Tales of the Jersey Shore

Whether or not you take your books to the beach, two new titles will take you deep into the sands of time.

By: Susan Van Dongen

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   The house at the top of Edgewater Avenue in Pleasantville isn’t a mansion but it is sturdy, having marked its 80th birthday a few years ago. It was my paternal grandfather’s summer home, hand-constructed as a respite from the crowded neighborhoods of Philadelphia.
   When he built it, there were no other homes between the house and the water. Even when the family settled there permanently in later years and numerous places had popped up along the street, you could still see the water from the top floor. When I would visit, my grandmother would walk me down to the bay, where you could witness spectacular sunrises and sunsets. That body of water is Lake’s Bay.
   So, when I noticed a new book about a certain Capt. Thomas Rose Lake, then opened it to a page where he discusses his home in Pleasantville, I said, "Oh, that Lake — as in Lake’s Bay."
   I paged through some more of Golden Light: The 1878 Diary of Captain Thomas Rose Lake (Down the Shore Publishing, $25.95). The diary — which almost seems to be written in a different language — was annotated with essay-length, engaging footnotes, all of which shed light on Capt. Lake’s daily entries.
   Because of the personal connections, it kept me spellbound, paging back and forth for an hour. There were mentions of the town Leedsville, which later became Linwood — my hometown. There was Whirly Pool, an aptly named channel in the bay where we had to slow the boat down because of the strong current. Capt. Lake also spent time at Central Methodist Church — another family connection. My Pleasantville grandfather had helped build the annex of the Linwood landmark.
   I closed Golden Light and looked to see who the author was and then I just shook my head: Linwood’s own Renaissance man, the late James B. Kirk II, had started the project around 1990. In 2002, it was finally completed by his son, James B. Kirk III. My connections to these gentlemen are too many to mention. The elder Mr. Kirk was Linwood’s historian, the man who got two large Victorian sections of town designated as national historic districts, the quiet man we’d see on solitary archeological digs in our town.
   The younger Mr. Kirk was "the poet" in my former high school. When our senior English projects produced such addle-pated results as "John Lennon: Why he is the Better Beatle," Mr. Kirk III and another classmate performed a fine version of Waiting for Godot, right there in the classroom. He obviously has inherited his father’s literary talents and love of history, so completing the manuscript was only natural.
   "When you spend time learning about this area and these waters, you find out there’s so much history here," says Mr. Kirk III, speaking from his home in Northfield (Bakersville in Capt. Lake’s day).
   While gathering artifacts for the Linwood Historical Society, Mr. Kirk II came into the possession of Capt. Lake’s diary. Dorothy Leeds Dix, the captain’s great-niece, entrusted the wallet-sized diary to Mr. Kirk II. He became intrigued by the laconic-but-illuminating daily entries, the references to places and families still in the area, and set out to research and expand the document.
   He spent weeks in the Atlantic County Historical Society, traveled to Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, the Philadelphia Public Library and the National Archives in Washington, D.C., unearthing facts about South Jersey maritime life in the 1870s. Mr. Kirk II also contacted quite a few descendants of people named in the document — some of whom were just as salty as their ancestors.
   "(My dad) interviewed those old baymen with names like Risley, Collins and Izzard," Mr. Kirk III says. "Of course, when I went to interview them, they said ‘nuh uh.’ But my dad was a charmer that way. He was a boy when they were working the bays. My grandmother had also taught a lot of them."
   Mr. Kirk II spent a lot of time with the old salts and was able to coax some fairly obscure information and colorful tales out of them.
   "The book is out of the Henry Beck and John McPhee traditions of gathering history," Mr. Kirk III says. "(This kind of reporting) started with James Agee’s ‘Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,’ celebrating the guy who works in the field, or the man resting by the water barrel. It goes back to Blake and the blossoming of romanticism — the focus on the individual."
   Through his work, Mr. Kirk III has certainly come to know Capt. Lake — the individual — intimately.

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   "There’s nobody who’s ever been closer," he says. "I’ve read the thing 150 times. That’s why going down to the cemetery where he’s buried (in Pleasantville) is really disturbing. It’s just in terrible condition."
   Noted New Jersey historian John T. Cunningham praised Golden Light as a treasure trove of Jersey Shore happenings after the Civil War, a glimpse into the long-gone sailing trade that ran between the Atlantic City area, north to New York and south to Virginia. And what a time it was, says Mr. Kirk III, on the cusp between the more primitive agrarian era and maritime way of life and the Industrial Age.
   "In its pages is the final cry of a way of life which, for better or worse, would return no more," Mr. Kirk II wrote in the introduction. "As such, the diary is a poignant vignette — an ambrotype faded at the edges but with the central portrait clear — of a young man’s happiness, simplicity and struggle. It must give us pause."
   Both men spend considerable time explaining the complexities and details of the Golden Light itself — a small sloop that could be compared to a modern day tractor-trailer. The ship carried regional merchandise such as oysters, clams, fish, fish oil and potatoes on regular runs up and down the coast. More interesting, however, are the accounts telling what it was like to be a 21-year-old ship’s captain.
   Going to various churches was another big part of his life. So were visits to friends, relatives and lady friends named Ireland, Ingersoll, Leeds, Risley, Dix and Conover — names so familiar to me, which I mention to Mr. Kirk III.
   "Sure, we went to high school with their great-grandchildren," he says.
   Mr. Kirk III gives a lot of credit to editor and publisher Ray Fisk, who founded Harvey Cedars-based Down the Shore Publishing in 1984. Mr. Kirk III believes Mr. Fisk is enthusiastic about shedding light on South Jersey shore history, often given lower priority by larger organizations such as Mystic Seaport’s American Maritime Library and Rutgers University Press.
   Down the Shore also has recently released the softcover edition of Shore Chronicles: Diaries and Travelers’ Tales from the Jersey Shore, 1764-1955 ($16.95). Edited by Margaret Thomas Buchholz and Larry Savadove, it’s filled with essays about the shore, by such esteemed authors as Walt Whitman, John J. Audubon and Stephen Crane.
   Mr. Kirk III says his father originally sent his manuscript to the Mystic Seaport’s American Maritime Library and was encouraged by the editors there.
   "Mystic is open to material that’s off the beaten path," Mr. Kirk III says. "However, the backlog is always six to seven years. A project won’t even get going for three years."
   Unfortunately, the elder Kirk didn’t have that kind of time. He worked on the manuscript until the winter of 1991-92, when surgery and treatment for lung cancer sapped his energy. Ironically, as he was researching the diary, he learned Capt. Lake had also been dying of a respiratory disease — tuberculosis.
   Mr. Kirk III recognizes the parallels between the two men. When his father died, the responsibility for the manuscript passed to him. When Capt. Lake died, Danny Lake, a young cousin and protégé, took the helm of the Golden Light.
   Mr. Kirk III has become a noteworthy poet and writer, with work appearing in such literary magazines as Ploughshares and the Atlanta Review. His awards in poetry include the Daniel Morse Poetry Prize, two New Jersey State Council of the Arts Awards and a fellowship at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, N.H. He earned a bachelor’s in literature from Richard Stockton State College in Pomona, where he now teaches, and has a master’s from the University of New Hampshire. He lives with his wife, Patricia Winn-Kirk, a speech/language pathologist, and their two children.
   The elder Mr. Kirk’s biography could be a book in itself. He started his studies at Rutgers, but in 1941 joined the Army Air Corps, where he was a bombadier on a B-17, flying a total of 38 missions. Mr. Kirk II received the Distinguished Flying Cross and returned to civilian life to earn a bachelor’s and master’s from Rutgers. He taught English and history for years at Ocean City High School and later became a counselor there. But he was always doing something else. This manuscript is typical of his detailed, difficult personal projects.
   After his mother died in 1998, Mr. Kirk III was tasked to clean out his father’s study. He realized it was time to finish the work, which had been put aside for years. As he labored, it was as though his father was able to communicate the importance of the project, conveying his own fascination with South Jersey.
   "I tried to remember all the reasons my dad wanted to do it," Mr. Kirk III says. "He was the local historian of a real ‘backwater’ part of America. I imagined he asked himself, ‘I have a really unique collection of (artifacts), but what do I do with it?’ This project was one of my dad’s ways to show other local, small towns and historical societies what they can do if they really do their homework and immerse themselves into any given facet of a history."
Golden Light: the 1878 Diary of Captain Thomas Rose Lake by James B. Kirk II and James B. Kirk III and Shore Chronicles: Diaries and Travelers’ Tales from the Jersey Shore 1764-1955 by Margaret Buchholz and Larry Savadove are available in area bookstores and on the Web. Mr. Kirk III will be at Landmark Books, 217 Jersey Ave., Spring Lake, July 5, 11 a.m., for a book signing. Ms. Buchholz will also be at Landmark Books July 12, 11 a.m., for a signing. For information, call (609) 978-1233. On the Web: www.down-the-shore.com