Hinchman Takes Command
Spring Lake was back in Business. Martin Maloney opened the new St. Catharines, with the wedding of his eldest daughter Margaret to Georgetown graduate and lawyer from Catholic Univesity, Carberry Ritchie.
The new Monmouth House opened for the wedding, totally rebuilt after the fire. All of Catholic society from Baltimore to Boston attended. The women were dressed in diamonds, and Cardinal Satolli came all the way from Rome to do the nuptials with seven priests and three Bishops. The Irish-Catholic bona fides of Spring Lake were solidified.
For more detail on the Maloney’s and their impact on Spring Lake, find the book on Amazon
In a simpler celebration, Mrs. Airenda Devlin threw a 50th wedding anniversary party for her parents Mr. & Mrs. David-Sarye White and their extended family down the road at the Parker house, where the first Catholic Mass was held in the area. The Whites farm would later be the home of Jimmy Byrnes Sea Girt Inn.
The “New Monmouth” was the name used by locals for decades after it was rebuilt.
Charles Hinchman in later years
When Henry Yard declared bankruptcy and went out West, Charles Hinchman stepped forward to direct the fortunes of the Sea Girt project. He had been indirectly involved for 25 years. He had a pristine background and was unsoiled by the scandals at the resort. He waited over 25 years to build there.
Lt. Charles Shoemaker Hinchman had achieved hero status in the Civil War by being “the guy who could secure things”. He provisioned the troops and their needs, moving goods via railway with great efficiency.
His commander, General Palmer would hand Hinchman the kudos when Palmer was praised by President Lincoln and General Trowbridge for the amazing efficiency of his command. At one point during the war when Palmer had seemingly total control over a full division of over 5,000 cavalrymen. Trowbridge asked,
“Who is this man that commands this division? He must be a remarkable man. For one thing none of our horses has gone without forage for a single day”.
General Palmer deflected the flattery “The credit is not due me; it is entirely due to Lieutenant Hinchman. He is just as able to take care of five thousand horses as one thousand”.
After the war Palmer introduced Hinchman to his former railroad boss J. Edgar Thompson, who in turn supported Hinchman’s efforts to grow the Pennsylvania Steel Company. Thompson, a large purchaser of steel rails for the Pennsylvania Rail Road authorized an investment of $600,000 by the PRR in 6,000 shares of PA Steel in 1871.
The PA Steel Plant (Steelton Historical Society)
This put Hinchman on the map and opened him up to many other enterprises.
His former general, William Palmer also brought him in on the Kansas Pacific and Denver Rio Grande railway projects, and introduced him to Thompson’s successor Thomas A. Scott.
In the 1870s Charles invested in land speculation in Minnesota based on his brother Walter’s report from his trip to Duluth with Jay Cooke and S.L. Thurlow. Walter, who had seen the Pacific Ocean before he saw the Atlantic, expressed interest in Sea Girt property.
StephenThurlow asked Walter to take the Secretary position with the company with hopes of attracting his brother.
In April 1876 the Land Company sold lots to company insiders. Three buyers were from the Hinchman family, Charles of the Pennsylvania Steel Company, his younger brother Walter who had moved to New York after ten years of travel for William Palmer, and their cousin Dr. Charles Shoemaker Taylor, a gentleman farmer of Burlington NJ. Like the Morris' the Taylors were board members at Haverford College and they were also founders of Bryn Mawr College, the first Quaker Women’s college.
They each purchased three lots for $2,400 fronting Crescent Park. They sat on the property for some time.
By 1904 Charles Hinchman, who still held shares of the Land Improvement Company began construction on a house on the east end of Philadelphia Blvd. The Hinchman’s owned a mansion in Bryn Mawr, and their home in Sea Girt needed to be as impressive. “Sandown” had a deep porch lined with columns and a sloping roof.
Sandown, the Hinchman’s Sea Girt house
His wife, Quaker Lydia Mitchell Hinchman would entertain their five children and many grandchildren there, as well as their extended family.
Lydia Swain Mitchell, from Nantucket had a pedigree worthy of her war hero and industrialist husband. Lydia was descended from Digory Priest, the Mayflower’s Puritan hat maker turned Pilgrim leader. Her more immediate famous relation whose legacy would be the beneficiary of her good fortune was her Aunt Maria (pronounced Ma-rye-a) Mitchell.
Maria was the world’s first female astronomer. Mitchell, born in 1818 to the nautical traditions of Nantucket, learned from her father how to observe the stars to determine location. By age 14 she was providing whalers with maps referencing celestial observations for their long whaling voyages. She pursued a career as a librarian and wife until 1847 when she discovered a previously uncharted comet. She then went on tour, speaking about her finding and visiting Europe to study with other astronomers, and finally settling down by becoming the first Professor of Astronomy of the newly founded Vassar College for women.
Lydia Hinchman was the principal co-founder of the Maria Mitchell Association, preserving Maria’s legacy after her death in 1889. Maria was an inspiration to women but also worked to inspire all children to science. Maria said, “We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry.”
Charles’ eldest daughter Mary would later build on another Hinchman lot at the opposite end of the park at Trenton Ave. after she married jeweler Isaac LaBoiteaux. They also built a mansion on Healthy Hill Ohio outside Cincinnati. The LaBoiteaux Woods, 54 acres of Cincinnati area parkland was used by the family for hunting before it was placed in public trust.
Charles now actively pursued ways to sell the remaining lots in Sea Girt. He wanted a single purchaser to get the project moving. The scandals of the past were being forgotten. Sea Girt was attractive because it was the only part of the Monmouth Shore that was largely undeveloped. There was still a feeling of being in the woods.