Benjamin Harrison was inaugurated as 23rd US President.
The Eiffel Tower was a hit as the world's tallest structure and centerpiece of the Paris Exposition Universelle on the centennial of the French Revolution. Annie Oakley, a sharpshooter, is the star of Wild Bill Cody’s Wild West show.
Mrs. Elizabeth Lucas the widow of John Lucas finally learned her husband’s embezzlement was massive to support the resorts of Spring Lake and Sea Girt and the building of the Keystone Bank Headquarters.
Henry H. Yard convinced her to let him and Gideon Marsh, now Bank President resolve the issues. He set up a new company, The “Spring Lake and Sea Girt Company”, and sold the company most of the vacant unsold land in both towns. He left the bank with the property west of the railroad.
He controlled both the shell of the old companies and the new.
So, H. H. Yard as President of the Sea Girt Land Improvement Company and President of the Spring Lake Beach Improvement Company, personally authorized the sale of their land to the new “Spring Lake and Sea Girt Company” for $400,000 minus any mortgages, $300,000 for Sea Girt and $100,000 for the remaining eastern lots in Spring Lake.
Yard’s new company would be capitalized with the issuance of $700,000 worth of stock. The only initial stockholder would be Yard. He would get his initial investment from a payment of $160,000 as his “commission” for the sale of the property.
Henry Herbert Yard took control of both Sea Girt and Spring Lake after the death of John Lucas
The rest of the capitalization would be in the form of a mortgage from the Improvement Companies. So putting no money down, Henry earned a majority ownership in the most valuable vacant land in Spring Lake and Sea Girt by paying himself a commission for selling the land to himself. He gathered other influential men to join him and announced the new company in the newspapers.
J. Bunford Samuel, one of the original cottage owners was a Philadelphia resident. He summered at the Ocean just south of the Tremont. He along with Elliston Morris had been one of the few who held the leaders of the Land Company to account. He wrote letters to the newspapers about the changing maps, the poor management of the waters of Wreck Pond and eventually to the bank examiners.
He was suspicious in 1885.
“We all implicitly believe in Providence, but have come to the conclusion that the gentlemen who are designated to look after our welfares are derelict in their duty”.
By 1890 he was convinced the scandal would drag down the town.
J. Bunford Samuel enjoyed canoeing on Wreck Pond (MCM Collection Library Company of Philadelphia)
“There is a scheme on foot by which a syndicate of capitalists mean to acquire absolute control of Sea Girt and Spring Lake”
Samuel’s house at the east end of what is now Brooklyn Blvd. Saul Wahl with Tremont and Parker House in the distance. The first Jewish resident of Sea Girt was an advocate for good stewardship of the resort. (MCM photo 1888)
The same house looking East from the NW corner of First & Brooklyn, which was called Sherwood Ave at the time.
Yard advertised and planted stories in the New York Times about the new company and its $700,000 in capital. The papers boasted that the work on the water systems, street lighting, roads and sewerage would be installed for the next season. People with an interest in the towns joined him as directors: Oliver H. Brown and William H. Potter, the two most successful merchants in the Brighton downtown district along Third Avenue where downtown Spring Lake is today. Yard’s lawyer, Garrett Dorset Vroom, former mayor of Trenton lent credibility, and L.U. Maltby of the Monmouth House. looked to protect his investment.
There was trouble in Philadelphia. The Keystone Bank was teetering on collapse. It would not survive 1891. Tomorrow the 1891 consequences of the fraud hit Sea Girt.