Historic Pelham

Presenting the rich history of Pelham, NY in Westchester County: current historical research, descriptions of how to research Pelham history online and genealogy discussions of Pelham families.

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Pelham's Picturesque Bathing and Picnic Grounds in the 19th Century


It is difficult, today, to imagine how important the area we know as Pelham Bay Park once was to our Town of Pelham before it and the islands lying off its shores were annexed by New York City in 1895.  Its shores and waters were a giant recreational area used not only by residents of New York City but also by residents of Pelham, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, West Chester, and other nearby communities.  

The area was used for camping, swimming, diving, fishing, boating, cooking and campfires, picnicking, hiking, and much, much more.  Indeed, Pelham considered the area along the shores of Long Island Sound to be its own great back yard, in essence.  People actually vacationed in the area, simply camping for days at a time while they enjoyed the great outdoors.  They collected clams and even oysters and held luscious clambakes along the shores.  

The centerpiece of the area was Pelham Bay, by all accounts once one of the most beautiful places in the region and certainly in the Town of Pelham.  Sadly, the bay has since been partially filled with landfill to create, among other things, the giant parking lot for Orchard Beach built in the 1930s.  

During the mid-1890s, shortly before Pelham Bay and the surrounding region were annexed by New York City, there were about a half dozen points often made of rocky outcroppings that jutted out into Pelham Bay.  Each of these points became popular picnicking and bathing places where visitors collected to enjoy the cool waters of the Bay.  Another popular recreational spot was on and around Twin Island including Tillie's Rock.  According to one account published in 1893:  "The steely waters of Pelham Bay are here so nearly landlocked that they suggest a lake wholly enclosed within the park.  Many rocky islets lie out in the Sound brilliant with warm reddish-brown and yellow, and so lit with sky and sea that all their rugged outlines are brought out in clear relief."  According to the same account (transcribed at the end of today's article):

"To this point come picnickers from nearly all parts of the suburban region within a distance of four or five miles.  They come in all sorts of conveyances from well-appointed family carryalls to grocers' delivery wagons, and great furniture vans.  The excuse is sometimes fishing, sometimes bathing, and sometimes the luxury of an idle day beside the Sound.  Some bring tents, others fetch carpets, chairs, and camp stools.  Whole families from the grandmother down to the baby in arms make up the picnics.  There is room enough at one point or another between the oak grove and the shore for all comers, so that no party need encroach upon another.  There is abundant shade, plenty of waste wood for fires, and perfect natural ovens in the crevices of the rock.  There are no bathhouses, but the bathers bring tents, improvise shelter by pinning shawls from bought to bough in a neighboring thicket, or utilize the screen afforded by cavernous hollows in the rocks.  Costumes are unconventional.  A gray-coated censor of public morals smilingly lays down a simple but comprehensive code and finds few lawbreakers.  A great rock jutting far out into deep water is the diving stand, and a shallow bay with shade and smooth bottom affords a safe resort for beginners.  The bathers come at all hours of the day, and even at night when the moon shows."

Though there no longer is a Pelham Bay, today's Pelham Bay Park remains a beautiful region bordering the Town of Pelham.  It remains a popular recreation destination.  Though Orchard Beach is a popular summer bathing beach, the area that once included Pelham Bay and the waters around Hunter's Island and the Twin Islands no longer serves as the summer swimming destination it once was.  Times, of course, have changed. . . . 





"CAMPING GROUND."
[NY, NY], Sep. 24, 1893, p. 9, col. 6.  NOTE:  Click on Image to Enlarge.


"FISHING ROCK."
[NY, NY], Sep. 24, 1893, p. 9, col. 6.  NOTE:  Click on Image to Enlarge.


"DIVING ROCK."
[NY, NY], Sep. 24, 1893, p. 9, col. 6.  NOTE:  Click on Image to Enlarge.

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Below is the text of the news article that forms the basis for today's Historic Pelham article.  It is followed by a citation and link to its source.

"PICTURESQUE PELHAM PARK.
-----
Its Bay and Point Whither Suburban People Come to Bathe and Picnic.

Two park policemen with their families solved this summer the problem of making a vacation cheap and delightful.  They camped for days on the edge of the Sound at one of the loveliest points in Pelham Bay Park.  Here they cooked and ate and slept.  Within fifty yards of their tent doors was a delightful bathing place, and scarcely further away was as good fishing as Pelham Bay affords.  Their prospect was the broad hayfield [sic] of Hunter's Island, where the city's aftermath had just been harvested, and north eastward the landless horizon of the Sound, is bare save for the white wings of commerce and of pleasure, or the staining smoke of steamers big and little.  Day and night came to them the rhythmical beat of marine engines softened by the distance into a sound of exquisite drowsiness, and the quiet waters of the bay were hourly troubled by long lapping waves that followed the passage of distant paddle wheels.

Anyone driving on the Soundward side of Westchester county gets the impression that Pelham Bay Park occupies half the area of the county.  This impression is untrustworthy, as the park has but 1,700 acres, and the county a good many thousands.  But nature has disposed the area of Pelham Bay Park much as a landscape gardener would have arranged it with a view to making the most of his land, as well as of his water.  It thus happens that the uninformed traveler might easily believe the size of the pleasure place to be three times as great as it really is.  New Yorkers, save a few in the annexed district, have not yet learned the charms and the possibilities of their great salt water park, but all Westchester county, from New Rochelle southward knows the park, and it is the spring and summer and autumn resort of suburbans rather than of resident New Yorkers.

Half a dozen points along Pelham Bay had some reputation as picnicking places and camping grounds before the park was secured to New York as a heritage of the greater city to come.  These places are now open to the public, and year by year an increasing number of suburbans accept the large-handled hospitality of the city.  Now Rochelle, with its 8,000 or 10,000 inhabitants, lies close to the northern edge of the park, the populous and beautiful Pelham Manor, perhaps the model village of all the suburban region is almost encompassed by the park area.  Mt. Vernon, with quite 18,000 people lies close to the western edge of the park.  West Chester and three or four neighboring villages are within easy reach of the southern boundary, and between the park on the east and the annexed district on the west is a thickly populated district fast growing into a suburban city.  There are thus nearly 35,000 suburbans with no considerable park of their own who gladly avail themselves of New York's hospitality.

Twin Island, which is approached by means of a bridge from Hunter's Island, was once the favorite picknicking [sic] point in that part of the park, but because of a false impression that the lessees' privileges conflicted in some way with the hospitalities of New York the island has been abandoned by pleasure seekers.  Half a mile across a shallow arm of Pelham Bay is the point that has acquired the popularity that was once Twin Island's, and here it was that the two park policemen took their sensible and inexpensive outing.  The point is reached by way of the picturesque road leading from Bartow station to City Island, and for those who approach it from the station by aid of the horse-car line to City Island it is scarcely an hour and a half from the heart of New York.  The landward approach is through an oak grove containing some of the finest oaks that the city possesses.  The steely waters of Pelham Bay are here so nearly landlocked that they suggest a lake wholly enclosed within the park.  Many rocky islets lie out in the Sound brilliant with warm reddish-brown and yellow, and so lit with sky and sea that all their rugged outlines are brought out in clear relief.

To this point come picnickers from nearly all parts of the suburban region within a distance of four or five miles.  They come in all sorts of conveyances from well-appointed family carryalls to grocers' delivery wagons, and great furniture vans.  The excuse is sometimes fishing, sometimes bathing, and sometimes the luxury of an idle day beside the Sound.  Some bring tents, others fetch carpets, chairs, and camp stools.  Whole families from the grandmother down to the baby in arms make up the picnics.  There is room enough at one point or another between the oak grove and the shore for all comers, so that no party need encroach upon another.  There is abundant shade, plenty of waste wood for fires, and perfect natural ovens in the crevices of the rock.  There are no bathhouses, but the bathers bring tents, improvise shelter by pinning shawls from bought to bough in a neighboring thicket, or utilize the screen afforded by cavernous hollows in the rocks.  Costumes are unconventional.  A gray-coated censor of public morals smilingly lays down a simple but comprehensive code and finds few lawbreakers.  A great rock jutting far out into deep water is the diving stand, and a shallow bay with shade and smooth bottom affords a safe resort for beginners.  The bathers come at all hours of the day, and even at night when the moon shows."

Source:  PICTURESQUE PELHAM PARK -- Its Bay and Point Whither Suburban People Come to Bathe and Picnic, The Sun [NY, NY], Sep. 24, 1893, p. 9, col. 6.


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