Speaker 1: The Old Mansion by W. Bob Holland down on Long Beach,
that narrow strip of sand which stretches along the New
Jersey Coast from Barnegut 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 find 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 baymen 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 Homers,
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 Gape 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 any more. 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 Hutan 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 half way 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 everyone 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, for it was said he bought a big
plantation and a lot of slaves. Years afterward, the story
came to Hawkin 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 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 em
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 lot of scamps, and reckoned that no ghost
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 bumped 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 I 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 beech 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 hoped the ghosts were all
burnt up with it, and of the old mansion