Organization, A Church and a Marshal
There were scandals in 1907, but not at Sea Girt. Helen Maloney, the middle daughter of Spring Lake’s Martin Maloney, eloped and fled to Canada, then London with a cad. She also may have been secretly married a few years earlier to a different fellow. The scandal reached the Pope, who commented that American girls have too many liberties.
Henry Yard in Northern California was accused of fraud again, this time for capturing hundreds of thousands of acres of virgin timber land under mineral prospecting laws. He initially was secretly grabbing land for a railway right of way for George Jay Gould and the Western Pacific RR. When the US government found the extent of Yard’s holdings with no mining activity, they brought suit to recover the grabbed lands.
Sea Girt seemed finally to be on the right track.
Charles Hinchman found his buyer for the property. After losing the Baptists and a chance to sell for $300,000, Hinchman accepted an offer for the entire company, the beachfront, the Beach House, Tremont and 350 acres of undeveloped land. For the first time the developer had a track record, and the capital to make the investment. Charles Noble negotiated the price down to $220,000.
Baird and Newman selling the company land
Chalres L. Noble of Yonkers would bring in Frank A. Price who had laid out the infrastructure at Keansburg Beach and Price estimated it would take 3-4 years to complete the Sea Girt project.
He set up a sales office in the old Stockton Cottage (Rod’s), as well as offices in NYC, had brochures printed, and got to work advertising. Francis C. Baird and Leonard Newman would be his salesmen. Baird was from Manhattan and he and his socially connected wife would build a home in the community.
He hired Charles H. Roberts from New Monmouth as a foreman for the company. Roberts was successful on the Keansburg Beach project. Born in 1875, Roberts was a graduate of Columbia University, he was trained as a pharmacist and operated the Belford Pharmacy before getting into development.
Noble hired Roberts as the Sea Girt Company superintendent. Prior to the separation of the Land Companies, the superintendent served Spring Lake and Sea Girt together. The park in Spring Lake is named for the superintendent Richard T. Divine
This was the start of a 30-year career in Sea Girt. Roberts moved his family to Manasquan at Main and Union Ave, before purchasing his lot at 607 Beacon Blvd. He held four positions, first just Superintendant and Marshal. After incorporation, he was also the Assessor and Health Officer. He helped to upgrade the waterworks and sewer system and would be indispensable to the operation of the town.
Sea Girt was not a township or a borough, it was a private enterprise within Wall Township. It did not have the rights under the 1884 State law to establish a police force. Before the 1850s, there was considerable confusion in constituting state-endorsed police forces vs. private police. Factory towns, mining towns and other enterprises hired marshals,
George W. Walling of Keyport, a Captain in the NY Metropolitan Police Force on Staten Island was sent to Manhattan to serve an arrest warrant to New York Mayor Fernando Wood. It was 1857, and Tammany Hall influenced everything. Wood had his own Municipal Police force (not recognized by NY State), and there were accusations of corruption, and selling an office. After the Munis tossed Capt. Walling out of the building, a riot ensued between 300 members of two police forces fighting over jurisdiction on the steps of city hall. 51 officers were wounded. From then, states began to develop more specific laws to give legitimacy and define reporting responsibilities, standards, and bonding requirements for police forces.
Property owners still could enforce their own rules. Sea Girt had corporate ordinances against keeping swine, allowing chickens in the front yards, keeping horse carriages under six miles per hour, catching wild dogs, enforcing fees, and maintaining order (no obscene language or nude bathing). The Sheriff of Monmouth County, an elected official, was the true authority, and most of the punishments called for time in County jail. Improvement Companies could use a privately hired marshal. Until the town achieved municipal status, Charles Roberts would be the local authority and Jack-of-all-trades.
Mrs. Margaret Lenning Oglesby brought Sea Girt it’s first church in 1903. The widow was an Episcopalian and periodically opened her oceanfront home in Crescent Park for services in the 1890s. But most Sundays she and her son Joseph would have to get her carriage out and drive her horse to Allaire Village’s Christ Church, almost six miles west.
With a church and proper administration, the little community began to come together
Wanting a place for services in her community, she spoke to Right Rev. John Scarborough, Episcopal Bishop of New Jersey. In 1902, she formed a mission, sought donors for the land, and made payments for the building of a year-round church. She selected an appropriate name, as Saint Uriel the Archangel is the patron saint of the wind and waves.
Portrait of Mrs. Oglesby from the church website
In order for the church to be consecrated, it needed to eliminate all of its debt. Stained glass windows, lamps, and doors were donated by summer residents and the women of Manasquan.
Contributions by Charles Van Pelt and William H. Wanamaker of Philadelphia paid down the building debt. Services were held every Sunday of the year starting in early 1904. The first wedding that summer was a joyous affair. The final bill was extinguished in late 1906 and the Church was finally consecrated in July 1907 when the full summer congregation was present.
Young Joe Oglesby with jet the dog in the dunes.
Its Queen Anne Revival structure with cedar shake siding still beautifies 3rd and Philadelphia Blvd. in Sea Girt.