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Mr. Charles S. Horn, Jr. Q: In the [inaudible - sounds like "Foder Rider's"] Guide
they talked about five hotels, four for whites and one for Negroes.
Were there very many Negroes in Rehoboth and when did they come, where
did they go and what A: Artson, A-r-t-s-o-n. Yes, that was up Rehoboth Avenue and you had a line [Tape stops and is started again.] Q: This is Mr. Charles Horn at ______________ Avenue. Today is August 6, 1968. The interviewer is Mensor from the University of Delaware at the Oral History Project. O.K.? A: That's right. Charles S. Horn. I was known as Junior, but I dropped the Junior. I was born at 720 W. 9th Street in Wilmington in 1899 and moved down here in 1900, which of course I don't remember, because I wasn't supposed to live very long so they thought this was a good place to die, but I still I made it in '68. The first thing I wanted to discuss was the storm of 1914. We had many storms, which I'll go into later, but this one particular . the headlines appeared in the Every Evening, a Wilmington newspaper, dated December 7, 1914. Quote, "Rehoboth Beachfront Wrecked," unquote. Quote, "Much damage done by the heavy seas lashed by the storm. Portions of C. S. Horn's pavillion was carried. away," unuote. Quote, "Special dispatch to the Every Evening. Rehoboth Beach, December 7, 1914 -- At noon today, Rehoboth along the ocean was a mass of wreckage. The storm that has been raging for three days has done the greatest damage to the ocean front in the history of Rehoboth:' It was a three or four day storm that started on Friday, December 4, 1914 Friday night. By Saturday winds were blowing 50 miles or more, and the waves were breaking over the pavement on the land side of Surf Avenue. Surf Avenue extended from beyond the Henlopen Hotel to beyond the Brooklyn Avenue. And I'd like to discuss the dimensions between Rehoboth Avenue and Baltimore Avenue. At the Rehoboth Avenue corner stood the Baltimore Y.W.C.A., which was formerly the Waters cottage and which now, 1968, is Dolly's Saltwater Taffy Stand. The Y.M.C.A. [sic] was cut in two and half of it is now Barry's Drugstore and the other half is a gift center. Next to the Y.M.C.A. was the Owens cottage, which is now the miniature golf course. And on the Baltimore Avenue corner was the Poole [sp ] cottage, now Dotino's [sp] in 1968. At the Surf Avenue [inaudible] line was a picket fence. In those days, most every cottage had some sort of a fence. From the front fence to the pavement -- now these are dimensions taken from photographs, and also I remember it as a child, because in one of the photographs I happened to appear -- from the fence to the pavement was about four feet of grass. The pavement was about three feet wide to another grassy strip four-feet wide, to an oyster shell road which was 24 feet wide, to another grassy plot 15 feet wide to the boardwalk, which makes a total of about 50 feet to the boardwalk, which boardwalk was about 15 feet wide. From the boardwalk to the ocean, the beach was about 300 feet in 1876, 180 feet in 1905, so when you add those together, you'll find out what has been washed away. The … I'd like to talk about the Horn Store and pier. Q: Did these streets run parallel to the ocean, or were they perpendicular to the ocean? A: Rehoboth Avenue …. I mean Surf Avenue, which I'm discussing, is still . . . there's still Surf Avenue but there isn't any Surf Avenue. Q: Yeah . . . Surf Avenue is north of the Henlopen Hotel now, isn't it? A: No . . . yes. It was parallel to the ocean and in front of the present buildings and more or less in front of where the boardwalk is now. The boardwalk now comes up to the former building line, called Surf Avenue. Now that Horn Store or pavilion which we're talking about was known as the Pavilion, was known as Horn's, it was known as Horn's on the Boardwalk, and in later years it was known as Horn's of the Boardwalk. Q: Was this prior to 1914? Q: When Papa John bought it. A: No, long before Papa John . . . let's forget that right here ... Hinkley . . . Hinkley was an artist from Washington. Moved up here to retire and bought the Henlopen . . . Belhaven, as a pastime ... and named it Belhaven and painted a picture of Lady Belhaven from .. for whom he named the hotel, Belhaven. I'd like to go to the pier so we'll get that. The pier was about 200 feet out in the ocean and it was T-shaped on the end. On the T was a covered pavilion some 20-feet wide where you could look at the shore line, eat your box lunch or fish. Our lease dated November 2, 1903 was for a frontage of 102 feet on a new pier not less than 150 feet in length to nine feet of water and not less than 16 feet wide. Q: That was from the town of Rehoboth or Sussex County or who gave you the lease? A: That was from the town of Rehoboth. They also had to get approval back from the Army engineers to see if it affected navigation. Due to the damage from the northeast storms, ice from the Delaware Bay and wreckage from the many sailing ships, on July 18, 1914, the commissioners of Rehoboth, by agreement, released C. S. Horn from maintaining a pier. Those are in quotations. Now, the reason we had so much trouble with the pier was we had more ice in those days than we did now. These big chunks of ice would come along and they'd knock anything down. Besides that, the pier was made out of pine trees that were cut from the woods and driven down without [sounds like "creosol"]. They had to be pumped down either by hand . . . we had no water pressure in town ... or [inaudible] you raised by hand. Of course they were cheap. But it cost a lot to keep the pier up. And then the storms . . . the water didn't do us much damage, to wash them down, because it was higher than . . . but the boats that were wrecked would come down the coast and knock the pier right down, because some of them were large. There was some pieces of wreckage maybe 10 or 15 feet wide, 50 feet long, and there was some pieces of wreckage 30 feet wide and 100 feet long. And when they went underneath this pier in a storm, why they just took everything with it. Q: Now, how often did that happen? How often were ships wrecked? A: Well, we never knew where the wreckage came from. See, it wasn't a boat that came up and got wrecked, it would be flotsam, I guess you'd call it, what do you call ... Q: Jetsam. A: Jetsam . . . that would float around, and hunks of timber from the ships. So . . . now, I just mentioned Surf Avenue and the pier to give a better picture. But to continue with the storm, the sea end of the pavilion was carried away Saturday night -- see, where still talking about the [inaudible] ... that's what I'm talking about, yes. It started right Saturday night. The cottage of Bishop John Monihan -- he was the only Catholic bishop from Wilmington, was a great friend of the family's ... was threatened as the pavement was carried away. Sunday all the water mains on Surf Avenue were gone, and of course they were right new because they'd only been in a year because of the fire in 1913. We didn't have water pressure in town. Hill's Bath House, which was on the ocean side of the boardwalk and down below was washed away. Water washed over Surf Avenue, the cottage of Dr. E. S. Anderson of Dover, and Virginia Avenue [inaudible] . . . at 1:00 and carried its contents past the house of Dr. Bear of Baltimore ... had fallen .,. I don't know if Dr. Bear is the one in World War I who perfected the maggot cure for wounds . . . they filled the wounds full of maggots so the maggots would eat the bad flesh . . . I could be wrong there, but I believe it was the same doctor, but I could be wrong. His house had fallen. Olive Avenue ... no, it was not part of the ocean for a distance of 30 to 40 feet back in the town. The Martin [sounds like "Dirkson"] house, or a building, it was known as the Martin Dirkson and it was sort of a truant house, was in bad shape. The house of Alfred Poole was in good shape. That was on Baltimore Avenue which I'll take up a little later. But all this street between Olive Avenue and Virginia Avenue were gone. A t noon on the seventh, the storm had not abated while the newspaper was still in contact with the reporter from Rehoboth. The gale was so violent [inaudible] . . . that not even lanterns could be carried by pedestrians or workmen. As I often said what a wonderful time it'd have been to have sold flashlights. Of course they weren't invented then. Q: Did. they have any looting then as they did in '62? A: No, hmm umm. Q: There was nobody getting in here then. A: No, nobody looted. I mean, they'd help you carry stuff out of a store: If a bank fell in, they would help take the money out. Nobody would take any samples. Nobody did that. Q: It was all local people then that were here. A: Oh, sure. Q: As compared to '62 when a lot of people came in from the outside. A: Right. I can take that up at a later date, that '62 storm. The boardwalk was . . . well, the boardwalk extended from south of the Henlopen Hotel to between Delaware and Brooklyn Avenue, and there was a large portion about 40 feet in front of the Hotel Belhaven, then known as the Casino . . . Q: You mean between the ocean and the Belhaven. A: Yeah . . . there was a large portion of ... that pavilion, I didn't mean portion . . . in front of the Hotel Casino, which is now the Belhaven, was a building about 40 feet square on the ocean side of the boardwalk. Now that was a building for . . . sit down and get out of the sun. In those days, we didn't have the sun worshippers. People got out of the sun, you'd sit there and eat your lunch or watch the ocean . . . it was a pavilion for these [inaudible] who used to come from Wilmington by train for the afternoon two or three times a summer. And also there was one in front of about the present V.I.A. on the ocean side of the boardwalk and one at Olive Avenue on the ocean side of the boardwalk. These were little places about oh, 15 feet square, like they are now. Those of course were all gone. Now the damage in 1914, the paper said, was possibly $50,000 damage done. Now, of course, in 1968 it wouldn't take long to run up $50,000 in telephone calls to find out what the damage was. But according to the account in the newspaper, there were 18 cottages and one hotel ... 18 cottages and one hotel were lost. Well, that was about all the cottages on the front. And the hotel was not too expensive ... it wasn't the Henlopen. Q: But the pier was lost, too. A: Oh, yes, it was gone. It was really gone before then, but the main store ... the pier was gone, but there was just the main store. Q: Now, when did the pier go? A: Throughout the years from 1908, 1905 on up. There was a [inaudible] on the pier, and every year a few more feet would go out ... Q: Would go out of the pier . . . in other words, the pier didn't just lay down and die in the ocean. A: No, he built up three or four feet or fifteen or twenty feet and
he didn't put the end on, and then it just gradually got smaller and
smaller until there wasn't anything left. Now, here's a sample of one
house, to let you know how the expenses went. The cottage of No. 1012
Baltimore Avenue . . . in 1914 . . . the lot cost $40.00 Q: Five years. A: There wasn't any hurry in those days, you know. Everything was built by hand with one or two men . . . honestly. Well, the guy that built it didn't have any money, I guess. It was a cottage to live at the seashore. He was a musician, he was my grandfather, and it was just a place to live and he didn't want to spend any money on it. O.K. O.K., the total cost, less the furniture, was $1600 . . . I'll tell you ... excuse me . . . $1,617.02. Now I have that from his records, which I just found a couple of days ago. By 1914, the addition probably brought the cost to maybe $3,000, because that was a three-story house with a brand new porch and a stable and a garage . . including furniture. By then it was a winter home which burned in 1912. None of the house ... none of the houses on Surf Houses were winter homes, of course. So estimating the 18 houses, both houses and the Casino, which was only partly damaged, that was the hotel, it was only partly damaged . . . the 18 houses and Casino… the 18 houses, $2,000 each would make a total of $40,000 and the [inaudible] were given in the paper at $10,000 would make the fifty. That's a conservative estimate since the water mains were not mentioned. So it might have been more than $50,000. Now, the loss in erosion is what I was interested in. As measured in excellent photographs and negatives, the large negatives, which I have, they're about eight by nines and a half, it's an odd size, glass negatives, and newspaper accounts, the erosion between Rehoboth Avenue and Baltimore Avenue [inaudible] . . as I said before the loss between Rehoboth and Baltimore Avenue was less than any of the other avenues, 'cause that's where I said the Poole cottage was, which had been Howard Pyle's -- the artist's -- residence and where he had his studio in the back the Poole cottage. Q: Did he live here then? A: Yeah. I don't know . . . he didn't live here in 1912, I don't think. It was before then he was here. But that was always known as the Poole cottage, which is now Dotino's [sp] -- that's at the south corner of Rehoboth . . . Surf Avenue and Baltimore. Q: Which is one to the south of Rehoboth Avenue. A: No, north. Q: North of Rehoboth Avenue. A: North ... let's go north. Rehoboth Avenue going north . . . Rehoboth . . . Baltimore, Maryland, you come into that, Olive, Virginia, then Henlopen. And south of Rehoboth Avenue is Wilmington, Delaware. Well, that was the least avenue damaged, but that's the one that I had the pictures of which could be proven by statements rather than hearsay. 'Cause if a man if five feet tall and there's five feet up and five feet down, you know it's five feet from here to there. Q: Right. A: And ... taking in distortion. The loss measured 50 feet in 1914 of sand ... of dirt or whatever you want to call it, as compared with 57 feet in 1962, but in that location only. But in 1914, as I said, there was less loss there than anyplace else. O.K., go back again, 50 feet '14, 57 feet 1962, measured. And I measured that myself, not from pictures. That's in that location only. There's so many losses ... they're about the same, the frontage and the land loss in 1962 as in 1914. That is my estimation. I can't prove it other than those pictures. But the property damage in 1962 [sic] was $50,000 plus the water mains. In 1962 it was estimated at $6,850,000, which I think was a high estimate, but that's the one the city manager estimated to get money from the government ... Q: From the federal government. Q: Yeah, it was under the ocean. A: Um hmm. So we built a good bulkhead about 20 feet east of the building line and a new boardwalk east of that . . . east of course is towards the ocean. All right. This was still 1914. In April, 1918, a couple of years later ... no, four years later ... we had another northeast storm, the storm in which the Merrimac and Severn [sp], two barges, came ashore in front of Delaware Avenue . . . Merrimac and Severn ... got a picture of those. The Severn actually ran into the boardwalk, struck the boardwalk with the bow of the boat. Q: Were these being towed up the coast or what? A: They were being towed up the coast and I think the tug had to let go of them. Either they broke loose or the tug had to let go or everything would have been lost. At the same time, also, three barges came ashore just south of Cape Henlopen during the same time, and I think three people drowned there. The storm in 1918 destroyed the new boardwalk, all over again, see? Damaged the bulkhead, washed away the remainder of Surf Avenue, anything that was left was gone. So you see we had our troubles with storms, and those are only just a few. I could [inaudible] the ones before that and some after that, but it's hard to dig them out. Q: Was it a storm that took the Henlopen light into the ocean finally? A: I think it was just the gradual erosion of ... and I also think they had a storm. I happened to be in Washington, unfortunately, at that time. Now in January, 1920 ... here we had this one in '14, one in '18, in January, 1920, we again had a short and furious northeaster which again took away all the boardwalk and made a shambles of any remaining bulkhead. Bulkheads were put in not deep enough, so when the water came in, it made the sand lie at the base of the piling ... the bulkhead fell over from the weight of the dirt in back of it ... or the water back of it. Now, if the water got in back of it, every thing was worse. Q: Were these bulkheads' pilings driven into the sand or bumped into the sand? A: Yes. Mostly piling bumped in the sand, and water could seep through them. Things should be watertight. But in the beginning we just had pilings, which is like holding your hand out for a breaker, see. The heretofore untouched Owens cottage at Baltimore Avenue, which I've been talking about, and the Poole cottage between Rehoboth and Baltimore Avenue, were undermined. So it bought those out. So we've had disaster after disaster and most of the work had to be financed locally but with some assistance from the state. Q: Was it businessmen, local businessmen, who financed the rebuilding? A: No, just town. It didn't cost too much in those days, you see. Q: Well, you were talking about $50,000 in 1914; that was a lot of money in 1914. A: A lot of money. But you'd get your laborers for 25 to 40¢ an hour-I mean good carpenters. I feel these are storms which I think should be recorded. Because I had trouble to get them and if I lose the list, I don't know how I'll ever get them again. These are gotten from records. September 9, 1889 there were 43 vessels lost between here and Lewes. And that was a disastrous thing, I've got a lot of pictures of 'em. In October the 31st, the same year, 1889, the Falmouth, which was a three-mast schooner, beached by Henlopen Acres bathing beach now which is in front of the pink cottage, Alpanos now, which was formerly the [sounds like "Reard"] cottage . . . I've been trying to think of that for a year. Three-mast schooner . . . it was loaded with lumber. She was on shore a year and a day. They cut off all the bow wood, unloaded the lumber. They took . . . they wanted help to get the boat to Philadelphia and there were two people from Rehoboth that sailed on it to Philadelphia after they got it pulled off. One was Frank Chase and the other was Burt Joseph. The third man, James Maston, who just died in 1967 ...[inaudible] a good memory ... was going on the boat -- they were all kids -- and he got in a rowboat in Lewes and went out to the boat and got scared and wouldn't go on it and rowed back. And on the way up, the boat started to sink. And these two men from Rehoboth, together with others, I suppose, pumped all day and all night, and they about gave us because the boat was just sinking up the river. Now, I don't know how they got up there, but they evidently did. Now, the Falmouth was known as a jinxed ship. The way I happen to know so much about the Falmouth . . . let's go back to times . . . let's change the subject just a minute. She was beached October the 31st, 1899 and she was floated October the 21st, so I'm wrong there, 1900. Something was always going wrong. Now, I got this information . . well, I'll tell you how I got it. She was anchored off [inaudible] Shoals during a severe northeast storm . . . off [inaudible] Shoals and [inaudible] . . . she broke loose. She had some sail up, but kept sailing backwards. I mean, I've been on a boat that would sail backwards, and they're a pain in the neck. You just ... especially when the wind's blowing. She kept sailing backwards. All hands were sure they'd be lost. She was finally beached between the . . . where I just said, the Henlopen Acres bathing beach. Just 10 days less than a year she was floated by a Lewes firm of Burton, Mall [sp] and Morris. Two men pumped all night, as I said before, these were from notes that I'd gotten. The sounds like "hauser"] between the tug and the Falmouth parted and the ship was bout to sink and there were several planks off on one side. The captain of the Falmouth, his name was Wallace, his wife spent the winter on the ship here at Rehoboth with him. I have to have some information locally and from clippings, but the most was obtained from the third mate of the Falmouth with whom I sailed as a radio operator on a trip to the Orient in 1921. So I got ... Q: What was his name? A: Oh, I'd have to go through some more records, I can't remember now. Q: Can't remember. O.K. It doesn't make any difference. A: But it was a funny story, because on the way back . . . he wasn't an alcoholic, but he used to drink, as most people did. The captain was intoxicated. And on the way back we stopped in Greece and I bought some Greek wine because I had some Mavrodaphne which oh, I thought was delicious, so I bought some Mavrodaphne. I didn't know there was one kind and one kind was sweet and one kind was not sweet. I brought it back and I couldn't drink it, it was like syrup. So I gave this quart of wine to the third mate. He proceeded to drink it all -- not in one gulp, I think it took him about five minutes to drink the whole fifth. And he was conked out all the way back. Well, we got to New York, he just begged me to go home with him to his house . . . to his wife. He says, "If you come home with me, she won't beat me up." But he says, "If I go home like this, she'll kill me." Well, I was anxious to get home, so I didn't go home with him. That's another story. All right, now we got October 31., 1899, the Falmouth. January the 11th, 1904, the [sounds like "Commebank"], a four-mast square rigger -- well, she was a brigger brigantine -- came ashore one and one quarter mile north of the Rehoboth lifesaving station, which is at Dewey Beach at the foot of the avenue where the [sounds like 'Ball and Cork" ] is now, 1968 ... I've forgotten the name of the street. It was on the north side of the avenue on the ocean. I've forgotten who the captain was . . . I have an idea it was Captain Steel . . . Captain Steel, and his daughterin-law is still living. The Commebank, I don't know what she was loaded with, she was from England . . . she came ashore in January and the captain told my father that he was scared because he had no idea where he was. Because when he came ashore, he felt the crashing of rocks, and he knew that he couldn't be clear up past New England .. I mean up in New England shores, he couldn't be that far up, but what it was, it was ice, these large cakes of ice. O.K. Now, January 3, 4, and 5, 1905, we had another storm. August, 1911; September, 1911; December 19, 1913; December 4 and 7, 1914, the one I was just reading about; April, 1919; January, 1020; January, 1922; January, 1938 the [inaudible, sounds like "Olad Bird"], came ashore down towards Indian River Inlet in a snowstorm, and I have some movies of the actual firing of the gun in the [inaudible l the pulling of the [inaudible] and the people coming ashore. And it's real movies, it's not staged. Then in September, 1944 the Tracy came ashore. She was the light boat that came ashore right on top of the Merrimac and the [sounds like Serber], which according to Miss Yardley, who was across the street -- I think she's still living, but she's too old to remember -- said there was a boat there that she used to play on came ashore before then, but I can't find any record of that. They came ashore . . . the Tracy came ashore on these other two boats, but that was not a northeaster, that was in a hurricane. That was in the hurricane of 1944, which was the first ... worst hurricane that I've ever seen down here. Q: You didn't really have hurricanes, then, until 1944. A: We had 'em, but we didn't call 'em hurricanes. Q: Yeah, but a hurricane and a northeaster are two different things. A: A northeaster, of course, is a product of a low pressure area and a frontal system. A hurricane is a counter-clockwise circulation nearly circular. That was in '44. Now, all of these storms ... and in all of these storms, and at least yearly, Silver Lake . . . you know, Silver Lake . . . broke through to the ocean, as well as the land north of Henlopen Acres to within one mile of the fence at Fort Miles . . . that used to break through every year. But Silver Lake used to break through and the lake would get a lot of water, it would break out in the ocean and dry out. The lake would go dry, then it would fill again from fresh water or salt water would come back, and there was a mess down there until the state put in a tide gate to control it. Because that, the people on Silver Lake used to get water in their cellars and they complained to the town all the time. But the way I figure it, if you build a house out on the ocean on piling, and the ocean knocks your house down, you shouldn't come and complain to me for help. You should have had more sense than to build it there. And farmers never had that trouble. They wouldn't build next to the ocean. Silver Lake broke through as well as ... north of Henlopen . . . and in fact where the state road or macadam ends north of North Shores, what is known unfortunately as Whiskey Beach, in around there, I remember as a kid a small foot bridge for the Coast Guard to walk to their [inaudible] post which was just south of the Henlopen Acres bathing beach . . . the Coast Guard used to walk from Cape Henlopen Coast Guard Station, which is one mile south of the Cape Henlopen Lighthouse . . . the Coast Guard Station was about where the boundary line of Fort Miles or the Henlopen State Park or the Navy Development or the Oceanographic Service in 1960, I don't know what you want to call it . . . it's about where the Coast Guard Station was ... of course it would be washed away . . . they would walk halfway between there and their beach lifesaving station, which . . what do they call it, Dewey Beach station . . . I don't know . . . [inaudible] . . . exchanged keys. Well, for the Coast Guard to walk, they had to walk across this little bridge at certain times if storms or [inaudible] ... this little foot bridge. So where the macadam road ends at North Shores. There's a small stream that meandered in around there into the ocean. In fact, I remember one time when the Coast Guard carried me across. I was walking up the beach at night and he carried me across. They also had a bridge across Silver Lake about where the present bridge is now. The Coast Guard used that as a wiggley, crooked arrangement, it was just a foot bridge which-shook when you walked, so the Coast Guard in walking back and forth to their halfway station up here couldn't get in front of the ocean from Silver Lake, because it had broken through, see. So they had to walk back and instead of walking back ... walk clear back by way of the ... where the country club was or where the school is now . . . they could cut across this little foot bridge. Now, when was this, in the '20s, or in the '30s, when the Coast Guard would walk up and down? A: Oh, up until they built the [inaudible] Avenue bridge ... it was in I would say the early '30s. Q: Now, why did they walk that? A: They walked it at night every four hours ... there was somebody on the beach all the time and a man in the station, should a boat come ashore, or should a boat get too close. They walked it in good weather as well as bad weather. If a boat came too close, they fired a pistol with a rocket in it, up in the air. It was a signal, of course, and that would scare the boat away . . . and the boat would see a rocket-of course there wasn't any electric lights on the beach or houses that would be lighted and would bother them. And when a boat would see this rocket, they would know that they ... Q: Too close to the beach. A: Too close to the beach. And then the men in the tower would see it, also. And then they had signals or they would get to the halfway box to send . . . permission to get a boat down for the men to launch it. They would launch a boat from the Coast Guard Station . . . it was a backbreaking man's job. And of course not very many times on beautiful moonlit nights did we ever launch a boat, it was always during disastrous storms, and to see to launch a boat in bad breakers . . . which men wouldn't dare to launch it in that because they're too sissy, or too soft, I guess you'd call it, they had . . . there was a big square thing that they burned magnesium in, which really did make a bright light. I don't know how long that would burn, but it would light up the beach for a long ways, and they could see the breakers and launch . . . get the boat out [inaudible] . . . the Bayard Avenue Bridge. Now there's one thing that was very interesting which doesn't apply to the storm that I thought you'd like to have. These two very good photographs I have were taken from the balcony of this Horn Store which was on the ocean side of the boardwalk, and the balcony looked up and down the boardwalk, both ways, north and south. And with a counter and a magnifying glass, I could see everybody on the boardwalk in this picture. And if you're gonna be here, I'll show you the picture just to verify it. Very easy to count. The time was mid-afternoon, the wind was from the east, and it was July or August, 1908. And the reason I say all that because I could see where the sun was on the boardwalk, I could see which way the flags were pointing, so what difference that makes is it didn't make any difference, but it was a nice day. There were 643 people on all the boardwalk, north and south, total. 50 had open umbrellas . . . opened up, not carrying 'em. Now, they weren't beach umbrellas, they were black umbrellas, what people carried for the sun. They were all black. Now, about evenly distributed between men and women, this number of people, and there were only a very few children that appeared to be eight years or younger, and I couldn't understand that, and seemingly no young people. They're either younger than eight years or they seem to be older than 25. And there was [inaudible] a picture show. I couldn't understand the pictures. Of course, young people like I was and those, we had knee pants, you see, so it's hard to tell the age. And the total of all those people on the boardwalk, half of the 643, the men, there were only three without coats ... none without some sort of a hat ... not a man bareheaded, and all with neckties, mostly bow ties. Q: Which is quite a difference from 1968. A: Right. All the little boys had loose knee pants. Little girls' dresses were between the knees and the ankle . . . they were cute. The women's dresses were apparently white. There were no designs in them, no colors, they might have been light, but I couldn't tell that from the photograph, of course . . . and all within about two inches of the boardwalk, the bottom . . . all with a wasp waist with large shoulder pads, whatever you call them [inaudible l the shoulders. Q: [Inaudible]. A: Yeah, you can cut that off if you want to a minute. [Tape is stopped.] A: Do you want to know about Horn's Store, known as the Pavilion or Horn's or Horn's on the Boardwalk? Offhand I've forgotten when it was established, but it gradually grew from around 1895 to 1898 or later. Q: This was your grandfather, then. A: No, it was my father. Q: Your father. A: My father, because I was ... yeah, I was ,., my father was a carriage builder by trade. He worked for his father in Wilmington. Then he ran a printing firm with Delaware Farm Journal, it was a farm paper in Wilmington for a while . . . that didn't turn out. So due to my ill health and his love of Rehoboth, he moved down here in 1900, and to continue operating in this little store on the ocean side of the boardwalk at the foot of Rehoboth Avenue. Q: 'Then you lived here all your round. A: Yeah. We lived here all the year round ... lived on Baltimore Avenue. Now, let's take the store on the boardwalk again. As of ,,.. a lot of people would of known it, we'll say, from 1918, 1915 .,, it covered nearly the whole width of Rehoboth Avenue, with a main store in the center two-and-a-half stories high. On the second floor, which was entered from the ocean side, you walked around the store and went up the stairs, was a dance hall and a theater which were combined with a very nice large stage and nice scenery. Q: Was it a vaudeville theater? A: Yes and home talent and dances which didn't pay. And some of the early movies there. And alongside of that was a pool room. We had three or four pool tables. But there was a store with windows on three sides-I mean the second-story was ... to get a good view of the ocean, and a nice waxed floor and a large stage in which I remember as a child they put on Pinafore there and sort of a home talent. Some of the visitors came from Baltimore, Washington, Pittsburgh. Rehoboth was known as Pittsburgh ... Baltimore's summer capital. Most everybody that came here were from either Pittsburgh or Baltimore. Now they're all around, Wilmington and especially Washington now, and some from New York. O.K. That's so much of the boardwalk from the upstairs. Now the downstairs immediately underneath the store I'll describe later, but I'd like to start on the north side. There was a little building there attached to the store, maybe 10 or 15 feet wide, it was just sort of a little refreshment stand which could be opened and closed ... we could serve ice cream or hot dogs or sit there ,.. use for nothing special. Alongside that was a photograph gallery which was used by [sounds like "Cummings"] of Philadelphia . . . I mean Wilmington and Sanborn and ,,, oh, and another Wilmington man, I'm sorry, I've forgotten his name ,., and the last one was [inaudible] ... for Boker and Kern and Corran, C-o-r-r-a-n. He was a fellow about six feet, two inches tall, weighed about 170 pounds and liked to box. He was a great clown and a very nice guy. ... where they used wet plates when they took a picture. All right, next to that was the store proper, the downstairs, which had two double doors. The doors opened up and went all the way back, two double doors, four good-sized doors which we used to have to close when we saw a storm coming down the street. The north set of double doors as you entered there on your left, immediately on your left, was a cigar counter which led into the soda fountain, which was the main attraction of the store, the soda fountain, then on back of that into the ice cream parlor. Q: Was there any liquor sold in Rehoboth in those days? A: I think there was a saloon up until about 1906 or '08 or so, maybe not that late, at the Atlantic Hotel, down by Lingo [sp?] where Lingo store is now, which is the southwest corner of Baltimore Avenue and First Street here in 1968. It was the Atlantic Hotel. It burned in the fire of 1912, I think was the date . . . we can get to that some other time. It was a store ... where the downstairs was just an old-fashioned bar, that's what it was. And being young, I never went in there, and being pestered by the church to sign a pledge, well, I didn't sign the pledge, but I wouldn't go in there anyway. A s we entered the store, on the left-hand side was the cigar fountain -- cigar counter, which every kind of tobacco and cigars you could think of was sold. Then from there the soda fountain, then from there on back, a very large soda fountain which you can see. Then back there was a large ice cream parlor, decorated . . . you can't see that in this picture . . . decorated with latticework and artificial vines strung over the latticework on the sides and on the top. Q: Electric light or gas light? A: Oh, gas light up until 1908 or thereabouts, when we had ... I forget when we did have electric lights. Oh, boy. Q: Well, anyway. Q: Somebody turned the freezer to make the ice cream, did they? A: I'm glad you asked the question. Yes, We had a great big wheel to crank. Boy, that was hard work, too. Harry Match, who finally went in the Coast Guard, he's been dead for quite a few years . . . I think his widow's still living in '68 . . . his two daughters are living . . . three daughters, I think . . . they're living in Rehoboth-or one of them's away. Q: He cranked the ice cream crank. A: He cranked the ice cream. And I would crank it for about a minute at a time and give up. But that was an all-day job, you know, when we got through. The ice for that purpose came from . . . mostly from Lake [inaudible] back in Henlopen. Q: It was cut in the wintertime. A: Cut in the wintertime and stored. And then Bingo had an ice house down in the vicinity of the American Legion building. We cut ice and stored it there all winter. But then we got to buying ice by carload. So much for the ice cream. Now, on the right-hand side of that door as you entered, on the right-hand side of the door was the candy [inaudible] . . . here's a picture of the old soda fountain showing the balls that we're talking about. Let's go back to these balls so we don't forget 'em. These glass balls, my father bought a whole shipload from France in the early 1900's, and they're made out of plate glass -- I have one here now. The top of the ball, where the hook goes in, must be 2-inch thick. The bottom of 'em is possibly an eighth of an inch thick and around the side probably a quarter. They were blue and green and gold and silver. Well, throughout the years, the silverplating due to moisture, humidity and condensation has ruined the silver on the bottom of them. But I have a couple left. Of course, they were a dime a dozen. We gave 'em away and threw 'em away. Now we'd give anything for 'em. These were elaborate electric light fixtures and the thing about this, they were all taken with flash . . . powdered flash. Now, I don't think there's any ... Q: Did they sell the Christmas balls? A: No, no. Q: They were just decorations. A: Just ornaments. Those ... that is a . . . those are parasols -- see, I can't see upside down -- parasols and Japanese lanterns. Q: I saw the Japanese lanterns. A: That was all fancy marble. I don't have any of that, but some of
that other marble, I do have a piece out in the yard now. There was
a cigar counter and the door was right here. Now, as I said, as you
entered Q: Did you sell taffy? A: Not very much of it. Q: Dolly's wasn't here then. A: Oh, no . . . no. But the taffy we sold, we made our candy [tape is stopped here]. Well, what I meant about making our candy, we didn't make all our candy. We sold [sounds like "Limey's"] from Baltimore and then later on Whitman's. Of course Hershey's. But our ice cream maker was also a candy maker and we made simple candies like fudge and mints and peanut brittles. Because we had no way to keep it and it would go bad in the summertime due to the dampness. A: [Inaudible]. Q: When did your season start? A: The 4th of July. Q: And ran until when? A: 4:00 in the afternoon on Labor Day. Q: Now you were in business then all the way up until there was a Labor Day. A: Um hmm. It stopped then just as if you pulled down a shade. On the double doors on the south side of the store, as you went in to the left, of course, was the other part of the candy counter, and then as you went in on the right-hand side, the south side of the south door, the inside, was a souvenir counter, which we sold everything from beads to dried fish, nonedible fish, to Chinese and Japanese articles, real pearls, beads, cheap rings for children, maybe, parasols, and the blown porcupine, large porcupine, I don't know what ever happened to that. He was blown up by the Indians and dried. He was about 14 inches in diameter. Well, that's a sword from a swordfish, or the saw, I guess you'd call it, a sawfish. I have that -- that's around the house someplace. That was about three feet . . . two-and-a-half to three feet long. We didn't sell it, so that's the reason I have it, I guess. Now, some of the jewelry was expensive. And then as we went straight back from there . . . let's see, go straight back . . . as we went straight back from there, we came to a [inaudible, sounds like "fancy goods"] counter. [Inaudible] . . . and of course every place you saw the CocaCola signs ... fancy goods, but that was really toys, all sorts of toys. That was the year of the . . . this picture was about 1909, I guess, '08, picture of the teddy bears, the little teddy bears, the big teddy bears. That's a picture that I have now of Ben Shaw with a teddy bear, a picture I gave him a couple of months ago. All sorts of toys there, there's boats and [inaudible]. Q: When did the store go out of business? A: Well, it was removed in 1914 after the storm. Q: And that was the end of it? A: No, it was moved up to Rehoboth Avenue where the . . . we had built in 1908 a skating rink at 5 and 7 Rehoboth Avenue, we built a skating rink. Then on up to 9 we built some small stores . . . the skating rink didn't turn out too good. We turned that into a motion picture theater with the projection on the side because of the overhead beams. We took the beams down, put the projector on the Rehoboth Avenue side and the screen on the Baltimore Avenue side. It was just one lot 100 feet deep. And then when we did away with the store from the 1914 storm, we moved it in what was the skating rink and the theater, see. Then we built a new theater from some of the lumber from the store, which the lumber was all right. We got to save some lumber, we built the theater out of that. We haven't finished with the store yet. On the . . . as we go down and finish the store, on the outside of the store, main store, as we go south, there was another store there about 15 . . . 12 or 15 feet wide, which was known as a drugstore, in which we sold drugs and had a druggist and [inaudible] patent medicines, and I was in there dispensing drugs at the age of 11. Now, simple drugs like rosewater and glycerin -- aspirin wasn't invented -then, I don't think -- and other minor things . . . but I could read prescriptions at that date . . . it wasn't anything complicated. [Inaudible] . . . that you bound things together with . . . and castor oil . . . cod liver oil -- one was as bad as the other. And I don't think there was any license or any requirement for a druggist. You just put up a sign and mixed things. If you killed somebody, well maybe they shouldn't have taken it. And you might add that one time a colored fellow came in and wanted a contraceptive. And at the age of 11, I had no idea in the world what he was talking about, see. And we didn't have rubbers in those days, like that, it was a fish [inaudible]. I didn't know what the darn thing was, don't know what it is yet. And I don't know what he got -- what I sold him, but I don't think he came back. I don't think it worked. Around the drugstore was another store called a notions store. Q: These were all in the same building? A: Yeah. Well, no. You see, the two little ones I described first, the photograph gallery over here . . . now the drugstore, if I can see it [inaudible]... was here and this notions store was right here. The drugstore and notions store, see. The notions store is this picture here. Well, some of the relations ran it, then we got other people, one of the Merritt girls . . . I've forgotten who these girls are. That's my father in there-. Now, there's a great quantity . . . great quanities of Chinese and Japanese goods in there, trick boxes with inlaid woods, they were very beautiful, that sold for 35¢ to 750. Little cigar and cigarette boxes which you [inaudible] . . . and numerous cups and saucers and demitasse . . . hot chocolate sets. And they were inexpensive. We'd get 'em all in direct wooden boxes from China and never were any broken. And then there appears to be some Indian ware there or Mexican ware. That was so much for that store there. As I said, upstairs we did have movies . . . I remember one show there in 1906 which ... to show movies by gaslight, you didn't get much. You couldn't show it to many people, you had to be right up on top of it. You had to wait 'til pitch dark, 'cause they didn't have the light ,., and cranked the film by hand and wound it on the floor, and when it got through, you just wound it off the floor back again if you got it back again correctly, see. The whole thing was ridiculous and not safe. Q: Well, what was ... was a gas light was your light source? A: That was the only lights then, yeah. In the early store, I guess that was the only light. Q: How many people would you show a movie to? A: I don't think there were over about 15 or 20, and I don't know how long it lasted, to tell you the truth. It wasn't a long-lasting thing, no. Q: What was it, a nickel? A: It wasn't over that, or else it was free. 'Cause it wasn't even a full reel. Now, when we moved uptown, I mean, when the theater was up at Rehoboth Avenue at 5, it was called the Royal Theater, because we'd called it the Royal Roller Rink. Well, after 1912 when the war broke out in Europe when the royalty was not popular ... the word royalty wasn't popular, we changed it to the Blue Hen. Q: The Blue Hen Theater. How long was that there? A: Well, the ... when the store was moved up to where the theater was, the Royal Theater, see, in 10114, then we had no more theater there, so then the Blue Hen was built the latter part of . . . well, I'd say the beginning of 1915. The theater was built then and finished in the summer, out of the lumber from the store on the boardwalk ... some of it . . . some of the lumber, not all of it. And it held up throughout the years all right. Q: What are the biggest changes in Rehoboth in your life? A: The great number of people . . . excursions from Wilmington that came two or three times a summer. They arrived here at 11:30 and they left at 2:30, 3:00 in the afternoon. 'There would be two trains of maybe six or eight cars each come down, several hundred people ... well, that crowded the main street. But when they left the town was about like it is now in people. Q: How many people, 150 people in the town? A: In the wintertime . . . I ought to know . . . I think there are more than that. They conducted a census in 1933, the Kiwanis Club did, which gave more people in Rehoboth in 1933 than there are in 1968 or 1958 or 19-anything. And I don't understand that. I think it might have been that we counted people who lived in what we called Rehoboth, but you see, Rehoboth now is North Shores, Henlopen Acres, Dewey Beach, Indian Beach, which we call Rehoboth, and we shouldn't do it, I guess. I don't know what the population is now. Oh the changes . . . in the type of buildings .,. nicer buildings are being built, more sturdy constructions and on piling. All the new construction on the boardwalk is required by law to be on piling now, and if it'd been on piling in 1962, I don't think so much of it would have gone. Q: But the new condominium in town seems to be more permanent, then, than it was . . . or now than it was then. A: I think so. Of course, some of the older buildings are pretty rotted. But the new ones that are being built, most of them are nicer, or better, the downtown section. Q: Has there been a change in the kind of people who come? A: Yes. Before the advent of automobiles, so many of them . . . which we'll say was .1912 or so, the pictures of '14 there's not too many, there's one of 1908, there's just one car. And I have pictures of the others. Before that, people had to come here by train. There was no such thing as a bus. And so they came for a month, July or August, or two months, or two weeks, and once in a while one week -- not many one-weekers. But nobody over the weekend, unless the boss would come down to visit the children over the weekend because he was working in the bank in the city. But as a rule the whole family stayed for the two weeks, or the month or the two months. Now they come down for the afternoon or the night or the weekend. So when you come down now over the weekends or 4th of July or whatever day it was [Side 1 of tape ends here] ... Q: This is the second side. We're continuing to talk about dress and conduct and changes in Rehoboth. A: See we left on the other side . . . what was it we left out, what were we talking about? Q: Differences in the kind of people that are ... A: Oh, the population, yeah. Q: Not necessarily numbers, but the kinds of people. A: Well, before the advent of so many of the automobiles -- and don't
forget that the roads were very hard . . . very bad to get down here.
To come from Wilmington, of course, goes through New Castle, Delaware Q: When did that plague finally abate, the mosquitoes? A: That was abated shortly after Mrs. Henry B. Thompson, who was known as the mosquito woman, came down here with the idea of getting rid of the mosquitoes, and we wanted to run her out of town, because the mosquitoes had been here for several thousand years and we didn't see how anybody was going to get rid of 'em and we just couldn't get rid of 'em. But then they started a Mosquito Control Commission under Col. Corklin [sp] and drained and years later they sprayed and did a pretty good job of it. And then preaching the gospels [inaudible] . your cans and not letting [inaudible] water around. Let's go back to the way people acted and their dress. A s you see by the pictures here, the skirts were long, the women are all [inaudible]. When they went in bathing, not too many of them got wet, because it wasn't common because they wore the type of underclothing and corsets-all women wore corsets, and they were a job under a bathing suit. You couldn't ever find a girl that ever swam. If she was, she wasn't a nice girl, because she didn't wear a corset. They wore bathing hats, which were not rubber, their hair got wet, but it didn't seem to bother 'em then if their hair got wet; they just dried it, which was a problem -- no electric dryers. But now if a girl gets her hair wet-a woman, rather, she has a problem with a beautician. They would. sit on the beach underneath their umbrellas ... Q: They didn't want to get tanned. A: Oh, no ,.. no, no, no, no. They never got tanned. Q: They wanted to stay white. A: Oh, sure, that was the thing, you stayed white. And the different hotels ,,, let me see, the Henlopen was the one that I remember. My grandfather played there with a violin. They had a piano, flute, cello, violin and I think drums -- I'm not sure about the drums. They played dinner music and dance music, which of course was waltz and two-step. It was very delightful as a child ... I used to go sit and listen. People were very well-dressed that went in. And then the theater, even later … later dates up until … that is, when we built the Blue Hen … we had no air conditioning, we had no fans … you couldn't start until after dark because you had to open the windows to get air. But we wouldn't let you in without a coat or a tie on. You had to be dressed. Now they come in all which ways and complain about the heat. Q: What changed all that? Do you think the automobile might have changed it? Times ... made it easier for people to get here? A: Yeah. Easier to get here and get away. There were formal dances, there were house parties … people … especially in the beginning ... the beginning of the season and at the end of the season, some of the older ladies would have house parties, or bridge parties, which would last for a week. And hotels had dances, of course, in the evening. Q: Where there any revivals here? A: The revivals were when I was little, but most of the revivals that I remember, of course, were in the wintertime when the Methodist church had old-fashioned revivals. Of course, in the wintertime ... and when I was small, I always thought I remembered .,, a camp meeting ... I evidently didn't .,, because I thought it was on Olive Avenue. Q: Well, there was a camp meeting here originally, though, wasn't there? A: Oh, yes, yes. And the [sounds like "campments"] were up
around Shaw Park that I remember, and the services there ,.. I think
I went to them, but I can't recall now ... it may be I heard so much
about 'em, I thought I was there, you see. But the original camp meeting
site evidently, according to the records, was up back of the …
was on the south side of Rehoboth Avenue at the Canal Bridge. Of course,
Rehoboth Avenue wasn't there anyway. Rehoboth Avenue was to the right
of the present avenue, and this was built later on. And they did away
with that first one and the only entrance to Rehoboth was down by the
new bridge, the one towards the bay on Route -- what is that, 14? You
had to come in Rehoboth that way, then they rebuilt this thing back
but it was supposed to be political. I remember when the canal was built,
though ….well, not when it was started ... it was started about
1899 and dug by hand. The canal was all dug by shovel and wheel barrow
until it got deep enough to get some sort of machine in there. [Inaudible]...
but then on the north of the bridge was dug just sort of a [sounds like
"pit"] there . . . the width of the canal maybe was three
or four hundred feet long. I remember that being dug by hand. Then they
got a bucket dredge in there, took it out and the cables broke and the
bucket and everything fell in the canal and then the dredge went the
other way. That was of course later on; that was in 1914, I guess. But
there was a lot of water traffic when they got the canal through. Where
the canning
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