The "From 'The Big House' to 'Tommy's Folly' To 'Congress Hall': A History Part II" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Just finished the second half of my story about one of our favorite places to visit when Carol and I travel to Cape May, NJ.  My story yesterday took you through the early history of the hotel from construction to destruction by fire in 1878.  

This photograph shows the Congress Hall after being
rebuilt with bricks in the same location.

Soon after being rebuilt from brick, Congress Hall became a popular destination for many politicians.  Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan made frequent visits and in the late 1800's and President Benjamin Harrison made Congress Hall the "Summer White House" where affairs of the nation were conducted.  

This 1925 photograph shows the employees of the
Congress Hall gathered on the lawn by the ocean.

In 1882 another regular visitor to Congress Hall, John Philip Sousa, composed the "Congress Hall March" in honor of the resort and he conducted the U.S. Marine Band on the lawn of Congress Hall in a stirring rendition of his new march.  Annie Knight took over the hotel from her father, E.C, Knight in 1904 and during the first quarter of the 1900s the building began to deteriorate and eventually closed for more than a dozen years until the 1920s when Annie Knight renovated the hotel after city council agreed to repave the roads around Congress Hall.  

John Philip Sousa and his band performing at Congress Hall.

She introduced plumbing to the hotel, reducing the amount of rooms in order to provide space for bathrooms.  I was never able to determine what was used before the indoor plumbing was added.  In 1934 Congress Hall opened Cape May's first post-Prohibition cocktail bar.  From 1968 to 1995 the Reverend Carl McIntire and the Christian Beacon Press operated Congress Hall as part of the Cape May Bible Conference.  

A recent photo I took of Congress Hall.

It was during this time that they featured small shops on the lower level where Carol and I made many purchases for gifts and souvenirs.  Then in 1995 Rev. McIntire's grandson, Curtis Bashaw, purchased the property and began to return Congress Hall to the grandeur of its heyday.  

The lobby area of Congress Hall.

The new face lift is evident as Carol and I walked through the first floor hallway and into the beautiful lobby.  I wandered throughout the property snapping photos and admiring the grounds.  It's been nearly two centuries since Elias Hughes ran Cape May's first tavern on the site of Congress Hall for the local whalers and I'm sure, with the care and new renovations made to this beautiful site, the Grand Old Lady, now known as Congress Hall in Cape May, will be serving many seaside guests for many more decades.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.  PS - the following photos of Congress Hall were taken on a recent visit to Cape May.