to, marm, although I was toothless, could not speak a word, and was dependent upon those around me for everything I needed. But as soon as I got here i began to pick up. The climate agreed with me. My legs and arms began to get strong, my voice developed, and I gained in weight every week. I have never been sick a day since that time."
" How interesting !" said the visitor. " How many years ago did you come here ?"
" Thirty-one years, marm."
"Why, you must have been a baby !"
Che Unprofit= able Sign
"Of course I was, marm. I was born here."
Far down the Boardwalk, toward Texas avenue, a fat lobster-hued German has a "bathing plant." His rotund form was observed as the centre of a highly interested crowd in which the "party of the second part " was a lathy individual with stringy locks damp with recent sea-water.
"Holt on von minud," shouted the proprietor. "You can no leaf dese blace out so you not bay me for dot bat !"
"' Pay you for that bath' ?" exclaimed the lathy one, in tones of astonishment. "Who said anything about paying ? "
" I say somedings about dot."
" You do ? "
"Yaw. I say you moost bay me for dot bat !"
" You say that the kind of bath I had don't cost anything," argued the wet-haired man.
"I no say any sooch tam foolishness !"
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" What's that reading on your sign then ? "
"Dot sign reats, Durkish bats, vapor bats unt sponge bats," repeated the German.
"Well, ain't that plain enough. I didn't have any money, so I took a sponge bath-see ? "
The German eyed his sign with slowly gathering disgust, and an hour later a sign artist was busy obliterating the announcement of this unprofitable branch of the business.
On Rollers
The rolling-chair is a most essential factor in the life of the Board- walk. We are moved, when we consider the matter, with sincere pity for our ancestors who had neither porches, hammocks, or rolling-chairs, who had, indeed, no Atlantic City. The rolling-chair made its debut as an ambulatory convenience at the great Centennial Exhibition twenty-two years ago. It filled the highways and by-ways of the Columbian Exposition at Chicago, but in its present perfection of comfort and grace it is only to be found upon the Boardwalk of Atlantic City. Upon the bright Sundays of springtime cohorts of rolling-chairs are constantly advancing, passing and receding into the throng. Reserve brigades of rolling chairs are ranged in line of battle at frequent intervals, and the rivalry of the rolling-chair mag- nates sometimes stirs Atlantic City to the profoundest depths of excitement. Some rolling-chairs are "built for two," but as a general thing the "con- ductor " carries only a single fare. The prettiest of these vehicles is built of basket work which glows richly under its varnish and which has a swan's neck prow rising well in front. In the winter and spring the passenger is buried in warm fur-robes, in summer bright blankets of light texture give a touch of barbaric color to the ordinarily sombre-hued American crowd. Flat Japanese umbrellas are rigged above the rolling-chairs, and when you have seen a pretty girl thus enframed, her lovely eyes drowsing in calm content, you have looked upon the finest picture you ever saw, and ought to be thank- ful that the Boardwalk, its rolling-chairs and its bewitching maidens exist.
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No truthful mention of the Boardwalk can be made which fails to recognize its swarm of gamins, white and black. Atlantic City's resident population is abnormally active and enterprising. There is so much to be
done in properly taking care of and still further extending the modern The Gaming of the Beach
Atlantis which they have built. It is said that there are business men so closely occupied up along Atlantic avenue that they have never been down to see the new Boardwalk. But if the adults of the male element are thrifty and hustling in their ways, their progressive ten- dencies are as the movement of a glacier when compared with that which impels the gamin of the beach. This joyous creature leads a highly exciting and varied existence. He is in evidence at every storm centre of accident or in- cident. His senses are acute through long attrition with an ever changing multitude, and his coin-beguiling inventions are numberless. His morn- ings and evenings are devoted very generally to the dissem- ination of news, and he serves it hot. The intermediate period is given to
disinterested anxiety for your comfort. If you stop in your walk for a moment to think of a word he charges upon you by the dozen ready to think of it for you. It is the gamin who navigates the unwilling donkeys along the beach for the joy of infantile riders, and who troops enviously after the haughty "caddies" attendant upon the self-absorbed golfers who golf upon
A LI'LL IN BUSINESS
IO7
the sand at low-tide, but if you want to see the gamin at his best just throw a handful of pennies into the dry sand below the Boardwalk. When a wreck comes in your beach gamin is a stormy petrel. One of these days, very likely he will get a place in the Life Saving Service. These hardy soldiers of humanity were all beach boys once. Every beach boy can swim like a duck or handle a boat with the best of the graybeards at the inlet pier. He can tell you the name and the skipper of every little dot of a craft in sight away out there among the blue-fish. His soul is filled with contempt for any duffer at the helm who misses stays on a tack. He is resourceful beyond his years. Not very long ago one of these young- sters captured a prize just off shore in the shape of a cask of wine from some unfortunate cast-away coaster. Bigger boats and bigger boys were after the same cask. It was too heavy to lift into the boat, so he managed to tow it into a shallow, jumped overboard, sank his boat under the cask, bailed out with his cap and then got his flotsam to his daddy's wharf in the inlet.
The beach gamin is the pet aversion of the small but dignified nurse girls, who love to sit under the shade of the pavilions upon a shawl and read "Lady Desmonde's Secret or the Mystery of the Haunted Manse" while their wayward charges stake out claims and prospect with picks and shovels close under the heels of the untamed and impetuous donkeys. But the gamin and the girl will look at each other with different eyes some of these days. They will set up a little home over upon the seaward side of Arctic avenue, and a new generation of beach boys will be selling papers, running races and getting into everybody's way in the same cheerful, impudent, delightful fashion that you may see on any sunny day along the miniature world of the Boardwalk.
BOSS OF THE BEACH DONKEY
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If, in the glare and color of morning and the fashionable array of afternoon the Boardwalk is attractive, at night it becomes fascinating. When the full moon glows and rises close upon the fading of the day, its white radiance comes tremulously across the sleepy sea to our very feet, touching a thousand features of the scene, which, in day- light are crude and garish, with a brush dipped in silver and revealing the long array of hotels as a veritable "white city" all aglow with gleam from a thousand casements.
Evening
Scenes
The great arc lamps along the promenade cast dense contrasts of light and purple shadow, all the colors of the prism pour out from the hundreds of shops and shows of all sorts. Every inclined pathway from the hotels leading up to this pedestrian boulevard adds its tributary stream of gay humanity to the concourse of promenaders which have already filled the walk, the pavilions, and every place of attraction to repletion. The strident voice of the ticket seller and the fakir is heard above the roar of the toboggan, and the melody of the elite orchestra is hopelessly confused in the less classical but ever popular music of the hurdy-gurdy.
Nearly twenty centuries ago Glaucus folded his toga lovingly about the beautiful form of lone as they wandered under the witching light of this same old moon, upon the crescent strand of Pompeii, the Atlantic City of Patrician Rome, the blue waters of the Bay of Naples splashed at their feet, the far lights of the fleets of Egypt and the orient twinkled in the offing, the soft music of slaves touching the cithera floated out from festive villas, and the magic of the summer night held them in the sweet spell of its happy influence, and thus the "old, old story" is rehearsed in unconscious emu- lation of those classic lovers along the sands and in many a shadowy nook between the inlet and Chelsea upon every rapturous summer night that draws its velvet curtain over the great pleasure resort of modern America.
Lore by the Sca Summer love has oft been spoken of, and where but at Atlantic City can it be found in its prime? Together from early morn to dewy eve, in
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the fishing expeditions, the bath, the ball- room, and the twilight promenade, that lov- ing couple we see at every turn would appear to the unobserved visitor to be the most devoted pair of lovers the world has ever seen. Their shy retreats to cosy cor- ners, their cunning escapes from the prying eyes of mamma or the inquisitive looks of papa stamp them as strategists, while their rapt looks and tender salutations stamp them as loved and loving. And what does it all amount to ? Nothing, absolutely noth- ing. He leaves, and his departure is atten- ded with a tender parting at the train. She returns to the hotel or the cottage, perhaps, to start a new tlirtation or maybe to mourn over the old one. The summer draws to a close and she goes back to her home. He moves in one set and she in another of our Quaker City aristocracy, and the conse- quence is that were barriers of iron, were the wall of China itself to be raised up be-
FLOWERS AND SUNSHINE
tween them, their separation could not be more complete. Like oil and water, up-town and down-town society do not mingle when within the sacred precincts of the City of Brotherly Love. So, of course, all inter- course is at an end. A cold bow and stately nod take the place of the familiar salutation at the seaside, and the signs of love upon these young hearts are as surely effaced by Dame Grundy as the footsteps they made together on the sands of the Atlantic are effaced by Dame Nature and her satellites, the waves.
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Atlantic City. Chapter EVI.
An incident in the history of Atlantic City which deserves to be pre- served is the memorable snow blockade of February 12th, 13th and 14th, 1899. The City by the Sea has been more than once cut off from the outer world by phenomenal tides and suffered with the rest of the country in the blizzard of 1888, but upon this occasion she was fairly "bottled up," and this is not to be wondered at when the same conditions existed in all sections of Philadelphia's suburbs.
Ott Days at
the Shore
A newspaper dispatch gave the following condensed report of the situation :
In the Drifts " With the wind blowing at the rate of forty miles an hour, a hurri- cane promised by the Weather Bureau for to-morrow, and the snow still falling, efforts of man to break the drifts are worse than useless. Not a train has entered or left this city since yesterday afternoon. Officials of the Pennsylvania Railroad started two engines out this morning to open up the road, but they only got as far as Egg Harbor, twenty miles distant, when they came to a final standstill and at last reports were still stuck in the drifts. The Reading Railway to-morrow will put to work every man that can be hired and an attempt will be made to shovel the snow from the tracks, but it looks like an almost helpless task.
The snowfall has been actually three times as heavy as during the memorable blizzard of March, 1888, although the wind was much higher then. A total of twenty-one inches of snow has fallen up to this evening, but the size of the drifts would lead to the supposition that the fall had been much heavier. The milk supply is entirely cut off and there is a great demand for the condensed article, but there is no danger of any serious famine.
III
There are enough provisions in the city to last at least two weeks, and the coal supply will probably hold out equally as long.
Scores of visitors went to the beach front during the day, in spite of the storm, to witness the novel sight of a frozen ocean. The wind had broken up the ice in the bays and it drifted down along the beach, filling the ocean with huge cakes that had the appearance of a solid mass. The ice is piled up on the beach at high water mark in great walls. No damage to shipping has been reported here, but communication with other life-saving stations along the coast is shut off."
Che Flow of Enjoyments
Despite this isolation the coast folks managed to have a good time. The round of gayety went merrily on. It was cold, it is true. When the official records of the Weather Bureau show that the mercury has been doing the cake-walk in the neighborhood of the zero point, it would be use- less to claim that June-like balminess had prevailed. But there was a peculiar something about it all that made one long for the open air, be the glowing coals in the parlor grate ever so attractive.
This had the effect of bringing many strollers out on the Boardwalk every afternoon, in spite of the wintry winds ; and when people once got out o' doors they were not willing to return as long as the nipping breezes could be borne. There were many sunny nooks along the walk where it was possible to rest for a short time, and these coveted places were in great demand. Even the devotees of the rolling chair habit were able to indulge their fad in comparative comfort. Well muffled up in furs and blankets, they were pushed along as though it were spring time, albeit the frosty air put a
Sunny Corners
little more than the usual vim into the movements of the pushers.
Rainy Day Philosopby
To-day it rains. The waters prevail upon the face of the earth. As this visitation of dampness is not peculiar to this point alone, the force of the above observation is in some degree weakened. But it is needful to speak of it, in explanation of the fact that the sojourners at our various hostelries are at the present moment, as with one accord, in a state of torpidity sad to
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behold. They sit about here and there, just out of reach of the eaves drip- pings, looking for all the world like a lot of chickens on a very wet day in a farm-yard. A few have aroused their sluggish blood sufficiently to go down by the beach, and, protected by some one of the roomy pavilions, gaze out pensively over the storm-chafed waste of waters. Many have gone to
INDOOR COMFORT
"the city." Monday's always bring about a greater exodus than other days, but to-day many of the departures were occasioned by the adverse weather. The summer visitor flies like a bright-plumed songster before the slightest approach of skies overcast.
To leave the seashore for no better reason than a day or so of unkind weather is unwise-partly because the blue skies, which succeed almost
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invariably, will look all the brighter for the contrast, and again because the sea, to one who loves the beautiful, presents new charms at such times not Tbc Stormy Sca to be disregarded. To stand in a sheltered place and watch the surging, inrushing billows lashed to a white fury is charming, but to view the waters illumed by the fitful electric glare, leaping out of the blackness of night, the deep diapason of the thunder mingling with the surf's unceas- ing roar, is to add another page to one's memories of the sublime.
The occupants of three hotels join in a revel of spontaneous and un- controllable mirth at the sight of a stylish person in pursuit of his hat, which Boreas has snatched from its abiding place on its owner's head. I never could fathom what there is so very funny about the thing, though it is notice- able that the party in pursuit always "comes up smiling," and seems to rather enjoy his brief claim to public notice. There's nothing remarkable about it. Now if the hat was to be seen chasing its owner the case would be different. A stray hat is a fitting symbol of human life and aims. When we get a little wealth we enlarge the borders of our garments and deck our- selves with phylacteries. We wear our riches as the youth weareth his hat, and it is quite likely that the first gust of adversity which strikes us will send us in hot pursuit after our fleeting possessions, which seem always just out of our reach, like the ignis-fatuus, eluding our grasp again and again, while all the time we feel conscious of the undignified position we occupy, yet "smile and smile," and be a "heap mad" still. Don't be so foolish as to forsake the seashore even if it rains two days; it can't rain always, nor can the sun always shine upon you when you want it to do so.
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Atlantic City. Chapter EOff.
The local history of Longport, although covering a period beginning much later than that of its big sister town to the north-east, furnishes a valuable record of foresight, perseverance and energy. Seventeen years ago, when Mr. M. S. Mccullough, the founder of Longport, and its present mayor, first determined that he could and would transform the lonely desert of sand dunes into a pleasure community, there were (as there always are and always will be) many wiseacres who pro- claimed their belief that things were already "over-done " upon the island ; that Atlantic City had touched the high- water mark of its prosperity and greatness, and as for any new places, it was just so much money wasted to pro- mote them. Despite these very common and fallacious. opinions of the past, the sparkling city by the sea has spread amazingly, adding new attractions year after year, and so far from regarding the ambitions of Longport with a jealous eye she has leveled and beautified much of the intervening wastes, joined hands with Longport in the completion of a magnificent drive, unsur- passed upon the Atlantic coast, and by extending the electric railway to the south-west as far as Longport has made the younger resort practically her most important and promising suburb.
Che Borough of Longport
IN THE BAY
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LOOKING SOUTHWEST AT LONGPORT
LOOKING NORTHEAST AT LONGPORT
The Longport driveway will be the great feature of development for the season of 1899. One-third of the cost of the new road will be paid by the State under the law for the development of better roads. A Great
Not only will it vastly stimulate the use of horses for both the saddle and carriage, and add greatly to the pleasure of cycling, but un- doubtedly it will bring into service the new automobile type of carriage and thus develop a fashionable afternoon hour when all the world upon wheels will seek the new drive in endless review, a bright kaleidoscopic parade of wealth and style from the lighthouse to the crescent beach at Longport.
By electric cars, closed and heated in winter, open and breezy in summer, it is but a whirl of thirty minutes to or from Longport. By carriage it is less than one hour; the roar of the surt to the south-east and the calm waters of the bay upon the inland vista are charming features of this ride.
Do not cherish the delusion that when you have made the little journey upon the "trolley line " as far as the steamboat landing, you have seen Longport. As a matter of fact you have only just penetrated its suburbs.
Atlantic and Pacific avenues are bisected by the transverse avenues, and the whole is enclosed by Beach avenue, which, as its name indicates, borders the shore line not only along the sea front but around the shapely curve of Great Harbor Inlet and eastward along the bay to the landing, thus furnishing a superb finish to the splendid new drive already described.
Advantages Having so many reasons for the most harmonious relations with the famous "city by the sea " existing as it were but next door to her, it would ill become Longport to indulge in comparisons at the expense of the older and greater resort, but there are one or two facts which may be safely mentioned. The first of these is in reference to the beautiful sloping beach which extends all the way around the point and far up the bay shore. There are no ragged edges of crumbling marsh; it is all clean sloping gravel
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