The hidden Ellis Island Hospital: admitting again, starting October 1

Long-time readers know we have a special relationship with Ellis Island... the New Jersey side. As a volunteer with the National Park Service partner non-profit Save Ellis Island, I tell the little-known story of the immigrant hospital that once treated and cured over a million people in the first half of the 20th century. I've explored portions of the 29-building unrestored hospital complex, but I haven't been able to share that much with you because, well, it hasn't been open to the public. Why share something hidden that you can't go to see for yourself?

That's about to change.

Starting on October 1, Save Ellis Island will be conducting reservation-only hard hat tours of the island's south side, including several sites within the historic Public Health Service hospital. Visitors will see rooms where doctors worked to cure immigrants of illnesses ranging from measles to the infectious eye disease trachoma. While there's very little furniture left in the wards, the walls and windows tell a compelling story, reminding us how hard it must have been for sick immigrants to have their American dreams delayed by illness. 

The hospital was a city unto itself, and the tour will reflect that. More than a million people were treated there, with mortality of only 3500 souls. The morgue and autopsy room will be on the tour, as well as the laundry that cleaned and sanitized up to 3000 pieces of linen a day (imagine the cool machinery involved with that!). You'll also get to see the large (but yet to be fully restored) lawn and recreation space where recuperating patients enjoyed fresh air, sunshine and a breathtaking view of lower Manhattan.

Befitting the hospital's unrestored state, this is a program for folks who are comfortable with uneven surfaces, dust and peeling paint. The buildings are safe, but they definitely won't pass the white glove test.  

If the prospect of getting into buildings that haven't been open for 60 years isn't cool enough, tour participants will be getting an extra treat: a really unique (and hidden!) art exhibit. The artist JR is in the process of installing a project that repopulates the hospital with some of the immigrants who traveled through Ellis. I had the opportunity to check out a few of the areas he's already worked on, finding hope, poignancy and whimsy mixed among more than a dozen life-sized historic photos installed on the walls, windows and fixtures.

Revenue from the ticket sales for the tours will support SEI's ongoing restoration and preservation work on the hospital buildings. As you can imagine, bringing more than two dozen century-old buildings back to life isn't a quick or inexpensive task.

Keep an eye on our Facebook page and the Save Ellis Island web page for details on reserving your spot on an upcoming tour. Who knows -- I may even end up being your guide!

Sabotage on Sandy Hook: our oldest lighthouse's Redcoat past

Standing as it does within a decommissioned U.S. Army fort, it's difficult to imagine that the Sandy Hook Lighthouse was once the target of sabotage by loyal Americans.

How the heck did that happen? Did the government cover up some sort of invasion on the Jersey Shore? No, not quite. The pieces start to come together after you consider the history of Sandy Hook and the lighthouse itself, which celebrates its 250th birthday this year.

The oldest operating lighthouse in the United States, Old Sandy was originally conceived in the early 1760s by New York merchants weary of losing incoming cargo to shipwrecks. Approaching New York Harbor by ship can be a tricky prospect, even today, but it was downright hazardous back then. Importers lost about 20,000 pounds sterling in merchandise to the shoals in just a few years, leading them to petition the Colonial Assembly of New York for funds to construct a lighthouse on the hook. (Why didn't they appeal to the New Jersey Legislature? The borders had yet to be settled, so the jurisdiction for the Hook was up for conjecture, and the merchants no doubt went where they felt they'd have more influence.)

Drawing on a popular funding mechanism for the time, the legislature authorized two lotteries to raise the £3000 to pay for construction. Its ongoing maintenance and a salary for a resident keeper were funded through a tax on cargo entering through New York Harbor. The lantern on the 105 foot New York Lighthouse, as it was called then, was first lit on June 11, 1764. Combined with the efforts of the Sandy Hook Pilots organized 70 years earlier to help ships navigate the shifting sand bars on the approach to the harbor, the light proved to be an effective aid to navigation.

Sandy Hook Lighthouse, ca. 1937
(photo by Historic American Buildings Survey
photographer Nathaniel R. Ewan)

The tower operated peacefully for twelve years before it metaphorically landed in troubled waters. New Jerseyans and New Yorkers were starting to take sides: remain loyal to Great Britain, or advocate independence. By early 1776, rumors of a British military invasion of New York were beginning to take hold. The powerful British Navy would likely attempt to sail into New York Harbor, led by ship captains unfamiliar with the intricacies of the waters south and east of Staten Island. Destroying the light at Sandy Hook would deprive them of a vital navigational aid, leaving them prone to grounding and shipwreck.

Seizing this strategic opportunity, the independence-minded legislatures in Trenton and Albany sent troops to dismantle the New York Lighthouse lantern and remove the lamp oil, confiscating whatever they could take away. The troops, led by Monmouth County Militia Colonel George Taylor and New York Major William Malcolm, completed the task and departed the Hook, leaving the lighthouse unguarded.

In the weeks that followed, foraging parties of British sailors would periodically land on the Hook in search of fresh water, often being ambushed and captured by American troops. The British responded by capturing the lighthouse in April 1776, fortifying the grounds to repel additional attacks and ultimately repairing the light by June to welcome additional naval vessels to the bay. As further protection, the Redcoats stationed several additional ships in the waters surrounding the Hook, adding potent firepower to the defense.

Undeterred, the Americans continued their attempts to take out the lighthouse, with a half dozen or more attacks in 1776 and 1777. National Park Service historians will emphasize the sturdiness of the lighthouse's six-foot thick walls by highlighting the unsuccessful use of artillery trained on the tower, but one has to consider the relative size of the cannons to get a true sense of the threat. The patriots' six pound guns (known as such for the six pound cannon balls they fired) were small in comparison to other artillery available at the time, and likely not up for the challenge, though they did do some damage to the lighthouse's walls.

In any case, the patriots found themselves no match for British forces on the Hook, especially when the firepower of the surrounding warships was taken into account. The peninsula became a refuge for a motley assortment of New Jersey loyalists, thieves, smugglers and raiders until the end of the war. Patriot privateers would occasionally attempt foraging raids on the Hook but lacked the firepower to attempt any harassment beyond stealing British supplies.

You can get a taste of the lighthouse's revolutionary past during its birthday celebration on June 14, when Revolutionary War reenactors will be on hand with musket and cannon-firing demonstrations. Though it doesn't sound as if any NPS-sponsored smugglers and raiders will be on hand, the event looks to be a fun time for all.

Saving a piece of journalism history: the Thomas Fortune house

A large, century-old house on Red Bank's Drs. James Parker Boulevard wouldn't seem to be worthy of much attention, except for two facts. First, it stands vacant, on a sizable piece of land ripe for development. Second, and more importantly, it's a National Historic Landmark that's in danger of being lost, along with the opportunity to tell the story of T. Thomas Fortune.

I first learned about Fortune from our friends Peter Primavera and Gordon Bond at Garden State Legacy, who are spearheading the effort to save the house from demolition. Their zeal piqued my curiousity: why made this little-known individual so important that his house warrants recognition and preservation?

T. Thomas Fortune

What I discovered was an accomplished publisher and civil rights activist who contributed not just to the cause of African-American equality, but to the development and advancement of issues-based journalism. He founded and ran the largest and most influential black newspaper of his day, arguably setting the standard for advocacy journalism.

The story of Timothy Thomas Fortune starts in Florida, where he was born into slavery in 1856. Coming of age during the Reconstruction Era, he got a first-hand view of the rise and fall of black influence in government and public life when his father Emanuel won a seat in the Florida House of Representatives.

Young Thomas spent a great deal of time in the Florida statehouse during his father's tenure, even serving as a Senate page. There's nothing quite like being in the belly of the beast if you want to understand exactly how government works, and he got quite an education in Southern politics. While several blacks had been elected to office in the post-war years, their efforts to gain true influence and change met with little success due to sanctioned discrimination in the halls of government. Longstanding prejudice among whites led to the eventual banishment of most black elected officials in Florida, including Emanuel Fortune.

Even as he was learning the realities of government, Thomas was spending time in printing shops and newspaper offices, picking up writing and publishing skills. Those talents stood him in good stead when he moved to Washington, DC to study law at Howard University. He worked his way through school at a black newspaper, earning a reputation as a talented writer with a distinct voice. He'd found his niche.

At the age of 24, Fortune set out on his own as a journalist, believing that the nation's black population needed a national forum. Moving to New York City, he founded a series of newspapers, including The New York Globe and the New York Freeman, later named The New York Age. He wrote broadly on interracial relations and the advancement of African Americans, advocating equal educational opportunity and women's rights. "To tell a man he is free when he has neither money nor the opportunity to make it," he wrote, "is simply to mock him."

Unlike many of the general circulation newspapers of his day, Fortune's puiblications avoided sensationalism in favor of intelligent, reasoned editorial content and high journalistic standards. He was well recognized for his ability to encourage dialogue by balancing opposing views, and is credited with giving blacks a vehicle to discuss social issues and protest inequity. Noted journalists including Ida B. Wells and Victoria Earle Matthews started their careers working at the Age.

Fortune's work atracted the attention of Tuskegee Institute president Booker T. Washington, who hired the journalist as a speechwriter and collaborated with him on several books despite their sometimes divergent opinions. Washington also provided financial support to the Age, helping to keep the newspaper afloat during difficult times. Nonetheless, Washington neglected to credit Fortune for most of his contributions, leading to a degree of friction between the two.

The Fortune house today, awaiting preservation.
Courtesy Peter Primavera.

It's not clear why Fortune decided to settle his family in Red Bank, but his move out from New York in 1901 reflected a growing trend of affluent blacks settling in the suburbs. Securing a mortgage from one of New York's first African-American banks, he purchased a 12-room Second-Empire style home located conveniently near the train station. He commuted to the city once a week, preferring to write and edit at home. The location also proved convenient to visitors; Washington often came to Red Bank to meet with Fortune.

Ideological differences between the two men ultimately led to a split, with catastrophic results for the journalist. Unhappy with Fortune's more strident public pronouncements, Washington lost faith in his writer and withdrew his financial support for the Age. Already suffering from severe depression, Fortune had a nervous breakdown in 1907 and lost the Red Bank house to foreclosure eight years later. While he eventually recovered and began working again, he never quite regained the level of influence he'd once held within the community. He died in Philadelphia in 1928.

To characterize Fortune solely as an African-American leader would be to minimize his broader role as an activist publisher and commentator. He demonstrated the power of journalism to provoke debate and influence public policy among the diverse factions of communities others might see as being of one mind. Black leaders, whether separatist or integrationist in belief, sought and valued his counsel. The issues he championed -- equal rights and equal opportunity for women and minorities -- continue to be debated today, and scores of media outlets and journalists now play the roles that Fortune and his newspapers established in his day. Every one of us, regardless of ethnic or racial origin, benefit from the example he set.

The group working to save the Fortune house has established a Facebook page to keep supporters updated on the progress of their campaign. Reflecting Fortune's interests and achievements as well as the history of the larger Red Bank community, they're building a broad coalition to widen awareness and advocacy for the site. Post-acquisition plans are still in development. The challenge now is to save the house and with it, a way to build awareness of Fortune's legacy.

A lot of history in just a few steps

Perth Amboy fits a lot of history into a very small space, notably downtown at City Hall and the adjacent Surveyor General’s office. The sign in front of the two structures notes the significance of the town in New Jersey – and, in fact, US history.

Looking at the mansard roof and whitewashed brick exterior of city hall, you’d be hard pressed to place it at its original construction date of 1713, but it is, indeed, one of the, if not the oldest public buildings in continuous use in the United States. The current exterior was part of a renovation and enlargement project done in the 1870s, and the original town courthouse structure is encased within it. Notably, this was the site of the first occurrence of a black man voting legally in the United States, just a day after the enactment of the 15th Amendment of the Constitution. Thomas "Mundy" Peterson cast his ballot here on March 31, 1870 in a referendum on changing the town's charter, and he later became a member of the commission formed to make the revisions. He was also the first African American in Middlesex County to serve on a jury and was an active member of the Republican Party.

The Surveyor General’s office next door is just as interesting in its own way. A small, somewhat nondescript white brick building, it holds the records of the Proprietors of East Jersey. Who, you ask? Well, back in the late 1600s, much if not all of the land of the Jersey colonies (East and West) was granted to individuals who likely never set foot in the new world, remaining in England and Scotland. Known as proprietors, they hired local representation to ensure their land here was managed appropriately. Thus, the General Board of Proprietors of the Eastern Division of New Jersey was created in 1684 and eventually became what was arguably the oldest continuously operating corporation in the country. The Surveyor General’s Office was where they’d meet to discuss landholding matters and determine ownership of any land created in eastern New Jersey (by buildup of silt, etc.). Members were descendants of the original proprietors who held at least 1/96th of a share, and as you can guess, the whole shebang became a bit of an anachronism over time. When the board disbanded in 1998, its records went to the state archives, but before that, they were held in this tiny building. (Incidentally, there was a similar board for West Jersey, housed in Burlington.)

Across the street there’s an open space that might qualify as a town square if it weren’t a circle. In addition to a majestic George Washington statue donated by the town’s Scandinavian residents in 1896, there’s a reproduction of the Liberty Bell which was presented to the people of New Jersey by US Treasury Secretary John Snyder after touring the state in a savings bond drive in 1950. Interesting, isn’t it, that it ended up in Perth Amboy instead of Trenton?

Of all the statuary we saw for the day (oh, including the rather dashing Earl of Perth, for whom the town is named), I most liked the large, stylized bust of Nicolaus Copernicus. Presented by members of the city’s sizeable Polish community, its column reads: “He stopped the sun/Moved the earth.” Pretty nice epitaph, don’t you think? After reading that one, Ivan and I mused over what Mama Copernicus must have made of her childrens’ relative accomplishments. For my part, I wondered if she continually chided her other son for not stopping the sun like his brother. Ivan, on the other hand, opined that she probably said that moving the earth was nice, but not nearly as nice as the sturdy bookcase her other son made for her. Either way, she probably wasn't completely satisfied. It’s always something, right?