Cape May Diaries
1- Poetic Inspiration
Had fate been slightly different, Cape May might have been named after Henry Hudson, who -- in August, 1609 -- was the first European to document the twenty mile protrusion of land at the mouth of the Delaware River.
Hudson was a British sea captain, sailing in service of the Dutch. The thin journal -- which shore communities attribute to him -- was actually written by a terrified junior officer named Robert Juet, who fearing he might later be charged with mutiny, decided to document the trip. Juet's fear of mutiny was not unfounded. Turmoil among the sailors had forced Hudson's craft, the Half Moon, to sail further south than he had intended, then to hug the coast as it made its way north from the area now known as Virginia. The craft arrived at the foot of New Jersey on Aug. 8, 1609. For shore communities like Cape May, the journal has become a testament of legitimacy. Juet's journal became a best seller with the Dutch, who mistook some of his description for visions of gold-laden land.
Hudson desperately tried to turn the boat into the wide mouth of what would later become the Delaware River, but hit heavy turbulence and became stranded on a shoal near Cape May. Although histories of Cape May make mention of Hudson's passing, few take give him credit for being the Cape's first -- if reluctant – tourist. Once freed of the unintentional landing, Hudson steered the Half Moon north again, leaving Cape May to be rediscovered by two Dutch Captains whose first names were Cornelius.
Cornelius Hendrickson and Cornelius Jacobsen Mey -- both working for the United Netherlands Company -- arrived in the area around 1616. They called the Delaware River "De Zuydt" or South River. While Hendrickson plunged deeply into the bay and eventually made his was far north as present day Philadelphia, Mey hugged the coast, and in 1620 -- the same year the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, Mass -- not only named the Cape for himself, but everything else he saw on his trip north. Cape May alone maintained his name, although not before a change of spelling.
Within a few years, others came to picturesque Cape May, not for the wondrous sunset views, but to hunt whales. Indeed, the first village -- a whaling village -- was likely founded in 1650, and was generally called Town Bank, sometimes called Portsmouth, Cape May Town, or New England Village. At some point between 1685 and 1688, the Quakers formed the first government and established laws of strict piety and moral order. Families came from New York and New England, including some of the original Mayflower families from Plymouth Massachusetts. When whaling ended, former seamen turned to farmers -- some of whom even continued to farm after what was rapidly becoming known at Cape Island -- took the fancy of the Philadelphia social set and became their personal summer resort -- attracted to the sunsets, the sea air and the magnificent sunsets.
Yet it was not Juet's Journal, whales or the promise of sunsets that drew up to Cape May for our honeymoon in 1990, but a poem written by a Hoboken poet named Joel Lewis over 400 years later, as well as the recommendations of friends who claimed it was a good place for people seeking peace.
Short of what we read in the guide book, we knew little about the place except that it lay at the extreme southern point of New Jersey, one of the few spots in the otherwise northern state below the legendary Mason-Dixon Line. Lewis’ poem that talked of "pink ginger bread" homes made us turn south instead of heading for the tumultuous Niagara Falls.
We presumed ourselves too old as we approached middle age for traditional honeymoon destinations, little realizing how many newly weds of every age we would later encounter along Cape May's promenade. I had turned 39 the previous May and my intended, 35, two weeks previous to that, and the last thing either of us wanted was a week among giggling younger couples.
Our land ladies in East Rutherford also recommended Cape May, saying the place calmed down after Labor Day, but did not give up the ghost of summer until after Columbus Day -- celebrating that final week at the end of its extended season with something they called "Victorian Week." Our landladies tried to describe how the place looked and felt, but Joel Lewis' poem seemed to leave a more lasting impression, speaking of "latitudes that swing on through Virginia," a place where a sense of "old remained." In September, Lewis said, the inhabitants of "Cape Isle" (as the original wanders from Philadelphia called it) returned to a sense of "sadness and intuition," typical of an off season summer resort.
Cape May has been called America's oldest resort, and the impression we got from a distance seemed to reflect how Sharon and I had come to feel about our lives. We wanted to start off our new life together at a place without -- as Joel Lewis put it -- "that drama of non-commodity."
In planning our marriage and its subsequent honeymoon, we had abandoned utterly the commodity-based ceremonies of commercial society. Yet we had no clue as to the moment we would create through our simple union, how -- by gathering all those people who had marked our existence at that time -- we created a legacy, and shaped a memory as lasting in our lives as Cape May was to the history of New Jersey.
In contrast to the Victorian world of perfect propriety we would discover in the south, we defied most conventions in planning our marriage. Instead a year's salary down on a reception hall, we rented the basement of the West Paterson Veterans of Foreign Wars, requesting that the mayor there perform the ceremony. Then, we invited all those people who had helped shape our lives, the odd balls and the uninhibited characters we had gathered over the years, from the one-time assistant manager of the Willowbrook Mall Burger King to a pilot who helped the Sandinistas fly guns in Nicaragua during their war some eight years earlier, the special people from whom we would later make our escape on our trip to Cape May.