Cool Cape May 2021-22

excerpt from the first resort [37]
This fun late
1800s postcard
shows a minor
accident on
the pier when
a carriage
driver strikes a
pedestrian
Don Pocher
they are unremarkable.
On Ocean Avenue, near the beach and overlooking
the Stockton Baths, is the colonial, a
medium sized house of “middle age”; and “run”
on unpretentious fashion. Opposite is Star Villa, a
house of the same type.
The Stockton Hotel was the hub of Cape May,
but the Stockton Baths were surely the most
important spokes. They cover one end of the block
between Ocean Avenue and Stockton /row, and are
the last remnant of the Cape May property of the
late John C Bullitt, of Philadelphia, the framer of
the Bullitt Bill.
Always painted yellow with brown trimmings
and red tin roofs, they are today just as they were
years ago. In the center is a small house, its porch
surmounted by a clock, in which are office and
store rooms.
The bath houses extend in rows on either side.
This was the daily meeting place for all socially
inclined. At eleven o’clock on any summer morning
the porch was filled with daintily dressed women
and men in flannels. In those days girls were mermaids
and went into the sea with flowing locks,
regardless of the damage of Father Neptune might
do.
The popularity of the girls was measured by the
number of men who asked to dry her hair. A very
popular one had to “cut” the drying, as her modern
sister does her dances.