The Old Mansion by W. Bob Holland down on Long Beach, that narrow
strip of sand which stretches along the New Jersey Coast from Barnegot Inlet on the
north to Little Egg Harbor Inlet on the south. The summer sojourner at some
one of the numerous resorts which of late years have sprung up every few miles,
may, in wandering over the sand dunes just across the bay from the
village of Manahawkin, stumble over some charred timbers or vestiges of crumbling chimneys,
showing that once years back, a human habitation has stood there. If the
fine rouses the jaded curiosity of the visitor sufficiently to impel him to question the
weather beaten old bayman who sails him on his fishing trips, he will learn
that these relics mark the site of one of the first summer hotels erected on
the New Jersey Coast. That's where the old mansion stood. He will be
informed by Captain Nate or Captain Sam, or whatever particular captain it may chance
to be. And if by good fortune it chances to be Captain Jim,
he will hear a story that will pleasantly pass away the long wait for a
sheep's head bite. It was my good luck to have secured Captain Jim for
a preceptor in the angler's art during my vacation last summer, and his stories
and reminiscences of Long Beach were not the least enjoyable features of the two weeks
sojourn. Captain Jim was not garrulous. Few of the bay men are.
They are a sturdy, self reliant and self controlled people, full of strong
common sense, but still with that firm belief in the supernatural which seems inherent
in dwellers by the sea. The old Mansion, said Captain Jim, or
the Mansion of Health, for that was its full name, was built away
back in eighteen twenty two, so I've heard my father say. There had
been a tavern close by years before that was kept by a man named Cranmer,
And people used to come from Philadelphia by stage sixty miles through the pines
the Hawking and then cross here by boat. Some would stop at Cranmer's and
others went on down the beach to Homer's, which was cleared down an end
by the inlet. Finally, some of the wealthy people concluded that they wanted
better accommodations than Cranmer gave, so they formed the Great Swamp Long Beach Company
and built the Mansion of Health. I've heard that when it was built it
was the biggest hotel on the coast and was considered a wonder. It was
one hundred twenty feet long, three stories high, and had a porch running
all the way around it, with a balcony on top. It was certainly
a big thing for those days. I've heard father tell many a time of
the stage loads of gate people that used to come rattling into Hawkin, each
stage drawn by four horses, and sometimes four or five of them a day
in the summer. A good many people too, used to come in their
own carriages and leave them over on the mainland until they were ready to go
home. There were gay times at the old Mansion then, and it made
times good for the people along shore too. How long did the old Mansion
flourish, Captain, I asked, well, for twenty five or thirty years.
People came there summer after summer. Then they built a railroad to Cape
May, and that with the ghosts settled The Mansion of Health what do you
mean by the ghosts? I demanded, Well, you see, said Captain
Jim, cutting off a mouthful of navy plug. The story got around that
the old house was haunted. Some people said there were queer things seen there,
and strange noises were heard that nobody could account for. And pretty soon
the place got a bad name, and visitors were so few that it didn't
pay to keep it open anymore. But how did it get the name of
being haunted? Captain Jim, I persisted, Why it was this way,
continued the mariner. Maybe you've heard of the time early in the fifties when
the paw Hutton was wrecked on the beach here and every soul on board was
lost. She was an emigrant ship and there were over four hundred people aboard,
passengers and crew. She came ashore here during the equinoctial storm in September.
There wasn't any life saving stations in them days, and everyone was drowned.
You can see the long graves now over in the hawk and churchyard where
the bodies were buried after they came ashore. They put them in three long
trenches that were dug from one end of the burying ground. To the other.
The only people on the beach that night was the man who took care
of the old mansion. He lived there with his family, and his son
in law lived with him. He was the wreck master for this part of
the coast too. It wasn't till the second day that the people from Hawkin
could get over to the beach, and by that time the bodies had all
come ashore, and the wreck master had them all piled up on the sand.
I was a youngster then and came over with my father, and I
tell you it was the awfullest sight I ever saw. Them, long rows
of drowned people, all lying there with their white still faces turned up to
the sky. Some were women with their dead babies clasped tight in their arms,
and some were husbands and wives whose bodies came ashore, locked together in
a death embrace. I'll never forget that sight as long as I live.
Well. When the coroner came and took charge, he began to inquire whether
any money or valuables had been found, but the wreck master declared that not
a solitary coin had been washed ashore. People thought this was rather singular,
as the emigrants were most of them well to do Germans, and were known
to have brought a good deal of money with them, but it was concluded
that it had gone down with the ship. While the poor emigrants were given
pauper burial, and the people had begun to forget their suspicions until three or
four months later there came another storm and the sea broke clear over the beach
just below the old mansion and washed away the sand. Next morning, early
two men from Hawkins sailed across the bay and landed on the beach. They
walked across on the hard bottom where the sea had washed across, and when
about halfway from the bay, one of the men saw something curious close up
against the stump of an old cedar tree. He called the other man's attention
to it, and they went over to the stump. What they found was
a pile of leather money belts that would have filled a wheelbarrow. Every one
was cut open and empty. They had been buried in the sand close by
the old stump, and the sea had washed away the covering. The men
didn't go any further. They carried the belts to their boats and sailed back
to Hawkin as fast as the wind would take them. Of course, it
made a big sensation, and everybody was satisfied that the wreck master had robbed
the bodies if he hadn't done anything worse. But there was no way to
prove it, and so nothing was done. The wreck master didn't stay around
here long after that, though, The people made it too hot for him,
and he and his family went away south. But it was said he
bought a big plantation and a lot of slaves. Years afterward, the story
came to Hawkins somehow that he was killed in a bar room brawl and that
his son in law was drowned by his boat upsetting while he was out fishing.
I don't furnish any affidavits with that part of the story, though,
However, after that, nobody lived in the old mansion for a long at
a time. People would go there, stay a week or two, and
leave, And at last it was given up entirely to beach parties in the
daytime and ghosts at night. But Captain, you don't really believe the ghost
part, do you, I asked. Captain Jim looked down the bay,
expectorated gravely over the side of the boat, and answered slowly, Well,
I don't know as I would have believed in them if I hadn't seen the
ghost. But I exclaimed, you saw it, Tell me about it.
I've always wanted to see a ghost, or next best thing a man who
has seen one. It was one August about eighteen sixty one, said the
Captain. I was a young feller then, and with a half dozen more,
was over on the beach cutting salt hay. We didn't go home at
nights, but did our own cooking in the old mansion kitchen, and at
nights slept on piles of hay upstairs. We were a reckless slot of scamps,
and reckoned that no ghosts could scare us. There was a big full
moon that night, and it was as light as day. The Musketeers was
pretty bad too, and it was easier to stay awake than go to sleep.
Along. Toward midnight, me and two other fellers went out on the
old balcony and began to race around the house. We hollered and yelled and
chased each other for half an hour or so, and then we concluded we
had better go to sleep, so we started for the window of the room
where the rest were. This window was near one end on the ocean side,
and as I came around the corner, I stopped as if I had
been shot, and my hair raised straight up on top of my head.
Right there in front of that window stood a woman, looking out over the
sea, and in her arms she held a little child. I saw her
as plain as I see you now. It seemed to me an hour she
stood there, but I don't suppose it was a second. Then she was
gone. When I could move, I looked around for the other boys,
and they were standing there paralyzed. They had seen the woman too. We
didn't say much, and we didn't sleep much that night, and the next
night we balked out on the beach. The rest of the crowd made all
manner of fun of us. We had had all the ghost we wanted,
and they never set foot inside the old house after that. When did it
burn down, Captain, I asked, as Jim relapsed into silence. Somewhere
about twenty five years ago, a beach party had been roasting clams in the
old oven, and in some way the fire got to the woodwork. It
was as dry as tinder, and I hope the ghosts were all burnt up
with it, and of the old mansion,