Lorenzo Dow Martin and His Farm House
A Retrospective Look into Rehoboth’s Founding
The oldest house still standing in Rehoboth today rests on logs (with bark) that extend the width of the structure. It has its original floorboards of varying widths, some of them as wide as 18”. Wooden pegs, not nails, hold the original structure intact. The farmhouse is likely to be over 200 years old, when pegs preceded nails as the primary means of fastening boards.
Known as the Lorenzo Dow Martin House it is located at 30 Christian Street on the SE corner of Christian and Scarborough Avenue. The farmhouse was described in an 1838 land transfer as a “dwelling” house. It became the primary residence of the Martin family when Lorenzo and his wife Kitty purchased what was known as the “Seaside Farm” in 1848. Lorenzo and his wife lived in that farmhouse for about 40 years. It is regretful that there is no picture of the structure when it was still a farmhouse in the late 1800s. Here is a picture of it as it existed in 1997, 100 years later, taken by Dennis Forney for the Cape Gazette.
The Lorenzo Dow Martin Farm
The “Seaside Farm” property was a part of “Rehoboth Neck”, a manor originally known as Youngs Hope, named after George Young to whom the property had been given by the governor of New York. The land was acquired by the Marsh family in 1743, whose homestead still exists at the center of Henlopen Acres.
In the early 1800’s Peter Marsh sold a triangular portion of the property designated as the “Seaside Farm”. After a succession of property transfers, it was sold in 1838 at a sheriff’s sale with “dwelling house included”. Lorenzo Dow Martin ultimately bought the property in 1848. The “dwelling house” is the 200-year-old farmhouse discussed in the first paragraphs.
Shown on the following page is a diagram of the Rehoboth area as of 1873, superimposed on a current day map. The triangular sector at the center of the diagram identifies the “Seaside Farm” owned by Lorenzo Dow Martin.
At that time, the two shaded sectors at the top were owned by Marsh decedents. The line between those two sectors delineates the boundary which was, and is, the boundary between Henlopen Acres and the City of Rehoboth. The John Marsh portion was sold in 1873 . . . on the same day that Lorenzo Dow Martin sold “Seaside Farm”. Both properties were purchased by Reverend Robert W. Todd who, in addition, bought three other small parcels that would provide access into the “Seaside Farm” area from the road to Lewes.
The map allows one to understand exactly which lands formed the basis for the town of Rehoboth. The triangular-shaped “Seaside Farm” area became what is today the town center of Rehoboth Beach.
Lorenzo Dow Martin’s Roots
Lorenzo Dow Martin was born in 1810 in the area of Delaware known as Broadkiln Hundred. The town center of Broadkiln Hundred is Milton, fourteen miles to the north of today’s Rehoboth. It is reported by Broadkiln historian Dick Clark that in 1806, Milton had four stores, seven granaries, and a significant shipyard for exporting grain and finished lumber. Milton flourished until the end of the sailing ship age, about 1880. The Martin Family had a significant presence in the Milton area and operated a large brickyard directly on the Broadkiln River. That shipyard would have shipped bricks down the Broadkiln (later renamed Broadkill) River to Lewes for use there…or possibly transshipped for points beyond Lewes.
There is an explanation for the unique name given to the Martin child, subject of this article, at birth. A Wikipedia reference reports that there was an extraordinarily popular, eccentric, itinerant American evangelist named Lorenzo Dow, who lived from 1777 to 1834. Lorenzo Dow was born in Connecticut and had a sickly, troubled youth. Reported to have had “religious speculations”, he eventually joined the Methodist Church, which ultimately and surprisingly, accepted him as a circuit preacher. He reached a high degree of notoriety, preaching throughout the United States and even extending his ministry overseas to Ireland. He preached to more people than any other preacher of his era. Because he did not adhere to traditional doctrines, churches would not allow him to preach in their places of worship. So, he preached wherever he could gather an audience…town halls, farmers' barns, and even open fields. And he introduced controversial camp meetings in England. By chance, camp meetings would figure into the story of our own Lorenzo Dow Martin.
The Wikipedia article about Lorenzo Dow includes an engraving, etched by Lossing-Barrett in 1856, depicting him as he preached. “He shouted, he screamed, he cried, he begged, he flattered, he insulted, he challenged people and their beliefs.” He told stories and made jokes. It is recorded that Lorenzo Dow often preached before open-air assemblies of 10,000 people or more and held the audiences spellbound. He was a popular writer, his autobiography at one time being the second best-selling book in the United States, exceeded only by the Bible. His influence led many children to be named after him in early 19th century.
By 1810 when our Broadkiln native, subject of this essay, was born, Lorenzo Dow the preacher was well established on the American scene. Let me re-focus our story now on our Sussex County resident, Lorenzo Dow Martin, whose early life was founded in Broadkiln Hundred, Delaware. In 1829, at 19 years of age, Lorenzo married Catherine Roach (Kitty), also of Broadkiln Hundred. Kitty was 17.
Although we have a pretty good idea about how the couple lived after 1848 when they purchased the “Seaside Farm” in Rehoboth; unfortunately, virtually nothing is known about the early years of the young couple’s marriage. So, let us surmise . . .
Perhaps Lorenzo works in the shipping aspect of his family’s Milton-based brickyard business. He manages voyages on the barges that carried bricks down Broadkiln Creek to Lewes. Dealing with his business acquaintances in Lewes, Lorenzo becomes aware of the success that New Jersey farmers were having cultivating, harvesting, and marketing cranberries. Tiring of plying the family business, he decides that he should go into the cranberry business. Needing a location with fresh water to harvest the cranberries, he finds a promising farm for sale six miles south of Lewes in an area of Sussex County known as Rehoboth Neck. But this part of our story is conjecture, so let’s get back to what we know.
Life at the “Seaside Farm”
We do know that Lorenzo Dow Martin, at 37 years of age, purchased the “Seaside Farm” for $135 in 1848. And we know that Lorenzo and family were Presbyterian in faith. Between 1848 and 1855, Lorenzo and Kitty would have traveled from their Rehoboth Neck farm by horse-drawn carriage to Lewes to go to church. In 1855 a branch of that Lewes church was founded on the road between Lewes and Rehoboth. That church, located about three miles south of Lewes, still exists today as Midway Presbyterian Church. Lorenzo and Kitty are buried there.
A later interview (1881) by a reporter from the Wilmington Daily Republican revealed that Lorenzo grew and harvested cranberries until 1873, marketing them in Lewes. Lorenzo traveled by horse and wagon to Lewes to pick up supplies and to sell the products from his farm. As a typical isolated farmer of the day, however, Lorenzo needed to be reasonably self-sufficient; so, we know he raised chickens and pigs, and probably a few cattle. He and Kitty most assuredly had a garden. The farm would also have had a stable for horses; a barn for managing other farm operations; a corn crib for the corn that Lorenzo is known to have grown on the farm; an outhouse; and probably other structures like a tool shed, a smoke house; and a spring house with a hand operated pump.
Changing Environment Around Lorenzo Dow Martin’s Farmhouse
The area to the south of Lorenzo’s farm began to change in the years after he purchased the Seaside Farm (1848) . In 1855, a man named Robert West bought the seashore strip of land from Newbold Lake (later to be renamed Silver Lake) south to Rehoboth Bay (the north end of what is now Dewey Beach). While not immediately next to Lorenzo’s farmhouse, this property was less than a mile south of Lorenzo’s very rural farm. West registered the property with the State of Delaware for commercial development and named his newly acquired property "Rehoboth City". This following image conveys his plan:
The Civil war delayed Robert West’s vision, but the community did begin to achieve some notoriety. 1870s newspapers from Wilmington report pleasant excursions to the area. Mr. Tredenick, noted host for Rehoboth City, is described as cheerful, gay, and inviting . . . hosting excellent food, and organizing sailing, fishing, crabbing, and gunning events. But he did tend to exaggerate the degree to which Rehoboth City was developed.
Lorenzo would have felt the impact of this commercial activity, even if just by the increased activity on the road from Lewes to Rehoboth City, which passed about a mile to the west of his farmhouse. Thirteen years after Robert West founded his community, “Rehoboth City” appears on an 1868 illustrative map of the area. Look for Rehoboth City on the following map.
In 1865, William P. Thompson purchased the property directly adjacent to Lorenzo’s “Seaside Farm” on the south side. By today’s layout, this property goes from what is now Christian Street in Rehoboth south to Silver Lake, bordered on the east by the ocean. Find the Thompson farm identified on the sketch map provided at the start of this essay.
The Thompson’s built a stately farmhouse about 100 yards to the south of Lorenzo, becoming his closest neighbor. The Thompson residence can be seen on the 1868 “Lewes and Rehoboth” map shown above. The Thompson family would eventually figure in the development of Rehoboth Beach. In 1903, Joseph Thompson would become the first mayor of Rehoboth. In the mid-1920s, 50 years after Reverend Todd bought Lorenzo Dow Martin’s farm, the Thompson’s sold their farm for development. That property became the basis for all that part of Rehoboth that is between Christian Street (as if extended out to the ocean) and Silver Lake. The Thompson farmhouse would, in 1926, become the first clubhouse for Rehoboth Beach Country Club, then a nine-hole golf course. When the Rehoboth Beach Country Club moved out of town the area was developed into what is now known as the Country Club Estates area of Rehoboth.
Lorenzo’s rural environment was also changing to the north. The 1868 map above shows the newly installed Junction and Breakwater Railroad (J&B RR) that had just reached Lewes. Note that it extended through Lewes to a Steamboat Pier at the shoreline of Delaware Bay. The railroad added to Lewes’s stature as a hub for commercial activity. Lewes was then more conveniently linked to Wilmington, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, and to all of Delaware’s smaller communities, but also to New York and New Jersey via the steamboat connection.
Lorenzo Sells the “Seaside Farm”
The cranberry business, Lorenzo told the Daily Republican in 1881, just allowed him to “eke out a living on what was otherwise a barren wasteland troubled by pesky waves that came in from the sea.” Lorenzo and Kitty’s children must not have had an interest in carrying on the family’s farming tradition. Their youngest child was twenty-five by 1873 and the 1880 census reported Catherine and Lorenzo Martin to be living alone at the farmhouse. Presumably, without interested heirs, Lorenzo decided to sell his farm. He sold it to Reverend Robert W. Todd on January 1, 1873 for $5,000.
The Martin’s seaside farmhouse was identified on that 1868 illustrative map of Rehoboth Neck, shown here more closely focused on the Rehoboth area. In this image the Seaside Farm is shaded. The farm’s triangle is what was to establish the heart of today’s Rehoboth Beach, defined on the south side by today’s Christian Street, the north side by today’s Lake Street, and the east side by the ocean.
Lorenzo’s Farmhouse becomes Reverend Todd’s Headquarters
If we thought the Martin family experienced great change from the time Lorenzo purchased his isolated farm in 1848, the change was nothing compared to what would happen after he sold the farm on January 1, 1873. It is worth noting here that Lorenzo and Kitty continued to live in the farmhouse for several years; in fact, living out the rest of their lives in Rehoboth Beach.
As we have already established, the farm and some adjacent properties were purchased by Reverend Robert W. Todd. Todd was a highly respected pastor of St. Paul’s Methodist-Episcopal church in Wilmington. “Camp Meeting” events had become a prominent factor in Episcopal church life and Reverend Todd experienced one in Ocean Grove, New Jersey. It became his mission to establish such a camp meeting destination in seaside Delaware. His compatriots in Lewes found the perfect spot; it was the “Seaside Farm” in Rehoboth Neck. Stock was issued and sold out immediately in December of 1872 and in an extremely well-financed operation, the farm was purchased with enough capital left to survey, plot, and grade the envisioned town. Twenty-eight members of the church were gathered as a “corporate politic” to establish and maintain a camp meeting ground and Christian seaside resort. Among the governing members were representatives from Wilmington, Lewes, Baltimore, Philadelphia and many of the smaller communities in lower Delaware.
Todd was designated to oversee the initial surveying, layout, and grading of the envisioned resort town. Lorenzo and Kitty Martin graciously allowed Reverend Todd to reside in their farmhouse for a period of time during the spring of 1873. Obviously using his skills as an orator, Todd summarized his stay in Mrs. Lorenzo Dow Martin’s Parlor. On April1, 1873, the Wilmington Daily Commercial newspaper published his letter:
“I have taken possession of Mrs. Lorenzo Dow Martin's parlor. A huge fire in the huge fireplace casts a cheerful glow around, and — whatever the feelings of others towards me — gives the feeling of a cheerful and a warm greeting. The room is 16x20 ft. and therefore has plenty of Rehoboth for the accommodation of one person. The floor though bare-faced cannot be said to be brazen since it is made of wood, nor impudent since it modestly seeks to hide itself by an humble covering of dust from my muddy boots.
The ceiling is not at all haughty or high minded, being just little over 6 feet, and the cold can come in and warm itself through the generous hearted cracks and apertures made by the hungry tooth of time. The floor where the head of my bed stands has humbled itself about 6 inches in respectful deference to principal — the principle of gravitation — and would bow lower but for some stubborn wooden blocks that are in the way underneath. This is the fine arrangement by which to keep one's "head level," while he is sleeping.
My marble-top table is three feet broad and seven feet long, made of a part of the old "hatch" of some unfortunate cruiser, and perched upon legs of an old chestnut fence rail. My other furniture consists of a stand, some chairs, amongst which is the first camp chair that was ever on the grounds, but not to be the last by many thousands, a patent bookcase composed of goods boxes, artistically arranged on top each other, with shelves interpolated at suitable intervals; and an Estey organ case perched on one corner for a wardrobe, neatly papered inside by Mrs. M., with six copies of P. V. Nasby's Toledo Blade. When we get some pretty flowered paper, we are to kiver it over on the outside
Around the walls did hang some striking pictorial advertisements of patent medicines, etc., one of which was somebody’s “rat roach and bug “exterminator.” This latter was a very suggestive picture. I have no doubt the remembrance of it will haunt my imagination, when, in the coming warm nights, I "lie dreaming the happy hours away." Photographs of absent loved ones, and a few chromos now adorn the walls; and some trifles — relics of my former civilization — occupy places upon the unpainted mantle, upon which also sits a dingy old Yankee clock, demurely and patiently measuring the moments that lie between me and the pleasures of domestic and social life.
O, I forgot the looking glass; descended as Pat said from unborn generations! I protest, strange as it may seem to you, though I sit opposite to it, I did not see it or think of it until this moment. Glancing in that direction after a fugitive idea, I was struck with admiration at — that is, I was pleased with — in other words the looking glass — or, rather the frame is quite elaborate, and in the center is a life-size portrait of a Hermit, said to have been executed by Rays during moments of reflection, the most striking feature about the Hermit being the length of his beard. Why are Hermits so prone to ugliness?”
Rehoboth Beach should consider itself so blessed to have this poetic description of the inside of the old farmhouse that still sits at 30 Christian Street in the town today (2021), a historic farmhouse over 200 years old.
Today’s internet provides images that help envision what some of the relics in Kitty’s parlor might have looked like, the camp chair, the Estey Organ box that served as Reverend Todd’s wardrobe, the Yankee Mantel Clock, and the looking glass that returned Reverend Todd’s image. One needs only glace at the picture of Reverend Todd above to get the significance of Todd’s references to the looking glass.
The Toledo Blade is a Toledo, Ohio newspaper that has been published daily since 1848 and still publishes (2021), being the oldest continuously run business in Toledo. P. J. Nasty was a pseudonym for Davis Ross Locke, who during mid-1800s, gained notoriety for his satires on slavery, the Civil War, and temperance. Abraham Lincoln was a fan of his work.
Todd letter to the editor continued:
“And now a word about our enterprise. Our Engineers are busy getting ready for grading the avenues and streets; and on Monday next, expect to break ground and go to work in earnest. We hope to have some of the leading avenues graded and all the streets and avenues laid out and the lots staked and numbered by the 10th or 13th of May, so that lots may be selected by those who have purchased; after which the remaining lots will be classified and priced (moderately) according to location and eligibility.
The more I see of this location, the more fully I am convinced that it is destined to be one of the finest watering places in the world. I will keep you and the public advised of any matters of interest as the work progresses.
R. W. T. “
The references in Todd’s final paragraphs about the “enterprise” lend fascinating insight to the very first grading of the streets of Rehoboth. The streets that were laid out that spring of 1873 are exactly as the streets of Rehoboth exist today. Columbia Avenue was the first to be graded; then Surf Avenue along the beachfront; then Rehoboth Avenue. And Todd’s projection of the future of Rehoboth could not have been more accurate…even as we experience the resort 150 years later.
As laid out in that original survey, there were about 800 lots! Over 300 folks attended the lot selection event referred to in Todd’s letter.
The Lottery and Lot Selection (May 1, 1873)
Reverend Todd’s lot selection event was a well-orchestrated. A lottery drawing in late April established the order by which stockholders would be allowed to choose lots.
Leaving very early from their homes in Philadelphia, Wilmington, New York, and Baltimore two-hundred and fifty folks boarded the special excursion train from Wilmington. The train stopped at various towns, picking up passengers along the way from the smaller towns of Delaware, and at one point, stopping to allow people to purchase breakfast. Many boarded at Harrington where the excursion train met the regularly scheduled morning train coming from Seaford. Prominent Methodist clergymen and laymen were aboard. Ex-Delaware Governor Saulsbury and other politicians and state judges joined the party in Dover or Georgetown.
By 9:00 am the train arrived in Lewes, the southern-most terminus of the railroad. A collection of horse-drawn carriages and wagons, “some elegant and some rattletraps that ever a rag-man’s scarecrow dragged over the country”, met the excursionists for transport the last six miles to the “Seaside Farm”. It was a beautiful spring day and reporting indicated that the folks were in jovial spirits as they traversed the rural countryside, passing through fully flowered orchards of peach trees adorned in pink blossoms, and apple and pear trees adorned in white. About a mile from the beach, they rode through a beautiful thirty-five-acre grove of oak trees that would be the location of the first Methodist Episcopal camp meeting event later that summer.
The crowd was allowed the late morning to roam the newly laid out streets and staked-out lots. Lunch was provided for 75-cents. At 1:00 pm the main event began. Reverend Todd orchestrated the selection process on Martin’s Lawn in front of Lorenzo Dow Martin’s farmhouse. He did so from the back of a horse-drawn wagon. The image to follow suggests the scene.
Mr. J P Matthews of Baltimore had drawn the right to be first to select a lot. He picked #23 Surf Avenue, a beachfront lot on the north side of Baltimore Avenue. Surf Avenue lots were clearly considered the most desirable, followed by the lots along the perpendicular avenues that met the beachfront. Lots north of the lake (Gerar) were not in great demand that day, but it was predicted by the reporter that those lots would someday be found preferable to those south of the lake.
The lot selection process included considerable controversy over a pre-determined rule that folks represented by proxy were required to provide their charge with written or telegraphic confirmation of their right to select. Reverend Todd held true to the requirement amid considerable grumbling. Lot selection by stockholders, then in second priority, lot buyers, were finally completed so that folks had time to make their way back to Lewes. The train from Lewes departed at 7:45 and arrived in Wilmington by 10:00 pm.
We can only imagine what Lorenzo and Kitty Martin must have been thinking that evening, having witnessed such a rousing event at what had been, until that moment, just an isolated farmhouse in the middle of rural Delaware countryside.
Lorenzo’s Life after Sale of the “Seaside Farm”
In 1881, eight years after the lottery event, Lorenzo was interviewed by the Daily Republican. From that reporting we are able to learn that Lorenzo and his wife continued to live in the farmhouse after it was sold. Harvesting of cranberries was over for Lorenzo, but he continued to grow corn. His corn production actually improved after he sold the farm in 1973. During that period, he transitioned from having his corn milled in Millsboro, which required a 40-mile round trip, to grinding the corn himself using the “mortar” method. He used the finest for family and the most course for his chickens and hogs. Today, one finds it hard to imagine a Rehoboth where chickens, hogs, cattle, horses and dogs were the norm, not just for Lorenzo and Kitty, but for everyone who resided in Rehoboth in the late 1800s. Some of the livestock roamed free about the town, a scourge that would plague Rehoboth through the 1920s.
The map following provides the basic features of the environment surrounding the Martin’s farmhouse. Most construction of summer cottages would occur close to the beach.
So, for the rest of Lorenzo and Kitty’s lives, the farmhouse in which they lived would best be described as “outside of town.” But they would experience tremendous change in what they had known as their “Seaside Farm”.
Lorenzo was 63 and Kitty 62, when they sold the “Seaside Farm” in 1873. To set the stage for the changes they would experience in their final years in Rehoboth, it is helpful to recognize the objectives set out by Reverend Todd’s “Camp Meeting Association”. The charter, as described in the Association’s registration with the State of Delaware, stated the objective would be to “provide and maintain a permanent camp meeting ground and Christian seaside resort, where everything inconsistent with Christian morality, as taught by the Methodist-Episcopal Church, shall be excluded and prohibited.”
Objective #1: Provide and Maintain a Permanent Camp Meeting Ground
Three months after the lot selection event, the Methodist Episcopal Tabernacle was built in the grove of oak trees just a few hundred yards to the west of Lorenzo and Kitty’s farmhouse. Reverend Todd expected thousands to attend that first camp meeting. In news reporting before the event, he expressed anxiety about the throngs having enough food and shelter. The Surf Hotel would be completed with its thirty-eight sleeping rooms…and an attic on the fourth floor could provide for overflow. Todd reported that some boarding houses were available, but they would have been a good distance away. For the most part, Todd expected folks to rent tents.
The first camp meeting occurred in July of 1873, opened by a sermon preached by Bishop Scott, the President of the Methodist Episcopal Conference. For a variety of reasons, it is doubtful “thousands” attended. Nevertheless, that first camp meeting brought more folks than the Martin’s had ever seen from their farmhouse. It is doubtful that Lorenzo and Kitty themselves, being dedicated Presbyterian’s, would have attended that camp meeting.
In the following couple of years, wooden “tent house” structures replaced the tents used in the first year. Here’s a picture of the Riley family gathered at one of those unique “tent” houses.
The original layout of Rehoboth included an anticipated extension of the railroad from Lewes to Rehoboth. It was envisioned that it would pass just to the west of the oak grove where camp meetings would be held, extending south to what was then the older, somewhat more established, Rehoboth City. Remember that Rehoboth City was between what is now Silver Lake and Rehoboth Bay. Today that area is referred to as “Rehoboth By the Bay” or as “Dodd’s Addition”. But that envisioned rail line did not come in time for the first few annual camp meeting events.
By 1880, newspapers were reporting diminished interest by Christians in attending camp meetings. Reverend Todd, in an embroiled published public exchange of views, found it necessary to defend the level of success of Rehoboth’s camp meeting event. But it turns out, nevertheless, that the reporting was correct. Rehoboth’s last camp meeting by the original association would occur in 1881.
Objective #2: Establish a Christian Seaside Resort
In the meantime, the new seaside resort was thriving. By that first summer of 1873, an eight-foot wide, 1000-foot-long boardwalk was laid on the beachfront and a small public pavilion constructed at the head of Rehoboth Avenue.
Everyone who walked the boardwalk would have been able to see the striking Cape Henlopen Lighthouse beaming across the ocean. Until 1926 when it toppled into the ocean, sight of the lighthouse would be a romantic interlude for couples young and old. The view was so important that an image of the lighthouse became the town seal of Rehoboth.
Also, numberless sailing ships, and later steam-powered vessels, plied their wares along the shoreline headed to and from ports along the Delaware River. And they would experience the ferocious storms that battered the beach, often depositing remnants of unfortunate vessels.
For Lorenzo and Kitty, the sight of the lighthouse and the ships plying the coastline were a daily occurrence. They had experienced those sights for the entire time they owned the Seaside Farm, and they were surely the beneficiary of fragments of ships thrown ashore by the many storms. But for the new arrivals, the views were astonishing. Could they have been part of the reason for the early success of the resort town?
The April 1876 edition of the Rehoboth Beacon offers good insight about the state of Rehoboth just three years after Lorenzo sold his farm. It is noteworthy that the resort had its own newspaper. The front page of that newspaper is shown on the page to follow.
The Surf Hotel write-up indicates the hotel’s planned re-opening for the summer season of 1876. The Surf Hotel (though not plotted on the map) was located at beachfront just to the east of Lake Gerar. The high moral standards of the Association are touted as being closely adhered to; the water and air said to be most healthful; the feather beds most comfortable.
The Bright Hotel is also advertised, having been built at lots #8 and #10 Surf Avenue, exactly where Funland is today. The Bright promotes its brand-new furniture; the quality of the fresh water; the safety of the surf; and boats available to rent on Silver Lake. The Bright Hotel also appeals to those who will attend the camp meeting that summer in the “elegant grove of primitive oaks.”
Both hotels indicate that steamer connections are available for those guests who would travel from New York; and railroad connections for those guests traveling from Philadelphia. Both hotels have bathhouses and rental suits available for bathers.
On that same Beacon page, a lot layout map is provided. Note the park at the fork in Lake Gerar. That park was designated “Cranberry Park”, a shout-out to where Lorenzo Dow harvested his cranberries.
Page #2 of that same April 1876 issue of the Rehoboth Beacon shows an image of the McCullough Cottage, built on the lot just south of the Surf Hotel. McCullough came from the tycoon-wealthy “McCullough Iron Company” located in Wilmington. McCullough’s was just one of several cottages being built along the beachfront in those years. All were summer cottages for wealthy folks from nearby cities.
Lorenzo and Kitty must have been awestruck by the wealth of the folks coming to and investing in what had been his seaside farm. In an interview done in 1881, Lorenzo expresses some frustration over the escalating property values in which he had not participated. He told the Daily Republican reporter in 1881 that he “should have held out for a higher price.” We know now that he would have had a long wait for a peak in prices. Nothing has changed in Rehoboth. Even 150 years later, property values continue to increase!!
Arrival of the Railroad
The newly established “Rehoboth Camp Meeting Association” established itself as a viable commercial destination so that in the spring of 1878, the Junction and Breakwater Railroad (J&B RR) extended its tracks from Lewes to Rehoboth, terminating at the camp meeting location at the oak grove (not extending to Rehoboth City). Rehoboth’s first train depot was located by the camp meeting grounds.
Newspaper reporting confirms that by July 1878 a Mr. Medcalf had established a thriving business, with five hacks and numerous smaller carriages, providing transportation from the new depot to the cottages and hotels on the beachfront. The reporter admonishes that one should not be taken advantage of…the going fare was ten cents from the deport to any location on the beachfront.
Here is the only known picture that shows the tracks, the tabernacle, and the tent houses. The tabernacle area is interestingly cleared of evident oak trees.
By 1878, Lorenzo and Kitty’s seaside farm was teeming with activity. Hacks, carriages, and folks on horseback would have passed just by their farmhouse on Christian Street as they went back and forth from depot to the ever-growing village by the ocean. The investment by the J&B Railroad was more focused on the commercial opportunity offered by the seaside resort than by the camp meeting trade.
The Saints and Sinners Controversy
This review of the late 1870s in Rehoboth would not be complete without a further discussion of Mr. William Bright and his hotel. Bright was a very prominent real estate investor throughout Delaware, particularly Wilmington, and his interests in Rehoboth were much more highly focused on achieving commercial success than in promoting the ideals of the “Association”.
Bright got himself elected to the Presidency of the Camp Meeting Association by the mid-1870s and was most instrumental in getting the J&B Railroad to extend its track to Rehoboth by 1878. He was also instrumental in getting the track extended right up the center of Rehoboth Avenue and to relocate the depot to a position inside 1st Street, ocean block Rehoboth. Later, in 1891, Bright was again successful in convincing the town to condemn the necessary property to create a spur of railroad track south to Laurel Street, which just happened to take the path of the track to within a half blook of the Bright Hotel on Delaware Avenue.
Newspapers during the late 1870s and 1880s reported that the Bright Hotel was incredibly successful, full to “brimming” by most accounts. Bright managed his hotel in a way that brought many to question whether he was adhering to “Christian morality, as taught by the Methodist-Episcopal Church.” Christian morality, it seems, meant complete abstinence from partaking in amusements. At the Bright Hotel, however, dancing and card playing was a central feature. There was no sale of alcohol at the hotel, but imbibing was permitted. This was in sharp contrast to the initial strict adherence to the Association code. Attorneys actually brought suit against the Bright Hotel in August of 1878 on behalf of those desiring strict adherence to the standards of the Association. The News Journal of Wilmington concluded an op-ed with, "It strikes our worldly mind that the Christian gentlemen in charge of the association have been whipping the devil around the stump quite long enough. They will have either to exorcise the devil or the devil will exorcise them."
In fact, for the summer season of 1880, entertainment at the Bright House included nightly dances to the Wilmington-based orchestra of George P. Luckman. The dispute over allowing these amusements was argued back and forth in Wilmington newspapers in what was dubbed the quarrel between the “Saints and the Sinners”. Saints went to the Surf Hotel on the north end of the boardwalk; sinners went to the Bright Hotel at the south end.
Undaunted, in 1881, Bright constructed a large annex to his hotel. The first floor was a skating parlor; one hundred pair of roller skates were purchased for the venue. The expansion also included a new dancing pavilion, bowling alley, and a room for pool and billiards. Upper stories were partitioned into 50 new rooms. And there was more…
Here’s a clipping published in the June 28, 1881 edition of the Wilmington Morning News. The clip is introduced by a reporting on the great cordiality of the folks on the beach:
“But when this same cordiality comes from the ruby red-lips and smiling faces of a bevy of charming young ladies such as are domiciled at the Bright House for the season, there is no degree of comparison….in fact, I have the assurance of one of the most interesting of the lady guests, ‘that if the young gentlemen wish to have an enjoyable time during their vacation, they should not hesitate in making Rehoboth their destination. “
One last point on our Mr. Bright. Fire destroyed the Bright House in 1894, two years after the railroad spur was installed. And Mr. Bright died two years after that. The lot on which the Bright House stood lay vacant for the next 45 years. You are left to your own thoughts as to which part of the heavenly hereafter, Mr. Bright resides. But most assuredly the descriptor “Christian” would have to be stricken from the objectives initially prescribed by the founders of the resort town!
Rehoboth in 1880
The US Census of 1880 reported that there were thirty-six summer cottages located in Rehoboth. Because they were not permanent homes, there was no accounting for residents in those residences. There were just four year around residential families living in Rehoboth, accounted for as follows:
Lorenzo and Kitty Martin, who lived alone
James E. and Martha Marvel, who lived at 6 Baltimore Avenue with five children. (James’s occupation was listed as “Carpenter”)
John R. and Mary Dick, who lived with seven sons. (John was listed as “Postmaster” and other duties for the “Association”)
John L and Eliza Carpenter, who lived with two children. (John was also listed as a “Carpenter”)
It is notable that even with so few full-time residents, summer travelling was sufficient to have inspired investment by the J&B RR to extend its track from Lewes to Rehoboth in 1878. But since Rehoboth would be served by the railroad for over eighty more years, it must be presumed to have been a valid investment in the future.
Lorenzo Invests Proceeds from Sale of his Seaside Farm
It is a matter of record that Lorenzo Dow Martin purchased property in Lewes in 1871. That property was identified by its proximity to property owned, notably, by James Beebe, whose sons later founded Beebe Hospital. Lorenzo re-sold that Lewes property in 1876. The acquisition must have been an investment by Lorenzo since there is no evidence that he moved there. Perhaps the opportunity to sell the seaside farm in Rehoboth changed his intention for the property.
It is also known that a Mr. Martin (likely to have been our Mr. Martin) was reported to be having a Mr. Guthrie build a cottage in Rehoboth in July of 1878. A Rehoboth Beach Museum oral history by Lorenzo and Kitty’s niece, Emma Frazier Johnson, attributes the cottage on the northeast corner of 1st and Rehoboth Avenue to have been built by Lorenzo and Kitty, describing it as one of the first cottages on Rehoboth Avenue. By the turn of the century (1900) that cottage was Oster’s Notions, as the sign on this picture indicates. Anna Hazzard owned the house from the 1930s until about the 1980s when it was finally demolished. During its last few years, it was thought to be haunted.
An image of another structure, located at 63 Rehoboth Avenue, first appeared in the April 1876 edition of the Rehoboth Beacon. It was most likely the first structure built on Rehoboth Avenue. Mr. E Dawson occupied the left twin, from which he operated Rehoboth’s first post office and a “drug and fancy” store. Mr. T B Coursey, from up-state Delaware, used the right twin as his summer residence.
By 1883 the Messick family were the owners of 63 Rehoboth Avenue. Lorenzo and Kitty Martin purchased that property. Lorenzo was becoming sickly and possibly bought the small structure in which to spend his last years, rather than in the ancient farmhouse. Lorenzo died three years later, in February 1886. His wife Catherine, however, lived until 1899, presumably living in one of the two small twin cottages at 63 Rehoboth Avenue.
In 1891, eight years after Lorenzo passed, a carpenter working at Baltimore Avenue and 2nd Street was struck by lightning. He was unconscious and carried away in a wagon pulled by a team of horses. Catharine Dow Martin is reported to have scurried out to that wagon as it passed by her house and placed a pillow under the worker’s head. Unfortunately, it is reported, that construction worker had already passed.
Interestingly the left twin at 63 Rehoboth Avenue eventually became an antique shop in Rehoboth and in the 1980s was moved to Lewes where it still exists today (2021) as the Shorebreak Clothing Shop.
So, if you (the reader, today, in 2021) would like to see where Lorenzo and Kitty lived in 1870, stop by their original farmhouse at 30 Christian Street in Rehoboth. If you would like to see the house in which they lived in 1885, stop by 123 2nd Street in Lewes. If you would like to see Lorenzo and Kitty’s gravestones, find them at the Presbyterian Church at Midway, Route 1.
The King of Rehoboth
Lorenzo died on Wednesday, February 10, 1886. His obituary read as follows:
“Lorenzo Dow Martin, who has for many years, been known as “King of Rehoboth," died at his home at Rehoboth on Wednesday. It was from him that the Rehoboth Camp Meeting Association purchased their ground. Mr. Martin was in his 76th year, and had been in declining health for some time.”
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This essay was prepared by Paul Lovett (Rehoboth Beach Historian) who is also the creator of the “Golden Age of Rehoboth Beach, The Railroad Era” miniature village, now on display in Rehoboth. Contact Paul Lovett at 302-893-9391 or paul@pdlovett.com to arrange a visit. He also maintains “www.goldenageofrehoboth.com” website to capture his endeavors about Rehoboth Beach history.
The photographs included in this narrative are from collections at the Rehoboth Beach Historical Society Museum; Delaware Archives in Dover, DE; and from private collections. Reference sources for the narrative include many articles available at newspapers.com; oral histories available at the Rehoboth Beach Museum; hand written minutes from of the Rehoboth Beach City Commissioner’s Meetings from 1891 to 1920; and private interviews with “locals”.