The Gaspé Connection

The Adams - O'Toole Family, ca. 1900 - Top (L to R): Raymond, Barbery,
Albert, Gertrude, Gregory, Margaret; Bottom (L to R): Ambrosine,
Mother Eleanor Ellen (nee Adams), Patrick, Elizabeth, Father Andrew O'Toole

This is my Gaspé family. The young woman standing at the far right of this photograph is my grandmother, Margaret O’Toole. She was about 20 years old when it was taken in Alpena, Michigan, around 1900. With her are nine of her ten siblings, posed with my great-grandfather Andrew O’Toole, seated just below Margaret, and my great-grandmother, Eleanor Adams, seated second from left.

They left their home in Gaspé for Alpena, Michigan in 1881. Over a period of about 10 years – from 1875 to 1885 – Andrew, Eleanor and several of the O’Toole brothers from that rugged, windswept peninsula emigrated to the United States. Most of them settled in Alpena.

My Dad spent his early childhood in upstate New York, where the Delaney clan lived. Margaret, his mother, had married William Delaney, a feisty Irishman who, like many in his family, worked in the tanneries. Dad's first years were spent in Gowanda, NY, then the family moved to Endicott, NY, home of Endicott-Johnson shoes. Bill Delaney died when my father was nine. Dad didn’t talk much about his childhood, but in rare moments he reminisced with his siblings about the summers he spent in Alpena with all those many cousins from his mother's side of the family.

This photo of the O’Tooles was among the family papers I inherited from my parents. I knew very little about this side of the family. One story, however, hung in the back of my mind’s closet like a worn oilskin coat: one of my ancestors from this family and her teen-aged son had survived a shipwreck off the coast of Gaspé in the 1800s.

  

My parents didn’t have much information about this story. What was the name of the ship? What year did it come aground? Where, exactly? What was the name of the relative who survived? Her son? How was she related to our family? They had few clues, except that my grandmother had been born in Gaspe. And by the time they began looking, anyone who would have known anything about it was long dead.

Determined to ferret out some evidence of the survivors and document their story, my parents made the trek up to Gaspé in the 1970s to seek out church records that would confirm their identity. There were told that the church that they thought would have kept the records had burned and all records were destroyed. They came home empty-handed.

My father died in 2007. Mother in 2011. They died without ever having solved the mystery of the shipwreck's survivors. 

I came across the photo of the O'Tooles sometime after my mother's death. The shipwreck story pushed its way to the front of my mind. The puzzle began to haunt me. So nine months ago, I began preparations for my own journey to the Gaspé Peninsula – “la Gaspésie.” Over the winter, I did Internet research on the Adams - O’Toole line, compiling a family tree of some 900+ members. I made contact with several distant relatives from that branch who are doing research on their own ancestors. Little by little, the story of the family has begun to fall into place.

In early June, I leave for Gaspé. I am getting close, very close, to finding the answers that my parents were seeking so long ago. Perhaps someday soon I can report the full story of my ancestor, her child, the shipwreck, and how all that is connected to the people in this photograph. 

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Coastal Browns

Salt-damaged white pines along Route 35, near Mantoloking, NJ (April 2013)

Springtime is always busy at the New Jersey shore. Smells of fresh paint and Spic N’ Span mix with the still-chilly breezes coming off the ocean. Lawns are raked and given their first trim. Planting beds are tidied up and edged. Winter dust is blown off the sidewalks. Patio furniture is moved out of storage and washed down. This year, however, is different.

This spring, many homeowners along the coast - if their homes are still intact, that is - find that they have the additional task of disposing of the brittle corpses of trees and shrubs left dead or dying in the wake of Super Storm Sandy.

One Person’s Garden

The second Saturday in April was sunny and warm – one of the few such days this dreary spring. I jumped at the chance to work in the garden, rather than spend another dusty day indoors removing more damaged wall board. I fixed the back fence; untied the Adirondack chair from the deck railing (I didn’t want it to float away again); and moved the wooden bench onto the patio from the back storage shed. It was too chilly to get out the bucket and scrub at the dirty flood line left on the bench. That would have to wait until my next visit.

I spent the rest of the day raking, trimming the ragged ends from my shrubs, and taking a plant inventory. Since I bought the place some ten years ago, I have gradually replaced the pesky Virginia Creeper with other native plant materials that can survive my neglect. I’m not one for mollycoddling, so they have to be able to fend for themselves. I rely on the advice of local garden vendors – Vaughn’s in Marmora, NJ, is a favorite.  They’ve been in the area for decades and always seem to know which plants perform best at the shore.

On October 29, Sandy inundated my property with two feet of salty water. I don’t know how long it stayed – perhaps only one tide’s worth, maybe two. In the days immediately following the storm, the plants all looked as green as ever, in spite of the coating of silt on their lower branches. I had to focus my attention on cleaning out the flood damaged contents of the house and carting the heavy garbage bags of sodden wallboard to the dumpsters before the dreaded black mold set in. Towards the end of all that, I passed a sign in the window of the local hardware store, offering 40-lb. bags of something that would counteract the salt left in the soil. By then, however, my strength was waning. The garden would just have to wait.

By the end of the month, little remained of my beds except a mass of brown sticks.

Front shrubs one month after Sandy (December 2012).

The hydrangeas, the pink rose bush, the sedum, and even the coral honeysuckle vine that the hummingbirds love so much, all appeared dead. I feared I would have to rip everything out and start again.

The honeysuckle one month after flooding
(December 2012)

With spring’s arrival, I am feeling reassured. My garden appears to have survived its salt bath.  Most things seem to be emerging on schedule and look perky enough, but the jury is still out. There's no sign of the hosta yet. The big holly tree and the bayberry both look a bit stressed out – the bayberry suffered a massive yellow leaf drop, and the holly leaves were dried and curled at the ends. I hope they will bounce back over the summer.

The garden’s most significant casualties were two vigorous mounds of Hypericum (St. John’s Wort) whose yellow flowers bloomed all summer long. I would be sorry to lose them. They were a prominent, no-work feature of the beds.

Hypericum (St. John's Wort) and Sedum before Super Storm Sandy (2012).

A deeper look into the mass of brittle, russet-colored branches, however, revealed green shoots emerging from the roots. They were very tentative signs, to be sure – one small leaf, sometimes two – but at least some proof of life. It provided enough evidence for me to go to the effort of cutting down the mass of dead stalks, bundle them into two large bunches, cram them into the trunk of my car, and drive them down to the OC recycling center.

On my way downtown, I witnessed the larger toll that Sandy had taken on the landscape. On every street, lawn crews were loading their trucks with piles of dead shrubbery they had excavated from yards around the city. Arborvitae, Euonymus, yews – so well-tended the summer before – now lay along the curb in mahogany-colored clumps as they awaited pickup.

The Extended Coastal Landscape

I left for home by noon the next day, having cleaned up as much of the property as I could. It being another beautiful day, I decided to take the coastal route north. I detoured off the Garden State Parkway at Exit 80 and followed Route 35 along the coast from Seaside Park north to Point Pleasant. The route took me through the towns of Seaside Heights, Lavallette, Ocean Beach, Mantoloking, and Bay Head – areas that had seen the worst of Sandy’s winds and storm surge.

Near Mantoloking, NJ, after Sandy (April 2013).

I looked beyond the broken houses that remain strewn about where the storm deposited them and focused on the transformed landscape. Sand still covers almost everything except the streets, now five months after Sandy. Yards where once green grass, trees, and flowering shrubs dominated are barren studies in beige and brown. This precarious island was over-washed by both the sea and the bay, so the amount of sand is not a surprise. What did surprise me was the moribund plant life.

Carefully planted rows of arborvitae – the workhorse of plant screens – stand like rusty sentinels up and down New Jersey’s coastal Route 35.

Dead arborvitae along Route 35, near Mantoloking, NJ (April 2013).

Mature white pines that comfortably populated the challenging marine environment for decades also began to die off over the winter.

House along Route 35 near Mantoloking, NJ (April 2013).

What caused this massive die-off? Why did some plants survive and others didn’t? Why is my garden coming back to life, when those farther North are not? Although many of the specimens are reported to be tolerant of acidic soil, the storm clearly overwhelmed their systems.

Salt Remedies

In November 2012, just weeks after the storm, Charlene H. Costaris, Horticulturist Consultant at the Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Ocean County, published a paper, Coping with Salt Water Flooding, that provides excellent guidance for coastal gardeners. She noted that the salt water pulled the water out of the plant roots. Ultimately, this will cause root damage that will make the plant more vulnerable in future dry spells.

Costaris notes that the longer salt water inundates plants, the worse the damage will be. The best remedy is to irrigate the area with fresh water after the floodwaters recede, a remedy that works better in sandy soils than in clay or loam. Salt destroys soil structure, but sandy soil doesn’t have much structure to begin with.

A week after Sandy, a Nor’easter dumped several inches of snow and rain along the coast. The storm exacerbated the suffering of many, but it also may have saved some of the plant life. Although rain is not the ideal water source for “landscape cleansing,” especially when mixed with the salt spray of a Nor’easter, the salt in the spray may have been less concentrated than that found in the residue of seawater. Thus it may have offered some benefit, albeit imperfect.

The other remedy is gypsum (calcium sulfate, CaSO4), which helps move the salt out of the soil. According to Costaris, the calcium in gypsum replaces the sodium on soil particles. It is the height of irony that all of that soggy gyp-board that I removed from the house and took to the dumpster could have been put to better use by crunching it up and putting it on the garden.

In areas to be replanted, Costaris recommends tilling in organic material like leaf compost with the gypsum, which will provide additional storage for the salt in the soil.

Finally, she admonishes gardeners not to fertilize (fertilizers have salts), and not to apply garden lime, which affects the acidity level of the soil, which some plants prefer. Gypsum "does not affect acidity of the soil," Costaris notes. (Mmm. Salt and soil acidity are different! Who knew?) She provides other resources to consult that will help gardeners understand how their soils are faring after Sandy.

None of this, of course, will help the white pines, which may have survived inundation, but are very likely dying because their thin needles are vulnerable to salt spray. Super Storm Sandy’s winds did not carry with them enough rain to dilute the salt, so the trees got a heavy dose. For the browning white pines, Sandra Vultaggio of Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Horticultural Diagnostic Lab recommends waiting for a full growing season to see if they come back, especially the more mature specimens. Maybe, given their susceptibility to salt spray, white pines are not the best trees for a barrier island. She suggests mixing them in with other types, both conifers and leafy evergreens.

The Short Course in Salt

OK, so this has been a study in a nutshell. But it helped me understand a bit of the chemistry behind why so many trees and shrubs have turned Coastal Brown. I will continue to rely on my local garden supply stores – they sure know their stuff -- and I am now armed with new tools to resuscitate my salty beds. You can bet that I will stop in at the hardware store the next time through and invest in that 40-lb. bag of gypsum.


Resources:

Appleton, Bonnie, Extension Specialist; Vickie Greene, Graduate Student, Virginia Tech; Aileen Smith, Graduate Student, Hampton Roads AREC, Virginia Tech; Susan French, Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Beach; Brian Kane, Department of Forestry, Virginia Tech; Laurie Fox, Horticulture, Hampton Roads AREC; Adam Downing, Madison VCE; Traci Gilland, Portsmouth VCE. Trees and Shrubs that Tolerate Saline Soils and Salt Spray Drift. Publication No. 430-031. Blacksburg VA: Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Tech, and Virginia State University. 1 May 2009.

Barcel, Ellen. “What’s causing the browning of LI’s white pine?” Times Beacon Record. 28 December 2012.

Beckerman, Janna, Assoc. Professor, Dept. of Botany and Plant Pathology, and B. Rosie Lerner, Extension Consumer Horticulturist, Dept. of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture. Salt Damage in  Landscape Plants. Publication No. ID-412- W. Revised. West Lafayette IN: Purdue  University Cooperative Extension Service, Purdue Agriculture. April 2009.

Cape Atlantic Conservation District. Native Plants for Wildlife Habitat Improvement in New Jersey’s Coastal Plain Region.

Costaris, Charlene H., Horticulturist Consultant. Coping with Salt Water Flooding. Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. Toms River NJ: Cooperative Extension of Ocean County. November 2012. 

Van Es, Harold, Prof., Dept. of Crop and Soil Sciences, Cornell University. Saltwater Inundation: Implications for Agriculture. Fact Sheet. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Cooperative Extension. November 2012.

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Morning Landscapes on the GSP

A dawn commute on the Garden State Parkway has its compensations.

Late last fall, I became a commuter – one of millions that course through the asphalt arteries of northern New Jersey every morning. It was a fate I dreaded; one I had avoided for decades. How could I possibly endure this new life?

For almost twenty years I was a sole practitioner whose farthest distance to the office was a five-block walk downtown. A few years ago, I eliminated even that short inconvenience by relocating my firm to the top floor of my home – a place I affectionately call the Crow’s Nest.

Each day at around 10 a.m., I climbed the stairs to my office to begin the work day. I remained there until early evening, when I would turn the computer off and return to domesticity downstairs. Several days might pass without going outside, except to get the morning newspaper and the mail. If some bad weather swept through the area, I would peer down from my cozy third floor windows for a few minutes to see how the neighborhood was surviving. Then I would go back to the computer.

I left the comfort of the Crow’s Nest not long after Hurricane Sandy, when I took a leave of absence from my firm to work with FEMA as a historic preservation specialist. The New Jersey Joint Field Office (JFO) is based in Monmouth County, an hour south of my home town – a location that was perhaps the single most significant drawback to the job.

No more consultants’ hours for me. No more leisurely breakfasts; no more scanning through the Star Ledger and the New York Times over cups of coffee.  My new work day begins at 8:00 a.m. This means that my alarm goes off at 5:45 a.m. By 7:00 a.m., I should be backing the car down the driveway if I want to be at my desk on time. I bring my coffee with me in a thermos and the newspapers in my backpack to read over lunch.

I regard any kind of traffic slow-down as anathema. Don’t get me wrong: I really love to drive. But I will take any route, no matter how far out of the way it is, just to stay in motion. The thought of hours trapped in the horror known as Morning Drive Time was daunting.

However, over the course of the past three months, I have been seduced by the beauty I see through my windshield each morning. Perhaps not the urban and much more familiar leg of the journey, which passes through West Orange, Newark, and Irvington. But once I reach the Raritan Bay it becomes an ever-changing, entrancing spectacle.

 

Main Street, West Orange, NJ - the first leg.

The winter sun is just rising above the horizon when I cross the Driscoll Bridge over the Raritan, silhouetting the 1926 swing-span metal truss Victory Bridge in the mists hovering over the river. Looking in the other direction, I can see the city of New Brunswick, 10 miles distant, above the clouds of seagulls that rise from the peninsula just west of the bridge.

The historic Victory Bridge over the Raritan River,
between Perth Amboy and Sayreville, New Jersey (1924 -1926).

A few miles south of the Raritan Bay lies Cheesequake State Park, a 1,610-acre preserve that straddles the Garden State Parkway in Middlesex County. For years, I thought that “Cheesequake” was just the name of the Parkway rest stop near mile marker 123. Certainly not a vast and serene wetland landscape with an interesting history.

The park was authorized by the New Jersey legislature in 1932, but money for the transformation of former the Favier brothers' farmstead was not committed until 1937. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was enlisted to demolish the 3-story Civil War mansion and other farm buildings, and then it set about establishing the network of trails and park roads, building shelters, fireplaces, and other park structures.

The landscape near Cheesequake State Park.

Cheesequake is unique because not only is it caught between a densely urban area to the north and rural Monmouth County, but it also lies in a transitional zone between two different ecosystems – coastal and uplands. In fact, the name “Cheesequake” reportedly derives from a Lenni-Lenape word meaning “upland.” If you venture into the heart of the preserve, you can find open fields; saltwater and freshwater marshes; a white cedar swamp; stands of vegetation similar to that found in the Pinelands much farther to the south; and a northeastern hardwood forest -- all this in one relatively small area.

A few miles further south, between Exits 120 and 117, the Parkway passes over Matawan Creek and the marshes and streams that are part of this tidal estuary. Matawan Creek became infamous in 1916 as the site of two of several shark attacks along the Jersey shore that formed the basis of Peter Benchley’s novel and later film, Jaws. Unfortunately, the towns near Matawan Creek were heavily damaged during the storm, as the waters of the Raritan Bay surged up the waterway.

By this point in my ride, I am only 10 minutes away from my destination. The sun is blinding -- just high enough to be above the trees, but not high enough to be blocked by the visor, no matter which way I twist it. 

Horse country near Middletown, NJ.

I leave the Parkway near Red Bank and take the road that leads into the horse country of Monmouth County. Sure, I knew about Monmouth Park Racetrack in Oceanport; the United States Equestrian Center at Hamilton Farms in Gladstone; and of course the annual steeplechase at Far Hills, NJ – famous to many non-horse people because of the participation of Jackie Kennedy Onassis. But this urbanist from North Jersey never suspected that the middle of New Jersey is a Mecca of horse culture, looking more like Kentucky than anything this far east of the Mississippi deserves.

I am sure that my hour-long daily commute will get old after a while, but for the moment, I feel sufficiently rewarded, not only by seeing the world at dawn (a previously rare occurrence), but also by the magnificent landscapes that unfold each morning around my car windows. It’s nature’s way of compensating, I suppose, for having to get up so damn early.

Morning Landscape from the Garden State Parkway.

Resources:

Cheesequake State Park, State of New Jersey. Official website. http://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/parks/cheesequake.html

Far Hills [N.J.] Race Meeting. Official website. http://farhillsrace.org/

Horse Park of New Jersey at Stone Tavern. Official Website. http://www.horseparkofnewjersey.com/welcome.html

“Purchase Land for Cheesequake Park.” Matawan [N.J.] Journal. 27 January 1938: 2. http://173.12.11.248/data/1925-49/1938/1938-01-27.pdf

United States Equestrian Team Foundation, Hamilton Farm, Gladstone, NJ. Official Website. http://www.uset.org/home.php

Victory Bridge, Spanning Raritan River at New Jersey Route 35, Perth Amboy, Middlesex County, NJ. Historic American Engineering Record. Record No: HAER NJ-120. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/nj1642/

Wright Kevin, “An Introduction to New Jersey’s Natural Parks and Forest Reservations.” A Century of Forest Stewardship in New Jersey 1905-2005 (2005). http://www.newtonnj.net/pdf/NJParks_Forest05.pdf

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Old Cottage and the Sea - Part 2

Hurricane Sandy's projected storm surge in southern
New Jersey (October 29, 2012). Courtesy of WNYC.org.

I waited out Hurricane Sandy in my home in northern New Jersey, while the storm ravaged the coastline. The shore towns were under a mandatory evacuation order – something especially important to observe on barrier islands like Ocean City, where danger comes from both the sea and the bay.

Back at home in my northern suburb, well inland, I assumed full preparedness mode for the second time. After tying down all the outdoor furniture, I moved all of my computers, boxes of critical files and project binders from my third floor office to a pile in the front parlor. I spent the night of the superstorm sleepless on my living room couch, possessed by a vision of me lying on my bed on the second floor, crushed under the fallen boughs of one of the 150 year-old pin oaks that line the driveway. I didn't think much about the house in Ocean City – I'd done as much as I could do, after all.

Damage Report

The next morning, I was relieved to see our neighborhood had survived intact, except for one large tree that had fallen at the bottom of the street. We still had power, unlike 80% of northern New Jersey. I spent the day moving my office back upstairs, box by box. I checked in with an Ocean City friend who had evacuated inland. She reported that her family was fine. I didn't bother to call my neighbors in OC -- I expected that they had evacuated, too. I would have to wait to find out how my house had fared. 

The first Ocean City report came on Wednesday, two days after the storm. Major cleanup efforts required that access be limited to the island, but finally the police had opened it up to residents. We needed to show identification and proof of residency before you could enter the 9^th Street causeway. I was frustrated by the news reports on OC - my section of town was never mentioned. “Things must be bad, very bad,” I thought. ”They can't even get up to the north end of the island....”

A beach front home at the north end of Ocean City after Super Storm Sandy.

Later in the day, neighbors who had ridden out the storm on the island called to say that my cottage looked fine, although it had taken on some 2 feet of water during the flooding. The eye of the storm had passed just north of Ocean City, which spared us from the worst of the storm surge that battered coastal towns north of us. The house is seven blocks from the sea, so it was the bay that had inundated my house, bubbling up through the storm sewers and percolating up through the wet sand under my house. Well, at least it didn't float away, I thought. Later I learned that this was not such a far-fetched idea.

Having breathed a sign of relief, I didn't intend to go to OC for a few days. I was still focused on putting my office back to rights. My good friend, however – a native of the island and a veteran of several hurricanes there – urged me to put that all aside and get down to the island immediately.

“You've got to get down here,” she said, her voice exasperated. “You have to get the carpets and drywall out of there before the mold sets in.” Horrified by the thought of that black stuff growing all over everything, I threw some work clothes into a duffle bag and left that afternoon for Ocean City.

It was Thursday, Day 3 after the storm. Before I arrived, my friend and a neighbor had opened the windows to ventilate the house. They had been amazingly kind - they rolled up an area rug soggy with bay water and carried it outside. It weighed a ton. I was so grateful.

Living room after SS Sandy, showing level of floodwater.

There is no odor quite so sickly-sweet as a house saturated with stale floodwater. You can smell it 50 feet away. It carries with it the oil and dirt from the street, toxins, bacteria, and sometimes even raw sewage, although our section was spared that nightmare. 

The wall-to-wall carpeting in my living room was squishy with the skanky water, as were the upholstered frames of my two brand-new couches. I had moved the cushions upstairs before the storm, but the couches were too heavy. In my haste to leave, I had left the slipcovers on the frames – “Well, that was stupid,” I said out loud, to no one in particular. The dining room still had a puddle under the dining table, but the new mahogany flooring looked otherwise intact. Thankfully, the weather had turned cold, so that no mold had appeared yet anywhere that I could see.

I began to equip myself for the task of cleaning up the mess. Usually I love my shopping trips to the hardware store down here – it always marks the beginning of some interesting cottage project. This, however, was not fun. It was driven by desperation. The stench of floodwater permeated my nest, my haven, my blessed retreat. I couldn't rest until it had been ripped out and carted off to the dumpsters that stood around town. 
 

Dumpsters were placed around Ocean City to collect cleanup debris.

The first purchase was an N-95 mask/respirator, which protects against inhaling mold spores – it was the main fashion statement of Ocean City that week. No self-respecting islander could be seen without it. I threw three boxes of heavy duty garbage bags into the shopping cart – they were the last boxes on the shelf - as well as a fancy utility knife to cut the wet wallboard away from the dry sections. The final items thrown in were several pairs of heavy duty waterproof gloves. When I returned to the cottage, I immediately donned my work clothes and safety equipment. I retrieved the steel-toed boots that I keep in my car and laced them up. I would not take them off for the next five days, except when I slept.

The Cleanup

During cleanup, I took the walls down to the framing. I carted out bag after bag of wet insulation and  drywall. The wall board had to be cut out to a height 2 ft. above the flood level, since the water wicked upwards through the absorbent wall board. I discovered that in my frenzy to leave before the storm, I had totally ignored my downstairs utility closet, where I stored my brand new toolbox and my tidy, newly reorganized plastic boxes of screws, washers, picture hooks and other hardware. I discovered that they were filled to the brim with dirty water. I dumped out the boxes, hoping that my beloved tools would eventually dry off and be useful again, although the little stuff was a total loss. I also cleared out some 43 cans of used paint - some more than 10 years old. Only the gods know why I kept those!

The still-wet contents of the utility closet.

I worked on cleanup from early morning until around 4:30 pm, when the November light faded. Everyone on the island was similarly occupied – people in their N-95 masks were cleaning out storefronts, homes, and garages. I saw more neighbors out and about than I had ever seen in the 10 years I had owned the house. We chatted about our damage over brief, but good-natured, "we're-all-in-this-together" pleasantries.

Exposed original framing of the living room.

As physically challenging as the clean-up was, the payoff for me was learning the story of the cottage, written in the layers I peeled away. In one corner, I found some ersatz wood paneling that had been installed over a section of original 19^th C. plaster and lath. Where the lath had been removed, a piece of greenboard was nailed onto the studs, probably to “even out the layers.” Over the whole layer cake of materials, someone had put up panels of gyp board.

One of the ca. 1950s layers and corroded electrical receptacle.

The built-in ca. 1950s bookcase that covered one wall was constructed on top of (yes, on top of ... ) a layer of orange wall-to-wall carpeting from a previous generation. The orange fuzz that peeked out from under the bookshelves was still oozing that stale wetness over the floor. The subfloor was plywood – no doubt a re-do from previous damage. And, last but not least, after my neighbor had helped remove the plywood, we discovered the weirdest assembly of floor joists underneath – some were old ones sistered together; some were new pine insertions. The center floor support was a plank resting on occasional cinder blocks. I hesitated to look at the foundation.

The bottom half of the original 1880s framing in the living room having been fully revealed, I moved on to the dining room. The mahogany flooring was in great shape, but the walls, like those in the living room, were a confection of historical layers. Drywall covered a rustic wainscot of random board-and-batten. It looked like the owner had used whatever size planking was available. Beneath that, a layer of paper, which appeared to date from the early 20^th C, probably some time after the cottage had been moved to its present site.

The mahogany floor in the dining room came through unscathed.

The most dismaying revelation in the dining room was the slash of daylight between the studs at the base of the north wall. The sill – the framing that sits on the foundation and supports the building – had obviously rotted away at that spot. "Uh oh," my heart murmured. What if the front room sill also suffered from the same malady? I refused to dwell on that possibility. Getting back to normal was no longer just a question of replacing drywall. This was getting more serious.

What to do?

The trauma of removing and carting away smelly, soggy drywall had inspired me, like Scarlett O'Hara, to vow "Never again!" I still believed the building should not be elevated, since that would alter its historic relationship to the site - a bad thing. I am a historic preservation specialist, so my cottage is not only a place to relax, but it's also my laboratory, where the choices I make reflect the same preservation standards that govern my clients' projects. It's a life-sized example of how the principles work in practice.

I began to immerse myself in publications that promised to make buildings more resilient to flooding. Most of these are produced by FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency), whose publications on water-resistant materials, wet- and dry-floodproofing, elevating buildings have influenced a generation of municipalities and building owners. Also extremely helpful was the insights from contractors from the island, who had considerable experience in what worked and what didn't in the coastal areas. I am fortunate to have a native Ocean City resident as my contractor and friend, who has provide enormous support to my effort.

Still life with garbage bag.

The plans for rebuilding are still taking shape - I feel it necessary to examine every option while the building lays open and I can see all the framing. It's an optimum time to upgrade the brown, 1960s triple-track windows with insulated 2/2 replacements, similar to the ones I had put in the addition. It's also a good time to replace the front door - a wood veneer relic of the same era as the windows - maybe with a fiberglass door that would be more flood-resistant. I'll probably put a mahogany floor in the living room, since the one in the dining room performed so well. And I finally can rebuild the stairs and bannister to the second floor, which has always been high on my list of future renovations. As for the foundation and floor joists - well, that's the big issue we have yet to solve. 

I am hoping that we can figure all this out and get it finished before summer comes. I miss my little cottage and the beautiful New Jersey shore. 

(Update 11/8/13: The next installment of The Old Cottage and the Sea (Part 3 - Floodproofing) has been posted. It walks through the strategies and treatments for making the cottage more resilient in the event of future floods. It starts with FEMA guidance, but then applies it to the real life issues faced in the case study. The decisions may surprise the purists among you, but the result is a historic building that is better prepared for a future disaster.)

 

The Old Cottage and the Sea - Part 1

Ocean City Camp Meeting Cottage (ca. 1885), Ocean City, NJ
Before Hurricane Sandy

It was only 10 a.m. and I was already exhausted. I awoke at 4:30 that morning and immediately turned on the television coverage of Hurricane Sandy, a huge storm system bearing down on the New Jersey shore. By 5:00 I was fully dressed and sitting with my coffee in front of the television, switching from station to station, intently monitoring the weather maps.

At first absent-mindedly, I started to tidy up and put things away while I listened to the reports – first one small task, then another. Almost subconciously, I gradually shifted into full-fledged evacuation mode, increasingly consumed by a desire to get off the island as soon as possible. I dreaded being trapped in an endless line of evacuees snaking up the Garden State Parkway.

I started securing the patio first. I put the new slat bench into the rear building, but there was nothing I could do with a heavy mahogany lawn chair. I turned it over and left it next to the back wall. I hoped that there the wind wouldn't catch it - or that it wouldn't float away. I took down the little birdhouse and dumped out the last of the seeds onto the concrete. I hoped some little bird would take advantage of this snack before the storm hit. I took the little stone gargoyle from its perch on a stack of flagstones and moved it onto a high shelf in the storage closet. I hoped his protective powers would retain their effectiveness while he was cooped up in there. There was a whole lot of hoping going on.

I hadn't intended to be so hyper about this storm. I am usually pretty cool during such crises, very efficient, practical. But overnight, my anxiety levels had begun to rise. That day - Saturday - the Governor declared a day of “voluntary evacuation.” On Sunday it became mandatory. I took a shower, and started to pack up my duffle bag, my computer, and my cameras.

Everything moveable that I could wrangle up the stairs was now on the second floor, or at least in the new kitchen addition, which had been built up on pilings and was fully FEMA-compliant. I fretted over putting the artwork on the floor there next to the sliding door, but figured that if they got wet, I would have a lot more to worry about than a few prints. I turned off the water, but forgot to turn off the electric main, which would have been a good idea. Typically the city turns off (or loses) power during coastal storms. I worried about what would happen if it turned on when the electrical outlets were still wet.

I left my little cottage at 10:30 Saturday morning and headed north to prepare to ride out the storm in my home in north Jersey. The slowly-moving storm's first high tide arrived on Sunday night, washing through many of the empty streets of Ocean City. By Monday's high tides, the bay would have gurgled into the first floor of my little cottage, inundating the upholstered frames of two brand new couches and moving up the empty bookshelves. If it gets up the to third shelf from the top, all the books will be lost. But then, if the water gets up that high, the kitchen, the electrical panel, appliances, and HVAC systems will also be under water. It promises to be one of the worst storms since the early 1900s, reports say. But for me – well, it's my first real flood. And I was nervous.

The Cottage

When I bought the cottage in Ocean City some 11 years ago, it was in sad shape. It was one of the original twenty-two camp meeting cottages – the “wooden tents” – that had replaced canvas tents during Ocean City's early years. The City was founded as a Methodist camp meeting by the Lake Brothers. Some people call my cottage “a Lake House.” It was built around 1885.

The Ocean City camp meeting became became so popular that the area around the large wooden tabernacle that sheltered the preachers grew into a summer city. The Lake brothers, not inclined to become city managers, sold off most of the land around the tabernacle, which incorporated as the City of Ocean City. The wooden tents were sold off and moved to other parts of town by their new owners in the late 1900s. My cottage has stood on the same spot where it came to rest some time around 1905.

The few remaining Lake Houses that exist in Ocean City are not easily recognizable. It's not like Ocean Grove, another Methodist Camp Meeting community farther north on the Jersey shore, where much grander versions of the typical cottage are still grouped together near the Auditorium, their 2-story porches ornamented with effusive gingerbread. No, Ocean City's more modest cottages were sold off and carted away by their new owners. Today, they are spread out around the city, having been altered over the years to meet the needs their new owners.

After the closing, I began the transformation of my little foothold at the Jersey shore. The house was so small that no project seemed overly complicated or daunting. Vinyl siding covered everything, including the ceiling of the front porch, which was sagging from the weight of ice water that had leaked in through the roof. My son and I took crowbars to the vinyl siding that spring, discovering original wood clapboard and decorative wood shingles underneath. The deck and railings of the upper front porch were so rickety that I forbade anyone from stepping out on it until they were repaired.

The Cottage before exterior renovation (2002).

During the summer, I had the porch rebuilt with the design help of a friend who was an historic architect. I painted the clapboard  a soft yellow. The pitiful jalousied windows on the second floor, where the winter wind blew in through the gaps created by missing glass louvers, were replaced with 6-light awning windows. I sent the detritus left by the previous owner off to the recycling center, charity flea markets, and the dump. I repaired the interior trim, hung bamboo roll-up shades, and painted everything white. The mice, which had enjoyed free rein there for several years, finally found other digs. While not perfect, the house was now at least habitable.

It stayed that way for several years, until finally the kitchen and bathroom wing at the rear of the building – a decrepit single story affair with long shed roof that tilted off to the side – started to leak, sag, and generally fail. With the help of an architect and several friends who kibitzed from the sidelines, I designed a 2- story kitchen addition with a large master bedroom above, along with a full bathroom and lavatory-laundry area on the first floor. It was all perfect.

Elevated rear addition (2011).

I decided to take a break before renovating the historic part - it had been a long time since I was able to enjoy the house without interruption. It's fortunate that I waited. I learned a lot in the interim. Buildings at the coast need a very different treatment than buildings inland.

Designing for a Flood

Because Ocean City is part of the federal National Flood Insurance Program, all new construction must meet the requirements for flood mitigation under its “storm mitigation plan.” New residential structures must be elevated about the Base Flood Elevation (BFE), as determined in those famous FEMA flood maps that we've heard so much about lately. In my part of the island, the BFE was about 4 feet above the adjacent grade level, or 10 feet above high water mark at high tide. The future addition would be built to comply, but the historic cottage was exempted from strict compliance. The first floor of the oldest section, however, was built just a few inches off the wet sand.

We had discovered this condition when a section of the dining room floor had given way and I commissioned the floor to be rebuilt. Once it had been opened up and my Irish contractor and I understood the situation, we decided to rebuild the floor to resist moisture and mold, if ever flooded.

The neighborhood had been flooded at least once before, according to the neighbors. I'm sure it happened many more times than that in years past. Most of the older houses on my block had been built there in the first decade of the 20th Century on concrete block foundations about 2-3 feet high. Not as high as today's standards require, perhaps, but still a measure of protection. My little cottage, however, did not enjoy even that minimal safeguard.

Dining Room with mahogany flooring (2011).

Our plan for the dining room floor was based on my experience in Louisiana after Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. I spent three months there in early 2006, working for FEMA as a historic preservation specialist. I had seen what happens to buildings after a flood. Mold is the big enemy: it can be extremely toxic, if left to grow unimpeded. And it LOVES to grow on absorbent materials – fabric, soft woods, paper.

As a result, we designed the structural system and subfloor with pressure-treated (PT) wood, which resists moisture. Instead of the usual layer of paper between finish floor and subfloor, we lay down PT sleepers to allow for air to circulate between. Finally, we laid a finish flooring of tongue-in-groove mahogany, which is moisture and decay resistant, and does not “cup” (deform) after it has been saturated. And it was beautiful.

Little did we know that our theories about its “flood resistance” would be tested so soon.

(Link to Part 2)

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September at Cape May Point, NJ

Cape May Lighthouse (1859), Cape May Point State Park, NJ

Late summer in the coastal marshes of New Jersey is a thoughtful, serene season. A certain quiet falls over the wetlands. Nature's colors become rich and subdued. Birds are busy preparing for winter and the long flight south. Newly-hatched Monarch butterflies flit from sunflower to sunflower. Honey bees sip nectar from the last of the flowers that will bloom before the frost. We savor these last weeks of life and color before autumn's cool, rainy days transform the landscape to shades of brown and gray and we retreat indoors. 

Wetlands and meadows at Cape May Point State Park.

Cape May Point State Park is a perfect place to enjoy these last fine days of summer. The park is located at the tip of New Jersey just west of the City of Cape May, although the post office address is Lower Township, Cape May County. It boasts a handsome, recently restored lighthouse (1859), a once-hidden, now fully exposed WWII concrete bunker built as part of the Harbor Defense Project of 1942, and several miles of boardwalks and trails through the coastal preserve.

Cape May is on the Atlantic Flyway, the migratory route taken by East Coast birds in the spring and fall. As a result, the area is replete with observation points where birders and photographers can observe hundreds of species as they stop to rest on their way along the coast. Beginning September 1, Cape May Point S.P. begins its “hawk count,” which continues through November. The NJ Audubon Society’s annual “Autumn Birding Festival,” which always takes place during the last week of October, is prime time for viewing and draws hundreds of bird lovers to the area. 

Main Observation Platform, overlooking Shallow Pond West.

Not being much of a birder myself, I was very content to poke around the lighthouse and walk the trails, admiring the autumn color. The visitor center, where one can orient oneself to the natural features of the coastal areas, had the most remarkable sight. Hanging from a wire net across the top of a glass fish tank were about 30 green chrysalises of the Monarch Butterfly, which flies in great multitudes from Canada and the Northeast United States to Mexico every year.  

From the World Wildlife Fund:

Monarch butterflies embark on a marvelous migratory phenomenon. They travel between 1,200 and 2,800 miles or more from the United States and Canada to central Mexican forests. There the butterflies hibernate in the mountain forests, where a less extreme climate provides them a better chance to survive. The Monarch butterfly is known by scientists as Danaus plexippus, which in Greek literally means "sleepy transformation." The name evokes the species' ability to hibernate and metamorphize. Adult Monarchs possess two pairs of brilliant orange-red wings, featuring black veins and white spots along the edges. Males, who possess distinguishing black dots along the veins of their wings, are slightly bigger than females. Each adult butterfly lives only about four to five weeks.

One pupa was hatching just as we arrived. It emerged, looking damp and a bit worn out. Within just a moment or two, it spread wide its brilliant orange and black wings to let them dry. Another butterfly in the case looked perfectly acclimated and ready for its new life of flight.

Monarch butterfly on Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus)

“Every so often we take the new ones outside the back door and release them,” said the staff member behind the counter. Although undoubtedly she had seen this miracle many times, her sense of joy over this seasonal rebirth was still evident. 

Swamp Rose-Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos)

We then set out on a trek through the woodlands and marshes. We first opted for the shortest route - .5 miles long, which took us through woodlands with trees and shrubs. Some of the specimens I had never seen before “in the wild,” like the Persimmon. This fruit tree is uncommon in New Jersey, appearing mostly in flood plains and lowlands in the southern part of the state. And don't even think of picking the fruit and taking a bite, at least until it turns brown and starts to decompose, or you will get a very bitter mouthful.

Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana)

There were other shrubs I had never seen before, like the Winged Sumac. This variety is native to eastern North America, like its prolific cousin, the Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina) that we see along highways in the northeast U.S. The "drupes" of the Winged Sumac offer food to the birds. The occasional deer will munch on its leaves and stems, which also offer cover for many woodland animals. Apparently this has its folk-medicine uses, too, and was also used to flavor tea.

Winged Sumac (Rhus copallinum)

Another spectacular shrub I had never seen before was Arrowwood Viburnum (Viburnum dentatum), which had deep blue berries on red stems and toothed leaves. The woody stems from this plant were reportedly used by the Native Americans to make shafts for their arrows - hence the name. The flowers attract butterflies and the fall berries are eaten by the birds.

Arrowwood Viburnum (Viburnum dentatum).

Others were very familiar from my many years in New Jersey, like the American Pokeweed, which is eaten by birds, although toxic to mammals (like us), unless properly prepared. The purple juice has had many uses.  The Native Americans used it to decorate their horses. According to some unconfirmed sources, the U.S. Constitution was written using pokeberry ink, as well as were many letters written home during the Civil War.

American Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana).

Still others I could not identify, even with continued research. For one spectacular beauty (photo below), I needed the help of the park naturalist. He informed me that the gorgeous plant with the multicolored berries - white, blue, green, lavender, pink - was really an exotic member of the grape family native to Asia called the "Porcelain Berry" (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata (Maxim.) Trautv.). This vigorous vine was once actively cultivated in American gardens in the late 1800s, but rapidly spread beyond the garden fences and into the wilds. This, the naturalist told me, is one of the aggressive, invasive species that he works to eliminate, since if left to itself will smoother the native species on the site.

Porcelain Berry (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata (Maxim.) Trautv.)

The path then went past several lakes. On the bank of each lake was a wooden observation platform that extended a bit into the water. Around the edge of the platform were seats where you could sit quietly, unobserved, and watch the beautiful swans, ducks, and other water fowl glide by.

Ducks on Lighthouse Pond East, looking N.

We were so entranced by the short walk that at the fork we opted to continue on the middle walk of 1.3 miles, which followed an unpaved pathway through the upland woods. This route traversed the reforestation area, where there is an active campaign to re-introduce native flora to the preserve. Evidence of new plantings and others several years old are visible throughout the area.

Matt, the naturalist at Cape May Point, develops his list of plantings from other managed habitats in the area. Good resources for him have been the Cape May Natural Wildlife Refuge, about 30 miles north of the Point, and Higbee Beach Wildlife Management Area, located a few miles north of the Point, on the Delaware Bay. The plants he selects for the reforestation effort are native to the Northeast U.S. He often finds examples of native trees that are best suited to the coastal environment from the streets of the historic City of Cape May. The species selected for the Point are not only hardy, but also provide luscious color and for the eye and a wide selection of berries to feed the avian multitudes that come through Cape May each year.

It is interesting to add this effort to others that seek to re-introduce native flora in areas being overwhelmed by invasive exotics. At Duke Farms in Hillsborough, NJ, for instance, there has been a massive effort to eliminate exotics, re-create native habitats, and reintroduce native species like the American Chestnut in hopes of preserving our native flora.

Reforestation Area, where native plants are being reinstated.

The path ultimately circled back towards the beach, crossing small streams and drainage canals where a different kind of life abounds.

Baby turtles!

When we finally arrived at the beach, we climbed to the top of the dune to see the WWII bunker, also known as “Battery 223.” (It and the Cape May Lighthouse are both on the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places.)  It looked like something out of Star Wars – perhaps a dead war machine of the Galactic Empire or an outpost on Tatooine. 

Once upon a time, the battery was inland about 900 feet, surrounded by earth and covered by sod, so it looked like a hill from the air. Eventually erosion took its toll, and by 2001, it was high and dry – sitting above the sand. Beach replenishment, however, has brought it back to earth. And, if the tide is out, they say that you can now see the gun turrets.

Battery 223, Cape May Point Beach.

So, there was a bit of everything for me and my two companions – birds for the birders, historic sites for the architecturally-minded, and beautiful autumn flora for the leaf-lovers.  A lovely day was had by all. Cape May Point is a must see, if you are in the area.

Late afternoon, Cape May Lighthouse.

Resources:

Battery 223 (ID#4770), Beachfront, Cape May State Park, Lower Township, NJ. SHPO Opinion: 4/29/1998; NJ Register of Historic Places: 4/14/2008; National Register: 6/25/2008 (NR Reference # 08000555). NJDEP, Historic Preservation Office. URL: http://www.state.nj.us/dep/hpo/1identify/nrsr_lists/cape_may.pdf  accessed 30 September 2012.

“Cape May Autumn Birding Festival.” New Jersey Audubon Society. Official website. URL: http://www.njaudubon.org/SectionCapeMayBirdObservatory/CMBOHome.aspx accessed 30 September 2012.

Cape May Lighthouse, Cape May Point (ID#998). SR: 6/15/1973; NR: 11/12/1973 (NR Reference #: 73001090). NJDEP, Historic Preservation Office. URL: http://www.state.nj.us/dep/hpo/1identify/nrsr_lists/cape_may.pdf  accessed 30 September 2012.

“Cape May National Wildlife Refuge.” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Official Website. URL accessed 30 September 2012: http://www.fws.gov/northeast/capemay/pdf/refuge_brochure.pdf  and http://www.fws.gov/northeast/capemay/

“Cape May Point State Park.” New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Parks and Forestry. Official Website. URL accessed 30 September 2012: http://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/parks/capemay.html

Fox, Karen. "Higbee Beach ... a journey back to Nature." CapeMay.com (June 2008). URL: http://www.capemay.com/Editorial/june08/HighbeeBeach.htm accessed 4 September 2012.

Headington, Bill. “Need a Bunker? This One’s Ready to Go.” CapeMay.com. Online Magazine (1 September 2001). URL: http://capemay.com/magazine/2001/09/need-a-bunker-this-ones-ready-to-go/ accessed 30 September 2012.

“The Nature Center of Cape May.” New Jersey Audubon Society. Official website. URL: http://www.njaudubon.org/SectionCenters/SectionNCCM/AbouttheCenter.aspx accessed 30 September 2012.

Stinchcomb Richard W.  “Battery 223, Cape May, New Jersey.”  Personal website. URL: http://www.stinch.com/military/battery223.html accessed 3 October 2012.

"Species: Monarch Butterfly." World Wildlife Fund. Official Website. URL: http://worldwildlife.org/species/monarch-butterfly accessed 30 September 2012.

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