Blogfinger

Religious service on the OG beach c. 1890. From Mrs. Osborn’s book, published about 1920.

By Paul Goldfinger, MD. Editor Blogfinger.net. 3/27/24

I wonder who had the beach badge concession back then?   The numbers of religious tourists to the Grove were quite high during the early days, especially after the railroad came here. About 30,000 visited  in the summers.

Mrs. W.B. Osborn, wife of the “founder” of Ocean Grove Rev. W.B. Osborn, had already written 3 books when this book “Pioneer Days of Ocean Grove”  was published after the death (1902)  of her husband.

In it she had a few photographs, and she recalls many identities of early pioneers who helped establish this town at “its inception and earliest days  and to  buy lots.”    

Those founders were listed as coming from many places, especially on the east coast, but there were even some from India where the Camp Meeting movement was blossoming.   Only a few named Ocean Grove as their primary home.  She confirms that Osborn gave Ocean Grove  its name.

She said, “Believing that such an account (this book)  would be God-glorifying and having heard from the lips of my now sainted husband–Rev. W.B. Osborn–who has been acknowledged as its founder for over forty years ( including the public and private statements of Rev. A.E. Ballard, D.D., the President and only remaining member of the original Ocean Grove Association) the writer has yielded to the desire of friends and now gives the following statement (this book)  to the public.”

This volume  contains much first hand and detailed information regarding the earliest days of OG.

We at Blogfinger have wondered how the lots could have been sold and then wound up being leased.  Historians have told me that the original “sales” were actually leases, and we have suggested that those of you who have early paper work, look at it to see the wording regarding lot ownership.

However, in Mrs. Osborn’s words, and she was there:  “June 1, 1870, one hundred lots at fifty dollars each were offered for sale. The first choice brought $86.00 and was paid by James A. Bradley, later the founder of Asbury Park.”

“Three hundred and seventy three lots were sold, some at higher prices, (our italics.). She also said that “by 1872, over three hundred cottages had been built.”

Then she said that the “price of lots increased from $100.00 to $150 and $250.”    There was no mention of leasing.

Interestingly, when Bradley purchased the land for Asbury Park,  he asked Osborn to join his enterprise and to “share the profits with him.”

But Osborn said,  “I founded Ocean Grove for the glory of God, but I am not in the money-making business. ”

Too bad the modern CMA didn’t follow that lead, because by now we would have had a lovely community of single family homes at the North End.

The original By-Laws declared the “objects of the Association…to provide a place where those who sought Camp Meetings could spend  a few days or weeks at the seashore; an opportunity to do so at moderate cost, free from the temptations to dissipation usually found at fashionable watering places.”

There was no mention that the town would become a year round community and no mention of the problems that a year round community might  encounter—-like today in 2024.

But in 1873,  the Association gave Osborn a gift of a lovely Victorian home near the lake. Drawing below from Mrs.Osborn’s book.

Osborn’s home reveals what  the founders had in mind when designing a home for Rev.  Osborn and his wife.

Why didn’t the North End planners come up with an authentic  neighborhood of 25 Victorian cottages/homes like this instead of the monstrosity planned by OGNED and Neptune Township for the 2024  North End.

Too bad the modern CMA didn’t insist on a community of such homes for our current empty space at the North End where the lure of Asbury Park will offer those “temptations to dissipation” that the founders wanted to avoid.

Architecture should be about the lives of the people, not the best return of money for the CMA, greedy developers, and the Neptuners.

From Les Miserables:    Susan Boyle   “I Dreamed a Dream.”

“I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high and life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I prayed that God would be forgiving.”