By F. Lawrence Fleming
The resort settlement of Island Heights was, quite literally, pried away from Dover Township, New Jersey (present-day Toms River Township), mainly through the determined effort of Jacob B. Graw, a Methodist minister from Camden, New Jersey, who owned and worked a small farm in the eastern outskirts of the village of Toms River.
Farm life was not child’s play in those days, for there were comparatively few of the modern appliances which now make the life of the agriculturist more pleasant. Yet there were undeniable pleasures in plenty, and chances for mental improvement during the winter night hours which were not unimproved. Dr. Graw leased the salt hay meadows opposite where Island Heights now stands, in the summer of 1877, and he occasionally rode down with his farmer to inspect the crop. While standing on the south bank of the river he was impressed with the bold and picturesque beauty of the bluffs on the opposite side of the stream. Here he received the first suggestions which culminated in the inception of the resort known as Island Heights.
Rev. J. B. Graw, while presiding elder on the New Brunswick District, in the summer of 1877, having business on the south side of Toms River, looking across at the north shore, was impressed with the thought that it would be a good location for a camp meeting and summer resort. Afterward, in examining the property, his thought was intensified. He then enlisted the co-operation of Rev. Samuel Van Sant, then presiding elder on the Trenton District, Rev. Geo. K. Morris, Rev. Geo. B. Wight, Rev. D. H. Schock, Rev. Robert Givin, Rev. A. Lawrence, Rev. C. E. Hill, Rev. John Wagg, Rev. W. H. Hoag, Rev. Geo. Reed, Rev. A. E. Ballard, Rev. Geo. H. Neal, Rev. Wm. Pittenger, and a number of laymen and prominent business men of Philadelphia, Camden, Trenton, Mt. Holly and Toms River. These parties were then incorporated with the corporate title of “Island Heights Association.”
The title to the property was dated 1 July 1878, and the first camp meeting was advertised for August 13th. During these six weeks under the direction of Rev. John Simpson, who was called to the position of superintendent, streets were graded, an office building and a large restaurant building (now the Island House), were erected; the camp ground arranged and seated, and the camp meeting began on time under the direction of Rev. Samuel Vansant, then presiding elder of the district. On the first Sunday afternoon of the camp meeting. Dr. Thomas O’Hanlon of Pennington Seminary preached a notable sermon on the subject of scepticism. At the close of the service a prominent business man, somewhat sceptical, said to Dr. Graw, ”I wonder if there was any other man but me, in the congregation, whom that sermon fitted.” The camp meeting was continued by Island Heights Association for a number of years, during which many of the strong men of pulpit fame preached. [A. C. Graw, The Life of Rev. J. B. Graw, D.D., Camden, New Jersey (1901), pp. 112-116.]
Before the inception of the Methodist resort of Island Heights—the name “Island Heights” having been chosen by Reverend Graw himself—this picturesque “island,” dominated by the steep bluffs that tower sixty feet above the northern shore of the Toms River estuary, was known as Dillon’s Island. In the early eighteenth century, it was called Dr. Johnstone’s Island. Although not readily apparent, Island Heights is, or rather, was actually an island, cut off from mainland New Jersey by a narrow and shallow tidal estuary called Dillon’s Creek. Through the long years, the estuary has been filled in at the western end of the island; however, local legend asserts that it was entirely navigable for small, shallow-draft vessels as late as in the eighteenth century.
Dr. John Johnstone (1661-1732), a pharmacist from Edinburgh, was, in 1687, the proprietor of a 500-acre tract of land along the northern shore of the Toms River estuary of which the aforementioned island, comprising about 280 acres, was a part. The entire tract of land had originally been granted to Dr. Johnstone’s father-in-law, George Scot, Laird of Pilochie, by the East Jersey Proprietors in 1685. The young Dr. Johnstone, along with George Scot and his family, and about 200 other Presbyterian dissidents, emigrated from Scotland onboard the HMS Henry and Francis on 5 September 1685. The ship arrived in Perth Amboy, Province of East Jersey, in December, after more than twelve stormy weeks at sea. About sixty of the passengers and crew on this voyage had died from typhus and had been buried at sea. Among those who never made it to the New World were George Scot and his wife, Margaret. Scot’s son, William, and one of his daughters, Euphemia, did, however, survive the voyage. Dr. Johnstone married Euphemia Scot in 1686, and on 13 January 1687 a confirmation of the grant that had first been made to George Scot was issued to John Johnstone by the East Jersey Proprietors. It is highly unlikely that Dr. Johnstone ever caught so much as a glimpse of his estate along the shore of the Toms River estuary. In addition to the 500 acres he had inherited in right of his wife, Euphemia Johnstone (née Scot), he was granted another 30,000 acres by the Proprietors in 1701. He thereby became one of the most prosperous landowners in East Jersey, and he soon began to dabble in colonial politics. He was elected to the New Jersey General Assembly, and thus he probably had little time to spare for any serious land development and settlement. He eventually moved with his wife and twelve children from Perth Amboy to New York City, where he was elected mayor in 1714. He moved back to Perth Amboy in 1721 and was elected to the New Jersey General Assembly for a second term of office, a term which lasted until his death in 1732.
The next owner of Dr. Johnstone’s Island, after Dr. Johnstone, would appear to have been James Dillon (ca 1720-after 1762), for whom records of land transactions along the Toms River have survived, although none that specifically concern the acquisition of Dr. Johnstone’s Island from the executors of Dr. Johnstone’s estate. According to the record of his marriage in 1739, James Dillon was a gentleman of Salem County, New Jersey. (I have not been able to find any information whatsoever concerning his parents, although it seems likely that they would have been Irish Quakers who had emigrated from England to Salem County, New Jersey, subsequent to the establishment of the Fenwick Colony in 1675.) James Dillon and his wife Mary had two sons and two daughters.
The eldest son, John, was captain in the Monmouth County militia in 1776 when he was captured by British forces and imprisoned for two years in New York City. Following his release from prison, John Dillon became a privateer in the service of the New Jersey Assembly.
William, the younger son, and obviously the black sheep of the family, also became a privateer, probably about the time his brother was imprisoned by the British, but it is conjectured that he also ran contraband cargoes from the Barnegat Bay area to the vessels of London Traders at Sandy Hook, New Jersey. It is also conjectured that he acted as pilot for the small fleet of armed whale-boats that transported a raiding party of Associated Loyalists from Sandy Hook to the mouth of the Toms River on the eve of 24 March, 1782. (I have found no contemporary document that definitively proves that he took part in this action; the damning evidence is purely circumstantial.) The following morning, the small local garrison of Monmouth County militia was quickly overwhelmed by the Loyalist raiders; the defenders were killed or captured, and many of the buildings in the village of Toms River were burned to the ground.
The daughters of James and Mary Dillon, Margaret and Mary, both married men who would espouse the cause of the rebellion during the American Revolution. Margaret was married to Aaron Buck, a sea captain and privateer during the Revolution, who would appear to have commanded his own vessel out of Toms River. (In any case, it is known that he ran a ship out of Toms River in the early years after the Revolution. He ended his life in 1787 by hanging himself from one of the yardarms of his own ship.) The house of Aaron and Margaret Buck in Toms River was one of the few that were spared from the torch in 1782, presumably because Margaret Buck identified herself to the raiding party as the sister of Captain William Dillon.
Margaret’s sister, Mary Dillon (b. 1734), would appear to have been married to Edward Wilbur (b. 1730), whose brother, John, was one of Monmouth County militiamen who actively defended the village of Toms River during the Loyalist attack in 1782. Edward himself was on sentry duty north of the village at the time and did not take part in the actual fighting. Edward had built a house on the bank of the Toms River, about a mile from the bridge. This house, as well as the house of Aaron Buck, was spared the torch, probably because the Loyalist raiding party did not get that far with the torch. (I have not found definitive proof of a marriage between Edward Wilbur and Mary Dillon; however, Dillon Wilbur [1769-1841], a prominent man in Toms River around the turn of the 18th century, was quite obviously related to a Wilbur/Dillon family. Two of his sons were named James Dillon Wilbur [b. 1797] and John Dillon Wilbur [b. 1803]. (He did not, however, have a son named William Dillon Wilbur—understandably.) It stands to reason that Dillon Wilbur would have been a son of Mary and Edward Wilbur. Dillon Wilbur married Lucretia Bird [1774-1846] in 1795. They had six children. This was the first family to actually live on Dillon’s Island. Their house is still standing at the eastern end of the island, although much changed from what it was in the early nineteenth century.)
There is no documentary evidence to support the contention that William Dillon was a Loyalist. The evidence is entirely circumstantial. I, for one, believe that he was simply a criminally inclined privateer captain who turned to outright piracy in order to further his own private cause; that is to say, to make as much money as he could. On 3 June 1778, William Dillon, along with eleven others, had been sentenced to death by hanging during proceedings at the Monmouth County Courthouse in Freehold, New Jersey. Captain Dillon had been accused and convicted of armed robbery (piracy?). Five of the convicted felons, including Captain Dillon, were pardoned by Governor William Livingston on 22 June 1778 and subsequently released from jail. Two had their death sentences commuted to milder punishment, but five were actually hanged outside the Monmouth County Courthouse in August and September of 1778.
On 16 March 1782, Captain Dillon’s schooner, the Lucy, was captured, confiscated, and subsequently sold at auction by Patriot privateers from Toms River. The captain himself had avoided capture and had fled to New York City. Thirsting for revenge, he complained about the loss of his ship to the former New Jersey governor William Franklin, who was then the newly appointed president of the Associated Board of Loyalists. The Board had already decided to launch a retaliatory expedition to Toms River, and it is generally believed that Captain Dillon was chosen to serve as pilot for the small fleet that was to transport the raiding party from Sandy Hook, New Jersey, to its destination in Toms River.
It’s not unlikely that the Loyalist raiders had simply gone berserk when they burned many of the houses in Toms River to the ground. Although the raid on Toms River had been an act of retribution, destroying the village had probably not been part of the original plan. I think that Captain Dillon was like a spider tangled in its own web. Undoubtedly, he realised that he would be accounted a traitor by the citizens of Dover Township if they discovered the part he had played in the raid; and thus, if he really was present in Toms River during the raid, he probably fled back to New York City directly afterwards.
It is an established fact, however, that William Dillon, whether or not he really was a Loyalist, applied to the British authorities in New York City for resettlement in Canada. He was granted a town lot near St. John in New Brunswick from the British authorities in Canada in April of 1783. I have found no evidence that Captain Dillon had a wife and children. Nonetheless, I believe that a young daredevil rogue such as he would have needed an admiring and compliant wife to whom he could boast about his exploits, and also a family with whom he could share his ill-gotten gains. Be this as it may, life in New Brunswick was anything but comfortable for those who had been resettled there. Captain Dillon returned to Toms River from his exile in 1791 and, unsurprisingly, received a very chilly welcome from the villagers, who were still busy rebuilding their village.
Captain Dillon discovered, probably to his dismay, that he was still legally obliged to pay the debts he had incurred, both before and during the war, and it appears that he was forced to sell Dillon’s Island—known at that time as Toms River Island—to the wealthy merchant John Imlay (1749-1813) of Allentown, New Jersey, by means of a sheriff’s auction. (There is, however, no record of such a transaction.) (John Imlay’s brother was Captain David Imlay [1754-1803], who, in 1781, had commanded the New Jersey State Troops that were stationed in Toms River. He and Captain Dillon must have been well acquainted with one another, although almost certainly as adversaries, rather than compatriots. We may assume that there was little love lost when Captain Dillon fled to New York City following the raid on Toms River. David’s house had been one of those that were set alight.) Subsequently, the property went through a quick succession of new owners. The last of these owners was Abel Middleton (b. 1753) of Upper Freehold, New Jersey, who purchased the property in 1799.
Mr. Middleton eventually partitioned Dillon’s Island into three separate properties: the largest of these properties (ca 160 acres) was acquired in 1839 by Francis W. Brinley (1796-1859) of Perth Amboy, New Jersey; a smaller property had already been acquired in 1829 by James Robinson (1807-1890) and Sarah Applegate Robinson (1813-1898) of Toms River; and the smallest of the properties was eventually acquired in about 1850 by Fletcher Westray (1815-1890), a wealthy merchant from New York City.
The Brinley/Shreve property was purchased by the Island Heights Association in 1878; the Robinson/Hurry property was purchased by the Association three years later. The old Robinson farm on the northern bank of Dillon’s Creek, known at that time as Windsor Park, was acquired by the Association from John Hatfield Robinson (1839-1917), grandson of John Robinson (1777-1834) and Rebecca Applegate Robinson (1782-1847), in 1883 and was added to that tract of land that would in 1887 become the Borough of Island Heights. And finally, the Westray property was purchased by the Association in 1888.
Prior to the Association’s purchase of the Brinley/Shreve property in 1878, the houses in that part of Dover Township—that is, west of Long Swamp Creek and south of East Washington Street—were, according to the F. W. Beers map of 1872, few and far between.
At the bayside termination of the old eastbound road out of Toms River, about midway between Long Point on Dillon’s Island and Coates Point further east, was the house of Joseph Salter (1732-1820), built in 1777. Salter had been a lieutenant colonel in the Monmouth County militia, but had resigned his commission in 1775, after which he was suspected of adhering to the Loyalist cause, an allegation which proved to be unfounded. We may assume that his father, Richard Salter (1699-1762), had acquired the tract of land (about 250 acres) between Dillon’s Creek and Coates Point from the executors of Dr. Johnstone’s estate at about the same time as James Dillon acquired Dr. Johnstone’s Island. The Salter estate was purchased in 1859 by Gavin Brackenridge (1819-1890), a Scotsman, who named his newly acquired property Ballantrae, after the name of his father’s farm in Ayrshire, Scotland. (The wife of Gavin Brackenridge was Ann E. Hurry [1830-1922], daughter of William Whiteside Hurry [1805-1893], who had purchased the James Robinson property on Dillon’s Island in about 1840.) It seems unlikely that Mr. Brackenridge and his family ever lived in the Salter house. (Members of the Salter family were probably still living in this house in 1872.) His place of residence appears to have been Magnolia House, a large hotel that was built in Toms River in 1866, mainly at his instigation. I have not been able to discover the fate of the Salter house. Perhaps it was demolished in the early 1930s when the residential development of the Gilford Park/Bay Shore area was begun; but perhaps it was demolished at a much earlier time. (The Salter house was situated very close to where the Gilford Park Yacht Club is presently located at 700 Riverside Drive.)
Gavin Brackenridge found himself in financial difficulty soon after becoming owner and manager of the Magnolia House Hotel in Toms River. This hotel turned out to have been an unwise investment. In 1870, he sold the western part of the Ballantrae estate to Thomas B. Gilford (1817-1910), a wealthy attorney from New York City. Mr. Gilford renamed his part of the former Salter estate “Holly Rest,” and he commenced the building of a mansion to the northeast of Dillon’s Island for use as a summer residence. This house, along with its various outbuildings, was demolished, probably in the early 1930s. (The Gilford mansion was situated at the present-day road circle where Barnegat Ave converges with Morris Blvd.) (I have not found any reference in local newspapers to a house fire destroying either the Salter house or the Gilford mansion.)
Samuel H. Shreve (1829-1884), a well-to-do civil engineer from New York City, married, as his second wife, Sophia Hurry (1842-1904), daughter of Edmund Cobb Hurry (1807-1875), in 1868, and purchased, possibly as a wedding-day gift, the Francis W. Brinley property on Dillon’s Island. In 1869, he commenced building the first house on this property. This house is still extant and is situated at 103 Oak Ave.
Two more houses were extant on Dillon’s Island in 1872. The “Wilber Tall House,” as it was called in a land survey of 1836, was probably built by Dillon Wilbur (1769-1841) in about 1820. This house is still extant and is situated at 121 East End Ave.
The third house on Dillon’s Island in 1872 was the Westray house, built as a summer residence in about 1860 by Fletcher Westray (1815-1890), a New York City merchant. Colonel Francis J. Crilly (1837-1908), a veteran of the Civil War, who afterwards became a successful merchant in Philadelphia, purchased the Westray residence in 1890, demolished the house, and built in its stead the 3-storey, wood-shingled house that is still extant, situated at 37 Park Ave.
There were, moreover, two houses situated to the north of Dillon’s Creek on the former John Robinson farm (Windsor Park), according to the map of 1872. One of these was the house of Captain John Page (1820-1892) and Henrietta Applegate Page (1830-1905), the sister of Sarah Applegate Robinson. This house was built in about 1840, possibly under the direction of the architect Edmund Cobb Hurry, father of Sophia Hurry Shreve and the younger brother of William Whiteside Hurry, the second owner of the James Robinson property on Dillon’s Island. This house is still extant, and is situated at 30 Garden Ave.
The other house in Winsor Park, situated immediately south of East Washington Street, was owned by Edwin Jackson (1790-1883) and Mary Wilbur Jackson (1805-1894), a daughter of Dillon Wilbur. The original house was built in about 1779 by James Mott (1707-1787), a member of the New Jersey Assembly from Toms River, and was deeded to Edwin Jackson in 1815 by Joseph Salter, who was the Assemblyman’s son-in-law. (It’s interesting to note that Edwin Jackson appears to have resided in the bayside Salter house in his youth.) The James Mott house was significantly rebuilt, and enlarged into a mansion, in about 1868. This mansion was demolished in 1978 to make way for a modern office complex.
In 1878, the year of its incorporation, the Island Heights Association managed to sell 100 building lots to a total sum of $10,000. Land was cleared for a camp-meeting ground; a pavilion was constructed along with thirty camp-meeting cottages. The first two avenues in Island Heights were laid out, and construction was begun of what would be the Edgewater Hotel. By 1880, 100 more lots had been sold, and residential houses were being built on those lots already sold. In 1883, a new branch of the Pennsylvanian Railroad was laid to Island Heights by way of a trestle bridge constructed across the Toms River estuary from Pine Beach, New Jersey. (Interestingly, the train had to drive in reverse over the bridge and into Island Heights Station as there had been no space available at that end of the branch line in which to construct a railway turntable.) Seventeen years later, most of the residential buildings had been finished, and the population of the borough had risen to about 300 people, many of them year-round residents. By 1910, Island Heights was a fully functional residential community with its own government offices, a post office, a train station, a library, an elementary school, a volunteer fire department, and even a yacht club and a lifesaving station.
By 1950, the population had more than doubled, to about 700 people; however, the very unique character of life in Island Heights appears to have remained relatively unchanged from what it had been forty years earlier. It’s true; the influence of the religiously orientated Island Heights Association on local government and law enforcement was all but gone. Delivery of goods to the community on Sundays was no longer prohibited; residents could entertain themselves on Sundays by sailing on the bay without risking condemnation or even arrest; and although the borough of Island Heights was still a dry municipality in the 1950s, the residents were in realty no drier than residents in the adjacent “wet” jurisdictions of Dover Township. The liquor store and watering hole nearest to Island Heights was on the opposite side of East Washington Street in Toms River, and that business was thriving—I know this to be true because my father worked there in the late 1940s, and he would have known.
I was born in Island Heights in rented accommodations; however, my parents bought a house of their own in the adjoining Toms River neighbourhood of Gilford Park/Bayshore in 1952, and that was the house where I actually grew up. Nevertheless, Island Heights was always my preferred childhood haunt. It was only a brisk fifteen-minute’s bicycle ride away, along Elizabeth Avenue to where that street intersected with Gilford Avenue, the eastern border of the borough of Island Heights. Crossing this border from Elizabeth Avenue onto Garden Avenue, where my godparents lived, was like crossing the border into a foreign country where people speak a different language and lead a different way of life. Gilford Park and Island Heights were as different as apples and oranges. My dilemma as a blogger is that I am at a loss for words to explain how and why this was—how and why this still is. Most people who live along the Jersey Shore, and who have actually been to Island Heights, for whatever reason, realise that it is a place apart. Island Heights is but one of several postcard-pretty residential communities in New Jersey that can boast of streets lined with well-preserved Victorian houses behind immaculate lawns and landscaping. The uniquely remarkable aspect of Island Heights, however, concerns the residents themselves, who, with their quirky approach to life and their wonderfully madcap traditions, have always outshone the purely visual allure of their beautiful town.
Island Heights does indeed have a 20th-century chapter to its history, but I am not going to write this chapter because it has already been written, or rather, documented, and in a fashion far more stirring and illuminative than anything I might be capable of. Peter Slack, photographer and videographer, originally from Island Heights, produced and directed a documentary concerning life in Island Heights in 2019. Please allow Peter to show you things about Island Heights that are not easily expressed in words. (A word of advice, however. Before you start the video, go to “settings” and turn off the appalling AI generated English-language subtitles. Bon voyage!)
Island Heights Documentary: