- Z'

OLD rOUHTHOUSE Buildirtg, No. 17, built in 1848, is excellent exam-

ple of Oreek Revival style.

s V

NATHANIEL HOLMES House, No. 9, dates from 1750 and is Vxmust”

for Saturday tour-goers.

Tour into Resort County

History

by Carolyn S. (lunlborp There may be visitors — perhaps some residents too— enjoying fine beaches of the Jej-sey Cape who are unaware of the ffadition that still remains, dispite changes of The 20th Century,,in this rural resort county The Annual Old House Tour of Cape May County, sponsored by, the Cape May Art League, i8tM-Hf>28) and held this year on July 11 and 12, focuses on the visible aspect of the county’s past, the ■f— on Ihe.cover ——— inih rrnturv homr*. in DrnniRvillr arr JiM *omc of thr huildinKs on (hit wrrkrnd s (»ld llousf* Tour. Thin photo b\ John Andrus is of the view Just off k I’rtershurR ltd. near Hi. <7.

wealth of old buildings from the banks of the Tuckahoe River on the north to the shores of Cape May Point in the south. Begun in 1949, twenty years after the founding of the Art League itself, and established then for the Saturday following the July Fourth holidays — the tour covers over 250 years of county living. Mr, and Mrs. J. Blake Lowe of Baltimore had bought the old Hildreth property on Seashore 1 Road in the Cold Spring section of Lower Township and restored the long.neglected house Into a beautiful residence. County historians and genealogist — many also active in the League — had been researching the county's

HUNTINGTON HOUSE. No. 33. is the second oldest hotel in operation in Cape May; built 1878. l/juiri. i«i . <

old structures, and Mrs. Lowe persuaded the League it was time to present them on a tour. While many were without the grandeu.’, perhaps, of the mansions of Natchez or the sea captains’ homes of New England, these South Jersey buildings obviously had a modest charm of their own. THE HOME, CHURCHES and public buildings of Cape May County reflect the patterns of life that develoocd this southermost tip of New alrsey. The Cape, while actually discovered by Henry Hudson in 1609 when he sailed into the mouth of the Delaware Bay aboard his ship the Half Moon, was named for himself by Cornelius Jacobsen

Mey, who became first Director General of the New Netherlands in 1623. The first settlement, a small community of New England whalers on the bay, disappeared in the late 1600s, about the time when large parcels of land were acquired by the early families, whose names arc heard throughout the county tocray. Some of their descendants stilt live in ancestual homes. IT IS MOST APPROPRIATE that the home of the Art League — the Carriage House on the Physick Estate in Cape May — is a noteworthy old structure, built in 1876 before the main house (which was the dreation of Frank Furness, the famed Philadelphia