New Jersey has over 3,100 black bears, up from only 22 in 1965. In the 1890’s Spring Lake had a bear population of 2.
1890s cigarette card featuring the black bear
Simon and Bess, fully grown black bears were the pets of Henry Herbert Yard, a real estate tycoon, stock trader, and mining engineer from a prominent Trenton family. Yard, a colorful character, had been postmaster at Ocean Beach and re-named the town Belmar.
He founded the resort of Como, and by the early 1890s had wrested control of both the Sea Girt and Spring Lake Land Improvement companies, which owned much of the property in both resorts. The transactions were controversial. Yard sported a large diamond ring, and was famous for having battled his uncles for over seven years in court over land disputes in Belmar.
In July of 1891, he took the liberty to move Simon and Bess from his home in Key East (Avon-by-the-Sea) to the Monmouth House in Spring Lake. There was a pit on the property with a concrete floor, and brick-lined walls almost 10 feet high. The area was built for the gas storage tanks for the hotel, but made a fine bear enclosure. An artificial tree was mounted in the center of the enclosure, and the bears would climb and lounge in it to the delight of the curious.
Yard saved himself money as the bears were well-fed from the rich food scraps of the elegant hotel. The bear’s water was captured from rainwater in a huge trough held to the ‘tree’ with a strong wire cable.
In October 1892, Simon decided he would venture out of his pit. He somehow ripped up the cable holding the water trough, dumped out the water and stood it upon the enclosure wall. Using it as a ladder, he hoisted himself up the edge and then with his sharp claws pulled his 600-pound frame over the top of the wall.
He climbed the wide porches of the Monmouth, with its views of the sea and then clambered onto the roof of the kitchen, perhaps looking for Charlie Cox, his keeper and provider of his rich diet. Michael Sexton and his family lived at the hotel to service it during the off-season, and the bear gave Sexton’s daughter a fright when she met it face-to-face through her bedroom window. Her screams chased Simon off.
Mayor E.V. Patterson and the borough Council joined a crowd gathered at a distance to figure out what to do about the bear. They fed him some sugar, his favorite food, but anyone who approached the bear was met with a snarl and a show of teeth. As darkness fell, Simon strolled into the woods in the North Spring Lake and the crowd went home. He was not seen but heard during the night, dumping out trash bins in yards.
One of the patrolmen of the US Life Saving Station met the bruin on the Boardwalk before dawn, and the bear gave him a sharp growl. The next sighting of Simon was by the driver of Newman’s fish wagon, who noticed the bear sniffing up behind the wagon. As he sped up his horses, the bear followed, hoping for a free breakfast until the horses were almost at a gallop and far into Belmar.
Henry Yard had dozens of his younger cousins in his employ in Belmar, and when the bear was spotted there, a group of them chased the bear all the way back to the Monmouth. They put a ladder along the top of the enclosure and chased the bear back into the pen, where his Bess was waiting for him.
The mayor and citizens were not amused with the escape. They were at war with Henry Yard over a number of issues and forced him to move the bears off of the hotel property. Yard had illegally built sheds on the lakeshore, and sold property deemed to be public lands. He fought in court with the town, and he had his cousins tear up the boardwalk around Spring Lake and carry it away in the middle of the night.
Henry moved the bears to Land Improvement Company property near the railroad, but the Mayor and Council were not pleased with having the wild animals in the town at all. In April 1894, after the lawsuits did not go his way, Henry Yard had Simon and Bess butchered and the meat given away.
Yard left for California, where he entered the mining and timber business, earning another fortune under a cloud of controversy. That’s a story for another day.
Tale drawn from news accounts in the Monmouth Inquirer and the Monmouth Democrat, October 1892.
Henry H. Yard in about 1904