The Cape May people, relying almost entirely on the water for communication and trade, soon took to piloting vessels in the Delaware River, and some of them still follow this occupation.
They also became skillful sailors and builders of small craft, and it is not surprising to learn that Jacocks Swain and his sons introduced, in 1811, the centerboard for keeping flat-bottomed craft closer to the wind.They are said to have taken out a patent for this invention and are given the credit of being the originators of the idea.But the device was known in England in 1774, was introduced in Massachusetts in the same year, and may have been used long before by the Dutch.The need of it, however, was no doubt strongly impressed upon the Cape May people by the difficulties which their little sloops experienced in beating home against contrary winds.Some of them, indeed, spent weeks in sight of the Cape, unable to make it.One sloop, the Nancy, seventy-two days from Demarara, hung off and on for forty-three days from December 25, 1787, to February 6, 1788, and was driven off fifteen times before she finally got into Hereford Inlet.
Sometimes better sailing craft had to go out and bring in such distressed vessels.The early boats were no doubt badly constructed; but in the end apprenticeship to dire necessity made the Cape May sailors masters of seamanship and the windward art.** Stevens, "History of Cape May County," pp.219, 229; Kelley, "American Yachts" (1884), p.165.
Wilson, the naturalist, spent a great deal of time in the Cape May region, because of the great variety of birds to be found there.Southern types, like the Florida egret, ventured even so far north, and it was a stopping place for migrating birds, notably woodcock, on their northern and southern journeys.Men of the stone age had once been numerous in this region, as the remains of village plats and great shell heaps bore witness.It was a resting point for all forms of life.That much traveled, adventurous gentleman of the sea, Captain Kidd, according to popular legend, was a frequent visitor to this coast.
In later times, beginning in 1801, the Cape became one of the earliest of the summer resorts.The famous Commodore Decatur was among the first distinguished men to be attracted by the simple seaside charm of the place, long before it was destroyed by wealth and crowds.Year by year he used to measure and record at one spot the encroachment of the sea upon the beach.Where today the sea washes and the steel pier extends, once lay cornfields.
For a hundred years it was a favorite resting place for statesmen and politicians of national eminence.They traveled there by stage, sailing sloop, or their own wagons.People from Baltimore and the South more particularly sought the place because it was easily accessible from the head of Chesapeake Bay by an old railroad, long since abandoned, to Newcastle on the Delaware, whence sail- or steamboats went to Cape May.This avoided the tedious stage ride over the sandy Jersey roads.Presidents, cabinet officers, senators, and congressmen sought the invigorating air of the Cape and the attractions of the old village, its seafaring life, the sailing, fishing, and bathing on the best beach of the coast.Congress Hall, their favorite hotel, became famous, and during a large part of the nineteenth century presidential nominations and policies are said to have been planned within its walls.
