Townbank, NJ - July 5 marks the 10th anniversary of the Whale of a Day Festival in Townbank, and the 75th anniversary of the Cape May Beach Property Owners Association. The event is now run by the nonprofit, Historic Townbank, Inc.

Townbank is the oldest community in South Jersey. It dates back to 1630, when Samuel Godyn and Samuel Blommaert, explorers for the Dutch West India Company, bought a tract of land, stretching four miles along the Delaware Bay, from the Kechemeche Indians. The deed, filed June 3, 1631, is still preserved among the Colonial records of New Jersey.

The town was settled around 1685 by whalers from Southampton, Long Island and Cape Cod. Among its founding residents were Captain Ezekial Eldridge, of Falmouth, Massachusetts, Joseph Whillden, Thomas Leaming, Humphrey Hughes, Cornelius Schellinger, Samuel Crowell and Thomas Hand, whose descendants can still be found in Cape May County and most of whom are buried at the Cold Spring Village Cemetery. (You can take a guided tour of the cemetery  - it's fascinating).

Built on a bluff overlooking the Delaware Bay, Townbank was known through the years by various names -- New England Town, Portsmouth, Cape May Town and Falmouth. Thomas Leaming, in his diary, noted that the original community consisted of roughly 13 homes, most of them log cabins.

In a letter dated 1688, Dr. Daniel Coxe, for whom Cox Hall Creek is named, wrote, “I have at the expense of about 3,000 pounds settled a Towne.” Coxe, who had been a physician to the Queen of Charles II, and to Anne, subsequently Queen, acquired exclusive rights to 95,000 acres in Cape May County. He built Coxehall as a center for a manorial system of government, which existed from 1690 to 1692, when Coxe divided his holdings.

In the same letter, Coxe also says he “established a fishing for whales which are very numerous about Cape May both within the Bay and without all along the sea coast which I am assured if well managed will bring in above 4,000 pounds per annum all charges defrayed.”

Five years earlier, in a letter to the Free Society of Traders, William Penn had observed, "Mighty whales roll upon the coast, near the mouth of the bay of the Delaware; eleven caught and worked into oil in one season."

Rather than embarking on extended sea voyages, as many whalers did in New England, those in Townbank remained on shore until a whale was spotted.

Hunters then scrambled to their boats to start the chase. Whaling boats, constructed of cedar, averaged 30 feet in length. They had a flat bottom and came to a point at bow and stern, allowing them to be turned with speed and paddled both forward and back.

Capturing a whale, which could weigh up to 250 tons, usually took a team of six men using harpoons. The struggle lasted until the whale either gave up or escaped, or the boat capsized. Whales that were snared were towed to shore, where a winch was used to drag them onto the beach. There, their blubber was extracted and processed for oil. The right whale, a relatively abundant species at the time, could yield approximately 3,500 gallons of oil.

By 1775, the whaling industry had run its course and the community of Townbank had washed out to sea.

Today, the beach is owned by local residents, who operate as the Cape May Beach Property Owners Association. The organization was established in 1932, after Harry Mumma deeded his land to the group. Included in the gift were huge wetland tracts along Cox Hall Creek that have since been given to the New Jersey Conservation Foundation.

Throughout the year, members of the Property Owners Association work together to raise money for taxes and to maintain the beach. "This day is our largest and most profitable fundraiser;" said Diana Cutshall, public relations director for the event. "We hold the festival on the first Saturday after July 4. This year’s festival, scheduled for July 5 from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., and will include more than 100 art and antique vendors, live entertainment, food, games and crafts for kids. The weather is usually perfect, for this perfect day where families can walk along Clubhouse Drive and enjoy everything that this day has to offer".

For more information contact Roz Shoemaker (856-435-1939) or Vivian Burnside (609-886-3874).