Pleasant Promenades and a Touch of Pathos

Ella King Adams spent five years helping Warren Ackerman craft a stylish but rustic resort at the Deserted Village of Feltville. As I have been pointing out, she could have just taken her family to one of New Jersey’s many existing resorts. I have been looking at those resorts, in an effort to imagine what went into her decision.

In using my last post to unspool the details of life at the most prominent Jersey Shore resorts during the early 1880s, I began getting a better sense of why Adams may have rejected the shore resorts, which I will share when I profile her. But what about some of New Jersey’s other vacation options of the time? Adams and her family could have hopped on a train and reached a variety of destinations. This post will look at what two of those possible destinations, the Hotel Netherwood and Lake Hopatcong, would have offered Adams, and describe what was going on in each resort at the time. Looking at the development of each of these resort destinations will also allow exploration of the rise of “grand hotels” and of the “excursionist.”

THE HOTEL NETHERWOOD—SOME BACKGROUND

I first fell in love with the Hotel Netherwood (unfortunately now disappeared) when Roger Hatfield reached out and shared nineteenth century photos by Guillermo Thorn, the photographer who is discussed in a previous post at The Persistence of the Deserted Village Part 2. The photos he shared included an undated “cabinet photo” of the Hotel Netherwood. The photo reminded me of a Disney castle, with its lovely roofline and towers, and two giant flags and a pennon spelling out “Netherwood.” The flags and the pennon seemed too perfect not to have been added to the final print after the photo was processed. The reverse of this photo, included with this post, identifies it as the lead one for Thorn’s series “Photographic ‘Gems’ of Netherwood, N.J.”

My favorite nineteenth century travel guide author, Gustav Kobbé, found the Netherwood magical as well, describing the hotel as:

. . . the most spacious and best kept hotel in Central New Jersey—the “Netherwood,” ad large brick building, with tiled floors, rooms of ample dimensions, and a broad, lofty piazza, which affords a pleasant promenade in the cool of the evening.¹

In searching for the history of the Hotel Netherwood, I found an article published in 1956 in the Courier-News of Plainfield, New Jersey, which takes a look back at some of the history surrounding Plainfield and its Netherwood section. According to the article, in 1863, the “founder, builder, and first president of Central Railroad of New Jersey,” John Taylor Johnston, purchased land in Plainfield, New Jersey, and built an estate which he named “Netherwood” after his original home town in Scotland, from which he had come to America “in his youth.” ² He also named the nearby station he built along his railroad “Netherwood,” and the entire section of town became known as Netherwood. The article goes on to explain that Plainfield, and especially its Netherwood section in the heights, became known for being “salubrious and healthy,” i.e. a good place to have a home or take a health-inducing vacation. The article describes how, springboarding off this reputation, in 1886 Thomas W. Morrison, the publisher of the Plainfield Evening News, christened Plainfield as “The Queen City,” likening its healthful attributes to Denver, Colorado, the “Queen City” of the West. Morrison reinforced this name daily by using a banner subtitle on each edition of his newspaper: “Plainfield, N.J., ‘The Colorado of the East.’”³

The same 1956 article includes the following early history of the Hotel Netherwood:

It was some 78 years ago that the greatest and most extravagant resort hotel ever known to Plainfield resulted from this accent on a salubrious climate—the grandiose old Hotel Netherwood which reared its rococo elegance in Belvidere Ave. between Denmark and Gresham Rds. . . . In the Central New Jersey Times of Thursday, Aug. 1, 1878, J. C. Runyon and W. C. Leonard, publishers, included lengthy tributes to the huge Plainfield hostelry with its accommodations for 250 guests.

Hotel Netherwood, now just a memory since it was razed shortly after World War 1, cost $260,000 when it first was built by Florens Schetter and W. S. Darling, who advertised that it would “bring $100,000 of outside money into the city, and give a stimulus to everything connected with the real estate and general business interest.”

Although it was at first called “Schetter’s folly,” the Netherwood did bring thousands of the metropolitan area’s elite here for years to marvel at its more than 200 rooms in a sylvan setting, its 40 suites, “some with private baths,” its own gas plant, grand staircases and other daring innovations in a suburban watering-place.

More details on the hotel’s origins are provided in a separate article published in 1884:

About eight years ago a number of land speculators owning property at Netherwood formed a stock company for the erection of a grand hotel at that place, and thus to enhance the value of property there. For this purpose two hundred and sixty thousand dollars were raised, of which nearly one hundred thousand dollars were used for furnishing the building. . . . Every convenience is supplied, including electric bells, annunciator⁴ and an Otis patent elevator. An artesian well, driven to the depth of over one hundred feet through rock and sand, supplies the water. The gas for the fifteen hundred burners is made on the premises. The building is heated by steam, and the plumbing is said to be as nearly perfect as possible.⁵

As noted, rail access to the Netherwood section of Plainfield and the hotel was from its own station on the Central Railroad of New Jersey.⁶ As with the shore resorts described in my last post, Adams’ town, East Orange was not on this train line, but Adams was a carriage ride away from several stations on this line of the Central Railroad. She may even have had access to a horse-car railroad line to get her from her home to the Newark station of the Central Railroad, since Gustav Kobbé’s book, The Central Railroad of New Jersey, indicates that, at least by the time of its publication (1890) there was such a horse-car railroad line from East Orange into Newark. Or, Adams could simply have traveled the 20 miles or so to the Hotel Netherwood in her own carriage since the hotel had “ample stabling” for visitors arriving by carriage.

THE HOTEL NETHERWOOD IN THE EARLY 1880S

On the reverse of the Thorn photo, we get a description of both the Netherwood section of Plainfield and the Hotel Netherwood:

Netherwood: the eastern portal of Plainfield, is charmingly situated on the northwestern extremity of a series of gently rolling lands, known as Short Hills. It has a delightful elevation, giving an extended view of the valley and plain for near a score of miles. First Mountain, a genuine link of the Blue Ridge chain, with its soft undulating lines of blue, fill [sic] in the background with picturesque effect. The breezes dropping here fresh from the mountain height scarce a mile away, are beautiful and invigorating, nature’s own tonic; while the quiet rural surroundings add comfort to may homes of wealth and leisure.

Netherwood contains a number of pretty cottages, also handsome and costly villas with large, well-kept grounds. There is a neat Union Chapel situated on the hillside of Ravine Avenue. Of the most importance is a large and elegantly appointed Hotel, especially designed for families, making a luxuriant summer resort convenient for the New York Merchant. Lovely groves, laden with woodland fragrance, surround it on every side. There are wild rambles in the forests, where nature has done her share in producing enchanting ground.

The description goes on to describe the lovely drives which can be made in every direction, affording “wild and romantic scenery.” “City roadways” are also “good.” The time by rail to New York is listed as 45 minutes, and the railroad station is “in keeping with the surroundings; amply commodious and pretty in design.”

Below all this description, Thorn lists 26 photos in this photographic series, with at least 15 of them being of the Hotel Netherwood or its grounds, more than half those in the series. Because the “cabinet photo” I have is undated, I had to do additional research to be able to assure myself that this photo represents the Hotel Netherwood in the early 1880s, the period I have fixed for Adams making her decision regarding transformation of Feltville into Glenside Park.

The chief clue was the identification of the hotel’s proprietor as S. V. Woodruff. It turns out that S. V. Woodruff arrived with some fanfare in June 1883 to enter a lease for the hotel, becoming its “proprietor.” ⁷ According to the Evening News, Woodruff was preceded by J. H. Breslin, of the Gilsey House, New York.” The Gilsey House was an even grander hotel, completed in 1872, located at 1200 Broadway in New York City, and having 300 rooms. Unfortunately, Breslin and several other individuals who managed the Hotel Netherwood before Woodruff failed to make the place successful, and by the time Woodruff first took it over in 1883, it had apparently not been welcoming guests for a few seasons and was in the hands of a receiving company.

Woodruff was quick to advertise the advantages of the Netherwood after he arrived. I found the following advertisement in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle for June 21, 1883:

 

HOTEL NETHERWOOD,
ON JERSEY CENTRAL RAILROAD.
Forty-five minutes from foot of Liberty street, New York.
This magnificent and elegantly appointed hotel will be OPEN for the reception of guests JUNE 25. The hotel is complete in all its appointments, contains 200 rooms (40 suites with private baths), elevator, electric bells and every convenience for the comfort of guests who desire the advantage of pure mountain air and surroundings and avoid the expense and discomfort of protracted railroad travel. The hotel is of brick, six stories in height, commanding an unobstructed and charming view, but two minutes’ walk from the Netherwood Station, and one mile from Plainfield. Delightful drives and good stabling. NOW OPEN for inspection and engagements.

REDUCED RATES
S. V. WOODRUFF, Proprietor⁸

Fourteen months later, Plainfield’s Evening News was lauding Woodruff’s success, in a group of articles which took up much of it front page for August 30, 1884. The articles were occasioned, in part, by a birthday celebration for Woodruff, in which the Hotel Netherwood’s lights “so illumined the heavens that it was supposed in Plainfield that it was caused by a house on fire.”⁹ The celebration also included a grand hop, supper and even fireworks, separate from the hotel illumination that had so confused the locals.¹⁰

These articles credit Woodruff’s arrival with instant increased popularity for the hotel. Under his management, the hotel had recently been one of the very few “grand hotels” in the country which “have done a paying business.”¹¹

Woodruff comes in for his own special profile as something of a celebrity. We are told the following:

Samuel V. Woodruff, the proprietor of the Netherwood, is in the prime of life in full possession of all his faculties, and with a just appreciation of the needs of the times. He graduated from Brown University in 1860, and engaged in business with the Woodruff and Beach Iron Company, at Hartford, Conn. The business was not remunerative and he removed to New York and took charge of the Wellington. He afterward entered into business in Wall street, [sic] but it was not congenial to his tastes and he soon abandoned it, taking the office management of the Pavilion Hotel at New Brighton, S. I. The following season he associated with him Mr. S. T. Cozzens, formerly of Cozzens’ Hotel, West Point, and became one of the proprietors. The Pavilion was partially destroyed by fire in December, 1882, and the following June Mr. Woodruff leased the Netherwood, and has conducted it since, making the place one of the most popular resorts in the country.¹²

Still another article detailed the birthday celebration for Woodruff, and the gifts bestowed on him by the “ladies of the house”—a floral arrangement—and by the “gentlemen of the house”—a “handsome diamond pin.”¹³ The newspaper carried drawings of the Hotel Netherwood and of Woodruff. Indeed, the publishers of the newspaper anticipated an increased demand for the edition containing the three articles about the Hotel Netherwood and its proprietor, with the “cuts”—i.e. drawings—of the Hotel and of Woodruff, so they ran off an additional 500 copies, which “were readily disposed of by evening.”¹⁴

WOODRUFF AS CELEBRITY

Hotel proprietors of the day enjoyed celebrity status, as shown by the birthday articles and the way Woodruff’s movements from hotel to hotel and those of his predecessor were tracked. As another example, Woodruff’s stay at the seashore for a few days in September 1884 was also newsworthy¹⁵ So too was his providing accommodations at the hotel and replacement clothing to three individuals who had suffered a burglary, and subsequent house fire in Netherwood reported in The New York Times. I found the details of this event alternately charming and appalling:

Walter S. Graham’s little skye-terrier Nellie saved the lives of her master and mistress Tuesday night and lost her own. She lived in Netherwood, a fashionable suburb of Plainfield, N.J. as a petted member of Mr. Graham’s family. She wore a long shaggy coat of blue and white hair. Like “the guardian angel Muriel” told of in the story of John Halifax, the pet of the household was blind. She had been blind for a year, and that affliction cost her her life, but it was the cause of her saving of three lives. Had she not been blind, she would not have slept on the foot of Mr. Graham’s bed. Her infirmity gave her that privilege.

Mr. Graham and his wife, who lived in a pretty, two-story-and-a-half brick cottage in Woodland avenue [sic], retired rather late on Tuesday evening. Mrs. Graham’s mother, Mrs. Newell, who has been spending this Summer at the new Hotel Netherwood, near by, is ill, and her daughter was up all Monday night with her, and had been watching with her on Tuesday. Both she and her husband were very tired, and were sleeping soundly at 2 o’clock yesterday morning. The little skye-terrier heard a noise in the house which its sleeping master and mistress did not hear. She left her position at the foot of the bed, crawled up on Mr. Graham’s chest, and woke him up by licking his chin and rubbing her cold nose on his face. Mr. Graham knew at once that something was wrong.¹⁶

While shooting at two burglars fleeing his home, Mr. Graham saw smoke coming out of the basement of the house. Mr. Graham told his wife to collect valuables in a sheet and get out of the house, while he dressed quickly and chased the burglars. Unsuccessful, he returned to save his wife and “the hired girl,” who apparently had gotten trapped in the house trying to save things on their way out.

The smoke was dense and stifling, and Mrs. Graham and her hired girl, the only occupants of the house beside Nellie, were nearly smothered by it. It was all Mr. Graham could do to save his wife and servant, but he managed to drag them out into the air.¹⁷

Neighbors and people from the Hotel Netherwood (whether guests or servants, it isn’t clear) saved “a dining-room table, a rug, and two cups and saucers”—everything else being destroyed. I do have a hard time envisioning why people put themselves at risk to go to the effort of dragging out a table and rug—and even more, why Mr. Graham charged his wife and her servant with saving valuables before they could leave, which apparently left them trapped in a smoke filled home. Moreover, neither Mr. Graham nor the others remembered to save Nellie. Mrs. Graham cried bitterly over the loss of her “constant companion” who had “always been smuggled into railroad trains, steam-boat staterooms, and hotels” wherever Mrs. Graham went.

The Hotel Netherwood’s proprietor, Mr. Woodruff, jumped into action here, as noted above, immediately offering the trio rooms and clothing at the hotel. The reader may have noted that the Woodruffs were actually joining Mrs. Woodruff’s mother, already at the hotel.

THE NETHERWOOD AS “GRAND HOTEL” AND THE CLASS SPECTRUM OF ACCOMMODATIONS

As Americans learned to vacation, resorts and other travel destinations naturally developed a range of accommodations, going from simple rooms in private homes or boarding houses to hotels of every size to single family homes of every size, euphemistically called “cottages.” As was seen in my last post on the seashore resorts, one of the factors most celebrated by Olive Logan in her article about Long Branch and by A. M. Heston, in his Illustrated Hand-Book of Atlantic City, New Jersey for 1887, was that would-be vacationers from every affluence level could find, in those resort areas, their own places on the spectrum of both accommodations and attractions to enjoy. It may be remembered that Heston acclaimed the commingling of the classes he professed to observe on Atlantic City’s beaches:

The man with a “gold ring, in goodly apparel,” is not considered one whit better than the “poor man in vile raiment;” indeed, appearances are so deceptive that it would never be safe to judge of the size of a man’s bank account by the clothes he has on—especially if it be a bathing suit. Men whose talents have made them famous throughout the land—judges, lawyers, and ministers—arrayed in a suit of blue and white, mingle daily with the other bathers, ignorant of who they are and regardless of their social standing. It is no uncommon sight to see men eminent in their callings busily engaged in scooping up bucketsful of sand for children whom they chance to meet upon the beach, or aiding them in their search for shells after a receding tide.¹⁸

However, simply because people of every class could visit and stay at a resort area does not mean that the rich or middle class welcomed the opportunity to hobnob with those from a lower class—at least not in situations other than Heston’s allegedly democratic beach. So, along with the growth of resort areas and accommodations for vacationers of varying means were the growth of accommodations for the more affluent, including “grand hotels,” among whose ranks The Evening News had placed the Hotel Netherwood in 1884. In his book The Refinement of America, Richard L. Bushman notes that during the nineteenth century, “hotels set a standard of decoration and furnishings that was rarely reached in the grandest residences.”¹⁹ Indeed, Bushman says, “the magazine publisher Frederick Gleason linked hotels to ‘the advancements of civilization and refinement in our growing country.”²⁰

Of course, there was even a level of accommodation beyond the “grand hotel”—the “cottages.” Cindy S. Aron, in her book Working at Play, makes a distinction between accommodations sought by the “fabulously rich” as opposed to “the well-heeled.”²¹ For the fabulously rich, she cites Andrew D. White, who in 1873 rented “Cliff Cottage” in Newport, Rhode Island, at “$300 per week, ‘7 persons board and all.’”²² In Long Branch, as I noted in my last post, the fabulously rich actress, Maggie Mitchell, owned her “cottage” for many years there. President Grant rented a “cottage” in the same fashionable Elberon section of town as Mitchell. Grant’s successor, President Hayes, chose instead to stay at a newly built “grand hotel,” also in the Elberon section, offering, among other things, direct telegraphic service to the New York Stock Exchange.

In his post on “the grandest hotel” at Lake Hopatcong, Martin Kane of the Lake Hopatcong Historical Museum, describes the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century as “a time when great wooden structures were built in America to satisfy a growing desire for vacations by America’s upper class.” ²³ He cites as examples the Sagamore Hotel on Lake George, built in 1883, the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island in Michigan, built in 1887, the Hotel del Coronado, near San Diego, California, and the Mohonk Mountain House in New York State, both built in 1888, and the Hotel Breslin at Lake Hopatcong, built in 1887. Cindy Aron identifies other grand hotels of the time, including the Prospect House, on Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondacks, opened in 1882, and according to historian Frank Graham “the first hotel in the world to equip each of its rooms with electric lights.”²⁴ These hotels, says Aron, “charged what the rich could afford to pay.”²⁵

The Hotel Netherwood was not a wooden structure, but a brick one, but no doubt a “grand hotel.” The author of the 1956 article referenced above underscores the status of the Hotel Netherwood as a “grand hotel,” describing the hotel as the grandest in Plainfield, and as “grandiose” and possessing “rococo elegance.”²⁶

GRAND HOTELS AND THE “BADNESS OF THE SCENE”

Author Cindy Aron, even while identifying the Mohonk Mountain House as a “grand hotel,” goes on to note that the hotel had to drop its initial prices for at least some rooms to attract enough guests, advertising at the same time that families seeking to make extended stays could avail themselves of “liberal arrangements.”²⁷

So whatever their pretensions, “grand hotels” often had a hard time making a go of it. As seen above, The Evening News was counting the Hotel Netherwood as one of the few in the country in 1884 making a “paying business.” The difficulty faced by grand hotels is confirmed by an article written by E. L. Godkin, the founder and editor of The Nation, in the September 11, 1884, issue of his magazine:

Reports have come in from nearly every direction of the badness of the scene at the summer resorts. There is hardly one of the great hotels, even at the most popular watering-places, which has not lost money. Very few, indeed, have made money. . . . In fact, hardly any of them, unless aided by a cure of some sort, such as mineral springs, have paid their way. Those so near New York that people can rush out to them for the sake of one cool evening, or cool night have perhaps done better. But as a general rule it may be said that the “summer resort business has this year been wretchedly poor, and it gets poorer year by year.. . . . the most powerful causes are more permanent. Some, such as the rapid growth of cottage life, we pointed out in these pages last year. . . . The cottages throw over the hotels a cold shadow in which people who men to make a prolonged stay in a place do not care to live.²⁸

When he became proprietor of the Hotel Netherwood, Woodruff had just come from what appears to be another “grand hotel,” leaving when that hotel was partially burned. But, as at the Mohonk, Woodruff’s earliest advertisements offered “Reduced Rates.” And, although, in 1884, The Evening News had celebrated the success of the Hotel Netherwood under Woodruff’s management, that was about to change, again.

WOODRUFF AND THE NETHERWOOD FALL ON BAD TIMES

Given the celebrated success of the Hotel Netherwood from Woodruff’s arrival in June of 1883 through 1884, it is easy to imagine the Hotel Netherwood as a tempting option for Ella King Adams as she faced a decision of vacationing at an existing destination or helping create a resort with Warren Ackerman. As noted, the Thorn cabinet photograph makes it clear that the hotel is family friendly, not simply a place for adults, a feature which would have been of prime interest to Adams, who had three young children.

Unfortunately, the hotel’s good fortune—and that of Woodruff—was not to continue. Interestingly, the hotel’s fate ended up being tied to the same Warren Ackerman with whom Adams was about to collaborate. In September 1886, “proprietorship” of the hotel passed away from Woodruff as lessee over to someone named Frank E. Miller, who became, like Woodruff, lessee and “proprietor,” not the hotel’s actual owner. An article in the Plainfield Evening News suggests this transfer was a lengthy and grueling process, lasting more than a year. It was reportedly only expedited when some individuals put forth a proposal for converting the hotel into “a large Catholic asylum.”²⁹

The looming threat of such a conversion prompted the following:

Within a few weeks, however, a number of prominent citizens in Plainfield, among them several of Netherwood, formed a syndicate and furnished the means in part to secure Mr. Miller in the possession of this valuable property. Among the gentlemen were Charles Hyde, Warren Ackerman, John F. Plummer, W.B. Darling, George W. Rockfellow, Job Male, Elias R. Pope, Henry P. Talmadge, Augustus D. Shepard, Henry E. Bowen, W. Palmer Smith, James L. Anthony, E. C. Mulford, J. H. Van Deventer, Edward P. Hamilton & Co., real estate brokers of New York, G. P. Mitchell, G. H. Graham and others.

The article reported that Woodruff’s lease was set to expire at the end of the month, with Mr. Miller taking possession on October 1, and planning to make immediate renovations, while keeping the hotel open. But who were the actual owners? Was it the full syndicate taking ownership of the hotel?

Interestingly, an article in the Camden Daily Courier on July 27, of the following year, whose main subject was Ackerman’s purchase of and ongoing renovation of Feltville, mentions in passing that “Mr. Ackerman has quite recently purchased the Netherwood Hotel.”³⁰ The various newspaper articles covering the continuous changes in ownership and management at the hotel are confusing enough I am not sure that he had sole ownership or was one of a group of owners.

Regardless of ownership, Mr. Miller’s management of the hotel was expected to bring it success:

Mr. Miller has many warm and personal friend throughout the country, some of whom propose making the “Netherwood” their home thereafter. The new proprietor proposes to run the hotel, and not only make it a success to all concerned but a place all our citizens will love to visit.³¹

Warren Ackerman, one of “our citizens,” was one of the locals whose visits to the Hotel Netherwood were reported in the newspaper. On Saturday, June 20, 1885, before the transfer noted above had taken place, the list of “arrivals” at the Hotel Netherwood included Mr. and Mrs. Warren Ackerman and two of their nieces.³²

Another visit to the Netherwood in 1887 is even more interesting because it included Frederick [sic] Adams, husband to Ella King Adams:

Mr. and Mrs. Warren Ackerman. of Scotch Plains, gave a lunch party at Hotel Netherwood this afternoon, and their guests were: Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Hyde, Mr. Vermilye of New York, banker; Mr. and Mrs. Alfred L. Dennis of Newark, Mr. Daniel Dennis of Orange, Mr. and Mrs. Warren E. Dennis of Newark, Miss Mary C. House of Scotch Plains, Miss May L. Ackerman of Plainfield, Mr. and Mrs. Jas. E. Bell of New York, and Frederick Adams of Orange.³³

If the hotel was close enough for a lunch visit, it clearly would have been an easy vacation destination for Ella King Adams to consider.

LAKE HOPATCONG

I turn now to the second of two potential inland destinations for Ella King Adams, Lake Hopatcong. The lake owes its current size and shape to the building of the Morris Canal, during which the lake was raised and expanded to serve as the primary water source for the canal. As I previously noted in my post on transportation and resorts https://feltvillefeatures.com/transportation-helps-make-new-jersey-resorts/, Lake Hopatcong, thus ended up with a direct connection to Newark by 1831, allowing tourists to come to the lake. Given all the many locks and inclined planes that building the canal had required to accommodate the changes in elevation, a journey from the Newark area to Lake Hopatcong was probably a long and somewhat arduous one. Railroads would soon make the trip quicker and easier.

Martin Kane, President of the Lake Hopatcong Historical Museum since 1990, has written extensively on the history of the lake, including its resort days and the passenger transportation which made it possible for tourists to get to the lake during the late nineteenth century. He indicates that the Central Railroad of New Jersey ran the first passenger train directly to Lake Hopatcong in September 1882, and commenced regular passenger service to the lake the following year.³⁴

It was this building and opening of the Central Railroad passenger station, in the northern section of the lake, and of a subsequent rival station quickly created on the southern part of the lake by the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (DLWRR) which prompted a huge tourist boom and, eventually, the building of the lake’s first “grand hotel,” the Hotel Breslin, opened in 1887.³⁵ But, Kane also describes ways clever tourists could reach the lake by rail by even earlier than these two railroad stations directly on the lake. The Morris and Essex Railroad, which became part of the DLWRR, had laid tracks in the 1850s through Landing, New Jersey, a community on the southernmost tip of Lake Hopatcong. At first, however, there was not enough passenger traffic to warrant a train station there, so passengers seeking to reach the lake from this railroad line took the train to an existing station at Drakesville (now Ledgewood) and could take a stagecoach from there to the lake. After the DLWRR added its Landing station, on the lake, (following the successful Central Railroad station further north), passengers could walk across the platform to the Morris Canal, and take a steamboat, the Lake Hopatcong Steamboat Company (“the Black Line”), to various parts of the lake from there.³⁶

But another steamboat company wanted compete for passengers arriving at the Landing station, the Hopatcong Steamboat Company (“the White Line”). The Black Line had a contractual lock on use of the canal from the Landing station to the lake. In 1890, the White Line dredged a swampy part of the lake known as Landing Channel to provide a spot only a block away from the station at Landing where passengers could board its steamboats for various lake destinations.³⁷ The two companies naturally used price points to attract customers.

THE RISE OF THE EXCURSIONIST

Clearly, the addition of these two railroad stations made the trip to Lake Hopatcong easier and less time-consuming. Price competition between the railroads, and between the various steamboat and other connections to attractions on the lake also caused a notable increase in visits by “excursionists,” i.e. day-trippers.

In past posts, I’ve described factors which came together during the nineteenth century to make vacationing viewed as not only acceptable, but as something close to a duty, under what has been called a Nineteenth Century “gospel of leisure.” Middle class and upper class people found themselves with a wealth of resort opportunities for taking what they increasingly saw as a healthful rest from their labors.³⁸

Working class and poorer people also wanted to share in the many opportunities for play, but generally did not have the means to get away for more than a day, or perhaps overnight. Resorts quickly realized they had to cater to these vacationers also, since they could not count on being sustained by the rich alone. As noted above, even the “grand hotels” often had to reduce their rates to make ends meet. Tatyana Reseter charts the growth of the “excursionist,” noting that “as transportation, values and society began to change, the towns were forced to welcome a new kind of visitor even if it was at the expense of the wealthy: the excursionist.”³⁹

Gustav Kobbé takes special note of and celebrates the crowds of excursionists he observed at Lake Hopatcong in his 1890 book The Central Railroad of New Jersey

. . . the excursionists enjoy themselves so thoroughly—sometimes unmistakably concentrating a whole year’s holiday into their one day at the lake—that there is, in some instances, almost a touch of pathos in their unbounded delight.⁴⁰

The attraction of a resort for excursionists depended on a number of factors, including the directness and speed of railroad connections to the resort. When one only had one day for a year’s vacation, a fast train could mean less of that day spent traveling to and from one’s fun. Having attractions or inexpensive accommodations within easy access to the final railway station or steamboat ride, with minimal connections needed, was also crucial. At Lake Hopatcong, the Central Railroad station was close to “excursion grounds” laid out with the excursionists in mind. Kobbé, again speaking from 1890, describes these grounds:

. . . there is scarcely a day when the excursion grounds there are not a scene of life and bustle. The amusements afforded at these grounds are many and varied. There are a dancing-pavilion, flying horses and swings; and at the large, commodious float, boats without number. One can go fishing, rowing, sailing or canoeing; or charter a steam-launch and make a tour of the most attractive reaches of the lake. The railroad furnishes the grounds and their appurtenances free of charge, and the fee for the use of boats is low. Parties of half a dozen or more can, for 25 cents each, make the tour of the lake in the steam-launches, and boats can be had for 25 cents an hour. A hot dinner is served at noon at a charge of 50 cents.⁴¹

Reseter describes the class tension that resorts faced in catering to the lower class excursionists, while still trying to attract the more affluent guests, and, while she does so in the context of two of the early shore resorts, it is clear that her observations are equally valid for Lake Hopatcong:

With the arrival of the excursionist, [the resorts] embarked on a controversial and somewhat contradictory path of their own within the wider sphere of leisure history, attempting to lure the upper class (and their money) to the resorts, while offering less tasteful, cheaper amusements and remarkable deals only made available to the lower classes. In a matter of time, the elite, whether forced or willing, began to immerse themselves in something called democratized leisure.⁴²

The term “excursionist” was clearly one in common parlance at the time, as seen in the celebratory posts by Logan, Heston, and Kobbé. William Rideing, in his Harper’s Monthly Magazine article, discussed in the last post, seems a bit less charmed by excursionists:

. . . the beauty [of Atlantic City] vanishes on closer acquaintance, and we find a hot noisy flat covered with buildings and devices for the entertainment and recreation of multitudinous excursionists . . .⁴³

While the volume of this kind of traveler, who only had money for a day trip of recreation, made it particularly lucrative for resorts to cater to them, most resorts still took care to keep the attractions provided for the excursionists at a distance from those aimed at wealthier visitors. Kobbé’s guidebook delicately dealt with this intentional segregation of classes of visitors at Lake Hopatcong, in describing the transformation that had made the lake into a recreation spot visited by “about 50,000 people every summer.” After depicting Lake Hopatcong as equally welcoming to rich and poor, he hastens to tell—or perhaps exhort—his readers that the Lake Hopatcong excursionists know how to behave themselves regardless of whatever boundless delight they are feeling in their brief vacation:

But it was not until the Central Railroad of New Jersey purchased and laid out the excursion grounds at Nolan’s Point and the Hotel Breslin was built at Chincopee Cove that this lovely sheet of water began to enjoy the measure of popularity it deserved; for, through those enterprises it was able to afford accommodations respectively to people of moderate and ample means; so that now, with the other hotels on the Lake and the opportunities for camping out, Hopatcong attracts people from many and varied walks of life. . . . the excursions [sic] at Nolan’s Point, though they have no end of fun during their day’s outing, are notably quiet and orderly. Hence, they do not interfere at all with the comfort of private residents or of the guests at the various hotels. . . . The Hotel Breslin gave to Hopatcong its first decided “boom,” for it brought to the lake the element of wealth and fashion, in the wake of which everything else follows. ⁴⁴

Those managing facilities at Lake Hopatcong took additional precautions both to keep the excursionists behaving well and to keep them away from the guests with more money. For example, all liquor was banned from the premises adjacent to the Central Railroad station. An inexpensive hotel, the Nolan’s Point Villa, “one minute’s walk from the railroad station,“ catered to those excursionists with a bit more than a day to stay, while the upscale Hotel Breslin was deliberately built further away. Kobbé is also quick to assure his readers that excursionists and the other, presumably wealthier visitors, all out boating on the lake simultaneously, could quickly get away from each other in the vast expanse of water which the lake provided. There would be no random mixing of the classes, such as that Heston described on the beaches of Atlantic City.

The railroads carrying both excursionists and the more affluent to the resorts themselves faced some of the same challenges of accommodating various classes of customers. They appealed to the wealthier with such amenities as club cars or smoking cars for gentlemen, and special cars for ladies. Excursionists were presumably happy not to add to the expense of their trip by trying to insert themselves into spaces not meant to be welcoming to them.

While hordes of excursionists had begun to descend on Lake Hopatcong in the early 1880s, the Lake’s first “grand hotel” the Breslin Hotel was not built at the time Ella King Adams would have been making her vacation decision. How might this have influenced her decision?

WARREN ACKERMAN!

In this and past posts, I have now worked my way through an analysis of how vacationing developed in the last half of the Nineteenth Century. Next month, I look forward to introducing to you one of the main characters in the transformation of Feltville into the resort known as Glenside Park. You will meet Warren Ackerman, who bought the Deserted Village of Feltville at a bargain price. Until then.