By John R. Barrows
This vignette is just another of the many in which people not of, nor from our region, expressed the great pleasure they experienced visiting our area.
On October 22, 1882, the S.S. Arizona arrived in New York Harbor from Liverpool at 5:00 a.m. Despite the early hour, there was a throng of people there to greet the ship, in particular, one famous passenger, Lillie Langtry. Among the people there to greet her was Oscar Wilde, who was among her many admirers. She was to make her American debut on the Broadway stage at the Park Theater on October 30, but a fire broke out an hour before curtain, killing two. It was a highly inauspicious start for Mrs. Langtry, whose arrival had been breathlessly awaited for weeks. But it would be perhaps the only setback she suffered, as she went on to become one of the most famed and popular celebrities in the world while touring the U.S. And she would also become among the most celebrated people ever to call Long Branch their summer home.
Bernard Baruch
Bernard Mannes Baruch, born August 19, 1870, in Camden, South Carolina, was a financial genius who made a fortune in the stock market before he was 30. He was an economic advisor to Theodore Roosevelt and to every president thereafter through Eisenhower. During World War I, he headed the War Industries Board and advised Woodrow Wilson during the Paris Peace Conference. He made another fortune in the postwar bull market but foresaw the Wall Street crash and sold out well in advance. During World War II, he became a close advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the role of industry in war supply, and he was credited with greatly shortening the production time for tanks and aircraft. It was Baruch who in 1947 coined the phrase “Cold War.” Baruch College of the City University of New York is named for him.
When he was a youth, Baruch’s parents moved from South Carolina to New York City, and soon began summering in Long Branch. In his autobiography, Baruch tells the following story of his time there sometime around 1889:
Occasionally I also put up at a boardinghouse in Little Silver, New Jersey, run by a man known to everyone as Uncle Dick Borden. Sailing contests on Pleasure Bay were a lively sport at Uncle Dick’s. I remember taking Borden’s catboat, Emma B., through the Shrewsbury past Price’s Pier. I was dressed in my usual sailing costume – a pair of duck trousers, no shirt, hat, or shoes.
Baruch wrote that he was “showing off” that day by navigating as close to the pier as he could, when he heard a lady’s voice. He looked up and saw a beautiful woman with a famous sportsman of the day whom he recognized. “She was entertaining him with discriminating comments on my appearance, which modesty prevents me from recording here,” wrote Baruch. He later “…went home with my mind still dizzy with thoughts of the compliments paid me by that beautiful lady. Later I learned that she was the famous actress, Lily [sic] Langtry.”
OK, who was Uncle Dick Borden?
John Borden, a captain of steamships including the SS Little Silver, moved his family from Red Bank to Little Silver Point in 1844. He is considered to be the founding father of the Little Silver Point area. His son Richard, also a steamboat captain, operated a summer resort called Silver Bay House on Little Silver Point. The body of water between Little Silver Point and Long Branch in those days was known as Pleasure Bay.
The house could accommodate as many as 100 guests over the course of a season. This was the venue for many meetings, gatherings, and social events of all types. Richard Borden was a Freeholder for many years, and the county Freeholders often held their meetings at Silver Bay House.
On that day in 1899, young Bernard Baruch was sailing one of the catboats available to guests at Capt. Borden’s boardinghouse on Little Silver Point. He was referring to a dock on Pleasure Bay which was the site of a resort hotel operated by E.H. Price in Long Branch.
The Jersey Lily
Lillie Langtry was born Emilie Charlotte Le Breton on October 13, 1853, in Saint Saviour, Jersey, one of the Channel Islands off England. In her youth, she was celebrated as a woman of great beauty and charm, sought after by leading artists of the day as a subject. James McNeil Whistler, for example, said of her, “You are the loveliest thing that ever was.” She became a mistress to The Prince of Wales, Albert Edward, later Edward VII. During the aesthetic movement in England, she was painted by aesthete artists, and in 1882 she became the poster-girl for Pears Soap, believed to be the first celebrity to endorse a commercial product.
In 1881, Emilie, known as Lillie, became an actress and made her West End debut in the comedy She Stoops to Conquer, causing a sensation in London as the first socialite to appear on stage. She became Lillie Langtry when she married her first husband, Edward Langtry. She was known as “The Jersey Lily” after the floral symbol of her home island, which also created confusion over the correct spelling of her name for the rest of her life. She was renowned internationally as a socialite, actress, and theater manager.
Langtry first came to America when she arrived in New York City in 1882. She toured the country as a headliner and became the toast of American society. And she soon began spending her summers in Long Branch, which in that era had become a noted destination for the rich and famous. Langtry toured the U.S. for five consecutive years during one stretch, and in her autobiography mentioned Niagara, Yosemite, and Mariposa Grove as the most memorable landmarks, but she made no mention of Long Branch or the Jersey Shore.
In 1883, the local press reported that “Mrs. Langtry and Fred. Gebhard on Wednesday rented the Lester Wallack cottage at Long Branch for the season, furnished. They pay $2,000 rent (editor’s note: about $60,000 in today’s currency), and will cut a spread with stylish turnouts.” One newspaper reported that she brought with her a large retinue of servants, ten horses, and several carriages, “and evidently intends to have a big time while at the seashore.” Gebhard, a wealthy and ambitious businessman who was infatuated with Mrs. Langtry, is the gentleman who was with her when Bernard Baruch encountered her on Pleasure Bay. He was her constant live-in companion during this time, but she made no mention of him in her autobiography.
It was hardly unusual for a noted celebrity such as Lillie Langtry to come to Long Branch in the summer during the Victorian Era. A partial list of the famous people who frequented Long Branch during these years includes such members of society as the Astors, Fisks, Goulds, Biddles, and Drexels, high liver Diamond Jim Brady, General Winfield Scott, actors Lillian Russell and Edwin Booth (brother of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth), painter Winslow Homer, and authors Bret Harte and Robert Louis Stevenson. And of course, U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant spent all eight summers of his presidency in Long Branch, although claims made about other presidents have been largely exaggerated.
In 1887, Mrs. Langtry was said to be spending the summer at a handsome Long Branch cottage belonging to Philip Daly, a gambling prince of that resort. “She…is in a quiet way painting the town,” said one newspaper. She put on a performance for locals of a show called A Wife’s Peril at the West End Amusement Hall. In 1888, she returned and “leased Sheriff Brown’s cottage at Long Branch for the season. She will give a performance in August.” In 1889, she leased the summer cottage of Oliver Doud Byron at North Long Branch. She traveled in a special railroad car that cost $30,000, and described it thusly:
It contains a dining-room where I can entertain twelve people, a kitchen, a servant’s room, a bathroom and my own bedroom, which is really lovely. At one end of the car, which, by the way, is all made of oak, I have a sweet little observatory, and underneath the floor are wine chests and a larder, where I often keep a whole buck from my ranch…The Silver bath is also a fact. I wanted everything to look nice, and, as china is so brittle, I thought I would try silver. The experiment was most successful.
Whenever she was in the area, local newspapers covered her every movement:
At Long Branch the centre of interest is Mrs. Langtry. On Thursday, at the Hollywood Hotel, a most sumptuous dinner was given by Mr. J. O’Brien…in honor of the Jersey Lily. Mrs. Langtry’s mother arrived from England a few days ago and will probably spend the season with her. The Lily has had a lot of stupendous new gowns made, in some of which she has made her appearance on the drive. Porter Ashe, whose horse won at Monmouth Park, has given the trophy cup to Mrs. Langtry.
She had a lifelong passion for racehorses and was a regular at Monmouth Park (as was Baruch, although he was just a lad when she was summering there). She eventually bought a ranch in California and raised horses:
Still bitten with my manager’s idea that my ranch would breed superlative stock, I had invested largely in thoroughbred mares, mostly good winners at Monmouth Park, Saratoga, Long Branch, and other race-courses of the East, and had despatched [sic] them to the West.
Lillie Langtry divorced her first husband, Edward Langtry, while living in America. She eventually returned to Europe, and married Sir Hugo de Bathe, 5th Baronet of Knightstown, County Meath. She was known as Lady de Bathe when she died February 12, 1929, age 75, in Monte Carlo, Monaco.
Bernard Baruch’s parents eventually bought a house in Long Branch on Atlantic Avenue in 1900. The 35-room, 12-bath, 15-acre estate near Pleasure Bay was known as “The Anchorage.” It was formerly known as “Doerrhurst,” the property of J.B. Doerr. The Baruchs sold it in 1919. Bernard Baruch died June 20, 1965, in New York City, age 94.
Sources:
Auxiliary Hall Now Home for Graduate Nurses. (1944). The Daily Register, Long Branch, N.J., July 20, 1944, P. 18.
Baruch, Bernard M. (1957). Baruch: My Own Story. Henry Holt and Company, Inc., New York, N.Y., P. 67.
By the Sea. (1887). Asbury Park Press, Asbury Park, N.J., August 25, 1887, P. 1.
CPI Inflation Calculator. (2024). Available: https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1883?amount=2000
Dr. Antonio Stella Buys Anchorage. (1919). The Daily Record, Long Branch, N.J., October 16, 1919, P. 1
Dudley, Ernest. (1958). The Gilded Lily: The Life and Loves of the Fabulous Lillie Langtry. Odhams Press Limited, London, U.K.
Field, Carter. (1944). Bernard Baruch, Park Bench Statesman. Whittlesey House, New York, N.Y.
Gerson, Noel Bertram. (1972). Lillie Langtry: A Biography. Robert Hale & Co., London, U.K.
Glass, Andrew. (2010). Bernard Baruch Coins Term ‘Cold War,’ April 16, 1947. Politico, April 16, 2010. Available: https://www.politico.com/story/2010/04/bernard-baruch-coins-term-cold-war-april-16-1947-035862
Grant, James L. (1997). Bernard M. Baruch: The Adventures of a Wall Street Legend. John Wiley & Sons, New York, N.Y.
Journalistic. (1882). Matawan Journal, Matawan, N.J., November 25, 1882, P. 2.
Kruger, Thomas A. (1982). The Public Life and Times of Bernard Baruch. Reviews in American History, University of California, Davis, Vol. 10, #1, P. 115.
Langtry, Lillie. (1925). The Days I Knew. George H. Doran Company, New York, N.Y.
Maloney, E. Burke. (1987). Baruch’s Financial Advice Still Rings True. Asbury Park Press, Asbury Park, N.J., November 8, 1987, P. F18.
Miscellaneous. (1889). The Monmouth Inquirer, Freehold, N.J., July 4, 1889, P. 4.
Mrs. Langtry at Long Branch. (1887). Asbury Park Press, Asbury Park, N.J., August 11, 1887, P. 1.
Mrs. Langtry’s Private car. (1892). The Monmouth Inquirer, Freehold, N.J., November 10, 1892, P. 2.
Personal Gossip. (1888). Monmouth Democrat, Freehold, N.J., August 2, 1888, P. 3.
Potatoes vs. Oysters. (1889). The Daily Register, Red Bank, N.J., November 27, 1889, P. 2.
Schnitzspahn, Karen L. (1996). Images of America: Little Silver. Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, S.C.
State and County Items. (1883). Matawan Journal, Matawan, N.J., June 30, 1883, P. 3.
The Lily at Asbury. (1887). Asbury Park Press, Asbury Park, N.J., August 15, 1887, P. 1.
Theatrical Chit-Chat. (1888). Asbury Park Press, Asbury Park, N.J., July 10, 1888, P. 1.
Town Topics. (1882). The Daily Register, Red Bank, N.J., November 8, 1882, P. 4.
Westergaard, Barbara. (1987.) New Jersey, a guide to the State. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, N.J.
Image sources:
Photograph of Lillie Langtry as Lady Macbeth c1899. Photo copyrighted by B.J. Falk, New York, N.Y. Library of Congress, Public Domain.
Photograph of Lillie Langtry in costume and holding spear, c1882. Photo copyrighted by Napoleon Sarony. Library of Congress, Public Domain.
Photograph of Lillie Langtry facing left, c1882. Photo copyrighted by Napoleon Sarony. Library of Congress, Public Domain.
Time magazine cover image of Bernard Baruch, 1924, Public Domain.
Pleasure Bay images courtesy Greg Kelly, Monmouth Beach Life.com MonmouthBeachLife.com
Anchorage image Edward F. Thomas Collection, Historic Long Branch, available: http://www.historiclongbranch.org/town.htm
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