In February, 2015, Sharon Hazard began her Dowager’s Diary, chronicling the adventures of Kate Roosevelt Shippen through her diary entries. Now at Week One Hundred and Twenty-Seven, we thought we would pause and go back to the beginning for those who might have missed Sharon’s opening story.

Sharon Hazard first met Kate Shippen Roosevelt in a photo inside an old and exclusive tennis club in Rumson, New Jersey. Intrigued, she researched and wrote a story for a local newspaper about Kate and her connection to the Roosevelts. Kate Shippen married Hilborne Roosevelt, the renowned organ maker and first cousin to Theodore Roosevelt in 1883 and began life as one of the nearly-royal Roosevelts. When Hilborne Roosevelt died, his well-to-do widow was left to carry on the Roosevelt legacy in high society New York City. Sharon Hazard has been given the opportunity to edit Kate Roosevelt’s diary and take readers back to the years 1912-1919. The story of the coincidental resurrection of this diary will unfold week-by-week on Woman Around Town.

The Sea Bright Lawn Tennis and Cricket Club is one of the oldest of its kind in the country, mimicking the most famous in Newport, Rhode Island. Membership includes a bastion of bankers and businessmen who summer in the seaside villages of Sea Bright and Rumson, New Jersey and commute to work in New York City. I first met the “other” Mrs. Roosevelt while I was wandering around this old tennis club doing some research on a story I was writing on its history.

As I walked the perimeter of the interior of the clubhouse, the beamed ceiling and rustic wood brought me back to another era, a room caught in the last yawn of yesterday. Dented and tarnished trophies rested in sturdy mahogany cases and sepia-toned photos filled the walls. These images were of long-gone athletes, both men and women. One in particular caught my eye. It was of a woman dressed in an ankle-length white skirt and mutton-sleeved blouse tucked into a tiny waistband. She looked like a gauzy ghost floating over the grass tennis court. Wearing a headband and welding a tennis racket, the statuesque figure looked straight at me as if ready to send a volley my way. Our eyes met and suddenly I was swept back to the year 1885, the date inscribed on the bottom of the photo. In addition to the date, the female tennis player was identified as Mrs. Hilborne Roosevelt.

The name Roosevelt resonated instantly. I knew of Hilborne Roosevelt because I had written an article about the world-famous pipe organ he invented and his relationship with Thomas Edison. When Edison established his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey in 1876, Roosevelt presented him with a “house-warming” gift of sorts; one of his smaller organs. It would become famous as the source of constant tone for several of Edison’s inventions. Edison said of the organ’s magnificent sound, “Music’s magic strains were needed to soothe the savage breasts of his employees and for midnight songfests.” He hired a German musician to play the organ all night to keep his laboratory worker’s alert while working on the incandescent lamp and it was most likely the first pipe organ to have its sounded recorded. The two inventors had a long and fruitful relationship, collaborating on many scientific discoveries including the telephone.

I also knew that Hilborne Roosevelt was President Theodore Roosevelt’s first cousin, from the Oyster Bay Branch of Roosevelts. But I did not know Mrs. Hilborne Roosevelt or why she would have been playing tennis in Sea Bright, New Jersey in the year 1885.

I stayed a bit longer soaking up the ambience of this historic building with the smell of old money and protocol oozing from its wooden walls and well-worn wicker chairs scattered casually about. Designed by the New York architectural firm of Renwick, Russell and Aspinwall in the shingle-style so popular in the late nineteenth century, the room seemed suspended in time. Renwick, the principal architect had also designed St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Grace Church in New York as well as the Smithsonian and Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. The clubhouse is a national landmark.

Listening to the floor boards creak and the wind whistle outside, I imagined hearing the screen door squeak shut behind club members just coming off the courts and carriage wheels crunching along the gravel driveway on their way to pick up passengers headed home for the day. I lingered, hoping to find another clue to who this other Mrs. Roosevelt was.

Unfortunately, none of the photos were talking and none of the current members knew anything more of her than what her picture portrayed: a woman in her mid-twenties, properly dressed and poised to play a sedate game of tennis.

For some reason I had to know more and my writer’s curiosity kicked in. My first clue came by the simple act of Googling the words, “Hilborne Roosevelt marriage” and bingo, I was formally introduced to a Miss Kate Shippen in a New York Times wedding announcement. The announcement was dated February 1, 1883 and read:

A Wedding in Sea Bright

Many years after this wedding and after doing some research, I had to put what I found on paper so I wrote a story about the big day and it appeared in a local newspaper, The Two River Times.

The story I wrote read:

February 1, 1883

The Roosevelt Family Gathers in Sea Bright for the Wedding of the Year.

By Sharon Hazard

February 1st doesn’t seem like the perfect time for the wedding of the year to take place, but on that day in Sea Bright, New Jersey, in 1883 in the middle of winter, it was a glorious day. Kate Shippen, daughter of William W. Shippen and Hilborne L. Roosevelt, first cousin of Assemblyman and future President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt were married.

According to the New York Times, “It was one of the most brilliant weddings of the season.”

The Times went on to report that a special train had carried down nine carloads of friends and relatives of the bride and groom, leaving Jersey City at 10:45 a.m. and arriving at the Sea Bright Train Station at noon. At that time there was a train station located right in the middle town, not far from the current Sea Bright Beach Club.

Many of the guests had arrived the night before. They were entertained by a German band, that most likely included a pipe organ, at Harmony Hall, the hotel built and owned by the groom’s family. It was purchased by Edward Pannaci on 1887 and operated as the Pannaci Hotel for many years after. Other guests most likely stayed at the colossal Octagon Hotel or the nearby, Peninsula House. The hotels were built by Miflin Paul for each of his daughters. Miflin Paul, along with the bride’s father, William Shippen, was one of the developers of swanky Sea Bright, New Jersey.

William W. Shippen also was the president of the Hoboken Land and Improvement Company and Hoboken Ferry Company as well as one of the founders of Stevens Institute. Being his daughter, it was only right that Kate should have a grand wedding, one that the New York Times described as the “event of the season.”

The groom, in addition to being first cousin to the future president of the United States was well-known in his own circles. His fame did not come from politics or business like his Roosevelt relatives, but for the magnificent musical instruments he made. Hilborne Lewis Roosevelt built and held the patent for the first electric pipe organ in the United States. Its design was so spectacular it was showcased at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. He had factories in New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore and built some of the grandest and largest pipe organs in the world, many of which can still be heard today. A fine example of one of his creations can be heard during the summer months at the Moses Taylor Memorial Church in Elberon, New Jersey.

The wedding was held at the Shippen Cottage, located north east of what is now the Sea Bright-Rumson Bridge. Described as a “villa” it was a large, shingled structure with mansard roof and wide piazzas, sitting royally on a manicured lawn overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

For the nuptials the grounds were decorated with palms, Southern plants, smilax and an assortment of flowers. Inside, the three glass-enclosed piazzas were covered with flags, possibly as a tribute to the politically-connected Roosevelt Family, who incidentally had made a fortune importing plate glass from France. Among the floral pieces that graced the living areas was a ferry boat of white flowers sailing along a sea of roses. It was a gift from Shippen’s employees at the Hoboken Ferry Company.

The wedding took place at 1:00 p.m. The ten groomsmen included: Elliott Roosevelt, first cousin of the groom who was also Theodore Roosevelt’s brother and father to Eleanor Roosevelt, cousins Emlen and John Roosevelt and Frank Roosevelt, brother of the groom.

The bride was attended by ten bridesmaids, five wearing blue and five wearing pink. She wore white satin with a full train trimmed in lace with a long flowing veil of point lace caught with a diamond ornament and a spray of lilies of the valley. Her bouquet consisted of white roses and lily of the valley.

Guests included Elliott Roosevelt, Theodore’s brother; Anna Roosevelt, Theodore’s sister, fondly referred to as “Bamie;” John Stevens, Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt (Alice Lee Roosevelt, the first wife of Theodore Roosevelt), Mr. and Mrs. James West Roosevelt (Hilborne’s brother) and Congressman Robert Roosevelt, an uncle of the groom.

Music, dining and dancing continued through the afternoon until a special train arrived in Sea Bright to bring the guests back to New York. As the train headed north, the gentlemen cheered and the ladies waved white handkerchiefs.

The bride and groom were driven to Red Bank where they embarked on an extended honeymoon through the Southern States.

It was a glorious mid-winter day in Sea Bright for the Shippen-Roosevelt families, but little did anyone suspect that it would be one of the last times this happy group would be celebrating together. The following year, 1884, Theodore Roosevelt’s wife, Alice Lee died in childbirth, leaving behind the infant daughter, also named Alice who would grow-up to relish her position as the daughter of the President of the United States and cause her father to say, “I can either be president of the United States or Alice’s father, but I can’t do both.” William W. Shippen passed away soon after the wedding. Hilborne Roosevelt died in 1886, leaving his young wife, Kate and his three year-old daughter, Dorothy. Anna Roosevelt died in 1892 and her husband, Elliott Roosevelt died of alcoholism in 1894, orphaning the future First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.

I wrote the story about the Hilborne Roosevelt-Kate Shippen nuptials one hundred and twenty- eight years after the wedding and the mystery of the photo on the wall was solved as far as I was concerned. Kate Shippen and her family were members of this elite club and she was part of a “finishing school-like” class of female tennis players there.

Since the bride was not a Roosevelt by birth, there wasn’t much more to find out about her other than her connection to a well-to-do family from Sea Bright, New Jersey. Her father, William Shippen was president of the Hoboken Transit Company and a founding member of the Sea Bright Lawn Tennis and Cricket Club where Kate and her six siblings enjoyed the amenities while summering in a seaside cottage known as the Anchorage, just around the corner from the club, the sight of my first encounter with Mrs. Hilborne Roosevelt. And so my story ended and I thought I had made Mrs. Roosevelt’s acquaintance for the last time. But another story was just unfolding.

Photo credits:

1. Women’s tennis fashion in 1884.

2: The Sea Bright Cricket and Lawn Tennis Club
Courtesy: The Sea Bright Cricket and Law Tennis Club.

3: The Scene of the wedding in 1883, The Shippen Cottage and its neighboring cottages.
Courtesy: Author’s collection

4: Alice Lee Roosevelt, Theodore’s first wife and Anna Roosevelt, ( also known as Bamie), Theodore Roosevelt’s Sister with Alice Roosevelt Roosevelt. After Roosevelt’s first wife died in childbirth, Aunt Bamie helped to raise the child in her New York City brownstone.
Courtesy: Wiki

5: A group gathering at Anchorage, the Shippen Family Home in Sea Bright, New Jersey. Ready to play tennis at the Sea Bright Cricket and Lawn Tennis Club. Top Row: Right to left, Mrs. Kate Roosevelt, Mr. Hilborne Roosevelt (with the signature Roosevelt mustache).
Courtesy: The Author’s collection

The post The Dowager’s Diary – Week One – How It All Began appeared first on Woman Around Town.