Posted by beachwoodhistoricalalliance on August 29, 2012
Francis R. “Frank” Clancy, 82, of Toms River, passed away Tuesday, August 28, 2012. Mr. Clancy owned and operated Clancy’s Pharmacy in Beachwood from 1962 until he retired in 2002. He was a true old town Pharmacist who was trusted and loved by the people of Beachwood. He was a communicant of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Toms River. Born in Jersey City, he grew up in Linden moving to Toms River in 1957.
He was predeceased by his beloved wife Corrine in 1982. Francis is survived by his two sons, Dr. Kevin Clancy and his wife Deborah of Toms River, and Stuart Clancy and his wife Kathleen of Pine Beach; a sister, Patricia Annette Clancy of New Mexico; he was a devoted and loving grandfather to his six grandchildren, Meghan, Colleen, Patrick, Michael, Erin, Heather, and his great granddaughter, Kaylee.
Visitation will be held Thursday from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 pm at Kedz Funeral Home, 1123 Hooper Ave., Toms River. A funeral liturgy will be offered 10:00am Friday at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Hooper Ave., Toms River followed by burial at St. Joseph’s Cemetery. Letters of condolence may be sent by visiting www.kedzfuneralhome.com.
Photo was taken Fall 2009 in the window of his former longtime pharmacy storefront for the Beachwood Historical Alliance.
Posted by beachwoodhistoricalalliance on February 12, 2012
The Beachwood Historical Alliance, a not-for-profit citizen’s group, has been reactivated and awarded a contract with Arcadia Publishing, maker of the popular local history book series Images of America, to form a centennial book in the series for Beachwood, which began life as a newspaper-backed promotion with the New York Tribune in late 1914. The deadline for this project is January 2014, with publication due later that year.
Volunteers are needed to help research, digitize and produce materials for this project over the next two years, with proceeds going directly towards future Beachwood historical projects, directives, and plans as formed by a new alliance board.
Work on this project will largely include the use of microfilm machines and microfilm material of archival area newspapers at the Toms River Library, the use of digital scanning technology (provided), online research through such websites as the New York Times and Trenton Times archives and Ancestry.com, and official written contact with families of past borough residents for the solicitation of materials either borrowed or donated. All work can be performed by volunteers as available and interested.
Volunteers can also ask to double as project/alliance board members for the management of this and future projects, as well as the possible aid in planning centennial events with borough officials in the coming years. Future meetings will be held on an as-needed basis; most communication will occur online or, as needed, over the telephone to facilitate differing schedules of volunteers.
Anyone interested in joining this project are encouraged to write beachwoodhistoricalalliance@gmail.com. Please consider aiding in this worthwhile project, which will surely be looked back upon for decades to follow as a primary resource of our community.
Feel free to forward the link to this post in a tasteful an non-harassing manner.
Posted by beachwoodhistoricalalliance on February 10, 2012
On December 16th, 1914, an article in the New York Tribune headlined, “Beachwood Just Laughs at Storms” recounted a recent winter storm which “caused such havoc and property loss [in the surrounding area, yet] left no traces… along Beachwood’s mile of water frontage.”
The paper attributed this to its position away from the Barnegat Bay, and went on to describe all the safety features and recreation amenities, stating that construction officially began the day before, placing this official first date of construction in Beachwood at December 15th, 1914.
Two weeks later, on December 30th, the Tribune ran another article under the headline “Rapid Progress in Beachwood Work”.
It described that work “is progressing despite ice and snow, by leaps and bounds” and that a letter written by a group of men who distributed tires for the Packard automobile company along the eastern United States was received stating that they had purchased a site in Beachwood on which to build “an up-to-date garage for the accommodation of the residents,” of whom they would be part, having also purchased lots for their bungalows from the Tribune promotion.
The article ran on to describe more of Nickerson’s work, including that “about seventy men were now at work laying out streets, putting up street signs and block numbers, numbering lots, cutting through and improving roadways and building tennis courts. If necessary, to have things in readiness for next summer the force will be increased.”
A week later, January 8th, 1915, the New Jersey Courier ran with an article titled, “Start Several Buildings at Spiles Point, Beachwood”. In it was heavily detailed the first buildings constructed by the Tribune under supervision of Nickerson.
“The Beachwood tract is the busiest along shore just now. Besides laying out streets and avenue, cutting off timber on these avenues, blasting stumps and cleaning out underbrush, the New Year was marked by the starting of at least four new buildings. Three of these are at the Spiles Point, the other, a union railroad depot, at the crossing of the Central and Pennsylvania railroads.”
The Dining Hall, later borough hall, constructed approximately on what today is the Mayo Park Playground.
“On the high bluff, just above the point of the Spiles, a dining room has been built, in the shape of a one-story bungalow, 30×60 feet, and a kitchen annex in the rear. This will have a view down the river.”
The Lodge's patio, circa 1920.
The Lodge's patio area, Winter 2010. The fountain has been turned into a planter for the borough.
“In front of it, to the north, has been started a hotel or rooming house, 73×100 feet in size, built in the old Spanish style, one story high, and, with a patio, or courtyard, in the centre. This will contain thirty-seven sleeping rooms, and will be run in connection with the dining room. From its point of vantage on the brow of the bluff the eye can sweep up the river to Toms River village, or down the stream to Island Heights. The location is superb.”
Beachwood Bathhouses, Beachwood Beach, circa 1915.
“On the lower ground, at the foot of the bluff, in the filled in spot where the pond was, and where Toms River boys for generations have waded to pick water lilies and kill water snakes, the bathhouses are started. There will be three rows of them, covering a space 32×46 feet.
“The building of the bathhouses here is particularly satisfactory to Toms River people, who had been fearing that the development of Spiles Point meant that their ancient bathing privilege would be taken from them, and the point become hedged in as private property. It is understood that the beach front at the Beachwood tract is to be kept open to the public and that all lot owners will have an equal share in its use. With bathhouses there many Toms River people will avail themselves of the convenience.”
“The depot will be 20×40 feet in size, and will be used by both railroads. It is located at the crossing of the two roads and also of the main north and south avenue of Beachwood.”
“Plans are prepared for a large clubhouse, which is also to be started in the spring on the bluff overlooking the river.
“The station is expected to be built very soon. None of these buildings is to be pretentious or costly. They are being built to supply present day needs, and as the resort grows probably be displaced with more permanent structures. But they go to show that Beachwood means business and that something is coming of the new development. The work is also giving jobs to many local people who would otherwise be sitting around stoves and wondering how they could get through the winter.”
Spring Street, circa 1915.
“Scores of streets are being laid out on the tract. So far about all that is done to this line is to clear up the street of all traces of underbrush and remove the stumps with dynamite and stake off the lots. Some grading has been done, however, and more is contemplated. The Beachwood proposition, backed by a big daily paper, is making quite a furore in New York, and it is said by New Yorkers who come down this way that the lots are going fast.”
The progress in Beachwood did not go unnoted in other local papers and municipalities. On January 29th, the Ocean County Review printed beneath its Pine Beach section that, “It is pretty quiet here this winter, but we can hear the dynamite charges exploding at Beachwood without paying admission.”
Indeed, Nickerson and his crew weren’t the only ones busy that winter. February 1915 saw the release and distribution of a 38-page pamphlet very modestly titled, “The Greatest Subscription Premium Ever Offered and the Reason Why”.
Interspersed between pages of ad copy determined to make the average reader jump at investing were a number of photographs depicting the natural waterfront, sailboats both on the Toms River and docked at Huddy Park, cleared roads, the Central Railroad of New Jersey Toms River Station, and the Atlantic City Boulevard completely devoid of any development.
Promotion booklet for Mayo's Lakewood Club resort through the Chicago Evening Post, 1912.
Fox Lake, as depicted in Mayo's 1912 promotional booklet for his earlier resort at Lakewood Club, Muskegon County, Michigan.
As we can see, it wasn’t the first of such pamphlets, borrowing heavily on Mayo’s earlier land promotion of Lakewood Club, Michigan.
William Randolph Hearst, owner of the New York American, among others.
Meanwhile, Watson and the postal inspectors were themselves hard at work questioning those who wrote letters of endorsement for the Tribune promotion which had appeared in subsequent materials.
One of these letters came from E.P. Robinson, M.D., later profiled in Butler’s 1924 Beachwood Directory as being born of English parents on St. James Island in Barbados, who later followed his dream of coming to America as a teenager, working first a pharmacist in Philadelphia before continuing his career and education in New York City. By the time of the Tribune promotion, he was married and had a son in his late teens.
In the letter he wrote, which was published by the Tribune as part of its promotion campaign, the accomplished doctor praised the newspaper in detail for the advantages of the Beachwood tract and stated that not only did he plan an extensive summer residence but that his wife and son purchased their own lots, as well.
Testifying about this letter and Robinson’s later statements regarding it, Watson admitted he could not find his original notes and instead recounted the conversation from memory:
“I visited Dr. Robinson myself, in company with one of my investigators, and interviewed him, and I swear that endorsement is not on the level. The doctor said – I have a report which I made within an hour after the interview, and I will stand on that report rather than on what I say now, but I will try to recall what he said. It was to the effect that he did not know where these lots were, and he had changed his mind, and he did not think he would ever build there, and he gave this endorsement to the Tribune, but he had not expected that people would come running in there and asking him about it, and that he had since requested the Tribune to take it out of the booklet, and that he might some time use his lots for a public garage down there; and he told me where they were, and I asked him if he realized that that was about a mile off the main road and that you could not drive an automobile in there unless it was equipped with an aeroplane on top of it to lift it over the roads. In other words, it was too ridiculous for consideration.”
Oddly, on a later day of testimony following statements by the postal inspectors themselves, Watson recanted and requested that this statement and all matter of the letters be removed from the record as he could not find his records on the matter and it had been over a year from the conversation so his memory may be incorrect.
Neither postal investigator had any testimony regarding these letters.
Stranger still is the fact that the lots Dr. Robinson ultimately built upon is just one block from the waterfront and on Beachwood Boulevard, the original resort’s main road. It is unclear at this point of research whether this was the original plot of land purchased through the initial Tribune promotion, or if he purchased it at a later date from a second party, or some other event we are unaware of.
Adding to this odd matter is the fact that the New York Tribune made a point to specifically advertise Dr. Robinson’s building plans in early March 1915 with an article titled, “To Build at Beachwood – Plans Being Prepared for New Cottage at Resort”:
“Architects’ plans for the erection of one of the first bungalows to be built at Beachwood, N.J., are being prepared for Dr. E.P. Robinson, of 116 West Thirty-ninth Street, New York. Dr. Robinson, who was one of the first to obtain lots at the new beach resort which the Tribune is establishing, will build a cottage for occupancy throughout the entire year.
“The new cottage will stand back from the beach some little distance and will be artistic in its surroundings. Construction work on the house is contemplated with the coming of warm weather. It is planned to have the cottage ready for occupancy this summer.
“In addition to Dr. Robinson, lots are held at Beachwood by his wife and son.”
We may never know the true events surrounding Dr. Robinson’s lots or his involvement with the Tribune promotional campaign, but what cannot be denied is that the doctor had a very well built, attractive bungalow constructed at the corner of Barnegat Avenue and Beachwood Boulevard, which stands to this day.
Dr. Robinson's home, Winter 2009.
Next:
Read about investigator’s secret trip to the incomplete resort, alleged scandal within the Tribune offices and the road to the Memorial Day opening, in the next edition of the Building Beachwood series.
Posted by beachwoodhistoricalalliance on February 10, 2012
February 13, 1914 cover of the New Jersey Courier.
On February 13, 1914, the front page headline of the Toms River/Ocean County weekly, the New Jersey Courier, announced “Pine Bay Tract is Sold for $90,000/Said to Be a Record-Making Price”. Curiously, these new purchasers are never mentioned by name.
Part of the bluffs at Cold Spring, Winter 2010.
The article goes on to describe the land as it was before any work had been completed: “The tract has a mile and a quarter river frontage, including the
Spiles Point area, Fall 2009.
Squally Cove, today Windy Cove, Spring 2009.
bluff at Cold Spring, the point of the Spiles [both later part of Beachwood Beach], and the bluff on the west shore of Squally Cove [renamed Windy Cove], the river frontage, running from Cedar Point [at today’s South Toms River] to the head of Squally Cove, where it meets the Buhler property, now a part of the Pine Beach tract [Pine Beach not having been incorporated until 1925; the land then was mainly known to visitors for the railroad that extended across the Toms River to Island Heights]. It extends back across both railroads and west to the Dover road [later, South Toms River], while on the south it abuts the Barnegat Park tract [in Berkeley Township, later the site of yet another notorious land promotion named Pinewald, through which was built the Royal Pines Hotel that stands today as Crystal Lake Healthcare. It’s interesting to consider that Pinewald could have incorporated itself as a borough separate from Berkeley Township as Beachwood, Pine Beach and Ocean Gate had if it succeeded in its time].
The Nickerson family home, built directly across from the entrance to Beachwood Beach, Winter 2009.
The land then changed hands from Nickerson to Mayo to Stanley D. Brown, trustee of the New York Tribune. Mystery still surrounds these transactions as no money ever changed hands between the sheriff’s sale to Nickerson, Nickerson to Mayo, and Mayo to the Tribune, yet Nickerson had already
The "hinterland" that Mayo sold at original Tribune promotion prices to the newly incorporated Beachwood Borough, in December 1917, would later become the site of today's Jakes Branch County Park. Shown here is the groundbreaking on September 26, 2006. Photo by Jason Hoger.
begun surveying the land well before a deal was set, setting aside a few choice plots, including the site where he would eventually build his family home across from the entrance to Cold Spring and Spiles Point, later Beachwood Beach; Mayo wound up owning virtually all of the waterfront area property and 5,000 lots in the tract’s southernmost “hinterland”, all of which would eventually be sold in perpetuity in December 1917 to the newly incorporated Borough of Beachwood for the original per-lot price of $19.60 for public and municipal use.
But that wouldn’t be for a while. Mayo, Nickerson and the Tribune would first face the threat of charges brought by the U.S. District Attorney’s office and U.S. Postal Service at the behest and urging of the Hearst company and its reporter, even while Nickerson was busy directing workmen to cut and blast his grid of streets out of the knotty, dense pine forest.
William Randolph Hearst, whose newspaper, the New York American, attacked the New York Tribune Beachwood land promotion as a "scheme" and sent a reporter out to drum up interest within the federal government to potentially bring Mayo and Nickerson up on charges of fraud.
Over the next eight months, while Nickerson busied himself with the land survey and subsequent layout of the new streets and avenues, Mayo, in his office at the Tribune Building in New York, worked out the details of the promotion. An item in the October 23rd. 1914 New Jersey Courier stated:
“The Berkeley Township committee at its meeting last week abandoned a number of roads where they cross over the Beachwood (formerly known as Pine Bay) tract… the roads abandoned are: the old Double Trouble road; part of the old Cedar Creek highway; Buhler’s road; a branch of Buhler’s road; and the old road running into the old Double Trouble road, beginning where the county road crosses the [Pennsylvania Railroad].
“As part of the agreement for vacating these roads, Mr. Nickerson, who represents the new owners of the property, has announced that the tract will be laid out in streets, so that these roads will be unnecessary.”
November 1914 promotional "extra" edition insert for the New York Tribune subscription/Beachwood land promotion.
One week later, October 30th, the Tribune announced to the Toms River area its plans in the pages of the Courier, likely when the land officially changed hands from Nickerson and Mayo to their ownership. Its headline proclaimed, “New York Tribune to Develop the Beachwood Tract at Spiles Point”. This announcement predated any such notice posted in their own newspaper, as well as any official promotional materials.
“One of the largest real estate deals that has been made in Toms River in many years was concluded this week, when the two thousand acre tract adjoining the town and known as Pine Bay tract was acquired by representatives of the New York Tribune. This will mean much to the future prosperity of Toms River, for the Tribune intends to improve the property and make of it a large summer resort. A club house will be erected on the shore of the river, also a yacht club building, bathing pavilion, bathing wharves, etc. The tract will be known as Beachwood, and it is expected that it will be the future summer home of many well known New York people, who will have their cottages there. The project is under the direct supervision of B.C. Mayo of the New York Tribune and the local work is in charge of A.D. Nickerson.”
An early survey map of the Beachwood tract of land, by A.D. Nickerson.
Here we can pick up Butler’s 1924 Beachwood Directory, who compiled the largest section, “A Chronological History of Beachwood”, stated to be “Pictures, in Brief Paragraphs, of the Rise and Progress of the Beautiful Resort in the Pines on Barnegat Bay, and the Social, Economic and Political Life of its Summer Population of 1,500 or More People”.
According to Butler, “the first official map of the Beachwood tract, comprising 1,763 acres, 18 lots to the acre, was filed November 11th [1914].”
November is also the month that the Tribune issued a special advertisement, dressed up to appear as an extra edition of its regular publication, “containing many illustrations and the… announcement, in large letters, on its first page: “Subscribe for the New York Tribune and secure a lot at Beautiful Beachwood. Greatest subscription premium ever offered by a newspaper – nothing equal to it was ever attempted in the United States. Act at once – secure your lot in this Summer Paradise now.” On another page came [the] assurance [that] “The Tribune does not do things halfway. A fortune has been put behind this offer. Already plans are being made to start a building company.” The price of lots was placed at $19.60 apiece, each lot carrying with it a six months’ subscription to the paper.”
New York Tribune's "Road Map" from New York City to Beachwood, as printed in the December 1, 1914 edition of the paper and reproduced in Butler's 1924 directory, but absent from the 2005 reprint. Note the "C.R.R." and "P.R.R." rail lines criscrossing the state, standing for the Central Railroad of New Jersey and Pennsylvania Railroad, which crossed at what is today roughly Route 9 (Garden State Parkway access road) and Beachwood Boulevard
On December 1st, the Mayo-Tribune promotions rolled out further, this time in a Tribune article titled “Roads to Beachwood” and depicting a large illustration of the auto routes between Manhattan and Beachwood, as well as the Central and Pennsylvania railroad lines.
The Dining Hall, later borough hall, constructed approximately on what today is the Mayo Park Playground.
Ten days later, the New Jersey Courier and New York Tribune ran articles on the burgeoning resort. The Courier’s, headlined “Marine Names for Beachwood Avenues”, recounted a Tribune article that “Nautical terms prevail in the selecting of street nomenclature adopted for Beachwood… the street signs will also bear out the meaning of the town’s name by a series denoting a variety of trees… Plans for the construction of the buildings which are to be erected on the waterfront, such as the yacht club, dining hall, club building, etc., are already under way. It is expected that the railroad station… will be completed in January.”
The rail depot, shown here c.1920, built by the New York Tribune under direction of A.D. Nickerson. Standing in roughly this spot today would place you at the intersection of Beachwood Boulevard and Route 9 (Garden State Parkway access road), facing southeast down Route 9. The station sits on what is now the small, landscaped park with a gazebo known as Robert Guilmore Park.
The Tribune’s article, titled “Fine Railroad Station for Beachwood”, verified the Courier account. “Residents of Beachwood… are to have a railroad station of their own. Plans for the building have been made and its site chosen. It will be ready for occupancy in January. The building will have the excellent accommodations of a typical suburban union railroad station… the structure itself is to be of attractive design and calculated to meet all the requirements of Beachwood residents.”
It is around this time that Victor A. Watson, a New York City native living on the Lower East Side who had made his living for the previous 17 years as a newspaper reporter with Hearst’s New York American, claimed to receive “complaints from a number of persons who wrote letters… to the effect that the New York Tribune… was backing a notorious real-estate swindle. In the course of office business the matter was turned over to me to investigate.”
The New York Tribune building, undated, shown as the center of the three late-19th century skyscrapers.
Looking into the matter, Watson noted that the Tribune was claiming to be making absolutely no profit off the land deal, opting instead to run the promotion purely as an act of friendship in an effort to boost its circulation. Skeptical, Watson looked at the numbers and found this to not be the case. After consulting with his peers, he took the information to the office of United States District Attorney H. Snowden Marshall. The case was soon assigned to two United States Postal Inspectors, [Hugh] McQuillan and [Oliver] Schaeffer.
Together with the inspectors, Watson produced what he claimed to be direct evidence of mail fraud. This consisted of mailed materials produced by the newspaper that stated they were making no money off the land deal but wished instead for good friendship by increasing their readership. Watson insisted that the Tribune was committing mail fraud because a survey of the money paid for the land tract versus what they were charging showed a high degree of profitability set to flow into Tribune coffers should the promotion be successful.
In laying out these calculations, Watson said the land was drawn out to encompass thirty to thirty-five thousand 20×100 lots to be sold at $19.60 each. Adhering to the original plat map of 1,763 acres and 18 lots to an acre, that number was exactly 31,734 lots. $19.60 multiplied by 31,734 becomes $621,986.40. He estimated that between the purchase of the property at $90,000 and adding another approximately $35,000 to developing it for the lot owners, they would have invested only $125,000 total, meaning they stood to reap an estimated profit of $496,986.40. At the time, Inspector McQuillan estimated it lower, at $300,000.
About four of these plus four six month subscriptions to the New York Tribune would get you a 80'x100' buildable lot in Beachwood in 1914.
Suspicions were raised further when Watson stated salesmen working the promotion for the Tribune would take “them down to the beach, and [then turn around] and sell [them] something back in the woods that is almost like Africa.” Watson later reflected that Beachwood was so remote that it would be still be an undeveloped and undesirable patch of land one hundred years in the future. He was so sure of this that he told the judiciary committee he would make a bet on it if he could.
The "African woods" of Beachwood, shown here in 2009 at what is now Jakes Branch County Park.
As a result, Watson and the postal inspectors began a series of covert visits to the Beachwood tract while it was under development in early 1915. Secretly, Watson also conscripted a number of men to work within the Tribune offices as spies, quietly writing up daily reports for the New York American reporter. Meanwhile, Bertram Mayo and Addison Nickerson moved forward with their work, unaware how dangerously close they were to being arrested and brought up on charges of mail fraud.
Next:
Read about the first resort buildings, reaction from a nearby community, and the further investigation of Watson and the postal inspectors, focusing in particular on one Dr. E.P. Robinson, whose home stands today at the southwest corner of Beachwood Boulevard and Barnegat Boulevard, in the next edition of the Building Beachwood series.
Posted by beachwoodhistoricalalliance on February 10, 2012
Undated, from Carolyn Mae Campbell's personal family photograph collection. It is unknown at this time whether any of the men present here is Addison Doane Nickerson, though an educated guess would place him as the man in the suit with the pipe if he were. If this is true, this photograph represents the only known existing image of A.D. Nickerson, land purchaser, civil engineer and bungalow builder of Beachwood.
Today we begin the first in a running series on how Beachwood was built. Specifically, we’ll be looking at the period beginning at the start of the New York Tribune’s land promotion attempt in 1912 up through the original club buildings’ completion in time for opening day, 1915.
This period was chosen to accommodate the incredibly large amount of information found between the archives at the New York Public Library, microfilm records in the Ocean County Library, and court papers related to the promotion that produced a mountain of information through testimony.
Referenced within this series will be articles from the New York Tribune, the New Jersey Courier, and the Ocean County Review as well as William Mill Butler’s Beachwood Directory and Who’s Who 1924, reprinted in 2005 by Carolyn Campbell and the Ocean County Historical Society, 1916 court testimony made during hearings before the judiciary committee to investigate U.S. District Attorney H. Snowden Marshall and other varied sources.
The information used to build this series represents our the most current known information; as we continue to research more may become known that could alter or enhance our knowledge and a future edition of this account will be present in the Beachwood Centennial book, due later this decade.
It is our goal that after the series is complete you have a very clear picture of how the tract of land that became Beachwood was acquired, designed, and built upon by the New York Tribune in anticipation of the thousands of residents that would come to plant their bungalows along its streets.
Enjoy!
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Any discussion of Beachwood would be incomplete without first looking at the two men who made it possible: Bertram Chapman Mayo and Addison Doane Nickerson.
Old North Church.
Bertram Chapman Mayo was born in the last month of the Civil War, March 23rd, 1865, near Boston’s Old North Church, itself famous for displaying the lanterns that alerted Paul Revere of the path the British took to the fateful first battle of the American Revolution, Lexington and Concord, less than a hundred years earlier. The oldest of Noah Mayo, a fish trader on the Boston wharves, and his wife Evaline, Bertram’s home life included the upper middle class culture comfort of employing a regular, live-in servant to help his mother keep house and tend Bertram and two sisters, Daisy and Blanche, who came later. It was here, in his youth, that a series of cherished experiences in the form of regular family holidays to seaside resorts via the trolley system later became the basis for his future pursuit of success.
Seaside trolley, date/location unknown.
Addison Doane Nickerson was born two years after his future business partner, on December 12, 1867, in Harwich, Massachusetts, located at the far end of Cape Cod. The son of Thomas Nickerson and his wife, Eglentine, Addison, like Mayo, had a home life centered around the shore. His father, having grown up as the latest in a long line of sailors, earned the title master mariner when Addison was less than a year old. It would be the profession he followed all through Addison’s upbringing and those of his three other children – Thomas, Ambrose and Eglantine – of which Addison was the oldest.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, contemporary photo.
It isn’t clearly stated where Mayo and Nickerson first met, but we can assume with almost certainty that it was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was here that Mayo, according to Butler’s 1924 biography of him, “gave up a contemplated course” in order to pursue a career in the wholesale clothing business, while Nickerson went on to graduate in 1888 with a thesis titled, “A Study of the Question of a Tunnel in East Boston.”
A competitive streak that appeared to run strong in Mayo, causing him to leave M.I.T., apparently also made him restless.
Aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco quake.
Quickly bored of the clothing world, he next gravitated west to become general manager for a San Francisco-area newspaper that first published and instituted an immediate emergency aid center following the devastating earthquake of 1906. At that paper, the Oakland Enquirer, he established a newspaper premium of a candy giveaway that would quickly snowball into his ultimate career path of land giveaways and community building starting in the redwoods of Northern California called Cazadero Woods, and further progressing to a canyon section of Los Angeles called Beverly Glen that would later be absorbed by that city’s rapid growth later in the century and become part of Beverly Hills.
Casadero Woods, California.
Franklin Canyon at Beverly Glen, California.
During these promotions he brought his young son, Geoffrey, on board to help run the whole operation. Moving northeast toward Chicago, he honed and improved his idea for a resort in Michigan called Lakewood Club, which would for the first time incorporate a small reminder of home: a lake for sailing, fishing and swimming.
Lakewood Club, Michigan. Its clubhouse and train station closely mirrored Beachwood's.
Nickerson, meanwhile, had settled into the life of a civil engineer, and by 1910 was living in the Hudson River town of Ulster, New York, with his wife, Mary Lillian, and their two sons, Holland and Robert. Two or three years later, a meeting in California between Nickerson and Mayo would change all that.
Famous covered bridge at Ulster, New York.
Almost before he was finished in Michigan, Mayo was already moving on, this time searching for a spot along the Atlantic coast that better reminded him of his family holidays at his childhood seaside resorts.
Lucky for us, he found it on the southern bank of the Toms River at the edge of a pristine pine forest crisscrossed by the Pennsylvania and Jersey Central railroads and cut through by a state highway between New York and Atlantic City. Contacting Nickerson and reminding him of their California meeting, it was decided that Nickerson would head up the planning and construction of the new resort, to be called Beachwood (and sometimes referred to as Beachwood Club or Beachwood-in-the-Pines), while Mayo and his son would run things out of his new position and office within the New York Tribune building in New York.
The New York Tribune building, undated. Torn down in the 1950s to allow widening of Brooklyn Bridge entrance.
1883 edition of the Tribune.
Besides facing similar challenges in this new project as the previous three, an added pressure came in the form of an investigation spearheaded by a reporter of a competing New York daily newspaper, William Randolph Hearst’s New York American. Even while Mayo and Nickerson were busy setting up what would become the most successful paper-backed community in Mayo’s career, the competition was equally busy building a federal case against the two that could halt construction of the new resort and imprison its two managers, destroying their lives and careers.
William Randolph Hearst, owner of the New York American, among others.
But first, let’s take a look back at the history of the land that would later become Beachwood.
In Pine Beach Yesterdays, a publication issued by the borough of Pine Beach to celebrate its 50th anniversary of incorporation as a borough in 1975, author Stanley Heatley recounts activity along the Beachwood tract in the mid-nineteenth century:
“A mule-powered railway was built to haul charcoal from the hinterlands to a loading pier on the south shore of the Toms River where coasting vessels took on cargo for Philadelphia and New York. The industry died at the end of the century and the rotted piles or spiles, all that remained of the once busy pier, gave rise to the name of “The Spiles”, present-day Beachwood.
Charcoaling, as shown in Pine Beach Yesterdays, pub. 1975 by Stanley Heatley and the Borough of Pine Beach.
“In colonial times, charcoal was the fuel used to fire many bog-iron blast furnaces. Its use continued for many years until the production of iron in our area succumbed to the competition of Pennsylvania. That charcoaling was a long ago in Pine Beach was brought to light in 1954 when ground was cleared for the Pine Beach School playground. Some mothers may still remember their children coming home from school, before the playground was completed, with clothing and shoes black from old charcoal pits.”
Sometime after that, we can find evidence of the Beachwood waterfront area being popular among local residents primarily from Toms River, who used the undeveloped shore for cool recreation on hot summer days. This led to a tragic account on one such afternoon, June 20th, 1911, when eleven-year old Toms River resident Ella Cranmer drowned while bathing with friends at Spiles Point.
June 22, 1911 cover of the New Jersey Courier, an Ocean County weekly established in 1850 as the Ocean Signal, Ocean County's first newspaper (Ocean County was formed in 1850 from the southern portion of what was then Monmouth County).
Following the cessation of shipping activity (due in large part to the closing of the Cranberry Inlet, where Ortley Beach stands today) and the turn of the century, according to Marshall hearing testimony, the land that would become Beachwood was involved in a real estate scandal where it had been sold by a company called the Pittsburgh Company to a number of Pennsylvania residents in pieces, and was to be called Hobart City, named after New Jersey native Garret Hobart, who died in late 1899 while in office as Vice President of the United States under President William McKinley.
Garret Hobart, undated.
It has also been stated from different sources that part of the land was set aside for a cemetery, but that the land was then too remote for such a use.
At some later date, the Pennsylvanian owners contracted a man named Reece Carpenter, and the Pine Bay Hotel, Land and Improvement Company was formed to replace the Pittsburgh Company, with Carpenter as company owner and the Pennsylvania residents as shareholders.
At this point everything gets even more incredibly convoluted, with Carpenter turning over to his wife a claim of $79,896 against the Pine Bay Company and a relative of his wife’s bringing suit against the Pine Bay Company for $79,000, then changed hands to an Ernest F. Griffith for $4,750 until a previous owner, Henry L. Hall, of Pittsburgh, holding an old mortgage for $8,000 turned up and everything was forced into a foreclosure and sheriff’s sale for the amount of $4,750 plus the $80,000 claims against it.
In mid-1912, at the center of these land disputes, Reece Carpenter’s son, O.T. Carpenter, said that his father got a letter from B.C. Mayo asking if he would sell the land directly to Mayo and at what cost. The elder Carpenter never responded nor took any action to sell the land to Mayo, and eventually Mayo sent a man named M. Edgar Smith to approach him about it. Through negotiations between Carpenter and the Mayo/Smith team, an amount of $75,000 was agreed upon for the sale, but not before the contract was altered with a number of exceptions and changed several times. Three days after the contract was finalized, Reece Carpenter died, his wife left the house the day after the funeral with various letters and papers related to the land, and Mayo and the Tribune couldn’t get a bank to issue a policy as the original ownership by the Pennsylvanian shareholders hadn’t been part of the agreement, and everything was up in the air until Henry Hall surfaced with the old mortgage and a sheriff’s sale was held.
February 13, 1914 cover of the New Jersey Courier.
Finally, in February 1914, Addison Nickerson gained ownership to the property for the amount of $90,000.
The race to carve Beachwood out of the primitive scrub pine forest in time for a 1915 gala Decoration Day weekend opening was on.
Next:
Read about the early features of the Beachwood tract, A.D. Nickerson’s efforts to cut a resort community from the rough terrain, and the beginning of the Hearst-influenced investigations into Mayo, Nickerson and the Tribune by the federal government in the next edition of the Building Beachwood series.
Posted by beachwoodhistoricalalliance on July 14, 2010
This article originally appeared in the Riverside Signal on July 13th, 2010. It has been reprinted below. The Riverside Signal can be found at www.RiversideSignal.com
by Erik Weber
BEACHWOOD – Last week, thousands of area residents lined the banks and side streets along the Toms River to witness the borough’s Fourth of July fireworks display, here.
Many in attendance likely did not know that the show, which today is a carefully planned and executed annual volley of pyrotechnic glory put on by a professional contractor, holds roots dating back to earlier days of the borough fire company, when million-dollar event insurance was a fantasy, funds for each successive year were collected by passed-around tin cans, and the explosives were purchased and transported from Maryland in the back of a station wagon.
Fireworks on the Toms River: A Look Back
George W. Symington, a 56-year member and past chief of the borough fire company, recalled earlier incarnations of the fireworks display and Fourth of July daytime games, which have not been held for many years.
Confirming earlier memories given by Beverly Clayton, a borough councilwoman, lifetime resident and current member of the borough fireworks committee, he said that the earlier fireworks displays were dug into the sand at the beach and then lit by members of the fire company with cigars.
“We had a few close calls, but thank God nobody ever got hurt bad,” the past fire chief said. “But then, we were very good at it.”
He said that the collection of funds for the following year’s display started even while the current year’s show was going on.
“We had rowboats with outboard motors on them, and four containers, and we went to every boat in the water,” Mr. Symington said. “There used to be, oh God, hundreds of boats out there – you almost could walk across river on top of the boats.”
“While that was going on, other people in the fire company auxiliary went anyplace [the fireworks] could be seen from,” he continued. “They walked the beach up to Toms River, down past the golf course to Point ‘O’ Woods and down the river on this side to Pine Beach.”
“Whatever we collected – nickels, dimes, quarters, maybe $1,000 or $1,500 – all had to be hand counted and hand rolled and taken to the bank,” the longtime fire company member said. “That’s what we used for the next year’s fireworks.”
After sufficient funds were totaled and deposited, he said that he would order next year’s batch from Keystone Fireworks of Pennsylvania, who would ship them down near the state border at Elkton, Maryland. Mr. Symington then jumped in his station for the over two-hour drive.
The Delaware Memorial Bridge.
“The station wagon would be loaded from front to back, top to bottom, with just enough room for me to sit and drive,” he recalled. “I would then drive across the Delaware Memorial Bridge, stop for lunch with the loaded car sitting there in the parking lot, and then when I got home I loaded it all into the basement of my house for safe keeping til the Fourth of July.”
“It could probably have put the house in orbit if it ever caught fire,” the past fire chief speculated, laughing about his memories driving the explosives cache across the interstate bridge and leaving it to sit next to the diner where he ate lunch.
Fourth of July sack races at Beachwood Beach, circa 1940s.
When Independence Day finally arrived, he said, the entire waterfront was a beehive of activity for most of the day, with land and water games bringing many borough and area residents and their families out to celebrate the holiday together.
“The first aid squad and fire company went down to the ballpark on top of the hill there, and we ran the land games from 10 til noon,” Mr. Symington stated. “Three-legged races, egg tosses, stuff like that – then we went home for lunch.”
An hour later, he said, everyone returned to begin the water games.
“We had diving contests, swimming races, stuff like that until maybe about four,” the past chief continued. “Then at six we came back to the beach to start digging the trenches to put the steel mortars in.”
Crowds line the Beachwood Beach shoreline to view the water games, circa 1942. In this picture, spectators look on as the watermelon scramble takes place.
The size of the shot used at the time for the regular part of the show, he recalled, were between three and five inches in diameter, while the finale packs came in at about twelve.
“It was like a 60-shot finale, and we had to fuse them ourselves and tie the string around and make sure it was tight so that it carried from one twelve inch to the next,” Mr. Symington said. “Also, there used to be a permanent 8-foot by 10 foot floating dock in the water maybe 75 or 100 feet offshore, and in the afternoon myself, my son and a couple of firemen would float out on top of a rowboat and put two set pieces on top of it – one had the American flag, and the other said ‘Goodnight.’”
His son, George C. “Mickey” Symington, joined the fire company in 1979 and is today also a past chief.
As daylight turned to twilight and eventually night, the firemen were joined by first aid squad members who stood by as thousands of area residents and tourists filled the beach, bluffs and general waterfront areas, with hundreds more small craft moored offshore for the show.
As the show went on and the fund-raising cans were passed around the riverfront, Mr. Symington said he and his son would slip away and prepare for part of the grand finale.
“Pretty close to the end, my son and I would swim out on our backs with cigars in our mouths to the floating dock,” he recalled. “On my signal the guys on the shore would light off the finale, and as soon as the finale was just about done my son and I would light the two pieces, shake hands, dive the hell overboard and swim back.”
“We always shook hands,” he noted.
Longtime Beachwood resident Geoff Brown remembered watching the fireworks while growing up.
“As a family we watched the fireworks from the yacht club dock in the 50s [today the T-dock in front of the Community Center, which is the former site of the earlier yacht club building], as it was at the foot of our street, Brigantine,” he said. “The show was about 20 minutes [long] and always ended with a parachute with an American flag.”
“There were still few ‘speedboats’ on the river,” he added. “However, some would race in the dark to capture the flag.”
Above, a photo taken by Mr. Brown's my wife, Bunny, on Dec. 29, 1958, of the three Beachwood lifeguards of that summer. From left: Joe McCulley, Dave Melchinger and Bob Glenny. "Dave is Bunny's older brother. My sister Robin, then 8 years old, had a huge crush on the lifeguards, especially Dave."
Over the years, the past fire chief said, the culture of the waterfront and putting on the fireworks display changed with the introduction of more regulations, pollution of the Toms River by the Ciba-Geigy chemical plant and influx of new residents not as heavily involved in the annual tradition.
After the fire company stopped hosting the land and water games, he recalled, the borough recreation commission kept it up for a while but also eventually abandoned it due to lack of interest.
“I was also a lifeguard and we used to have about 400 people a day on that beach,” said Mr. Symington. “But then with people starting to get pools and Ciba dumping into the river, everything like that sort of dwindled down.”
“It’s a sin, we’ve got the most beautiful beach on the river and now it only gets about a half dozen people a day,” he added.
After a woman was killed as a result of a fireworks accident in the Seaside Heights area, Mr. Symington said, the fire company was told they would need to come up with a million-dollar insurance policy for the annual display.
From there, he stated, the borough established a “Bang Committee” with members of the fire company, first aid squad and other residents in town that was able to continue the annual event through sponsors and contracted pyrotechnic firms.
Fireworks on the Toms River: The Modern Era
Above, Beachwood’s Fireworks on the Toms River grand finale, as shot by YouTube member Stealthlsc.
Today, the fireworks display on the Toms River is still hosted by Beachwood Borough through the contemporary equivalent of the “Bang Committee,” said Gerald W. “Jerry” Lacrosse, a former councilman and current member of what is now called simply the Fireworks on the Toms River Committee.
With feedback from the 2010 display, particularly the grand finale, sitting squarely in the “very positive” end of the spectrum, he said the year-round work to hold the event was well worth it.
“I’ve gotten nothing but compliments on it,” the committee member said, adding that during the show, “the boats out in river just went bananas,” sounding horns and sirens and flashing lights, and that “the crowd was very pleased with it.”
Picking up where the fire company left off, he recalled that he was first asked to serve on the committee sometime in the early 1990s by then-Mayor William T. “Bill” Hornidge, who wanted to form a coalition committee with surrounding municipalities in order to meet the growing demand for regulation and high insurance costs.
Included in the early coalition were Dover Township Mayor Clarence E. “Bud” Aldrich III, Island Heights Mayor David Siddons, and Pine Beach Mayor Russell Corby.
“Those four guys put together what we call the ‘Fireworks on the Toms River Committee’, and off we went,” said Mr. Lacrosse, who said early sponsors were Adelphia Cable, before it was purchased and became Comcast Cable; the Asbury Park Press, before it was purchased and became a Gannett-run publication; and 92.7 WOBM. Comcast and 92.7 WOBM continue as sponsors today.
“It just snowballed – we hired professional pyrotechnic outfits to put on the show, rather than us going out and purchasing five, ten or fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of fireworks,” he continued, adding that a lot of contributions came in from area residents. “We had little canisters in a lot of different stores, and people put in dimes, quarters, dollars and whatever else, and we had enough to hire the companies that came in.”
In the years since the formation of the committee, the former councilman said, between four and five different pyrotechnic firms were hired. The current company, Pennsylvania-based Schaefer Pyrotechnics, was contracted for the 2010 through 2012 displays.
For about the past decade, he added, the committee and display have “mostly been a Beachwood effort,” as the original mayors from surrounding municipalities who formed the committee either retired or passed away. The current committee consists of former Beachwood mayor, Hal Morris, current Beachwood councilwoman, Beverly Clayton, Mr. Lacrosse and Kevin Williams from 92.7 WOBM.
Although sponsorship continues from some of the original corporate entities, “a good portion of the money that goes to put the show on comes from the general population,” Mr. Lacrosse said.
“It has always been a Beachwood kind of show, ever since the fire company started it way back when the Borough of Beachwood had their own committee that used taxpayer money [for funding],” he stated, noting that the scale of the display since the new committee took it over has increased. “I believe this year something like 7,200 shells went off, all in 27 minutes, so that’s a lot of booms going off in the air, that’s for darn sure.”
“And a lot of oohs and aahs, too,” the committee member added. “We tried to estimate the area of the sky they take up, and someone said 750 feet or more – that’s a huge explosion.”
In planning this year’s display, billed as the 70th but with acknowledgment that fireworks displays appear to have been hosted by Beachwood even earlier than 1940, Mr. Lacrosse said the committee “wanted something special – you have a lot to see in the finale, a lot of fireworks, but we said, ‘Can we throw in something a little different that people would remember for the next year, at least?’”
The result, he said, was a series of stars, hearts, and red, white and blue bursts alongside their regular synchronization to patriotic music played through 92.7 WOBM, both on the radio and through a sound system at the beach.
In the years since the current committee took on the task of providing the Toms River area with their yearly fix of explosions and color, the committee member noted that they had never once been rained out.
“We’ve come close, and it’s rained right up to the point where we were going to set them off, but we got a one-hour window where the rain stopped for the show, and twenty minutes after the grand finale, it came down in buckets,” he said, joking that he is in charge of the weather on the committee.
In the end, Mr. Lacrosse said, it’s the knowledge that borough and area residents will be able to go home with a smile on their face and the knowledge that next year the show will be there, in bigger and better form, to take their families and friends to.
Area residents interested in seeing the annual show continue to go on are encouraged to make their donations to Fireworks on the Toms River – Beachwood, c/o Beachwood Borough Hall, 1600 Pinewald Road, Beachwood, N.J. 08722. Contributions are accepted year-round.
Posted by beachwoodhistoricalalliance on June 3, 2010
This article originally appeared in the Riverside Signal on June 2nd, 2010. It has been reprinted below. The Riverside Signal can be found at www.RiversideSignal.com
An Official Ocean County Press Release
Train at Beachwood Depot, 1915.
Events Slated for Ocean County’s Barnegat Branch Trail
OCEAN COUNTY – With just more than 3 miles completed, Ocean County’s Barnegat Branch Trail is already providing residents and visitors with a unique view of the natural side of Ocean County.
The trail, which winds through wooded areas and natural lands starting in Barnegat Township and traveling through Waretown so far will be highlighted on National Trails Day, June 5.
“We are encouraging our residents from throughout Ocean County to visit us at the southern start of the Barnegat Branch trail on Saturday, June 5,” said Freeholder Director James F. Lacey, who serves as liaison to the trail. “Wear your sneakers, ride your bike, just take a break and enjoy what nature has to offer right here in your own backyard.”
Since 1993, National Trails Day has inspired thousands of individuals and community groups to take part in activities that promote healthy living and mental well being, protect green space, educate youth and adults on the importance of trails and instill excitement for the outdoors, according to the American Hiking Society, the founder of National Trails Day.
The theme for this year is “Find Your Happy Place.”
Representatives from Ocean County’s Department of Parks and Recreation, the designers of the Barnegat Branch Rail Trail and the Board of Chosen Freeholders will be on hand from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Burr Street parking area in Barnegat Township to offer information about the trail and other related county programs and services.
“I want to encourage everyone to join us and not only learn about our trail but experience it,” Mr. Lacey said.
The Beachwood Historical Alliance has been collecting photographs of that borough's train depot, shown here shortly before its demolition in the early 1960s, in an effort to bring it back to life as a comfort station on the trail to potentially aid the borough's ailing downtown district.
The Ocean County Board of Chosen Freeholders has been constructing the Barnegat Branch trail in phases with the first two sections completed.
Construction is expected to start in early summer on the third phase of the trail and be completed by the fall.
“This section will travel through a beautiful area of the Pinelands in Ocean County with Cedar Creek being a centerpiece,” the freeholder director added.
The trail, when completed will be a 15.6-mile linear park that runs from Barnegat Township to Toms River Township.
“This park is unique to Ocean County and features areas that residents and visitors may not have been able to experience since they are deep in our natural woods. Each time we add to it, the park grows in popularity, ” he continued.
The Barnegat Branch trail follows the existing right of way of the former Barnegat Branch Division of the Central Railroad of New Jersey.
Over the last 20 years, abandoned railroad lines like the Barnegat Branch Division of the Central Railroad of New Jersey that once ran through a portion of Ocean County have been transformed into trail parks in nearly every state in the country.
“Under the county’s plan, this abandoned rail line is being improved to link Barnegat Township to Toms River Township, and in the process will offer residents and visitors a new type of recreational trail experience,” stated Mr. Lacey.
Upon completion, the Barnegat Branch Trail will join the list of 43 existing and proposed rail trail projects across New Jersey.
The rail right of way, today a bike path, that runs along Railroad Avenue in Beachwood Borough.
To get the trail under way, in October 2002, Ocean County purchased 8.8 miles of the old railroad in three towns – Berkeley, Ocean and Barnegat townships. This purchase was supplemented in 2004 when Lacey Township granted to Ocean County an easement over its 4.8-mile trail segment. Coupled with the existing bike path in Beachwood and the incorporation of a dedicated bike lane along Flint Road in South Toms River, the completed trail will span 15.6 miles from Barnegat Township to Toms River Township.
“The design of the Barnegat Branch Trail is sensitive to the changing landscape of central Ocean County,” the freeholder continued. “Trail visitors will experience wooded areas in Barnegat and Waretown’s southern reach before transitioning into an active-use corridor that parallels Route 9 north of Waretown.
“Residential and commercial neighbors border much of the trail through Lacey Township before it returns to forest and then sand mining in Berkeley Township,” he added.
The primary surface finish of the trail is a stone dust surface. As work progresses, the trail will feature a number of trail facilities including community centers, comfort stations, trail signage and historical exhibits.
The facilities are being built in a style reminiscent of passenger and freight stations that once served Barnegat Township, the Forked River section of Lacey Township, the Pinewald section of Berkeley Township and Toms River.
Freeholder John C. Bartlett Jr., who serves as liaison to the Ocean County Department of Parks and Recreation, noted that several Ocean County parks and county natural land areas are located within walking or bicycling distance of the Barnegat Branch Trail including Lochiel Creek in Barnegat Township, Berkeley Island County Park, Wells Mills County Park in Waretown and Enos Pond County Park in Lacey Township.
“This trail not only offers the user the opportunity to see nature at it’s best in Ocean County, it offers access to Ocean County’s premiere park sites,” Mr. Bartlett said. “It’s a perfect combination.”
From archival photo caption: "The Jersey Central's Barnegat Branch left the Southern Division at Lakehurst and extended 22.1 miles to its namesake community. On May 1, 1967, the westbound Barnegat local freight rolls through Beachwood about one mile south of Toms River, the seat of Ocean County."
For more information on the Barnegat Branch rail trail, please visit:
Posted by beachwoodhistoricalalliance on May 20, 2010
This article originally appeared in the Riverside Signal on May 19th, 2010. It has been reprinted below. The Riverside Signal can be found at http://www.RiversideSignal.com
by Erik Weber Chapel dates back to start of borough
Shore Vineyard Church, current occupant of the Beachwood chapel, May 2010.
BEACHWOOD – A heated conflict between Shore Vineyard Church and its neighbors boiled over during the May 5th borough council meeting, here, as residents and church officials debated for over an hour before the governing body, which found itself in the position of mediator.
Since at least January, Barnegat Boulevard resident Roy Miller has appeared before the borough council to petition for action against his neighbor, Shore Vineyard Church, citing parking, noise and general quality of life issues related to the church’s group meetings and events. Borough code enforcement officer William Knapp, Sr., has said that upon investigating, he can find no legal ground to cite the religious organization with, as there are no specific ordinances restricting their various activities, and that parking on surrounding borough streets was available and open for the public.
Last month, the governing body requested that William T. Hiering, borough attorney, look into the potential that the church was operating as an expanded allowable use.
Mr. Hiering stated that he investigated the church and its zoning documentation, but that upon seeking related cases for further insight, he found them to be “pretty broad in what they consider excessive use.”
Citing St. John’s Evangelical Church v. Hoboken, the borough attorney reported that the judgment found “daycare, orphanages and even drug counseling qualify” as falling under normal use for the church site.
Regarding noise issues, Mr. Hiering did point out that regardless of the zoning, a borough ordinance regulating noise levels between the hours of 9 pm and 7 am required levels not to be more than 45 decibels during that period.
Additionally, the borough ordinance restricts noise levels in a residential neighborhood to 55 decibels or lower between 7 am and 9pm. Exceptions and permitted variations include allowing the sound limit to be exceeded not more than one time per day for a 15 minute period; permitting peak values of short durations, referred to in the ordinance as “impact noises”, as not more than the more restrictive noise level of either 20 decibels above the restricted level or 80 decibels; and excluding “alarms, sirens, emergency warning devices, motor vehicles and other sources not under the direct control of a use.”
Beachwood Chapel: A Detailed History
The Beachwood chapel, within a year of construction, circa 1924. Reprinted from Beachwood Directory and Who's Who, 1924, by William Mill Butler.
The origin of the chapel building at Compass and Spring dates back to the earliest years of Beachwood, when property owners almost completely consisted of summering New York City residents and the newly incorporated borough was not yet four months old, in 1917.
Early borough resident and retired New York newspaper editor, William Mill Butler, recounted the burgeoning call for religious services that led to the construction of the chapel in his book on the first ten years of Beachwood, Beachwood Directory and Who’s Who 1924.
On June 30th of 1917, he writes that the Property Owners’ Association “decided to appoint a committee of three to make arrangements for union religious meetings at the club house each Sunday evening.”
From then, non-denominational Sunday services and “sacred concerts” were held at the clubhouse, which once stood on the bluff overlooking Windy Cove, across from what today is the Mayo Park playground. The original borough hall was also used; that structure was first known as the “Auditorium”, stood roughly on the site of today’s Mayo Park playground and, like the clubhouse, was built during the original New York Tribune promotion that started the town as a resort, in 1914. Numerous reverends, both visiting and borough residents, ran the meetings and eventually funds were donated for an organ to be installed. Two years later, the group formally organized and incorporated under the name of “Beachwood Religious Association.”
The only known photograph of Bertram Chapman Mayo, founder of Beachwood Borough. Originally donated by his family.
By the time Beachwood’s founder, Bertram Chapman Mayo, died unexpectedly while on vacation in Asheville, North Carolina in July 1920, the organization’s previous three years of forming connections with local reverends and practicing meetings allowed the property owners the ability to facilitate a memorial service in his honor, held August 8th, in the clubhouse.
Two years later, the association had gained a known musician and evangelical singer in the form of new summer resident Justin Lawrie, who began regularly accompanying the meetings and concerts with his work. That summer, the first borough marriage license was issued for a ceremony that took place on Barnegat Boulevard, and by the time of the August 27th annual meeting of the Beachwood Religious Association, newly elected trustees were “appointed a committee to obtain information regarding a chapel site.”
By the following Sunday services, the last for the season, on September 3rd, 1922, fundraising for the building got underway.
Mr. Butler writes:
“In the midst of the musical program, O. Frederick Rost, chairman of the board of trustees, launched a campaign for a non-sectarian chapel building fund. Subscription cards were distributed to the congregation, the members of which entered into he proposition with true Beachwood spirit, so that before the meeting closed in the neighborhood of $2,000 had been pledged in sums from $1 to $100. Besides this some fifty cards were taken home for consideration, with promises that they would be sent in by mail. Nor was the enthusiasm confined to money subscriptions. One of those present, who wished his name left secret, offered to purchase four lots and donate them for a chapel site; another offered to do the electrical work and supply materials free of charge; still another offered to draw the plans and specifications free of charge. A building contractor offered to erect the chapel, charging only actual cost of labor and materials, and to make no charge for the work of supervision. A special committee was appointed, consisting of Frank O. Price, chairman; George F. Middleton and Mrs. George D. Siffert, to meet with the board of trustees and decide upon plans for the building.”
By the time the borough property owners’ held their annual dinner and dance near their homes at the Hotel Astor in New York City, on February 24th, 1923, Mr. Rost “described the plans that were being formulated for the erection of a community chapel, undenominational in character, which would be ready for use by July.”
Within the late spring 1923 edition of the borough property owners’ association newsletter, the Beachwood Echo, appeared a detailed description of the chapel to be built, which would be “35 feet by 80 feet, and the main auditorium, 35 feet by 60 feet, providing seats for 250 persons. At the south end of the main auditorium was placed the library and reading room, which has a floor level of 2 feet above that of the auditorium.”
And thus was born the Beachwood Library, housed for a number of years as part of the chapel, before a bungalow on Beachwood Boulevard was donated by borough resident Nathan T. Pulsifer, in memory of his late wife.
Still in question, however, was where the chapel would be built. That was solved quickly with the intervention by a member of Beachwood’s founding family.
From Mr. Butler:
“Mr. and Mrs. John W. Baker, of Maplewood, N.J., who own considerable property in Beachwood, donated to the Beachwood Religious Association the triangle bounded by Spring and Compass streets and Club House road, in front of the chapel. Mrs. Baker is the sister of the late B. C. Mayo, founder of Beachwood.”
John J. Nolze, a founding member of the borough fire company and a local builder, won the contract for construction, which began immediately.
By August, it was built.
The first service in the new chapel, held on August 19th, prior to its dedication, saw its services accompanied by a severe lighting storm. Five days later, a “book day” was held by the borough Woman’s Club to furnish the library with books, with over 75 in attendance and a final daily tally of above 350 books collected. Barnegat Boulevard resident Mabel Staton was appointed librarian.
With its official dedication on September 2nd, 1923, the chapel was formally recognized as an operating borough facility and over the following near-century saw numerous religious organizations take it over for services, club meetings and concerts, leading up to Shore Vineyard Church today.
BEACHWOOD – Last week, thousands of area residents lined the banks and side streets along the Toms River to witness the borough’s Fourth of July fireworks display, here.
Over the years, the past fire chief said, the culture of the waterfront and putting on the fireworks display changed with the introduction of more regulations, pollution of the Toms River by the Ciba-Geigy chemical plant and influx of new residents not as heavily involved in the annual tradition.
“I was also a lifeguard and we used to have about 400 people a day on that beach,” said Mr. Symington. “But then with people starting to get pools and Ciba dumping into the river, everything like that sort of dwindled down.”
