If you’ve lived in Highlands or summered in Highlands or visited Conners Hotel in Highlands, of ever had a child attend MAST at Sandy Hook, then you must have heard of the Dempsy family! Or at least one of many parts of it!

This is a story I wrote a few years ago about an event that happened in 2000. The story epitomizes what, at least to the Dempseys, is the true meaning of Family. If you run into any of them today, be sure to thank them for the lessons we have all learned from them and their ancestors.

They did it only the way the Dempsey family could do it . With class, religion, fun, laughter, and sheer love for each other.

It was almost 20 years ago when five generations of the Dempsey family…so many of them living in Highlands,… decided to have a family reunion. They sent out the word, spent six months in the planning, and in the end, there were 200 of them! They cam from 16 states and spanned eight generations.

There was a story about the whole event in the Two River Times at the time it happened, and former Shrewsbury Mayor Don Burden even kept the story until this very day. It was a testimony to the importance of family, to the need we all have to share good times and bad with those we love, and proof that the Irish certainly know how to have a good time when they get together.

Let’s see. In July of 2000, when this grand event took place, Vince Dempsey was the oldest of the clan at age 89, and Thomas Olausen of Montana was the youngest at two and a half months of age.

They traced their history of how they are related going back to John Henry and Mae Dempsey, an East Orange couple who spent their summers at Neimarks bungalows in Highlands, bungalows since replaced by condos.

The Dempseys had 13 children, five of whom made Highlands their permanent homes. They had all passed by the time of this reunion, but their names were revered and remembered as they still are……..Viola Horan Foss, Joseph, the former Highlands Mayor, Earl, one of the founders of the NJROTC program at MAST, Charles, aka Buddy, and Rowland. And the generations of those family continue to live in Monmouth County.

But back to the event . As the Dempseys would do, the reunion started …it actually went on for three days….as the Dempseys would have it, with an Evening Mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church to remember all those who were deceased or who could make the reunion. Family members called out the names of their deceased relatives in a ceremony long remembered by all who filled the church..

There was also great joy at the mass since so many Dempseys have been marred in that church, received their sacraments there, and some still attend. The marriages of all the Dempseys involved in the reunion presented an interesting statistic…..added together, the number of years of wedded bliss came to more than 550 years! And during the reunion, 15 couples renewed their wedding vows! Vince and Marian were the longest married at the event, with 62 years together, and Bernice and Bill Reyen added another 51 years to the total.

There was a family picnic at Sandy Hook which was also celebrated in grand Dempsey style.

The planners had arranged for an army tent from Fort Hancock, most likely Earl’s doing….but when they got there, there was still a huge white tent on the site from an event earlier in the week. The tent company arrived to take down their huge white tent, but when they saw it would interfere with the party, they decided to leave it up and let the Dempseys use it . Of course, in true Dempsey style, they repaid the tent owners….they immediately invited them to the festivities and to make it official, swore t hem all in as Honorary Dempseys for the Day!

Another day, there was a day at Monmouth Park where the third race was the Dempsey Derby and Gerard of Kentucky, Vince of Highlands and Helen Sloan of Florida, representing the first generation of the clan, presented the trophy to the winning trainer and jockey. The picnic that day was in the Monmouth Park picnic grounds, so there were pony rides and clowns to help celebrate as well. Also included in the triduum were visits to the lighthouse, chapel and museum at Fort Hancock, pony rides and clowns, as well as Connors Hotel on Shore Drive, another hot spot for the Dempseys every year.

It was a grand event , talked about for months. And if you happen t o run into a Dempsey one of these days… if they are over 19…. ask them about it. It’s a sure thing they were at the reunion, and a sure thing they ‘ll have some great memories to share about it .

They simply don’t make families like that anymore!

HIGHLANDS – He was the third assistant lighthouse keeper at the Twin Lights from 1906 to 1910, but Robert Blume brought a bit of history and pride to this community he called home long before his term at the lighthouse.

He is the only resident of the borough who has ever received the Medal of Honor, and his story is one of harrowing actions, extreme bravery, and remarkable seamanship, all in the name of protecting the United States.

Blume, a native of Pittsburgh, was a Sailor with seven years in the US Navy when he signed on at the Lighthouse in 1906. He had been discharged under favorable conditions two years before, as a Chief Master of Arms, had a wife and one son. His first daughter would be born at the Lighthouse the following year, and a month later baptized at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church.

But it was his service during the Spanish American War that gained Blume his rightful place in American history.

Blume was a seaman in 1898, 30 years old, serving aboard the USS Nashville, a gunboat commissioned the year before in Norfolk, Va. His ship and the USS Marblehead, the most powerful warship in the little flotilla of five ships, were sent to form a blockade along the southern coast of Cuba, at the seaport town of Cienfuegos, critically important to the Spanish because of its telegraphic capabilities. It was three months after the sinking of the USS Maine which had launched the United States into the Spanish American War and a time when the Twin Light’s other and more famous personage, Guglielmo Marconi, was still working on his own telegraph system which he installed at the lighthouse the following year.

The Spanish had their own telegraph system in the late 1890s, and through a trio of underwater cables in the Caribbean Sea connected to a cable house on shore near Cienfuegos, were able to keep communications open between Havana, Cuba’s capital, Santiago, another port city in Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti and Spain.

The captain of the USS Marblehead knew the most successful, as well as the most dangerous means of disrupting these communications came from severing the underwater cables and rendering them useless. Blume was one of the 52 Sailors, 26 from each of the two ships, who volunteered to take on the dangerous missions, traveling in small boats between his ship and the cable house, while the American ships and Spanish troops on land were exchanging gunfire over their heads. Blume was one of nine seamen on his ship, together with four coxswains, a coal passer, blacksmith, oiler, carpenter’s mate, sailmaker’s mate, landsman, and seven Marines to volunteer for the missions.

The men were taken by steam cutter closer to the shore to be launched in their rowboats, under fire, and proceed closer inshore to locate the underwater cables, grapple them onto the boats, and cut and toss them further out to sea, all while gunfire was still being exchanged between their ships and Spanish soldiers on land. Gunfire from the ship had successfully blown up the cable shack but rendering the cables useless meant repairs could not be made, as they could easily and quickly be accomplished at the cable shack. During the crossfire, the small boats were frequently hit, and the Sailors and Marines quickly used their own bullets to plug the holes below the waterline.

The team was successful in cutting two of the two-inch-thick cables, using hacksaws, and working within 100 feet of the shoreline, battling both difficulty in reaching the cable because of huge coral outgrowths, rough seas and high waves. Rendering communications between Cuba and the outside world useless, the men returned to the cutters that would take them back to their ships, still under heavy gunfire.

In the end, the entire activity had taken place in three hours, one Marine was killed, one Sailor died later of his wounds and several others had been seriously wounded. The Nashville and the Marblehead pulled out to sea, and the Spanish American War ended with the signing of a ceasefire three months later.

There were 100 Medal of Honor recipients during the Spanish American War, including the 52 issued that day to the 52 men of the Nashville and the Marblehead. But their Awards, all almost identical, simply give the place, date and ship on which each hero served, along with the simple description of the heroism which earned them the award.

Blume’s Medal of Honor citation says simply:

“On board the USS Nashville during the cutting of the cable leading from Cienfuegos, Cuba, 11 May, 1898. Facing the heavy fire of the enemy, he set an example of extraordinary bravery and coolness throughout this action.”

Make plans to see the current exhibition at the Twin Lights Museum, they have great items in their Museum and as a little known fact, the Twin Lights is where the Pledge of Allegiance was first publicly recited.

Other Recipients from New Jersey

Thorne

Fallon

Audubon

Benfold

Brittin

Sampler

Barker

Brant

Hay

Watters

Historian Mary Rasa, who has studied and researched the Patterson family extensively, gave a lecture on Women Lighthouse keepers several months ago in a program sponsored by the Monmouth County Library. Visit MonmouthCountyLib.org for more information on lighthousekeepers and Mary Rasa.

There have been no fewer than 18 different lighthouse keepers at Sandy Hook Lighthouse during the 19th and 20th centuries, in addition to the first keepers who served in the 1700s. But there has only been one official and paid woman keeper, and that was Sarah Johnson, half of the brother sister team that manned the lights protecting New York Harbor from 1867 to 1885. But Sarah stayed on after retiring from that difficult job and was still active on Sandy Hook until 1898.

Charles W. Patterson took over the main light keeping position from Uriah Smalley in 1861 and his sister Sarah was hired as assistant hired as assistant six years later. Two years after that, Samuel P. Jewell also became a second assistant, working alongside Sarah.

There was no doubt assistant light keepers were essential, since maintaining the beacon required a lot of work, time and care. It was important to keep a bright light regardless of the weather; the light was fueled with kerosene oil to keep the Fresnel lens bright, and the oil had to be carried up the stairs to the light….all 108 steps from base to the top.

Sarah was born Feb. 29, 1832 married James Johnson in 1856 and had two children, both of whom died in infancy and she was widowed not long after, later taking on the position as lighthouse keeper. Records show she was paid $360 annually for her post.

During his years as keeper, Sarah’s brother Charles lived at the light with his wife, W Anker Patterson and their four children, sons Trevonian, Franklin and Edwin, and a daughter Mary. His first keepers during his 24 year tenure were Frank and Austin Patterson. Charles resigned in 1885 due to Bright’s disease, so Sarah left her position as well, but remained on the Hook teaching the children of the soldiers at the relatively new Proving Ground. Mr. Jewell was promoted to become the lighthouse keeper, remaining for a total of 40 years, the longest of any of those keepers in the Sandy Hook service..

Sarah remained at Sandy Hook after leaving the lighthouse until all civilians were ordered off the base because of the Spanish-American War. She then she retired to her hometown of Howell, where she died in 1909. Charles’ daughter Mary grew up and served 30 years with the US Life-Saving Service, Station Number 1, located at Sandy Hook, continuing a long time family service to the sea.

Sarah lived through some interesting times on the peninsula. She saw the Sandy Hook Proving Ground be officially established in 1874, was on the Hook in 1894 when the lights were first electrified, thanks to help from the Gedley Channel buoys which were electrically powered.

She was still there in 1903 when the power was switched back to kerosene gas because the buoys were converted to gas , It was the same year a mortar exploded at the proving ground and 15 tons of metal poured down all over Sandy Hook.

Electricity was not returned to the lighthouse until 1925 and in 1941, the Sandy Hook Lighthouse came under the jurisdiction of the US Coast Guard..

Sarah Johnson died in 1909 and is buried at the cemetery of the Adrena Baptist Church, where she had been a lifelong member.

A plaque honoring Lighthouse keeper Johnson is situated at Sandy Hook near the lighthouse.

There are so many stories to write about the Twin Lights, and so many eras in which it has been an integral part of both local and national history. But former Atlantic Highlands Mayor Rich Stryker, probably the absolute best unrecognized keeper of local history stories and paraphernalia and artifacts, recently recanted the interesting facts about the role the Twin Lights have played in war and peace since even before the Revolution.

Not exactly the Twin Lights, but in the close vicinity of the property before the first structure was built, the British colonial government build a signal beacon on the Highlands hill. That was in 1746 and the Brits were at war with France, the colonies were involved, and the British needed to have some kind of signal to alert themselves if the enemy…the French… approached the land.

They designed a unique system which was to be activated if six or more ships dared to approach. The theory put into practice was a system of poles on which huge balls were hoisted, some say to a height of 108 feet. The balls were to be used in daylight hours, and huge kegs of oil, also hoisted up that 108 feet, were to be lighted at night should the system have to be activated.

Signals were raised and lowered according to a specific code the military set up, then that code would be read by telescope at Staten Island, and from there, sent using the same system, to Manhattan to complete the alarm signal.

The system was eliminated with the peace treaty that ended the war in 1748.

But, some 30 years later, when the colonies were in protest to the motherland, a similar signal system was installed and activated, this time to keep Congress in touch with General Washington so they could learn in Philadelphia of the movement of British ships in and out of New York Harbor, which was then under British control.

The colonies won that war, but it wasn’t much later, when as a young nation in 1812 we once again took on Great Britain; once again the same system from three quarters of a century before was activated. There are reports it was used very successfully several times before that war ended.

The next time this ball and oil keg system was used was during peacetime.

It was 1829 and the Merchants Exchange Company of New York got approval from the Treasury Department to build a signal telegraph on land near the lighthouse.. It was there three years later that Samuel F.B Morse, inventor of the telegraph, began designing his system and within another five years he had it perfected and transmission lines were installed. The New York and Sandy Hook Telegraph followed in 1854, and a year later, because of a merger, became the New York and Highlands Telegraph Company.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was finally a means of getting news from Europe brought to the New World in considerably shorter time. Without any trans-Atlantic cables, the only way people on this side of the ocean got news from Europe was when ships relayed news they had to smaller boats that made the trip out to more distant waters from Sandy Hook to bring in the news ahead of the ship.

Incoming captains would drop sealed bottles filled with news reports overboard, the smaller r boats picked them up, attached news capsules to the legs of carrier pigeons who then flew to Sandy Hook where the news then went by wire to the rest of the nation. The system brought great acclaim to the little Highlands business, which eventually blossomed into a major business with offices in New York, Keyport, Jersey City, and of course Highlands and Sandy Hook, The start of the Sandy Hook Telegraph Company.

By 1870, there were trans-Atlantic cables that carried the news, and the Highlands business ebbed with means of faster news transmissions. It wasn’t till 20 years later that the New York Herald once again brought notice to Highlands and the Twin Lights.

The Herald’s James Gordon Bennett invited Marconi to set up a station just below the Twin Lights, thus enabling the Herald to scoop every other paper around with its report of the famed America’s Cup race of 1899, just off the Jersey coast.

Working with the Ponce steamship as the sending station, and his receiving station in Highlands, Marconi announced to the rest of America that the defending American ship, the Columbia, owned by J Pierpont Morgan, had successfully defended her honor by besting the Shamrock, owned by Sir Thomas Lipton of tea fame, in three of the face races. Also on board was the only female crew member, Hope Goddard Iselin.

MANALAPAN – Tiffany lamp designer Clara Wolcott Driscoll, manager of the Women’s Glass Cutting Department of Tiffany Studios during the 19th and early 20th centuries, comes to life in a virtual one-woman theatrical performance by actress Leanna Renee Hieber on Wednesday, Sept. 29 on a Zoom presentation from the Monmouth County Library.

By the Light of Tiffay, a virtual meeting with Clara Driscoll, will be the topic of Hieber’s hour long presentation adapted from the Tiffany artist’s letters, historical record and insights. The ‘virtual’ meeting with the artist highlights the vitality, innovation and importance her work between the late 1800s and 1909.

Heiber, a graduate of Miami University with a degree in theater and a focus on the 19th century, has performed in regional theaters around the nation in both Shakespearean and classical theaters. A licensed New York City tour guide, she has been featured in film and tv shows included Mysteries at the Museum and Boardwalk Empire, and has adapted 19th century literature for the professional stage.

In selecting Driscoll for this presentation, Hieber will bring to life the woman who designed more than 30 Tiffany lamps produced by Tiffany Studios including many well-known floral designs including Wisteria, Dragonfly and Peony.

The session will be conducted on Zoom free of charge. Registration, which is necessary and must be completed by noon Tuesday, Sept 28, is available at www.MonmouthCounty Lib.org, on the Upcoming Events list. Information will be sent by 4 p.m. Tuesday, Sept 28, on how to access the performance.

It would be safe to say that Beulah Cawthon is alive and well. Except that Beulah Cawthon died in 1968.

So, to be accurate, it is more correct to say Beulah Cawthon’s spirit is alive and well and living in the home where she found little peace, little comfort, and a lot of pain in her human life. Believers will say she’s been here a long time, and former owners talk about strange sounds, knocking, drawers opening and closing, and brush it all away with a calm, “oh, that’s just Beulah.”

Beulah is up to her pranks and apparently a very happy spirit these days, it seems. That’s because her home, Linden Hill, where she lived with her parents in the mid-20the century, was purchased last year by a couple of north easterners who are generous in the space they give her, understanding of her mischievous ways, and eager to share her friendship with 21st century skeptics and believers.

A prankster. That’s what owners Jim and Stacey call Beulah. They hear a knock on their front door, the dogs begin to bark, they open the door. There’s no one there. They go to the back door. No one there either. “That’s Beulah!” they say.

The lights dim. They go out. In this historic little city in northeast Mississippi, most people chalk it up to the utility company. Everybody’s lights dim once in a while. But at Linden Hill, it’s more than light dimming… the wall switch is actually turned off. Jim turns it back on and Stacy says, “that’s Beulah.”

So why is Beulah back in a house where she was terribly unhappy? Where she was accused of trying to kill her parents? Why is she back after spending the last 40 years of her life in what we generously call a mental hospital, but is more accurately an insane hospital? Why is she ‘pranking’ and making people feel comfortable around her and good about themselves?

Who knows, perhaps she isn’t ready to cross over; perhaps she wants to bring happiness where she saw little. Perhaps she is looking for people to pray for her and let her pass to eternal happiness. Perhaps….

It could be anything. But make no mistake about it, the presence of Beulah is very much active in Linden Hill in Holly Springs, Mississippi.

Beulahs’s story, as researched by Jim and Stacy as well as by Pulitzer Prize finalist for investigative reporting Jerry Mitchell, a reporter for the Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger, is thorough and ties a lot of loose ends together. But not completely. That’s probably the way Beulah wants it. But it’s a compelling story and has tied generations and families together.

Hearing Stacy and Jim talk about the slamming doors, seeing they’ve nailed shut all their windows because they’re tired of them opening and closing by themselves, listening to stories of how the wallpaper peeled off a wall the day the Aikins, who owned the home after the Cawthons, moved, demanded some firsthand investigation on my own.

That, and I wanted to visit my son, Jim of the Jim and Stacy couple who own Linden Hill.

It’s a magnificent house. Set on a hill 600 feet above sea level…the highest point in Mississippi is 800 feet, the top of a hill in Luka, about 80 miles from Holly Springs.. the house was built in 1841 and is Greek Revival in style. Like many antebellum homes in the area, it is one-story, features magnificent columns in front, and is surrounded by beautiful trees of several varieties. The two Linden trees in front, one of them now gone, gave the home its name.

Inside, a center foyer opens to the formal living room on one side, the everyday parlor on the left, and both have doors leading towards the length of the house behind, a formal dining room, Jim’s office on the left, and a massive kitchen, laundry room and bath on the right. At the back is a foyer that stretches the width of the house, and beyond, the master bedroom and bath. It’s comfortable, lived in, and easy to see how Beulah can feel at home.

Stacey is a way-out-of-the-box thinker, and her home décor shows it. She believes in living happily and comfortably, so surrounds the two of them with the things that make them feel that way. It isn’t unusual to see a full-sized mannequin wearing an exquisite wedding gown in the living room; Jim’s grandparent’s engagement photo in a large display of letters spelling out LOVE on one wall, a huge, white-robed angel over one of the six fireplaces in the house, that in front of yet another ornament, a Shoppe sign advertising an herbalist. Nor is it out of the ordinary for Stacy to have another full- size mannequin alongside the formal, fully set dining room table, wearing a long gown Stacy fashioned from old-fashioned sheet music.

Jim’s office is filled with everything from a mounted deer head, which Stacy decorated with costume jewelry, to books on history, the Marines, family, school yearbooks and other items over the years. It’s all neat, arranged artfully and spotlessly clean.

All of which is to say that a tour through this museum-like residence is a thrill in itself, with or without Beulah.

There are many tours through Linden Hill, both as a museum and home to Beulah. There is the 90-minute explanation and description of everything on the walk-through and the story of Beulah, and, like last month, when it was the showstopper on a tour of six or eight historic spots in the city. Because other buildings are involved in the two and a half hour Murderers and Marauders tour, it’s an abbreviated version of all that is magical about Linden Hill.

Jim and Stacy tend to spend their time in the back rooms, his office, the spacious and comfortable kitchen with its massive dining area and round table that invites conversation and laughter over endless cups of coffee, their bedroom, and the laundry and bath areas. The front of the house…the two parlors, entry foyer and dining room, are more Beulah’s, they say, and they like to let her have her peace and solitude. Reluctantly, but when convinced it was really what I wanted, they let me sleep on the large, comfortable couch in the formal parlor, the room once used for wakes and weddings, the one where Beulah seems to be most active.

I couldn’t wait to go to bed that first night.

NEXT: Beulah’s story and what she did on the tour

EDITORS NOTE: To Tour Linden Hill any weekend in October 2021, Tickets are Available by going to: LINDEN HILL HAUNTED HOUSE TOUR TICKETS

Whether you believe in spirits or not, the story of Beulah Cawthon is a sad one.

Beulah was the younger of two children of NW and Beulah Burke Cawthon. Her brother, William was born two years before Beulah’s birth on July 15, 1892. Beulah’s mother, NW’s second wife, was from the South like her husband. NW’s first wife had borne him one child in 1860, a daughter, Alice, who married a man named J.A.Bowen, and died at age 27 in 1887.

Both CW’s first wife, Martha and Alice are buried in Hill Crest Cemetery in Holly Springs, a historic cemetery where seven Confederate Generals, and at least one United States Senator are also entombed. Mr. Bowen is not buried there,

Not much is known about Beulah’s childhood. But when she was in her late 20s, and still living at home, her parents said she had mental problems and had her committed to the Mississippi State Insane Asylum in Jackson, MS.

That facility is gone now, but the site is the home of the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Beulah was apparently diagnosed with ‘circular’ manic depression, or bipolar disorder.

Apparently within the next few months she began to show improvement and returned home to Linden Hill, a charming one-story antebellum Greek Revival style home on one of Holly Springs’ main streets.

 

But not long after that, Beulah apparently exhibited signs of mental stress once again. She was once more taken back to the hospital. NW and his wife both died, he in 1928, his wife four years later. Neither is buried at Hill Crest,

 

As for Beulah, it was inside hospital walls that she spent the rest of her life. 40 years imprisoned in a couple of different hospitals, never to taste freedom again.

 

The story is told in stark and realistic detail by Charlotte Nairmore and Shirley Coleman, Cute, as she is popularly known, both granddaughters of Nana Akins, the lady who bought Linden Hill from the Cawthon estate in 1935 and lived there until her death. Nana also had a daughter who was suffering from depression, so, to ease family pressures, the children were raised off and on by other family members. Charlotte went to live with Nana at Linden Hill.

 

Charlotte, middle-aged now, attractive, vivacious and eager to share her story of growing up, together with Cute, can recall numerous stories from Nana Akins about Beulah. Nana said Beulah still lived in the house but was neither frightening nor out to do any harm. “Drawers opened and closed on their own,” Cute said, “but Nana would pay it no mind and just say, ‘oh, that’s Beulah!’

 

The granddaughters heard so many stories about Beulah and saw so many strange things going on attributed to her that they think nothing of all. Sure, they’ll say, the drawers open and close, there are knocks on the door but no one there, chandeliers gently swing back and forth, their crystals tinkling but there is no breeze; lights go on and off. They think of Beulah as a prankster, a spirit happy to be in the house and happy to be there with happy people.

 

And it’s from Nana Akins and recent research, the granddaughters know the life history of Beulah.

 

After coming home from the Insane Asylum after her few months stay, Beulah began to show mental distress once again. According to Charlotte, Beulah’s parents woke up at midnight and Beulah was standing over their bed with a hatchet. She was admitted back to the same hospital on Aug. 29, 1920. It was a month after her 28th birthday. In her lifetime, she never got to visit Linden Hill again.

 

Sometime in the next few years, Beulah was transferred to the East Mississippi State Hospital and that was where she died in 1968. Her brother William came back to Holly Springs and arranged for her burial in Hill Crest Cemetery.

 

But even in death, Beulah did not have love or family. She is entombed with her father’s first wife and their daughter Alice, neither of whom Beulah would have known. Her father had had a stone erected in another part of the cemetery commemorating his parents and his brother. But Beulah was resting with strangers to whom she wasn’t even related.

 

According to Charlotte, William returned once again to Holly Springs requesting a seance in Linden Hill with his sister. Charlotte said he wanted to talk to his deceased sister about something, but she never learned anymore of what happened.

 

 

Charlotte lives in Horton, Alabama now, but came back to Holly Springs last week to visit with her sister Cute and Jim and Stacey, the New York/New Jersey couple who purchased the house last year. She told stories about hearing sounds like boots with spurs on them, and thought it was a Confederate soldier, part of the team that had destroyed Union supplies in Holly Springs when General US Grant was encamped there. She recalls another night in 1968, the year Beulah died, when she said she felt someone grab her arm while she was sleeping, hard enough to awaken her and have her cry out. There was no one around, but there was a distinctive hand print on her arm.

 

After Nana Akins died, the house was up for sale but remained vacant for some time. Charlotte made a comment at the bottom of the for-sale ad Jim and Stacey saw online in their Arizona home. Her comment about Linden Hill was “Beautiful home but it does have a live-in-ghost, we all fondly call Bulah (sic).”

 

That was enough to entice Jim and Stacey to investigate a bit more, check out some other facts, then sell their home and businesses in Arizona, complete the sale sight unseen, and take up residence in a Greek Revival, antebellum, one-story home on a hill in Holly Springs. With a ghost named Beulah. Jim, formerly of Highlands, and Stacey, whose decorating style can only be described as exceptional and distinctive, have apparently made a cozy home for a spirit who revels in the ornate décor, the recycled trash turned into exotic treasures, the photographs of several generations, along with newspaper clippings telling family stories that decorate the walls.

 

Every day, and every night, they see and hear and even smell signs that Beulah is still very much a part of their home. They don’t say whether they believe in ghosts; they used to laugh at the idea. Regardless, the bargain price of the house was too good to turn down. They are comfortable with her, though they’ve made some adjustments. For instance, Beulah opened and closed the windows so much Jim nailed them all shut. They don’t answer the door every time they hear a knock…. their dogs rush forward, then whimper and cower in a corner. They try to ignore the horrible aroma of castor oil they smell occasionally…Stacey said she looked it up and it means the smell of death. Stacey also uses sage to bless the house and has rosary beads hanging of every door still standing…they took out many of the doors between rooms because of the constant opening and closing of them. But they know…somehow, they know….

 

Beulah Cawthon is still at Linden Hill. Although now, she’s happy with Jim and Stacey also in residence.

Want to tour the house and see for yourself? Tickets

Twin Light Hotel at the mouth of the Shrewsbury River. (from photo collection of Bob Johnson)

While the Act, which banned intoxicating liquors to everyone in America, was later recognized as a 14-year social experiment, it ended with the passage of the 21st amendment, which made it legal to drink again.

But along the Shrewsbury River, the Bayshore waterway that opened out to the Atlantic Ocean, the seafaring men who made their daily living fishing, clamming, lobstering and boat building, became the bootleggers, rum runners and smugglers who catered to the needs of a thirsty nation by night.

The age of the rum runner was a lively time for Highlands, and it’s still an exciting memory for that generation who can still hear the soft purr of high speed boats, the taste of Usher’s Green Stripe or Meyer’s Perfection, and the names of those revered rum runners who plied the trade.

Respected smugglers, those who guaranteed unadulterated pure liquor, dealt with the wine, brandy and liquor shippers Maurice Meyer of London. The firm had been established in London in 1869 and was highly respected, both in England as well as in the USA where, during Prohibition, they only dealt with respectable, though clandestine, businessmen.

Meyers was aware of Prohibition for sure, but also aware of the public’s resentment of it, and knew there was a need they could capably and safely fulfill. So, it designed a series of codes that were used by smugglers, issued fictitious names and London addresses where orders could be sent, and instructed their buyers in America to refer only to those code words and names in their cables and wires. Hence, the anonymity of the smugglers, and the respected firm’s dealing with rumrunners, could be protected.

The specific codes were kind of fun, relating to flowers, fruits, or vegetables or meats that were familiar to the baymen. Buchanan’s Black and White Scotch, for instance was known as roses, Hennessy’s Three Star Brandy was apples. Even Moet and Chandon’s champagne was known by a different name…peaches…, and gin was either salmon, mackerel or cod, depending on whether it was ordered in square or round bottles, or casks.

But all these folks were dealing outside the law, so in addition to keeping out of reach of law enforcement, they also faced dangers and death from others dealing in their same trade. These were the hijackers, those who made their living by stealing from the bootleggers.

One of the more famous stories of the era was the Saturday night that ended in murder right in the heart of Atlantic Highlands. Apparently, according to a newspaper report from the day, hijacker Frank LeConte of Newark, regarded as the supreme leader in hijacking circles, had a row with Robert Schneider, a good old Highlands fellow successful in the running trade.

Seems that a while back, LeConte’s men interrupted what was going to be a successful delivery of goods by Schneider’s men some months before, and now there was a score to settle. So when Schneider spotted LeConte in Highlands this particular Saturday night, his men, led by Walter Keener and two sets of brothers in the business, George and Henry Nettinger and Ed and Ralph Bitter, pursued the hijacker out of town. LeConte went as far as Center Avenue in Atlantic Highlands, but couldn’t escape.

As fate would have it, there was a train halted in the station, blocking the road. So everyone barreled out of their vehicles and a gun battle ensured. It’s said LeConte was the first to be hit, and was downed with a bullet in his stomach. Ralph Bitters took a shot to the shoulder, but it didn’t stop him from carrying on the battle. And when it was all over, LeConte and at least six others were treated for wounds at the hospital in Long Branch, and a whole lot of them were charged with various crimes.

LeConte didn’t make it, and died at the hospital two days later.

When it came down to the law settling the difference, the brothers Bitters were charged with LeConte’s murder. However, it didn’t appear there were any witnesses, at least any witnesses willing to tell the story of what happened that Saturday night on Center Avenue, and there wasn’t a Grand Jury around calling for an indictment.

The brothers could return to plying their trade in Highlands.

Highlands can always take pride in the men and women from this community who have always answered the call to the military when needed. One of several families within the borough who have given more than one offspring to serve the nation in the armed forces is the Kavookjian family, long respected for the kindness, thoughtfulness and generosity of the patriarch of the family, Haik Kavookjian. Two of his sons, Haik, Jr. and Sarkis served during World War II.

Sarkis, who was a T-Sgt. in the Army Air Force, served in the Pacific theater during World War II and completed forty-eight missions as first engineer on a Liberator.

Haik, Jr. served with the US Navy where he was a pharmacist mate first class and also sailed in the Pacific theater.

T.Sgt. Kavookjian earned the Pacific Campaign ribbon with a Silver Star for his service, together with the Presidential Citation, Air Medal with Silver Star and the Order of the Purple Heart. He was injured in combat while parachuting after the loss of the bomber in which he was the first engineer. His return to Highlands for a 21 day visit came after 22 months in the war zone, after which he reported to Atlantic City for yet another war assignment.

Haik, Jr., completed boot camp basic training, in Newport, R.I. before receiving assignments in Virginia, Panama, San Diego and Washington, D.C. He was studying medicine at the University of Buffalo at the time of his enlistment in the Navy, and had also been a student at Columbia University and a graduate of Alfred University.

The Kavookjian family lived on Portland Rd.

Tinker at Woodstock on the bed of his fabled truck

It’s probably his diversity that is most significant about Carl Tinker West. Without that, he would not have made a name for himself in the music world, in the sound and sight world, in the science world, in the surfing world, across the globe, or in Highlands itself.

Tinker… the quick-minded, brilliant, individualistic Californian who came east and established the internationally known Challenger East surfboard building company, making the unique and highly coveted boards in his well-recognized purple factory on Bay Avenue, a purple building painted after the code enforcement officer issued a summons and a warning to clean up his property.

“So I went out to Walmart, bought five gallons of paint and a spray brush, and I painted the building in a day,” he recalls. He never bothered to explain that his purple paint and the Nightmare before Christmas statue he topped the building with were his way of remaining independent while still obeying the edict to paint his building and adhere to borough regulations.

The stories about Tinker and Bruce Springsteen are legendary yet true. The former government scientist who knew firsthand about spaceships and rockets at March Air Force Base in California was also a wizard at sound production, and was manager for Vini Lopez and his band Steel Mill, the forerunner of the E Street Band where Springsteen was a singer. He recalls Bruce was “smart, quiet, and could write songs.” So Tinker and Vini and his gang made a deal… they could make surfboards in his Highlands shop, write, rehearse and rock and roll. He would continue to repair his cars on the other side of the garage.

Tinker also had New York friends in the business, and through introductions to them helped Bruce launch a career.

As for the rockets and spaceships, Tinker goes into scientific mode with explanations of how, why, where and what actually exists but ends simply with “there’s a lot more out there than anybody knows about. Who are we to think we’re the center of the universe?”

It was in the 1960s that Tinker, for whatever reasons or whims, decided to put his scientific connections with the government on a back burner and turn to learning more about other things in which he was interested.

That his love of music that Tinker brought to the Jersey shore can’t be denied. Summers, he gathered friends and musicians and would-be musicians to Long Branch to offer free concerts on the beach. He established the Highlands Music and Arts Fair in Highlands in 1972 (I think this was at Huddy Park. A band that Jackie France and Charlie Rugg had called Grand Canyon Band played at it), a format that had been so popular at Woodstock and beyond. He provided his talents, his sound and lighting equipment and ability, and his love for keeping people happy to create a brighter spot in the world for many.

Tinker never forgets his friends, another attribute of a man who just as easily enjoys his own solitude, his own warm workshop and factory in that purple building heated by his home-made log-fired stove, complete with temperature controls, oven and miniature range top for making coffee. As an octogenarian, he never forgets friends along the way, some he’s known for a short while, others for a lifetime. He recalls it was Phil Giarmita of the former Alpine Manor that introduced him to Highlands, Atlantic Highlands attorney Pete Locascio who was “a good guy, a square shooter,” and Nina Flannery, the former Highlands borough clerk and administrator who is really “a sharp woman, a good woman.” He remembers Haik Mendes, the Highlands man who owned the Cove in Sea Bright where Tinker docked the sailboat he had bought and repaired in Maine and sailed to Highlands and the Cove.

Their names are intermingled with the famous names, the scientists in California, the friends in the Black House…”you call it the White House,” he chuckles… the historians, the artists.

A non-political figure who is always aware of the latest happening in the country and the world, Tinker will tell you in his own colorful language there are “Republicrats and Democrans. ” He just wants to get things done. But he’s eager to report he’s anti-liberal.

He scoffs at the news stories and arguments in the papers in the 1970s when the builders of Top of the East in Highlands wanted to build twin towers. The one in Highlands was approved months later, the proposed adjacent apartment complex just across the borough line Atlantic Highlands rejected, on the site that is now a Monmouth County Park. “They said there was a fault in that hill underneath,” he recalls, adding, “of course there is, they’re all over. But didn’t they even know that those faults are over rock? That hill is solid.” And as proof, he adds, “there isn’t a single crack in that building up there. It hasn’t moved an inch. And it will still be standing long after you and me.”

Tinker is critical of an educational system that doesn’t teach history…”we’re the only brand of two-footed animal who doesn’t read our own history,” he’ll scoff, “how do you learn if you don’t know what you’ve done before?” But he loves laughter, another attribute he said, that is reserved for monkeys, mankind and hyenas. “It’s good for you,” he adds, with a broad grin.

Tinker has some strong views on women, views dating back to his childhood that are part of his history. He likes them, for sure, but he wouldn’t trust them.

Tinker shares his factory space and heated office in the same building with one of the antique vehicles he’s been working on for decades, if only because he loves to tinker with machines. He is quick to liken the human body to an automobile… the eyes are the headlights, the heart, the engine that pumps the fluid through the body, the rectum, the exhaust. It all simply makes sense, he says quietly with a shrug of his shoulders.