Fall 2019

could not resist. The large new building right
across Jackson Street was in foreclosure. On
the 1890 Sanborn map, half the building is
listed as vacant. The Cape May Fish Market
building is also listed as vacant. Times must
have been tough as the country had been
recovering from a long depression. It was
a business opportunity for Ratty and he
jumped at it.
Ratty got the property (now Delaney’s) as
part of a final judgement from Clara Elizabeth
Stanton in 1892. Stanton’s father William
Anspach and husband M. Hall Stanton had
purchased the original lot in 1868. They
lost their first building nine months after it
was built in the 1869 fire. William Anspach
died in March 1890 and M. Hall Stanton in
November 1890. Clara Stanton assumed the
position of administrator of her late father
and husband’s estates, but for some reason
lost the Cape May property. According to
Laurie’s research, John Ratty was awarded
the property by the Master of Chancery
Court on April 27, 1892. Ratty acquired the
two and a half story building across the way
while managing the Capital Hotel and bar
next door.
At the time Ratty purchased the property
where Delaney’s is now, the Temperance
Movement in the United States was in
full swing. Liquor licenses were granted
to Ratty and others in Cape May in 1888,
then the town suddenly went dry. In 1892,
licenses were once again granted and the
headlines exclaimed, “Cape May No Longer
Dry.” Ladies temperance groups kept trying
to pressure liquor establishments in Cape
May to give up the booze. Famed teetotaler
(and axe wielder) Carrie Nation on her antialcohol
crusade throughout United States
wanted to come to Cape May to speak. Alone
or accompanied by hymn-singing women
Nation would march into a tavern, sing and
pray, while smashing bar fixtures and stock
with a hatchet and telling the bartenders
they were evil. Her request was apparently
(luckily) refused by the town fathers in Cape
May who felt business was booming and
they needed liquor to keep it that way. Carrie
Nation had her eyes (and axe) set on Cape
May’s saloons. John Ratty was not worried.
When asked by a reported about Nation
coming to Cape May, Ratty replied, “Mrs.
Nation will not dare to do anything at Cape
May. There is no better, cleaner place on all
the coast than Cape May. This resort is in
greater danger from corrupt politicians than
Carrie Nation.”
Ratty leased out the building next door
while managing the Capital Hotel and
bar. There is a strange changing of titles
on the deeds in the next couple years for
his new property. In March of 1895, Ratty
and his wife Bridget sold the property to
Bridget’s sister Katherine Loftus. Katherine
immediately flipped the property back to
Bridget Ratty only, not to her husband John.
For some reason, he needed his name off the
title of the property and could not just sign it
over to his wife.
The turn of the new century seems to
be when all the fun really started for John
Ratty. In October of 1900 he was fined for
exit zero 72 fall
“illegal sales of liquor” at the Capital. After
appearing in court and paying a fine for
this criminal act, Ratty must have quit or
had his lease terminated by the owner of
the Capital building. In May 1901, he was
granted a license for his new hotel and bar
across the street called the Homestead. It
didn’t take long for Ratty and the law to meet
once again. During the summer of 1901, his
saloon was raided and illegal slot machines
were found and seized. In September 1901,
Ratty and eight other hotel proprietors were
indicted for keeping illegal gaming activities.
Suddenly, the ghost laughing and saying
“Don’t arrest me!” started to make lots of
sense. If it is John Ratty haunting Delaney’s,
he probably knew someone would eventually
uncover his ghostly identity.