[Genealogy Home Page]

[Contents page]

[Next Chapter]

               JANE LYDIA DISBROW

     For nearly two centuries now the Disbrows had cent-
ered about Matawan, but in the year 1881 Louisa Lane
came to what must have been for our little family a tre-
mendous decision.  In the 17th Century Henry Disbrow's
father had left England to try his luck in a new land;
at the beginning of the 18th Century Benjamin Disbrow
had left the comforts of civilization in New York to
settle in the wilds of Monmouth County; now our little
family of four, three generations of pioneers, decided
to leave home and friends and security, as had their an-
cestors before them, and strike out for themselves in a
new and nearly undeveloped community in the sandy pine
wastes along the seashore of southern Monmouth.  Why?
     Well, in the first place, this new development had
become readily accessible.  The period following the
Civil War was a rail-road building era and Matawan was
not to be left behind.  The laying of a single track
from South Amboy to Long Branch was completed on June
21st 1875, after Matawan residents had bought one-third
of the original issue of common stock - to the great dis-
may of less-moneyed Keyport, whose townsfolk purchased
only a few thousands worth of shares and so saw their
community left off the route.  Rubbing salty words into
Keyport's wounded pride, the Matawan Journal commented on
May 1st of that year -
     "The Keyport Weekly charges that people from Mata-
wan `paid $100,000 to bend the railroad line to suit her
purposes, avoiding the straight line which would have
accommodated Keyport.'  Just so, brother; and to think we
are also guaranteed 7% a year for our money."  Nasty!
Opening ceremonies with President Grant and 500 other
guests present were held in Long Branch a few days after
the completion of the line.  The first schedule called
for six passenger and one freight train each way daily.

                         112


               JANE LYDIA DISBROW

     The following year this track was extended to a
village called Squan Village (later Manasquan), passing
on its way through a new development on Shark River known
as Ocean Beach which had just come into being as a summer
resort as we shall shortly see.  Perhaps a little side-
light on this area might be helpful here.
     The first Dutch settlement in New Jersey was at Pa-
vonia (Hoboken) in 1630.  Within the next fifty years,
especially after the take-over by the Duke of York in '64,
thriving settlements sprang up all over the Province.
Along the Monmouth shore was Shark River Settlements (to-
day's Belmar) and the Squan River Settlements (later Squan
Village, still later Manasquan).  These were in the late
1660's; Penn's first landing wouldn't happen for years
yet - not till 1682 in fact.
     There is a local legend that, in the autumn of 1683,
after all the crops were harvested and safely stored in
the barns, a young lad, with more intellectual curiosity
than most, heard vague rumors of new settlements on the
west shore of the Delaware somewhere and decided to have
a look-see for himself.  So he packed his saddlebags for
a long journey, mounted his old mare Nelly and, to the
accompaniment of much head shaking by his family and the
neighbors, set off through the forest and across the pine
barrens.
     It was nearly Christmas when he got back and, as he
slid wearily from the saddle of hiss exhausted mare, the
whole village gathered around.
     "What of the new settlements?" his father wanted to
know.
     "Well, they's 3 - 400 head o' folks there by now,
busy as bees, layin' out big, broad streets, and buildin'
cabins all over the place.  They're callin' it Philadel-
phia."

                         113


               JANE LYDIA DISBROW

     "Is it bigger'n Squan?"
     "Got to admit it's a little bigger right now but
it'll never amount to much."
     "Why not?"
     "Well, in the first place, it's too fur from Squan."
     History telleth not what were his other reasons but
I'm sure that, at that time, this one alone seemed all
sufficient.
     The recorded history of the area actually antedates
the Dutch settlements slightly.  On September 10th 1609
Henry Hudson entered New York Bay after a long voyage
beating up the Jersey coast from the Delaware Capes, map-
ping, taking soundings, anchoring each day before dark-
ness fell.  Toward sunset on the evening of September 2nd,
the Half Moon cast anchor in 10 fathom, two leagues off
shore from a small inlet.  To the north, for the first
time they could see the blue outline of mountains.  Now,
since Shark River is the last inlet before a north-bound
ship reaches Sandy Hook and, since it is the only inlet
from which the hills of Atlantic Highlands are visible
from six miles off shore, there seems little doubt that
Henry Hudson was our first summer visitor.
     Just where Shark River got its name is uncertain
but it appears in early 18th Century maps.  During the
Revolution, as we have seen, it was known as Shark River
Settlements and boasted a Salt Works and had scattered
farms.
     And so it remained unchanged till after the Civil
War.  Then the same restless surge of new development
that gripped the entire nation started reaching south
from Long Branch, a summer resort which long antedated
the War.  First came Asbury Park and Ocean Grove in 1869
and then, on August 18th 1872, a development company was
formed known as "The Pleasant Beach Association," whose

                         114


               JANE LYDIA DISBROW

president was a Judge William S. Yard of Trenton and
whose local manager, also a director, was the Judge's
nephew Harry H. Yard.  On January 18th 1873 the name of
the company was changed to "The Ocean Beach Association."
     As I piece together this family chronicle, odd bits
of information keep turning up.  At Fort Monmouth a fellow
worker showed me what today would be called a promotional
brochure, a 4-page printed newspaper depicting the beaut-
ies and advantages of this new town by the sea.  It is
dated July 1875 and contains so much of interest and
gives so clear a picture of our town at that date, the
hopes and enthusiasms of its founders, and the very real
basis for these expectations, that I feel compelled to
quote it at some length.
     Here, for the first time, you are introduced to the
River which came to mean so much to me, the Beach, Silver
Lake as a tidal salt-pond still connected to the Sea, the
rail-road and bridges still only on paper, the wind-twis-
ted cedars that lined the river banks.  Here I learned
for the first time that Ocean Beach was the offspring of
Ocean Grove, and why.
     But to get on with the paper itself.  It is headed -

                    OCEAN BEACH
            THE NEW SEA-SIDE SUMMER RESORT

    PUBLISHED BY THE ASSOCIATION   July 1875  No. 2

     Ocean Grove, originally designed purely for a Camp
Meeting Ground and intended to be occupied for but two or
three weeks, was established in 1869 when the first Camp
Meeting was held there.  The tract was laid out with this
in view; but the original tents soon started being re-
placed with "wooden tents" as being more economical and
affording more protection against storms than did canvas.
The idea was a new one and proved to be something more
than its projectors imagined.  It answered a popular nec-

                         115


               JANE LYDIA DISBROW

essity.  A `cottage-by-the-sea' was hitherto associated
in the public mind with the extravagant style and ex-
pense of the fashionable summer resorts of Long Branch
and Cape May.  Here was developed the idea of social
life at the sea-side, with all the ordinary comforts and
luxuries of the home but without the glitter and show
and consequent extravagant style and expenses of the
fashionable hotel with its enormous prices and its dis-
sipations; the `home', with all its blessings and influ-
ences, was transferred to the `wooden tent' - the cheap
`Cottage-by-the-Sea.'
     The success of Ocean Grove was marvelous.  Instead
of what had been the Camping Ground there stands now in
1875 a flourishing City which has already twice overflow-
ed it boundaries and annexed new territory to accomo-
date its teeming population.  Instead of the two week's
Meeting, families commence to occupy their cottages in
May and June and remain until September, and many until
late in the Fall.
     Sometime during the summer of 1872, a number of
gentlemen owning cottages and residing in Ocean Grove,
feeling crowded by its great population....formed an
Association and negotiated the purchase of a tract in
the immediate neighborhood which they resolved to lay
out into lots and avenues on a liberal scale, with an
eye to all the requirements of health and comfort.
     The site selected for this new enterprise was one
with which some of the gentlemen connected with it had
been familiar for many years.  It is located on the south
bank of Shark River about three miles north of the pre-
sent terminus of the Farmingdale and Squan Village R.R.,
and about eight miles south of the Long Branch terminus
of the New York & Long Branch R.R.  It may be reached
from either terminus by staging over good turnpikes on

                         116


               JANE LYDIA DISBROW

both routes.
     The tract, known as the Peter White Farm, contained
about 400 acres with a front on the Ocean of one mile,
and a front of 1½ miles on Shark River - a beautiful
stream which here empties its waters into the Sea.  Near
the center of the tract is a beautiful lake of water
clear as polished silver; it is fed by two fresh-water
brooks and occasionally, at high tides, it receives the
salt water from the Ocean in sufficient quantity to keep
always highly impregnated with salt.  A substantial plank
walk entirely surrounds it and a broad roadway (Lake Ave-
nue) encircles it.  The River is well provided with row
boats and even yachts for sailing and fishing parties.
Experienced watermen are always ready to sail the yachts
and pilot parties to any point desired or to point out
the best fishing grounds.  The lake is also well provided
with boat and furnished both safe and ample facilities
for indulging children in the pleasure of rowing and
sailing, as it is only three feet deep.
     To speak of the beneficial effects of sea-bathing
generally would be superfluous - every intelligent person
has a familiar knowledge, from reading or experience, of
its recuperative qualities.  As a medical remedy, no in-
valid should indulge in it without the advice of an ex-
perienced physician.  The beach at Ocean Beach has no
superior, if indeed it has an equal, on this coast.
While at some well known points elsewhere the beach is
gradually washing away by action of the waves, here the
land is steadily encroaching on the sea from the same
cause.  A sand bar has formed a short distance from the
shore, which breaks the first shock of the waves; inside
this bar the water deepens again until it approaches
the shore.  Bathing Houses and Safety Ropes etc. have
been provided by the Association and no pains nor ex-

                         117


               JANE LYDIA DISBROW

pense will be spared to make this feature of the enter-
prise as perfect as possible, and available to all.
     The lots are all 50 feet by 150 feet deep.  Over 60
fine cottages have already been erected.  Two good board-
ing houses are in operation.  Business men can safely
leave their families at Ocean Beach.
     Visitors find a magnificent bay and river skirted by
high bluffs which are covered with trees of large growth;
a beautiful lake of salt water in the center of the tract;
fine avenues laid out at right angles and terminating with
Sea and River views."

                       * * *

               A PICNIC AT THE BEACH

     Last Monday morning two large stages left Ocean Grove
with a party of twenty, most of them from Troy, N.Y., bound
to have a good time down at Shark River."
After a bath at the Beach we went beyond the River (F St.)
Bridge to eat our dinner.  Everybody had as much as they
could eat and we were too sorry our party was not twice
as large for it was a day of perfect enjoyment for all.
     Everybody was delighted with the look of things at
Ocean Beach - the handsome houses, the wide streets, the
scenery and all the advantages over any other place on
the coast; for if you want sea bathing, you can have your
choice of river or lake; if it is fish or oysters or
crabs you desire for any meal in the day, you have only
to say so - Shark River oysters are celebrated.  As a
result of our day's visit, three of our party selected
lots and expect to build before next summer.

                       * * *

     We learn that the difficulties in the way of the
construction of the new Railroad between Long Branch and
Ocean Beach have been removed, and the work between those

                         118


               JANE LYDIA DISBROW

points will be prosecuted to a speedy conclusion.  Work
was resumed on the road several weeks ago, on the bridges
over Shark River and other streams, and a gang of 200 men
will be put on the road-bed next Monday.  Most of the
road-bed was graded over two years ago and will now re-
quire but little labor to make it ready for the ties and
rails.  The President asserts with confidence that pass-
enger trains will be running on this road by the 2nd of
July next.  To make the road complete we want the exten-
sion from Squan Village to Ocean Beach, which it is rumor-
ed the Penna. R.R.Co. mean to construct immediately, the
necessary legislation for that purpose having been passed
by the last legislature.  Six daily trains each way be-
tween Ocean Beach and New York will be run on the new
Railroad.
     Meanwhile the `Ten Cent Stage Line' between Ocean
Grove and Ocean Beach commenced running on the 1st inst.
(July 1875) and will be continued throughout the season.

                       * * *

From "True American", June 24 1875 - Articles of As-
sociation of the Long Branch and Sea Girt Railroad Co.
were filed in Trenton on Friday.  The road begins at a
point on the New Egypt and Farmingdale R.R. at Ocean
Beach and terminates at or near Squan Village, and will
be about 4 miles in length.  The charter is to run for
999 years and the Articles of Association are dated May
28th 1875.  (At a meeting of R.R. presidents in New York,
the President of this magnificent property is said to
have remarked to the President of the Pennsy - "My road
may not be quite as long as yours, but it is just as
wide."
                       * * *

                         119


               JANE LYDIA DISBROW

                  ADVERTISEMENTS

Ocean Beach House   J.M. Bergen, Prop.       Cor. 5th & F
White House          Joseph Newman, Prop.    Cor. 7th & F
Steven Bennett       Restaurant              Cor. 5th & F
William H. Hutchinson Carpenter & Bldr.       Cor. 7th & F
David VanNortwick    Bread & Cake Baker       F St. nr 6th
Clark & Scudder  Real Estate & Ins.       Cor. 8th & F
               (Henry D. Scudder, Civil Eng'r)
Samuel Van Brunt's Stage Line - Between Ocean Beach and
Ocean Grove - Fare 10 cents - Stages leave Post Offices
at Ocean Grove and Ocean Beach every hour.

                       * * *

     So, not only was this new development easily access-
ible from Matawan but it sounded like a most desirable
place.  Further, as we know from Capt. John's letters,
Rutus (Pony) Disbrow was now a brakeman on the new N.Y.
& L.B.R.R. and no doubt had glowing tales to tell of the
future of these new resorts of Ocean Beach and Asbury
Park.  Lots in already established Long Branch had sky-
rocketed with the coming of the R.R. and the same thing
was to be expected at these newer places.  Several prom-
inent Matawan residents were behind the Ocean Beach ven-
ture.
     By 1881, when Louisa Lane first came down to look
things over, Harry Yard had completed all the streets
fairly well; he had bought up many of the Centennial Ex-
position buildings and moved them down to Ocean Beach
where he had re-erected them as hotels and public build-
ings - the Colorado Building became the Colorado Hotel,
the Delaware Pavilion became the Delaware Hotel, the
huge Mechanics Hall became the storage shed of the new
Lumber Yard, etc.  Hundreds of new homes had been built
since the pitiful 60 of 1875.  In fact Ocean Beach was
now a hustling but tiny community of maybe 200 permanent
residents with a school, post-office, and at least three
churches.
     At first she hesitated between Asbury Park and
Ocean Beach - in fact she actually bought the lot at the
corner of Cookman and Bond in Asbury Park - but after

                         120


               JANE LYDIA DISBROW

weighing the advantage of Shark River, particularly the
view she had from the lot she finally chose at the corner
of 9th Avenue and F Street where the Bank now stands, a
view of Shark River at sunset that she often spoke of to
me in after years, besides which it was in the business
heart of the village.  I still think it was a logical de-
cision.  Ocean Beach had everything its rival had and,
in addition, it was bounded on two sides by the River
which was in reality a small tidal bay two or three square
miles in area.  What she had no means of foreseeing was
the vastly different character of the two guiding spirits
James Bradley of Asbury Park and Harry Yard of Ocean
Beach.
     On this lot she proceeded, in the early spring of
1882, to build her new home, a two-and-a-half-story build-
ing with a little Confectionery and Notions Shop facing
the main street just as in Matawan with the home entrance
on the more secluded 9th Avenue side.  The material, of
course,, came from the now well-established Warman Lumber
Yard at the S.W. corner of 12th Ave. and F Street, three
blocks away and across the street from the new school
where Jane Lydia was to start her career as a school
teacher.
     The months dragged on while your Grandmother, now
sixteen, was finishing her last year at Glenwood and ta-
king her teacher's exams as we have already recorded.
Finally, in August 1882, all was ready and Louisa Lane
and her oldest daughter Jennie moved down to the new
house, leaving Edna Louise still in Matawan with her
Grandmother Higgins until the lease on the old house at
the corner of Fountain and Main should expire.
     To the young people the contrast between the old
colonial town of Matawan and this new, crude summer re-
sort of Ocean Beach was depressing - Matawan with its

                         121


               JANE LYDIA DISBROW

shady streets over which ancient trees made a Gothic arch,
streets lined solidly with comfortably old, long-lived-in
white 18th and early 19th Century houses, each with its
green-shuttered, many-paned windows;  Ocean Beach with
its barren, sandy wastes of scrub pines, its still un-
drained swamps, its broad yellow-graveled streets glar-
ing in the hot August sun, looking even broader and yel-
lower and more glaringly desolate in the few spots where
young sapling shade-trees were just taking root in their
obviously unaccustomed soil.
     The summer colony stretched along the Ocean Front
from about Tenth to Second Avenues, reaching back at the
most to B Street.  Between this and the "Village" on the
main highway so imaginatively christened F Street, was an
unpeopled stretch of pine woods and swamp.  The streets
which had looked so definite on the map were just gravel
roads.  Aunt Lou tells how she feared the snakes which
she was likely to meet on the long walk from her house to
the Beach, past Silver Lake which then, despite the map,
still extended to 9th and E where there was a big ice-
house (another of the Centennial Buildings) across from
the Presbyterian Church.  Eighth Ave. crossed the lake
on a wooden bridge with white-painted rails as late as
when I was five or six.  The old summer residents, even
when I was no longer a boy, still spoke of "going to the
village" when they meant coming down town to the shops.
     Mother says - "The very first thing that we noticed
was the humidity in mid-summer - clothing and everything
we touched seemed almost at the point of saturation and,
in consequence, sticky and clinging - but we soon became
accustomed to it.  A pleasanter thing was the almost un-
obstructed view from our home of the wonderful sunsets
over Shark River with the wooded hills beyond.  A little
to the left, at the foot of 10th Ave., was Buhler's Pa-

                         122


               JANE LYDIA DISBROW

vilion with its long pier extending into the river, where
one could hire a row boat to spend the day crabbing, or
in a sail boat, or take a cruise in the Annie B., a big
steam launch.  The walk to the Beach and the Boardwalk
was usually via Ninth Avenue, about five blocks, with
woods on both sides and scarcely a building except the
ice house.  Within a block of the ocean we passed the
Carleton Hotel, the largest and best at that time, owned
and operated by Mrs. Stoyle from Philadelphia.
     In those early days there was not so much of hotel
life - the homes on the ocean front being owned and oc-
cupied by old families from Philadelphia, Trenton, and
Newark - Dr. Jayne, the Lyons, Dr. Breeds, Dr. Bliss,
Fredrick Lefferts, the Richardsons, Sheets, Ripleys,
Howes, Adam Extons, Chas. Fletchers, and many others.
It was a pleasure then to `take a walk in the boardwalk'
early summer evenings where you were sure to meet the
same old residents and their progeny year after year, and
Ocean Beach was very dear to all of us.
     Gordon's Pavilion at 5th and Ocean was a noonday
rendezvous on Sundays for church-goers from the Epis-
copal Church on 5th Avenue and the Presbyterian Taber-
nacle (another Centennial Building) at 7th and A.  Old
friends would there meet for greetings and chats.  It
was an opportunity for the younger folks to note the
latest styles in summer dress,  The services in the big
open-air Tabernacle, used only in summer, were generally
conducted by noted preachers from all over the country
who chanced to be summering in the neighborhood - Dr.
George Strobridge, son-in-law of Dr. Kidder an old sum-
mer resident, was one of these gifted speakers."
     When Jane accompanied her mother to Ocean Beach that
summer she had no idea that she too would become an "old
resident," for she thought she was merely bridging a gap

                         123


               JANE LYDIA DISBROW

till her school in Morristown should open in September.
But it almost immediately developed that there was a va-
cancy in the little two-room school at 12th and F, an un-
graded school presided over by a Mr. Crego - known as
Squire Crego, since he was also a Justice of the Peace.
With no difficulty whatever she succeeded in qualifying
and so gave up the Morristown position to her cousin,
very much thrilled at the thought that she, at sixteen,
was now a full-fledged school teacher.
     Which shows how small happenings may completely
change our lives and the destinies of succeeding genera-
tions; for had your grandmother not taken this place in
Ocean Beach it is unlikely that she would have gone to
the office of Warman's Lumber Yard on some errand for her
mother and there met the new book-keeper, a young man of
twenty-two from Pennsylvania named Willard Sterner.
     How he chanced to be at that precise spot, at that
precise moment, we shall duly see when we come to the
chronicle of the Sterners in the next volume.
     The following year, 1883, Grandma Higgins came down
bringing Edna Louise, and now our little family of four
was once more united under the same roof.  Mother says -
     "In some respects our migration to Ocean Beach did
not prove a success.  The little business, owing to the
adjacent booming town of Asbury Park, was not too prosper-
ous - three very trying blunders in the construction of
our home due to our inexperience in such matters, were a
source of great worry to our mother.  But I'm afraid such
matters did not weigh so heavily with me that first year.
I was deeply absorbed in my teaching - and it was that
summer that I met your father!  Need I say more?"
     Of the next five years I know little.  On at least
one occasion, it is interesting to note, the young couple
had tea with Squire Crego in his home at 606 Seventh Ave.

                         124


               JANE LYDIA DISBROW

the house you all knew as home for so long.  Forty years
later, when the many layers of old wallpaper were being
removed from the front room (parlor to them), we uncover-
ed one deep down which showed a dark tercotta paper,
with a large oriental pattern so typical of the period,
which Mother recognized as being the very paper which had
graced the wall that far-off day in the Eighties.
     It was during this time that Edna Louise was attend-
ing the Asbury Park High School then, as in my day, at
Summerfield and Bond.  She too passed her Teachers' Exam
but she never took a school although, upon occasion, she
substituted for her sister Jennie in the new school, a
towered brick structure I was later to know so well, which
had replaced the old wooden two-roomed building.
     Jane and her Willard were married in the house at 9th
and F on June 22nd 1887 and so Jane Lydia Disbrow passes
out of the story, at least by that name, and becomes mere-
ly Mrs. W.J. Sterner.  That Fall they started the house
at 607 Sixth Avenue and the work continued throughout the
winter of 87/88, interrupted briefly by the Great Bliz-
zard of March 1888.  Mother tells how she and Dad used to
walk around to see how their house was progressing, never
missing a day till the blizzard came.  When they did see
the house again, there was still one great drift cresting
higher than the dining room window and reaching nearly a-
cross the room.  In May the house was finally completed
and the newly-weds moved into their new home, the house
which you have always known as "Ma's House."
     And here let us leave the happy couple for a short
while in order that we may back-track across the Centuries
and across the Atlantic to the German Palatinate and
thence to the wilds of the Alleghenies in the early 18th
Century, as I tell you the very little I have so labor-
iously dug up about the Sterners and explain, as best I

                         125


               JANE LYDIA DISBROW

may, how it was that Willard Sterner chanced to be in
Warman's lumber office that summer day in 1882 when first
he met Jennie Disbrow.
     Jane Lydia Disbrow/Sterner still lives on in the
house into which she moved as a bride so long ago*.  She
lives alone in the old house, but not really alone for
it is crowded with the memories of seventy years and is
visited almost daily by her descendants - her children,
her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren.  And at
holidays, especially at Christmas, the old house swarms
with them; for they all love to visit "Ma's House."
Long ago she wrote of the warmth and graciousness of her
grandfather's house in Maiden Lane; she has more than
recreated it here for all of us.
     At ninety-one she is the same lovely lady her pic-
ture shows us at nineteen.  I am sure that, could old
Cap'n John have known "Lou's girl Jennie" as we have
known her; if he could come back and see her as she is
today; he would say, in all sincerity, that here again
was

          "One Worthy to bear the Name of Disbrow."



                         126

[Genealogy Home Page]

[Contents Page]

[Next Chapter]

[Top of page]