Phebe C. Wright was a Sea Girt woman, living with meaning in the back-end of her life.
When James Wright passed away in 1879 his widow Phoebe was only 55 years-old. The plain Quaker had another 37 years of full life left and she decided to spend them in Sea Girt.
Phebe around the time she was built the house in Sea Girt Courtesy Swathmore College
Long Branch had changed with the hotel boom of the late1860s. In the 1870s, the resort became a circus when the trains and ferries brought New Yorkers by the boatload. The entertainment of the city came with them. There were bars, gambling halls, a horse track, and conspicuous spending everywhere. The Wrights were from New York, and Long Branch was supposed to be an escape. James’ father owned a leatherworks in lower Manhattan, and the couple ran a rooming house in Oceanport. There was no lack of money.
The couple’s Elberon cottage on tony Ocean Avenue was across the street from the home of former President Ulysses S. Grant. Fancy carriages drove past her home filled with well-dressed Long Branch tourists who gawked at the mansions along its route. The riders were just as eager to be seen in their finest driving apparel. The display was the opposite of the way Phebe lived her life.
In 1881, when James’ estate was settled, Phebe sold the cottage and contracted to build on the beach at quiet Sea Girt, next to the home of Germantown PA Quaker Elliston Morriss. She had no children, but a large extended family to invite to the beach.
The house pictured is still sitting on the boardwalk in the Park, just as it was in the 1880s.
The exterior of the home is almost unchanged from the time of its building. It has been owned by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary the Order of Nuns who founded Marymount College in Tarrytown and Manhattan since 1948.
The widow would immediately impact the spirit of the tiny resort community. She dressed as a traditional Quaker long after it went out of fashion. Black neck to floor-length dress with full sleeves with her hair tied up.
She was attracted to the proximity of the Manasquan Friends Meeting. She held bonfires and parties on the beach for the children of the Meeting, along with her 11 nieces and nephews. She quoted Lewis Lewisham frequently.
"Politeness is to do and say the kindest things and the kindest way."
She lived the phrase and everyone was struck by her genial and optimistic outlook for the philanthropic missions she worked to support. She seemed to be from another time. She was a reminder of the colonial era Society of Friends, among them in the flesh, living the ideal of faith exuding love and intelligence. Though soft-spoken, she had a way of getting her point across in the most polite yet determined manner.
During the winter months, she traveled extensively. She attended the Friends Annual Conference where she was affectionately known as “Aunt Phebe”. She was well known and admired in the Shrewsbury Meeting, the Oyster Bay Meeting, and the Arch Street Philadelphia Meeting.
She visited London and the historical homes of Quakers, George Fox and William Penn. She also traveled to Europe and the Holy Land in her 80s.
Her missions were many. She was on the board of the "Colored Orphan Asylum" in New York before it was burned during the Civil War draft riots. She was on the initial Board of Managers for Swarthmore College. She was a 30-year Board member at the first Women's medical college, The New York Women's Medical College trained many of the first women doctors in the United States.
Elliston Morris and a good view of Phebe’s house in 1893 (courtesy of the Mariott C. Morris Collection Library Company of Phildelphia
Phebe also was a major player in the American suffrage movement. She supported charity for Native Americans, equality for women under the law, and prison reform. She most strongly advocated for world peace.
As stated in one annual report in the New York Meeting, she had visited every prison in New Jersey including all 21 County jails, riding to each by horse and carriage. She also went to additional prisons in New York State. Her reports were sharply critical of the inhumane treatment of the inmates, particularly of the women whom she felt strongly should be in separate facilities from the men. Her lobbying helped to bring about the first women's only prison in Clinton, New Jersey. Phebe was there for the opening.
In the Summer, she entertained at the beach, except on Sundays when she brought everyone to Meeting in Manasquan. John J. Cornell, a minister from Baltimore stayed with Phebe for a few days in September 1901. “We spent these days quietly resting in the very hospitable home of our dear friend Phebe C. Wright and enjoyed much the social opportunity with her nieces, Mary Willets and Phebe Anna Townsend. We enjoyed also looking out upon the ocean and watching the vessels passing in the distance, the walk on the beach and drinking in the healthful sea air.”
Morris’s Avocado, Phebe’s house and Mrs. Olglesby’s on the dunes in the park 1907 (Morris Collection)
For years she was VP or on the board of the NJ Women’s Suffrage Association, gathering support for women’s right to vote. At 86 years old, Phebe was the delegate from New Jersey to the National American Women's Suffrage Association annual meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1908.
In an article reporting on her 92nd birthday, the Trenton Evening Times said that she was one of the oldest members of the State Suffrage Association and has been an interested worker for the society since its organization. Tributes to her death in 1916 refer to her devotion to the suffrage and peace movements as “untiring”. The end of the Great War and the passage of Women’s Suffrage would become a reality in just three years.
Shortly before her death, Phebe wrote in her somewhat shaky hand, "It is the resting time of year...I have very, very, much to be thankful for. The last year I have had many privileges." She described her travels to seven conferences and Quaker Meetings as far away as Saratoga NY, "..I am in unusual good health". She died quietly a month later at her niece's home in Trenton. Each of her 11 nieces and nephews and their children were bequeathed cash.
The house was passed to her niece Mary Willets as a life estate, then to her son Edmund R. Willlets and his sister Martha, “to do good”. Mary died in 1930, and Edmund, who advised John D. Rockefeller in marketing the opening of gas stations for Standard Oil, saw that the house was donated through the McDonough Family of Orange NJ, to Mother Gerard, and the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary in 1948. It was designated the “Sea Girt Marymount Convent”, and used for seaside retreats for the sisters, where it sits today almost unchanged from when the kind widow built it so long ago.
Further reading: Biographical Sketch of Phebe C. Wright, written by Judy Bretzger. Included in Part III: Mainstream Suffragists—National American Woman Suffrage Association, https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1010113662
Phebe at 91, Courtesy of the Society of Friends Manasquan Meeting