USA > New Jersey > Monmouth County > History of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Pt. 2 > Part 54
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Through the pressure of a shocking event in 1854-the loss of three hundred lives off the New Jersey coast-a local superintendent was employed, a keeper assigned to each station, and bonded custodians placed in charge of the life-boats, which had been repeatedly stolen ; but the absence of drilled and disciplined erews, of general regulations, and of energetic cen- tral administration, rendered the record of the institution unsatisfactory, and its benefits cheek- ered by the saddest failures.
In the year 1871, Sumner I. Kimball suc- ceeded to the head of the Revenue Marine Bureau of the Treasury Department, under the charge of which were the life-saving stations. He made it his first business to ascertain their condition. Captain John Faunce was detailed to make a tour of inspection, and was accompa- nied a portion of the way by Mr. Kimball himself. The buildings were found neglected and dilapidated, the apparatus rusty or broken, portable articles had been carried off, the sala- ried keepers were often living at a distance from their posts, some of them too old for ser- vice and others incompetent, and the volunteer crews were in a quarrelsome temper with each other and with the coast population. Then commenced that vigorous prosecution of reform which has crowned the humane work with un- precedented snecess. Making the most of slen- der appropriations, and in the face of perpetual discouragements, this one man, the chief of a bureau, pushed on by philanthropie impulses and guided by unerring judgment, brought a complete and orderly system into effect. It was not the work of a day, nor of a year. It required patience, sagacity and rare powers of organization and government. He knew no office hours, working day and night at what many were pleased to consider a hopeless task. In his brain originated the idea of guarding the entire coasts of the nation through the plauting of a chain of fortresses to be garrisoned by disciplined conquerors of the sea. It is a matter of publie record, and generally known to the country, that through his practical devo- tion to the cause this has been so nearly aceom- plished.
In reorganizing what there was of the ser-
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vice, he prepared a code of regulations for its absolute control. The duties of every man employed were minutely defined. The lazy, the careless and the unworthy were dismissed, and men chosen to fill their places with sole reference to integrity and professional fitness. Politics was abolished. That is, experts in the surf were regarded as of more consequence to drowning victims than voters of any particular political ticket. The station-houses. were re- .paired and increased in numbers as fast as the means afforded by Congress would allow ; the appliances for life-saving were restored, and improved from year to year through the best inventions and discoveries in this or any other country, and a rigid system of inspection and of patrol was inaugurated.
The steps by which the institution reached its present plane of usefulness would furnish an interesting chapter. The record of the first season on the New York and New Jersey eoasts, where the new system first went into actual operation, showed that every person im- periled by shipwreck was saved. Consequently a commission, consisting of Mr. Kimball, Cap- tain Faunce and Captain J. H. Merryman, of the Revenne Marine, surveyed, in 1873, by order of Congress, the vast and varied coasts of the ocean's and lakes, investigating personally the characteristics of the dangerous localities, and holding consultations with underwriters, ship-owners, captains of vessels and veteran surfmen. The report of this commission placed before Congress a minute account of the disasters to vessels on every mile of coast for the previous ten years ; a bill based upon it, prepared by Mr. Kimball, became a law June 20, 1874. It provided for the extension of the field of this great national work of humanity ; for the bestowal of medals of honor upon per- sons risking their lives to save others ; and em- powered the collection and tabulation of statis- tics of disaster to shipping, which, by reference to the periodicity of marine casualties, aided in determining the points most needing protection, and in various other ways benefited both gov- ernment and maritime interests.
Comparatively few of the well-honsed inhab- itants of the land are alive to the fact that
through the long, cold, blustering days and the dark, rainy and tempestnous nights of the whole wintry season a cordon of sentinels is tramping the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida on the look-out for endangered vessels. The hardships involved in these protracted marches, while all the world lies comfortably in bed, have no parallel in the employment of any other class of men. The beaches are often clad with ice, and at the best are pathless deserts in the night, and when lashed by storms are fre- quently cloven through with new inlets, while hills of sand are rent and torn away as the surt leaps furiously beyond its usual limits. The life-saving stations on the Atlantic sea-board are now within an average distance of five miles of each other, cach erew consisting of a keeper and seven surfmen. At sunset two men start from each station, one going to the right, and the other to the left. They are equipped with lanterns and Coston signals, and each pursues his solitary and perilous way through the soft sand, in spite of flooding tides, bewildering snow-falls, overwhelming winds and bitter cold, until he meets the man from the next station, with whom he exchanges a check, to prove to the keeper on his return that he has faithfully performed his allotted task. The night is divided into four watches. . The keeper is required to register in his log-book the name of each patrol- man, his hours on patrol, the name of the patrolman from the next station whom he meets, the exact hour of meeting, and the dircetion and force of the wind at sunrise, noon, sunset and midnight, together with the events of each day. This record is sent to the chief of the service at Washington at the end of every week. These groups of seven beach guardians are, in a majority of instances, completely isolated upon the barren outlying strips of sand, separated from the mainland by intervening bays.
It is not a marvel that the American life- saving institution has taken a firm hold of the publie heart. The territory which it gnards- ten thousand or more miles-is divided into twelve districts. The Atlantic coast presents one long succession of varied dangers, begin- ning with Maine, where the capricious currents are forever playing sly games about the narrow
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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
capes, reefs, sunken rocks and peaks of islands half submerged, paving the coast like the teeth in a shark's jaw, taking in Cape Cod, that great arm of sand forty miles outward and upward, with its half-sunken, ever-shifting sand-bars, the islands and the rough rocky points on the Rhode Island coast-dreadful to mariners -- and the long, unpeopled six hundred miles of beach from Montauk Point, Long Island, to Cape Fear, North Carolina, terminating with the arid coral formation of the coast of Florida, five hundred miles in extent. The great lakes, a group of enormous inland seas, with twenty five hundred miles of American coast-line, are sub- ject to sudden and violent gales, which pile up seas so stupendous that anchored vessels are swept fore and aft, often causing their complete destruction; while others, running for shelter in harbors, miss the narrow entrances, and are blown helplessly upon jutting piers, or the still more dangerous beach. The stations consist of three elasses, severally denominated life-saving stations, life-boat stations and houses of refuge. Each of the twelve districts is provided with a local superintendent, who must be a resident of the district and familiarly acquainted with its inhabitants. His compensation is one thousand dollars per annum, with the exception of those on the coast of Long Island and New Jersey, who, having too many stations to look after to attend to other business, are paid fifteen hundred dollars apiece. These officers are required to give from twenty to thirty thousand dollar bonds as disbursing agents, being intrusted with the payment of the men under them in addition to their general dutics. They are responsible for the selection of the keepers of the stations-a duty requiring much knowledge and excellent judgment-who are not, however, confirmed without the acquiescence of the inspector, who is supposed to have no local interests or preju- diees. . The erews are chosen by the keepers. The keepers and crews are examined by a board of inspectors, consisting of an officer of the revenne marine, a surgeon of the Marine Hos- pital Service, and an expert surfman, whose qualifications are well known, to determine by a judgment wholly impartial, their character, good health and general fitness. This board is em-
powered to dismiss all incompetent men on the spot, and require the keeper to employ others without delay. The whole work is under eon- stant inspection. An officer of the revenue marine is the chief inspector, and assigns from his office in New York an assistant inspector to every district. Tac stations are visited fre- quently, and the men examined in the exercises of the apparatus drill, and obliged to give verbal reasons for every step in their opera- tions. They are trained with their life- boats in the surf, in the use of the life-dress, in saving drowning persons by swimming to their relief, in the methods of restoring the partially drowned and in signalling. Everything in and about the stations moves with military precision. When a wreck is attended with loss of life, a rigid examination follows to see if any of the men have been guilty of misconduct or neglect of duty. The keepers are empowered to pro- tect the interests of the government from smug- gling, and they guard all property that comes ashore from a wreck until its rightful owner appears. They are charged with the care and order of the stations and the boats and ap- paratus; and they must keep accurate accounts of all receipts and expenditures, journalize all transactions, and maintain all necessary corre- spondenee with superior officers. Thus it appears they must possess a certain amount of education and high integrity, as well as surf- manship, intrepidity and commanding qualities. They are paid seven hundred dollars each per annum. The crews receive fifty dollars per month during the active season, which upon the sea-coast is from September 1st to May 1st, and upon the lakes from the opening to the close of navigation, or from about May 1st to December 15th.
When the inmates of a station are notified by the patrolman that a ship is ashore, the keeper must determine instantly whether the condition of the sea will admit of the launching of the life-boat. Upon the Atlantic coast, much more frequently than elsewhere, the sea is too heavy in a winter storm for the use of the boat, aud resort is had to the life-saving ordnanee. The process of throwing a temporary suspension bridge from the land to the wreck, first sug-
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gested by Lieutenant Bell, of the royal artillery, in 1791, and matured and carried into practical effect by Captain Manby, of the royal navy, has been greatly improved during the last few years. The first gun in use was of east-iron, weighing two hundred and eighty-eight pounds, and throwing a spherical ball with line attached, its extreme range being four hundred and twenty- one yards. This gave place to the Parrott gun, weighing two hundred and sixty-six pounds- a slight gain-with a maximum range of four
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best in existenee. It was the result of experi- ments in 1878, Lieutenant D. A. Lyle, of the Ordnance Department at Springfield Mass., having been detailed, by request of the superin- tendent of the service, to assist Captain Merry- man in solving the problem of the extension of the shot-line and a reduction in the weight of the gun. The projectile is fired over the wreck carrying with it a light line, by means of which the people on the vessel haul on board a strong hawser forming a bridge, over which they may
C. H. Valentine
hundred and seventy-three yards. The first escape to the shore by means of the "breeches buoy," or by the life-car, which will carry several persons at once. ball fired in the United States to save life is preserved in the museum of the Life-Saving Service with tender care. It was at the wreek of the "Ayrshire," on Squan Beach, in 1850, CAPTAIN CHARLES H. VALENTINE is the son of George Valentine and his wife, Katy Morris, who resided at Long Branch. He was born in 1825, at Long Branch, and spent his youth on a farm owned by Major Henry War- dell. At the early age of eleven years he went and two hundred and one lives were saved by its means. The Lyle gun, of bronze, weighing one hundred and eighty-five pounds, with a range of six hundred and ninety-five yards, or nearly half a mile, afterwards superseded all others, and was universally coneeded to be the |aboard a fishing-smack as cook, and at the ex-
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piration of the second year was engaged as a full hand. On returning to Long Branch, at the end of his cruise, he engaged in fishing botlı by hand and net, and this business proving both attractive and profitable, he has followed it for thirty-five consecutive years, having pro- vided for the purpose various boats and other equipments. He enjoys the distinction of being . the first pound fisher on the coast. Cap- tain Valentine has been for twenty years con
and Ann Woolley. Heisa member of the Mason- ie fraternity, and identified with Long Branch Lodge, No. 78, of that order. He is, in his re- ligious preferences, a Methodist, and both a member and trustee of the North Long Branch Methodist Episcopal Church.
EDWIN WOOLLEY .- John Woolley, the pro- genitor of the family in Monmouth County, emigrated from England about the year 1660,
Edwin Prolly
neeted with the Life-Saving Service, and during ! and married Marcy, daughter of Thomas Potter. half of this period had charge of Station No. 4. To this union were born four children,-Ruth, Many eventful incidents occurred while filling (who married John Tucker, of New Bedford, this responsible office, his courage and judg- Mass.), John, Thomas and William. William, the third son, in his earlier days engaged in whaling, at that time very profitable, and being success- ful, accumulated a considerable sum of money. James Woolley, son of William Woolley, and grandson of the first John, the emigrant, had five sons,-John W., Amos, Anthony, Wil- liam and Jesse. John W., the grandfather of' ment on these occasions proving the efficiency and value of the man and his services. This was especially remarked during one of the severest storms on record, in 1881. He landed the first woman ever brought safely to the coast by the breeches buoy. The captain was, in 1855, married to Armenia, daughter of Tucker
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Edwin Woolley, had but two sons,-John and Josiah. The former John had also two sons, Anthony and Edwin, the subject of this bio- graphy, of whom Anthony died at the carly age of sixteen years. Edwin was born on the 10th of October, 1830, on the homestead, which has since been his home. He improved such opportunities of education as were offered at the public school, and early began the routine of farm-labor, to which he has since been accus- tomed. During this period, however, the monotonons round of duty was somewhat varied by the vocation of a teacher. In 1853 he in- herited the homestead farm, made doubly valu- able to him as the home of the family for six generations. Mr. Woolley was, in 1852, mar- ried to Mary Jane, daughter of David Morton, of Ocean township. Their only child is Laura (Mrs. Charles Worth). He was again married, in 1857, to Elizabeth Ann, daughter of Robert Havens, of New York, whose children are John Warren, William F., Ella, Marietta, Charles A. and Eunice. Mr. Woolley is a Republican in politics, and though indifferent to hours of a public character, has, from his interest in the cause of education, been induced to accept the position of school trustee of the township. He is both a member and trustee of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Long Branch, as also trustee of the Centreville Methodist Episcopal Church and superintendent for many years of its Sunday-school.
SAMUEL W. HENDRICKSON .- Samuel Hen- drickson, grandfather of Sammel W., the sub- ject of this biographical sketch, was a resident of Cream Ridge, in Upper Freehold town- ship. To his wife, formerly Miss Alice Wikotf, were born children,-Peter; Rebecca, wife of Samuel Potter; Tobias; Samuel; Alice, wife of William G. Hendrickson ; and Garret S. The last named of this number was born May 25, 1806, at Cream Ridge, where he grew to man- hood, and from whence he removed, in 1835, to Ocean township, having married, at Deal, on the 25th of December, 1830, Hannah Wikoff, daughter of Richard and Hannah White Wikoff, who were married in 1791. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Hendrickson are Richard, born in 1831 ; Sanmel W., born May 4, 1834 ; Clem-
ence E., in 1837 ; Harriet, in 1839; William IL., in 1841 ; Julia, in 1846 : Alice, in 1849 ; Peter, in 1851; and Harriet, in 1853. The death of Mr. Hendrickson occurred on the 5th of May, 1857, and that of his wife on the 25th of May, 1882. Their son, Samuel W., a native of Shrewsbury township, in 1835, when yet in his infaney, removed to Ocean township, where he grew to man's estate. He became a pupil of the district school at Deal, and later of the Ocean Institute, at Eatontown, after which his time was given exclusively to the farm, the manage- ment of which he assumed in consequence of his father's feeble health. He remained thus em- ployed until 1867, when the property, having been meanwhile sold, passed into other hands. Mr. Hendrickson was, on the 13th of Novem- ber, 1867, married to Josephine, danghter of Josiah H. and Ann Kingsland, of New York City, and has children,-Cora Sherman, born June 10, 1869, whose death occurred September 12, 1878 ; Anna Howlaud, born July 1, 1871; Raymond Wikoff, whose birth oceurred March 13, 1882; and Alice Edna, born November 10, 1884. Mr. Hendrickson, since the sale of the paternal estate, has engaged in no active busi- ness other than the care of the property on which he resides, embracing twenty-three aeres of land, on which he built a spacious dwelling in 1868 and his present imposing residence in 1883. A Republican in politics, his official aspirations have been confined to the postmaster- ship of his neighborhood, which commission he still holds. Mr. Hendrickson is associated with the Reformed Church of Long Branch, of which both he and his wife are members, and in which he is a deacon. Mr. Hendrickson is justly proud of the fact that he resides npon ancestral land which has been for more than a century in the family.
DAVID M. HILDRETH .- The most successful pro- prietor of any hotel upon the sea-beaches of the United States is D. M. Hildreth, of the West End Hotel, at Long Branch. To his hotel and the elegant society it annually attraets is dne, in great part, the settlement of the southern part of Long Branch and the peerless residences there, to whose inhabitants the West End Hotel is the Casino.
A man as well recommended to the citizens of Mon-
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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
mouth County as Mr. Hildreth, by long sojourn, en- terprise and cordiality, requires a few lines of his an- tecedent history.
His ancestor came to Massachusetts in the earliest years of that colony, where, in 1640, Richard Hildreth, probably the emigrant, became a founder of the town of Chelmsford. From him the manly spreading tree of the American Hildreths is generally derived. In the fifth generation came Samuel Hildreth, who mar- ried Jeruslı Mendel, and their children were Daniel, Alvin, Samuel, Paul and Jane. Samuel, of this number, was born in 1795, in Chesterfield, N. H., and grew up in the nurture of our Revolutionary fathers. He married Mary, the daughter of David Morgan, who lived in Manchester, Mass., and their children were David Morgan, Samuel Mendel, James Alonzo, Thirza Jane, Ann Martha and Caro- line, all of whom grew up to mature life. Our neigli- bor, David Morgan Hildreth, was born at Spring- field, Windsor County, Vt., December 28, 1821. He was fifty-two years old when he acquired hotel inter- ests at Long Branch.
At three years of age he removed with his parents to Salem, Mass., and at eleven, to Lynn, Mass., where he remained till the age of twenty-four, attending the Lynn Academy until sixteen years of age, when he began to earn his own living, and in 1845, soon after becoming a man, he was one of the proprietors of the Veranda Hotel, New Orleans, with Mr. E. R. Mudge, and this association lasted five years, when Mr. Hil- dreth and O. E. Hall opened the mammoth hotel of the South, and, indeed, of the whole country, the St. Charles, at New Orleans. There was the cen- tre of the power, fashion and multiform life of the Southern States, in all the episodes and dramas of steam-shipping, internal navigation, cotton and sugar- planting, banking, the imperial period of American slavery, filibustering, the gold-fever, carnival festivity, the outbreak of the great Rebellion and the capture of the city. The St. Charles Hotel, with its massive stories and classical portico, rose above the Crescent City like a palace. For twelve years Mr. Hildreth controlled this house, and was for a part of the time proprietor of the rival establishment, the St. Louis Hotel, which was afterward the Capitol of Louisiana.
Mr. Hildreth and his partner bought the St. Louis Hotel; their business was one of the best in the country until the civil war had affected New Orleans generally. Mr. Hildreth sold out his New Orleans interest, and went with his family to Europe.
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After spending two years in Europe, Mr. Hildreth returned in 1864, and bought a half-interest in the New York Hotel, on Broadway, from Hiram Crans- ton; he did not dispose of his New Orleans interests
until 1865. The New York Hotel afforded a remark- able opportunity to see the public events in the North at the close of the war, the assemblage of many of the exiled or broken leaders of the Confederate States, and here Mr. Hildreth became sole proprietor from 1867 to 1871.
The circumstances of Mr. Hildreth's settling at Long Branch are interesting enough to give in a his- tory of Monmouth County. The West End Hotel was originally called the Stetson House, and was built by the Astor House Hotel Company in 1867; it was built at a time of high prices and speculative ex- citement, was unsuccessful with its original proprie- tors, and one of its mortgages was foreclosed by MIr. Presbury, of Baltimore and Washington, in 1870. This gentleman, so long identified with Long Branch, had been the financial partner of Willard's Hotel, at Washington, during the whole period of the civil war and afterward. He was induced to shoulder the Long Branch property by two of his business associates, Messrs. Gardner and Sykes; the former of these married the daughter of Peter Gilsey, of New York, and had no further desire for hotel life. Mr. Sykes' health was not good, and Mr. Presbury seriously thought of getting rid of the property. In this emer- gency he sent Judge Robert Gilmore, of Baltimore, to see Mr. Hildreth, and invite him to become his partner. Mr. Hildreth had never seriously considered summer hotel keeping ; there were, indeed, but few important summer houses in the country.
Immediately following the civil war he went, how- ever, to Long Branch for the second time in his life, and Mr. Presbury was emphatic that he should make a proposition of some kind. To Mr. Hildreth's as- tonishment he closed at once with an offer; Mr. Hil- dreth assumed one-half the mortgage on the hotel, which had been reduced to two hundred and ten thousand dollars. This agreement was made at the beginning of spring in 1873. Up to this time the West End Hotel had known but a single prosperous season. For nine years Presbury and Hildreth carried on the property, and in 1882, Mr. Hildreth bought Mr. Presbury's interest. The growth of the hotel has been as steady as that of the city of New York; to a considerable extent it has been the summer capital of the United States, as well as the financial centre in the summer, with its brokers' oflices, extensive tele- graph connections, messenger dispatch, post-office and convenient railway station. Here several of our Pres- idents, as Grant, Garfield and Arthur, have whiled away their happiest hours. General Garfield, several years before his death at Long Branch, could be seen playing billiards in the West End Hotel.
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