Remembering the grand old days
Book details history
of Victorian-era hotels in Long Branch
FOR LIVING
Remembering the grand old days
Book details history
of Victorian-era hotels in Long Branch
By gloria stravelli
Staff Writer
FARRAH MAFFAI Karen Schnitzspahn, Little Silver, and George Moss, Rumson, are co-authors of two historical books on the Jersey Shore. Their most recent collaboration is Victorian Summers at the Grand Hotels of Long Branch, New Jersey.
When Karen Schnitz-spahn strolls the boardwalk at Long Branch these days, she doesn’t see the current passing scene or imagine the changes planned in the not-so-distant future.
The Little Silver author immerses herself in the glory days of Victorian-era Long Branch when grand hotels lined the bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and city dwellers flocked to enjoy the surf, sea breezes and diversions of "the Branch."
"I like to walk the Long Branch boardwalk. I walk it a lot, and it’s so much more fun now that I know everything that was. I re-create the scene in my mind," said Schnitzspahn, co-author with George H. Moss Jr. of Victorian Summers at the Grand Hotels of Long Branch, New Jersey.
"There are none of the grand hotels anymore," noted Moss, of the oceanfront area slated for redevelopment. "When you think of it, Long Branch had as many as 10 hotels, and at one time, in Sea Bright alone, there were seven," said Moss, a Rumson resident, whose grandparents operated one of the grand hotels — the Hotel Pannaci.
Century-old memorabilia and ephemera connected with the volume, including hotel china and flatware, souvenir stereographs and photographs are currently on display at the Red Bank Public Library on West Front Street.
In a chapter titled "The Early Years," Victorian Summers documents the evolution of the grand hotels in Long Branch from their beginnings in 1788 when a private residence was converted to a boarding house for guests. Within a few years, Long Branch was widely recognized as an ideal spot for a summer vacation, accessible by stagecoach and steamboat.
By 1851, according to the volume, seven boarding houses or hotels were open on the bluff. The new hotels were grand indeed, two or three stories high with as many as 35 rooms and verandahs offering ocean views.
By 1868, 10 well-established hotels lined Ocean Avenue and a three-mile promenade in front served the summer social scene. For the next half-century, Long Branch’s fine hotels provided lodging for vacationers and those seeking to escape the oppressive heat of the cities.
"The Fashionable Life" looks at the clothing and customs of Victorian vacationers, including the history of bathing costumes and bathhouses. "Monmouth Park" examines the influence on Long Branch of the racetrack which opened in 1870, and the social scene related to the park. "The Ocean Piers" documents the role of the steamship piers — the first one was built in 1828 — which were not just points for travelers to disembark but places to see and be seen.
At the heart of the volume, Victorian Summers documents the 10 grandest of the hotels in Victorian Long Branch and describes their prominence in the social life of the Shore for more than a century. The story of each hotel is told, including its final demise (many burned) through illustrations, articles, menus, bills, advertisements and photos.
Victorian Summers is illustrated throughout with material drawn from the Moss Archives, Moss’ private collection of Monmouth County ephemera and memorabilia spanning three centuries.
A writer and picture historian of the Jersey Shore for 60 years, Moss is the official Monmouth County historian. He began buying wood engravings of Monmouth County scenes from Harper’s Weekly and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper around 1942, digging through print shops and used book stores to find them.
"I’ve been putting together the archives for 60 years," he said, "and I have about 500 engravings because they were so popular in those days. Long Branch was the finest watering place in the Victorian period, so whatever was going on there was illustrated," he added.
Schnitzspahn, who has written six volumes, has a special interest in the Victorian era and began writing about local history for a Shore area magazine.
"I kept getting more and more interested in local lore," said Schnitzspahn, an admirer of Moss’ volume on pioneer photography, Double Exposure. They met when she interviewed him for an article.
"We found we had a common interest in early photography," she explained. A friendship developed and Moss became a mentor who taught the Little Silver resident how to make prints from glass negatives, a skill she used for their collaboration on Those Innocent Years, 1898-1914, Images of the Jersey Shore From the Pach Photo-graphic Collection, published in 1993.
Victorian Summers began to take shape during this time.
"George started talking about it because of his family," she said. "He had wanted to do something on the hotels, and I love the Victorian era," she explained. "I’ve done a lot of writing about the period.
"As soon as we finished Those Innocent Years, we began the early stages of the book," she said. "It took a lot of research and time."
According to both, there was a natural division of work on the volume. "I’m more interested in writing about people, and George is more into the places," ex-plained Schnitzspahn.
"Karen’s more into the social history, and I’m more into general history," added Moss. "I’ve always claimed I’m a picture historian because there’s so much more in a photo than the photo itself. Karen can describe everything I’m pointing out in the photo. Karen actually filled in the missing parts. She has the personalities, the description of the social life. I can come up with illustrations, and she can explain what’s going on."
The two worked independently, getting together weekly to review the work in progress.
Schnitzspahn spent a lot of time doing research at local libraries and at the Monmouth County archives. She also has an extensive collection of books on Victorian fashion, which she drew on.
Moss said one result of historical research is discovering that history is sometimes recorded incorrectly.
"We did find discrepancies in researching Long Branch, and we were able to make corrections in what’s been more or less accepted," explained Moss.
"There are myths and legends that don’t have a basis," added Schnitzspahn.
"History keeps changing all the time," said Moss. "It isn’t engraved in stone. You can find something that changes what’s been reported."
One of his favorite examples is the word nauvoo, generally thought to be a Native American term meaning a fishing village.
In doing research, Moss found nauvoo could actually be traced back to a Sephardic word meaning "pleasant place."
"These are things you uncover if you dig deep enough, and you’re lucky enough," he said.
A fourth-generation Mon-mouth County resident, Moss has written several major books on Monmouth County and numerous articles, including a series of weekly columns on local history for the centennial year of Red Bank’s former Sunday Register newspaper. The columns will be published as a collection titled Twice Told Tales in August.
Moss has received awards in recognition of his contribution to preserving New Jersey history — and that is the reason for his work.
"It’s another page in Mon-mouth County’s history," he said of Victorian Summers. "I try to hit a story nobody’s gotten involved with before. I like to say, ‘I don’t write history, I edit it.’ "