The History of Lucy
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LUCY
TIMELINE
Elephant
to Starboard
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The History of Lucy |
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LUCY |
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Elephant
to Starboard
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The
outer islands of the Southern Jersey coast are romantically entwined with
legends of pirate chieftains fighting battles to the death on sandy beaches,
of buried treasure beneath every dune, of whalers rushing for boats when the
cry of "Thar' She Blows" echoed from lookout stations.
Mysterious cargoes landed in the dead of night and were quickly
gathered by
horsemen who disappeared in the deep shadows of the pines, according to
legend. Pages of the past are so cluttered with this type of adventure that
even dedicated historians are hard put to separate fact from fiction.
However, no legend of the colorful Southern Jersey seashore history matches
the sight of a 65-foot high wooden Elephant astride the beach looking out
into the mists of the sea, a spectacle that according to historians made
many coastwise seamen of the tramp ships from the West Indies swear off
their rum rations for days.
There is the story of one young seaman on his first voyage who had
the early
evening watch as his ship made it up the coast on its way to New York harbor. After
first reporting "All's well" he suddenly yelled
"Elephant!!” The
captain thinking the seaman had gone berserk rushed to the deck. Lifting
his long glass to the shoreline he also exclaimed: "Elephant!",
wiped off
his glass and after a second look confirmed the fact that there was a giant beast
standing among the dunes and eel grass of lower Absecon Island. The captain's report at anchoring in New York harbor brought a score of news people and the curious southward into New Jersey to investigate. After
a long, dusty ride from the upper part of Absecon Island to what was then
called South Atlantic City, the investigators found that the Elephant was no
mirage. Here it stood in full majesty, king of all it surveyed.
Metropolitan newspapers
the next day were telling the story of a wooden Elephant, which later would
become known as "Lucy", much to the delight of land speculator
James V. Lafferty, Jr., who was responsible for the designing and building
of the strange pachyderm.
James Vincent de Paul
Lafferty, Jr., was born in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1856 of prosperous Irish
immigrant parents from Dublin, Ireland. Lafferty, and his wife, Mary Cecelia
Tobin, had five children, two of whom died in their childhood. Surviving
were Mazie, James III, and the youngest son, Robert.
Lafferty, who grew up to
be an engineer and inventor, came into possession of a number of sandy lots
in the South Atlantic City area. They were cut off from the frame houses and
mule-drawn street cars of Atlantic City, by a deep tidal creek. Only at low
tide could anyone make his way down to the sands of his properties.
Most of South Atlantic
City at that time was a combination of scrub pine, dune grass, bayberry
bushes and a few wooden fishing shacks.
Once Lafferty hit upon
the Elephant idea he enlisted the aid of a Philadelphia architect named
William Free to design this unusual structure he felt would attract visitors
and property buyers to his holdings.
The Elephant was
constructed in 1881 by a Philadelphia contractor at a reported cost of
$25,000, which at the time was a considerable amount of money. Lafferty
always claimed that before the work was finished the cost Skyrocketed to
$38,000.
To protect his original
idea, Lafferty applied for and received a patent from the U.S. Government.
He made his original application June 3, 1882, and received the patent, No.
268, 503, on Dec. 5, 1882.
In his application
Lafferty stated: "My invention consists of a building in the form of an
animal, the body of which is floored and divided into rooms ... the legs
contain the stairs which lead to the body ...".
Lafferty also included a
paragraph which stated the building "may be in the form of any other
animal than an elephant, as that of a fish, fowl, etc." What his
intentions were in adding that paragraph have never been clear. He never
attempted a building in any of the forms mentioned.
It is believed that most
of the materials were brought to the site by boat although there was rail
service of a sort in the upper part of Absecon Island where the infant
resort of Atlantic City was just getting underway.
By 1881 Lafferty was
placing advertisements in area and Philadelphia newspapers offering building
lots in "fast booming South Atlantic City".
Lafferty eventually
extended himself too far in his land deals both at the Jersey Shore and in
New York and by 1887 sought to unload his South Atlantic City holdings. He
offered the Elephant and other property for sale and found a willing buyer
in Anton Gertzen of Philadelphia.
Lafferty died in 1898
and is buried in the family vault, in the cemetery of St. Augustine's
Catholic Church, one of Philadelphia's oldest churches (1796), which still
stands in the shadow of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge.
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