The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-12-02
MANSION OF HEALTH.
History of a Ghost Haunted
House On the Jersey
Coast Near Long
Beach.
WRECK OF THE PoWHATAN
Four Hundred Souls Lost in an
Equinoctial Gale-Wreck-
masters Guilt.
WRECK OF THE PoWHATAN

~ = DA&As 49,
Jersey coast from Barnegat Inlet on the
north to Little Egg Harbor Inlet on the
south, the summer sojourner at some one
of the numerous resorts, which of late
years have sprung up every few miles,
NAV. in wandering over the sand tunes
just across the bay from the village of
Manahawkin. stumble over some charred
timbers or vestiges of crumbling CHM
neys, showing that once. years back, a
human habitation has stood there. If the
find rouses the jaded curiosity of the visi-
tor sufficiently to impel him to question
the weather-beaten old bayman who sails
him on his fishing trips he will learn that
these relics mark the site of one OF the
first summer hotels erected on the New
Jersey coast, says the Newark sunday
Call"
That's where the Old Mansion stood,
he will be informed by Captain Nate or
Captain Sam, or whatever particular cap
tain it may chance to be, and. if by good
fortune it chances to be Captain Jim, he
will hear a story that will pleasantly pass
away the long wait for a sheepshead
bite.
It was my good luck to have secured
Captain Jim for a preceptor IN the
anglers art during my vacation last sum
mer, and his stories and "reminiscences OF
Long Beach were not the least enjoyable
features of the two weeks %sojourn.
Captain Jim was not ~garrulous. Few OF
the baymen are. They are a sturdy, self
reliant and el%f-controlled people, full OF
strong common sense, but still with that
firm belief in the supernatural which
seems inherent in dwellers by the sea.
sThe Old Mansion" said Captain Jim,
..or the Mansion of Health, for that was
its full name, was built away back lnlSlz,
SO I'VE heard my father say. There
heen a tavern close by years before that
was kept by a man named Cranmer,
neople used to come from Philadelphia by
stage, sixty miles through the pines 10
sHawkin, and hen cross here by poat.
Some would stop at Cranner's and others
went on down the beach to homer ,
which was clear down at End by the IN
let. Finally some of the wealthy people
concluded that they wanted better accom-
modations that Cranmer's grave, SO they
formed the Great Swamp Long Beacn
Company, and built the Mansion OIL
Health. I've heard that when 1t was puAt
it was he biggest hotel on the coast, ana
was considered a wonder. 1t was lD Ieet
long. three stories high and had a porcn
running all the way around 1t, with d
balcony on top. 1t was certainly a Dig
thing for those days. I've heard father
tell many a time of the stage loads or
CAV people that used to come rafting INTO
,Hawkin, each stage drawn by four horses
and sometimes four or five of them a day
in the summer. A good many people, too,
used to come in their own carriages and
leave them over on the mainland until
they were ready to go home. mere were
gay times. at the ga MANSON o eien' 1a ang
it made times good TOT the peopie "ioNs
shore, too"
ish. Captain?' l asked.
people came there summer after summer.
Then they built a railroad to Cape may,
and that, with the ghosts, settled the
ssWha do you mean by the ghosts?" I
wen, you see," said Captain Jim, cut
ting off a mouthful Of navy oly pug lug , wae
haunted. Some people said there was
queer things seen there and strange
noises were heard that nobody coulo act
a bad name and visitors were SO rev tnat
it didn't pay to keep it open any more.
"Bu how did it get the name Of being
mariner. Maybe you've heard of the
time early in the fifties when the POW
and every soul on board was lost. She
was an emigrant ship, and there were
over 400 people aboard, passengers
crew. She came ASHORE mere aurln Ht ene
wasn't any life-saving stations in them
days, and every one was drowned: you
can see the long graves now over IN had Inc
were buried after they came ashore. Iney
put them in three long trenches that
were dug from one END OF the purylng-
fhe beach that night was the man who
took care of the old mansion. He lived
there with his family, and his son-ln-laW
lived with him.. He was the wreck-mas-
fer for this part of the coast, too. 1t
wasn't till the second day that the people
from ,Hawkin could get over to the beach,
ashore, and the WESTMINSTER had them
all piled up on the sand. / was a young
sbter then, n came over with my father,
and. 1 tell you, it was the awfuliest sign
people. all lying there with their white,
still faces turned up to the SKY, some
were women, with their dead babies
clasped tight in their arms, and some
were husbands and wives, whose bodies
came ashore locked together in a death
embrace. I'll never forget that sight as
came and took charge he began to in
ouire whether any money or valuables
had been found, but the wreckmaster de-
clared that not a solitary coin had been
washed ashore. People thought this was
rather singular. as the ernigrants Were
most Of them, well-to-do Germans and
were known to lave brought a good deal
Of money with them, but it was con-
Guided that it had all gone down with
the ship. Well, the poor emigrants were
given pauper burial and the people had
begun to forget their suspicious until
three or four months later there came
another storm, and the sea broke clear
over the beach,. just below the Old Man
sion. and washed away the sand. Next
morning early two men from ,HaWkin
sailed across the bay and landed on the
beach. They walked across on the hard
bottom where the sea had washed across,
and, when about half way from the bay,
one of the men saw something. curious
close up against the. stump of an old
cedar tree. He called the other mans
attention to it,and they went over to the
stump. What they found was a pile of
leather money belts that would have fill
ed a wheelbarrow-. Every one was cut
open and empty. They had been buried
in the sand close by the old stump, and
the sea had washed away the covering.
The men didn't go any further:
"They carried the belts to their boats
and sailed back to Hawkin as fast as the
wind would take them. OF course, 1t
made a big sensation, and everybody was
satisfied that the wreck master had rob-