Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1916-04-28
Steamboat Line From Cape May
to Philadelphia and to Lewes, Del.

Telling the citizens of Cape May,
who were assembled in the City Hall
on Tuesday night that the steamboat
project would not he a failure even
though he would have to personally
subscribe the entire $4,000, which is
Cape Mays share of the allotment of
the stock necessary to start of the
proposed company, which however he
said he thought he ought not to be
compelled to do, Mayor w. l.. Stevens
stirred his audience, and a committee
of which went out and s cured the
necessary subscriptions in less thar AZ
hours.
The meeting was hurriedly called, as
the Mayor desired to submit his plans
to the local citizens, which would
bring about a boat line from Philadel-
phia and Lewes to Cape May, as the
option on a steamboat, which they
had scared, would expire within a
few days.
The Mayor, in a forcible manner,
told his hearers how he had started oil
with the intention of having a boat
run daily from Lewes, Delaware, to
Cape May but that when he took the
matter up with the Pennsylvania Rail
road, which controls the Queen Anne
Road, he was convi eced that the pre-
ject was not feasible, in as much as the
train service from Love Point, Md to
Lewes, Delaware, would not warrant
the putting on of a vessel between these
two points. He stated that he was
told by the officials of the Railro ID
Company that the road bed OF the
Queen Anne road would not carry the
heavy express trains of the Pennsyl-
vania and it would become necessary
to rebuild the line with heavier Tails,
which the traffic would not warrant, as
the road lost money last year with a
chance of losing this year. The officials
told the Mayor however, that the COM
pauy's policy is to follow the traffic and
just as soon as conditions warrant it.,
they would put on the service.
1t, therefore, became necessary to
drop the idea of an exclusive line be-
tween Lewes and Cape May and the
matter of establishing steamboat ser
vice between Philadelphia and Cape
May, stopping at Wilmington, Ches-
ter and Lewes, was taken up. This
would tap a territory, whose populs-
ton is about two and one half million
people. He said further that it was
William G. Essen, of this city, who
first sent Captain Gallupe, the holder
of the option on the steamboat, which
the proposed company intends to pur-
chase, to Cape May. This boat is
owned by the New York, New Haven
and Hartford Railroad and is now lay
ing at a wharf in Boston. AS the
Supreme Court of the United States
had decreed that this railroad company
would have to divorce itself from its
boat lines, this made it possible to Sc
cure this boat at a very low price.
She is a seaworthy boat, being a side
wheeler, $50 feet long, has lib state
rooms and will accommod tie 700 peo-
pie. She was used at onetime between
Boston and Portsmouth. Various
steamboat men have since made an in
spection of this boat and report that
she is all that she is claimed to b.
With the finding of a suitable boat,
it then became necessary to interest
the municipalities of Lewes and Wild
wood. The Mayor said that he had
made several trips to Lewes and had
fiually gotten all fac ions there to-
gether on this project with the assur-
ance that their allotment of S ock
would be subscribed this week. He
next took up the matter with Wild
wood which immediately pledged its
hearty support and said that the COM
many could at once draw on them to
the extent of $4,000.
The Mayor said he believed that
this really was a municipal project,
and if necessary, should be subsidized
by the city, and that he thought our
local citizens should take up with the
proposition heartily as it would benefit
Cape May immeasureably. The M y
or further called attention to the fact
that the travel from Delaware would
he enormous aud that he believed by