Long Branch was once crawling with U.S. presidents. See the marks they left behind

LONG BRANCH - The bell at the Church of the Presidents still rings, though there hasn't been many reasons lately to pull the long rope that hangs down from the rafter to make it swing back and forth.

But it is there. Ready to chime. Ready to remind people of a past so steeped in history that a century ago a man by the name of Bernard Sandler proclaimed it America's Westminster Abbey. It was 1925, the chapel's base had eroded and it was facing a financial catastrophe because the St. James Episcopal Church, which owned the chapel, could not come up with $650 needed to pay a tax bill.

Fundraising efforts were being organized to save the chapel. To raise interest, local leaders began to refer to the chapel as the Church of the Presidents.

Sandler represented Ernest Levy, the co-builder of the West End Casino. Though both men were Jewish and had never attended services at the chapel, they thought it worth saving. Sandler was the first to claim six U.S. Presidents, starting with U.S. Grant, had attended services there. At the time, people only knew of four. Levy then presented a check for $650 to pay the assessment.

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Today, it is agreed that in fact seven presidents in the late 19th and early 20th centuries attended services there, when Long Branch was known as "the Summer Capital." Aside from Grant, there were Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and Woodrow Wilson.

"If it weren't for the churches, there really wouldn't be anything left," said U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., a Long Branch native, about the era.

'He had been vilified'

Indeed, some things, such as Grant's chalet-style summer cottage on Ocean Avenue, were simply bulldozed when they fell beyond repair. Grant spent most summers months at his 28-room chalet from 1869 to 1885. He conducted business there, and he wrote his memoir there.

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Pallone and his younger brother John Pallone, the mayor of the city, were just kids in 1963 when Grant's cottage was razed. Neither remembers hearing a word about it at the time. Ironically, that year was the centennial of the Civil War Battle of Vicksburg, when Grant dealt the South a crushing defeat out west.

"I've long since thought it a tragedy of historic preservation that the structure was demolished. I understand the owners of the property faced onerous expenses to upkeep it. I wish there had been more effort from the public to raise funds to save it. But at the time there was a very low lack of approval of Grant's presidency. He had been vilified for much of the 20th century," said Frank Scatorro, president of the Grant Monument Association.

Up until this year there was nothing on the property to mark the historical importance of the spot. In 1941, a retreat center — Stella Maris — bought the land, including Grant's chalet and another cottage that belonged to George William Childs, publisher of the Philadelphia Ledger and a friend of Grant. While Grant's cottage went down 60 years ago, Stella Maris was knocked down four years ago along with Child's.

Since then, it's just been green grass on a bluff overlooking the wide-open Atlantic Ocean. A developer has plans to divide the six-acre property into four custom homes, the sign of the times in a seashore city in demand.

"The real estate values on these properties are some of the highest at the Shore," said Frank Pallone.

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However, on a rainy day this past April, Scatorro and a small group of elected officials and society people that included the Pallones and a presidential author finally dedicated an historic marker where Grant's cottage used to be. The cost for the red-colored marker was about $6,000 and shared between the association and the Long Branch Historical Museum.

Scatorro, who lives in Ohio where many of the presidents of this era hailed from, said it was a priority to mark the spot. Rather than Grant the butcher, or Grant the drinker, or the scandals that rocked his post-Civil War presidency, Scatorro said Grant "was a man of tremendous integrity and character who had a profound sense of duty."

Public opinion on Grant has improved since his chalet was razed. During John F. Kennedy's presidency he was ranked near the bottom, 30 out of 34 presidents to date, not including JFK. Today, the man who got Robert E. Lee to lay down his sword is ranked 20th.

A presidential might-have-been

The red historical marker is one recent development in the preservation of the city's presidential past. On the city's main thoroughfare, a plan has been made to save the old Dutch Reformed Church and its spacious sanctuary, with its stained glass windows and gargantuan sliding wood doors. This is where Garret Hobart, William McKinley's vice president and a Long Branch native of Dutch ancestry on his mother's side, attended services. When McKinley visited, he sat in the pews, too.

Hobart could have been president had he lived long enough, but he died in 1899 of heart disease and his place on the Republican ticket was taken by Theodore Roosevelt. When McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901, Roosevelt became president, much to the dismay of Mark Hanna, the chair of the Republican National Committee who saw Roosevelt as too progressive for the office.

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More than just physical addresses, the history is preserved in the stories and assorted artifacts that are scattered around the city.

For example, pieces of Childs' chalet were removed and are being put inside the Star of the Sea Lyceum School that is being refurbished into office space by Washington, D.C., developer Douglas Jemal, who also lives in the city. The school opened in 1900 as a private Catholic school.

A walnut cabinet that belonged to Grant was purchased at auction in 1962 by late City Councilman and founder of the Long Branch Historical Museum Association Edgar Dinkelspeil, the year before Grant's cottage came down, It now sits in City Hall.

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Down the street from Dutch Reformed Church is Frank Pallone's district office, an old two-story home that was built in 1870 for E. A. Morrell. From the first floor, one can look across the street and see the large stained glass window dedicated to Grant at St. Luke's United Methodist Church.

Inside, the walls are adorned with originals from Harper's Weekly and Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. The pictures show Grant at his cottage or Pallone's favorite, Winslow Homer at the beach with his girlfriend. Homer was perhaps the most known American landscape painter of the later half of the 19th century. Pallone secured the prints at auctions.

"I don't think there are any left, I bought them all," Pallone joked.

John Wilkes Booth and Garfield's ghost

The two Pallone brothers grew up on Morrell Street and went to the old elementary school at 504 Broadway, which today serves as the Board of Education office. John Pallone likes to kid his older brother that he hasn't gone very far in his life.

As kids they tore through history books at the city library or wandered around the museum at the Church of the Presidents when Dinkelspeil let them in. They are now part of the keepers of that history, when the city's beachfront was the playground of the rich and famous and the powerful.

They were all here. John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln's eventual assassin, visited at the same time First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln was here. Business mogul "Diamond" Jim Brady, known for his insatiable appetite for food and games of chance, vacationed here and no doubt visited its gambling houses.

One of John Pallone's favorite anecdotes is when First Lady Julia Grant told her grandkids that their garden was magical, so she had them plant watermelon seeds. That night, when the kids went to sleep, Pallone said Mrs. Grant and her gardener went outside and placed full-grown watermelons in their place.

"My favorite story has to be Garfield's ghost. They say he appears on the corner every summer right after Labor Day. I've looked for him but I've never seen him," said Frank Pallone.

On July 2, 1881 President James A. Garfield was shot by a delusional office seeker as he waited to board a train in the capitol. Garfield later developed an infection and was brought to his summer cottage in Long Branch with the hope that the cool ocean breezes would heal him.

The people of Long Branch built a railroad spur to bring him from the Elberon Train station to his cottage. However, Garfield took a turn for the worse and died 12 days later on Sept. 19, 1881. A stone marker with a plaque marks the spot on a little loop street called Garfield Road where his cottage was. It was behind the grand Elberon Hotel. Today the cottage, the hotel are gone, however, a cottage at 4 Garfield Road dates from the era and remains.

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The railroad ties were later purchased by actor Oliver Byron who decided to have a tea house made out of them. Byron was a Broadway stage actor who lived in Long Branch and owned several properties in the city. He made a sizable donation to the fire hose company that bares his name today. The building is presently being refurbished and turned into a museum, part of John Pallone's goal to save as much history as can be saved.

That tea house now sits in the southwest corner of the Church of the Presidents, perhaps the most sacred of the remaining historical properties in the city and a national historic site.

Following Levy's generous donation, many have followed to save the chapel. In the 1930s, the chapel was in dire straights again when city resident Moses F. Kahn paid the back taxes on the church and also donated the American flag he draped over Garfield's casket as they carried him out of Long Branch.

Today, the Long Branch Historical Museum Association is the guardian of the museum and for the last two decades has been restoring the chapel, sometimes piece by piece. The chapel, surrounded by a locked gate, has been stabilized but much work is left. Inside, pieces such as the heavy stained-glass windows are lying about.

"It's an incredible honor, but it's also a tremendous responsibility to see that it gets completed," said Jim Foley, the president of the museum association.

The association was strapped for money recently and put part of the property up for sale. An offer of $4.2 million was made, but they didn't sell. Foley said they don't need to sell it anymore after Frank Pallone and state Sen. Vin Gopal, D- Monmouth, secured about $2 million in federal and state grants to see the restoration through.

"What's really important is Long Branch has this really rich history that some know about but others don't," John Pallone said. "Unfortunately we lost a lot of it over time, but what we're trying to do is preserve as much of it, as we can. People seem really interested. They want to know."

When Jersey Shore native Dan Radel is not reporting the news, you can find him in a college classroom where he is a history professor. Reach him @danielradelapp; 732-643-4072; dradel@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Long Branch presidential history: Grant, Garfield and more left marks