Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, a Dutch sea captain, spotted the point in 1620 and named it for himself when he found the climate compared to his homeland. A commissioned explorer, Capt. Mey didn't stay. Perhaps the best known home is the Emlen Physick estate, designed by Philadelphia architect Frank Furness and built in 'stick style,' featuring the skeleton on the outside. Inside, the 'more is best' theme is at work, with highly-decorated rooms and artwork.
Curiosities are everywhere, like the braided human-hair sculpture mounted under glass.
Front porches and open verandahs line up in a kind of a Victorian neighborhood-watch program. John B. then erected a second empire-style 'cottage' next door as a wedding gift for his son. Stroll across Columbia Avenue to the Mainstay Inn and take afternoon tea on the long verandah that surrounds 14-foot windows. Built in 1872 as a gentlemen's club for gambling, drinking and womanizing, the Mainstay has been perfectly restored and gleams with hours of elbow grease and attention. A few kilometres around the bottom of the peninsula, at Cape May Point, helmet-sized horseshoe crabs crawl from the ocean in May and June to mate and lay their eggs.