Wildwood weekend celebrates Woodrow Wilson visit

WILDWOOD - Woodrow Wilson slept here.

So the 99th anniversary of the little-remembered visit that Wilson made to Wildwood - days before being elected the 28th president of the United States in November 1912 - is being celebrated in a three-day event this weekend.

Beginning Friday, fans of the iconically bespectacled president can immerse themselves in all things Wilson.

"We want people to know that there is more to the Wildwoods than roller coasters, Ferris wheels, and the Boardwalk. Other towns claim that George Washington slept there. We have Woodrow Wilson," said Theresa Williams, president of Friends of the J. Thompson Baker House, which has organized the Wilsonian weekend.

The story goes that Wilson, a Princeton University professor who became the college's president, a Democrat, and the 34th governor of New Jersey, had befriended the Baker brothers, three entrepreneurs with political ties who were instrumental in the early development of Wildwood as a Jersey Shore resort.

A lasting legacy of one of the brothers, J. Thompson Baker, is his stately 1904 family home in the 3000 block of Atlantic Avenue that in 1996 was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Baker's genteel, white, pillared house is now an oasis amid the seashore-motel and beach-house designs - in the brash style celebrated as "doo-wop" - favored here in the later part of the 20th century.

Other notables besides Wilson who were entertained in the home include Anna Shaw, the first president of the National Women's Suffrage Organization, and the illustrator Norman Rockwell.

"A Wildwood Weekend With Woodrow Wilson" is the first in what local historians hope will be an annual event that highlights local history before the doo-wop era, Williams said.

The house was sold to the Wildwood Civic Club in 1934 by Baker's widow and daughter. The Civic Club has retained ownership of the property while the Friends of the J. Thompson Baker House has charged itself with maintaining it, spending more than $200,000 on restoration over the last 15 years.

The event is open to the public, and will feature tours, speeches, dramatic presentations, and music pertaining to the campaign stop Wilson made here, and his visits to Cape May Court House, Stone Harbor, and Atlantic City.

As a guest of Margaret and Thompson Baker, who was a New Jersey congressman at the time, Wilson dined and spent the night of Oct. 30, 1912, in the house at the corner of Maple Avenue just five days before his election to the first of his two terms as president.

While there are no known photographs of Wilson giving speeches at the Shore, there is a candid shot of the then-governor of New Jersey enjoying the sea air from a rocker on Baker's front porch with political crony Champ Clark, who was then speaker of the House of Representatives.

Williams' husband, David, who is also active in the friends group, says the rockers in the grainy photograph are stored in the attic of the house.

This weekend's event will raise funds for the upkeep and continued restoration of the property. Visitors can pay a package rate of $50 for admittance to five weekend events.

They may also purchase individual tickets for events, including $12 for a soup-and-sandwich supper during a guided tour of the Wildwood Historical Museum on Friday evening and $35 for a dinner-theater tribute to Wilson at the J. Baker Thompson House. The show, Saturday night, will feature an East Lynne Theater Company production called Helpful Hints.

Other activities include tours of the house throughout the weekend, a tea featuring John Philip Sousa music on Saturday, and a closing brunch on Sunday with live entertainment and a discussion about Wilson.

One of the speakers for the weekend will be Cape May County Clerk Rita Fulginiti, who will discuss Wilson's second wife, Edith, and her role in government after the president became gravely ill while in office.

Fulginiti will make the keynote address during a pot-roast dinner, a meal typical of home-cooked fare in 1912.

"We decided to do this event because not many people are aware of how famous and historically important this house was in its prime," Williams said.

Wilson made two speeches in Cape May County, one at the old courthouse in Cape May Court House, and the other in Wildwood at the Hippodrome Theater, a 3,000-seat vaudeville house that sat at Atlantic and Schellenger Avenues, about five blocks from the Baker home.

The site is now an amusement-pier parking lot.

The night after Wilson visited here, he gave a rousing speech at a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York.

"It was an interesting time historically, and I think that anyone who participates in this weekend is going to have a lot to discuss and consider when they leave," said the playwright and actress Susan Tischler, who wrote Helpful Hints based on a 1912 book, Putnam's Household Handbook by Mae Savell Croy, the Martha Stewart of her time. Tischler also plays the lead role.

Woven into the story, which includes odd tips on using kerosene to clean everything from feathers to one's scalp, is a seething feminism that prevailed at the time Wilson was being elected president, said Tischler.