Longtime resident reflects on old South Cape May

SOUTH CAPE MAY, N.J. - Any sign that humans ever inhabited a tidal marsh now owned by the Nature Conservancy in a cove between Cape May and the landmark Cape May Point lighthouse has long been swept out to sea.

Sunken just off the beachfront may still be the foundations of grand summer "cottages" built by wealthy Philadelphians.

A five-story elephant-shaped structure that could have rivaled Margate's famous Lucy once attracted thousands of tourists next to the Mount Vernon Hotel, then the world's largest hostelry.

Incorporated in 1894, the borough of South Cape May had roads, bridges, railroad tracks, farms, hotels, and expensive homes designed by renowned architects. Big plans called for hundreds of residential lots.

In a half-century, it was all gone.

Atlantic storms, tidal flooding, and heavy erosion chewed away at the cove's mile-long beachfront. Within months of the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944, South Cape May ceased to operate as a separate borough.

But when 86-year-old Joseph G. Burcher leans against the railing of a bridge over a tidal creek where he cast a line for porgies when he was a child, he can still see the images in his mind's eye.

"We had a real town here once, with people and homes and telephone poles and trucks and cars and roads made of macadam," said Burcher, of Haddonfield. "Sometimes it's hard for me to believe it's all gone."

This summer, with the help of son-in-law Robert Kenselaar, Burcher compiled his memories in Remembering South Cape May: The Jersey Shore Town That Vanished Into the Sea, published by the History Press.

"I can still see it all. I try to remember it all because there is a certain aspect of what was once here that you miss so deeply," said Burcher, astounded that the landscape is so devoid of traces of man that he can't be sure exactly where his home once stood.

"The real spot is probably out there under the waves," Burcher said.

In its heyday, thousands of people might have come to South Cape May for the summer, but only a handful of people ever lived here year-round.

By the time Burcher's family, from Berlin, Camden County, began summering in South Cape May in the 1920s, the elephant and the Mount Vernon were gone. But many of the large Victorian homes, with their wide porches and intricate gingerbread moldings, designed by the likes of Stephen Decatur Button, lined the streets. Some had been owned by Civil War veterans.

Even so, the genteel veneer of the 1890s had worn away. And the town itself seemed to be eroding as quickly as the sand.

Bits and pieces of the old railroad and of some of the cottages, ravaged by storms, constantly washed ashore like an ugly reminder of the town's past - and a foreboding prediction of its future.

"All kinds of stuff would wash up all the time, pieces of wood, bricks, even a toilet," Burcher recalled.

His father, Edgar Francis Burcher Sr., who briefly served as the borough clerk, had built a small summer residence in the 1920s. But eventually the family, which included 12 children, moved to one of the large 1890s houses designed by architect Enos Williams for a wealthy Philadelphia merchant.

"It was just a great time to be here as a kid. But it was hard times, too," said Burcher, who summers in a cottage he built in the 1950s on Sunset Boulevard in West Cape May, across the road from where South Cape May was.

After the 1944 hurricane, what was left of South Cape May became part of Lower Township and was used for years as a cow pasture. By the 1950s, any of the remaining structures worth salvaging had been moved to higher ground in neighboring towns.

Along the pathways of what are now the Nature Conservancy's South Cape May Meadows, Burcher recalled spending Depression-era childhood days following a rigorous work schedule to earn his keep.

Days began at dawn with beachcombing to find money and valuables left behind by tourists. Then he sold newspapers in the streets, caddied at a golf course, scooped fish (10 cents apiece) that had fallen from fishermen's nets into the harbor, then finally set pins at the boardwalk bowling alley.

As one of the last surviving residents of South Cape May, Burcher had long been known as a great storyteller about his childhood. After being fascinated by the tales for decades, Kenselaar, a longtime New York Public Library employee, thought that his father-in-law's oral history needed to be preserved.

"When we would go out and sit on the beach, the memories would really come back to him. It's like he can really still see the town in detail," said Kenselaar, who taped Burcher's recollections and then decided to turn them into the book.

The first part of the 128-page paperback covers the heavily researched historical beginnings of South Cape May. The second half focuses on Burcher's memories. Interspersed are archived historical photographs, drawings, and family snapshots.

Adrianna Livingston, preservation coordinator for the Nature Conservancy, said she found the book useful in explaining to visiting bird-watchers and nature lovers how the 229-acre South Cape May Meadows preserve came to its natural state.

"It's amazing to see just how quickly a natural ecosystem can recover," Livingston said. "What I find interesting about the book is to be able to relate to visitors what was here a hundred years ago versus what is here now."