Half Shell Jack

The Saint Louis Dispatch told the story of Half-Shell Jack. Jack Winters was a well-known gambler, who played cards at the Shore Hotels and frequented the track at Long Branch. In the summer of 1894 he had a run of bad luck at the tables. People stopped lending him money, and he found himself taking wagers over eating raw oysters. He would find a man to purchase five dozen and bet he could down them without a break. He became known as “Half-Shell Jack”.

NJ Oysterman shucking (Library of Congress)

In Sea Girt that summer, the women planned an oyster dinner to raise money for charity. They almost had to cancel because at the Shark River, the inlet was closed for four months and had to be hand-dug to open up the shellfish beds to get access to refreshing salt water. Once the beds were opened, prices stabilized, and they proceeded to plan the dinner.

Sea Girt had an affinity for the oyster. LU Maltby who managed the Beach House, the Monmouth and Carleton in Spring Lake came from an oystering family. Maltby trained at his uncle Caleb’s Maltby House in Maryland. Caleb had three ships and worked with the B&O railroad to develop the “Oyster Express”, iced oysters, first to Pittsburgh restaurants where he had connections, and then to the “Far West” as the B&O expanded and he developed a canning process for his product. He had a large oyster works in Baltimore, and trading operations near the current PNC headquarters in Pittsburgh. The B&O shipped the Chesapeake bivalves from there and the national price was set in Maltby’s lobby.

Workers were paid by the piece in an early canning plant. Library of Congress

Ticket sales were slow until someone suggested getting Jack to come down and spice things up. Jack promised to eat 200 oysters in thirty minutes and the men would pay ten cents per shell to witness Jack pull off the feat. The opportunity for side wagering attracted many, and one gentleman proposed a half dollar piece for each oyster over 200, a few others joined him for less money. The woman complained that Jack would be endangering his life, but the bettors prevailed.

He slid 200 down his gullet in 20 minutes and continued right on eating. The bonus half dollar donor tried to get him to quit at 250, but Jack continued and did not stop until he had consumed 300 oysters. (The current world record is 427 in 27 minutes). Jack had boosted the charity haul by an extra $75 and everyone was happy.

Jack remained at Sea Girt, but a week later was not well. His friends guessed indigestion, but this was more serious and Jack had a high fever and abdominal pain. A group of men from Wesleyan College had gotten typhoid fever from eating oysters infected with sewerage, and there was discussion about the beds in the Shrewsbury River, but the Shark River beds were uncontaminated.

Doctors examining Jack decided that his appendix was swollen and they would attempt a new procedure to remove the infected organ. Developed by Charles McBurney at Roosevelt Hospital in New York, the surgery had some success, but any surgery in 1894 was dangerous. Jack decided to go for it, and in the sac of his appendix, the doctors found the offending object, a large pearl.

The gentleman who had made the half-dollar donation visited Jack and as a curiosity offered him $1,500 for the pearl. Jack sold it, and when he felt better, he returned to the smoking room at the Beach House in Sea Girt. He handed a friend $1,000 to bet it all on the Futurity race at Sheepshead Bay on The Butterflies. The horse was a long shot. She was the first filly to ever win the race; she won a record purse. When his friend returned to Sea Girt with a wad of cash for Jack, he splurged on a few hundred dollars worth of champagne, and the winnings kept him fed for the rest of his life. But he lost his taste for oysters.