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Historic Figures

  1. Working at the Top: Cape May’s Lighthouse Keepers

    Text by Karen Fox | Published September 1st, 2009 in Cape May Point • Historic Figures

    The post of lighthouse keeper entailed a unique lifestyle for the keeper and his family. The duties were often lonely and tedious and could be downright dangerous when storms buffeted the lantern. It was especially perilous if weather forced the keeper to climb from the watch room to the lantern landing and remove snow and ice from the 16 windows 12 stories up.

  2. Who’s Been Here? The Famous Visitors of Cape May

    Text by Eric Avedissian | Published October 1st, 2001 in Cape May • Historic Figures

    What do Ulysses S. Grant, Henry Ford and Norman Rockwell have in common? At one point in their famous lives, they all came to Cape May.

  3. Cape May’s Role in History: Pathway to Freedom

    Text by Eric Avedissian | Published September 1st, 2001 in Cape May • Historic Figures

    Harriett Tubman worked as a cook in Cape May in 1852, earning money to help runaway bondsmen. She learned how the Greenwich Line worked, and of routes in Salem, Cumberland and Cape May counties, including obscure Indian trails.

  4. The Chalfonte Saga Continues

    Text by Jennifer Brownstone Kopp | Published August 1st, 2000 in Architecture • Cape Island • Cape May • Historic Figures • Hotels

    What began as a simple boarding house soon grew into a reputable hotel under the direction of Colonel Henry Sawyer. He was a local hero — it was said that every man, woman and child in Cape May could recite Sawyer’s “Lottery of Death” story by heart.

  5. The Chalfonte Hotel: The Beginning

    Text by Jennifer Brownstone Kopp | Published July 1st, 2000 in Cape Island • Cape May • Historic Figures • Hotels

    A simple carpenter stares death in the eye, and lives to build one of Cape May’s living treasures. A story rooted in American history, the tale of Henry Washington Sawyer is one of courage, strength and pride.

  6. A Feeling of Community Revisited: Cape Island’s African-American Heritage

    Text by Jennifer Brownstone Kopp | Published February 1st, 2000 in Cape Island • Cape May • Historic Figures

    People and events which go beyond tales of Victoriana and visiting presidents. Ancestry dating to colonial days. Remembrances of community life during the last century. Stories of life, love and loss — stories that never made the history books.

    This is Cape Island’s African-American heritage… A legacy now being understood, preserved and celebrated today through oral history, photographs and mementos in an exhibit titled “A Feeling of Community Revisited: Cape Island’s African-American Heritage.”