History > Dream of the Hotel Cape May never came to fruition

Last Updated on Monday, April 16, 2012 04:31 pm Written by Jacob Schaad Jr. Wednesday, February 22, 2012 08:00 pm

Teddy Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States during the first decade of the 20th century, a time that is known as the Progressive Era for its social activism and political reform.

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Bizarre History of Cape May > Grandiose plans for harbor sunk with ‘Pittsburgh’ dredge and Cape May Real Estate Co.

Last Updated on Monday, April 16, 2012 04:35 pm Written by Jacob Schaad Jr. Tuesday, February 14, 2012 06:55 pm

It wasn’t exactly Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but the crowds on the streets of Cape May were so large at midnight on the New Year’s Eve leading into the 20th century that there was high optimism a comeback was on the way for Cape May. Some newspapers went so far as to say that never in Cape May’s history had so many people been on the streets at the witching hour.

Read more: Bizarre History of Cape May > Grandiose plans for harbor sunk with ‘Pittsburgh’ dredge and Cape May Real Estate Co.

Bizarre History of Cape May > Philadelphia Phillies spent spring training in Cape May in 1898

Last Updated on Saturday, October 20, 2012 10:46 am Written by Jacob Schaad Jr. Wednesday, February 08, 2012 05:54 pm

After the booming guns quieted and after Robert E. Lee surrendered his weapons at Appomattox Court House in Virginia on the Palm Sunday of April 9, 1865, the people of the soon-to-be-renamed Cape May sought ways to reclaim the pre-war tourism glory days that then-Cape Island had enjoyed.

Read more: Bizarre History of Cape May > Philadelphia Phillies spent spring training in Cape May in 1898

Bizarre History of Cape May > Cape May has several connections to Civil War medicine

Last Updated on Monday, April 16, 2012 04:36 pm Written by Jacob Schaad Jr. Wednesday, February 01, 2012 03:34 pm

Before there was Medicare, before politicians argued about health insurance, and long before there was medicine with fancy names like simvastatin and amlodipine besylate, there were doctors after the Civil War who didn’t have to worry about what those names meant, let alone spell them. There just weren’t any to deal with.

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History > With many visitors from the South, Cape May dealt with issues of slavery

Last Updated on Tuesday, January 17, 2012 05:17 pm Written by Jacob Schaad Jr. Wednesday, January 18, 2012 01:00 am

Millard Fillmore was the 13th President of the United States when Cape Island was officially incorporated as a borough on Feb. 28, 1851

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History > Cape May’s history with the sea runs deep

Written by Jacob Schaad Jr. Tuesday, January 10, 2012 06:07 pm

The ships that passed in the night as well as in the day have been as much a part of the history of Cape May, nee Cape Island, as the land events that have happened for centuries.

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History > Cape May hotels have risen from the ashes several times

Last Updated on Wednesday, January 04, 2012 10:35 am Written by Jacob Schaad Jr. Wednesday, January 04, 2012 01:00 am

The people who came to Cape Island during the first half of the 19th century for visits or permanent residency were often an influence on others to follow them.

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Bizarre History of Cape May > Cape May has hosted the famous and semi-famous alike

Last Updated on Monday, April 16, 2012 04:40 pm Written by Jacob Schaad Jr. Wednesday, December 21, 2011 12:19 pm

The names of famous people who visited Cape Island/Cape May during its prime in the 19th century have been duly recorded in historical accounts during the last two centuries or so, Presidents Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Ulysses S. Grant, Chester Arthur and Benjamin Harrison among them.

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History > Vacationers have been coming to Cape May since the Revolution

Last Updated on Wednesday, December 14, 2011 11:00 am Written by Jacob Schaad Jr. Wednesday, December 14, 2011 10:58 am

How times have changed at Cape Island that was to be renamed Cape May.

Looking back at its early history one would not find parking meters on its streets or automobiles clogging its narrow roads or the skimpiest of bikinis decorating its beaches.

Instead of Fords and Chevrolets, there were stage coaches and buggies. Free parking was abundant and horrors that anyone should exhibit any part of the body below the head except maybe the big toe.

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History > Local anthem actually written ‘On The Way To Cape May’

Written by Jacob Schaad Jr. Tuesday, December 06, 2011 05:08 pm

It never won a music award, didn’t even come close to being nominated for one, but a song that was adlibbed in a moving automobile more than a half century ago has survived today in Cape May’s history as a local hit that has overshadowed even the works of Irving Berlin and Barry Manilow.

The writer of this song, which has a fascinating historical mystique, is Maurice “Bud” Nugent, a name you will not find on Tin Pan Alley, simply because he never claimed to be a songwriter. But you can bet your last parking meter quarter that the song he composed, a ditty called “On The Way To Cape May,” has emerged to become the biggest popular musical success here since John Philip Sousa composed “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” Some claim it is the second national anthem of Cape May County.

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