Fighting in Spring Lake, The Blakey’s start a downtown in Sea Girt

The Shore properties of Sea Girt and Spring Lake were no easier to manage under Henry Yard than they were under James Hunter or John Lucas. In Spring Lake, the garbage became a nuisance and the sand and clay streets again needed maintenance, the citizenry finally decided they wanted a municipal authority.

1895 is a story in two parts. As Henry Yard was losing influence in Spring Lake, he placed Harold Blakey and his wife Mary in Sea Girt. She would run a farm store and the Post Office as the beginnings of downtown Sea Girt.

While Yard was fighting his arrest, for fraud in the Keystone Bank affair, O.H. Brown, and the property owners organized a coup of sorts.

Yard’s black bears were kept in a pit behind the Monmouth House.

Spring Lake merged with Villa Park (and eventually North Spring Lake) to form the Borough of Spring Lake in 1892, with railway station master E.V. Patterson as mayor. This would allow the cottagers and hoteliers a voice in their government. The women hotel owners and summer residents could not vote, but there was no dissent reported. Most were against Yard. They convened a Board of Health, conducted inspections, and passed resolutions, some aimed at curbing the influence of the Coast Company, Yard’s management company for the Sea Girt and Spring Lake Land Improvement Company.

Of course, Henry H. Yard would not go away so easily. He moved the Coast Company’s primary offices from Belmar to the First Ave. business district next to the Carlton. He also moved his pet bears Simon and Bess to a pit at the back of the Monmouth House where they were fed food scraps.

His control of so much property and influence earned him a seat on the town Council. E.L. Hall represented Yard’s interests there.

Yard then antagonized the town leaders by building five storage sheds on the shore of the lake. The new mayor and Borough Council met and passed a resolution, noting that the lakefront was for the enjoyment of the citizens, deeded so in their original documents, and the sheds would have to come down.

H.H. sued on behalf of the company. When Lucas was in charge, Yard was able to put an ice house on the side of the lake to store the summer ice supply he cut from the lake and sold to the hotels. In 1888, just before Lucas died, lightning struck the ice house and burned it to the ground, melting the ice within. Yard had it rebuilt. Based on this precedent and a faulty act in the town formation in Cape May Point, Yard tried to have the municipality declared unconstitutional. His argument was that the Council acted without authority and used a resolution and not an ordinance. In addition to the suit he generally made a nuisance of himself. The Philadelphia papers reported it this way:

“When Yard came, he would neither make improvements nor permit others to do so. The only thing he would consent to was to sell out, if he got enough, and he had exceptional genius for giving apparent value to tag-ends at least on paper.

Being an engineer as well as a financier, he drew an imaginary line across the lake and caused a strip about 150 feet wide to be conveyed to the Coast Company, one of his many similar enterprises. On this strip, they recently began putting up five one-story shanties for stores.

The Mayor notified him to stop, but “Yard only gave the Mayor the laugh, saying, like ‘Chlmmie’ Fadden, ‘What the ‘ell?’” (Jimmy or Chimmy Fadden was a fictional character whose comedy was found in his street tough talk in the world of Park Avenue gentlemen).

Then the Borough Council directed the Mayor to tear down the shanties if they were not removed within twenty-four hours, whereupon E. L. Hall, a member of the Council, but a factotum for Yard, rushed off to swear to a bill in equity filed by Yard's Coast Company to restrain the Mayor from demolishing the shanties.

Not satisfied yet, Councilman Hall then assaulted Mayor Patterson with threats and language which, it is said, “would have made a Comanche Indian in war paint turn pale and tremble”. Councilman Hall was arrested and held to bail.

“Still not satisfied, Councilman Hall, with a gang of men from Sea Girt, stole into the town at night and secretly tore up and carried off the board-walk which had been laid and paid for by the cottagers themselves. It Is said that in due time warrants will be issued for all participants in this outrage, as well as their instigators.”

The town won its fight with Henry Yard and they stepped up their legislative efforts to minimize the impact of the Coast Company. Yard also lost a suit for having sold some of the public land after the town informed the disappointed buyer Frank DeLong (the millionaire inventor of the hook and eye). DeLong purchased land from Yard for $12,000 which was actually in the park around the lake.

Facing the eviction of Bess and Simon, Yard had his pet bears butchered and the meat given away for free.

The borough eventually paid him for the rights to the Beachfront, lake, parks water and sewer plants only after arresting another of Yard’s men over their alleged intentional fouling of the sewer system. The town paid the Coast Company $35,000 in 1899 but borrowed $70,000 to spend as much to repair the water and sewer systems along with the roads.

Henry Yard was not yet out of tricks. He was stymied in Spring Lake, and his Virginia Iron furnace had been tangled up in court. To raise cash, he leased the remainder of the Sea Girt Farm to Harvey Blackey.

In 1908, the Western part of Sea Girt still looked like farmland

Harvey C. Blakey and his wife Mary A. Blakey moved to the shore from Morristown Pennsylvania They spent time in Belmar. Harvey was a farmer. Most of the original farmland was converted to the National Guard Camp, and the smaller farm needed to be repurposed.

In 1895 Yard and Blakey constructed greenhouses. Blakey brought in palm trees which he rented for the season and raised flowers. His specialty was summer lawns and gardens and he traveled between Manasquan and Long Branch to decorate the homes of wealthy cottage owners.

Harvey also opened a farm store in front of his property across from the rail station on the intersection of Washington Avenue and Sea Girt Ave. His wife and daughter sold groceries, his flowers, and produce from the store. It was the first commercial shop in Sea Girt off of the Long Branch-Manasquan Pike (Rt 71). His wife Mary Blakey was in charge. She was friendly and popular with all the full-time and summer residents.

In 1899 Mary Blakely was made the first postmistress at Sea Girt. She held the position for twelve years. The government at the time wanted a single word Seagirt, but her sign had none of it. Harvey painted ‘Sea Girt’ over the door of the farm store, and it doubled as the post office.

The finely edged lawn was a status symbol. Blakey helped perpetuate that practice. MCM collection Library Company Philadelphia

Previously mail for the fort and the town had been serviced from Manasquan. Geroge McCullough opened a summer newsstand “Under the Shade of the Old Apple Tree” which sold postcards, ice cream and plate lunches. He had a cottage on 5th Ave in Spring Lake, and he also leased the South Pavilion concession in Spring Lake.

Mrs. Mary Blakey (center). The Post office and store were the start of Sea Girt’s downtown. This may be the rest of the family in the photo, but I could not confirm.

The camp kept the post office in business. This is the earliest of the photos, note no stone walkway in front, no awnings.

Postcard from 1910. The left counter has a postcard carousel

McCullough took down the postcard stand in 1912 and then built a new building in its place at the corner of the rail plaza and Washington Ave. The new building was called “Arc-Ade” and was suggested by Erma Birdsall of Manasquan who won $2.50 in gold for the suggestion. McCullough’s Arc-Ade sold “Hamburg Steaks”, fried and boiled eggs, good coffee, ham and cheese, pies, and farm fresh milk.

McCullough took the lease for the Post Office from the Blakey’s and wanted someone else as postmaster. The newspapers argued to keep Mary, at $736/year, but Virgil Irvwin moved into the new postal building.

Mary Blakey was loved by the summer and winter residents. She continued working the farm store and was active in the early community club in Sea Girt and in the social scene in Manasquan.

Harvey was elected to the Sea Girt Council when the town was incorporated. Mary passed away in 1924, and a street in Manasquan is named for the family. As Harvey Blakey aged he quit farming sometime in the early 1930s and he opened a Real Estate office on Washington and Sea Girt Ave. Henry Schwier eventually opened his Realty there in a brand new building in 1936, which still stands. Blakey died in 1941. By then the downtown was set.

The old apple tree was long dead when this was taken. McCullough published a postcard of his own stand.

In the mid-1930s, Grocer Augustus J. and Alice Guinco built a market between the corner and the Stockton Cottage (Rods). They took the Post Office lease. Joseph Devlin became postmaster.

The Arcade building which by then was the Cramner building, was owned by William H. Cramner at 555 Washington. Cramner was the superintendent of the State Camp.

In 1956 a ‘modern’ stand-alone Post Office building was built further down at 800 the Plaza. This building was expanded in 1984 by architect Richard Graham who added a second floor and twin office on the right side. Graham, a Sea Girt resident, was the official Borough Architect.